G'day, leaders. In this podcast, it's a bit different. Michelle interviews me about the
topic of memory. So we're going to learn how the memory works, why I got into teaching
memory, why my company is called New Memory, how to improve it, why we need to improve
it, why memories aren't accurate, and a whole heap of boring science. No, it's not boring.
But we learn about how the memory works. And Michelle did a great job of extracting from
me everything I know about memory. Hope you enjoy. Cheers.
Why did it count backwards? Oh no, we're now recording.
What? Hello Captain.
Oh what do I say?
Come fly with me, let's fly, let's fly away.
What are we going to talk about?
I don't know. So leadership, life, and everything else.
And we're live.
No, we're still recording.
Hey Michelle.
Hi guys.
How you doing?
Good, how you doing?
Yeah, I'm doing real good.
Good. In today's episode, I was thinking we do a bit of deep diving into why memory works,
why new memory. So your business is New Memory Australia, and you do training, and you do
keynotes, and coaching and mentoring. And so I'm curious as to why the name New Memory.
Okay, so New Memory is a combination of two words, new and memory. New is Newman, my surname.
And memory is the very first thing I ever taught as a professional development trainer.
So before that I taught IT, as you know I'm a nerd. But I was very fascinated in memory
and improving your memory because I thought I had a terrible one. I had a shocking memory
for names, I had trouble remembering people's names, and I just basically thought I had
a bad memory. And it turns out I didn't. I had an untrained memory. And so the very first
course I ever taught was because I was learning how to improve my memory, and then I taught
it because I think that's the best way to learn anything is to teach it to other people.
Absolutely.
And then I just got fascinated in the subject, and then when I started my own company I called
it New Memory.
Ah, so how did you learn how to have a good memory? I know you were teaching it, which
is when I was, you know, I'd just learnt to fly, and the first thing you do is then
become an instructor. There's a way to build hours, and instructing is one of the ways
that I did it, which is silly that somebody who's just learnt is then training others
to learn.
I find that funny, that's hilarious.
That's right. But it was a great way for me to learn beyond passing the check, the flight
test, because I needed to have a better understanding in order to teach it. But how did you learn
to improve your memory?
Okay, so I got interested in it. I think I watched an infomercial at one stage about
somebody who was selling this program about how to improve your memory.
Between the Ad Blaster and the NutriBullet.
That's it, yeah. I never had a six pack, but I had a good memory because I bought that
program. So I bought this program. It was a tape program back when we had cassette tapes
a long time ago, and I listened to it, and it did work a little bit. It did work well,
but the guy never taught the background to it, why the techniques were working or anything
like that. And it turns out later on that he just rabid on somebody else's learning
and claimed it as his own and his own system. But I then started to study it. So I found
every book I could get my hands on, any learning program that was out there, and I just read
everything I could. And I found out that the very first memory technique that was ever
invented was invented in around 400 BC by a Greek lyric poet called Simonides.
And so when I started to research and look into the memory techniques, I found out that
they're all based on the same thing. They're based on two things. Basically, they're based
on a location for the memory. So putting the memory somewhere that you can find it easily.
I'll talk more about that later if you like. And then I found out that every human being
has what's called perfect visual memory. Not photographic, but perfect visual memory.
So every memory technique ever invented since 400 BC is based on two things, location or
loci in Latin and visualizations, pictures and things that you can see. Because we've
got what's called a three second echoic memory. Have you ever met somebody, shook their hand
and forgot their name within three seconds? Absolutely. I feel like Dory from Finding
the End. We're all Dory when it comes to our listening, our echoic memory. Because we can
hear a sound and forget it within three seconds unless we take that sound out of our echoic
memory and bring it into our short term working memory and then turn it into something. So
put it into context, make it a picture or something that we can actually remember. So
I learned when I was studying memory that I didn't have a bad memory. I had an untrained
memory. And I find this quite amazing that even at school, we weren't taught how to use
our memory. So we put kids into exams and we test them on what they can remember. Well,
that was rote. Rote learning. Yeah. That's how we got it into our heads in the first
place. So we put them into an exam and we test them on their memory, but we were never
taught how to use our memory. I think that's quite ridiculous that since 400 BC, we've
had these memory techniques. So you could give me a list of a thousand things and I
could report them back to you. So I trained my memory to do that. It was a major system
developed in the 1700s and I do it in classes. I've been a witness to that in a couple of
your workshops. So I only go up to 20 in the workshops just because otherwise 700, 800,
2000 things would just take forever. And it would take a lot of my mental energy. But
it's very, very easy to remember large amounts of data if you know the techniques. And so
we've had these techniques for centuries, since 400 BC and there's other techniques invented
through the centuries, but we still don't teach it in schools. I find this quite amazing.
So yeah, I got really fascinated in memory, how the memory works. I got into the science
of it and I read every book I could get my hands on. And there was basically two authors
that are very prolific. The first guy is a guy called Tony Boozhan. Tony Boozhan wrote
many, many books on the brain and memory. And so I read all his books and he was the
one that really introduced me to all of the techniques that are out there. And then the
eight, I think he might've won more world memory championships by now. So there's a
guy called Dominic O'Brien, who was the world memory champion. He's one of the memoryards.
I think they call them memoryards, but they go off and they compete against each other
on memory techniques. What they can remember. Yeah, yeah. So remembering decks of cards
or pi to how many digits. And it would be the most boring competition to go and watch.
Not the game you play in the car with the kids. On the way to the shops, I went to the
shops and I bought a banana and I bought a banana and an apple.
I think they play more sophisticated games, but I think it'd be the most boring Olympiad
there is to watch people just sitting there concentrating and trying to remember stuff.
But yeah, so I got really fascinated with it and I started to teach it and teach it
how the memory works.
Awesome. So, okay, you learnt how the memory works. How does the memory work?
Okay. All right. So we have a, I think it's kind of shaped like a peanut, maybe a little
bit elongated, a little thing called the hippocampus. There's two of them on either side of their
brain in the left and right hemispheres called the hippocampi. And it's essentially the
librarian of the brain. So its job is to pay attention to information. The very first
question it asks is, is this information important? If the answer is yes, we pay attention to
that information. So imagine that information is coming into your brain through one of your
five senses and the hippocampus goes, hey, is this important? If the answer to that question
is yes, it then pays attention to it. And so when it pays attention to it, what it's
then got to do, it's got to put it into context so that it can store it in the appropriate
part of the library.
I'm just, I'm going to interrupt here briefly. So those exercises that you do in training
where not you do, but I have been in training where they say, okay, count how many basketball,
how many, you know,
The white team and the black team.
Yeah. And then there's a gorilla that goes in the background.
And you don't see the gorilla.
Yeah. Because you're concentrating, you're already determined what the important information
is. So then you disregard everything else.
Yeah. So there's only so much information we can pay attention to at once. Our brain
is being bombarded with billions of bits of information every second. And so we pay attention
to that, which we deem to be important. And so when we pay attention to it, our hippocampus
now needs to put it into context so that it can store it in the appropriate part of the
brain. And so it's a librarian. It's essentially encoding the information that's coming in.
And so then it's filing it away in the memory. And it actually does most of its work when
we sleep. So when we go to sleep, this is why sleep is so important, especially if you're
studying for exams or whatever. So when you go to sleep, your brain does more work when
you're asleep than when you're awake. What it's doing, it's filing away all of those
memories as a permanent memory. I've read that there's a theory, I don't know if this
is true or not, that when you dream, a lot of that is encoding memories.
Yeah, actually, I do know, and I used to do a lot of this when I'd study. So I'd break
it down to just a number of points. You write everything you know and then break it down
to less and less and less so there are key words. And then I'd go to sleep.
And then that's where your brain is remembering it.
That's right. I would stop studying and go and do something, go for a run, go swimming,
go to sleep, listen to music, whatever. And then the next day, my recall was amazing.
But if I stayed up all night, eating coffee grounds, or at uni, I know I used to.
Chewing on coffee beans. Wow.
I did because I was thinking, I've got to do this, I've got to do this.
Trying to cram more in.
That's it. I had this belief that the more times I read it or the closer to the exam
that I read it, my memory of it would be fresher and better. No.
It doesn't work. No, no. Cramming lots of information in your brain, not giving your
brain a chance to rest, digest, and then store. It doesn't work. And the actual optimal number,
what you should do is you should study for 20 minutes, go away for 10 minutes, doing
nothing, doing nothing, like just relax.
Not hanging out the washing.
Yeah, not hanging out the washing. Beautiful. Doing that. Something that doesn't require
a lot of thinking. And then come back, review what you studied in the last 20 minutes, review
it for five, 10 minutes, and then repeat that for another thing. So 20 minutes, 10 minutes
off, review, 20 minutes. That's the optimal for learning. So if you've got kids studying,
the best thing to do is get them to study for 20 minutes, stop, stand up, go and do
something, go for a walk, go and throw a basketball. Come back, review what they studied in that
20 minutes, then do it again. Or do it a couple of times, have a sleep, then come back and
review it. Because your brain does need to repeat things to remember it, but you cannot
cram, cram, cram, cram, cram.
Or rote.
And rote learning. Rote learning does work to a certain extent.
Five lines of five, two to ten.
Yeah, like all of that pattern and rhythm of when we sang our times tables. That actually
works, but that's repetition until it's hardwired into the brain.
Do you still, with the alphabet, sing it from Sesame Street?
A, B, C, D, D, D, D.
Yeah, of course. And well, rhyme and rhythm are very, very strong components of memory,
absolutely. And so that's another technique that we use with young children, but then
we don't use with older children because we think, oh, we can't use rhyme and rhythm when
we're in high school. We can't sit there and sing E equals MC squared. It'd be silly,
wouldn't it? Or you'd feel silly anyway. But yeah, I still find it amazing that a lot of
the techniques for remembering things aren't taught in schools.
How do we, like, if you can give us a quick, how can we improve our memory?
Yeah, yeah. Okay. Step one, step one, this is the most vital thing. And I've said this
in another podcast. You cannot say to people, I have a bad memory.
Yeah.
Because what you're doing is you're programming your subconscious mind. We spoke about this
in a podcast a couple of podcasts ago. So if you say to somebody, I'm bad at remembering
names or I'm terrible at remembering dates or whatever it is, whatever you label as a
skill that you don't have, you're creating an internal belief system, a record in your
robot, in your subconscious mind. So the next time you meet somebody, you shake their hand,
you say, g'day Michael. And then right then your brain goes, Michael, what's Michael?
Michael's a name. What do we know about names? We're no good at names. Oh, I forget about
Michael. So within three seconds, you've forgotten the name because your brain has been
programmed to not remember Michael. So the very first step in becoming better at remembering
anything is to say that you don't say that you've got a bad memory, say that you've got
an untrained memory and that it's going to get better the more you practice it and the
more techniques that you use. And then you just start to learn techniques. So there's
some very, very powerful techniques that people can use to remember names, to remember shopping
lists, to remember things, to study. So I'll give you the quickest and easiest one.
Yeah.
Let's say people's names. It's a four step process. Okay. So actually, can I go back
in time and just tell you why I had a bad memory for names? I was a shy sensitive insecure
little silk. I've said that many times in this podcast. And being shy, you often keep
your head down. Your chin is down. So you're not looking up. And when you're not looking
up, you're not looking at faces. When you're not looking at faces, you don't see faces.
When you don't see faces, you can't remember faces. So even if you hear somebody's name,
if you don't have a face to attach it to, how can you possibly remember the name? So
I was very shy. I didn't pay a lot of attention to people's names because I wasn't really
looking up a lot. That was the start of it. I think also the fact that I didn't think
I had a good memory. So that was an internal belief system. And I had a fear. I had a real
big fear. I had a couple of events happen to me when I was young where I used somebody's
name. It wasn't their name. They laughed. And I got very embarrassed in front of a group
of adults. And so that's the last time I used people's names for a long, long time. So I
had a massive phobia about it. And I avoided using people's names. And one of my biggest
fears was introducing two friends to each other that I knew really well. So two friends
that didn't know each other, but I knew them very well. I might've known them my whole
life. Introducing them to each other would cause massive fear in me, just in case I forgot
one of their names, even though I knew them forever.
So you know how you're saying that you've used, called somebody by their incorrect name.
Yeah. For five years, I lived next to somebody. Yeah. And I called them Greg. Oh, and their
name was... No, no, it was Gary. But so it was kind of, it was kind of the same, but
they didn't, they didn't correct me. And so I even wrote cards to them. Hey Greg, happy
birthday, Greg. I introduced them. Thanks for taking my bins out, Greg. I introduced
them to other friends. Oh wow, that's sad that they didn't have the confidence to say,
hey, that's not my name. I know. That was being so polite to you. They were. Oh, but
that would have been much better if they'd earlier on they just said, hey, it's actually
Greg. No, sorry. What was their actual name? I forgot. Oh, that's my sad thing. Yeah. Anyway,
sorry, I interrupted. That's okay. Not at all. So, all right. So I didn't have a good memory
for names. But then I learned a technique. It's a very simple technique. Okay. It's a
four-stage process, right? It's called see, hear, convert, attach. Right. So you firstly
got to start looking at people. You've got to be a student of people's faces. So if you
want to remember people's names, become a student of people's faces. So notice somebody's
eyes, notice the shape of their mouth, their cheeks, their earlobes. Just, just notice
how we're all different and we are all different. So just spend time. Don't be a creep looking
at staring at people, but, but just notice how faces are different. Like people have
got beautiful noses or they've got different shaped eyes. Just see the person. Cause, and
try and find a feature of their face that stands out. The feature of their face that
stands out is where your eyes are going to go to the next time you see them. So if they've
got this gorgeous eyebrow or this beautiful eye. One eyebrow. One eyebrow. Yes. They have
one eyebrow. One long brow going across the top. I've had friends, I just have a bit of
it. No. Anyway, so just notice a part of their face that stands out or the features that
stand out, whether they've got beautiful eyes, they've got great cheekbones or they've got,
you know, a longer nose than normal or the chin is quite pointed, whatever it is, just,
just start to really see people's notice what stands out about the person because that's
where your eyes can be drawn to the next time they see them. Then the next step. So see,
hear, convert, attach. Here, you've got to actually hear the name because if you believe
you can't remember names, you're not even going to pay attention to the name. No. So
if somebody says their name to you, really pay attention to it. So if they say, my name
is Mark, just really pay attention to the name because you know. So what if you miss
the name? So they say, hi, my name is Mark. And especially if they're from a culture,
whether they say their first and second names together and they say it really quickly. I
always say, can you say that again? I didn't catch your name. But what if then you say,
then you don't get it. It's like, no, no, you just keep asking. You say, sorry, didn't
get it. Can you say your first name really slowly for me? Can you spell it? Yeah, yeah,
absolutely. I've done that. I've done that. And I do that in my classes. I remember meeting
a Shalani. Okay. So Shalani is not a common name here in Australia. A lovely lady, beautiful
lady. And I said to her, what's your name? She said Shalani, but she said it really quickly.
So I asked her to slow it down. And the reason why I was getting her to slow it down is because
I needed to be able to capture that, to turn it into something that I can remember. And
when she said her name, I said, oh, can you say that again? Because I needed to really
have a chance to remember something that I've never heard before. If you've heard it before,
Mark, it's going to be easier to remember. But if it's an unusual name or a name that
they said so quickly, you couldn't pronounce it again. Just ask them to say it again. Nobody
minds you asking their name again. And just say, hey, do you mind saying that again? I
didn't catch your name the first time. And what you're doing is you're actually paying
attention to them. You're showing interest in them. So don't let somebody just throw
and a lot of shy people throw their name out really quickly. Yeah, because they don't think
that they're important, but show them that they are important. So see their face, hear
their name and do not leave that second stage until you've got the name. The next step is
to convert. We do not remember sounds. We've got a three second echoic memory. We'll remember
sounds for three seconds. You've got to convert the name into something that you can remember.
And as I said before, we all have perfect visual memory, not photographic, but perfect
visual memory. You will remember stuff that you see. So you're going to now turn that
name into a picture. And so what I've done over the years, I've built a database of pictures.
So every single mark that I need, I just put a mark on their face. Every single Nick has
nicked himself shaving. I'm sorry, but Nicole also has. So Nick and Nicole have nicked
themselves shaving. So Adam, he gets a fig leaf. So does Eve. So I've created a picture
for every name. And so the way I did it is whatever picture comes to mind when you hear
that name, just use that picture. For example, once I heard somebody say James, and I didn't
have a picture for James, so I thought, oh, what picture, what picture? And I immediately
thought of them wearing a bow tie. And I have no idea why. It may be James Bond, the character,
he would wear a bow tie. But as soon as I met a James, I just put a bow tie on them.
And so I just trust my memory. If I see a bow tie, I immediately think James. That's
it. That's my picture for James. But for example, with Steve, I use a stove, Steve, stove, because
it sounds like the name. So if I see, if I met a Steve, I just put his hair on fire.
So what you're doing is you're basically creating a database of pictures for names. And if you
don't have a picture in that moment, create one. And is Anna Green Gables? Yeah. Who else?
Anyway, I've got lots of them, lots of them. Alison is a lesson. So I met an Alison who
was a world windsurfer champion. And so every time I meet an Alison, I just say windsurfer,
giving me a windsurfing lesson. Yeah. Does that make sense? Yep. So you're converting
a name into a picture because you remember pictures. But now the final thing is you need
to attach the picture to the person. And so you attach the picture to a feature on the
person that you will notice next time you see them. So if they've got beautiful eyes,
attach it to their eyes. If they've got a beauty spot on their cheek, attach it to their
beauty spot or whatever. And so if you do that quickly, and it doesn't, excuse me, I'm
just coming. If you do that quickly, just see here, attach, convert, sorry, see here,
convert, attach. In that order, you'll find remembering names much, much easier. It also
becomes fun. Like you know how you were saying how in the first part, why, you know, one
of the first steps is that you don't say, I have a bad memory or I'm really bad with
names or bad with faces or whatever. Why do we need to improve it though? Because that's
kind of a great excuse. Yeah, a lot of people use it as an excuse, but it's a lazy excuse.
Oh, I've got a terrible memory for names. Sorry, can you just repeat your name? Yeah.
We all know it's a common thing. And so we show empathy for people who forget names.
But why should we do it? Well, because human beings like to be remembered. We like to be
important. We like to be validated by somebody's memory. If somebody walks up and says, hey,
you Michelle, didn't we meet blah, blah, blah, you immediately feel good. You feel noticed.
You feel important. And if you're a salesperson, if you're a leader, one of the best leaders
I've ever met. Oh, I love this story. So I worked at the Australian Institute of Sport
at the Australian Sports Commission. I worked on the help desk. I was a nerd. I looked after
the IT. I remember walking out of the room one day, I've got the help desk phone, one
of the original mobile phones, I'm running out of the building. And this gentleman was
walking into the building being showed around the Australian Sports Commission. And the
gentleman stopped me and said, Hey, guy, this is John. He's our new director, John
Bulkby, his name was. And so he's the new director of the Australian Sports Commission.
And I said, John, nice to meet you. He said, guy, what do you do? I said, I'm on the help
desk, John. And I'm running off to help somebody now. Love it to meet you.
And I went on to help somebody. Anyway, a couple of days later, I'm walking past him,
he goes, guy, how are you going? How's the help desk? He remembered me. But he didn't
just remember me. He met probably two, three, 400 people on that day and he remembered all
of them. And I spoke to him about his prodigious memory. And he said, Oh, yeah, it's just something
that I was told is really important. And so he's practised it. And he, prodigious memory.
And very personable, personable bloke as well. So yeah, if you're a leader, spend time
practising, remembering people's names. It makes, especially if you're a senior leader
in a large organisation, it's not hard to do. Yeah. Just spend time learning people's
names and stop saying that you're bad at it because you can become a really influential
person if you remember people and if you can remember details about the person. So if you
want to remember people's names and details about them, just create visual stories. So
if you meet, let's say we meet a beautiful lady called Michelle and we know that she's
a pilot. What you do is you put a leraplane on her shoulder. So the next time you see
it, you look at the plane and you go, ah, she's a pilot. And then she tells you that
she's got twins. So imagine that she's holding twins and they're running around her legs
and just see that happening when you see her. And then she says, Oh, but I've got an older
son and he's six foot seven. So you imagine this young man standing next to her who's
like looking down on her because he's six foot seven. And so you see that picture, you
see all of those pictures and you're going to remember that next time you see them. And
that's how you remember details.
So context would be very important or could help you as well.
Yes. Yeah. Context is vital. And that's essentially what memory is all about. It's all
about context and storage. So if I said to you this, if I said, um, I'll use the example
I use in the training all the time. Uh, it was a toxic waste dump. You're going, what?
What do you mean? But now if I did this, right? Hey Michelle, what was the big event that
happened in Sydney in the year 2000? The Olympics. And where did we hold the Olympics, Michelle?
Sydney. Whereabouts in Sydney? Homebush. And what was Homebush before it was an Olympic
village? No idea. Well, it was two things. It was a swamp and it was a toxic waste dump.
In fact, it was one of the most toxic parts of Australia, toxic lands in Australia. We
built and held the most successful Olympics of all time and a toxic waste dump. Go Aussie.
Yay. But see now how... France has something to live up to. Yes they do. But they've got
the yoke that we all... Anyway, um, but now in 20 years time when you're sitting at the
pub doing pub trivia and somebody yells at, Hey, what was Homebush before it was the Olympic
village? You're going to go, it was a toxic waste dump. And that's going to be in your
brain because what I asked you to do is to go into your brain and open up the files.
I said, uh, what was the big event that happened in the years, year 2000 in Sydney? And so
you opened up the Sydney drawer and then you opened up the year folder and you found the
2000 folder and you opened it up and you then looked for the subfolder that said events.
So you opened that up, events, Olympic games. And then now you're holding the Olympic games
file. And then I said, okay, and so where did we hold the Olympic games? And now you're
ruffling through the Olympic file going location. And then you pull that out and it says Homebush.
And now I said, Oh, so what was Homebush before it was an Olympic village and you're ruffling
through the Homebush file going history, location history. And you open it up and in your mind
it was empty. And that's when I said, okay, it was a swamp and it was a toxic waste dump.
And now what you've done is you've just put that new information into that folder in that
file inside Homebush, inside Sydney event 2000, and you've closed that filing cabinet.
What I've done is I've worked with your hippocampus. I've given you the context for that memory.
And so now for the rest of your life, it's stored in the proper part of the library,
your, your memory, and you can recall it now. So if I asked you in three weeks time, Hey,
what was Homebush before it was the, uh, the Olympic village, you're going to say it's a
toxic waste dump. And you're going to know that because I've worked with your hippocampus.
But if I just said to you, Hey, uh, Homebush was a toxic waste dump because I'm, I'm, I
didn't give you all the context and you weren't really paying attention to the context.
You're not going to remember it, but now you will. And that's the way our memory works.
If we can, uh, fire up context, yeah. And then attach new information, then you're going
to have a strong memory because all memory is new information attached to old information.
Now, also, and we've spoken about this previously is memory is associated with emotion.
Yes. So I can recall where I was during the 2000 Olympics and what I was doing and, uh,
the, um, you know, death of Princess Diana, for example, and where you were at the time.
That's right. Uh, twin towers. Yeah. When they came 9 11. That's right. And you know,
very strong emotional attachment to that date and that event because of the emotion. Is
it true that memory can then become distorted? It's not accurate. Okay. That's actually two
things. So the first thing that emotions and memory glue. Yeah. So when there's a large
emotion in an event, you remember it. The reason why we do that is because our memories
evolve to, um, remember danger. Yeah. So we needed to remember things that were dangerous
for us. And that's why when there's a larger emotional content of a memory, it sticks in
your memory. It's like glue, uh, so that you can remember that event so that you don't
repeat it, that mistaken past or whatever. Okay. So, um, the things that we remember
the most of things that have a large emotional content and that's for our survival.
Now the thing about our memory and I at first didn't like learning this and now I kind of
do like knowing this. Um, every time we recall a memory, we are rewriting that memory. I
say slightly adjusting it, slightly adjusting it. So imagine that your, your memory is a
big library. Okay. So I asked you to recall a memory. You'll go into your library. You'll
take out that book, that memory, you'll open it up and then you'll start recalling that
memory. But in the act of recalling that memory, you are rewriting that memory. And so there's
a, there's a study that I've read about. So imagine this, there's a study that I think
a professor, professor at a university, I should know his name. I will find it and try
and put it into the show notes if we can. So he, every time there's a big event, he
will get a big group of people to come in and shortly after the event, they will write
down in their own handwriting, their experience of the event. So for example, when 9-11 happened,
I think that he also did it when Princess Diana died. So they had to come in and on
a piece of paper in their own handwriting, they had to write their experience of what
happened on the day, where they were, who they were with, how they felt, all of that
sort of stuff. And then a couple of years later, they got them to come back. I think
it was a couple of years later, maybe it was even less time. And he said, okay, write down
your recollection of that day, what happened, where you were. So do the same thing again
two years later or however long later. Then he would give them the original piece of paper
in their own handwriting with their signature on it and say, now compare the two. And it
was hilarious that the people would be reading the second piece of paper, the paper that
they just wrote on that day, and then looking at the original piece of paper that they wrote
two years ago going, hold on, that's my handwriting. But no, no, that's not what happened. No,
no, I was with this person. No, no, no, this is what was happening. So in the two years
between the recording on a piece of paper in their handwriting, what happened, their
memories had been completely rewritten. Some people were in different locations. Some people
were with different people. And so what this study has shown us that every single time
we recall a memory, we are rewriting the memory. So your memories, I'm sorry, are not accurate.
So that would be why accident investigation or police or whatever get you straight away
by yourself. As soon as you can. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So when there's an accident, the police
need to get your statements straight away because they know that over time your story
is going to be creative and rewritten and you are very, very suggestible. So yeah, our
memories are not accurate and they're not infallible. In fact, in fact, you can rewrite
them. So now this is the good news. Let's just say that you've had trauma in your life.
You can go back and rewrite it. You can rewrite yourself instead of being a victim. You can
be the hero. Yeah. The perspective completely changes. Yeah. Which means you do not have
to walk forward with that negative, emotionally damaging, debilitating memory. You can walk
forward a new person. You can hold your head up high and say, this is what I learned from
that experience. And you can even change it. Yeah. And convince yourself that it was different
to what happened. And in fact, that is what a lot of people do to survive trauma in the
first place. They suppress memories, which isn't necessarily a good thing. They suppress
memories and rewrite it so that it's not as hard to take. Yeah. And so the memory is not
accurate. I hate to tell people, but at the same time, there is maybe some power there
that you can rewrite the history of your life. Absolutely. Don't lie. No, that's right. No,
yeah. Well, thank you so much for that. So this is like an interview with you, Guy. It
is a different sort of podcast. I didn't bring Bollinger, I'm sorry. No. Well, Bollinger,
where are you? We called out to you in the first podcast. We're still waiting. We've
had a guest turn up with Bollinger and we will be publishing his podcast soon. But yeah,
Bollinger. All I've got is water, I'm sorry. Yeah. Bose, from the previous podcast, maybe
Bose might want to reach out. That's right. They haven't yet. No, no, no, no. More dogs.
The world would be a better place with more dogs. Absolutely. Yes. That's on our merch.
The merch that you wonderfully came up with, the t-shirts and caps, if you can find them
on our website. Captainandtheclown.com. W-W-W-Captainandtheclown.com. Yes. Yeah. So that was a fun podcast. I enjoyed
telling you about that sort of stuff. That's where I first got into professional development
training when I started teaching people about memory and then went to time management, then
leadership and all the other things that I taught. Wow. A long time ago and look where
you are now. Yeah. Yeah. Fantastic. Sitting in a studio talking about memory. That's it.
And I think what I love about learning memory first, all of those years ago, that it underpins
everything I do. And my job is to put memories into people's heads, which is learning. And
so I love the fact that I learnt that early on in my career. Fantastic. Thanks, Scott.
Pleasure. Good to see you again, Michelle. Lovely to see you too. Cheers. Bye. Bye. Well,
that was fun. That was fun. You're such a clown. The clown. Lady captain. And who's
going to listen to this? Maybe I'm not. Thanks, mom.