Well it has been a unique month or so for me. Borderline scary…
I have made my living for years training people on the power of their minds and demonstrating that power with memory demonstrations that I routinely perform on stage. However, the last few months I have been drawing blanks on names of people that I have known for a YEAR! Once during a speech I tried to recall a 50 digit number and my mind went 100% blank. It was awful. I began to question if I was losing my memory at the age of 38? If so, what would I do as a career?!!
Actually, even if I was losing my memory ability it wouldn’t impact my career that much. I have made my living for the last 20 years in the memory training field not because of the demos I could perform, tournaments I won or records I broke. I would say this is only 15% of my success. The majority of my success in this business is because I am a good salesman, speaker and marketer and I can help people. That will continue whether I lose my mental quickness or not. With that said, why in the WORLD would I want to have a memory that isn’t firing on all cylinders!?
So I have to ask myself:
– Have I been allowing myself to become stressed lately? Yes, I have and stress is a terrible enemy to your memory
– Have I been exercising to keep my blood flowing well (including to my brain)? No, I haven’t. I haven’t worked out regularly in 8 months
– Have I been eating healthy and good brain foods? No I haven’t…junk, junk, junk and plenty of ballpark hot dogs
– Has my alcohol consumption been more than just a few glasses on nights before a big speech? Yes it has and this clouds the memory in a terrible way
– Have I relied on sleep aids such as Tylenol PM to go to sleep the last few months? Yes, I have and this clouds the head the next day
So there you have it. I am not getting old. I have just been doing a TERRIBLE job at taking care of my memory. Enough is enough! I started today taking care of my brain again and after 1 day complete in the books I feel a little better. I will keep you posted on my progress and I encourage you to protect your brain as well!
