“People wouldn’t remember what you say, they won’t remember what you did, but they’ll always remember how you made them feel.” – Jim Kwik
From struggling to remember a stranger’s name to entirely forgetting essential pieces of information and events, what do you think is the main reason behind? What can you do to improve your memory, thus retaining more details? And how would one feel if you remember or forget their names?
First Business Etiquette
Did you know that one of the First Business Etiquette is the “Ability to Remember Someone’s Name”? Why so?
Consider this, someone talks to you asking for help. You don’t know him but you certainly wanted to help because of what they told you about their backstory. But the thing is, right after they asked for help, they forgot your name in a matter of minutes, hours or worse, days of talking. Would you get encouraged to help if that person shows that he’s only interested in your help but not to you as an individual?
Likewise, how would are you gonna offer your products or services as an Entrepreneur when you don’t even know the basics about your potential clients such as their names? If you ask three or more times, it means you don’t care at all! Association comes by remembering the basic personal information.
Nothing Sells than Caring
“People don’t care how much you know, but how much you care”.
Mr. Jim Kwik, a learning expert and trainer, shares his observation and study in a one-on-one interview with Ed Mylett, an entrepreneur and author, regarding the relationship between ‘information to emotion’.
The key process to identify their names or all other information is your Motivation. Your personal motivation in remembering names, ideas, stories, events, numbers, and such.
If you’re going to scale your level of motivation to remember someone’s name, how would you rate yourself? Is it at exact 10? Closer? Or probably a little lower? Now how would ‘these people’ or your potential clients’ reactions between you, forgetting, and remembering their names? And how is this going to affect your business?
Mr. Jim shares that ‘remembering’ or ‘improving your memory’ is a skill that you have to practice. A skill, on a side note, is your capacity to do a particular work or activity from the time and energy you spend on to learn and to practice.
Just like what Toni Robbins, a motivational speaker, and Philanthropist said: “You are rewarded in public for what you have intensely practiced & refined in private!”
Motivation to Remember
If you really wanted to improve your memory of retaining information, you have to remember the’M’ which stands for ‘Motivation.’ This refers to your personal motivation to retain information for a specific reason.
“All Learning is State-Dependent,” Jim added. This means that an asset of learning, such as motivation, is connected to a particular field such the Emotion. This would help you decide whether you’d want to remember a certain thing, event, or person.
If you’re attracted to someone, you certainly want to keep in touch with them. Thus you would want to remember their names. If you travel out of the country and you taste this local delicacy that you find delicious, you would certainly want to remember the dish or much more the recipe. Even a certain song you listened to on the radio when you were a kid, gives you the emotion and memory to take you back from childhood.
What about the emotional level you had back in school? You’re either bored or confused. When emotions not there, you tend to forget everything in the discussion. In certainties that you had fun, it’s maybe because you’re interested in that particular subject or topic. When you become interested, your emotions will fuel up, making you remember the conversations.
“You certainly don’t remember all the names but you certainly don’t forget all the names.”
Effective Learning
“Learning is Remembering” – Socrates
Inside a classroom, it was proven that traditional learning of taking down notes isn’t that effective compared to really applying what you learned. Sure it’ll be helpful since you cannot remember everything in one sitting. But what if you don’t know how to properly write notes and depends on the word-per-word basis? Your brain would have a hard time to process the amount of information you consumed in a day. This is why application and creativity work much better!
In a group of people who learns through reading versus through an application, the latter would perform better and with much creativity. Why? It’s because they are able to put into work the knowledge that they have. Instead of leaving the pieces of information and ideas you had on your notebook, you can manifest it through work, making you an effective learner that remembers important aspects. It resonates with what you’re really passionate about.
In instances that you really have to write notes, you can also apply your creativity to write down what you’ve heard, the way you understand it. Still, effective as it could be!
As an Entrepreneur, we want freedom. But you also have to use your brain to avoid ‘Digital Dementia’ – a medical condition where a person solemnly depends on technology that one is no longer using the capacity of their brain anymore. When you help your mind to keep working, it’s the same as releasing negative thoughts in mind and only putting relevant memories. It’s healthy for the brain; consequently, it helps improve the retaining of memories.
