479 Memory Champion Nelson Dellis on Training Your Brain to Do the Impossible

"Train your brain everyday." - Nelson Dellis If you enjoyed this episode, check out show notes, video, and more at http://lewishowes.com/479 Get more from Lewis! Get my New York Times Bestselling book, Make Money Easy! Get The Greatness Mindset audiobook on SpotifyText Lewis AIYouTubeInstagramWebsiteTiktokFacebookX

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Lewis Howes?

  This is episode number 479 with four-time USA Memory Champion Nelson Dellis. Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, a former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week, we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin.

• 0:35Lewis Howes?

  Welcome to the School of Greatness Podcast, everyone. I hope you're having a great day. And I hope this is going to make your day and life even better because we are in the house with Nelson Dellis, who is a four-time USA Memory Champion and one of the leading memory experts in the world. He's traveled around the world as a competitive memory athlete, memory consultant, and highly sought-after keynote speaker. He's the founder and CEO of Climb for Memory, a nonprofit charity that aims to raise awareness and funds for Alzheimer's disease research through mountain climbs all over the world.

• 1:14Lewis Howes?

  He is also the co-founder of the Memory League, memory training app, and the co-founder, director of Memory League Championships, the only digital format head-to-head style memory competition. That's right. All things memory. Nelson has been featured in The Today Show, Fox and Friends, The Katie Couric Show, CNN.com, ABC, Dr. Oz, Science Channel, Nat Geo, Super Brain China, National Geographic Magazine, and many other outlets. He is one of the top guys. He's kind of like Jim Quick, where he's just like can teach and memorize so many things at the same time. And what we cover today are how to memorize names at a networking event when you feel like you're horrible at names. I know that's pretty much like 90% of people listening.

• 1:58Lewis Howes?

  Why memory is a lost art. Also, how Nelson turned his memory work into a business. And again, if you guys don't think you can run a business or be successful around your passion. And making money full time, then this is another great example. Nelson did this around just memory, something he was passionate about. Again, no excuses here. Also, a simple way to train your brain every single day to be stronger. During this interview, I actually have Nelson memorize 50 numbers just by saying them out loud and having them repeat back to me. So pretty cool to see how he does it actually live. And also Nelson didn't have a powerful memory. He wasn't great at memory. He was actually pretty average.

• 2:40Lewis Howes?

  And he talks about how anyone can have a superhuman memory, the way he trained himself to have it just as well. Super pumped for this one and want to give a shout out to our iTunes review of the week. This is from Lee Buza, who said, I'm usually the guy who's too lazy to leave reviews, but I had to leave one for this podcast. This podcast has been a huge blessing for me this year, helping me stay focused on my goals and getting better each day. I first heard of Lewis Howes on the Model Health Show, another great podcast. And after hearing his background and how genuinely he seeks to impact people's lives for the better, I quickly became a fan. He gives helpful perspectives in very empowering and practical ways. And the guests he features take things to a whole new level.

• 3:24Lewis Howes?

  The show goes beyond stereotypical feel-good meditation and I'm looking forward to getting the School of Greatness book sometime in the future. So many episodes to choose from and they are all quality content. Well, Lee Buza, thank you for being the iTunes review of the week and make sure to go get the book right now. Don't wait in the future, get it right now. Go to LewisHowes.com/book and be one of the people who are diving in and getting great results from the practical tips in the book also. All right. Get ready to enhance your memory, to memorize anyone's name, to never forget a phone number again, to optimize your brain for human performance like never before. Without further ado, let me introduce to you the one, the only Nelson Dellis.

• 4:11Lewis Howes?

  Welcome everyone back to the School of Greatness Podcast. We have Nelson Dellis in the house. Good to see you, man.

• 4:16Speaker 01

  Good to see you. I'm good. Thanks for having me.

• 4:17Lewis Howes?

  I'm excited about this because you are a memory champion, actually a four-time US memory champion.

• 4:24Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 4:24Lewis Howes?

  And one of the leading memory experts in the world. You travel around as a competitive athlete. Do you call it competitive athlete?

• 4:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, like a memory athlete.

• 4:32Lewis Howes?

  Memory athlete.

• 4:33Speaker 01

  Depends on what you consider a sport.

• 4:34Lewis Howes?

  Not a mathlete.

• 4:35Speaker 01

  No.

• 4:36Lewis Howes?

  Memory athlete.

• 4:37Speaker 01

  Memathlete.

• 4:37Lewis Howes?

  Memathlete. And how many competitions are there? Like, memory competitions?

• 4:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, there's a few. There's the US National Championship, which is the thing I've won. There's like a World Championship.

• 4:50Lewis Howes?

  Have you won that?

• 4:51Speaker 01

  No, I've competed in it a few times. It's a whole other...

• 4:54Lewis Howes?

  It's a different type of...

• 4:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's intense. The events are a bit different. And it's been around for longer and more international people have competed in that and prepared for it for longer. So it's just like, yeah.

• 5:06Lewis Howes?

  What is that one like? I mean, what's the criteria to win? Is it the same thing every year? Is it a different prompt?

• 5:12Speaker 01

  It's the same thing every year. It's 10 events, so it's like a decathlon. And it's just your total score over like the points you've racked over the 10 disciplines.

• 5:21Lewis Howes?

  What were some of the events?

• 5:23Speaker 01

  So, some are the same as the US one, like memorizing a deck of cards as fast as possible.

• 5:28Lewis Howes?

  They give you a deck there and you have to memorize it?

• 5:30Speaker 01

  As quickly as possible. A five-minute... You have five minutes to memorize as many digits as possible. And at the Worlds, they have like an hour where you get to memorize digits, an hour where you get to memorize cards, names of faces, words, random blobs, historic dates, stuff like that. Serious.

• 5:49Lewis Howes?

  Whoa. How many days is it?

• 5:51Speaker 01

  Three.

• 5:52Lewis Howes?

  Three days.

• 5:52Speaker 01

  So you're pretty spent by the end of it.

• 5:54Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 5:54Speaker 01

  Just like eight hours a day of memorizing.

• 5:57Lewis Howes?

  Wow, man.

• 5:58Speaker 01

  Which sounds probably like a nightmare for a lot of people, but it's fun.

• 6:02Lewis Howes?

  It's a lot, man.

• 6:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:03Lewis Howes?

  Now, what was the... What are some of the records that you have? Cause don't you have some memory records too?

• 6:09Speaker 01

  I do, uh, and I've, I've broken some, lost some, gained them back. Um, but right now I currently have the one for memorizing names and the most names in 15 minutes, which is, uh, 201 names.

• 6:21Lewis Howes?

  Now, people give you the name, they, they give you the name up front or there's a list of names?

• 6:25Speaker 01

  It's basically a, a packet of headshots of random people we've never seen and with first and last name and each-

• 6:33Lewis Howes?

  People you don't know, not celebrities?

• 6:34Speaker 01

  No, right. They, yeah, cause then it makes it maybe easier to memorize if you recognize someone, but, uh, they're all random and, uh, you get 15 minutes to study it and then you get to write in the names. As many of them as you can in, uh, that, uh, in the recall stage.

• 6:49Lewis Howes?

  15 minutes?

• 6:50Speaker 01

  15 to memorize and then 20 to write out as much as you can.

• 6:53Lewis Howes?

  How long did it take you to write it out?

• 6:55Speaker 01

  Uh, yeah, I do pretty fast. I mean, I gotta get it out as fast as possible because there's like a deterioration of what you recall after you see it, you know? So, um, I probably write out most of it in five, 10 minutes and then spend the rest trying to remember some that slipped my mind, you know?

• 7:13Lewis Howes?

  That's crazy, man. How many did you do?

• 7:15Speaker 01

  201.

• 7:16Lewis Howes?

  201?

• 7:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:17Lewis Howes?

  Do you remember any of those?

• 7:19Speaker 01

  Well, yeah.

• 7:21Lewis Howes?

  Like years ago?

• 7:21Speaker 01

  No, I mean, I know the kind of names they ask. I'm sure there was like a Bob and a Steve, but, um, but that's, that's another difference in the worlds in the U S is that the U S one is like American names, which, what is an American name? But, uh, it's, it's a lot easier than the world ones, which are international.

• 7:37Lewis Howes?

  You have to spell it too?

• 7:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:38Lewis Howes?

  You have to get every spelling, you have to spelling right for all of them?

• 7:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's the thing. So, uh, most of the mistakes I make are like, I put an E instead of an A, like it was Lindsay with an E instead of Lindsay with an A.

• 7:48Lewis Howes?

  Well, how many did you remember without getting this perfect spelling?

• 7:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean-

• 7:51Lewis Howes?

  230 or something, 210?

• 7:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, so I, there's, they give right now 234 names. That's the max and I look at all of them, which I don't know if anybody else does. Um, and I'd say- Maybe, um, I get most of them. It's just like

• 8:06Lewis Howes?

  Wow, man.

• 8:06Speaker 01

  Twenty of them or something or something.

• 8:08Lewis Howes?

  It's crazy. So for someone who's going to a networking event.

• 8:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:13Lewis Howes?

  A lot of my listeners are entrepreneurs.

• 8:15Speaker 01

  Of course.

• 8:15Lewis Howes?

  Looking to build relationships, relationships to the most valuable asset and currency for them.

• 8:20Speaker 01

  Totally.

• 8:21Lewis Howes?

  For most entrepreneurs.

• 8:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:23Lewis Howes?

  Um, and a lot of people come to me and say, you know, I always, I'm horrible with names. I'm sure you get this all the time. So if you wanted to remember just ten people at an event. How do you go about just the starting process of your basics? If you're the worst memory, how does someone go about that?

• 8:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's a great, uh, question. I mean, that is the number one thing I get asked all the time. And I think it is the probably, probably the most useful, um, skill to have in terms of memory, like most applicable to daily life.

• 8:51Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 8:51Speaker 01

  Because it's so important. Just simple things, remembering someone's name can make a world of difference in a relationship, right? So, um, the first thing I tell people is if you're going to an event, uh, say it's a networking event and you want to memorize ten people's name. Is that you tell yourself that you're going to memorize ten people's names. That's like the very first step.

• 9:10Lewis Howes?

  Prep yourself.

• 9:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:11Lewis Howes?

  Prime yourself.

• 9:12Speaker 01

  Just like make it a goal of yours, right? Because I think a lot of people think they have a bad memory for, uh, names. And they'll go into that situation thinking that and then, you know, they're not going to bother or they're going to be like, I, I just can't do it. But everyone can. So I, I'd like to preface, um, the show, I guess, by saying that I didn't have this skill. You know, before I started, something I developed with practice. And when I first started memorizing names, I was just as good as anybody else, you know? So the first thing is to have that intent. And I, I often tell people to, in their heads, just mentally tell yourself, I want to remember, you know, this person's name as you approach them.

• 9:50Speaker 01

  And just kind of repeat that because it, it primes you to focus in on that. And I think in this day and age, it's hard to, um, focus on something. Especially at an event where there's noises, people moving in and out, and you're trying to remember who you need to talk to or what you're going to say, you know? So if you can just focus on that, that's

• 10:06Lewis Howes?

  Walk of first, I'm going to remember this person's name.

• 10:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:09Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 10:09Speaker 01

  Say it in your head.

• 10:10Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 10:10Speaker 01

  Yeah. Repeat it. And then, so the next thing is I usually tell people, choose a feature. So something about the person's face or their mannerisms, something that you've noticed instantly. Nothing, you have to like study or figure out, just very lightly, easy. What pops out at you? We all do that. I mean, we look at people and we kind of silently judge.

• 10:29Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, they're short, they're tall, they're whatever.

• 10:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, their hairdo's funny, whatever.

• 10:32Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 10:33Speaker 01

  Um, so you choose that feature and then the interaction happens. You say your name, I say mine, we shake hands. And then you come up with a picture for the name. So that can be difficult, especially when you're trying to maintain a conversation. But as you practice, you get better at this and um, the idea is to go for something that it reminds you of. So like, when I say Nelson, what do you think of?

• 10:55Lewis Howes?

  Mandela.

• 10:56Speaker 01

  Okay, yeah, perfect. So usually people will say Nelson Mandela, uh, Nelson from The Simpsons, or maybe Admiral Nelson. Or like a full Nelson, you know?

• 11:04Lewis Howes?

  Right, right.

• 11:04Speaker 01

  A few different things, but Nelson Mandela is one of the top ones. So you would picture him, right? You can visualize him.

• 11:10Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 11:10Speaker 01

  It doesn't matter, it has nothing to do with who I am. Um, just you need a picture for the name. And then once you have that picture, you kind of mash it together with my feature that you chose. And you make a little narrative, a little story, or you come up with a reason why those things would be related. And that process of thinking of that relation um, will help you remember. Next time you see me, you're gonna see that feature.

• 11:35Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm.

• 11:36Speaker 01

  And then you're gonna remember that ridiculous association you made to that picture.

• 11:40Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 11:40Speaker 01

  Nelson Mandela, and then you'll be like, okay, that's Nelson.

• 11:42Lewis Howes?

  Got it.

• 11:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:43Lewis Howes?

  What would you do for me?

• 11:45Speaker 01

  So Louis, I have another memory friend uh, named Louis, and he's actually shaved bald. He's a young kid. Um, and uh, so I would just picture, as simple as imagine you having a bald head as well.

• 11:58Lewis Howes?

  There you go.

• 11:59Speaker 01

  Yeah. So sometimes you can choose a specific feature, or sometimes you can kind of interact a feature from the thing that it reminds you of to something that you don't have. You know, just make something that's so opposite or bizarre.

• 12:11Lewis Howes?

  Got it. Yeah. And when you're, when you wake up in the morning, what is the thing you think about? Are you thinking of memory, of how you're gonna remember names, numbers, faces? What goes through your mind on a daily basis? And when you're also like, just driving over here, are you like, looking at the street signs and like, remembering landmarks? Like, how does your brain think?

• 12:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, so it's not so much that I'm memorizing stuff automatically, right? I still have to try to do that, but what does happen is I do look at things and convert them to pictures. So when I do see billboards or license plates, I do tend to just convert them to the pictures that they represent. Cause I've studied these systems and I just enjoy being in that world where things are kind of colorful and weird. And try to make associations and stuff, not that I'm trying to memorize, but just, you know.

• 12:58Lewis Howes?

  It's like a game.

• 12:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

• 13:00Lewis Howes?

  So you look at license plates, you can remember them, remember them pretty easily too?

• 13:04Speaker 01

  If I wanted to, yeah, yeah. But like I said, it's not like I drove over here and I was just like scanning.

• 13:10Lewis Howes?

  Twenty of them, yeah.

• 13:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, I don't want to do that.

• 13:12Lewis Howes?

  Sure, sure. Yeah. What's the hardest thing to remember for you?

• 13:17Speaker 01

  The hardest thing for me is like text, like, you know, memorizing a poem or a script or something. Where there's like lots of little filler words and you know, you have to pay attention to the tenses and stuff like that. And that's one of the events at the US championship is how to remember, uh, get to remember a poem. Um, and it's previously unpublished and it's usually very abstract about like balloons and springtime and stuff. But you know, you gotta remember all the spelling, all the capitalizations, punctuation.

• 13:47Lewis Howes?

  Spell it out.

• 13:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:49Lewis Howes?

  Gosh, this is challenging.

• 13:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 13:51Lewis Howes?

  I have horrible spelling, so I would lose every memory test there is.

• 13:55Speaker 01

  I, I get in trouble with that too. I'm, I'm a decent speller, but sometimes like I'm remembering like a list of words. And you have to write them out and I'm like, how do you spell, you know, it's the most simplest word. And I just fight back and forth, is it two Cs or one C? But yeah, yeah.

• 14:11Lewis Howes?

  Okay, so memorizing full poems or paragraphs or something like that is challenging.

• 14:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, so stuff where it's like.

• 14:17Lewis Howes?

  You want to be a good actor?

• 14:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, I don't know. It's funny because I've had, my wife's shaking her head now. Uh, um, it's funny because I've had to memorize scripts for little things I've done.

• 14:29Lewis Howes?

  TV spots, yeah.

• 14:30Speaker 01

  And I think the first time I did it, I was like, yeah. I can memorize this at night, no worries. And I did, right? I did it like I did the poetry and I could say all the words perfectly. But I realized the next day when I was trying to act is that I still have to act, access that information. And to do it properly on, on camera, I have to like be super smooth, like I.

• 14:50Lewis Howes?

  Fluid and like.

• 14:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, which is a different thing, right? I can have it memorized, but doesn't mean I can recite it like.

• 14:56Lewis Howes?

  Looks like a normal human being.

• 14:57Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 14:58Lewis Howes?

  Not like a robot.

• 14:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. Like if I memorize a really long number and I recite it back to you, I'd be like, you know, five, eight, uh, you know, rather than like five, eight, six, eight.

• 15:07Lewis Howes?

  You're accessing it in your mind, yeah.

• 15:09Speaker 01

  Doesn't mean I'm getting it wrong, but it's not like smooth, so with.

• 15:13Lewis Howes?

  Just put a teleprompter up there, right?

• 15:14Speaker 01

  That's what they ended up doing, which was ridiculous, but uh, having to happen, so.

• 15:19Lewis Howes?

  Sure. And before we came on here, you were talking about, you know, we said Apollo Uno was one of the, the previous guests I had on here. And you said, oh, he's like a number of mine or something. So what does that even mean?

• 15:29Speaker 01

  Right. So for numbers and cards and stuff, stuff where you have, um, you know what you're gonna get, right? So for numbers, you know that you're gonna see digits between zero and nine, uh, no other digits, right? But obviously there'll be longer sequences of them and cards, 52 cards. Names and poetry and words and stuff can pull from almost unlimited data sets. So there's more improvis- improvisation there. So with the numbers and cards, we have systems that we create where, for example, I have a three digit system where every three digit number is a person or a preset image. So that when I see that three digit image, a three digit number, I already have a.

• 16:09Lewis Howes?

  So one, one, one, three.

• 16:10Speaker 01

  One, one, three is Ace Ventura.

• 16:12Lewis Howes?

  Ace Ventura.

• 16:13Speaker 01

  Yeah. And there's some method to it, why I have that assigned, um, and like one, ninety five is Apollo Uno. Um, you know, I had all, I started with a two digit system and ninety five happened to be. So the system I had, I'm trying to remember it, it's so automatic now. Nine was an N and five was an E. So I had N E, the initials. And that to me, made me think of New England Patriots. So ninety five is Tom Brady. The original ninety-five.

• 16:42Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 16:42Speaker 01

  And then when I expanded it, I said, okay, zero nine five will be the original guy that I had for my two-digit system, Tom Brady, and then all the others, one ninety-five, two ninety-five, three ninety-five, up to nine ninety-five will be like, um, popular athletes.

• 16:58Lewis Howes?

  Got it.

• 16:59Speaker 01

  Ideally Olympic athletes.

• 17:00Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 17:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:01Lewis Howes?

  So you have a thousand names.

• 17:02Speaker 01

  Thousand names.

• 17:03Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 17:04Speaker 01

  Yeah. It's not so much the names, it's just I see the picture of the person. It's like.

• 17:08Lewis Howes?

  With the number, you see the image of the person.

• 17:10Speaker 01

  Exactly, yeah.

• 17:11Lewis Howes?

  And. And you know their name, so you're just.

• 17:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:14Lewis Howes?

  Reciting.

• 17:14Speaker 01

  That's the important part is to come up with people that I know, you know?

• 17:18Lewis Howes?

  Um, I don't even know a thousand names, I don't think, I mean, I.

• 17:21Speaker 01

  You'd be surprised.

• 17:22Lewis Howes?

  But.

• 17:22Speaker 01

  With all your guests and athletes that you've played with and.

• 17:26Lewis Howes?

  That's crazy.

• 17:26Speaker 01

  Friends and family, yeah.

• 17:27Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 17:28Speaker 01

  But it works and it helps you like crunch numbers, big numbers into smaller pictures.

• 17:34Lewis Howes?

  And so that works when someone's like, okay, give me fifty numbers on stage. I've seen a friend do this, Jim Quick, I don't know if you know.

• 17:42Speaker 01

  Oh, yes, yeah.

• 17:43Lewis Howes?

  And he, I think he did like a hundred numbers.

• 17:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 17:46Lewis Howes?

  And someone was like writing on the back, the chalkboard or whatever so you could see him, and he just recited them all back to us, like double-digit numbers, and it was like.

• 17:52Speaker 01

  Forwards and backwards.

• 17:53Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, I was like, what? I don't understand that stuff, but it's so powerful.

• 17:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:58Lewis Howes?

  To see what the mind is capable of.

• 18:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:00Lewis Howes?

  And, and in some ways, I'm assuming like it's pretty easy for you after a while, you're like, actually, it's not that hard, like after, maybe I'm wrong, but I'm assuming like you've done it so many times where you just.

• 18:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's, it gets a lot easier with practice where it becomes an automatic thing. And I think that's an important thing to note is that memory, a lot of people think is just something you either have or you don't, but it's just like any other skill. If you practice every day and you get, um, used to it, it's.

• 18:26Lewis Howes?

  It's easy.

• 18:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, easy and natural.

• 18:28Lewis Howes?

  Now, why is memory a lost art? The skill of memory.

• 18:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's a good question. Um, I mean, this was what people did back in the day when there were no tablets and phones and computers or even mass printing, right? You had to remember something and you pass that story down to someone else. And to be intelligent meant to have a good memory because you held the information, right?

• 18:50Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 18:51Speaker 01

  That made the world go round. Um, but you know, as books and then computers come around, it's like now we don't need to use our brains for memory anymore.

• 19:01Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 19:01Speaker 01

  Which is fine. It allows us, frees us up to do other things, but um, I think there's something to be said to in using your memory and, and training your brain and keeping your mind fit in this day where we're just kind of like mindlessly tapping on things and swiping. Yeah.

• 19:18Lewis Howes?

  Well, what are some things we can do on a daily basis to help increase memory training?

• 19:24Speaker 01

  Yep. Uh, well, one thing is just to, to, to try and do it. Um, it's very easy to, to use your devices to, to do that, but, but make the effort. I mean, if someone gives you their phone number, for example, try to remember it. I'm not saying forever. Eventually put it in your phone because that's, that's hard to keep forever. You have to review them and stuff, but in that, in that exchange, try to, you know, make the effort to remember. Or when you go to the grocery store, write it out, um, write out your list and commit it to memory and don't bring the list or don't put it on your phone. And I know that makes it a lot difficult, uh, more difficult for some people because they're like, I can't afford to forget something. My kids will be hungry or whatever.

• 20:07Speaker 01

  But that'll help you learn. I mean, if you forget something once, you're probably not going to forget a second.

• 20:11Lewis Howes?

  I feel like waiters, waitresses, they're great at this. Some of them, I'm like blown away by the orders they're memorizing.

• 20:17Speaker 01

  I'm like, you should write that down, right?

• 20:19Lewis Howes?

  Cause I'm the pickiest eater. So I like have to substitute everything and I'm like, I like things simple and I'm like, please don't mess this up, you know, but they seem so confident. They can get like eight people. I'm like, that's a talent.

• 20:30Speaker 01

  It is, yeah.

• 20:30Lewis Howes?

  They're probably doing similar things, right?

• 20:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:32Lewis Howes?

  They're like associating.

• 20:33Speaker 01

  And I think a big part is that they have to do it every day. And uh, I think they also note that when you show that you have that um, memory skill, it, it boosts how people think of you and it.

• 20:46Lewis Howes?

  Absolutely.

• 20:47Speaker 01

  It's a very um, admiring skill to have.

• 20:50Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 20:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:51Lewis Howes?

  What's a challenge I can do with you right now to see how good your memory is?

• 20:55Speaker 01

  Uh, we could try a number. I don't know if you have a piece of paper to write it down. Um, or you can put it on your device. I do. We can do like, um. You have a pen? Let's try this. So what we should do is write like, um, let's do a fifty digit number. Fifty digits. So fifty single digits. Okay. Okay. Let's see this. And then we can do it two ways. I can have you tell me the numbers one by one. I'll let them write. Out loud. Fifty digits. Or I can just read it. It's up to you. And you can say it back to me? Yeah. Yeah. Well, that would be the goal. If I didn't do that. We'll do it. Well, fifty single digits, right? Yeah, yeah. So it's a total of fifty digits. Okay, so I'll let you write them out. Yeah, sometimes I say.

• 21:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'll let you write them out first and then I'll, when you're done, I'll, I'll do it. Okay. Um. How long is it gonna take you though? Uh, well, it depends. Do you wanna do it out loud? Sure. Where I say it? Mm-hmm. And then you'll repeat it back to me? Yeah, in that case. Forwards and backwards? Yeah. Well, you just say it forwards and then I'll say, recite it forwards and backwards. That's what I mean, yeah. Okay, yeah. But, uh, yeah, so if that case, if you could say it like one digit per second. Okay. It'll take fifty seconds. Not like. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven. No. Yeah, so some people will do that. They'll be like, ah, I'm gonna say this number and they say like twenty-eight, fifty-six, eight, whatever it's. Uh. Yeah, I, so I still need time to process things, you know? Cause I'm doing this. You're not like a superhuman? Come on. I know. Disappointingly, no. Yeah, I'm an average person, just with a trained skill, yeah.

• 22:24Speaker 01

  Alright. How many you got?

• 22:28Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 22:32Speaker 01

  So I should, in, in, while she's writing that, I'll, I'll kind of explain what I'm about to do. So there's the conversion of the number that you'll say into a picture. But then, you know, you still have a lot of pictures, right? So what I'm doing with those pictures is I store them in what's called a memory palace. And this is. Like a castle, right? Yeah, it's castle, like, some people call it a Roman room method. Uh-huh. And what you do is you, imagine someplace you know very well, like a house or an apartment. Um, and you mentally navigate through it, placing those images as you go. And the idea is that those are pre-memorized and they hopefully have some meaning to you. You know, you've been there, you maybe have memories there. So remembering that space is, isn't any part of, it's not a part of the problem. It's easy. It's easy.

• 23:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, but remembering the number of the picture in the space, right? Yeah, and when you put that crazy image in a place that you know well. It kinda makes it just bizarre and that's what we tend to memorize or remember better.

• 23:29Lewis Howes?

  So you have an image associated with each number, right?

• 23:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:32Lewis Howes?

  From one to nine.

• 23:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, so as you say, when I do them um out loud, I'm gonna group them by twos just cuz it's a bit faster.

• 23:40Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 23:41Speaker 01

  Um, so every pair that you say, I'll be converting into a picture.

• 23:45Lewis Howes?

  So do two at a time?

• 23:47Speaker 01

  No, just say one at a time.

• 23:48Lewis Howes?

  One number?

• 23:49Speaker 01

  And then I'll.

• 23:49Lewis Howes?

  Five?

• 23:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:50Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 23:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:51Lewis Howes?

  You'll pair them though?

• 23:52Speaker 01

  I'll pair them as it.

• 23:53Lewis Howes?

  He's already getting, he's like, when a number came, he was like, yes.

• 23:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:56Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 23:56Speaker 01

  Alright, so hold on, so I gotta, I gotta, I gotta place myself in a memory palace, um, and we're gonna do fifty, hold on, so that's.

• 24:09Speaker 01

  Okay, alright, so just keep a pace like, um, one, two, three, like that, okay?

• 24:16Lewis Howes?

  Where, what's your memory palace?

• 24:18Speaker 01

  Uh, so I'm using a, I'm in Kathmandu, this is a hotel I stayed in before, uh, I attempted Everest in two thousand and eleven. So it's, it's a pretty memorable place.

• 24:28Lewis Howes?

  Attempted?

• 24:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, I didn't summit, I got within fifty meters.

• 24:32Lewis Howes?

  You've done it three times though, right?

• 24:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:34Lewis Howes?

  Fifty meters?

• 24:35Speaker 01

  Fifty meters, yeah.

• 24:36Lewis Howes?

  Vertical meters. Climb up to the top, you're like.

• 24:39Speaker 01

  I wish, it was one of those things where it was like, uh, so fifty meters, vertical meters was another hour, right?

• 24:45Lewis Howes?

  It's a lot, yeah.

• 24:46Speaker 01

  And I was already struggling, I had an issue with my oxygen mask and it was like, cuz then you have the return trip down, which is another five, six hours, so.

• 24:54Lewis Howes?

  It was getting darker, it was getting.

• 24:56Speaker 01

  Well, it was three AM, so the sun was gonna come up and I think, I always think that if the sun was just like a little higher, you feel a warmth and, and that hope from the sun that I would have pushed on, but it was probably a smart decision, yeah.

• 25:09Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 25:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, and the other two attempts have been, ah.

• 25:12Lewis Howes?

  Wait, so how many times you attempted?

• 25:14Speaker 01

  Three, yeah.

• 25:15Lewis Howes?

  Three, so you've never made it to the top?

• 25:17Speaker 01

  Close each time, but.

• 25:18Lewis Howes?

  Fifty meters is the closest.

• 25:19Speaker 01

  That's the closest, yeah, yeah.

• 25:21Lewis Howes?

  Wow. Each time you're like, I'm gonna make it up there and then?

• 25:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's, I mean, that's, yeah, that's a goal, I spent, it was a two-month expedition that I'm.

• 25:28Lewis Howes?

  Two months?

• 25:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:29Lewis Howes?

  Trying to climb it?

• 25:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 25:31Lewis Howes?

  Is it too much training or two months from the, the base to the summit?

• 25:35Speaker 01

  Well, two months, you, you. That's with the whole expedition. So I arrive in camp and do usually at the beginning and then we trek to base camp takes about a week and a half. And then you spend the rest of the time kind of going up and down, up and down, a little higher because it's so high that your, your body needs, you need that long to acclimatize.

• 25:54Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 25:54Speaker 01

  Um, it takes about six weeks for your body to really go through some serious, um, high altitude changes.

• 26:01Lewis Howes?

  You'd be like nauseous a lot and?

• 26:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, the first few days, yeah. Well, no throwing up, but yeah, you get massive headaches. Um, and you're just like tired of everything you do, but uh.

• 26:11Lewis Howes?

  No energy. Have you studied Wim Hof?

• 26:13Speaker 01

  No.

• 26:14Lewis Howes?

  This guy's climbed, uh, Kilimanjaro, like, I don't know, a dozen times without, with just shorts on, barefoot, no shirt.

• 26:24Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 26:24Lewis Howes?

  And.

• 26:25Speaker 01

  You see the guy that, that goes in the super cold with no clothes on?

• 26:27Lewis Howes?

  Yes, and his immune system like doesn't change, like his heart rate doesn't change and he does it all just by breathing in a certain way climbing the mountain.

• 26:34Speaker 01

  That's insane. It's cold there.

• 26:36Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, and he's gotten shirtless and he's fine. Like, nothing is, nothing's wrong with him. It's insane. He takes people up, much like average people to do the same thing.

• 26:43Speaker 01

  To do the same thing?

• 26:44Lewis Howes?

  Same thing. He teaches them how to do it through breathing.

• 26:46Speaker 01

  I need that because I'm.

• 26:47Lewis Howes?

  So if you want to get up Everest?

• 26:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:49Lewis Howes?

  Then he teaches you how to overcome, you know, the cold with your mind.

• 26:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, that is, for me as a, and maybe for you as a tall guy, like my circulation, my hands and toes get like ice blocks really fast. So managing my heat on those mountains is, is, is hard work.

• 27:06Lewis Howes?

  You should go to Amsterdam and take this guy's course, Wim Hof. It'll probably get you to the summit.

• 27:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'll check it out.

• 27:14Lewis Howes?

  Take a photo from the summit for me when you do it too.

• 27:15Speaker 01

  Without my shirt on.

• 27:16Lewis Howes?

  Exactly. Um, all right, you ready?

• 27:19Speaker 01

  All right.

• 27:19Lewis Howes?

  Do I just throw you off?

• 27:20Speaker 01

  No, that's okay. Let me just resituate myself. All right, let's go.

• 27:25Lewis Howes?

  Five, two, three, nine, eight, six, seven, four, three.

• 27:40Speaker 01

  One. Zero. Nine. Seven. Eight. Five. Five. Nine. Eight. Two. One. Three. Four. Nine. Seven. Six. Eight. Seven. Five. Four. One. Two. Zero. Nine. Seven. Eight.

• 28:26Speaker 01

  Six. Six. Two. Three. Five. Nine. Zero. Two. One. One.

• 28:44Speaker 01

  Five. Six. Nine. Eight. Seven.

• 28:53Speaker 01

  Alright, let me just go over to my head.

• 29:07Speaker 01

  Okay, alright, so from the top, we have, uh, five, two, three, nine, eight, six, seven, four. Three, one, zero, nine, seven, eight, five, five, nine, eight, two, one, three, four, nine, seven. Six, eight, seven, five, four, one, two, zero, nine, seven, eight, six, six, two, three, five. Nine, zero, two, one, one, five, six, nine, eight, seven. That's it. Yeah. Have you ever messed up? Yeah, I usually miss one and then I'll come back to it. I'll usually figure it out. Got it. And then in reverse, uh, we'll start from the back. So, seven, eight, nine, six, five, one. One, two, zero, nine.

• 29:50Speaker 01

  Five, three, two, six, six, eight, seven, nine, uh, zero, two, one, four, uh, five, seven, eight, six, seven, nine, four, three, one, two, eight, nine, five, five, eight, seven, uh, nine, zero, one, three, four, seven, six, eight, nine, three, two, five. Got it. Yeah. There you go. So what is each photo? I mean, how do you do that? Um, so, okay, so I'm, I'm at the front of this hotel in Kathmandu. And, um, you tell me, um, you said five and then two, which to me, remember using my two-digit system.

• 30:34Speaker 01

  That's Marty McFly from Back to the Future. Oh, okay. And then what I'll actually do is every pair has, is a person, but also there's an action associated with it. So the next two digits, um, which were three and nine, um, I actually take that person and use their action. So that's Chuck Norris, but his action is like kicking something, like a roundhouse kick. So I put those together and that's Marty McFly doing a roundhouse kick at the front of this hotel. And I'll tell you why I put those two together is so that four digits now is really just kind of like one image. Rather than having to memorize Marty McFly and Chuck Norris, you know? Yeah. Um, I could imagine Marty McFly interacting with Chuck Norris, but it's easier.

• 31:19Speaker 01

  More memorable getting kicked. Yeah, you give the action to the person and now it just feels like it's just a one person doing something, which is, I think, a lot more memorable.

• 31:25Speaker 01

  Four numbers, yeah. Yeah. And then, so I moved to the, the lobby, like the front desk of the hotel is just inside. And there was, uh, Homer Simpson, eight, six, um, sword fighting with the, the guy behind the desk, which is seven, four.

• 31:42Speaker 01

  And we move over, there's a like a hick kinda guy, like with a straw hat and um that's three one and he's doing jumping jacks. That's zero nine. And then into the other room is um my old boss at a pizza place when I was younger. Um Di, her name is, and she's seven eight and she's reading a book, five five. And then we go up the stairs. I'm sorry, but it's one of my ex-girlfriends. But she's taking uh a crap on the chairs. Uh on the stairs, yeah. And so on.

• 32:11Lewis Howes?

  Wow, yeah. So it doesn't seem, it's not that hard once you kind of can figure out that game in your mind.

• 32:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:18Lewis Howes?

  And you practice it enough, it's not that as hard as it seems.

• 32:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:21Lewis Howes?

  Now, could you do it without that? If you didn't have these kind of like brain game memory tricks? Could you be like, if I was like to set the numbers, would you be able to just?

• 32:30Speaker 01

  No way.

• 32:31Lewis Howes?

  Can anyone do that?

• 32:32Speaker 01

  I don't think so. I I so the the rule is the uh in in the liter- the literature is that people can could do that for maybe seven plus or minus two numbers before it starts to get out of hand.

• 32:44Lewis Howes?

  Really? So you almost have to associate it with a photo or an image or?

• 32:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:48Lewis Howes?

  Line Castle, whatever it is.

• 32:50Speaker 01

  Right. So that test, you know, it's like a number, it's called a digit span test and some people do it where you see it, some do it audio um like you did. Um and yeah, most psychologists will measure that average human can memorize about seven things before, you know. Yeah. And they, I think they did this study uh at you know uh Florida State University back in the nineties um where they took like a runner, I think he was a runner, athlete student and um they did this test to him every day. And he didn't have a system, but over time, I think he got to about eighty digits in a row with no technique, but

• 33:30Speaker 01

  he kind of was developing some type of technique and what he said he would do is he'd turn sequences of numbers into like um running times, you know, like, you know, he'd say to himself, oh, that's like a really good mi- mile or something, time, or that's like the distance it takes me to do this many uh reps or whatever, you know. Um so he was turning them into pictures kind of without having it so formalized like I do, but um that was the only way that he was able to get so far.

• 34:01Lewis Howes?

  Wow. Now, is there like a manual for this, or is there like a, who taught you this?

• 34:06Speaker 01

  Um, I used an audiobook by a guy named Dominic O'Brien, who's an eight-time world champion from like the very early days. He doesn't compete anymore. And um, that got me somewhat introduced to everything. Um, but then from then on, there wasn't much literature out there when I started, so I just kind of figured by trial and error. Um, I'm working on my own book, uh, which hopefully will be out next year, so.

• 34:30Lewis Howes?

  Wow. What are these, all the best in the world, are they doing something similar? In terms of the association and the rooms?

• 34:37Speaker 01

  Yeah. So what you'll find is that everybody's at the top is using some form of a memory palace and some form of, of uh, encoding, which is turning the things into pictures.

• 34:48Lewis Howes?

  Got it.

• 34:48Speaker 01

  Um, some people have more elaborate uh, encoding systems, which some makes them slower because it's more time to process, but some people it's made them faster.

• 34:59Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm.

• 34:59Speaker 01

  And so, my times for a deck of cards and numbers are quite good, but not the best. And I'm in the process of trying to re uh, rewrite some of my systems so I can kind of catch up.

• 35:12Lewis Howes?

  So the deck of cards is the same thing we just did. It's just two more numbers. You would just like?

• 35:16Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So for that, I, I, yeah, I have a picture for every card. So there's 52 people. It's much less than the, the numbers. And uh, yeah, combine them in kind of this person-action

• 35:26Lewis Howes?

  Got it.

• 35:27Speaker 01

  Uh, situation and place it in a memory palace.

• 35:29Lewis Howes?

  Sure, sure. That's cool. People love that one because it's like, is it a card trick?

• 35:33Speaker 01

  It seems like a lot of information because of the suits and the numbers, but

• 35:37Lewis Howes?

  It's pretty easy for you.

• 35:38Speaker 01

  Yeah. One card is one image, so it's, it's not, it's a lot easier than people think.

• 35:43Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 35:43Speaker 01

  Um, and I've, I've taught people how to, to memorize decks of cards. We're like, no way I could do it. Like I could teach you too.

• 35:49Lewis Howes?

  How long would it take?

• 35:51Speaker 01

  Um, well, at some point you need to sit down and, and say what all 52 cards will be, which can take some time.

• 35:56Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 35:56Speaker 01

  But I have done it where we just take the suits. Um, so it's just like the jack, queen, king of every, uh, the face cards of every suit. And um, we just kind of give it whatever it looks like. Like king of clubs, I usually tell people, okay, um, think of Tiger Woods. Right. Because he's the king of clubs. Well, maybe not anymore, but yeah.

• 36:16Lewis Howes?

  Jordan Spieth or whatever, yeah.

• 36:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, exactly. Um, that's, yeah. And we could place it around the very room we're in and people grasp that.

• 36:25Lewis Howes?

  Pretty quickly, yeah.

• 36:26Speaker 01

  Because it's something we all can do. It's, that's the crazy thing about memory is like, people are so like I can't memorize anything and my my memory is gone. And all I'm doing is using stuff that our brains are, I think, naturally primed and and good at doing. And once you kind of realize how to approach memory. Use some association and store it in a spatial location that you know well. That's like, so that's our brains on fire.

• 36:51Lewis Howes?

  So phone number is probably like the easiest thing to remember for you, right?

• 36:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's and it's a fun little thing because I ask people for the number and they they say, are you gonna write it down like, I got it, I got it. And so I'll ask for the zip code, I usually like make a comment about it because. I usually like to try and figure out where someone's from based on an area code and then the rest of the number is just like a picture, yeah.

• 37:13Lewis Howes?

  So how would that work?

• 37:15Speaker 01

  So, well. For the average person or so if they if you didn't have a system, you just try to like make a sense of of of the number sequence. Um, it helps if you are familiar with the zip code, right? If you're from, I mean, the area code.

• 37:29Lewis Howes?

  Got it, yeah.

• 37:30Speaker 01

  So like in Miami, three oh five. If someone tells me that, I don't even think that, right?

• 37:34Lewis Howes?

  You just remember the next seven numbers, right?

• 37:36Speaker 01

  Exactly, yeah. And so for me, I'll I'll do like, um. All the three digits uh neck that come next is a person for me and then the next pairs of two. Yeah, I'll do like.

• 37:46Lewis Howes?

  Like one on one.

• 37:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, so that's the Mad Hatter from uh Alice in Wonderland. And then.

• 37:52Lewis Howes?

  That's a lot of digits you've remembered, man.

• 37:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's a lot of practice for that. It's not necessary for the average person, but if I'm I'm competing.

• 37:59Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 38:00Speaker 01

  You know, I gotta do those.

• 38:01Lewis Howes?

  Nine, three, two.

• 38:02Speaker 01

  Nine, three, two, that's Pluto. Just see, there's a little bit of lag on the three digit ones, just because it's it's still a bit of a lookup, but um.

• 38:09Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 38:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:10Lewis Howes?

  What do you mean lookup? You just have to like access it?

• 38:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, because because I I I know the two digit ones like super quick.

• 38:16Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 38:17Speaker 01

  Thirty two is is uh Charlie Brown and then so all the thirty twos are like Mickey Mouse like character.

• 38:23Lewis Howes?

  Got it, got it.

• 38:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:25Lewis Howes?

  So you just have to remember the like the two thirty two, the four thirty two, got it, okay, makes sense.

• 38:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:30Lewis Howes?

  You got a system down. Um. Do you think we should train our brains? More or bodies more?

• 38:38Speaker 01

  Good question. I think it's a mixture of both.

• 38:42Speaker 01

  I think, I mean, they both work hand in hand. I'm all about kind of in both, uh, fitness for both. So I, I, I always spend a lot of time in the, the physical gym, uh, every day. I do a lot of CrossFit.

• 38:56Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, big guy.

• 38:58Speaker 01

  And then I make sure to, to work out my brain too.

• 39:01Lewis Howes?

  Every day?

• 39:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:02Lewis Howes?

  So what does that look like?

• 39:03Speaker 01

  So we always start off the day going to CrossFit for about an hour, an hour and a half. And then, um, I'll come home and start doing my training. So memorizing, I usually break it up into what the events are and do drills around it. So like memorizing the cards, I'll spend some time on that. Uh, then I'll do the numbers and.

• 39:21Lewis Howes?

  This is full time for you?

• 39:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, that's.

• 39:24Lewis Howes?

  You can make a living doing memory training?

• 39:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, I guess. I, I, when I first started, it was just a hobby. I was a software engineer and kind of did it. Sometimes on the hour, but mostly at home. Like when I.

• 39:36Lewis Howes?

  Sure, sure.

• 39:37Speaker 01

  Was rushing, uh, to get to work or coming home. But then people started asking, as I won a championship, my first one, they, people started asking me, do you come and teach people how to do this or speak? It's like, I guess, sure. Yeah. And, and that's kind of what it's become now. And, uh, I love it. I love teaching people and showing them. Um, that they all have this skill. It's just a matter of kind of unleashing that power.

• 40:01Lewis Howes?

  So now you've got a full, you're making, it's a full-time business for you, right?

• 40:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:04Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. So. Teaching, training, speaking.

• 40:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:08Lewis Howes?

  Books coming out.

• 40:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:09Lewis Howes?

  Programs, courses, whatever.

• 40:10Speaker 01

  It's not always like, I mean, the nice thing about it is that memory is something that I think people will always need help with. And in any, um, field or, or career.

• 40:20Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 40:20Speaker 01

  You know, it can be applied. Memory can help you. Um, so that's good. Um, it's sometimes it's hard to like get it across to people that. Yes, you can do it too, you know? Some people just write it off as something that they can't do. And it's a challenge on my part to, to convince them, you know?

• 40:38Lewis Howes?

  What have you learned about yourself since going on this journey?

• 40:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, you know, uh, when I first started, um, I used to always, I loved getting into new things, that stuff that would make me stronger or more skilled and, um, I'd kind of scratch the surface and be like, okay, and move along. So I, I guess, uh, I'd be good at a lot of things, but not great at anything. Um, yeah. So this was kind of the first thing that I mastered. You went all in. And I went all in. I didn't really, it was, it was funny because when I started, it wasn't the goal. It wasn't to become like a champion. I did it because my grandmother had Alzheimer's and when she passed away, I was kind of like, man, I need to see if I can make my brain strong. And, um,

• 41:21Speaker 01

  so it started out of this passion and that inspiration from her. And then before I knew it, I was, um, getting really good at it and I, I don't know, I just kept doing it every day and, and the better I got. And after winning a championship or two, I realized, okay, I'm, I'm, I'm one of the best in the world at this. And that was kind of the coolest thing. And it helped me realize that like, okay, if you work hard at something, no matter what it is, even something as crazy as improving your average memory, um, then you can almost do anything. Hmm. Maybe not some Everest, but, uh, I'm working on that one. Yeah. And when did you start? When was this? That was two thousand and nine. Yeah. I'd kind of heard about it in two thousand and eight and played around with it. But two thousand and nine was when my grandmother passed and that's when I like flipped the switch.

• 42:06Speaker 01

  Hmm. Yeah. Do you feel like this could, do you feel like this could help anyone with, uh, Alzheimer's or, you know, before they get into that state? I, yeah, I'm a big proponent of, of training your memory every day, just in the same way you, you, you stay physically fit to, to ward off all sorts of diseases and, and future age problems. Um, I think if you train your brain, you use your brain, um, challenge it, not necessarily always memorizing. I mean, there are other things you can do, like, I, I think the, the best thing for training your brain is to try to tackle something that's uncomfortable for your brain. And memorizing for me and learning those vast systems was one of those things. And I think those kinds of things are what keep people sharp, um,

• 42:51Speaker 01

  and, and give longevity to, to your brain health. What, what's the thing that would challenge your brain every day? So something that is new, you know, like we're so

• 43:01Lewis Howes?

  Try a new skill.

• 43:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 43:03Lewis Howes?

  Like learning a language or playing an instrument.

• 43:05Speaker 01

  Exactly, a puzzle.

• 43:08Speaker 01

  Or putting yourself in an uncomfortable situation even, you know, like going to like an improv class or something, you know, like where you're

• 43:15Lewis Howes?

  You have to think, you have to be on your toes, yeah.

• 43:17Speaker 01

  It's so easy to get comfortable and I think

• 43:19Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 43:19Speaker 01

  I'm sure you know that and it applies to other fields is if you get comfortable in something, you're not gonna get better at it or grow.

• 43:26Lewis Howes?

  Absolutely.

• 43:26Speaker 01

  Um, and that applies to anything, I think, yeah.

• 43:28Lewis Howes?

  Wow. What's the one thing you want to achieve through this journey that you haven't achieved yet?

• 43:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, um, I think my goal, um, ever from the beginning was, was so that I wouldn't end up in the same, um, kind of way as my grandmother did, but I think that's kind of morphed into trying to spread that message that nobody should end up like, end up like that and, uh,

• 43:52Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 43:53Speaker 01

  I want to inspire people to, to, to think about using their memories and that you can have a good memory and that mental fitness is, is a thing and it shouldn't be overlooked. You know, it's not just about the body. I mean, your brain is a part of your body.

• 44:07Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 44:07Speaker 01

  And it runs everything else. So why not value it more than, you know, or equally as your body?

• 44:13Lewis Howes?

  Sure. When you're climbing, uh, Everest, are you doing, uh, memory challenges as well? Or is your brain not have, is that a time where you shouldn't be doing that because you need all your energy into?

• 44:24Speaker 01

  Yeah. No, I actually, I'll go to places and try to recall things I've memorized or I will try and like, I'll navigate through my memory palaces or, um, I do try to distract my mind when I'm on those climbs.

• 44:39Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 44:39Speaker 01

  Yeah. Cause a lot of the, the climbing days are really like long, boring slogs and they're painful because you're struggling for air and it's, it's steep and you know, your body's just like, has no energy, hasn't slept and you're wasting away at altitude, you know?

• 44:56Lewis Howes?

  Right. So you're thinking, you're playing games, you're

• 44:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's actually been very helpful in getting through some of the, the tough spots. Yeah.

• 45:04Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 45:06Lewis Howes?

  I know, I know. It's right at the Hillary stuff, right?

• 45:10Speaker 01

  I'm just messing with you.

• 45:11Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. When are you going back?

• 45:13Speaker 01

  I don't know. Those are, that's in discussion.

• 45:16Lewis Howes?

  Oh, really?

• 45:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:16Lewis Howes?

  Do you want to go back or no?

• 45:17Speaker 01

  I, yeah, I, I love the mountains. I love that place and a lot of it is I love the, the memory that comes from it. You know, like that experience, the, the growth experience from it and meeting all these people and the culture that comes along with it. It's beautiful out there.

• 45:35Lewis Howes?

  How do you feel every time you come back?

• 45:38Speaker 01

  Yeah. So, and it's, it's, it's a very similar feeling to this feeling I have after winning or losing a memory championship. Where it's like, you feel empty, you know?

• 45:48Lewis Howes?

  After you win, you feel empty?

• 45:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, surprisingly.

• 45:51Lewis Howes?

  I know that feeling.

• 45:52Speaker 01

  Yeah. And it's like you got to search for the next thing. And, and sometimes I wish that I had never like gone into those kinds of things. Cause I'm always trying to match that, um, that goal seeking high. And it's, it's tough to match, even especially with the Everest thing. It's like, there's nothing more exhilarating than a full expedition like that.

• 46:15Lewis Howes?

  It's crazy.

• 46:16Speaker 01

  So, um, but that's something I always end up finding something and it's good, I think overall, because it gets me to somewhere else that I didn't expect.

• 46:24Lewis Howes?

  Exactly. Wow. What's something that, uh, anyone listening could do every single day for 10 minutes to train their brain?

• 46:34Speaker 01

  Um, yeah, I would say get out a piece of paper. Um, no, I would say asks, well, gets somehow find a list of words, right? Um, I'd say 10 to 20 words and just sit there and try to memorize them.

• 46:50Lewis Howes?

  Random words or?

• 46:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, random better. I mean,

• 46:53Lewis Howes?

  Not like a sentence, but like random.

• 46:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, just like random words chosen in a list, like a list form. Um, and find a place that you know, like your house mentally and, and take yourself there and place those images for those words on a route around your house. Just, just try that. Um, I tell people to have maybe two or three memory palaces that they can. Between with ten to twenty locations on each, right? And by locations, I mean, you know, I was using in that hotel I was telling you about. Front of it, the lobby desk, the sofa there. So I make, those are like specific locations. And I, and that's particular memory palace. I have like sixty in a row that I've designated.

• 47:36Lewis Howes?

  Sixty.

• 47:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, so I can put a lot of numbers, but so to think of your house and choose like ten or twenty. Pieces of furniture or locations.

• 47:45Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 47:45Speaker 01

  And if you have two or three of those different places, maybe one's your house, maybe one's your office. And maybe one's like your favorite drive or park or something. You can have those as your go to memory palaces when you need to list memorize a list on the fly. Or if you want to memorize something that's useful for you, like you just wanted to know, you know, Super Bowl winners over the last ten years, you know? Um, so I say list of words, uh, try with list of words, but maybe try something that's meaningful. Like if you actually wanted to learn.

• 48:15Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 48:15Speaker 01

  You know, some facts or the presidents in order or something.

• 48:18Lewis Howes?

  Or names of people in your company or whatever you are.

• 48:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, exactly, yeah.

• 48:22Lewis Howes?

  Interesting.

• 48:23Speaker 01

  But, but it all comes down to just trying to use your memory every day.

• 48:25Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 48:26Speaker 01

  That's really what you should be.

• 48:27Lewis Howes?

  Few minutes a day.

• 48:27Speaker 01

  It's a simple thing, but um, just try.

• 48:30Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 48:32Lewis Howes?

  Um, where do you think it'd be if you didn't start this memory process journey? What would you be doing right now?

• 48:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, I don't know. Uh, so I studied computer science and physics and.

• 48:44Lewis Howes?

  Were you married? Were you guys together when you started this?

• 48:46Speaker 01

  No, no, not at all. I've been doing it uh, longer than we've been together, right?

• 48:50Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 48:51Speaker 01

  Um, so I, I've always, like I said, I always am interested in many different things. So I would have found something, I think, to apply that, uh, that hunger to, to master something.

• 49:02Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 49:02Speaker 01

  Which I hadn't found yet, but uh, I don't know. I feel like maybe I would have always come back to it somehow because I've always been fascinated by the brain. And what's in here that we're not using and what the potential there is.

• 49:14Lewis Howes?

  That's cool. Very cool, man. Well, where can we connect with you online?

• 49:19Speaker 01

  Yep. So my website, NelsonDallas.com. Um, you can get my links to my socials and my YouTube channel. I'm trying to post a lot of memory how to's on there. Yeah.

• 49:28Lewis Howes?

  Nice.

• 49:28Speaker 01

  Um, more and more uh, these days. And um, I'd love to make a shout out to one thing where people can help out. Um, I work with this um, research company trying to. Help fight Alzheimer's and brain diseases. And all we need is people to, a bunch of people to take this memory test that we have. Trying to look for like a million plus test takers for the research to be like, super impactful. So.

• 49:52Lewis Howes?

  Where's it at?

• 49:53Speaker 01

  It's extreme memory challenge.com. And it's like a five, 10 minute test. It's free. There's no catch or anything. It just helps our research and.

• 50:01Lewis Howes?

  Does it give you tools on how to optimize it afterwards?

• 50:03Speaker 01

  Uh, well, I think you compare, you get to compare your scores to mine. Which mine were nearly perfect, but um.

• 50:10Lewis Howes?

  Sorry.

• 50:12Speaker 01

  But um, but you know, I have a lot of tips on my website as well. So and on the website there they.

• 50:17Lewis Howes?

  How to videos and you teaching people how to do this stuff.

• 50:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's great. Awesome.

• 50:22Lewis Howes?

  A couple of questions left for you. One is, um, if you could remember only one thing. And everything else you forgot. But you could have a one memory.

• 50:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 50:33Lewis Howes?

  For the rest of your life. What would that memory be?

• 50:36Speaker 01

  Oh, man. Uh, it's either. No, it would have to be my wedding day.

• 50:41Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. Good answer.

• 50:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, she's here. I would have said that either way, honestly, because that was such a perfect day. Like I wouldn't.

• 50:48Lewis Howes?

  That's cool.

• 50:48Speaker 01

  I wouldn't forget that.

• 50:49Lewis Howes?

  Okay. Um, this is called.

• 50:51Speaker 01

  Cheesy, but.

• 50:52Lewis Howes?

  It's true. This is called the three truths. So you've mastered memory, you've mastered climbing, you've mastered all these other things for the rest of your life. Whatever you want to go after, you make it happen. Every single dream comes true.

• 51:06Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 51:07Lewis Howes?

  You're a hundred and something years old and it's the last day.

• 51:10Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 51:11Lewis Howes?

  For you.

• 51:11Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 51:12Lewis Howes?

  On this earth. Or however old you want to be. It's the last day. And you get to write down three things you know to be true about everything you've learned and experienced in this world and this life. These dreams you've gone after.

• 51:23Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 51:23Lewis Howes?

  And these are the final three things that the world gets to remember you by.

• 51:28Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 51:28Lewis Howes?

  So they could be simple lessons, truths. Or three things that you would want to share.

• 51:34Speaker 01

  And what would they be?

• 51:35Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 51:35Speaker 01

  All right. So one is work hard. Uh, that's, that's the only way you get, you grow and get better. Um, nothing comes for free like that. Uh, you gotta work at it. That's one. Two is, is climb a mountain. That's, uh, I think that's one of the. Best things anybody can do. It doesn't have to be huge, but just climb something, travel somewhere and climb something. A friend of mine was asking me to do a little video thing. They're traveling the world right now and they're like, we're gonna put together some people who like to travel and what their travel recommendations are. And mine, I was thinking about it would be, if you're traveling somewhere, find a mountain and climb it. I think that's the best way to like get a cool experience where you're going.

• 52:19Speaker 01

  You achieve something interesting in the place you traveled and yeah, so work hard, climb a mountain and

• 52:32Speaker 01

  wow, this is for me, but I think just like, just like, accept like love and stuff, like go for that stuff, like be passionate about that. I mean, that made a lot of moves for this one over here and I think that's one of the things that's made me the most happiest, so.

• 52:47Lewis Howes?

  I love it. I love it. Do you remember what they are? Yeah.

• 52:53Lewis Howes?

  Before I ask the final question, I want to take a moment to acknowledge you Nelson for your ability to go after something that maybe you didn't think you were good at, and you became one of the best in the world at.

• 53:03Speaker 01

  Thanks, yeah.

• 53:04Lewis Howes?

  And you're showing people that, hey, it doesn't matter if you don't think you're good at something right now, that if you go all in on it and you find a passion for it, that you can figure it out and be one of the best, or at least enhance your life in a certain way. And I think it's awesome that you're doing this not just for your own benefit, but you're doing it to give back to a community of people who have, you know, a disease that they don't, they aren't capable of growing and you're teaching people how to train their brain, so that hopefully they don't have to go through that as well. So I think it's amazing you're doing it for yourself, but also you're coupling it with giving back.

• 53:41Speaker 01

  Thanks.

• 53:42Lewis Howes?

  And that's to me amazing. So I want to acknowledge you for that journey.

• 53:46Speaker 01

  Appreciate it.

• 53:46Lewis Howes?

  And the final question is, what's your definition of greatness?

• 53:50Speaker 01

  Wow, greatness, I think it's more of a personal thing.

• 53:56Speaker 01

  You know, greatness, I feel like is judged by people like outside, that guy's great, or he is the greatest. But I think greatness is more like you doing what you love every day to its max, right? And as long as you believe that that's, that's, that's being great. I don't think it has to be a huge label, but as long as you feel like you're fulfilling the things that you are super passionate about. Yeah, then that's great.

• 54:21Lewis Howes?

  There you go, Nelson, thank you so much.

• 54:23Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 54:23Lewis Howes?

  Appreciate it, bro.

• 54:24Speaker 01

  Cheers.

• 54:27Lewis Howes?

  There you have it, guys. I hope you enjoyed this episode with Nelson. If you did, make sure to share it out with your friends, LewisHowes.com/479. And tag me, @LewisHowes, and let me know what you think over on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram. I'm everywhere. I try to connect with as many people as possible. I try to get back to everyone the best I can. Sometimes I miss it, so hit me up a few times if I do. But share this with your friends, leave a review over on iTunes.com/Greatness for your chance to be the review of the week in the future. And it means a lot to me that you guys are here. We're getting over 2 million downloads a month right now. We continue to grow all because of you.

• 55:07Lewis Howes?

  Let's build this movement of greatness and get the world listening, diving in, taking action, and improving their lives. I love you guys very much, and you know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great.