52 Aces

Learning, competition and capitalism

psychology

How to Remember Your Keys

One comment I frequently hear whenever I tell people about my interest in memory and learning is “Oh, that sounds great – but I have a terrible memory. I’m always losing my keys/wallet/sanity!”

It’s usually accompanied by a casual shrug of the shoulders and a “shucks” facial expression. This is apparently a common affliction and many seem convinced that they’re doomed to always forget the small things in life. But there’s good news for those of you who are guilty of believing this: it’s not true, and the solution lies in learning a few basic tricks.

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The 3 Most Important Rules for Public Speaking

“Delivery, delivery, delivery.”

–Demosthenes, when asked to name the 3 most important components of rhetoric

Last night I gave my first public presentation about 52 Aces-related material, specifically the fundamentals of memory. It seemed to go over well and I walked away feeling like I provided some value to the audience.

That being said, several people came up to me afterwards and asked me about books, videos or anything else I’d used to develop my style of speaking. They all gave me suspicious looks when I told them I hadn’t studied anything.

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In Search of Insight

Common knowledge

Reading books about business, innovation, leadership or marketing that have been specifically written about those subjects has become something that I generally refuse to do. Why? Because those books are, in my experience, mostly rehashing the same ideas over and over again.

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A Short Guide to Willpower

Are you reading this right now because you’re trying to avoid doing something else? How much time have you spent idly surfing the web or using social networks today?

Do you feel like that accomplished anything? Even if you’ve been good today, I’ll go out on a limb and assume you’ve spent a fair amount of time wandering around aimlessly when you could have been doing something more interesting.

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The Science of Starting Big Projects

Have you ever considered starting a big project, only to make a U-turn when confronted with the amount of work that would go into making it a reality?

If you answered “yes”, how did you handle that reality check? Did you decide you’d take care of it some other time, when you had more time, money or energy?

I know I have, and I want you to have the tools to get past what keeps you from giving your dream projects a shot.

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