[[Aidan's Infinite Play CB 4-9-2023]] URL: # Aidan's Infinite Play 30 The Victorious Mind: The Ultimate Guide to Calm Your Mind and Memorize Anything with Ease Hello players! Most students go about their day asleep, their mind a constant humdrum of intrusive thoughts that go blah blah blah blah blah, da da da da da. Did I study enough for that exam, when's my next homework assignment, oh crap my essay's due tonight! **It's exhausting.** Anthony Metivier, the author of The Victorious Mind, felt the same way until he learned to calm the storm inside his head. Using a combination of the meditation, breathing, journaling, and memory techniques he discusses in the book, he transitioned from a chronically depressed Ph.D. student to someone with a boundless radiant joy for life. In this article, I will teach you how to make the same transformation Anthony did by giving a book summary of The Victorious Mind (I will go chapter by chapter but skip over the ones I find less insightful). By the end of this article, you will have all the tools you need to cultivate your victorious mind and memorize anything quickly. We will learn in order: How meditation, breathing, journaling, and memory techniques change your brain How to meditate How to breathe (that's right, most people aren't doing so correctly!) How to eat, exercise, and sleep to cultivate a victorious mind How to memorize numbers, speeches, concepts, names, languages, books, and more with The memory palace technique The Major Method The celebrity list Let's get into it! # Part I In the Eye of the Storm ### 1 Beyond the Buddha Smile to Bliss Why does the combination of these four things work? It's because using these techniques changes the structure of the brain. It moves your usual way of being in the brain from the default mode network--the part of the brain responsible for thoughts about the past and future--to the task-positive network--the part responsible for thinking about the present. We open ourselves to experiencing a perpetual present, free from intrusive thoughts. We allow ourselves to feel what Anthony Metivier calls the Buddha smile, a radiant blissful energy in the forehead behind which the task-positive network resides in the brain. **But it doesn't just benefit us.** When we memorize information that enhances ourselves, we improve our ability to enhance everyone else at college or even the entire population. We become magnetic, attracting information that matters and repelling information that doesn't. We become guiding lights for other people to cultivate their own victorious minds. You might be thinking, that sounds more Woo Woo than Donkey Kong going down a slipping slide with Mario. I promise you it's not. I was skeptical at first too, but after _applying_ the methods he talks about in the book, I have noticed the storm raging in my head temper as well. I used to be doing way too many things alongside school. Here's a short list of everything I'm doing this semester: - Taking 4 classes and TAing for one - Interviewing to become a Research Assistant - Maintaining a weekly newsletter and YouTube channel, biweekly blog, and two podcasts - Creating a digital course with fellow YouTuber John Mavrick helping University students build a knowledgebase that scales across semesters - Participating in the Cornell Speech Club, the SKITS Comedy Club, the Board Game Club, and the Outing Club. - Maintaining a healthy social network seeing friends every day and continuing to call my parents and brother - Growing my relationship with my girlfriend - Developing a stand up comedy bit with my brother - Continuing to explore curiosities in random books for fun I could ride the wave of inspiration by doing all these things at the beginning of the semester. But once the inspiration wave started to temper, I began feeling low thrumming anxiety throughout my day. I was doing too much. I hampered down on the amount I was doing. Then I came across The Victorious Mind. And by applying the concepts in the book, I achieved a clarity of mind I have never had. **I'm cultivating a victorious mind.** And you can to. Let's talk about how. # Part II Become the Storm Part II of the book is about how to temper the mind to open you up for the memory techniques introduced later. ### 6 How Rules Help Eliminate the Tyranny of Free Will This chapter is all about freeing yourself from the need to feel in control. (Technically this chapter appears in part III of the book, but I thought it is better placed here) If we want to understand how meditation, breathing, journaling, personalized health, and memory techniques can help us temper the storm in our mind, we must first understand what creates the storm in the first place. **A massive creator of useless negative feelings and thoughts is the need to feel in control of our lives.** Needing to control our grades on an assignment, our friends at college, or the campus vending machines. I could have a master key to unlock all the machines and dispense snacks to your heart's desire. Then I could create a vending machine empire, strategically placing machines in all the prime locations on campus and becoming the go-to source for late-night munchies. Sorry got a little off track. Ahem. Anthony argues this need for control comes from the belief that we have free will. Anthony argues that free will is an illusion because everything we think we "have control over" is simply neurochemicals interacting in the brain to make us act. Accepting our lack of free will isn't dreary but rather freeing. One of my personal philosophies, The Ancient Greek Stoics, can show why. The core fundamental tenet of Stoicism is that you should live your life through [[The dichotomy of control]]. There are only two things fully in our control: 1. Our reactions to our thoughts 2. Our actions **Everything else is outside of it.** This realization allows you to avoid the incredible psychological anguish that comes from resisting the present, resisting what you can't control. _Instead you can just be._ This doesn't mean you don't try to change things. You can attempt to improve the world while appreciating it for what it is, and not putting your well-being on the outcome. To reach this beautiful state of non-control Anthony recommends the reader ingrains one of his favorite quotes from Tony Buzan: **"The rules will set you free."** By rules, he means the values you live by, the habit stacks you create for yourself, and the routines you follow. Instilling your own rules like these and following them isn't constraining but rather freeing. It allows you to fully immerse yourself in the present moment, knowing you are acting as you know you should be. When you desperately try to be in control of things without rules, you submit yourself to the storm of intrusive thoughts and suffer as a result. **But when you surrender to the logic of putting structure around events and sticking with it, many great things happen as a result.** For example, most of my days are relatively the same. I wake up, exercise, write for 90 minutes, go to class, eat lunch, read, write, and take long walks, potentially socialize, get dinner, and read, journal, read some more and go to bed. Of course I deviate from this routine often, but the rules surrounding it aren't constraining but freeing. They allow me to focus on the present moment knowing the activities I'm doing helps me work towards my purpose day in and day out. Now that we know how the need to be in control causes the storm in our mind, we can discuss how we can begin to temper it. ### 2 Mindfulness, Meditation, and Memory Improvement This chapter asks the question, why are meditation and memory so interlinked? It's because the quality at which we remember something is primarily bent on how aware we are at the time of encoding. Meditation at its core is about becoming more aware of the present. So practicing meditation cultivates better memory by making us more aware of the present. Ultimately the thesis of the book is quite simple. **Achieving a victorious mind comes with practicing meditation, breathing, journaling, getting good food, sleep, exercising, and starting a memorization practice.** But just because it's simple doesn't mean it's easy. Nowadays, awareness is at its lowest point ever, especially for my generation. Our digital devices, social media, and the news constantly distract us. So it's no wonder my generation is the most anxious and depressed out of any previous one ever. That's where meditation comes in. Starting a meditation practice is really simple. For a defined period per day you make the intention to focus your attention on something. That's it. I like to meditate for ten minutes before I exercise in the morning. For those getting started, I recommend using Headspaces introduction to meditation program. However, the ultimate goal is to meditate on your own. Here are some of my favorite meditations. Please, stop reading and try each one out for a couple of minutes. I'm serious, get a timer. Applying what is in the book is the only way to achieve a victorious mind. - Do nothing meditation. It's exactly what it sounds like. For a set period, you make the intention to do nothing. When intrusive thoughts come up brush them away and return to your state of doing nothing. - Body relaxation meditation. In this meditation, you flex your muscles with the breadth from bottom to top. Starting with the feet, you flex them as you breathe in and relax them as you breathe out. Then you work your way up to the face going through the calves, hamstrings and quads, the glutes, the abdominals, back and chest, the shoulders and arms, the hands, and finally the face and neck. - Expanding consciousness meditation. In this meditation you slowly expand your consciousness from yourself to the universe. Start with your consciousness focused on a point on your forehead. Every fourth breadth expands your consciousness one rung out. From your forehead to your whole body, body to the room, room to the city or town you are in, then to the world, and finally to the universe. These simple meditations can help you get started. The important thing to remember is that [[Meditation isn't isolated to the meditation practice.]]. The purpose of the practice is for you to bring your awareness during the meditation into all of your day's activities; to cultivate a present awareness during all of your day's activities. The next chapter helps solidify your meditation practice by adding breadth exercises to the mix. ### 3 Breathing, Walking, Remembering: an Instant-on Magic Carpet Ride for Your Mind "Control the breadth and you control the mind." - Gary Webber We usually breathe totally unconsciously. But focusing on the breadth is a powerful way of grounding yourself in the present and a great addition to your meditation practice. Here are some of my favorite breathing exercises for during meditation and throughout the day. Once again, I encourage you to practice each of these breathing techniques while reading. Application is king: - Pendulum breathing. Breath in until when you would normally exhale, but then take a sharp tiny inhale afterward. Then exhale until when you would normally inhale, but then take a little more of an exhale. Repeat. - Patterned breathing. Inhale for a count of 5, hold for 7, and exhale for 8. Why these numbers? No real reason. You can change them up anytime you want and should. Humans love variety and challenge, so try to keep yourself in the [[Goldilocks zone]]. - Psychic alternate nostril breathing. Inhale through just the right of your nose, exhale from just your left, and then inhale from just your left, repeating the process but vice versa. You don't have to just breathe through one side of your nose. It might not be possible. The simple act of imagining your will ground you in the present. Attentive readers might realize you can combine some of the breathing techniques mentioned with pendulum breathing to add more challenge to the exercise. I encourage you to practice these breathing exercises throughout your day to ground yourself in the present moment as a form of meditation. ### 4 You Think What You Eat Even practicing meditation won't fix a bad diet, exercise regime, or sleep schedule. Anthony explains that no matter how much you calm the storm inside your head, imbalance in any three of these things will cause the intrusive thoughts we are trying to get rid of to return. This book summary isn't meant to be a treatise on how to eat healthier, exercise, and sleep better. There are plenty of resources out there on that. But I do have one major tip from the book, which I found very insightful. **Remember that your health is an N = 1.** There is no one else with the same body, genetics, and experiences as you. The food, exercise regime, and sleep schedule that works for someone else might not work for you. Therefore the best way to cultivate these three things isn't to blindly copy and paste someone else's regime exactly but to experiment. That's right, you get to be your very own Albert Einstein! **Start a food, exercise, and sleep journal.** Write about how you feel after eating a meal, doing certain forms of exercise, and sleeping at certain times. Over time you will begin to understand how specific things effect you. Than you can create your own N = 1 lifestyle. You need this triad health foundation to cultivate a victorious mind. ### 7 Meditative Journaling: Navigate Your Way to Calmer Seas For a long time, I thought of journaling as simply showing gratefulness. This was in large part due to the degree of mindless self-help content online that all said the same thing: write what you are grateful for in the morning. **But Anthony shows it's so much more than that.** Here are a couple of the main things I have learned about journaling. Firstly, it's a meditative practice. Journaling helps you navigate your way to calmer seas by allowing you to think through and process events. Admittingly the gratitude journaling mentioned by so many self-help gurus is encompassed in this and can be a profoundly happiness-boosting activity. In fact, people who journal feel time slow down. When you process events and ask how they affected you, you see and use your time differently. **Time stops flowing by but rather through you.** Secondly, journaling allows you to do what I call [[Lifestyle Design MOC]]. Lifestyle design is the art of crafting the best possible life for you. It requires you to learn about yourself and use this information to create the best consistent average day. Journaling is one of the best ways to learn more about yourself because you can process how events affected you over the long term. You can come at your life like a scientist, asking what events, people, and activities make you feel a certain way and shifting course with that in mind. If you would like to check out how to lifestyle design using journaling check out my video [Creating My Best Average Day With Obsidian Periodic Notes](https://youtu.be/k9H9uJA4NlE). # Part III Calm the Storm This part focuses on how you can enhance your memory with memory techniques. The reason Anthony started the book talking about meditation, breathing, personalizing health, and journaling, BEFORE getting into the memory techniques is because you need to have a calm mind before trying to memorize information. Why are memory techniques the ultimate last step? Because, at the end of the day, cultivating a victorious mind involves learning to live more mindfully in the present. And as we will see combining memory techniques with meditation, breathing, and journaling is the true key to staying in the present. This is because the memory techniques take tremendous focus and present awareness to use to their full potential. And the best part? They're really really fun to use. But staying present more often isn't the only benefit. Fostering a greater memory can help you: - Study more effectively in less time - Learn more effectively by establishing a knowledge foundation of a topic - Increase creativity - Slow time down - Memorize vocabulary for a language - Memorize sentences - Memorize speech topics for giving a speech - Memorize concepts and entire books Side tangent, this is why I'm still astounded how there aren't required classes in high school or college about cultivating a victorious mind OR the memory techniques we will explore in this part. Instead, students are expected to memorize, understand, and apply vast amounts of information without a calm mind or these ancient memorization techniques. Let's change that. ### 8 Memory Palaces The foundation of all the other memorization techniques is the [[Memory palaces|memory palace]]. Memory palaces involve visualizing real or fake locations with images inside to assist in retrieving memories. The general idea is to take a place that you know quite well, like the candy store in town--you know you frequented that place a lot, admit it--and place vivid images inside of them representing the things you want to remember. Then remembering becomes a simple act of walking through your memory palace in your mind's eye and recalling whatever you want to remember from the images throughout. Memory palaces work so well to memorize information because they work off the fact that humans have incredible spatial memory and an incredible memory for vivid, unexpected, and strange visualizations. Anthony and I argue they are better than simple word-only flashcards in spaced repetition software (SPR). Because unlike in SPR, the memory palace inherently creates spatial relationships between ideas when you use it, is way more sticky in the mind, and is more fun to use. For example, recently, I have been doing lots of Impromptu Speaking in Speech and Debate. It requires tons of memorizing short anecdotes to exemplify points you want to make in speeches. So I have made my childhood home into a memory palace by placing incredibly memorable images throughout that serve as cue reminders for the Impromptu stories I want to tell. Take this impromptu story. During the three kingdoms period, the general Ma Su was tasked with defending Jieting from an invading army led by the famous clever and intelligent general, Zhuge Liang. Despite being warned by his advisers about the strength of the enemy forces and the risks of deploying an untested strategy, Ma Su insisted on deploying an "invisible army" with unmanned tents and fake soldiers to confuse the enemy. Unfortunately, the plan backfired miserably because Zhuge Liang had used the invisible army strategy before. In effect, he got a surprise attack on Ma Su's army destroying them. This story shows the danger of ignoring outside feedback. This would take quite a long time to remember rotely, and even if I did, I likely wouldn't remember it years later if prompted. **Instead, I encapsulate this entire story in one image inside a closet on the third floor of my childhood home.** The image has Goku with a Chinese beard--meant to remind me of Ma Su, get it Goku, Ma Su--being whispered to by two Chinese advisors. They are hiding behind a fake tent with fake soldiers, which reminds me of the fake army strategy. Finally, Zhuge Liang sounds like "Huge Long" so I have an image of a super huge long Chinese general on a horse attacking Ma Su's encampment. I have done this for every one of my anecdotes for IMP. All the images are located spatially throughout my home in recognizable places, so remembering them is simply an act of "walking" through the home in my head and seeing the images pop up. But you don't just have to have one memory palace. #### The Memory Palace Network **The true beauty of this technique comes with creating an interconnected network of memory palaces to allow for memorizing vast amounts of things.** You need to create a memory palace network. It's actually really simple. I suggest you do this exercise right now. Go and get a pen or pencil and paper. I'll wait. I have my peanut butter to keep me company. Got it. Good. Write down all the letters of the alphabet. Than, go through each letter and come up with every memory palace that comes to mind for that letter. You can start by thinking about people associated with that letter and then move on to people, places, actions, or objects to spur more memory palaces. For example, my memory palaces for the letter B include: - Beebe Lake - Becker Hall - Ben Coddington's Barn - Byrne Dairy Hamilton - Brainshop Cornell As you can see the memory palace locations you come up with don't have to be directly associated with the letter. For example, you might use a movie theatre for an L memory palace because you watched the Lord of the Rings inside of it. Going through this exercise, you will realize you have more memory palaces than you could ever need in the short term. ###### Indexing Your Memory Palaces What's the usefulness of having the memory palaces organized by the alphabet? It makes an easy-to-understand indexing system. As you create more and more memory palaces, you will start to have more than you can keep track. You might forget where you stored certain information or what memory palace to put new information in. But when you organize your memory palaces alphabetically, where to store information becomes obvious. You put it in the relevant alphabetical memory palace. For example, I put my anecdotes for Speech inside an A memory palace, Astrid and Ian's home. I stored a quote from Marcus Aurelius that I like in an M memory palace. Finally, I stored my memorizations from the book Drive in two connected D memory palaces. The alphabet serves as my brains own index. ##### The Memory Journal Another crucial aspect of using the Memory Palace technique is creating a memory journal. Your memory journal is where you draw your memory palaces and practice recalling what's inside of them. Here's mine:  Gotta support the Cornell Brand, am I right? The front is for drawing out your memory palaces. The back is for practicing recall of the information inside from memory. Anthony believes drawing out your memory palaces _before_ you try and memorize anything inside of them is so helpful because it allows you to put all of your focus into creating magnetic imagery rather than trying to figure out what order and where to put things inside of your memory palace. The process of drawing your memory palaces shouldn't take more than 1-5 minutes. All it is is a matter of drawing out the structure of the palace from your mind and indicating the different magnetic stations--places where you will put images to associate with things you want to remember--and then numbering and ordering those stations as well as indicating in a collum what each of the stations represents in the memory palace. Here's what some of my drawn-out memory palaces look like:  We will talk more about how to go about recall rehearsal--the act of recalling information from your memory palaces later on--but for now know that the back of your memory palace journal is for writing down the things you are trying to recall from memory. Here's one of the back pages in my memory journal:  ### Three Most Common Mistakes Regarding Memory Palaces 1. People "save" their best memory palaces for more important information. Don't procrastinate memorizing because you want to save your best memory palaces for later. Get started now. 2. People think memory palaces are for storing information. They are for assisting in embedding it into long-term memory, not for keeping the information itself. 3. People think they will run out of memory palaces. Firstly, this will take years before it could ever be an issue, and you can make more. Secondly, you can reuse memory palaces by removing old images inside them. You might be wondering, how do you encode information into the memory palaces in the most sticky way? A way that allows that information to stick in mind for years and years. That's what the next chapter is all about. ### 9 Mental Lego, or the Secrets of Encoding Any Information Using Magnetic Imagery When thinking about how to encode a visualization that is sticky, there are only a few things that you have to consider: - We remember connected things - Humans remember things in space - Humans remember vivid, surprising, and vulgar things. When encoding information into our memory palaces, we want to consider all of these things. But there's one more way to superpower your encodings so they stick out like a sore thumb, a good thing in this case. Make them personal to you. Instead of using any old cup in a memory palace, use the cup your dad has that says "being 60 isn't all that bad!" Instead of using any old bee use Berry Bensen from the Bee movie. Instead of using any old knight, use a knights radiant from the Stormlight archives. How do you build your store of personal associations? **Part of it comes down to simply being more aware of the world.** The more awareness you bring to your everyday life, the more personal things you will find to encode into your memory palaces. That's part of the reason the memory techniques are such a powerful present cultivating practice. If you want to use them to their full potential, you must be fully present. One thing Anthony recommends you do to find personal associations is to create a celebrity list. The celebrity list is a list of prominent people in your life you create to use inside of the images in your memory palaces. It works off the idea that celebrities are incredibly memorable, so using them in your image associations makes sense. Just like with creating your memory palace network, write down a list A through Z and then go one by one through each letter thinking of every celebrity you can come up with. They don't technically have to be celebrities. They can also be prominent people you have known in your life. **The list is personal to you.** Anthony does this exercise a couple of times a year and finds that it always brings with it a ton of new mental associations he can use inside of his encodings. But there's much more that we can do to make our encodings stick. #### The Magnetic Modes and Magnetic Characteristics The main way Anthony recommends you make encodings stick aside from making them personal is by utilizing the Magnetic Modes. Each magnetic mode involves a different sense of the body and mind. The more of these you add to any encoding, the more _magnetic_ it is in your mind and easier to decode when visiting the visualization later on. It's magnetic because it pulls the information you are trying to remember deeper into memory while repelling the information you aren't trying to remember. The magnetic modes can be summed up with the acronym KAVE COGS which stands for: K - Kinesthetic A - Auditory V - Visual E - Emotional C - Conceptual O - Olfactory G - Gustatory S - Spatial In addition, to the KAVE COGS memory modes, you can make encodings more sticky by implementing the magnetic characteristics which are:  I will give one example. A few days ago, I memorized a line from Marcus Aurelius's Meditations: "Not of the same blood or birth, but of the same mind." I already had an M memory palace--Morrison Hall at Cornell--drawn out and ready for this memorization. The only thing I had to do was create the encodings. The first step was isolating the uncommon words as well as the first word as it helps create a foundation for remembering the rest. The words were not, blood, birth, and mind. Than I tried to coming up with an encoding that would encapsulate the words. After a few seconds, I came up with Dracula--which associates with _blood_--tied to a table with rope--associating with _not_--giving _birth_ to a baby made of brain matter--associating with _mind_. **Disgusting I know. But that's what makes it memorable.** Than I ran through KAVE COGS and tried to add in each magnetic mode. For kinesthetic I _felt_ the pain of giving birth. For auditory I _heard_ Dracula screaming in anguish. For visual I _saw_ Dracula giving birth to a baby brain while tied to a table in Morrison Hall. For emotional I _felt_ Dracula's happiness and relief at having successfully birthed. For conceptual I imagined Dracula being _related_ to blood. For olfactory I _smelled_ the blood from Dracula. For gustatory I couldn't think of anything (not every magnetic mode must be used for every visualization). Finally, spatial was already naturally incorporated because of the encoding being inside a memory palace. The result is an image I can't help but remember every time I go back to that memory palace and that sentence from Marcus Aurelius forever being in my head. Use the same step-by-step process I just did for encoding information into a memory palace, and you can effectively encode anything, words, speeches, names, books, concepts etc. ### Memory Palace Sea Shelling And Magnetic Bridging Figures ### Sea Shelling The last thing you want to have become a problem while using a memory palace is getting stumbled upon where you are in your memory palace journey. However, going with the common advice of starting at the entrance to a memory palace will cause this to occur. You will cross your path. To avoid this, Anthony recommends sea shelling. In this technique, you navigate clockwise or counterclockwise around a room at the micro level or an entire memory palace network at the macro level. To make things even easier, you don't even have to walk around the room in your mind if you don't want. You can stand at a specific spot and peer inside navigating the stations spatially by looking toward different spots of a room. Another great tip to make sure you don't dead-end yourself is to start at a dead end in your memory palace, like at the top floor somewhere. This way coming to the end of a memory palace will lead you to a door, which guess what!? You can connect another memory palace in your network of memory palaces to! This is where the magic of the memory palace network comes in. By connecting memory palaces through the door of one and the dead end of another, you can interweave infinite memory palaces to memorize as much of something as you want. ###### Magnetic Bridging Figures Magnetic Bridging figures are figures you can have serve as "tour guides" to your memory palaces. They are fantastic because they can associate with what you are trying to remember and serve as anchors to all of your encodings. For example, if you were creating a memory palace for learning German words that start with ab, Abraham Lincoln would be a fantastic bridging figure. Every one of your encodings could have Abraham Lincoln doing something funny. It would be quite the sight to behold. ##### The Major System You can even encode numbers into a memory palace. That's right no more issues ever remembering the date when peanut butter was invented ever again. Just me? Okay. Well, you can use The Major System to remember equations for classes, dates, and more by turning numbers into memorable encodings. Here's how it works. The major system works by converting numbers into sounds which you can then turn into memorable encodings you can place inside a memory palace. Essentially, the system works by converting numbers into consonants, as shown below, and then turning those consonants into words by adding vowels. Because none of the numbers are associated with a vowel noise, you can decode your images by analyzing which consonant sounds the word makes when speaking it out loud.  For example, let's say you wanted to remember the number 12. 1 stands for the consonant d or t, and 2 for n. What word has a t or a d first and ends with an n? Dino! And what's a recognizable image for the word dino? Trex! So to remember 12, you would place a Trex inside your memory palace. Now if you want to remember a long set of numbers like from your credit card, say 1127-5678-4945-3145 (don't worry, this isn't actually my credit card number lol), all you have to do is convert each number couplet into an image and then place them in a memory palace in the order you want to remember them in. In this case, the Trex would be first, followed by more images. **Isn't that so cool!** If you want to create your own Major System, I don't recommend you create an entire one from scratch coming up with the words yourself. There are tons of example major lists online that you can borrow words from and then create personal images out of. Trust me, it's way faster than creating it on your own. I know from personal experience. ### 10 How To Remember What You Encode and Get Faster Over Time You might be thinking, my goodness, these memory techniques sound like they would take ages to use. **The simple hard truth is it does take time, especially in the beginning.** But paradoxically, it saves time and energy in the long run. If you studied using more traditional (but worse) methods like blunt forced spaced repetition, passive reading, or the worst, no studying at all, you could get away with it in the short term. I know more than enough students who survived most of high school and college studying the couple of days before a test in a caffeine-fueled spiral of death. But these memory techniques allow you to be different. **Not only do they ingrain knowledge deeper into memory, but they are fun to use and get faster and faster the more you use them.** In this chapter, Anthony explains how we can remember the encodings we put into our memory palaces and how we can begin to memorize them faster. It's done through a process Anthony calls Recall rehearsal. Recall rehearsal is the art of routinely going through your memory palace(s) and decoding the knowledge present in them. Why do we have to go through recall rehearsal? It's because unfortunately, we humans are tubes of meat, and have evolved to forget knowledge we don't apply. This rate at which we forget information was first studied and encapsulated in Ernest Ebbinghause's [[The forgetting curve|forgetting curve]]. According to his curve, we forget most information in the 24 hours after consuming something and slowly forget more over the ensuing weeks, months, and years without recall practice. But if we routinely actively recall knowledge we want to keep, we can fight the forgetting curve through a technique known as spaced repetition. That's where recall rehearsal comes in. So how often do we have to do recall rehearsal? Dominic O Brien, a very prominent memory champion, recommends you do recall rehearsal using the system described below: Day 1: Go through memory palace once. 24 hours later: Go through memory palace once. 1 week later: Go through memory palace once. 1 month later: Go through memory palace once. 3 months later: Go through memory palace once. This is a good starting place. However, this recalling method has an issue because it disregards the serial positioning effect. The serial positioning effect describes how we tend to remember the beginning and end of information when recalling lists, memories, or anything. The issue with Dominic's recall rehearsal method is there is no regard for this fact. You memorize linearly the whole way through. This means you are more likely to forget the middle of your memory palace journey. How do we fix this? Anthony recommends doing what he does whenever doing recall rehearsal: 1. Go forward through your memory palace(s) 2. Go backward through your memory palace(s) 3. Go outside in (through your memory palace(s) 4. Go inside out through your memory palace(s) 5. Optional: randomly roll and go to that numbered station in your memory palace Doing recall rehearsal in this way allows Anthony to fight back against the serial positioning effect by giving every part of his memory palace the memory benefit of being first or last. Remember that this is a _method_, not a system. You can and should change it to work with your memorization needs. So how often should we do recall rehearsal? Unfortunately, the answer is it depends upon your goals in memorization. Are you memorizing something you need to know verbatim, or something more for fun? Something else?This will affect how often you recall. Generally, I use the rate recommended by Dominic's but the recall method recommended by Anthony. However, I recall rehearse more or less depending on how my goals and the difficulty of the information. ###### What If You Make A Mistake While Recall Rehearsing? If you make a mistake, you can compound that mental encoding by running through KAVE COGS again, adding more of the magnetic characteristics mentioned earlier, or adding more mental encodings. This way, you are less likely to forget it next time. #### How Can We Get Faster In Our Memory Practice? When you first start using these memory practices, you won't be that fast, especially if you came from the world of social media and constant distraction. You are training your encoding muscles, learning the techniques, and hopefully eating peanut butter to rejuvenate. I wish there were some secret magic pill I could give you, but unfortunately, like with all the great things in life, getting faster is simply a process of practicing more and more. **But the more you practice, the more something magical will happen.** You will start to give in control to the memory techniques. Your brain will get so good at creating memorable encodings that you can do it with less and less conscious effort. Sometimes you will come across a number or quote you want to memorize, and the memory encodings will come straight to mind faster than you could consciously imagine. You will submit yourself to the art of memory formation (it is truly art), giving in to your unconscious mind's suggested encodings. **It's a beautiful feeling.** But one that can only come with practice. ### 12 Where To Start? How To Overcome Beginners Paralysis If you have read to this point, you genuinely care about making a difference in your life. The question then becomes, where do you start? I can't emphasize this point enough. It matters less where you start as that you apply the techniques. **Don't let perfectionism become the enemy of the good.** Memorize something. Something that you use in your everyday life. Not a shopping list. Memorize something that will make you realize the power of the techniques! If you would like some suggestions on where to start, here is my list of things I might memorize in the future: - Memorizing my Anecdotes for IMP speech - Memorize scripture, Bible, Analects, Tao Te Ching, etc. - Memorize story structure highlights of her - Memorizing main ideas from books like Coddling of the American Mind, Drive, and more - Memorize major dates of history - Memorizing my credit card number or dates for IMP examples - Create a memory palace summarizing all of history - Create a memory palace summarizing all of philosophy - Memorizing names of new people I meet - Memorize speech topics for Speech - Memorizing poetry - Memorizing favorite lines from books or literature I have read Pick something and go with it. Practice for ten minutes a day. No more if you can't, just do something. Don't let this become another self-help article you read without action. # Part IIII No More Storms? ### 16 The Victorious Mind Implement the ideas talked about in this article, meditation, breathing, personalizing health, journaling, and using the memory techniques, and you will achieve a profound transformation. **You will cultivate a victorious mind.** You will start to feel a reduction in useless thoughts. The calming of the storm. You will still have planning thoughts, like when you are creating encodings for knowledge, but endless anxious ruminations will no longer bash you. That's not all. **You will become more present.** "[The] awareness is ultimately where memory techniques and meditation meet. When you fine-tune your mind enough to be present and memorize a person's name in real time, you're not just aware of your memory. You have become the act of memory itself." - [[Anthony Metivier]] You have achieved a victorious mind. **People will notice.** They'll see you can draw an unusually large body of knowledge. They will admire the fluidity and interestingness of your ideas. They'll _feel_ the radiant joy that emanates from everything you touch. They will become interested in how you do it. You'll share everything you learned in this article. **Then they will themselves cultivate a victorious mind starting the process all over again.** Here's what I would like to share this week. ## 📸News From The Channel! 📺**Latest On De YouTube** - [3 Lessons From Stumbling Upon Happiness Which Have Made Me A Happier College Student](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zaROreelLBA): In this video, I discuss 3 lessons I took from Stumbling upon happiness that have made me a happier college student. 🎙️**Latest On De Podcast** - [EP17 Anthony Metivier: How To Use Meditation And Memory Techniques To Live Joyously](https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5idXp6c3Byb3V0LmNvbS8yMDMxMDkxLnJzcw/episode/QnV6enNwcm91dC0xMjYyODk2Ng?sa=X&ved=0CAUQkfYCahcKEwiowdiDjKz-AhUAAAAAHQAAAAAQAQ): Anthony Metivlier is the creator of the Magnetic Memory Method, a collection of courses that teaches students how to memorize words, numbers, names, poetry, and more, as well as the author behind a dozen bestselling books on the topic of memory and language learning. In this episode, you will learn: - How memory techniques and meditation can help you live more in the present - How to take notes in a way that aids memory - The underlying nature of reality ## 💡My Best Insights: 📖**Book** - [The Power of Now:](https://amzn.to/3H9ra35) I first read this book two years ago as my entrance back into reading since I was a kid. While there are many things I disagree with, the main thesis of the book remains powerful: ground yourself in the present moment, and most of your "problems" will go away. It's similar to the transformation cultivating a victorious mind can give you, an eternal blissful present. ✍️**Blog Post** - [Why the Past 10 Years of American Life Have Been Uniquely Stupid](https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2022/05/social-media-democracy-trust-babel/629369/): An illuminating post where psychologist Haidt describes the three things required for a healthy Democratic American and why social media and generative AI are making them fall apart. 🎙️**Podcast** - [Dr. Lex Fridman Navigating Conflict, Finding Purpose & Maintaining Drive](https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vaHViZXJtYW5sYWI/episode/YzEzMWVlMzYtNmRiZC0xMWVkLTk3MDQtZTNlY2YzNDJlMmFi?sa=X&ved=0CAgQuIEEahcKEwjg0_rAsKn-AhUAAAAAHQAAAAAQWA): The best idea I got from this podcast is the idea that you shouldn't always strive to have "work life balance." First, your work is fundamentally connected to your life, so it doesn't make sense to try and separate them. Secondly, you can and should have periods where you are doing insane amounts of stuff and periods where you aren't doing much. Lots of people that promote work-life balance are those that have succeeded and have forgotten the difficult work through which it took to get there. 📺**YouTube Video** - [The Cult of Dan Lok - Brainwashed Student Lost $26,000 Testimonial](https://youtu.be/4VDiM_PMmZA): This video showcases the dark side of the creator economy. Dan Lok is a content creator who through using a pyramid scheme and psychological manipulation, was able to make millions off his subscriber base's bad decisions. As a creator, people like Dan disgust me. However, I ascribe to the philosophy that creators can be some of the most honest business dealers in the world. The model I follow is giving away 95% of your content for free, building trust with your audience, and then selling the implementation with a full refund guarantee. That's the honorable way.