The BIGG Successs Show
Unforgettable Techniques to Help You Remember Names
Bill Clennan, "The Memory Man" shares his secrets to remembering names. Find a written summary of today's show along with a link to the freebie Bill is offering on BIGGSUCCESS.COM.
Welcome to The Big Success Show. Today, some unforgettable techniques to help you remember names. The Big Success Show with George and Mary Lynn. Today we welcome Bill Clinton, the memory man. Bill is a professional speaker who has given presentations at over 10,000 events and been inducted into the speaker's Hall of Fame. In his career, Bill has helped over 1 million people improve their memory. Welcome to The Big Success Show, Bill. Well, thank you. Very nice to be here, George. You know, I'm not sure I could remember talking to a million people on say actually helping them do something. I got to be honest with you. I don't really remember all there. I wouldn't think you could. Well, one of my weaknesses is remembering names. So how can I get better at it, Bill? First of all, the number one reason why people don't remember names is they don't think they can. As they're meeting other people, what's going on in their brain is I can't remember names. You know, I mean, it's almost impossible to do something you don't think you can do. So basically, we have to just start thinking positively, start spinning that around and saying, okay, I can remember people's names. So that'll help. Exactly. In fact, what I suggest to people who come to my various seminars and DVDs, I say to them, decide you're gonna remember a hundred percent of the people a hundred percent of the time. And how do you suggest we do that, Bill? Do you repeat it back? Is that the best way to do it? Well, you know, I never suggest to people to repeat it back and I'll tell you why. Every now and then, you'll meet somebody and they'll use your name six times in the first three minutes. Right. Well, George, nice to meet you, George, and you're sitting there going, would you back off? Right. You know, it just, it drives me crazy, but here's the good news. Just by thinking of the sound of somebody's name, that part of your brain shows increased activity. Now, what that means is to your brain, thinking about the sound is the same as saying it. So the very first thing you want to do is you want to make some sort of a link between the sound of their name and I'm emphasizing sound of their name. Okay. Because when we meet people, we hear their name. We don't see it. And it's one of the things that makes remembering names rather difficult. So one of the techniques I tell people, it's a technique I call fusing the name and the face. In the very first moment, I hear the person's name. I look at their face and it's like I'm taking one piece of information and another piece of information to sound to their name. And just for a moment, I bring them together like just like that, like I'm connecting two things so that when I see their face again, there's a place in the brain where those two things originally came together. And then the next easiest thing I might say to myself, try and Brian, surely the girly, silly Billy and fancy Nancy and Slim Jim and Georgie Pargy. There you go, right? I think I've now figured out Mary Lynn's been using the fusion thing for years because she always calls me Georges. Yeah, that's right. I think I like that better than Georgie Pargy. I wouldn't blame you. Well, coming up, Bill will share some techniques that will help you remember difficult names. Today, we're talking with the memory man, Bill Clinton. And Bill, you said that that concentrating on the sound of someone's name can help us remember it. Now, why is that? For a huge percentage of the history of our species, we did not have the written word. Information was passed along in rhythm and rhyming and chapped and dance. So why not use that technique? So then when you meet somebody who has a rather difficult name, a multi-syllabic name, break it into sounds, I call it syllableized. I had this one fellow and his name was Ken Orr Chefsky. So I just pictured him with an or, you know, they wrote boats with him with an or stuck through his chest and he was on skis. And I call that syllableized, the name break it into sounds. And then there's some beautiful, elegant techniques you can use. For instance, I was at this meeting, actually was at the Alamo Wanna Rotary Club in Honolulu. And this one guy, his name, is "Talk to Biarshi." And without thinking, honestly, I don't know where this came from. But the very moment I heard his name, I went, "Talk to Biarshi." Wow. Anytime you tie things together in sound, if you can get the first part, the rest of it comes along for free. And that's the method I call it the rhythm method, listening for the rhythm. And this is also, by the way, one of the clues for remembering groups of people. If you have to meet four or five people in a hurry and you tie them together in sound, you can remember the whole string of names if you just do it correctly. So I call it the rhythm method, especially for Catholic folks. I was going to say, Bill, I've heard of the rhythm method, but it didn't have anything to do with the memory names. Yeah, but this one works better. All right. You can get more memory tips from Bill on his website, remembernamesandfaces.com. And Bill, you have a freebie for our audience. Yes, indeed. They can get a free memory evaluation by going to www.evaluateyourmemory.com. And that's free. All right. We've got a link to that on our blog today at big success.com. And Bill, thank you so much for being a part of the big success show today. My pleasure, you guys. Thank you so much for the call. And I look forward to that being part of Big Success again sometime. Excellent. All right. Next time we ask is the way you're spending your time costing you money. Until then, here's to your big success. The Big Success Show at B-I-G-G Success.com.