The Power of Memory
Guest: Chester Santos
Topics: Memory, coaching
Transcript:
Chris Ressa 0:00
This is retail retold the story of how that store ended up in your neighborhood. I’m your host, Chris ReSSA. And I invite you to join my conversation with some of the retail industry’s biggest influencers. This podcast is brought to you by DLC management.
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Ressa 1:12
Welcome to retail retold everyone. Today we have a very unique episode for this podcast. Today I’m joined by Chester Santos. Chester is a memory skills expert and the 2008 US Memory Champion. As many of you know, I love improving skills. And I don’t think a lot of people think about memory as a skill to improve on. But I was connected with Chester last year and am excited for him to be here to talk about what he does, and how memory is a skill. So welcome to the show.
Chester Santos 1:53
Thank you so much for having me, Chris. I’m looking forward to talking with you today.
Ressa 1:58
Yeah, me too. So, Chester, why don’t you give everyone a little bit more about who you are and what you do?
Santos 2:05
Yeah, sure. My name is Chester Santos, also known as the International men of memory. After winning the United States national memory championship. I’ve gone on to be a speaker in more than 30 Different countries on the topic of memory skills development, basically on how anyone can develop powerful memory skills, and leverage those skills to become more successful in one’s career. Personal life and also if you happen to have any kids or grandkids in school, the tips that I talked about today will be useful there as well.
Ressa 2:41
I can’t wait, I I hope we can give a couple of practical tips. I’m sure like anything else, though. It’s about practice. And you could know it, but you have to actually practice it. And that’s my guess. Before we get started, I want the audience to get to know you a little bit more. I’ve got three warm up questions. We call it clear the air. Are you ready? Sounds good. All right. Here we go. Question one, Chester. What is one skill you don’t possess, but wish you did?
Santos 3:13
One skill I don’t possess that I wish I did would probably be speed reading. It’s a related topic. But it’s something that the to mind. But something that I have not worked on over the years. I am more of a slow reader. But I remember definitely almost all of what I read. But I have to go at a slow pace. So I’d like to be able to read much more quickly but still have that retention, if possible. So that that’s a skill I wish I had.
Unknown Speaker 3:47
Second question. What
Ressa 3:51
What is one thing most people agree with, but you do not. One thing
Santos 3:57
that most people agree with that I do not while related to my field, this often comes up during q&a. At the end of presentations, a lot of people out there seem to have this idea that they don’t want to fill their head up with too much information. So they think that I often hear all I’m saving space in my brain for the important things. I don’t want to fill my brain up too much with useless information, things like that. But in fact, there is no limit to human memory. So I don’t agree with that mindset at all. If there is a limit to human memory, I don’t think we’re going to discover what it is in our lifetimes. And in fact, how learning and memory works is you always want to try and come up with a connection between something new that you’re trying to learn and something that you already know. So in fact, the more that you know, the more information that you have stuffed in stored in your brain, the easier it becomes to learn new things. So Oh, that’s something common mindset that I don’t agree with. I think it’s the opposite of what most people think you should be trying to fill your brain up with as much information as possible.
Unknown Speaker 5:11
Fascinating.
Ressa 5:13
Last question, when is the last time you tried something for the first time?
Santos 5:18
When is the last time I tried something for the first time? Pretty recently, I was in Russia. So just trying some new foods that I had never tried before. That would be it. That was just a couple of months ago, I was actually in Russia, I went to Moscow and St. Petersburg, some beautiful cities to to visit if you get the chance, and you’ll try some new new and interesting foods
Ressa 5:38
there, which was new,
Santos 5:42
a lot of different things. One thing that blew my mind was this dessert that they call it a potato on the menu. But it’s like, I guess like a chocolate potato. It’s one of the most mind blowing desserts that I’ve ever had. So I recommend that if you’re ever in I had that in St. Petersburg,
Ressa 6:01
making me hungry. But definitely in the holiday season, I need to try to get a Russian chocolate potato. Let’s get into it a little bit here at Chester. I think this is an interesting topic, because I don’t think it’s something most people talk about. So let’s go back to the beginning. How did how does one become a memory expert? How did you? How come? You’re a memory expert? How did this happen?
Santos 6:28
Sure. So really my path, it was sort of random how I ended up where I’m at today, I happened to be flipping channels one night, and I caught a segment on ABC 2020, that evening news program, they had a segment on the United States memory championship, and it sparked my interest. Because people had often commented to me just in conversation while you have a really good memory. So with those comments, kind of in the back of my mind, when I caught that segment on 2020, I thought, hey, people say I have a good memory, maybe I can do well in this competition. But I quickly found out when looking into what the best people in the country score and various events in that competition, memorizing hundreds of names, decks of playing cards, hundreds of digits perfectly in just a few minutes, I realized I wasn’t on that level. So that’s when I started looking into ways as to how one can magnify their memory ability, develop their memory skills to become better at remembering things. I experimented with a lot of different techniques over the years found what seemed to work best for me personally trained myself in that subset of techniques until eventually I did manage to win the United States national memory championship. And since then, I’ve started giving presentations all over the world. I’ve written books on memory. So just in trying to help others develop the skills, and utilize those for personal and professional success, I’ve really become more and more and more of an expert in the field over the last decade plus.
Ressa 8:02
Really, really cool story that you just saw this 2020 thing and decided to get jump in here. What were first of all, what was the time from like, when you saw that? 2020 To like when 2008 when you want it? How long of a time did it take you to like really hone in and be an expert?
Santos 8:22
Yeah, so I really think it depends, you know how much you put into it each year as far as training. So the first time I competed, I actually managed to get third place the first time I competed. But then for many years, I just kept on getting third place. So I knew I probably could win it because I was right there. But what it really took was in 2008, I just really dedicated my life to winning that competition, I trained for it, like somebody might train for the Olympics or something, you know, as far as physical sports, the intense training they put in, I put in basically that level of training. And then in 2008, I got first place I actually won it pretty comfortably that year. So it’s just a matter of setting your mind to the goal and putting in the work and the practice on a consistent basis to to achieve that.
Ressa 9:23
Was this all self taught? Or did you like seek out a coach? What how did you go about this?
Santos 9:31
Yeah, so what I did was I read everything that I could find on the internet, I read all of the books that I could find on memory skills, development, and you know, some of the things I felt worked for me other things didn’t work really well and didn’t fit in with what I needed to accomplish in the memory championship. So just based on all of that research, experimenting with everything I could find out there I just threw out what wasn’t working he honed in on what was working stuck to that. And I’ve just done more and more of that, over the years in terms of being able to help others with what will immediately be effective for them in their career, in their studies, and so on. Got it?
Ressa 10:20
What were you doing, like, working wise, when you were training for this? Like, what were you doing at the time, you weren’t the US Memory Champion? So I don’t know, if you had classes you were teaching people or whatnot. What were you doing for work at this time?
Santos 10:36
Yeah, so I was actually a full time software engineer, I have a master’s degree in software engineering, used to work in the Silicon Valley area, as a software developer. So that was my work. And basically, after work in the evenings, I would train my memory, memorize decks of cards, memorize sheets of computer generated random digits. And then on the weekends, I would you know, train even five plus hours a day, that was more during the intense training period 2008, and end of 2007.
Unknown Speaker 11:13
Mentioned decks of cards. How
Ressa 11:16
do they decide a winner of the memory memory championship? Who, what what are the things they do to decide, oh, this person has a better memory than this person? What are you doing to compete?
Santos 11:27
Yeah, so in terms of the there are many events, but I’ll go over the cards event that you just mentioned. So one of them is they will shuffle a deck of playing cards. And you will memorize it, when you’re done memorizing it, you’ll just put your hand up or something. So they record the time basically, how long it took you to memorize the deck, you do, you are limited to a maximum of five minutes. All right, you are then given a second deck of cards, brand new deck, that’s a new deck order. And you have a maximum of five minutes to arrange that second deck from memory into the same order as the first deck that you looked at. Then they put the two decks side by side and flip through all the cards to make sure that every single card matches. So that’s that event, I used to be able to do it in just under 90 seconds. And you know, some people now can even do it faster than that. So that’s one of the events in the US memory championship,
Ressa 12:28
did you say just under 30 seconds,
Santos 12:30
I used to do it in just under 90 seconds, just just under a minute and a half. Yeah, but people can nowadays you know, the scores, just like in the Olympics and physical sports, how the records are broken every year, the scores are higher and higher, the same in the memory championship. So nowadays, there are people that can do it in even under one minute. And there’s 52 cards in a deck. So it’s just really amazing what the human mind is capable of with the right training and practice.
Ressa 13:01
I couldn’t agree more speaking what the human mind is capable of what is what does science? What does the science community think of? What would you and maybe others do? What is the perspective of the science community?
Santos 13:17
Oh, they’re very interested in memory champions, like myself, and exactly how do we go about it? And what what are the inner workings of the brain? So Stanford has offered to scan my brain while memorizing things I haven’t taken them up on on it yet. That was after my, after my TED, TED Talk, there happened to be a professor at my TEDx Bay Area talk Stanford professor and he, he wanted me do that I haven’t done it, but some other memory champions have. And they’ve seen that what we’re memorizing there are the so much more of the brain is lit lighting up. So much more of the brain is active compared to an average person, when they are committing things to memory. They’re still actively researching this MIT I correspond once in a while with a professor from MIT who is doing research on basically enhance memory and how these skills or these techniques are actually working in people’s brains. But what we do know right now, is that if you will use the right techniques and put in that practice, it’s pretty incredible what people are capable of.
Ressa 14:33
Totally mind blown by this topic. Let’s talk about some practical applications while the deck of cards is cool. Actually, before that, let’s back up give give me a note. What’s another one they do at the US memory championship? What’s another event?
Santos 14:51
Yeah, so one that I think people can relate to probably a little better and right away see practical applications for it is memorizing names and faces so In the competition, they give us what basically look like yearbook pages. So there’s a photo and a name written underneath first name and last name. When I was competing, there was 99, I believe there’s more now over 100, we would have 15 minutes to look those over, when the 15 minutes time period was up, they would then give us the pages, the pictures again, but the pictures would be on different pages, and then completely in a completely different order, only the photo and you would have to write out from memory, the matching name and spelling counts. So that made it even a bit trickier in that if you spelled the person’s name Tammy ending a walk in a why, but that particular person’s name ended in IE it was considered incorrect, like you didn’t remember the name. So it’s it’s pretty tough, pretty intense. But again, it’s something that people can get good at with training and practice. Now I actually open presentations around the world, I’ll go before my presentation, I’ll go around in the audience and just shake people’s hand get their name. And I’ve opened with naming even hundreds of people and an audience after hearing each name just one time. So for practical purposes, it’s going to help you of course, to get more out of business networking, you’re not getting the most out of networking. If you’re attending a bunch of events. And the next time you run into someone that you met you had, you have no idea what their name is or what they do for a living, you’re just not maximizing the benefits that you could get out of business networking.
Ressa 16:38
That is a great practical application. What other practical applications do you see you go and you train people all over the world? What are the practical applications? Do you see people using enhanced memory skill in professional world?
Santos 16:54
Oh, they’re, they’re there, they are so numerous, I’ll go over some of them. Now, you know, I hit on one. Just building better business and personal relationships. By remembering people’s names, things about them, it increases people’s likability factor, right. And that’s a factor in advancement in one’s careers is your likability factor, in addition to your job performance, right presentations, if you happen to be in a career, where you are giving some sort of presentation with memory skills, you can minimize the amount of notes that you use, maybe eventually getting to using no notes at all, so that you can maintain eye contact with your audience, you’re going to be a more persuasive, more effective speaker. I’ve been I’ve been a speaker at conferences, sometimes you’ll have a world famous professor there. But he doesn’t get the greatest remarks on the comment cards from people in the audience because his presentation was, here’s slide number one on my research. Here’s slide number two on my research and the people audience are reading all of these charts and graphs and they’re starting to fall asleep, it’s better if you can at least minimize the notes and, and be more engaging, maintain eye contact with the audience training material. So if you’re in a profession, where things are changing a lot, your company sends you to a lot of new trainings, you’re going to be able to retain more of that information. Keep in mind that memory is a fundamental part of the learning process. So when you improve your ability to remember things, it’s going to have a huge impact definitely on absorbing more from training material for kids in school exam material. Also, I would say if you happen to be in sales, meeting with clients, potential clients, if you can maintain eye contact with that person during the meeting and say, hey, here are 510 key things that I learned about you and your company in my research, here are 510 key things that I learned about your competitors. Here are 510 key ways why my company and our services are the perfect match for what you’re doing. When you can do that show that you’ve gone, you know, a step above everyone else you’ve done that research, you can maintain, maintain eye contact. Nowadays, people are so impressed with that very, very impressed, they have a lot more confidence in you and your abilities when you can do things like that, because let’s face it, the average business professional nowadays isn’t working on their memory at all. And simple things like that would be impossible for them to do because they’re so dependent on electronic devices. So when you can do that people are more impressed with you. You know, whether there’s a connection between memory and intelligence. Research, it’s up for debate. You know, one research study may say yes, another research state search that you might see him say maybe not, they don’t have the definitive answer, but the perception is right when we meet with someone, and they seem to know their stuff, they seem to have a pretty sharp memory. We perceive the perceived them to be at least pretty smart. And we have more confidence in them.
Ressa 20:09
That that if there’s anything you said, Whether I don’t know what the science is, but 100% people perceive someone who has a better memory to be smarter, hands down, that is perception. Can I take class with you? Can I can I get rid of my to do list? Oh, definitely.
Santos 20:32
That would be that would be absolutely no problem. Yeah, I teach you. I, for my private coaching clients, I teach you how to build a wide variety of mental filing cabinets. And you will reach the point to where well, at a minimum, all of my clients have 100 mental storage places available for 100 different pieces of information. But you may even get to 1000 plus mental storage places or mental filing cabinet. So you know, 1020 item to do lists the wood would be a piece of cake.
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Ressa 21:49
There’s three things that are ever consuming in my world as as an executive in my business, and those three things are my calendar, my to do list and notes from meetings, right? I’d love to be able to walk into a meeting, be eye contact, not head down writing, eye contact, engaged, listening, and walk out and have unbelievable recall on what was what was discussed in that meeting. What he said and you know, I’m looking at my calendar right now, which is, you know, a lot of things on it. would those be three mental cabinets that I could put things in?
Santos 22:39
Absolutely, I can definitely help you to maintain eye contact, be very focused and file that important information away mentally. So they I don’t know, I know we’re connected on LinkedIn, you might may once in a while see my tips from around the world. I had done one that was talking about research. That’s recent, that’s recently been been done in the last few years. They had people watch a TED talk online, one group was able to take notes during the TED talk, they had another group just sit there quietly and watch it. They then had a quiz on what was covered during the talk. And the group that just sat there and quietly listens, performs significantly better on the recall of what was discussed during the talk. So when you are head down, busy writing down the notes, a lot of times you’re shutting off your brain and you’re really not absorbing that information. They did a similar study with people attending a museum. So one group would walk around the museum and they could take notes on things that they were looking at another group would just walk around and enjoy the museum. That group did better when they are quizzed on the various exhibits. So it’s better to try and just listen. Stay focus, it’s going to help you recall and of course, I can help you to go even further with that with these types of memory skills. Techniques.
Ressa 24:13
Yeah, man, I think the popular belief is that people remember better if they can write it down the act of writing it, kind of scribes it in their memory. And you’re saying that’s not the case, per se, which I find rather interesting.
Unknown Speaker 24:31
Well, you know,
Santos 24:32
you just you definitely need to be conscious of the fact don’t if you want to go ahead and write things down because you feel that aids you. I’m not going to tell you to not do that. But just be very aware of the fact that for a lot of people, when they’re basically outsourcing their memory to the pad. In that case, they’re shutting their brain off, right. So what I would advise is if you’re going to go ahead and write things down, try to learn some of these memory techniques. says well, so that while you’re writing it down, you can also try to mentally file it away.
Ressa 25:04
Wow. So I won’t need a notebook in meetings, I can get rid of my to do list and I can get rid of my calendar. Those are three things I could get done.
Santos 25:17
You could definitely do that. Yeah, with these types of techniques and, and a whole lot more, those are pretty, I think pretty easy to accomplish with this type of training, but you can do a really a lot more, it’s, again, it’s incredible what the mind is capable of with the right techniques, training and practice.
Ressa 25:35
I think our listeners are very, very, very intrigued right now. Because I think a lot of the listeners are, take copious notes, and, you know, have calendars and and if that’s just the surface level, I think they are intrigued.
Unknown Speaker 25:53
Let’s, let’s talk about some
Ressa 25:58
actual techniques. What are, you know, let’s go over one or two, some of the things you actually teach in your classes, and the skills and how to build skill development.
Santos 26:11
Yeah, I’d love to do that with you, Chris, let’s go through Well, let me go over three main principles very quickly, that are going to apply no matter what specific memory technique you end up using. And then we can go through an interactive exercise after that with one of the techniques. If there’s time for that?
Ressa 26:31
Sure. Will I be able to recite 25 numbers to you and then you have them respond back what they were?
Santos 26:39
You can totally do that. But numbers is going to take a little bit more. There’s an intermediate step. I’ll explain that come back to that. Later, I’ll explain why numbers is going to take a little bit more than just an initial training. After we go over the the main principles First, So principle number one is just
Unknown Speaker 26:59
like, oh, yeah, no problem.
Santos 27:04
Step number one, or principle number one is, no matter what type of information that you want to commit to memory, you always want to try to come up with a visual representation for it, you want to be able to picture it in your mind, we remember things that we see. So a quick example, you’ve probably run into someone that you’ve met previously, as soon as you see them, you remember their face, right? You know that you met them somewhere before, but you can’t remember the name, right? Another situation you can relate to, let’s say you go to a party. Two weeks after it’s over, you’re talking with one of your friends, your friend describes someone to you that was at the party, as your friend is describing the person, a lot of times you can picture who exactly who they’re talking about. But you can’t seem to remember the person’s nature, right? Those examples make sense when you think about it, because when we interact with people in various ways, we see their face, right, the face is recorded into your visual memory. But the name is something more abstract. So one way to get better at names is trying to turn them into powerful visuals. For the name Mike, I might picture a microphone. For the name Alice, I might picture a white rabbit because it reminds me of Alice in Wonderland, right. So that’s a little tip there for names. But my point is that a visual for the information makes it easier to recall the information later. Second, overarching principle, after you come up with a visual, try to involve more senses if you can, as you activate more senses, you’re building more and more connections in your mind to the information and you’re activating more and more areas of your brain. I started an episode of PBS as Nova science, people want to check it out later, they’re gonna see the brain scientists, neuroscientists, talking about why it is that these techniques that I use, part of why they work so well is because I’m using more senses, I’m activating more of the brain, it becomes easier to remember things. Third, overarching principle is while you’re seeing and then trying to experience the stuff with additional senses, try and make all of that in your mind. Crazy, unusual, extraordinary if you can, because there is a psychological aspect to human memory. We all remember things that happened to us that are pretty out there. Right? Extraordinary in some way. Wherever your audience is right now, if an elephant crashed into the room that they’re in right now at this moment, and started to spray water all over them with with its trunk that actually happened at this moment. You probably remember that for the rest of your life, even 30 years from now, you’re never gonna believe this. I was listening to Chris RECIST podcast, he had a memory guy on there. While I was listening to the podcast and elephant crashed in the room started spraying water on me it was just crazy. Unbelievable. That will be stuck forever in your mind without any effort to commit it to memory. So just Knowing there is that aspect of how our mind works, we can harness it, take advantage of it applied to things that would be useful, remembering names, presentations, and so on. So that’s it. Three principles, quick review visuals, try to involve more sensitive if you can. And third, make it all weird to take advantage of that psychological aspect to memory. So with that said, I want to try to put those principles into practice. Now, Chris, I’m gonna have you try to commit something to memory. The audience can follow along, see how they do. Just do your best relax. It’s gonna be fun. It will take about three minutes. I’m gonna have you all ever try this.
Ressa 30:37
What is that? It’s telling everyone we did not know we were doing this. Alright, no, I’m
Santos 30:41
springing this. No, I’m just totally springing it on you right now. I know, Chris, just bear with me. I think you’ll have fun. It won’t be too tough. Even even under the pressure. The word list I’m gonna have you memorized quickly is going to be monkey iron rope, kite house, paper, two worm envelope, pencil, river, rock, tree, cheese, and dollar. All right, that’s list now most people think you No, no, this guy’s crazy. There’s no way I’m going to commit that to memory. Not unless he gives me a lot of time to do it. But in fact, Chris, you’ll have it down. People listening to the podcast will have it down in just about three minutes. And even weeks from now, you’re still going to know the words forwards and backwards. Just relax. Listen to what I describe to you. And just try to see and experience it in your mind. You can do it with your eyes open or closed, whatever is most comfortable for you in terms of visualization. I want for you to just see a monkey right? This monkey is dancing around and it’s making monkey noises because the first word I had given you is Monkey. So the monkey is making monkey noises dancing around. See that in your mind’s eye. The monkey now picks up a gigantic iron. All right, like you would iron your clothes with just see this monkey dancing around with his giant iron. That’s it. Picture that. Relax. It starts to fall but a rope attaches itself to the end of the iron. See that rope, maybe even feel the rope. Maybe it feels sort of rough.
Unknown Speaker 32:15
All right. You look up
Santos 32:19
the rope and you see that the other end of the rope is attached to a kite. This kite is flying around in the air. To see that kite. Maybe try and touch it. Everyone just relax. Try to visualize this kite. The kite now crashes into the side of a house. Really see it smash into this house. Picture that the house is covered in paper for some reason it’s completely covered in paper to see that paper all over the house and the next word I had given you was paper. Out of nowhere a shoe appears and it starts to walk all over that paper maybe it’s messing it up as it’s walking on it really see that shoe. It smells kind of badly for some reason. So you investigate you look inside of the shoe and you find a smelly worm crawling around really try to see that worm. The worm jumps out of the shoe and into an envelope. Maybe it’s going to mail itself or something I don’t know. envelope was the next word really see that envelope. The warmth just went into the envelope. Out of nowhere a pencil appears and it starts to write over the envelope. Maybe it’s addressing it.
Santos 33:34
That pencil. Really see that pencil the pencil now jumps into a river and there’s a huge flash like you would never expect to see when that little pencil hits the river. Picture that river. The river is crashing up against a giant rock crushing up against a giant rock that rock flies out of the river it crashes into a tree really see that tree this tree is growing cheese you probably haven’t seen a tree like this before it’s growing cheese. See that tree growing cheese and out of the cheese shoots $1 $1 shoots out of the cheese the last word I had given you was dollar right now I’m just gonna run through this again in about 2030 seconds. Your job is simply to replay through this little story that you’ve created in your mind right so we had that monkey the monkey was dancing around with what it was an iron. What attached to the iron. It was a rope. You felt that rope right you look up the rope the other end was attached to what it was a kite. What did that kite crash into, you saw crashed into a house was the house covered in it was covered in paper right? What walked on the paper it was a shoe. Something was crawling in that shoe. What was it? It was a worm. The worm jumped into an envelope. What wrote on the envelope it was a pencil right? The pencil jumped into the river. The river was crashing into the rock that flew into a tree which was growing what cheese what came out of the cheese it was a Dollar. So now Chris, I’d like you to just do your best. Take your time, relax, see if you can recall those words by simply playing through the story in your mind, each major object that you see in the story will give you the next word, and your audience can follow along and just see how they do as well for fun. All right. Monkey, iron, rope, tight. House. Paper, shoe, worm, envelope, pencil, river, rock, tree, cheese, dollar.
Santos 35:44
Awesome. And that’s not easy under pressure. We, we did not discuss that at all. Previous to the interview, I didn’t even warn you, I was gonna spring that on you. So great job under pressure there. I’m sure if people give it a try. They could even recite that backwards by simply going through the story in reverse. Now I want to point out that this technique, that’s called the story method, by the way, it doesn’t just apply to random words, let’s try to apply that to a presentation very quickly here. Let’s say I was going to give a talk about healthcare in the United States. Maybe my first image would just be a stethoscope that the doctor uses to check your heartbeat that’s just going to represent the broad topic for discussion for today is healthcare right? Then I want to hit on first with my audience, I want to talk about the high cost of health care in the United States. Maybe shooting out of the stethoscope is a bunch of $100 bills. All right. The next thing I want to cover in my presentation is that under current health care programs, in order to get certain things covered, sometimes we have to find a way to cut through or navigate through a lot of red tape, maybe wrapping itself around the $100 bills is all of this red tape. So hopefully that gives you an idea of how you could apply this simple concept of the story method to minimizing the amount of notes you use when giving a presentation. Those could also be five talking points with a client or potential client. So there are definitely practical applications for even very simple techniques.
Ressa 37:20
Cool, that was great. I really appreciate you putting me on the spot and walking me through that when you first rattled off the words I was like, Oh, my God, but the method was pretty good. And we did that in less than five minutes. Pretty, pretty, pretty good stuff. So really appreciate you coming on today. Why don’t you tell everybody about the training they you do and the services that you offer?
Santos 37:49
Yes, so I’d love to talk about that. If people would like to go deeper dive deeper into the realm of memory skills development, if you’d like to make it something to work on for the new year be better than ever, in terms of your personal and professional development in 2022. The best place to go for most people would be memory school.net. You can visualize media fishing net to remember that it’s dot net. So it’s memory school.net. It’s an entire online school. I’ve got core training, advanced training, ongoing training uploaded every single month, I set up code Chris, in honor of being on your show, I set it to be valid for 50 uses, I have no idea how many people from your audience might be interested. But the first 50 people to use that code should find that when they entered into the checkout page that the $200 enrollment fee would will go down to $0. As long as it’s still valid, you’ll just have to pay only for the first month of access. So check it out memory school.net The code is Chris valid for the first 50 people. I also give speeches and presentations all around the world for various types of organizations. So if you’re involved with an organization that might need an entertaining and educational speaker, please keep me in mind. I do private coaching on a very limited limited basis and also corporate training seminars. So half day, one day and up to two day corporate training seminars as well.
Ressa 39:24
Excellent. And your social media handles where can they find you on social media.
Santos 39:29
I’m most active on LinkedIn. So if you just write to me on LinkedIn and mention that you heard me on Chris’s podcast, I’ll go ahead and be happy to accept you as a connection. So LinkedIn, I’m most active on and also Instagram. Those are the two main places to find me Instagram and LinkedIn.
Ressa 39:51
Chester, this has been great. I really appreciate it. And with every guest, we’re typically in the recent Elon real estate industry at the end of every show, I asked three questions. So I got three fun questions for you. They probably haven’t thought of.Tell me when you’re ready. I’m ready. Let’s go.
Ressa 40:13
Question one. What extinct retailer Do you wish would come back from the dead?
Santos 40:19
Wow, you know that it just so happens that I saw this in a TV show episode. And this came to my mind blockbuster, like Blockbuster Video because there was something I don’t know. It was a cool experience, I think to actually walk around the store and picked up the different end to discuss with your friends that might might have been right there with you what movie you wanted to watch. I think those could come back just on a very limited basis.
Ressa 40:49
Okay, question two. What is the last item over $20 You bought in a store?
Santos 40:56
Last item over $20 that I bought in the store? Whoa, that’s kind of a difficult one. And interesting. You’re bringing something interesting to my mind. I guess we’re all doing so much online shopping these days. Over $20 Or I bought in a store, maybe a suitcase. When my suitcase broke. Recently, I actually wanted to go in there and physically like feel like the wheel how the wheels were rolling arounds and just just a random place in in Chinatown. I live in San Francisco, just a random place and Chinatown in San Francisco. But I wanted to actually, you know, demo? The suitcase. So
Ressa 41:47
the taxman. Okay, last question. If you and I were shopping at Target, and I lost you, would I Oh, would I find you in?
Santos 41:59
What aisle would you find me in in Target? I guess. It’s got to be something electronics, electronics related, you know, things that sometimes I need to buy a new microphone for these types of interviews. I don’t know, testing, testing out various electronic devices to work with the new technology that we’re all using, I guess. Cool.
Ressa 42:24
Well, Chester, and this has been great. I really appreciate the time. Thank you so much. This is one of the more interesting episodes I’ve ever done. So thanks for joining us.
Santos 42:34
Thank you so much for having me, Chris. It was fun.