Not enough space in my brain.

So I have to save it for the important stuff!

As a conference keynote speakerwho speaks on memory,  I have had every brain myth thrown at me at one time or another over the years.

One of the most common is, “I only have so much space in my brain, so I have to save the precious amount left for the important stuff.” It’s as if by learning something new they will have to dump or jettison some other more important stored information.

I actually get this most frequently when I challenge people to learn and develop the skill set of having a ‘trained’ memory. I put it up there with “I just don’t have time.” I think more realistically they are saying “I’m in a comfort zone….leave me alone.” Which is fine, but understand, it has nothing to do with any storage capacity your brain has!

No person exists, or has ever existed, who has come close to using the full potential of the brain.

Let me share with you a couple of statistics I learned many years ago, which to this day remain the most incredible statistics I have ever come across. They both address the absurdness that we ‘fill’ our brains up like a tap filling a water bottle.

The first is from Mark Rosenzweig a pioneer in brain plasticity research. He found that if the brain were fed 100 pieces of data, like a word or image, each second for 100 years, it would barely use up one tenth of its storage capacity!

Here’s my favourite:

Understanding that the brain contains a minimum of 1,000,000,000,000 neurons or nerve cells each of which has the potential to connect or interact with anywhere from 1 to 100,000 other neurons, it was for the longest time believed that the total number of permutations or interactions between these cells was the number 1, followed by 800 noughts! Incredible.

Incredible until you read that Professor Petr Anokhin from Moscow University concluded that this figure was totally underestimated. His new number, if written out in regular size script, (and this blows me away every time I mention it), is:

The number 1, followed by 10.5 million KILOMETERS of figures in length. That’s over 250 times the circumference of the Earth!

You’d probably run out of ink.

So the next time you hear someone say, I’ve only got so much room up there, you can throw them those statistics….if you can remember them that is….

Funny, unique and interactive in his entertaining conference keynotes and workshops, Bob Gray reveals the untapped potential in each of us. His empowering systems and their many applications in the business world give participants immediate ‘walk away’ value. Book Bob Gray today as your next conference keynote speaker.