They say that a good deal of success in life just comes down to who you know. That’s certainly true, but I might amend that to include the people you’ve met and can remember.

If that seems like a small distinction, it isn’t – most of us meet hundreds, and maybe thousands, of people who could help us live better lives in dozens of different ways, if only we could make the right connections and associations at the right times. In other words, if we could recall the name of that great contractor we met, the recommendation for the dentist we got, or who the boss’s nephew was again, more things would tend to go our way.

That’s why it’s important that you make the most of holiday parties this year. It’s a virtual guarantee that you’re going to meet someone you’d like to know, or at least remember, at a later date, but most of us aren’t as strong with names and faces as we would like.

With that in mind, here are some quick tips for remembering the names and faces of people you meet at holiday parties this season:

Make a quick image association. This is one of the easiest memory techniques to learn, and one of the most powerful. When you meet a new person, associate their name with some image in your mind; perhaps they remind you of someone you know or someone famous. Or simply associate them with someone you know or someone famous who has the same name. Hold it firm for a moment or two. The stronger the picture is, emotionally speaking, the easier it will be to recall later.

Remember where you are when you meet someone. If you can recall where you were when you met someone, or who you were with, you stand a much better chance of recalling their name later. So, take a quick mental snapshot of your location and associate it with the new name.

Spell their name. Spelling their name forces you to hear it, most times we don’t actually forget a name, we just don’t remember it in the first place, and this is usually because we don’t hear it.

Say or repeat their name. Use the name once or twice in your initial conversation. Say the person’s name, either out loud in conversation or quietly to yourself. Then, remind yourself again at a later time of their name, and it will likely stick in your memory.

These are only simple techniques, of course, but they work. In my keynotes and workshops, I teach attendees to quickly memorize names and faces in rapid succession, and you can easily learn to do the same. Best of all, if you practice these techniques regularly, the names won’t just stay with you, but you’ll be able to recall them later, and maybe even for years to come.

Imagine how convenient it would be to remember the names, faces, and details of everyone you met at holiday parties, industry events, and social gatherings!

The post Are You Ready to Make the Most of Holiday Parties? appeared first on Funny Motivational Speaker, Entertaining Humorist - Bob Gray.

This is actually the foundation on which every Guinness Memory record is achieved.

The second key is to form what you wish to remember into an image, something which stimulates the right side of our brain, the creative side. The third key is to then associate or link these two images together; the image of what you wish to remember, to the thing you already know, and here’s the key, the link must be as silly, as crazy and ridiculous as possible. This is critical, the crazier the image, the better the recall.

Just to show you how this works, let’s take five random things to remember:

Photo Album, Sarah Palin, a Cactus, Noah’s Ark and Gold Bars.

Now we will link them together in a crazy ridiculous scenario. Imagine:

Looking through an old photograph album, as you turn the page, Sarah Palin suddenly jumps out from the album, see her in as much detail as you can, perhaps her hair tied up, her rimless glasses, nice smile. She has her arms outstretched above her head and she is holding a huge cactus, as if she is pumping iron, only instead of holding weights above her head, she is holding a huge cactus. Perhaps the needles are pricking her hands. She can’t hold it any longer, it’s too painful, so she hurls it through the air and it lands on top of Noah’s Ark, try to hear the smashing and splintering sound of the wood as it crashes on top of the Ark. As the Ark cracks open see hundreds of shiny Gold Bars flying out from its hold.

Now go back to the image you had of the photograph album, close your eyes and recall the remaining four items.

Easy right? See how each linked item jumps out from your memory. I know it’s only five items but as you will learn in later posts it could just as easily be ten or twenty….as long as the associations linking the images are crazy ridiculous and nonsensical.

Oh, and by the way, you just memorized the first five US states alphabetically.

Album = Alabama
Sarah Palin = Alaska
Cactus = Arizona
Noah’s Ark = Arkansas
Gold Bars = California (Gold Rush)

On a more practical note the Chain or Link method can be used to recall speeches and presentations, to-do lists and shopping lists, and in conjunction with another memory system, even equations and formulas, in fact anything which needs to be recalled in a specific sequence. I will tackle these in later posts.

Maybe next time I will show you how to remember their capital cities. I just had a thought, perhaps to get you used to visualizing ridiculous images; we can memorize all 50 state capitals, that’s sure to win you a drink in a bar!

By the way, Papua looks like a camel, with a little imagination, and Sri Lanka looks like a tear drop.

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