“Every man's memory is his private literature” - Aldous Huxley
We tend to think that a good memory is a sort of natural innate gift that The Chosen Ones receive from a supernatural Benign Entity.
The author, a renowned Memory expert, clearly demonstrates that is not at all the case. A good memory is a key skill in life. And, as every skill, it can be learned, developed, nurtured and constantly improved.
Therefore, the book is dedicated to introduce the reader to several memory techniques. And, quite surprisingly, most of those are pretty simple and straightforward. An most of them very much linked with everyday’ s objects and experiences, in a very tangible fashion. For example, the Body Method, based on the association between the topics to remember and parts of the body.
Other techniques have been successfully used for thousand of years. I particularly like the Method of Loci (“loci” is the Latin word for “locations/places”) is based on memorizing information by placing each item to be remembered at a point along an imaginary journey. The information can then be recalled in a specific order by retracing the same route through the imaginary journey. Cicero – the Latin orator famous for his ability to give very long and detailed speeches without a single note.– used this technique.
This is all fascinating, but what's for us business people? Quite a lot. From being able to simply remember the names of our Clients in a crucial meeting – I personally experienced many times the panic feeling of forgetting the first name of the key stakeholder while giving a presentation to him/her, miserably copying by ab-using “You”, “Your Team” or “Your Company” - to being able to give a speech to a senior business audience without using notes and even PowerPoint charts!
The book is written in plain English, with short chapters dedicated to the different memory techniques and lot of examples and exercises. So, a clear introduction to the fascinating world of Our Memory.