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Your brain goes into long-term autopilot when it hears Giraffe and ignores the word – “don’t”. It pulls
from our sensory memory the image, odor and shape of a Giraffe riding on a wheel of Cheese.
Your brain decodes the word Giraffe using your (V-A-K-G-O) - Visual-Auditory- Kinesthetic (touch)-
Gustatory-Olfactory senses. Your hippocampus loads it from old movies, visits to the zoo, and a
kindergarten book you read. That is called the law of Association; it is activated by your thinking.
Einstein
Now you have a Link (connection) between the two words that sticks in your Primary Visual
Cortex as long-term memory. Why? You encode the two words, and can decode them when
you come across the associated words again.
Example
Ten associations: 1. Cheese 2. Giraffe 3. Battery 4. Water 5. Space-Shuttle 6. Rose (not the flower)
7. Tire 8. Saw 9. Grass. 10. Telescope. Use creative imagery to ask & answer the following questions.
1. What happened to the Cheese? The Cheese wheel was ridden by a Giraffee.
2. What happened to the Giraffe? It ran out of Battery life. It’s a toy Giraffee.
5. What happened to the Space Shuttle? It Rose 10,000 feet into the sky.
8. What happened to the Saw? It was used to cut the Grass into the perfect lawn.
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You brain remembers best the unusual, unique and weird. Which will you remember seeing – a
cars driving on the highway or a twenty (20) vehicle collision with bodies lying all over the road?
Whatever looks, sounds, feels, tastes or smells – unnatural, eerie, unearthly – is Weird and sticks
in your brain like chewing gum on your shoe.
We said the ‘space shuttle’ Rose 10,000 feet, and in the next breath that the Rose was run-over by
15’ tire. See how you remember the weirdness of the contradiction. It will stick in your 3-pound
coconut forever.
Whatever you hear at a lecture, you forget 95% of the knowledge or skill in about 24-hours. After
reading a book or an article on the Internet, say good-bye to 90% of information in a day. Wait!
After seeing an Audio-Visual your recall is a high 80% after 1-5 days. You use multiple senses.
Now, if you learn something new, and TEACH your new knowledge or skill to others, you will
The secret to maintaining your long-term memory is testing-yourself after one-day, a week, and
You don’t remember much because you heard it at lecture by a professor or expert. You do recall
because you continue to use that knowledge or skill. All learning is auto-didactic, (self-taught).
How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice, practice, and testing yourself.
REMEMBER, listening to learn knowledge or skills brings you a lousy 5% retention; reading text for
retention retains only 10%. Audio-Visual retention is a low 20% recall. You need a Group
Discussion to break the cycle and retain 50% of what you learned. Practice-practice-practice
reaches 75% retention, and finally, teaching others hits the 90% retention mark.
The next time we meet ask me to recite the Presidents of the U.S. from George to
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Barach in 60-seconds. I used the link-system to remember them in order from one to forty-four.
Why Bother?
Lincoln is the sixteenth president, and the Civil War was from 1861 to 1865. It gives me a historical
prospective to judge today’s politics. The Link System works to remember chemical elements,
anatomy (body parts), and math equations. How about the 50 U.S. State capitals? Infinity.
Endwords
Most folks who are told about the Link System are not impressed. It seems like too much work.
“It sounds hard, and so far I have done fine without it.” If you want to ace school and your career,
win promotions and raises – for the rest of your life – take the time to learn the Link System.
It exercises your brain like most of us exercise our muscles, tendons and ligaments.
See ya,
P.S. We have a few copies of an excellent How-to report on Speed Reading. Ask us for it.
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