Like it or not, you’re not going to be in school for the rest of your life. You’ll soon begin to look for a job, and to string together a network of acquaintances and contacts that will help lift you onto that first rung of the corporate ladder.
You’ll participate in that horrible convention called the cocktail party and other social events where you’ll be expected to be charming.
Every once in a while, I go to a cocktail party, if only to remind myself why I don’t do it more often. But seriously, cocktail parties give me a chance to practice a skill that I consider one of the key reasons for my earlier success as an advertising salesperson: remembering the names (and some of the other pertinent personal data) that went with the faces.
In fact, one of the principal reasons I became interested in the subject of memory improvement was that I was tired of calling people “pal” and “buddy” when I could not remember their names after they said to me, “Hey, Ron, how have you been?”
If you have as much trouble remembering names and faces as I did, don’t think you’re unique. There are 14 memory tasks people are most commonly concerned about, ranging from remembering important dates, where they’ve put something, or whether they’ve done something to remembering what they’ve read or studied. Four of them relate to identity: remembering someone’s name when you see his or her face, being able to picture a face when you know a name, remembering facts about someone you’ve met (his or her profession, children’s names, spouse’s name), and associating a person with a context (knowing that the person in front of you, whose name you actually remember, is the local baker).
The following techniques will help you avoid those embarrassing cocktail party gaffes (“Oh, yeah, I meant to call you George even though I know your name is Samantha”) by showing you how to link any number of names, faces, and “vital characteristics” in a story or series of pictures.
Whenever you meet someone, look him or her in the face and make special note of some outstanding feature. Does the person have a big nose? Huge earlobes? Dimples? Big, beautiful blue eyes? A cleft in the chin? A mole? A Trumplike comb over? It doesn’t have to be a particularly ugly or beautiful feature—just something that sets the person apart from the rest of the people in the room.
Once you’ve locked in on a feature, don’t stare at it, but do get your imagination working—make that feature truly outstanding by embellishing it. If it’s a big nose, make it as big as a toucan’s beak in your mind’s eye. Dimples should be as large as craters; big earlobes should dangle on the person’s shoulders.
Don’t feel you have to use this technique on every person you see; it’s still easier to utilize obvious clues to jog your memory. Do you see the person’s spouse at the party? Remember his name? Voila! Suddenly you remember her name. Recognize someone but can’t figure out why? Instead of concentrating on the person or his face, think about where you know him from. We remember people in specific contexts and may have a difficult time if we meet them outside of that context. You may have had the same guy fill your gas tank once a week for months but get confused if you suddenly see him at a baseball game. Once you remember he works at the gas station, you’ll probably remember his name!
I remember once introducing my friend Tony to three people who, along with him, were the first to arrive at my house for a dinner party. One minute later, I went into the kitchen to fix drinks for everybody, and Tony was right at my heels. “What was the name of that brunette in the miniskirt?” he asked in a hushed voice. “Monique,” I said. “How ’bout the bald guy?” asked Tony. “That’s Joe.” Finally, very embarrassed, Tony asked, “And what about the other woman?”
There are fleas with longer memories. But now Tony prides himself on being able to remember the names of 30 or 40 people in a room after being introduced only once.
The first thing he taught himself to do was to repeat the person’s name, looking right at him or her as he did so. Tony, being a very charming guy, doesn’t do this as if he’s trying out for a lead role in the remake of Being There. He repeats the name back as part of a greeting—“Nice to meet you, Monique.” “Hi Joe, I’ve heard a lot about you.”
Using such a technique, you will not only be noting the person’s name, you will be making sure that you got it right.
Once you’ve done that, it’s time to come up with some sort of link between the name and the feature that you’ve already exaggerated out of proportion.
I saw the most obvious example of this as a kid when a memorist appeared on a Sunday morning TV show. He was introduced to the 100 or so youngsters in the audience and repeated all of their names back to them at the end of the show. Asked how he had done it, he used the example of a boy named Tommy Fox. The boy had a dimple, said the memorist, so he imagined a bare meadow with a hole in the middle. A fox bounded through the hedge followed by hunters shouting, “Tommy Ho!”
Bingo! The name and the face were linked forever.
Too easy, you say?
There are much easier ones. Before you go too far afield creating a memorable mental picture, don’t overlook the obvious. Some names are so memorable you shouldn’t have to work too hard—try “Boomer” Esiason (okay, you might have to work on “Esiason”) or Chip Dale (gotta love those chipmunks).
Other first or last names should automatically trigger specific pictures—a flower (Rose, Daisy, Hyacinth), a piece of jewelry (Amber, Ruby, Jasper, Opal, Pearl, Jade, Ivory), an object (Gates, Ford, Bentley, Royce, Zipper, Glass, Cross, Brook, River, Pen, Pack, Beam, Tent, ad infinitum), a profession (Tinker, Taylor, Soldier, Spy), a city or town (Clifton, Springfield, Austin, Houston, Dallas, Savannah, York), a familiar street, the name of your favorite team, or a breed of dog or cat.
Some names differing by only a letter could use such objects as links—Pack to remember Gregory Peck, Pen for Sean Penn, Tent for Trent, Road for Rhodes, even Tombs for Thomas and Cow for Cowher. (Go, Steelers!)
Your associations could take advantage of your own particular knowledge. Small for Klein, if you know German; tie-ins to your favorite sports figure, movie star, or author; an association with terms endemic to your profession. The list of possible tie-ins is absolutely endless.
If you still can’t think of such a link, you can always rhyme: Wallets for Wallace, Georgie Porgie, Bad Chad, Freaky Frank, Ron weighs a ton.
Once you’ve come up with these soundalikes or pictures, find some way to link them with the image you’ve formed of the person’s chief facial features.
For instance, once I was introduced to a man named Vince Dolce (pronounced Dole-see). As I was walking toward him, I noticed some rather dark circles under his eyes. In my imagination, because I’m so accustomed to using the technique outlined above, the circles became bigger than a raccoon’s. When I heard that his name was Dolce, I immediately thought, “dull sheep” and pictured tired, sleepy sheep grazing on those now even bigger circles below Vince’s eyes. The sheep, of course, were bothering him, and this made him wince (for Vince).
That’s all there is to turning a room full of strangers into people that—for better or worse—you’ll never forget!