How to Memorize Names (and Everything Else) Easily – Moshimo Edition

Have you ever watched a movie that you loved when you were a teenager, only to be incredibly disappointed upon watching it as an adult? You watched it again after all those years, and it just wasn’t how you remembered it. The characters were flat, the story was boring, and it just didn’t live up to your memories of it.

I find it interesting how flexible memories are. Things that we believe we know well, often don’t match reality upon further scrutiny. Many times we even forget the details immediately, especially when it comes to seemingly trivial details, like people’s names. It’s almost as if we’ve forgotten them before we’ve even remembered them. It’s really quite annoying, isn’t it? After all, people are impressed by a good memory. If you’re in the sales business (and really, who isn’t in some fashion or another?), remembering a customers name can be an extremely useful. It makes you look good, and the customer feel special. You know who didn’t feel special? Morpheus.

Moshimo: You are the one, Neil.

Below is a sort of review/synopsis of one of my favorite movies of all time, The Matrix, as told by a person’s mother who had never seen the movie before. He asked her to watch it and then explain what the movie was about. As you’re about to see, well… you’ll see.

Now, I don’t know about you, but every time the mother said Moshimo I cracked right up. She wasn’t even close to getting Morpheus right, and that’s for a rather distinct name. Imagine if he were a Charles or David?

Name Games – Remembering Names

So, since people find memorizing names so very difficult, I’m going to give you a few tips that I use personally to help remember people’s names, and with a bit of tweaking you can apply these to almost anything else as well.

• Make an effort to try and remember. One of the main reasons I couldn’t remember a person’s name was because I didn’t actually make any effort to try and retain it. In fact, I kind of just zoned out the moment they told me, figuring that there’s no way I would remember 5 minutes from then anyway. Stop doing this!
• Make up a sort of rhyme for the person’s name. Jake the Snake, Mean Christine, Lyin’ Ryan, etc. Creating some context, however silly, makes memorization much easier. We just aren’t very good at memorizing pieces of information in isolation.
• After you meet a person, make sure to use their name a few times in conversation to help solidify it in your mind. Things like Hello Sally, pleased to meet you. or James, you’ve got a beautiful home. or best of all Thank you for the wonderful blowjob, Jill… really, fantastic. Top drawer. Just make sure not to be a creepy weirdo about it. Use it too much, and you may remember it better, but the person will also remember that you’re a creepy nutcase.

That’s it, yep… really. Kind of disappointing, right? Okay, let me share one more. If you want to improve your memory through chemical means, then I suggest reading our article about Nootropics, aka Smart Drugs. They do cost money, but the evidence largely suggest that they have a significant impact on working memory, long term memory formation, and with a slew of other cognitive benefits as well.

For the rest of you, feel free to share any memorization tips of your own in the comments below. I’m always on the lookout for ways to improve my terrible memory.