Improving Your Memory Using a Lemon and a Pen

We had the pleasure of hosting Jake O'Gorman at member drinks a few weeks ago and he gave us a snapshot of his longer workshop with something that we could use for ourselves in both our professional and personal lives.

He started off with verifying his credentials, remembering a full deck of cards that he had prepared for on his tube trip over to The Union. You may wonder how remembering a pack of cards is useful and I would agree, but it was very entertaining! Jake has been honing his craft for many years and he recently became 2015 Memory World Cup Winner!

Following on from the display of his skills, he turned it on his head and asked us to remember 20 items randomly chosen (and not very easy to find) when walking round a supermarket. The part I remember is me having to put a ballpoint pen through a lemon. I don't want to simplify what Jake does, but it turns out that using everyday images instead of words allows us to memorise things a lot more easily.

There are many reasons why a company or a person would ask Jake to pass on his knowledge. The reasons he gave us could be put into 3 simple areas: To remember people's names, for example when inducting them into your organisation or before they have to meet a lot of people at a conference or event; To reduce the amount of time it takes for someone to learn a new role or apply their training;  Thirdly, to be able to quickly become familiar with new products or services a company may release. What's more, it's great for job seekers preparing for an interview and for hiring managers trying to improve their internal hiring processes. 

Could you imagine how much better you would be at your role if you could remember some of the things you learn? For me, as someone who enjoys meeting new people, remembering names is a very useful skill indeed. Have you ever noticed how people look when you remember them? They feel special and it can show in their facial expressions. The one way you can prove you remember someone is by remembering their name and even better, what you talked about when you met. But that can be easier said than done!

I would suggest that you look Jake up and see if you can get on one of his courses. It will be one of the most valuable skills you can learn. And what became apparent at the end of his speedy workshop for Exponential members is that he had taught us how to be able to remember the items numbered from 0-20. Starting with a lemon and a pen!

---- Ready to remember everyone's name? Eager to polish your pitching efforts? Want your team to learn like superstars? Well then, what are you waiting for ... get in touch with Jake. You can follow him on Twitter too! 

Find out more about our guest blogger Ghilaine Chan

Ghilaine is passionate about allowing people to do their best work and delight others

Ghilaine helps people to operate fast growing businesses in a productive and streamlined way, keeping an eye on time and money, whilst increasing motivation and improving customer relationships in a fast paced, changing environment. She brings order to chaos and creates scalable processes around the business, empowering them to delight their customers.

She works with tech based or enabled companies who are looking to disrupt their industries, but know that people are at the centre of their success and helping them manage their teams to: 

• Do their best work and delighting others
• Create some boundaries, but not cages
• Know they are acting for a purpose
• Determine which part they play, that what they receive enables them and what they produce is useful
• Have autonomy over how and when they produce

She has over 15 years' experience in scaling international business functions for technology companies, within their support and consultancy organisations.

Ghilaine is a graduate of London College of Fashion (now part of University of the Arts: London) with a degree in Product Development. She is a Mentor with Microsoft Ventures,UpRising and Outbox Incubator as well as an Approved Business Coach with Growth Accelerator, now part of Business Growth Services. 

Want to know more? Connect with Ghilaine on LinkedIn, follow her on Twitter and visit her website, Ghilaine & Co.