For YEARS I have been doing this memory demonstration where before I speak I will meet up to 301 people (the most I have ever done was 301 in Canada at a conference) then when I am up on stage I will have the group stand up and I will go down the rows repeating their names. June 12, 2009 I spoke for Erik Swanson’s Universal Seminars conference in Houston, Texas and I did this memory improvement demonstration. An interesting side note, is that Erik has seen me do this so many times and he has learned the system himself so well that he now does this name memory demonstration in his speeches and can easily get over 100 names!

I enjoy doing this for many reasons:

1. It demonstrates the power of a trained memory
2. It gets an amazing response from the audience every time
3. During the speech it enables me to use people’s name which is the sweetest sound to their ear
4. It is a RISK!! What if I don’t get it? Then I risk looking like a fool. But the reward far outweighs the risk and although I rarely score 100% correct (typically in the 97-99% correct range) I have yet to fail at the demo. But the risk is an adrenaline rush for me.
5. To continue to exercise my brain and push myself

Interesting enough, my first memory improvement speech was in Fort Worth, Texas for a printing company named Summit Press. I remember it like it was yesterday. It was 1992 and there were 5 people in this meeting. I only talked to 3 of them because I wasn’t sure I could remember all their names!! Ha! Talk about butterflies as a memory speaker. Now, more than 20 years later 5 is something I will do in 15 seconds :)

The key to remembering names is not to show off, it is to make people feel important and special and build relationships. The person who does that will be leaps and bounds ahead of the business person who says, ‘I know I sold you a car two months ago because I never forget a face but could I get your name again?’

So enjoy this memory demonstration and if you want to know how I did it visit this link for a free names training video http://www.brainathlete.com/remember-names-faces/