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In this episode, we discuss:

• How Mark Channon originally got into the world of memory and mnemonics
• What it takes to become a Memory Grandmaster, and how Mark became one of the first
• How does Mark teach beginners to rapidly improve their memory?
• What are the strangest, most unusual applications of memory coaching that Mark has ever seen?
• What is “implicit learning” and how does it work?
• In which ways has Mark Channon applied memory techniques into his own life?
• How to avoid knowing your speech too well during public speaking
• How does Mark Channon learn, outside of using mnemonics?
• What are “primer questions” and how do they work?
• What are Mark's thoughts on nootropics and other smart drugs?
• What is Mark's meditation habit, and what is the power behind meditation?
• Creating and changing habits, and the idea behind “tiny habits”
• A little bit about Mark's coaching programs and books
• Mark Channon's #1 takeaway for this episode

Resources Mentioned in This Episode:

• Monkhouse's Memory Masters
• Tony Buzan
• Jonathan's TED Talk
• Wim Hof Method
• Dr. BJ Fogg
• How to Remember Anything by Mark Channon
• The Memory Workbook by Mark Channon
• Improve Your Memory, Sharpen Your Focus and Improve Performance by Mark Channon
• Mark's website
• Total Memory BluePrint
• Mark's Instagram

Transcript:

Introduction: Welcome to the Becoming SuperHuman podcast, where we interview extraordinary people to bring you the skills and strategies to overcome the impossible. And now here's your host, Jonathan Levi

Jonathan Levi: Greeting SuperFriends, and welcome to the Becoming SuperHuman podcast where it's my great pleasure to talk to and deconstruct the world's top performers and figure it out, how they learn, what they learn, and what it is that makes them so effective at whatever it is they do. Before we get started, I want to read you guys a fantastic review that was left for us by a race of the United States of America, who says that this episode,

the Vivienne Ming episode was both fascinating and interesting. The only fault is that it lasted under an hour. He goes on to say that he wishes it was longer, or it would be even nicer to have another podcast with Ms. Vivienne Ming. Great job to you both just great. Thank you so much for that review. We really do appreciate it.

And I can't tell you how much it helps us get the top guests, which leads me into today's episode, because today you guys, we have a very special treat for you. It's actually the second time in the history of the show that we are graced by the presence of a certified grand master of memory. Now today's guest was actually one of the first

people in the world to earn that distinction way back in 1995. You guys, for over 15 years, he's worked as a memory trainer and coach. He's worked with students of all ages, and he's also authored three books entitled How to Remember Anything, Improve Your Memory, and more recently The Memory Workbook. In this episode, we are going to dive deep into memory improvement, accelerated learning, how you can be better at habits, how you can improve your physical performance and so much more.

Now I want to let you guys know that if you enjoy this episode, you should know that there is a longer uncut version with the full video recording of the interview and about 30% more content that goes in depth into the actual techniques, how they work and how to apply them. It actually is one of a number

of longer and uncut interviews with some of the world's top memory and learning experts. And you can access all of that stuff by visiting the SuperLearner Academy at becomeasuperlearner.com. Or if you want to get a discount, you don't have to, but if you want to, you can get a discount by visiting jle.vi/learn. Obviously, anything you pick up at the SuperLearner Academy is backed by a lifetime guarantee and anything you pick up there goes to support us, support our expenses for producing the show and help keep us doing what we're doing. And so now, without any further ado, I want to present to you, my friend and grandmaster of memory, Mr.

Mark Channon.

Mark. Welcome. Welcome. I'm so excited to have you here today. I really appreciate you making the time. I know you are a very busy man. 

Mark Channon: Yeah. It's great to be here, Jonathan. Really looking forward to this.

Jonathan Levi: Yeah, it's incredible. You know, we got connected by a good friend of mine who actually also a student and he was like, hey, you must know about Mark, Mark Channon. 

And I was like, yeah, yeah. You know, I've heard of him why? He's like, well, I met him and you got to meet this guy. So I know we have a lot of mutual friends in the memory community, so I'm really excited to put a face to the name. Brilliant. 

Mark Channon: Yeah, you too. Obviously, I know about you as well, by number of  years, that's fantastic.

Jonathan Levi: If you know about me, if a memory Grandmaster knows about me, then I'm doing something, right? Yeah. So Mark, for those who don't know you, and haven't had the privilege of being introduced to you. Tell us a little bit about yourself. I know you were actually one of the first people ever to earn the title of a grandmaster.

So really you're an early adopter in the memory games. How did you get into this whole world of mnemonics? 

Mark Channon: Well, it was by chance. Actually, it was a bit of a fluke. I was actually an actor, as a professional actor. This was back in the early nineties. I must've been about 1993 and it was a good friend of mine.

And I was sharing a flat with him. His name was Steve Rogers, not Captain America. And he's a filmmaker. Yeah. He, I remember him running into the room one day, literally running good, Mark, do this. And I was like, all right, well, and he said, remember, these 20 items. And I did about six or seven. They weren't in sequence, but you know, I remember doing six or them and then he said, now try this.

And he showed me this memory palace. Now I didn't know what that was. I never experienced anything like that before. And so I did 20. Forwards and backwards and he said, what's number 50. And I picked it out and I was like, wow, this is like some weird voodoo kind of blew my mind completely. And that's how I got into it.

Really. That's how I started to become consumed with this idea of improving my memory. Right. I actually worked in a bar at the time. I was a theater bar. And I want it to be in the show really. If I was in the bar and I started memorizing people's interval orders, and drinks and got loads of tips though.

This is great. And then I ended up actually getting into the show a year later and it was my agent called me up one day and she went Mark, I know you do some weird stuff. All right. Okay. What does that mean? And she went, I've got a friend and he's looking for ideas for a game show. You got anything in mind now as an actor?

So I don't know how many actors you know, but as an actor, you never say no. Never. Have a sale people go, can you ride a horse? You go, yes, of course I can. It's like, yeah. Anyway, so I said, give me half an hour. I wrote this game show. I didn't have a computer. It was all on a piece of paper with my pencil center off. Long story short, we did the game show.

It was like went out to 8 million people. It was called Monkhouse's Memory Masters, and it ended up airing, in 1995. And it just so happened. That was the time that I met Tony Buzan, and he was like, you have to come and compete. And Dominic O'Brien was there and you got to compete. And it was like, I guess I was going to the new kid on the block.

I was like, all right. Yeah. I didn't know what was installed. No idea. Hey, so I just ended up competing in this crazy like wild memory championship and it kind of blew my mind as well, but I literally had three months to get ready for it. And I was also on national TV. So my profile was quiet. Hi, I got send everything, all these talk shows and these crazy memorization stuff.

So I had to get good really quickly to much higher level than I was at. Right. 

Jonathan Levi: Right. I mean, in short, after that you became a grandmaster, which is for those who don't know really super hard. I mean, remind me of what you need to be able to do to become a grandmaster. 

Mark Channon: Okay. So like I said, I was one of the first eight, and it was due in the world memory championships.

Right. And so for me, it was memorizing the 732 digits in an hour. So the consecutive digits and not back then awarded me that title of grandmaster plus the cards that had six packs of cards and an hour. And we had lots of other things, like poetry was one of my strongest events, really been able to memorize words.

I think, being an actor. I was kind of used to in that kind of stuff. And when names and faces, you know, various other things. So you compete in these two 3d events that back then it was the numbers and it was the cards and it was being able to get the high level in those one hour events, which are real.

If you've never done them before, you need a lot of stamina. Yeah. And it's not just mentally, physically, you have to be in really good shape for that. What's that? It sounds weird to say. Right?

Jonathan Levi: Absolutely. So I think a lot of listeners in this episode will be coming from, you know, my classes where I do touch on the memory, palace technique and stuff like that.

But I'm curious because I get this question a lot as well. I'm sure you do. You meet someone at a party. You say I'm a memory expert or in my case, I'm a learning expert and they go, Oh my gosh, I have the worst memory, teach me how to improve my memory. So what do you say to those people who are absolute beginners?

Mark Channon: Yeah, that's a good question. Funnily enough I'm thinking about the last time I was at a party. I've got three boys, so it doesn't really happen that much. Maybe more networking events. I tend to very nice there. And that's the one surprise. Um, terrible. I used to do you, first of all, as I usually say, have you got a credit card. 

Jonathan Levi: Enroll in my class.

Mark Channon: Yeah, exactly. I know I'll usually memorize a credit card or I'll get them to memorize it without them knowing, and we'll do that. So that will give them an experience for us and they kind of go what, then they realize I've also got their credit card. It speaks to that a little bit, but then I'll usually explain to them.

So, I guess I've got a model that I kind of work too. It's all built off the art of memory, et cetera, which, you know, most people who have thought memory techniques, they're very familiar with it. The model that I use or the framework I call it creative memorization. And there's nothing new there, but it does bring together four elements, which I think are really important. When you want to not just remember, but also learn and really get something into your body.

And so the first element is, that state of flow. So been able to focus, be completely present. Yes, I think because of my background as an actor as well, that was something you just have to be able to do, you know? So are they quite a lot of experience and you just get into that state and the second thing which will be familiar to a lot of people is your ability to use your imagination, to bring experiences to life.

Now a lot of that will be visual, but actually I guess where I come from, which is maybe a little bit different from maybe some of the people that teach is I'm quite physical. I've always been much more, kinesthetic and physical than visual. I have to work really hard to improve my own visual skills. I used to be a dancer as well.

I believe even the things like that. So that's the imagination. And the third thing is obviously association. So that ability to connect and imagination association, those are just well well-known principles. And I guess the last one is really been able to bring meaning, to what you're learning. That might be metaphor, through analogy, but really, you know, trying to make some connection about what does this actually mean?

So flow, imagination, association and meaning, I guess the core model. And so if I'm at a party after memorizing someone's credit cards and a few drinks, you know, that usually blows their mind even more. Yeah. Right. 

Jonathan Levi: Right. So when you demonstrate for them, you just walk them around the room and you say, all right, the first digit of your credit card is a four, let's picture over there. I mean, obviously they don't know, you know, the major method or any of these techniques for transcribing. So do you go let's picture an upside down chair sitting in that corner? I mean, is that how you walk them through the room? 

Mark Channon: Pretty much. Yeah. They won't know how I know the number, but I'll just tell them that, uh, we'll create a language for numbers and it's a picture language.

Brilliant. And so they'll remember the pictures and then I'll decode it for them. Brilliant. It's when they go, what. 

Jonathan Levi: I love that. I also want to point out to our audience that, the first thing you said was, I give them an experiential learning experience. It's not a lecture. And I think a lot of times I make the mistake of going well, I'd dive into those four principles.

You've got to connect it. You got to focus, you've got to make it personally relevant. You got to make it visual. And they're like, okay and.. Whereas your experience or your, I think the brilliant way that you're handling it is. How about you memorize your credit card and then what we'll discover how you did it.

We'll talk about why it worked for you with no training. I think that's a really cool lesson to take away just on the whole of learning is put it in the hands, you know, when it's in people's hands, it's so much more vivid. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. Cool. Very very cool. Mark, let me ask a lot of times when we do hear about feats of memory it's names and faces its numbers and it's cards.

I want to ask you, I mean, especially as an actor, as someone with a dancing background, what are some of the less common examples that your students have applied mnemonics to? What are some of the things that have challenged you? You know, someone says, hey, I need private coaching. I need to remember X and you're like, all right, it's time to get creative.

Let's see how we can make this work. 

Mark Channon: Yeah. You know what? I love it when that happens. And is the thing that I love most about coaching is because you never know what's going to happen. And I guess when I work with people, you have the training part or the mentorship part where you basically did teaching, but once people know that it's about how do they then integrate it into life?

Bingo. The one example, okay. This is probably a little bit, maybe even to that field where I was working with, his name was Amy. He was a CEO. He's got a startup in London and, I was coaching him on memory and it was doing the kind of things you mentioned. It was names. It was able to give presentations. It was been able to get that key data when he was in the boardroom and those kinds of things.

But one day he said, look, Mark, I don't know if you can help me with this, but I'm doing a triathlon. I was like, okay. And he said, he said, I'm fine with the running. I'm fine with the cycling, but on the swimming, I'm not doing well at all. And it's in two weeks. Can you help? I went well, let's see, you know, tell me about it.

And so what we discovered and what he discovered is that, he was going into this paralysis by analysis. He was thinking so much about what the steps were, when he was swimming. You know, when he was diving in, what need to do, the structure, the body pause he needed to take. That he was just shutting everything down.

Not the okay. I said, why don't we try something? Yeah, I know. And I thought, Oh, okay. I remember reading a paper by our mass starts about implicit learning. And I thought, why don't we try this? And it's really about using an analogy or metaphor and kind of get something into the body. And I thought, okay, if you were an animal, I said, if you were an animal, what animal would you be?

That would be great in swimming. And we went through this conversation, he came up with a dolphin. And so I really got into then to think about a future memory. So create a memory in his mind that hadn't happened yet. But to think about it is about hat. That kinda messes with people's brain a little bit when they're trying to figure out what that actually means.

But anyway, and then I got into imagine what it would feel like to be that dolphin. And then we just tried to get that memory into his body where it was very visual, but I tried to get him to connect emotionally, but also physically. And it was really interesting because he texted me the next day and he was doing seven lands.

He needed to do 25 and he texted me and said, Mark, I'm a dolphin exclamation mark. And I was like, what do you mean you went, I just did 25 lens. 

Jonathan Levi: I was like, whoa, incredible. What do you attribute to that success. I mean, getting into this automatic process where the brain is just going through routine and regimen. I mean, if you describe that story, I wouldn't call it necessarily a memory thing.

It's almost like a reprogramming, kind of thing. That's really interesting. 

Mark Channon: It is. And maybe it's because when I think about memory, I guess, I think about the various aspects with working memory or the conditioning response type of memory, and maybe it kind of maybe start to fall into that category and that implicit stuff.

So I kind of think about the whole, I guess, basket of it together. And you've got, how do I actually get stuff into my head to remember? But I think you're right. It was really about did a little bit of repatterning, reprogramming and shifting some of his beliefs about that as well, letting them get out of his own way a bit, do it in a way that would just, think about a memory. Right. Make real and then experience it. 

Jonathan Levi: It's also really interesting because there is this pattern with a lot of athletes. I mean, I used to know a very elite figure skater who said the worst thing you can do when you're spinning three times in the air is think. The best figure skaters are the ones who are kind of airheaded because they don't think about the impossible physics of landing on a quarter inch of steel. And perhaps that's what you did is you got him into this flow state almost in a meditative capacity. If you think about what is transcendental meditation, it's the repetition of these steps over and over to where he could then literally be in flow as opposed to wait.

Yeah. Right arm up left. You know what I mean? And that's yeah, exactly. 

Mark Channon: You just tie yourself up. Eh, freedom. I had a similar experience with myself actually years ago, I did a show called Singing In The Rain and I was in this park called Cosmos, where I met my wife actually. And I had to run up a wall and some assault off the wall.

I'd never done that, but I had to do a similar thing to myself. You know, it can actually, you know, what's the memory, what am I? Because you can't think it's that thing of, if you fall, you land in your head, That's not good. 

Jonathan Levi: That's a huge takeaway. Really interesting. Mark, what are some of the other ways, I mean, you said, you know, memorizing credit card numbers, memorizing people's drink orders.

What are some other ways that you've used memory skills in your personal life or professional life to your own advantage? 

Mark Channon: Oh, that's a good one. And so I think I'd have to think back to the various careers that I've been in. So actor was one, I'm also a product guys, so great digital products. I've worked with BBC, Microsoft, Telegraph. And I'm also a coach and a trainer.

And I've done that for about 20 years. So I think in that context for an actor, it was about auditions. It was about being able to rapidly get a script into your head, know how it works for actors is that you walk into an audition and you've got 15 minutes and they hand you a script. And they go in 15 minutes, come in and read it.

If you are off the book. Yeah. You can just be in the moment. You can just act and interact. Likewise. Sometimes they give you a big two page or like a whole scene the night before and go get that into your head or be doing TV, et cetera. So that I always felt, give me a little bit of an edge. I was actually working with some actors earlier on the week of at 50 actors, a place called The Actor Center, London going through this process.

So that would be one additions for actors. But also if you're a speaker, if you lots of talks or if you got some kind of fear of public speaking, that'd be something that I use a lot. 

Jonathan Levi: Right. Although I do have to say you have to be really careful with memorizing the talks because I had this thinking in my head when I did a TEDx talk that, Oh my God, it would be the worst thing,

if I paused and had to think in the middle of a talk about memory. That I used a memory palace for literally, just about every word except the ands, ifs, buts and does. And you see it in my presentation, you watch the video, it's very clear. I know every word backwards and forwards. I can start anywhere, which might have not served me.

I think. It might've not. So I think it's for public speaking, these techniques are so powerful. You almost have to pull back, a little bit. Whereas for acting it's the opposite, you know, you can fudge the lines, however you feel.

Mark Channon: Yeah. Yeah, no, and it's true. I saw your talk by the way. I loved that. I thought it was really great.

Thank you. So this is an interesting one, actually, I guess when I do a presentation, so I do this technique where I don't use a memory palettes. I'll bring the images in front of me and they'll act as the cues, but I do a lot of improvising, and the rehearsal process. And so what that gives me, I think, is a level of confidence that, you know what I'm going to hit the things I need to hit, but I'm also okay if I go off, which is maybe a little bit dangerous, I don't know, but I quite enjoy that feeling.

Jonathan Levi: It definitely also connects you with the audience, which gives you this huge hit of dopamine, I guess, to be like, people are following my every word as opposed to yeah. I'm just going, I'm speaking of blue streak, which I think is a little bit of how I felt. I should have had you as a coach then.

Mark Channon: When I was talking to the actors this week is it's like you say it as an actor.

If you don't say the actual words, the script right out will not be happy, neither will the director. So what I tend to do when I'm working with actors is I'll get them to create these visual cues, but that's just in the rehearsal process. It's really about accelerating the time it takes to get the word into your body.

Um, and there's lots of other things like intention and the emotions and the physical actions in the scene, was just help you just know what you're supposed to see. Right. Because you shouldn't be thinking about the words, the word should happen. And I think that's part of the magic when you act, or when you get into working with scripts.

It's that, it's something that I used to love doing, but there is a process like that five steps to go do these five things, and it will accelerate the time it takes and the rehearsal to know the words. And then you can forget the words. 

Jonathan Levi: Well, just do the warrants. That's actually a really beautiful segue into, I wanted to ask you how you learn, because memory is one of the most important, if not the most important part of learning, but it's very clear,

I mean, you've had multiple careers. You've learned how to be an effective coach. We were talking offline about, you know, you've learned all this tech stuff and you're running your own company, selling courses, content, all that stuff. You also build digital products. So yeah. It's very clear to me that you learn a lot and you learn very effectively.

So I'm, I'm very curious about the other habits and behaviors that you have outside of mnemonics that give you such a learning advantage.

Mark Channon: Yeah, that's a good one. I guess that there are many they've I've always did pull out maybe two or three, I'd say. Oh, this is a really simple one. That priming more questions.

So priming yourself for the right questions. But it's also easy for us to ask ourselves the questions that don't support us. And so how was this going to benefit me? Or what do I need to learn, when you know, when I look at this new information, if you go into a new job, you know, how can I get up to speed,

in the next three days, rather than three weeks or three months. So you ask yourself questions with the intention of getting answers. That'd be one thing that I do all the time. I don't even think about it now. Just like, uh, my little mind in the back of my head. Let's see. Hey Mark. How do you do this? 

Jonathan Levi: Yeah. But you can try the active aspect of it.

Mark Channon: Yeah. Um, I guess the, one of the other things would be just to, focus. So being able to focus and concentrate is something that I'm really passionate about. Again, I think as a background, as an actor, you can't do that. You can't act, you just have to live in the moment. And as a coach as well, you just have to be really present.

So strategies to help you either be mindful or in the meditation stuff, but also been able to enter that state of focus when you're really energized. And as a dancer, I used to have to get into that state. I think that the other thing I think we touched on already would be experimentation, you know, do the thing as quickly as you can.

So test, I want you're learning as soon as you can. Yes. If you're going to speed, read a book, then go put it in practice straight away. Do something. Even if you think it's not all there and just go try something out. Go tell someone about it. 

Jonathan Levi: Exactly. Explain it to someone, apply the learning. Yeah, absolutely. All right. Let me go ahead and hit pause here and just let you guys know that at this point, we did have to cut some of the more advanced, more technical hands-on memory stuff that isn't going to make sense, unless you are a part of the SuperLearner Masterclass.

Now, if you want to learn more about Mark's techniques, you want to learn more about how he does the incredible feats of memory that he does. I do recommend you go ahead and check out these SuperLearner Masterclass, where you can see all the methods you can access tons of raw and uncut interviews with some of the world's top memory experts, and you can learn how to do it yourself.

So to take advantage of that. Please visit jle.vi/learn. And you'll be pleasantly surprised by the discount code that we've given you. All right. Back into the interview. Mark, I wanna transition into our more kind of general questions here and ask you brain boosters. I'm sure a lot of people ask you about this.

You know, do you use any of these nootropics? I know this is very trendy. We've talked about it a lot on the show. Do you use them? What are your thoughts on them? That whole deal? 

Mark Channon: Yeah. Oh, that's a good question. So actually I don't. If I'm honest, I don't tend to use them against my approach to just, I guess my health in general and how to keep myself sharp is, what can I do to get enough oxygen into my body?

So these specific breathing exercises, I do Qigong, I do Pilates, I'll do things which give me structural support. Partly because I had a back injury and many, many years ago. I'll do things to get lots of breath into my body. So. I'll also look at the foods that I eat and I'm not huge as straight, but I'll just think what's water rich.

You know, what's got nutrients? Is it alive? Is it dead? You know, what's going to help me in that respect. I've also got one of those cold pressed juices, which I love. And so. And that's quite a quick way to get some real, you know, a ton of nutrients in your body quite quickly. I love the green ones. I love the ones my wife does, actually. My ones are not so tasty but hers was good.

Jonathan Levi:  I think the oxygen point is a good one. I've been messing around with Wim Hoff's class. I don't know if you're familiar with him, but, uh, there's some pretty powerful stuff that your body and mind can do when you just overload with oxygen. It's a shockingly powerful drug actually. Yeah. 

Mark Channon: Yeah, absolutely. Very cool. Yeah, I've got a little trampoline just behind me there. I'm on that every morning. Just a little reminder, because the great way of getting oxygen into your body, but it heats you up as low impact. So exercise is obviously massive, you know, oxygen, water, rich foods, nutrients, and just exercise.

So I tend to use that approach and I meditate and I do all those kinds of things as well to try and keep my mind as sharp as possible. 

Jonathan Levi: What's your meditation habit? Is it a TM, Vipassana? 

Mark Channon: It's funny actually. I was chatting to my wife about this the other day. I first, the first time I started doing something, which was similar to meditation was hypnosis and it was back when I was 15 years old.

I remember getting handed this book. I've still got it somewhere. I sparked back my first hypnosis book and I was like, I was a, like a 13 year old kid. I was like, wow, this is great. I'm going to control minds. You know, 13 year old kid. And that kinda got me into it. There was a great book by Shakti Gawain, Create a Visualization, early nineties.

And so I started doing that kind of meditation, mindfulness, I guess let's talking now the last couple of years and meditation, I guess, but it's a specific kind of structure to it. Read that book by Mark Williams. And so I guess I do some mindfulness. I do some the meditation I've been doing for years.

I've got my own changes to hypnotherapist many years ago, so I kind of construct by, or kind of meditations and theories, other things as well. So, by always make time, really make time in the morning, make time at night, usually try and grab some time, you know, some point during lunch. Yeah. 

Jonathan Levi: Oh, so you do multiple sessions a day?

Yeah. Yeah. Oh, excellent. And how long is an average session? 

Mark Channon: So I'll start with a simple 10 minute session just to gain some focus. I'll do a longer session at night, and then whatever I can get in the afternoon, maybe 10, 15 minutes, but it will be for different purposes. Sometimes in the evening, I tend to meditate and then be focused on something specific where in the morning is purely breathing meditation,

quieting the mind, focusing on the breath, you know, if my mind wanders, bringing it back to the breath. So it was just very, very focused on doing that. I love it. Setting you up. 

Jonathan Levi: I almost met zero top performers in doing this show who don't meditate. I just love that it's this super simple, you know, if, if I were to say,

there's a supplement out there and almost everyone on the show takes it and it costs $100 a month. I think a lot of people would take it and this happens to be free and almost everyone on the show does it, which I think is tell it right. The best things in life are free. And meditation happens to be one of them.

Mark I noticed by the way that, uh, you also coached folks on habits. And I have to say I'm a habits geek. I've read nearly every book out there right now and habits. We talk about them a lot on the show, and I'd love to hear just a little bit about your approach to habits. I know we talked a little bit about your coaching client with the swimming, but tell us a little bit how you approach habits and which ones besides say, meditation that you've implemented in your life.

Mark Channon: Yeah. So I actually came across, it's not my strategy. If someone called Dr. BJ Fogg, he's a behavior scientist. Have you heard of him? Stanford University, that's right. So he does something called Tiny Habits. Now I called him a couple of years ago and I was chatting to him cause I'd find out, that there's Tiny Habits.

And he was like, tell me what you do. I said, I do all this memory stuff. He went, have you ever thought about training in this method in coaching and using this? And I thought, well, no, but why don't I do it? See how it works for me. And then maybe that could do that. And so that's what I did. Incredible.

And then, so I don't know if you've noticed this, but one of the things that I've experienced with clients over the years is that because you've got that learning curve. People will sometimes hit a point where they'll come to seminar. They're like, this is awesome. And then the weekly, uh, it's all stopped.

And the things that they're doing, they're not doing it. And the idea was the hypothesis would be by using tiny habits, this will help people overcome that learning curve, because the idea is, is that you can create new habits, which you can grow into behaviors and potentially even rituals and routines just by doing these tiny little

things. And you don't need any willpower motivation. So obviously that's quite exciting. And I did that thing. I did it for myself and it blew me away. Quite honestly. I was like, this is quite cool. And it's so easy. I can't believe how easy it is. Right. And so it was a big advocate after that. And so I coach in that now.

And so whenever I work with clients that were the two things I do fast is one. I kind of go to goals and beliefs, first. I deal with that stuff first. And then I go to habits. And I go, what are the habits we can start to create so that when you get this, the difficult parts of this, and it will get difficult and challenging, you can move through it and you can move through with ease.

And so tiny habits is great. I don't know if you've used them, but it's a very, there's a simple recipe where you go after I, let's say you get up in the morning. I will tiny baby fat, drink some water, and then you celebrate. I'll 

Jonathan Levi: write it here on my board. After I wake up and do my morning routine, I will meditate. I subscribed to the kind of Charles Duhigg Q response reward. So I put in the reward, which is, I'm not allowed to check my email or eat breakfast until I've meditated. That sounds ridiculous to say I'm not allowed, like I'm a grown adult, but I will sit there and guiltily looking at the breakfast foods.

And remember, I haven't. You know, I haven't meditated this morning, so I love it. Yeah, exactly that. You know, Mark, you've been so generous with us to give you an opportunity, you know, to talk about your coaching a little bit, talk about what all you teach. I know you teach memory. Do you also teach speed reading?

I mean, my students know, I encourage them to check out any, every course they can, whether it's yours, whether it's Anthony Metivier's or whatever it might not be. So tell us a little bit about your coaching and your products and your books, of course. 

Mark Channon: Yeah, so a, I got a website, it's just my name, markchannon.com for these to remember.

And yeah, I do all those things. So memory is a focus and it's where I start. Um, I focus a lot also on the goals, you know, where you want to go that yeah. In terms of the beliefs and values. Yeah. Mind mapping, speed reading, accelerated learning. But I guess the key thing that I do in all my courses is bringing people back to why you know, how were you going to use this stuff?

And then what I tend to do with a lot of my courses is have some facilitate to be able to contact me so I can then go answer questions. Right. Oh, I miss sometimes I'll run group sessions or webinars where I can just get someone on live like this and go talk to me about what's the blocker. And let's see if we can work through them.

I was working with an app chat the other day where it's like, I did this talk and I got them to memorize all these codes. And then when I could go to the courts, but how do I apply it to this big monologue? And so I'd work with them on that and give them some tips and they go off and they go do it. So I've got the online products, which is part of my business, or you go up there and you sign up and you do the thing.

And then I also worked with people, which I guess is my higher end stuff where, I'll work with people one-on-one. If you're in London, I work people in London, you just go to the office. Otherwise we will do that, which is really effective. And I work with people like this. And apart from that, I'll be doing talks and there is other things. In terms of my books,

there's three out there. I've got How to Remember Anything. I've got something called The Memory Workbook, which I really love right now. One, cause I looked at the six series of intelligence and that one and I thought, okay, how could you apply, you know, memory to each of these areas to perform better? So it was all about how can you raise your game with words or with numbers or with music even, you know, or with your picture, your visual memory, or with your body or with emotional intelligence.

And so that was quite exciting. So I really enjoy writing. And I guess my latest book is called Improve Your Memory, Sharpen Your Focus. And not one I, go quite a lot into, you know, some mindfulness strategies, you know, a lot focused strategies and it kind of takes you on a journey where you go, this is how your memory works and you baseline, and then you learn the techniques, the strategies, and then you immerse yourself.

And one thing I noticed when I first started, I don't know if you'd ever experienced this. I know that some of the people that I work with have. That wasn't enough examples. Yes. And I go, ah, that'd be these books and they were great books and there'd be two examples. And I go, how do I do this? And so I wanted to write a book where you're like, you like give a ton of examples.

Now you don't have to do them all, but it gives you an option to go, I can get some of this stuff in my head. Right. And then the last part of that shows you how to bring it into your life. And I guess one of the other things I do, which I'm loving, I've just started is Instagram. And I haven't been on Instagram, but I'm doing these like daily brain training as little free things on Instagram.

But the idea is you create a tiny habit right there. Cool. So you create a tiny habit you guys, after I finished my breakfast, I will go check. There's an Instagram and every day I'm putting up these memorize these nine things, but it says a primer and it's a little habit. 

Jonathan Levi: So that's great. What's the Instagram handle that I'm going to get on that.

Mark Channon: It's just mark.channon, mark.channon. Yeah, but I'm quite enjoying that. And, um, you know, as I'll think about maybe two or three posts a day, but always do your little brain training. One where to go, here's a chain method, stick it in your head, see how fast you can do it. 

Jonathan Levi: Incredible. You know, I, again, I want to reiterate one of the things I like about what you and I both teaches. I'm sure, in your courses, you talk about diverse sources. Don't just read it in a book, read it in a book, watch a TedTalk about it. Check out a Wikipedia, talk to an expert about it. And that affords me to be able to tell my students or my podcast listeners, you know, hey, you might think this is a quote unquote competing product, but it's not.

Mark has a different way of explaining these age old techniques. He's added stuff that I haven't thought of. You know, I, I thought your dial up explanation was really brilliant and you can only benefit from learning these things repeatedly from multiple sources. So if people do want to check that out, by the way, what websites should we send them to?

What links? Yeah. So 

Mark Channon: it's markchannon.com. So you've got markchannon.com, everything's under that one umbrella. And you can get to Instagram from there and the various other things as well, but all the courses live on that site. Perfect. 

Jonathan Levi: Mark, I want to ask you our last question, which I always like to close on is if people take away one lesson from this episode and they carry it with them for the rest of their lives, what would you hope that that lesson would be?

Mark Channon: Oh, that's a great question. Isn't it? It killed the question. I'd have to look back on my own approach to my life, I think. And I'd say if you did one thing, it would be the idea of experiment. By experiment, what I really mean is have you learned something, go do the thing, then be clear about what do you want out of it?

Cause then you can measure it. Brilliant. So you do something and you can measure it because then you'll get some feedback and then you can decide what to do next. So there's the idea of experimentation and just jump in the thing. Any 

Jonathan Levi: motion creates motion. And I think it's also an element of if you're going to do something, have a goal around it and make sure that goal is smart, you know, specific, measurable.

Yeah, actionable, attainable, reasonable and timely. Don't just say, I'm going to get better at learning Russian or I'm going to speak better Russian cause that never happens. What gets measured, gets done. Yeah. Brilliant. Mark Channon it's been such a pleasure chatting with you. I'm so glad that we got connected and, uh, you know, it took us, uh, a couple months there to really get on each other's calendar, but it was a well worth the wait and I really do appreciate it.

And for anyone listening in the audience, markchannon.com, C H A N N O N. And we'll also put that up in the blog post for anyone to check out. Mark it's been such a pleasure. Thank you so much for your time today. I really appreciate 

Mark Channon: it. Thank you. I've loved it. Cheers, Jonathan. Take care. 

Jonathan Levi: Cheers!

All right Superfriends, that's it for this week's episode, we hope you really, really enjoyed it and learn a ton of applicable stuff that can help you go out there and overcome the impossible.

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