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Brett and Kate McKay
3. A more interesting personality. I’ve always been impressed by that
very rare man who can weave a snippet of a great speech or poem into a
conversation. Being able to throw some inspiration from Wordsworth
or a bit of wit from Twain into your conversations can definitely distinguish
you as a gentleman of letters. The trick is to be discriminating
when you start reciting stuff. If you do it too much or at the wrong
times, you’ll just make yourself look like a pompous ass.
4. A strengthened backbone. The most important benefit of memorizing
passages from great works is that you’ll be storing up a treasure trove
of wisdom and knowledge that you can immediately access when you
need extra motivation to man up. Feeling a little nervous while you’re
waiting in the lobby for a job interview? Recite Theodore Roosevelt’s
“Man in the Arena” to yourself. Perhaps you’ve been put in a leadership
position and need to get psyched up to lead your group to success.
Mull over the words to the “St. Crispen’s Day” speech. There’s
probably a poem or a great speech that can be used to motivate you
for any facet of your life.
Tips on Memorizing
When I was in law school, I often had to memorize 40 pages of a class
outline. So I was always looking for new ways to improve my ability
to memorize.
I’m a big fan of the peg system, the link system, and mindmaps.
Unfortunately, I found these techniques useless for memorizing 40 page
law school outlines filled with abstract legal doctrine. So I came up with
my own system, which I call “brute force memorization.” It ain’t pretty or
efficient, but it gets the job done.
The Brute Force Memorization Process
While reading the sentence I want to memorize aloud, I’ll type it into my
computer. I repeat this process five times with each line of data I want to
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