Another list of stories from the Forum not included in Testimonials.

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Real life Stories

GMS student against Swedish memory champion?

Ok, and now to something very exciting that I discovered this week... I happened to stumble upon a blog by the Swedish record holder in memory. Then I started to read about the official memory competitions, it's disciplines and the World Memory Championships. The thing is that it is only one guy in Sweden who competes, so he of course has all the records. He has been competing for several years and to my total astonishment: I think I could beat some of his records! At least at home anyway

I also read some interviews by him where he explained some of his techniques, and honestly I was not very impressed. I think GMS has far more potential, also for people who have the fetish of competing in such things (like myself!!!)

One of the disciplines: Speed Numbers. Memorize as many single digit numbers as possible in 5 minutes. Swedish record: 120. That would equal setting the MM at 60 numbers at 5 seconds, with a 100% recall. Definitely possible!

So I printed the Random Number Sheet they use for competing, and thought I would try this thing as they do it. It was shockingly difficult and by this I learned some very important things. Having a paper totally filled with numbers without any spaces was completely different from working with the MM. Here I was forced to have my eyes totally focused at the number at the same time as visualizing. Something I have been working a bit on, but here it became a total necessity.

Also: Here I was not pushed on from number to number as with Memorization Master. I clearly saw how extremely important rhythm is for memorization and for concentration to remain. It is so true that the brain needs be under this steady outside force, to stay on track.

So I have also practiced for a couple of days now with the numbers sheet. This I have been doing keeping a gentle rhythm on my lap, which makes the whole thing possible. And I notice that the brain slowly starts to adopt memorizing from this paper, but it is still so much more frustrating than the Memorization Master. Although I was already able to do a perfect score of 80 single digit numbers in 4:27, so after some more practice that record will definitely be mine!

Memorizing drill locations at work

I work in the seismic oilfield industry. We look for oil using vibrations caused by explosives planted in the ground that is picked up by highly sensitive equipment. Without a pen to write down depths, locations, and quantities of explosives, we were pretty well screwed. Unless of course you have a Phenomenal Memory. When I told my co-worker that I would just memorize the data and write it down later that night (9 hours of data 10 hours later) he laughed. When he realized I was serious he said that that would be impossible to do. I assured him of my ability and we began...

We came across a buried high pressure pipe line as well. This meant that a dozen or so 'points' were relocated. I added those numbers to list in a different category. The driller didn't remember even seeing the pipeline!

He completed his drill logs and all of the data matched and the math worked out perfectly. He thanked me for helping him out and said he would never forget this... I bet he will though.

Japanese Kanji

I am learning Japanese, working on the characters. I am already done with Kana, they were a piece of cake with GMS. I am currently working on Kanji. The number of Kanji considered necessary to function in the Japanese society is 1945, but that doesn't include characters used in names and in technical books and such, which accounts for another 1000 more or less.

I have memorized 1000 in about one month, and only have another 2000 to go. As soon as I am finished, I will do a second pass for the pronunciation in both Japanese and Chinese, so I will be already covered in the future when I will tackle Chinese as well.

So bottom line is, yes, you can use GMS for kanji.

Quick cheat sheets for exam

I memorized a whole bunch of assembly code before and exam and aced it. Not that it was the right thing to do but... I had to do what I had to do. I had to be a survivor like MacGyver. Mental cheat sheets are great!

Medical School

I'm a 2nd year student in medical school, starting my 3rd year now. I have used this memory system for all my courses. In my class I am among the people with the best grades, yet I study less than almost everyone else.

Self confidence

Thanks once more Ruslan, I no longer live in fear that my brain injury will affect my mental performance. If anything, the injury has made my brain better by the fact that I would have never looked for memory programs. I would have never gone through those various memory books (Buzan, Scheele, O'brien, etc..) I would have never found yours. So, once again, thanks a lot. You have cured me of my personal fear.

Time Savings

Now I was able to go through the first 24 lessons at the same time as I was starting college. I have 16 credit hours this semester, but taking the time to go through the lessons has really made college easier rather than harder. My ability to concentrate and remember has improved immensely, I feel much more 'mentally fit' than I did a few weeks ago.

Travel guide in your head

One anecdote from "real" life: Last summer I decided to bike 350 km down the Danube from Passau to Vienna. At that point I was still hacking away at the first database, and this trip -- already bought and paid for -- meant another break from getting through the database. On the plane to Europe I used the time to create support images of a new, much bigger database to cover the trip's daily routes, distances, historical dates of sites, names, etc. Not only did I finish the support image structure by the time I had landed, but I had also filled in items for my first two days and fixed them in memory. Then, each evening I continued filling in as much as I could and reviewed those items the next morning at breakfast. I had all essential information for each day at my fingertips and rarely needed to refer to maps or the guidebook. It was unbelievably fun to bike this route and have a feeling of dejá vù, and an unexpected benefit was quickly being able to label and annotate all the pix I took after returning home. There's a moral here: When you have a personal stake in the material, applying GMS goes really fast and efficiently. This personal database was a genuine pleasure to master

For Children

Truth be told. I'm only on lesson two. And maybe it's only because I'm so astounded that 12 years of public school and several years of college at a University in the U.S. never taught me these very simplistic methods for memorizing lists of information.

I have already used some of these basic principles to assist my 8 year old in learning his vocabulary words (what a word means) that he had been struggling on for weeks. We did this in less than an hour. We were both so happy and excited at the results.

Conquering ADHD

Through intense exercises presented in the first course, I was able to concentrate for the first time in my life (diagnosed as hyperactive when an infant, later as ADHD). In my writing, I often struggled to stay with the stated thesis. This issue has been eradicated. In my graphic design, I had a difficult time "seeing" the art as a whole and the relationships between elements in the design (thus weakening their effectiveness). This too has been wiped out. I credit the School of Phenomenal Memory for leading me to greater maturity in my abilities.

The Little Things at Work

This memory course is amazing. After only 24 lessons, or a little less than a month, I can easily memorize information and have it stick in my head for days. I always have the choice to “fix” the information in my head so that I have it permanently. This is coming in very handy for memorizing little things at work such as phone and extension numbers, part numbers, invoice numbers, transaction numbers, meeting action items, etc… This almost seems like child’s play after only 24 lessons. I’m finding that I need to write things down less and less. I am really looking forward to memorizing entire books. I can definitely see how that is possible with this course.

GMS and Exams

I post my testimonial 3 months after having performed the 2nd module exam because I wanted to test memorization techniques learned during the course in a real life situation like an exam. No doubt that the technique renders impressive results. I had tried for months to learn the topics for this exam without any result. I have been able to learn these same topics in 2 months more or less after applying the techniques I had learned during the first 2 modules of the course.

Remembering People's Names

I recently attended an IEMBA (International Executive Master's of Business Administration) Global forum, where 60 students from the program from other locations of the world arrived and we had 5 days to take courses and interact.

I set out to meet a bunch of people to network, and was concerned that I would, as usual, hear their names, then forget about them shortly after, which is usually the case when you meet a bunch of people all at once.

So I thought about how I could apply some of the skills I have learned so far on GMS and I used some techniques. As a result, I managed to meet most of the 60 students from the other locations and remember most of their names. I would use their names in casual conversation and most were surprised with the amount of names I remembered and used but seemed to be quite happy to be remembered. As a bonus, they made more effort to remember my name as a consequence.

I had several people approach me who had noticed that I was remembering names and said they were impressed, and I actually got a compliment "brain like a computer" from one person.

Why isn't memory training the standard of education?

This course literally changes the way you think about learning things. And I mean everything. Let me give you an example. When I started learning Japanese it took me 2 years to learn 100 Japanese characters by rote memorization. In Japan, everyone spends 8 years or so learning 2000 Kanji by rote memorization. Using a visual memory system, I learned about 700 in 4 weeks. I made sure to take a break after that so I could keep up with all of the review and fix them all at reflex level. Overall it took a lot of effort but it paid off. The thing that I find shocking about "Memory training" is that it isn't the standard of education everywhere. After learning about visual memory it's hard to believe that people still use rote memory to learn anything.

Learning Scrabble Words

My memory has improved vastly since completing the course - nearly 4 weeks ago. I haven't managed the 1000 7-letter scrabble words yet, but I have learned, and remember several hundred new words in the past 3 weeks. I make lists for myself with up to 100 words at a time with a particular theme, such as ending in "like" or "ae" or "Q" words. I then use a combination of Cicero, Chain and Russian doll. I am delighted with the ease of recall and am not confusing the lists. I even went to my first Scrabble tournament yesterday and came 3rd out of my group of 20.

Behavior Modification

The examples used in the later courses (ie Greene's Laws of Power) are based in logic (theoretical) and are supported with examples (concrete and abstract). Memorizing a Law, therefore, imprints much of the supporting text as well (though not automatically: it must be read). You'll find after encoding that review of the Laws begins to affect how you behave in certain situations (eg you'll know what to do, you suddenly have options where before you were stuck). What I have found with a book such as this is that the large number of Laws provides a sort of checks and balances system in your brain, allowing the situations to determine the behavior and your choices to affect the outcome.

You will never behave like a robot; rather, you will consider the options and behave accordingly.

Climbing Mount Improbable

I've been memorizing some bits of the books 'Mount Imbrobable', the 'Science of Influence', 'Mapping the Mind' and 'Unweaving the Rainbow'. Mostly just memorizing the key points.

For non-coursework memorization I have being reading and memorizing the following: 'The Republic of Plato', 'Mind Wide Open' by Steven Johnson, and 'The Portable Atheist'.

Private Pilot Certificate

I'm going to be getting my Private Pilot Certificate next year, so I'm going to need to either waste tons and tons of time reading and re-reading study materials for the exams, or I can just memorize the entire test question-bank from the FAA...

Well, I actually decided on memorizing the study material for the test, which includes all the information needed for the questions, but in a more organized manner. So, tonight was Unit 1:

Unit 1 - Airplanes and Aerodynamics
1.1 - Flaps and Rudders
1.1.1 - The flaps increase wing lift, allowing for greater angle of descent without increasing airspeed.
1.1.2 - The rudder controls the yaw about the vertical axis.

1.2 - Aerodynamic Forces
1.2.1 - The 4 forces are lift, weight, thrust, and drag.
1.2.2 - Un-accelerated flight is when lift=weight and thrust=drag.
1.2.3 - The Bernoulli Principle states that increased airspeed creates less pressure. Hence, lift on the top of the wings.

1.3 - Angle of Attack
1.3.1 - The angle of attack is the angle between the Wing Chord Line and the direction of the Relative Wind.
1.3.1a - Wing Chord Line is the imaginary line between the leading and trailing edges of the wing.
1.3.1b - Relative wind is the angle between the wings and the direction of the airflow.
1.3.2 - The angle of attack which creates a stall is the same regardless of weight, configuration, or aircraft.

1.4 - Stalls and Spins
1.4.1 - Stalls occur when the Critical Angle of Attack is exceeded.
1.4.2 - Stalls occur at the same airspeed, regardless of altitude.
1.4.3 - A spin is when one wing stalls less than the other.
1.4.3a - A stall must occur for spin to occur.

1.5 - Frost
1.5.1 - Frost happens when the surface temperature is at or below the dew point, and the dew point is below freezing.
1.5.1a - Water vapor in the air freezes instantly when it deposits on the surface.
1.5.2 - Frost interferes with the smooth airflow around the wings.
1.5.2a - Decreasing lift.
1.5.2b - Increasing drag.
1.5.3 - Frost can make take-off difficult to impossible.
1.5.4 - Frost should be removed before take-off.

1.6 - Ground Effect
1.6.1 - Interference of airflow created by being too close to the ground.
1.6.2 - Affects upwash, downwash, and wingtip vortices.
1.6.3 - Reduced wingtip vortices also reduce induced angle of attack and induced drag(I really don't know what that means, but I memorized it)
1.6.4 - Ground Effect occurs within one wingspan from the ground.
1.6.5 - Ground Effect can cause a landing plane to float above the ground, or a plane to take-off without sufficient airspeed. Once the airplane leaves the ground effect area, it will abruptly return to the ground.

1.7 - Airplane Turn
1.7.1 - Airplane turn is caused by horizontal lift, created by coordinating ailerons, rudder, and the elevator.
1.7.2 - The rudder controls yaw, but it does not turn the airplane.

1.8 - Airplane Stability
1.8.1 - A stable aircraft will return to it's original attitude after being disturbed. This makes controlling the airplane easier.
1.8.2 - Longitudinal stability is a factor of the center of gravity and the center of lift.
1.8.3 - Moving the center of gravity further back will decrease stability, and make stall-recovery more difficult.

1.9 - Torque and P-Factor
1.9.1 - Torque effect is greatest during low airspeed, high angle of attack, and high power.
1.9.2 - P-Factor will yaw the airplane left at high angles of attack.

1.10 - Load Factor
1.10.1 - Load factor is the combination of weight and centrifugal force.
1.10.1a - Load factor increases with airspeed.
1.10.1b - Increased load factor increases stall speed.
1.10.1c - Increased angle of bank increases load factor.

So that's Unit 1. There are 11 units in this book, most of them between 35 and 70 points, one is nearly 200(FAA regulations). I'll be starting on the next unit tomorrow. It's unbelievable to me to be able to do this, yet here I am!

For Local Government Buffs

Here is an application of GMS skills for language and local government buffs. I have lived in Iceland for some years now but grew up in an English-speaking country. I therefore missed out on several cultural milestones here in Iceland. One of those is a basic grasp of the country's place names and their relative locations.

In compulsory school Icelanders learn where places are on the island by thinking of them as being on the face of a clock (the island) and proceeding clockwise from the capital ReykjavikI have now taken this local government database and begun beefing it up with the names of important farms in each municipality.

Wonders of the World

I was quite busy today, trying to finish up some projects by Monday. I made a goal to memorize something every day though, so I just decided to add onto my Wonders of the World Database.

1 - Pyramid at Giza. I added the dimensions of the base, approximately 756 feet on each side. I also added that it's part of the Necropolis, which I plan on studying tomorrow. I already knew it was built by Khufu, but I added the data just to make sure I never forgot.

2 - Hanging Gardens. Constructed by Nebuchadnezzar II in Babylon for his wife Amytis of Media. Not quite sure on these estimates but for now I'm going with the gardens being approximately 400ft. x 400ft. x 82 ft

3 - Temple of Artemis. Constructed at Ephesus by Chersiphron. Destroyed July 21, 356 BC. by Herostratus. He burned it to gain immortality through fame. He was executed and a mandate was made not to record his name, but he did become known for that anyway. Alexander the Great was actually born that very day, and it was said that Artemis was too busy making sure he was delivered safely to save her burning temple.

4 - Statue of Zeus. Made by Phidias, located in Olympia.

5 - Mausoleum of Mausolus at Halicarnassus.

6 - Colossus of Rhodes. A statue of the god Helios, created by Charles of Lindos

7 - Lighthouse at Alexandria. Ordered created by Ptolemy Soter, finished under the rule of his son Ptolemy Philadelphos.

It's not much, but GMS allows you to take just a short amount of time(even at 1AM when you get home) and learn something that you will easily be able to remember for as long as you wish.

Where did I park the car?

I went on a little trip this last weekend and had to leave my car for a day at the airport parking lot. When I got out of my car, I suddenly felt some worry about remembering where I was parked when I got back... I've been in that situation before, thinking to myself 'Was I parked on the 3rd level, section 2-Green, or was it the 2nd level, section 3-Yellow?' I have been known to walk around the wrong section for a while before realizing my mistake. Back to the story though. As I got out of the car, I looked up at the sign. Blue C6. As I walked toward the shuttle stop I realized that I had automatically memorized that sign, and the worry dissipated. When I got back to the parking lot the next day, I simply thought to myself 'Now where did I park?', and all the necessary information came to mind, so I calmly got off at pick-up 8, spotted the sign, and found my car.

It's another one of the little things, but often the little things are what are really important. I didn't have to worry or think about my car for the whole trip.

Methodical Literature

I've managed to finish memorizing “How to Win Friends and Influence People” from lesson 51 as well as I would like to for the time being. I have all of the main concepts very firmly fixed and memory along with supporting paragraphs from the chapters. I don’t think I can really say that I have the entire book memorized, but I do know the material very well. I could memorize the book entirely, but I don’t feel it is necessary and would like to go on to other things.

I see on TV like documentaries, movies, discussions. There's no need to let this information slip by unmemorized. I also use a technique similar to foreign words memorization to memorize all those brilliant ideas I always get. This also works for short quotes when you're not really interested in remembering them in order. And then I sometimes memorize things as table data (like information from a documentary, which is well structured) or using return method (points from discussions that goes back and forth between topics, longer quotes). Actually this is the kind of practice I would recommend to anybody to make GMS start feeling like second nature.

Memorizing Lectures

I already store all the important information from listening to my audiobooks and seminar tapes using GMS. I've not yet finished all the GMS lessons yet and I can tell you that I find it relatively easy to store important info while someone talks. I found that the "density" of important informations in a speech is much lower than in a technical book as there is habitually way more fluff talk, filler, and repetition.

I use GMS while reading, and I also use it sometimes while listening to documentaries. FAR more practical than taking written notes, and virtually eliminates boredom and distraction!

Bicycle Route

I memorized a 158 turning point bicycle route and rode it all in a week. I did keep a printout for the miles, but I could've memorized all that as well were I so inclined.

Four Microsoft Certifications

GMS has indeed provided a measure of relief in more ways that I can list here. I who had zero technical skill in the computer world now have four Microsoft certifications. More importantly I still have the information I used to pass the test, tucked in my computer folder in my mind. I can access this information at the speed of snapping my finger...Sometimes we have to go ahead and jump even if we are afraid. I say this because it is a natural reaction to criticize what we are afraid of, it is likely more frighten to admit a flaw about ourselves.

I recently applied what I learned from GMS using IT training videos. The process goes a lot faster for me. I chose the C++ programing language because of a job opportunity in my area. In two days the course was encoded in my brain without having to go back to the video and see what was said. If this is not powerful then I don't know what is. It is not that you are interested in taking and passing certification tests or being able to recall an entire 65 lesson lecture on C++. The point is to use the system for whatever moves you.

Database Developer

I am a database applications developer and I have been a web developer so I can speak from experience that GMS will help you with software development/programming. You can easily memorize the syntax of a programming language using GMS. In fact it is very easy. However just learning the syntax of a language does not make you a good programmer.

The main thing that determines if you are a good programmer is how you solve problems and not how much of a programming language’s syntax you know. GMS will teach you to think visually and not with words. When you think visually, problems are much easier to solve.

My other work colleagues have to take a couple of months to write detailed specifications for any application they write before they can even start to write the application. In less time it takes them to write the application, I usually have the application written. The reason for this is that my colleagues think procedurally using words, so it is difficult for them to solve problems and find solutions quickly, so they have to write everything down and go through it again and again until they can think of a way to progress with the application.

I don’t think procedurally, I think visually so I see the solution very quickly and I know what I need to do and how it will all look. In effect I have ‘written’ the application in my head before I even touch the keyboard. My applications also have fewer bugs in them than my colleague’s applications because I can see the application working in its entirety unlike my colleagues who can only deal with a small part at a time.

When you learn to solve problems visually the solution to a problem becomes much easier. Words can get in the way and can actually mislead you.

Memory + New Visualization Ability

GMS changed my life... I gave up university years ago because of my inability to memorize. (concentration was a problem as well.) Now the problem is another one.. I can't choose which university to tackle because they all now seem a piece of cake, and I am interested more or less in everything. Guess I will end up like an egghead or something like that .

The most important thing I got from GMS, apart from the practical ability of memorizing, is the concept of visual thinking. It is REALLY much more fluid. My current visualization ability is extremely advanced... I can even visualize 10 connections at the same time, sometimes more.. it's like having a big painting in my head. And the best part is that my abilities are trained, when I started I couldn't visualize that much, so what I am doing YOU can do with a regular dose of training. The sky's the limit.

Quantum Computing

First, I would like to report that I have just finished impressing the hell out of my wife. I kept the fact that I was memorizing a Quantum Computing book secret from her and just now recited for her whole paragraphs, theorems, definitions, etc that she chose at random from the book!