Johannes Mallow | The Benefits of Memory in a World Where Information is at Your Fingertips

Srini Rao

Johannes , welcome to the Unmistakable Creative. Thanks so much for taking the time to join us.

Johannes Mallow

Thank you very much for inviting me here and I'm looking forward to that, thanks.

Srini Rao

Yeah, absolutely. So I heard about your story because you wrote it, and I found out you were a memory champion. And the entire concept of memory in a world in which we have externalized damn near everything is fascinating to me and the benefits of it. But before we get into all of that, I wanted to start by asking you, what did your parents do for work? And how did that end up shaping where you've ended up with your life and what you've done?

Johannes Mallow

Hmm. Okay. So when I was a kid, my parents both have been self-employed. So they did their own stuff. And the first place, um, my mother was a teacher for religion at school. But then I think, uh, when I was 10, she, uh, stopped that and made up their own eBay business, but eBay was back then was very small or not, not that grow a big like it is today. So she sold.

Stuff for others so other came to my mother and gave them gave her anything They want to sell and back then in the two thousand nineties late nineties Not so many people were familiar with the internet. So that's what she did So she had for like 10 or 15 years this shop people bringing her their stuff and she was selling it and my father was He is he passed away 12 years ago And he was also self-employed

building furniture and re-constructuring. I'm not sure that the word, I'm searching a bit for the word here. So if you have old furniture, then you try to make it look good again. How do you call that? Restoration. And yeah, so that's what he was doing.

Srini Rao

How did that influence the choices that you ended up making?

Johannes Mallow

I think when I think about that today, the main thing is that I was never really fitting into the normal, I mean, 8 to 6 job or something like that. It was always that I tried to do something different, do my own thing and I was really never seeing myself in an office, 9 to 5, I think that's the right one. I was always thinking about doing something.

different and doing my own stuff, my own follow my own dreams. Yeah, that's, I think that was the deepest impact what this situation had on me.

Srini Rao

Yeah, one thing I wonder is your German descent, what is the cultural narrative around work and careers, particularly when it comes to self employment and you know, choosing to follow an unconventional path in the German culture?

Johannes Mallow

Hmm. I think nowadays it changed a bit. I think it's more normal that you also be self-employed. But back then, because I was born in the East part of Germany, so the Deutsche Demokratische Republik, and I was grown up there for 10 years, and my parents, it was normal to have a normal day.

daily job but then when the 90s came and the wall came down I think everyone wanted to be like, yeah, getting something from the big cake and trying to make your luck somehow. I'm not sure if that explains it in a good way but yeah.

Srini Rao

Yeah. So I wonder what is having something like a, you know, wall fall down, uh, do for the entire sort of conscience of a, or conscious of a culture? Like how does it change the belief systems and values of people?

Johannes Mallow

It depends on which side you are. So if you have been on the west side, it was definitely different because it's still there. I mean, it's almost 30 years ago, but people still call themselves or others, this guy is from the west and this guy is from the east. And so the west people might have seen us more as they help us right now and they try to integrate us here somehow. And we...

We are like wow, this is the land of glory and now everything opens up and this is so nice and so cool. So this really depends on where are you from. And over time people from the East discovered that not everything is super nice over there and it brings so much new problems with it. So yeah, this is a really interesting experience to...

also talk with people who have been adults back then already. Because I feel it still influences our values and everything nowadays.

Srini Rao

Yeah, well, it's funny because I remember asking my friend Mars Dorian, who also is as German, he's the one who does all of our artwork and a lot of the design and you kind of shape the visual voice of unmistakable creative. And when I got into it with him, I said, I finally understand something that's implicit in your work that I never saw before. There's a blatant disregard or blatant sort of fuck you to authority in everything that he does.

Johannes Mallow

Hmm?

Srini Rao

Like all his work screams with a sort of disdain for authority.

Johannes Mallow

Yeah, maybe, but since my parents were... My mother was, as I mentioned, she was in the church and being a teacher for religion, and my father was self-employed, and there was not something normal in the East part of Germany. And I was the only one in my class, I was, I think, in the second class at school, the only one who was not a pioneer. A pioneer was... Everyone in the class was in debt.

let's call it a club, wearing a blue shirt and everyone was in there and it was normal to be there and I was the only one not being there. And this youth club, I call it like that right now because I have no words for that, was supposed to be the start to be a good citizen of the East part. And I wasn't. So I was always a bit on a different track here.

with the authorities and yeah, that is I think that really Made something with my life and yeah

Srini Rao

So one thing, and I don't think you actually mentioned this in the original email you sent, I only found out from your website, is that you're in a wheelchair. How did that happen?

Johannes Mallow

Yeah, I'm using electric wheelchair. I rather like to phrase it like that, because of course during night I'm not in my wheelchair, but that's a different story. So I have a muscle disease which is there when I was... well, has been already there when I was born, but it was not visible back then. So I grow up until I was 10 without any bigger symptoms.

But then when I turned 10, 12, 14, the symptoms were more and more visible. So I started to fall down to the floor because my one leg was getting thinner and thinner. And then in my early 20s, it became really, really more difficult to get upstairs, to walk longer distances. And back when I was 15.

I was to the hospital a couple of times and they made a test for some disease and it took quite a while to do this kind of DNA test back then. And then they discovered, okay, that's very rare muscle dystrophy called FSHD. And then, yeah, and I was like, okay, I don't want to do something about it because I'm right now 17 and I want to go to a bar or to a disco or whatever.

And yeah, and then my early 20s, I wasn't able to ignore that anymore. So I had to start confronting myself with the situation. And when, I think 10 years ago, when I would turn 30, I, it was so bad that I needed to start using the wheelchair. I always was like, I don't want to do that. I want to avoid that, avoid that. But in the end, this taking this wheelchair gave me so much more freedom.

because I wasn't able to walk in a somehow safe way down the street. I was always looking at my feet and trying to not fall down. So this wheelchair nowadays is the key to my freedom, the key to travel, to visit people, to visit the city, everything.

Srini Rao

Yeah. Well, the funny thing is, you know, I don't think anybody who is listening to this, who's not a new wheelchair would basically view something like a wheelchair as the key to their freedom. And you, you have a limitation that is, you know, perceived limitations far greater than you have an actual physical limitation that is greater than the perceived limitations that a lot of people have. How do they shift that mindset?

Johannes Mallow

for me. Do you mean how the situation that I am not that... Maybe you can rephrase that again for me please.

Srini Rao

Yeah, let me elaborate. So most people would not phrase being in a wheelchair as the key to their freedom. They would see that as this massive limitation. And the reality is, physically it is. But a lot of people have perceived limitations that are all in their heads that actually trap them more than you've been trapped by being in a wheelchair. Like you say, a wheelchair has been the key to your freedom, whereas some people use these perceived limitations and

Johannes Mallow

Mm-hmm.

Srini Rao

they basically say that's the thing that's in the way of their freedom.

Johannes Mallow

Hmm. Okay. Yeah, I get that. Um, yeah, it's really I mean I also was facing this Limitations in my head when I was not really Fine with the situation and that has been for 10 years So I needed like 10 15 years to overcome our depressions and everything what comes with that came with this disease and These were another kind of limitations depression is a limitation in your life

And so yeah, I had to overcome also these kind of limitations. And nowadays I feel that people sometimes... Yeah, I mean, when I talk to people, I always try to not say, okay, your limitation is not like mine, so mine is bigger. Because I don't feel that is the case. The limitation for everyone has the...

same impact maybe. If you can't go to a coffee, a bar, because you are afraid of people, then this limitation is even higher and more difficult than mine. And I have the luck maybe that I can have this wheelchair which helps me overcome these limitations. But being afraid of heights or being afraid of people, social environment or social meetings or whatever it is or talk.

in front of an audience, this is way more difficult because you can't just take a wheelchair or any device to overcome that. You really have to shift something in your head. And shifting something or changing something about your mindset might be even more difficult than taking a wheelchair. But of course taking the wheelchair needs a shift in your mindset because otherwise I would have never taken that because I was trying to avoid that with all my...

hard but in the end it was the right choice.

Srini Rao

So how in the world does somebody go from, you know, doing what you're doing, how do you become a memory champion? Like why of all things did you decide to study that?

Johannes Mallow

Yeah, it's really related also to the situation. And when I, I think when I was 22, so 18 years ago, then I saw a TV show and there was a memory trainer, memory coach, and that guy coached someone else, a celebrity to memorize like 20 words. And she was known to be a little bit dumb. That was her image and she did it. So I thought, okay, maybe I can do that too. If she can do it, I can do it.

And then I did some research in the internet and then I found information about everything. And I found out that there are competitions about memory. And back then I was, yeah, 23, 22, and I was really competitive all in my life. And I was playing table tennis in a club when I was a teenager, but I couldn't do that anymore because of the disease. So that gave me somehow suddenly out of, out of the blue.

the opportunity to compete with others in such a competition without having my limitations, my physical limitations hindering me of that. And then I went to a competition, it was original one, a small one and yeah, I did a good job there and finished third and then I somehow more and more become addicted to getting better there. And this was, I think that was exactly the opposite of my...

physical ability because that decreased at this time and I was so depressed and frustrated by that and on the other hand I had something to yeah to train for which I could do on a world-class level and that was Yeah, I think that gave me the extra power and the extra motivation to keep it up and to do more for that and travel around the world to try to chase the world championship title

Srini Rao

So.

Let's before we talk specifically about tactical things. One of the things I wonder is about the value of memory in a world where almost every thing we need to know is externalized. You know, every fact is available via Google. Most of us probably couldn't tell you the phone numbers of our closest friends. I have teammates that I work with. I don't know their phone numbers by memory. I've had people that I like. I have a roommate. I if you asked me one of my roommates phone numbers, I know one of them only because I use it for my discount card at Safeway. But that's the only.

and I remember it. Why is that? What is the value of memory in a world like this? And then why certain memories really stick? I have vivid memories about utterly pointless and useless details from early parts of my life. One of my friends said, he's like, you remember the most strange and obscure things about the stories we tell you.

Johannes Mallow

Yeah, good question. So first question, why is memory important at all today when we have smartphones and storage to store all the information around us? And I think there are different aspects about that. So one aspect, of course, telephone numbers. It's totally fine to store them in your smartphone. And I would always recommend at least knowing one phone number, just in case. But the...

More important things are, for example, if you look at something up in the internet and try to find out new information about something, then it's good to have a background memory on that specific topic or on related topics, because otherwise you can't put new information into any context. If you don't know anything yet, let's say it's like that, you don't know anything because you memorize nothing and you have nothing in your memory. How can you put new information?

into context and that's a pretty important thing because in times of fake news and everything you need to have a basic and good knowledge about stuff to know what a new information means to you. Is it true or can it be true? So I think that's one important thing and of course memory in general for us as humans is memory is what makes us. And that's...

because you are that person you are today because of your memories. So memory is a part of your personality or that memory forms your personality. And the other thing that you have so vivid memories of some strange, strange events in your life, maybe that might be because these events have been very emotional or somehow special to you, to your personality, to your life.

And of course these things are the things we remember best. And that's a good thing because if we would forget the birth of your first baby or your wedding and everything, so what would life be then for you? And so emotions are so important for our memory and emotional things, emotional stuff sticks way better into our memory than other stuff.

Srini Rao

Well, so there's one other thing that I'm curious about. This is something I keep coming across in, you know, one neuroscience book after another is this idea that memory also tends to be wildly inaccurate. When we look at it, we have distorted views. I remember it was in the bullet journal that Ryder Carroll wrote about this. And this was one of my favorite parts of the bullet journal. He talked about this guy who had been dating this girl and, you know, she suddenly broke up with him. And initially he was disappointed.

that he had written about her and turned out that he was actually not that disappointed because it turned out he was dealing with somebody who wasn't that nice to him. But had he not made a point to capture all that information, he would have had a distorted perception of that whole situation. So why is it that our memories get distorted over time?

Johannes Mallow

I'm not a neuroscientist here, but I know that from myself and especially for example when you look back to your childhood Some memories are not really your memories. They're rather some because of some pictures and in a photo book or anything like that and I think the reason my Interpretation is that the reason for that is that you if you if something happens to you

or like an accident or anything, can be anything. It's not just the objective thing what's going to happen there, but it's how you experience it and what you make out of that in the moment when it happens. And I think if two people experience the same event, then still their stories would be different because they have a different perception of details maybe. Maybe one of them smelled something here and the other one...

is more a usual guy and sees something wrong. Then based on these preferences they have and based on these things they perceived in their subjective way, they make up their memory. And over time it's like this old game when you whisper something in the ear to your next neighbor and this guy is whispering the same thing in the next neighbor's ear and so on.

year and so on and in the end you have a totally different story. So it's about how you experience a situation and then you tell the story again and again and again and it changes over time just a tiny bit but after years it might have changed a lot. So I think that's one reason here.

Srini Rao

Yeah, absolutely. Well, let's get into the sort of tactical aspects of this and, you know, talk about how we can apply it to our lives. I mean, so the funny thing is I've been spending a lot of time really kind of understanding how do you manage knowledge? I mean, particularly because I, you know, interview so many people and how you read so many books. And of course, remembering all of that has been something of vital importance to me. So let's just take the example of you and I having this conversation. People are listening to this and podcasts are notorious for being difficult to take notes on.

because people are usually on the go. So if people wanted to remember the ideas that you talked about in this interview, which I guess is really a meta, let's, what is a framework for doing that?

Johannes Mallow

Yeah, I think this really relates to some problems people sometimes face when they came to me and trying to learn something about memory training. And this is not just the situation, but also, for example, if you're in a lesson in the university or wherever. And I think it's good to have, and I know it's good to have a basic tool set, what you always have with you. And...

If you have that tool set, it's very easy to adapt that to a specific situation. Like right now, someone wants to have some key points out of this conversation memorized. And if this person would have that tool set, which is, for example, the memory palace method, then this person could easily memorize some keywords here. And based on these keywords, he or she could then...

Yeah, get back to the topic and maybe make something out of it. So there are specific methods which I call the tool set and the toolbox. And these, this, for example, one thing is here what comes up to my mind is the memory palace and that's in this case, the most powerful method I would say.

Srini Rao

Well, can we walk specifically through it? Like, let's go into a couple of different methods. I'm familiar with memory palaces, but people who are listening may not be.

Johannes Mallow

Yeah, so the memory palace method is already more than 2000 years old. And so the ancient Greeks used it to give free speeches and memorize their speech beforehand. And it's about creating a journey through your very well-known environment. So let's say you take your apartment as your memory palace.

So it's not about a real palace except you're the queen of England or but for others it's just your apartment and then you would make up a specific journey, a specific route through your apartment. Let's say the front door is location number one and then you enter your apartment and then maybe something comes to the left. So what could that be? Maybe a chair. So the chair would be number two. Then you...

continue walking along the wall and then there might be a big board, a big board something, a shoe board for example, number three. And then you continue going through your whole apartment grabbing all these points. So door, chair, board, then let's say you go into the bathroom, there's a washing machine, the water basin, the shower and so on.

So in the end you might have like 30 locations. If you live big like the queen, then you have maybe 300. And these can be used to memorize new information. So this is something you have already set up. And if now you have to memorize, let's say, let's do the easiest thing first, a shopping list, then you would connect the items of the shopping list to the different locations. So for example, you have

chocolate on your shopping list, then you would connect that chocolate with your front door because that was the first location. And you try to make a crazy story out of that. That doesn't have to be crazy but has to be very visual. And then like for example you could imagine you going through your front door but it's made out of chocolate and maybe you forgot your key but luckily it's out of chocolate so you can bite your way through the door.

Johannes Mallow

you might buy some apple juice and you approach the chair, which would be the next location and you imagine yourself spitting some apple juice on the chair and so on. So you connect the different items to the different locations and that's not just working for a shopping list, that's also working for abstract concepts and actually for all words and this is working so nicely and well.

that everyone who experienced that for the first time, even if they say, oh, I don't think that's something for me, actually everyone is like, wow, I was able to memorize like these 20 items without any problems, that's strange. And that's the feeling you get if you do that for the first time. So memory-impaired method means, yeah, create a journey through your apartment and connect keywords or items to the different locations in your mind.

Srini Rao

Yeah, no, it's funny because I was able to do that. I remember when we first moved to Boulder, I could just remember the names of every single waiter at a restaurant. My friend's like, how do you do that? And I was like, well, each person here basically has some fact about them, right? This guy is named Nate, so he works at night. That girl's named Alice, and she works at Austin. She's from Austin. So I'm curious about the other methods. But one thing I wonder about memory is the role that it plays in education,

because one of the issues is rote memorization is not the same thing as learning. You know, I learned this the hard way where in high school you get good grades because you can memorize things. In college, that's kind of useless unless you can take what you've learned and apply it in an original context. Like you could know formulas for some sort of economics exam, but then when it's presented in another context, if you just memorized a formula, it's of very little use.

Johannes Mallow

Yeah, that's a fair point here. And it's, yeah, when I teach people, it's, I always tell them, it's about understanding the topic first. So it doesn't make any sense to just learn it. I mean, you can for a test, but it makes sense to understand what's going on there. So let's say you read a chapter in a book and the first thing is understand what's in the chapter, understand the context and the content.

And if you have done that, then my suggestion is to make keywords and keynotes for every paragraph. Like you would have to give a speech about it. And then you might end up with, let's say, 20 keywords here. And these keywords you can memorize then. You have understood it. But even if you understand a method, it doesn't mean that you still know every single step in that method.

maybe you have to memorize these steps and this is where memory techniques come into play. So you read something, you understand it, but anyway memorizing some key points here might help you later to get back the understanding if you need it. So and that's the point where memory techniques come into play as I said. So yeah.

Srini Rao

Well, let's talk about a few other memory techniques. You know, any other things that you can do to, you know, memorize a list, a deck of cards, which is a cool party trick, but Cal Newport says that it's more than a party trick. It's actually a really good way to stretch your cognitive capacity.

Johannes Mallow

Yeah, so other memory techniques. I mean, the memory palace technique is the basic stuff for everything, I would say. But the, in general, it's all about creating an image, a visual vivid image, or a story out of the information you want to memorize. And that's what I do for cards, for numbers, for words, but also for names and faces, like you explained with Nate working at night. So that's a, that's a short story.

you turn that information made into an image, the night, and that helps you remembering that. So it's all about turning information into vivid images and stories. And this cards memorization, of course, it's a party trick in the end, but if you are, it's like physical sports. If you are able to memorize a card, deck of cards, in let's say five minutes, then you are capable

memorizing the paragraphs of a book because you know how to do it. So memorizing a deck of cards teaches you the basic stuff. It teaches you the memory palace method. It teaches you how to create cards out of images out of cards. And if you train that then you will be able to use the techniques for real-life stuff. So that's what I always say.

Go with the memorize just a list of words every morning, 20 words. But if you're capable of that, and if you are familiar with how to do it, you can adapt it to your real life stuff. So basic sport is memory sports for me. Like jogging every day, like going to the gym every day to do something for your body with some memory training, memorizing your deck of cards or numbers or whatever is your daily mental training.

Srini Rao

No. Okay, so I need some clarification on the deck of cards because when I read it in Cal's book, I was kind of confused. So I assume that you don't shuffle the deck, right?

Johannes Mallow

You shuffled it? Of course!

Srini Rao

Okay, so let me yeah, okay, so you shuffle the deck and then what you basically, you know, deal them all out one at a time. And then do you reshuffle it or because then the cards are all out of order at that point. The blog, explain the mechanics to me like I've because I've been trying to I wanted to try this, but I felt like I wasn't doing it right.

Johannes Mallow

Yeah.

Johannes Mallow

So you mean how... okay, the... it works like that, so... Yeah, yeah, sure.

Johannes Mallow

Okay, so this is a discipline in the World Championship and other memory championships. You get a deck of cards with 52 cards. This is shuffled. You don't know the order of the cards. And then you have time.

as much as you want, maximum 5 minutes, to memorize this specific order which is presented to you of the cards. You can take it in your hands and go through all the cards and then you're done. Then you put it away and then you get a second deck of cards which is in the normal order how you want it and you take...

you put this second deck of cards in the order you just memorized. So in the end you have two deck of cards which are the same in terms of the order of the cards. And that's it. And the world record right now in doing that, memorizing, just the memorizing part, is around 13 seconds. And that's unbelievable fast. But I think with techniques and a bit of training, everyone or most of the people

out there would be able to do that in five minutes, memorizing a whole deck of 52 playing cards. It's just technique and that's possible for almost everyone.

Srini Rao

Talk to me about what actually goes on in a memory competition. What are these events like? What's the structure of it? What takes place? What are the people who come to these things like?

Johannes Mallow

Yeah, so the structure is, yeah, as I explained, the cards, for example, this is one discipline, exactly how I explained it, but there are others. So usually you have 10 disciplines, memorizing a deck of cards is just one, you have numbers, memorizing numbers in five minutes, as many as you can, or words or names, and so we have 10 disciplines. And usually it looks like a big exam, like in school. So everyone is sitting at their table.

and getting the sheet of paper. Yeah, we are still working with sheet of paper, even at this digital age here. So you get a sheet of paper and there is a list of numbers and you have five minutes, for example, or maybe also one hour in the world championship, you have one hour to memorize as many digits as you can in the correct specific order. So that's very important. And after one hour, the sheet of papers are taken away from you.

and then you get another one and you have two hours to write everything down what you still remember. And the scoring is very tough, you have to have the right order. If you have gaps or other mistakes then you really get high penalties. And then you get a score, points for your results. So let's say you memorized like 2000 digits in an hour, you get a specific points for that. And in the end after 10 disciplines

has been done, all the points have been added up and then the winner is the one with the highest overall score. And yeah, to the second question, what people are taking part here? Actually everyone. I have seen students, I have seen people from normal day-time jobs but also people in academics but I think what they all have in common is that they like these kind of...

brain puzzles. So if you play zodoku games or anything like that you're more likely, I think, to join a memory competition than if you are not into anything of that. And people's ages also vary. We have kids, we have adults, we have older people older than 60. And yeah, it's really a mixture of ages, people and yeah, stories, life stories.

Srini Rao

So that actually raises a question about age. What is the impact of aging on memory? What do you see in these memory competitions in terms of memory capacity based on age? Does it decline? Because I think common conventional wisdom is that as you get older, your memory goes to shit.

Johannes Mallow

Yeah, I mean, it's hard to say because the group of people is still very small who do that. So we have a couple of thousand people around the world. So it's not very, they are not very many. And when I look back, when I started, there have been people around, they are not around anymore today. They still alive, but they don't compete anymore. So and it's hard to say. I mean, if they're really the memory declined here and get...

worse or if it's just the lack of motivation, they don't want to do it anymore. Um, and I can't see such an effect on myself so far. I'm 40 right now, just turned 40 last year. And I'm also thinking about that because actually I'm right now, one of the oldest in the top, in the top 10, I'm or in the top 20 in the world, I'm the second oldest competitor was 40 years. And, um, I'm wondering why that is. Maybe it's just because the younger people have more time to train.

and but I don't see any decline for me right now and I'm really looking forward somehow to see how that works in a couple of years. Hopefully I can stick to my performance but what I see is that younger people improve way faster than I can do today and yeah but everything else is just not written yet.

Srini Rao

So one other thing I wondered is how have this changed other areas of your life? Like what's been the ripple effect into other areas of life? How do you apply it day to day in practical ways?

Johannes Mallow

Yeah, so you can apply these techniques to, let's say, let's start with the easiest one. People face this problem that they can't memorize names and faces. And for example, I had a client who wanted to memorize all his employees in his company because he wanted to have a better connection. So together we memorized all his employees by photo and information about these people. And especially in social life, it's great when you...

Memorize names easier and when you remember them because it's always weird if you meet someone and you try to Somehow go around naming this name because you don't know it anymore. So social events names memorizing is very helpful but also if you go to for example for an important job interview or a Situation where you might be very nervous and you want to bring up certain points you want to talk about Let's say in that job interview

like 10 points you really want to show that you know them, then just memorize them with memory techniques. And these will also work when you're more nervous. So you can show, I know that because I memorized these points. So, or you give a speech, you want to talk without any notes. It's way more interesting, or way more impressive if you do that without notes. I'm always confused when politicians just...

take a look on their notes always because I think why not memorizing it or even learning another language. Memorizing vocabulary for example can be also very well done with memory techniques. So the applications are quite huge, quite big and that depends a bit on what you want to learn and where you want to go.

Srini Rao

Yeah, so we've talked about it in general. What about, I get it on a general level, but what about you personally? What ways has this ability changed your life?

Johannes Mallow

I mean for me, it's...

Srini Rao

other than winning a memory championship.

Johannes Mallow

Yeah, of course. I mean, it changed my life in any, in every way. This is a special for me, especially for me because of this muscle disease, this memory competitions gave me the confidence, gave me a motivation. And in the end motivated me to take the wheelchair finally, because otherwise I couldn't go to the competition and I couldn't win the world championship if I wouldn't have a, had a wheelchair. So I needed to make a decision here. Either I stay at home.

And I'm afraid of going out and falling down to the floor or I take the wheelchair and I decided to take that one So but that's just one part and the other part is that I'm yeah, I'm living on it right now I'm making a living out of memory. So Helping people improving their memory helping people with difficulties and My whole life actually changed. I don't think that will happen for everyone out there. But what you will see

definitely if you start that, that some things are easier just as I mentioned like vocabulary, names and faces and so on and what also came to me is that my creativity level increased because You always try to create visual stories, vivid stories somehow and you make connections and you see connections where someone else wouldn't see them because you are trained to make connections and trained to

make also a bit strange connections and crazy connections. And that helps you with your creativity level. When it comes, for example, to brainstorming, it seems sometimes that it's so easy for me to see connections to different topics, different fields, that others might not see. And yeah, it's just impacting my whole life, to be honest. Yeah.

Srini Rao

Well, so I think that most people wouldn't necessarily say, you know, one of the skills I want to develop right now or things I want to do is improve my memory as a sort of starting point. It's not sort of, hey, on my list of projects for this year is to have a better memory and learn how to memorize long lists of facts or card decks. How do you recommend people start this in a way that is sustainable and actually going to lead to something useful for them?

Johannes Mallow

Yeah, I would say start easy with some exercises. Like I mentioned, create a journey through your apartment with 30 locations or 20 or 10, and try to memorize 20 words. And the reason for that is, as I said, you need to experience that. You need to see, oh, wow, that works. And then usually it's like that then that you see, oh, wow,

I was able to memorize these 20 words without any problems and usually I just forget three things and with that comes the, yeah, you will get an idea and you will get for your own. Okay, I can use it maybe there and maybe there. So it's something you need to experience first and I would say go with that easy strategy first. Try it. Give it a try.

And then see where it goes. And if you have a specific topic like learning for your exam or studies, or when you memorize something specific, then of course it helps, but I would recommend just test it because it's a ability which we all have, but almost never, no one is using it, which is a shame. It's like, it's like what people would not walk, but crawl on the floor for me. It's like people around me just crawling on the floor and I say,

please stand up it's so easy stand up and then try that and I know I'm keep on crawling because I don't want to stand up and maybe it's not the best comparison here but it's like that

Srini Rao

You mentioned one client coming to you for the challenge of wanting to remember all of his names of his employees. What are the other challenges that people come to you for in terms of using this skill?

Johannes Mallow

Actually everything. Recently I got someone who wanted to learn some special dance and there are some steps and he has to memorize in the right order. That was very interesting. But of course daily stuff like memorizing, just having a better memory for daily stuff like not forgetting.

birth dates or not forgetting your car keys where memory techniques maybe not help that much but it's everyone has something not everyone but many people everyone who comes to me has something specific to that they want to learn like languages like giving speeches names and faces and so on so yeah there are a lot of different things which people bring to me

Srini Rao

Amazing. Well, I have one final question for you, which you've probably heard me ask before. What do you think it is that makes somebody or something unmistakable?

Johannes Mallow

Say it again please, I'm not sure if I got it right.

Srini Rao

What do you think, yeah, what do you think it is that makes somebody or something unmistakable?

Johannes Mallow

And I'm unmistakable. Since I'm not a native speaker here, I would translate it for myself that there is something which is, it can never go wrong, is this right? So something.

Srini Rao

Well, not really. It's funny because some people talk about that, interpret it that way. So I define unmistakable as something that is very distinctive, something that nobody could do but you, like, you know, it's yours. People just look at it and it's like, oh, there's no way I could mistake that for somebody else's.

Johannes Mallow

Okay. Ah, mistakeable. Okay, so from taking here it is somehow from taking, right? So unmistaken. Maybe I'm just not the best guy to ask that because I'm not an English native speaker, but yeah.

Srini Rao

Yeah, fair enough. So basically, I think the way that I define it, as I said, is something very distinctive, something that is very unique, that nobody else could have done but you.

Johannes Mallow

Mm-hmm.

Johannes Mallow

Mm-hmm. So then it's like that, I mean, I have done this world champion, I won this world championship and so on, but memory techniques are not unmistakable in that sense because everyone can learn them. But maybe when I talk about myself here, what is unmistakable about myself? What, that's a question? Sorry when I ask it again here, sorry for that. So.

Srini Rao

Yeah, I mean, that's one way to put it. What do you think it makes anybody unmistakable for that matter?

Johannes Mallow

I think it's your own purpose for your own life maybe and finding out what is unmistakable from yourself maybe defines your goals and defines your motivation and if you're maybe struggling with something try to find out what is unmistakable about you because...

something is out there, something is unmistakable about you and yeah, working, building on that, that might help you. I don't think that answers your question but I tried my very best.

Srini Rao

Well, thank you so much for taking the time to join us. This has been really fascinating. Where can people find out more about you, your work, and everything you're up to?

Johannes Mallow

Yeah, so of course, just go to the internet and type in my name, Johannes s-mello.com. But also there's recently a memory competition going on Twitch. Memory Sports TV is my channel there, the World Championship going on and I'm doing daily commentary. A lot of work here. So yeah, these two I think I would recommend.

Srini Rao

And for everybody listening, we will wrap the show with that.