Transcript of #307 Ron White - The 2,500-Year-Old Memory Skill the Romans Used That We've Completely Lost New

Ron White, welcome to the show, man.

Thank you, it's quite the honor.

It's an honor to have you. I found you doom-scrolling Instagram, uh, I think maybe a month or two ago. And usually my feed is all everybody's gonna die, we're all fucked, you know what I mean? And then I saw you and I was like, dude, that looks interesting. Yeah, you're just— I think you were going up to people on the street and have them memorize stuff. And so that's, uh, then I dug into you and I was like, holy shit. And then we found out you memorized all of the names of, um, our guys that were KIA'd in Afghanistan. And, uh, so we decided it would be an awesome Memorial Day segment. So that was imp— that was like 2 and a half hours.

You've—

you recited every single service member's name who was killed in Afghanistan?

Yes.

7,000 words?

About 7,500.

7,500 words.

How many names? The official count is around 2,461. The DOD official count. Um, on my list, I got my— the names from a website, iCasualties.org. And on there they had some civilians in there. And although the spirit of my list is the military names, I didn't have the heart to take those names off. So my list is probably 8 or 9 more than the official count, man.

Well, that was impressive to see, man. And I think a lot of people are going to love seeing that. So thank you for doing it.

Well, thank you for the platform to do it. You know, there's a lot of Gold Star families out there that some of those names are 25 years ago. You know, Master Sergeant Evander Andrews, The first one was October of 2001. Wow. So that's 25 years ago. You know, I want Master Sergeant Evander Andrews' family and all those families that 20, 25 years ago to— hey, somebody still cares.

We still care.

And so— and you gave a platform for that. So, you know, thank you.

It's my honor, man. Seriously. But yeah, I was kind of joking around before this. You got to be careful what you say around this guy.

He remembers everything. So.

So what did you have for dinner last night?

That's a good question, actually. I, you know, barbecue. We had barbecue. I don't remember who knows barbecue, right? You know, people think, you know, oh, this guy, you know, like you said, what are you going to say? If my memory is extraordinarily average, if I'm not using a system, you know, I will— Amy, who's worked with me for 10 years, she tells Ron, you got to make this phone call today. Ron, you got to email this. This person today. Ron, did you mail that IRS form in? I'm like, no, I didn't mail the IRS form in.

So it's a system. How did you— I mean, we'll get into all that stuff, but what I am curious, what's your first memory?

I do have a first memory. That's, you know, it is, uh, I was about 2 years old.

2 years old?

But 2, it had to have been 2 because I know where I was living. And it's just a blip, you know, it's just a 4-second memory of me being in the living room and somebody going to the door and my mom talking to that person at the door. And, you know, when I was in my 20s, I said, Mom, you know, I described the memory. She's like, oh, that's— that was exactly the layout of our apartment. But I think that's just a fluke. I don't think my memory is anything special. But that is my— you know what, though? That mesh was memory special to me in the sense that it was you know, my mom, my family. But I guess who else you're going to be around it too, right?

Well, let me start you off with an introduction here. Ron White, a two-time USA Memory Champion, a U.S. Navy veteran, and one of the world's top memory experts. And you will tell anybody who asks that you were not born with a gifted brain, but you've built one. You joined the Navy Reserve after September 11th, served as an IS-1 intelligence specialist, and deployed to Kabul, Afghanistan in 2007. You memorized the names, ranks, and order of death of every American service member killed in Afghanistan. 2,300 names, 7,000 words. You corrected that earlier, it was actually more than that, and have been writing them from memory on a 52-foot wall across this country. Since 2012. You've appeared on the History Channel, National Geographic, Fox's Superhuman, and Good Morning America. And at every speaking event, you memorize 200 to 300 audience names before you walk on stage. Ron White, welcome to the show, man.

Thank you.

And a couple of things to knock out here before we get going. I have a Patreon account, uh, Honestly, they're the reason I get to sit down with you today. And they've been here with me since the beginning. They've turned into quite the community. And so what I do is that they get the opportunity to ask every single guest a question. So this is from Scott. Ron, for someone who was diagnosed with TBI who struggles with some short-term memory, what specific exercises or habits would you recommend to help strengthen their brain and improve memory over time?

Well, you know, on something like that, you know, from a non-doctor's point of view, I'm a memory champion. I would focus just on, you know, good nutrition, health, you know, going for walks, staying healthy, that stuff is going to impact your memory. You know, our hippocampus, which is responsible for a lot of our long-term memory, I don't think necessarily gets— and I don't know if it gets affected in TBI or not. But what I do know is that as we age, that actually can shrink. And one of the things that we can stop and even reverse the shrinkage of our hippocampus is exercise, right? So exercise, staying healthy is something that I would recommend to anybody, especially somebody with TBI. Drink plenty of water. A dehydrated brain has trouble focusing. Our brain actually shrinks a little when it's dehydrated. So a lot of my advice to him would be good nutrition and exercise and just trying to control your nerves a little bit. You know, stay calm. Stress is the worst enemy to your memory. So I guess it would be more, more general advice like that. And there are memory systems such as the Mind Palace, which I know we'll get to today.

And I would, as far as a system, that's the one thing I'd tell him to focus on.

Roger that. One last thing. Everybody gets a gift.

Oh, nice. Nice. All right.

This is very not healthy, but— well, believe me, gummy bears made in the USA. Legal in all 50 states, so you're clean to take those home to Texas.

Yes, I will. I will, uh, be enjoying these. So thank you very much. Gummy bears are my favorite, you know. I, I love them. It's like when you get a vitamin and it's gummy bears, you're like, you just can't eat one. And like, you're like, dang, I just ate 5,000, my daily recommended allowance of vitamin C. I'm so healthy. Thank you so much.

I do the same shit.

Yeah.

But, uh, wow. But, uh, well, let's— so I want to do a little bit of a backstory on you because I know this started as a kid, correct?

When I was 18. Yeah, basically 15.

So I'd like to do that and then kind of go through, you know, a little bit of your life story and then how this all works. So where'd you grow up?

I was born in North Richland Hills, Texas, or Fort Worth, Texas. I grew up in North Richland Hills, which is just about, uh, 15 minutes away from Fort Worth.

What were you into?

Well, growing up, I was a pretty uncoordinated kid, but I loved baseball and I still do. You know, they put me in right field and they'd hit the baseball. It was going to be a home run and I'd be charging in as fast as I could, thinking I was going to have to make a diving catch because I just wasn't too coordinated. But I really loved baseball as a kid. My dad was in the Army and he was a police officer. So I was just real into, you know, dressing up, you know, in his police uniforms and dressing up in his Army uniforms. He was in during the Vietnam era, although he served in Korea during that time. So military, my family is very patriotic family. You know, we loved going on trips, going to visit stuff like the Air Force Academy and things like that. And then when I was about 15, 14, I took a job as a paperboy. And that was kind of my entry into supporting myself. And, you know, if I wanted money to go to the movies or whatever, I had to go collect money from my customers on my paper route.

So it was a blue-collar family. And, and, you know, they gave me a good work ethic, I guess you'd say. And baseball, military, Throwing papers.

How'd you get into the memory stuff?

Well, so it was 2 weeks out of high school, and my friend Brian, he said, hey man, I just got a job at a company that cleans chimneys. Do you want to get a job there with me? We will be telemarketers. I said, yeah, sure, no problem. So it was 2 weeks out of high school. We sit down and I'm making, I'm making 80 phone calls a day. Can we clean your chimney? Can we clean your chimney? Can we clean your chimney? So, you know, you imagine it was a thrilling job, right? And one day I called this guy and I said, hey, you know, we've got a crew in the area, we want to clean your chimney. And he said, I don't want our chimney cleaned. We're trying to sell our house anyways. Thanks for calling. And I said, sir, don't hang up the phone. If you're trying to sell your house, you should have a clean chimney. And I heard a little chuckle on the other end of the line. And he said, you know what, I've got a room full of telemarketers. And none of these guys, when they hear an objection, do they try to overcome it, they just accept it, hang up the phone.

He said, do you want to go to work for me? And this was him talking to me. He said, do you want to go to work for me? I sell memory training seminars. Holy shit. You got to be kidding. That's it. That's it. Yeah. And he said, he said, I'll pay you more than you're making now, you know, which was a pretty safe bet, right? Okay. Anybody could have said that to me and they would have been right. You know, I say all the time, if you would have robbed me back then, you would have just been practicing. You know, so I started taking down his information and my sales manager was like, hey, did you make a sale? I'm like, no, I got a new job. I'm going to teach memory seminars. And that for my freshman year of college, I had a 0.9 GPA. So, you know, Albert Einstein is not in my family tree. And the telemarketer, she said, good luck with that. You know, you're going to be back here in 2 weeks. And that was 35 years ago. Wow. So I've been doing my career, I guess you would say, for 35 years.

Wow. And that's a— I'm glad you asked that question because a lot of people, when they see me recite the names or you mentioned recite 200 or 300 names, they think, oh, this guy has some special gift. He has some special ability that I don't have. No, no, no, no, no. I was a telemarketer. A guy hired me over the phone because I was a good salesman and he taught me the system. I genuinely believe anybody can improve their memory that way.

So everybody that you sold the STEM program to probably could do this, huh?

I've never— that's what I'm going to start calling it now, the damn program.

But no shit, that's how it happened. So you just took the program that you were selling? Yeah, it worked.

Yeah, I took his course. He laid it out. He laid out the system, and, um, uh, and I did it. I, I perfected it. Um, I probably had an advantage, you know. I was talking to your security guy today, and I said, man, you know, I'm kind of jealous of you in a way. You know, I'd like jiu-jitsu, but I, I can always think of an excuse not to train, right? And just take it easy, be lazy. I'm like, you are forced to constantly keep your training up. I, I like that. And That's kind of the way it was with me with memory. I got lucky in a way. I took a job for a memory company, right? So then I was forced to get good at it and perfected it. Had I just taken a memory seminar, I don't know if I would have had the drive that early on to perfect it to the level that I did.

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Yeah.

So when you've evolved the course, I guess is what I'm saying.

Correct. The course I took was a general memory course. Over time, the things that I was interested in, I applied it to. So one of the things that, you know, the— in Psalms, in the Bible, you know, in Psalms chapter 1, it says that the man who meditates on Scripture will prosper in whatever he does. So I'm like, okay, I think I'm going to memorize and meditate upon some scripture. So I applied it to the things I was interested in. And that's where those niche products that you mentioned evolved from.

Interesting. Interesting. What— so what are some of the— tell me about the course. You know, what, what, what does it teach you?

Well, it's, it's a series of modules. And, you know, sometimes, sometimes it's in person. You know, sometimes I'll, I'll teach it in person at a conference. You mentioned the, the the memorizing of 200 names. When people arrive for a conference, I'll memorize 200 or 300 names. So oftentimes, I don't have to even talk to them. I can just read their name tag. And it says Sean, or it says Brent, or it says Sarah, or it says Terry, or it says Darren. And I'll just read their name tags. I don't even have to say— and then I'll get up on stage. And I'll say, if you're one of the 200 or 300 people I met, stand up. 200 or 300 people stand up. And then I'll run around, and I'll call off their names. So I like Every course I teach always starts off with, hey, look at this, you know, so it gets their interest. But then it's just a series of modules that walks them through how to memorize. You know, one lesson I'm going to talk about how to visualize, how to turn stuff into a picture. If you want to remember something, you need to be able to see it.

For example, you meet me today and 6 weeks from now you're out at your favorite restaurant and you look over there and you think, man, I've seen that guy before. I know that guy. Who is that? I've seen his face. 2 hours later, you're driving home and you're thinking, ah, that was Ron White. We remember the face, but we don't remember the name. Sometimes remember it later because you remember what you see. So the course teaches you how to think in pictures, right? Turn, turn Steve into a stove, Lisa the Mona Lisa. When you hear the number 21, you think of a deck of cards. And that's an overly simplified examples, but it teaches you how to think in pictures and then apply techniques known as the memory palace or the mind palace. But it's it's really geared towards, like, it's not geared toward, hey, you want to memorize your grocery list? How's having a better memory going to help? If all you do is memorize your grocery list, how's that going to impact your life? But think about it, your viewers right now who want to give a speech or a presentation without notes, or they want to learn these things faster, or they want to quote Bible verses or memorize poems, that's the things that developing a good memory can help you with.

And so that's what I like to focus on.

Man, I mean, I could use this just for this alone. I mean, so much information's coming in and out of this damn thing that it's just— it's like, it's, it's impossible for me to keep up, you know. But something like that, to be able to just reach in the archives and retrieve something and spout it off, a statistic or a fact or whatever it may be, I mean, that would be Very useful.

And when I memorized the Afghanistan names, and I know we'll get more into it later, but a, a simple overview that goes to what you're saying, I used this room that we're in to help me memorize the names, right? So I visualize locations. Your flag right there is Corporal Dagan Page. These lights right here are or Staff Sergeant Darren Hoover. So I placed what I wanted to remember and I visualized interacting with this. So when I said the final 13 names, the Abbey Gate names, I was sitting here with my eyes closed and I was going around this room like that and I was talking about what I saw in each location. I bring that up because you just mentioned, oh, this would help me in what I do. Well, what you could do is the same thing. You could number spots around this room, right? So this, this, this shelf over here could be a spot. This flag, this flag, these things. Then you're talking to somebody and as they're talking, you're thinking, oh, that reminds me of something I want to ask them. But you don't want to, like, interrupt them right when they're talking, right?

They, they say that they, that they played baseball, right? And you want to talk— remember to ask them that question, but you don't want to interrupt them. So now all of a sudden you see a baseball crashing through and hitting that flag right there and the flag falls on the floor. They continue to talk for another 2 minutes or 1 minute, and then you can look up there and remember what you wanted to talk about.

I'll be damned. That right there comes in handy. I'm always trying to hang on to questions.

Yes, yes, yes.

And I probably lose 75% of them.

100%. 100%. Visualize as they're talking, visualize whatever's behind them. So over here, I might see it interacting with the flag. I might see it interacting with this picture over here. You're talking. I'm still listening to you. But now I've got the 2 or 3 things that I want to talk about. And then when I get a moment, I ask you about those things.

Interesting. Interesting. And so you started— so you were working for a telemarketing company selling memory courses, but did you start selling your own too as a teen?

Well, so I went to work for them at the age of 18, and I worked for them for about a year and a half, 2 years. And things happened that led to me leaving that company. It was my decision. It wasn't their decision for me to leave. It was— I needed to leave. And when I left that company, I was 20 years old. And I thought, I love this. I love this. But I'm 20 years old. Can I do this? But there was so much that I didn't know about running a business. If I had known everything that I didn't know— I was too dumb to know what I didn't know. I thought, how hard could it be? So I went down I registered a company name, I opened myself up a bank account. The difficult part of that— well, there's a lot of difficult things about it, but back then there was no online course. It was just me speaking, right? But I was 19 years old, 20 years old. I looked like I was 12 years old. So, you know, I've started shaving my head right here, you know, giving myself a little bit of age.

And, you know, the other things have given me some age. But, you know, When I was 19 years old, I remember giving my first speech. I walked into this company and I said, hey, my name's Ron White. I'm with the company I was with, the memory company. And the guy said, okay, Ron, whenever the speaker gets here, let us know. We'll all go in together. And I said, sir, I'm the speaker. He said, are you out of high school? I said, yes, sir. Matter of fact, last month it's been a year. And he was like, he looked at me and he said, Ron, I appreciate what you're doing. I like your go-getter attitude. But my guys are pros in there. They're seasoned salesmen. I don't know if I'm going to look good bringing you in. And I went in, and I memorized the names in the room. And then I repeated them, and I looked at him, and he went, OK, you can go. But early on, I guess I had to overcome that, a little bit of credibility. What's my credibility? I had won no memory championships. I had set no records. I clearly looked like I was in high school.

But I loved what I was doing. And, and I learned something about back then too. If you get good at something, regardless of your age, if you get good at something, regardless of your age, be so good they can't ignore you. Right? And with time came age and everything worked out.

Right on. Right on. And then you joined the military.

I did. So I started my business. I started this business when I was 18. And when I was 28 years old, I'd been in my career for a decade. So that's when I joined the military.

Hold on. Do we need to rewind? Do we? We need to rewind, don't we? 10 years. You were in business for 10 years before you joined the military?

Yes, I was.

Okay, let's go back to that first.

Okay.

I thought that you Yeah, let's go back to the business. So you made the decision to start your own business?

I did. And if I knew what I knew now, I probably wouldn't have done it, right? But I'm glad I did. I'm glad I didn't know because, you know, there were so many things I had to learn. You know, for the first decade, I was behind on my IRS taxes all the time. You know, I just didn't know how to get all set up and have a good accountant. I was trying to do it all myself. I made so many mistakes and it held me back so much. There was so much. Now, fortunately, I got a great accountant, right? You guys go make the money She does all that stuff. But as an 18, 19-year-old kid, the job I had— people always ask, what did you do before you taught memory seminars? I said, well, I had a paper route, and then I worked at Taco Bueno. I rolled burritos.

You couldn't just tell them you don't remember?

So I had no business experience, right? I wasn't afraid to make cold calls. That first 10 years, I was making 80 cold calls a day. 5, 5 days a week. So 400 calls a week, you know, maybe 1,600, 2,000 calls a month, 20-plus thousand calls a year. Wow. So over— and I was just calling people, hey, can I speak for your conference? Can I speak for your conference? Can I speak for your conference? Can I speak for your conference? And it was a little bit different of a sales pitch than that. But also, you know, I didn't know what I didn't know. I didn't know that it's better when somebody else is saying, hey, you should have Ron White. He's a great presenter, right? But I just went through it and I just made the cold calls. You know, people today, they'll ask me, they'll say, Ron, they want to be a speaker and they'll say, Ron, tell me, tell me, I want to do what you do. How did you, how did you do this where you speak? And I said, well, I got leads. I may call 80 a day. I called— I made 400 cold calls a week, 2,000 plus, around 2,000 a month.

And they said, no, they'll interrupt me. No, no, no, no, no, no, Ron, I don't want to do that. I want to do what you do now.

You know, I'm like, we want to skip all the journey and just go to this.

Yeah, that's right.

It's crazy.

And probably you too, right? You know, I mean, you've— all you've accomplished in your life, and I heard you say it recently, people will say that, oh, Sean, look how you just blew up and your YouTube channel took off. And then I heard you talk about, hey, you didn't get to see the stuff in the attic and all that kind of stuff.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's— it—

you get the— what, I don't know, whatever you want to call them, like, oh, this guy came out of nowhere, oh, you just popped up out of nowhere, oh, this Dude, I've been doing this shit for over 10 fucking years now.

Wow. You know what I mean?

Media stuff. Been doing the podcast since 2019. I didn't just pop out of nowhere.

Wow.

I've dumped everything into this, as I'm sure you have too, you know? And, and so, yeah, it's a lot of fucking work.

They're seeing the finished product.

Yeah, everybody, everybody— it's, it's, it's like that saying, everybody wants to be a gangster until it's time to do gangster shit.

Yeah. And, and in full honesty, if I was starting today, I don't know if I would make those cold calls. We have so much at our disposal now, right, with the YouTube and social media and Instagram and all that kind of stuff. But it's still an important part. You got to get out there and you got to talk to people and you got to be willing to hear rejection and that kind of stuff. And those were lessons that fortunately I learned going door to door selling newspapers. But, and I implemented that and used that during that 10 years. So it was a lot of— it was that I was, I was broke for 10 years. I was broke.

Yeah.

I would be sitting at home and, you know, working or whatever, and the electricity would go off. I was like, oh man, I did it again. The first time I spoke for free for the— for pretty much the whole decade. But a whole decade. Decade. Wow. So I, I would call real estate companies, car dealerships. I mean, you think about it, a car dealership, they need to memorize their scripts, right? Their customers' names, that kind of thing. So I would call them and I'd say, hey, can I speak for free for— and by the way, I don't do this anymore. I say, hey, can I speak for free for your company to teach them how to remember names and that kind of stuff? And then I'd go speak for free and sell tickets to a workshop or something like that. It was about 5 years into that, there was a rental company, Color Time, and they You could go rent, I don't know, maybe furniture or something like that there. But this was 1998. They said, well, I was living in Seattle and doing my business and they said, will you speak for our conference in Reno, Nevada?

And I said, yeah, I would. You know, I was trying to do the math, like, how would I get there, speak for free? And they said, we'll pay you $2,500. Now, this was almost 20 years ago, right? And I'm like, $2,500? Oh my gosh, they're going to pay me $2,500 to speak for what I've been doing for free? Boy, they don't know I'm giving this speech for free in Seattle. And they said, okay, just buy your plane ticket and, you know, then send us the invoice or whatever. Well, I didn't have money to buy a plane ticket. I literally did not have money to buy a plane ticket. I was broke. I went broke living in Seattle. I had a a guy who turned out to be a professional con artist, and he swindled me out of some money. He was very disappointed when he got my bank account. He thought it was— he thought it was more of a high roller. But I worked during the day selling memory seminars, and then at night I took a job as a waiter at a restaurant. So I was waiting tables. I said yes to this company and in Nevada, in Reno.

I'll speak at your conference. They said, buy your plane ticket. And I'm like, why do I tell them? If I tell them I don't have enough money to buy a plane ticket, they're not going to have me speak. They're going to think nobody's paying me to speak, which nobody was. And so I said, I got to figure this out. So I emailed them back and I said, you know what? I got family halfway through there. So I'm just going to drive. And I'm going to stop and see my family on the way. And you could tell they were like, that's a long drive, dude. That's, that's the craziest idea I ever heard. But they said, that's fine. But I didn't have the money. So I started picking up doubles, waiting tables, and my tires, my tires on my car had the metal. The metal was coming out of the tires. So I thought, okay, I got to buy some tires and then I got to get enough money for gas money. I don't care if I make it. Back. I just have to get there and accomplish this goal. So I've got my money. I got enough money to buy my tires.

I got enough. I picked up all these doubles and I go out to where my Jeep was parked and it was gone. It got towed. So then I had to use all my money that I spent for the tires to get my Jeep out. And I just had enough money for gas. I literally had just enough money for gas. And I drove down there the whole time thinking my tire is going to pop, my tires are going to pop. I got there, my tires didn't pop. I memorized the names. I gave the speech. They handed me a check. It felt so good to get paid to do this. And I got in my car, got a little bit of money, cashed the check, got a little bit of money. And as I drove back into Seattle with those tires worn out, when the skyline of Seattle popped up, I'm like, I did it, man. Oh, man. Wow. Right on. That's what the first 10 years was like.

No kidding. So where do we go from there?

Well, you know, after, after that first 10 years of trial and error, it clicked in my brain. People are going to pay me to do this. You know, at the time I was selling, I was going speaking for free for these companies at the end saying, hey, if you want to learn more, sign up for my 2-day workshop. And they would go to my workshop. But it clicked in my mind, dude, you don't have to rent a room at the Holiday Inn. You don't have to do all the details of getting people set up. People will pay you to speak for their conference, right? So I was like, that is, that sounds so much easier. And it was. At that point, I got to just focus on what I'm good at, right? Making cold calls all day, renting a room at the Holiday Inn, signing people in when they arrive, making sure they got their name badge. None of that anymore. And that speech changed everything for me because I realized I could switch my business model. And that's when really my business changed, because then I could just focus on what I'm good at.

And what am I good at? Demonstrating the power of the trained memory and showing that anybody can do it and then teach other people to do it.

What I mean, so what else did you need to focus on? What is it? Exercises? Is it developing the courses? What exactly are you focusing on?

At that point, there was a guy named Billy Burden, and I don't know if Billy Burden is still alive or not, but he was one of the leaders in the memory world at the time. And I called him up on the phone and I said, Billy, I'm a 25-year-old guy. I'm doing memory. What advice could you give me? He was very, very generous considering I just told him, I am starting in your industry. Now, he was maybe getting near retirement age, but I was still telling him I was— I mean, probably he didn't fear me either, right? But he was still very generous and kind to me. He said, Ron, these are the things I will do. And then he told me one thing that really changed everything for me. He said, when you get done with your seminar, people are going to want to learn more. You need to have something for them to take with them. That's crucial. I said, what do you—

what do I do?

He said, create a memory course on cassette. And that right there was a massive game changer for me, um, because I realized it was a way for me to make money without me having to show up, right? First of all, I would sell it at events. I, you know, every time you hear a motivational speaker and they say, I used to live in a van down by the river, right? I really did go homeless during that time. And that's when I was— I had— I set my computer up at a friend's house. I didn't, I didn't stay there. But he was kind enough to let me set it up. And during the day, I would go in and I would type, type out my course, type out my audio program. And That audio program made a difference. And here's how I was selling it on cassettes and people were benefiting from it, but it was really only if they were at my workshop, right? Well, one day a friend of mine named Chris called me and said, hey, Chris, he didn't say that. He said, hey, Ron, my name is Ron. His name is Chris.

See, aren't you glad to see the memory guy is just a normal memory? He calls himself the wrong name sometimes. He said, hey, Ron, there's a company called Jim Rohn International. Jim Rohn was a great business philosopher. He passed away in 2008. He said, do you know who Jim Rohn is? I said, yes, I know who Jim Rohn is. In my industry, he was a legend. Not for memory, but business conferences. And he said, the owner of that company is Kyle Wilson. Kyle has an office 15 minutes from where you live. I just called Kyle, and I told him that you were going to bring your memory course on on cassette to him. Go drop it off. I'm like, I was so— I had such imposter syndrome. I'm like, Chris, there is no way Kyle Wilson, General International, is going to have any interest in me. Why would they want to pay any— they got a wall full of speakers trying to present them stuff. And I'll never forget it. I walked in, I opened up the door at Kyle Wilson's office, and his assistant Crystal was right there. And I had one foot in and one foot out.

And I said, hey, Could you give this to Kyle Wilson? And, and she said, he's here. Do you want to talk to him? No, I don't want to talk to him. I was so intimidated. She gave that cassette to Kyle Wilson. Kyle had this massive email for General International email list, and he just sent out a blast and he sold some. He called me on the phone. He said, Ron, how— what's— what price could I get for 2,000 of those? And I'm just like trying to maintain my composure. I'm like, 2,000 of these? I've never— I haven't sold 200. I gave him a price. 2 weeks later, he called again. Ron, I need $2,000 more. 2 weeks later, he called again. I mean, he was— he's still to this day, he's a master genius marketer, and he sold out of them. And one button up on this story. If there was no Kyle Wilson, I would not be sitting here today. There would be no Afghanistan Memory Wall. I would never have served in naval intelligence. And the reason for that is, is we became friends. And one day he called and said, you want to drive to Shreveport, which is 3 hours west— east of Dallas, to go to the casino?

I had no money. I had no money. And we get to the casino and he says, Ron, I like to gamble in private. I'm going to go to this table. You go over there. And I think, thank goodness, because I didn't want to let him know he was going to pick up really quick. I didn't have any money. So I sat at the bar. Drank while he was gambling on the way back. He said, hey man, how'd you do? I said, I left what I came with. I came leaving what I came with. And we did that a couple of times. And one of those trips he said, Ron, something's bothering you. What's bothering you? I said, Kyle, I'm getting ready to get kicked out of the Navy. I'm getting ready to lose my security clearance for IS-1, Naval Intelligence. I said, I owe the IRS $40,000. I have no way of paying this. And it's— I'm going to be so embarrassed. My family was so proud of me that I was in the Navy, and now I'm going to be an embarrassment. And he listened to me. We go to his office. He walks into his office.

He writes me a check for $36,000, which was the exact amount. He said, here you go, Ron, pay off your IRS bill. This is not a gift. This is an advance on commissions. I'm going to sell your course. And take out your commissions as an advance. Thank you for letting me tell that story. I hadn't— didn't even pop in my mind, but that's a powerful story to me, an important one in my life.

You're welcome. What is it? What is it that was in the courses that were gaining so many people's attention that wanted to buy it?

Well, you know, you think about it. A business person, a leader, you know, they want the ability to stand up on a stage and give a speech or a presentation and not use any notes. Imagine you're at a conference or you're at a presentation and that guy is standing up there on stage and he's reading his notes or he's reading his PowerPoint. It happens all the time, but it's not a dynamic speaker. So with the memory system, you're able to take what you want to say and speak without notes. A lot of people like I like learning how to do that. But salespeople, think about it. You've got people who are taking a job at a car leadership or they're taking a job as a salesperson. They're getting in front of their customer. And as soon as they get in front of their customer, what happens? They lock up. They can't remember what they're supposed to say. And then their customer walks away and then they remember what they're supposed to say. So sales scripts, remember what you're supposed to say, giving speeches or presentations without notes. I think one of the biggest things that people people like about memory, about learning how to improve your memory, is being able to remember names and faces.

You meet somebody today and then you meet their wife and 2 weeks later you see them out and you're like, "Sean, Katie, how are you doing?" It's magical. You show the person that you care. So Zig Ziglar used to say, "People don't care how much you know until they first know how much you care." And those are the business reasons, I think, the primary ones, but there's another group. Group. And that group is the students. The students— one of your Patreon members asked me on a question today, uh, how do you study for this test, the MCAT? And I was able to lay it out. Students. And then maybe the final category, which I've already mentioned, is scripture memory, right? For people who have a religious faith in whatever their religion is, that's important to them, right? What did Jesus do when he was tempted? He quoted Scripture, right? So the ability to have the Word of God written on your heart and on and in your mind is a lot of things for, for a lot of people of faith. So faith-based students and those business people who want to just close more deals.

Makes sense. What about the speed reading?

Speed reading is possible. Now I've gone— I've— my opinion on this has shifted over the years. First, I believed it's not possible. That's what I believed for 2 decades. I believe that I've been doing this for 35 years. I always joke. I say, I know that sounds impossible because I look like I'm 27, but I've been doing this 35 years. Right? Right. But for the first 20 years or so, I didn't think it was possible. People after my class, hey, Ron, can you teach me how to speed read? And I just tell them, hey, look, I don't think it's possible. And I'm not going to sell something that I don't think is possible. So for 20 years, I said no to that product line because I just didn't think it was possible. Then after about 20 years, I thought, people are asking me this question. You're just saying it's not possible because you don't think it's possible. What do you know about it? Right? So I'm like, okay, I'm going to try this out and see if I can do it. And then I was able to do it and actually doubled my reading speed.

And I'll give you a real quick Cliff Notes version of how to speed read. So So when we're reading, what happens is something called visual regression. You're reading a line or something, "The boy went to the store," but your eye's not trained. It bounces around a lot and it's called visual regression. So "the boy went to the store," your brain would read that, "the boy went," "the boy went to," "the boy went to the store." It's bouncing around. And people all say, "Ron, I don't do that. I just read straight through." You probably don't, but you're probably doing it so fast you don't realize it. But because you're doing it, it's slowing you down, right? So the best The best speed reading strategy I could give a person, and there's many, but if I could give the best one, it's put your finger underneath the words that you're reading, or a pencil, and force your finger to follow the words. You've— people probably seen speed reading people and they're going like this across the page. What they're doing is they're forcing their eye to follow their finger. So they're going like that. And there's some other things that you— that alone might double your reading speed.

On a laptop or a computer, you could do it with the cursor. But some other things are don't subvocalize the words. You know, don't say the words, don't read to yourself. If you're reading to yourself, if you're saying the words, you're going to be limited to how fast you can talk, not how fast you can read. And the average person is reading about 200 words a minute. Almost everybody, by using their finger and just staying a little bit more focused, can read fast, can read twice as fast, almost anybody. So That's when I developed a speed reading course, when I realized, hey, okay, you can make— you can sell this and feel good about it. And that's what I did.

Makes sense. Makes sense. Where do we go from here?

Well, that's the first 10 years, I would say. And after that, that's when September 11th happened, and that's when I enlisted in the military. So I guess I could talk a little bit about that.

Absolutely.

Yeah. So I was 28 years old. I'd been teaching memory for a decade and mainly for free. But right about that time I'd learned people will pay me for this. And so I moved back from Seattle and I was sitting in my friend's living room, Brian McMahon. He's been one of my closest friends since he was 12, complete numbskull. If there's any proof you don't have to be a genius to do this, Brian McMahon is the proof. He's gonna— he's gonna fold. He's a black belt in jiu-jitsu. He's gonna fold me up for saying that. But, um, uh, we were sitting in his living room right after September 11th, and he said, uh, he said, don't laugh at me, but tomorrow, uh, or this week, I'm going to join the Army. And it was one of those moments. I was 28 years old. I was a decade into my career. I didn't know— I wasn't looking for a new career. I wasn't looking for a new opportunity. But it was September 11th, right? And so we were just months removed. This was probably December. So, you know, just a few months removed from September 11th.

And he said, don't laugh at me, I'm going to join the Army tomorrow or this week. And it was a split-second decision. I said, dude, I'm going to go with you. So we went down to the recruiting station the next day. He joined the Army. I joined the Navy because I have an IQ, right? Army's great. My dad was Army, but I wanted to join the Navy. I'll tell you the real reason I joined the Navy. Well, my dad, my grandfather served in World War II in the Navy. So to this day, I have his uniform hanging up on the walls, World War II uniform. But one of the big sellers for me joining the Navy and not the Army was the Army wanted to make me a mailman. I learned that day, it's the recruiters have— they're told this is the slots you need to fill and whoever walks through that door, right? That's the job they're going to give them. And I walked through that door and he said, we want to make you a mailman. And I'm like, I was like, sir, I'm joining the Navy. There's nothing wrong with that job.

And I'm not disparaging that job at all, but it's not what I wanted to do. And I joined as a reservist. And he said, well, Ron, if you join as a reservist and you deliver mail, you will get to go to Germany for your 2 weeks every summer. I'm like, sir, if I want to join, go to Germany, I'll go to Germany. So I walked out and I walked by the Navy recruiting station and on the door to the Navy, it said no boot camp. I mean, they were doing— this was right after September 11th. They were doing anything to get people in those doors. No boot camp. I said, that sounds very interesting. I went in and they said, they said for reservists, your, your 2 weeks as your boot camp. I did a 17-day boot camp and they asked me some questions and I took some, you know, you got to take some tests, you know, to, to get in the military. And after all that was done, they said, do you want to be in naval intelligence? And that's when I said, this is— I'm going for the Navy. And so that's what I did.

Right on. Right on. I think we skipped something.

Yes, sir.

The Guinness Book of World Records.

Maybe I ignored that. What happened there? Oh, gosh, that was a fiasco. That was a fiasco. So it was 2001, February 2001, something like that. I was at the grocery store with my girlfriend at the time, and she was shopping, and I pulled the Guinness Book of World Records off the shelf. As fate would have it, I opened it up, and when I was flipping, I saw a memory record. Gert Mettring memorized a 27-digit number, and it said the digits were flashed on the screen for 3 seconds. 3 seconds. And I looked at it and I said, 3 seconds, 27 digits. So 3 times 27, that's a minute and 21 seconds. I could beat that. I could beat that easy. That's a slam dunk. So I told my girlfriend, I said, there's a guy in the Guinness Book of World Records. I do this every day at my speeches. I can break this record. She's like, yeah, whatever, pal. If you could do it, why don't you do it? And I said, you know what? I'm going to do it. So I called the Fox Good Day Dallas show and I said, I showed them the Guinness record.

I'm like, I can break this record. And they said, okay, let's Let's practice it right here in the studio. And we did it. And I didn't get it right. And then they said, okay, we'll consider this. And then I went back to my friend Brian, the guy that I joined the military with. I said, dude, we got to train for this. So for a week, he just said numbers. I memorized them. Not once did I get it right. I went back to the producers. I said, I said, can I be on the show? They said, you can be on the show this day. They said, let's try it again. Let's practice. I didn't get it right. Right. In a week or 10 days of practice, not once did I get it right. Not once. Brian, my friend, said, Ron— or he calls me Ronnie— Ronnie, you don't have to do this. I said, I'm going to do this. The producer said, you don't have to do this. I said, just put me on the air. And we were sitting in chairs like this. They said, uh, 27-digit number. Um, we did one more digit, 28 digits.

And right, so I thought it was 27 digits, 3 seconds each. So I said, do 28 and let's just make sure I do under 1 minute and 21. And I got it. The lady said the number, I said it, I repeated it to her, and she said, we got a new Guinness record live on Good Day! And I didn't want to say it, but lady, that's the first time I ever got that right, you know. But I picked the right time, right? Right? And so I was telling everybody, I was, hey, book Guinness record breaker Ron White for your next conference. Right? I put it all over my website. I put it all over this. And then I finally got around— I'm not the most organized man. You would think I would be. A couple of years down the road, I got to around putting it, submitting it to Guinness. So here's my record. Here's the proof. Here's the TV show. And Guinness came back to me and they said, Ron, you didn't break the record. Not even close. It wasn't 3 seconds per digit. It wasn't this digit flashed on for 3 seconds, this digit flashed on for 3 seconds, this digit flashed on for 3 seconds for a total of 1 minute 21.

The entire 27-digit number flashed on the screen for 3 seconds and then it disappeared. And then he said it from memory. And I thought, oh no, you've got to be kidding me, because there was no way I could make this right. There was no way I was going to make that right. There was no way I could train and get that. Today, I kind of know how he did it. I could get closer to that, but I still don't know if I could break it today. So that became a thing in the back of my mind. You know, I felt like a dishonest person. For 3 years on all my marketing material, Guinness Record Breaker, we scrubbed it from everything, but people would still bring it up and I would always correct them. But I felt it was an honest mistake. But people don't know if it's an honest mistake or not, right? So I had this— I had this— I hate to even say the word, but just not authentic. But it wasn't true. But that was the perception I felt like I had. So that really motivated me to— I got to make this right.

I've got to do something that says— you just read that introduction today. Ron's one of the top memory experts in the world. Well, I was saying that back around this time, 25 years ago. And I said to myself, this is an authentic man. Man, this is not authentic. You are getting introduced right now as one of the top memory experts in the world. You have no degree from a college on something related to memory. You've broken no records. You've competed in no tournaments. You've done nothing other than giving yourself a marketing title like any business person would do. And that marketing title is you're the best. So I said, you've got to do something to earn this title. And that's when I set my sights on the USA Memory Championship and some records like that.

Right on, right on.

Thanks.

Wow, that's humble. I bet that was humbling, huh?

It was humbling. Um, I also just felt foolish, you know. Sometimes attention— I was foolish that, that I thought that that Guinness record would be that simple, uh, because a minute 27 seconds for a 27-digit number is not, not that impressive, even though that was the first time I ever got it right. I was embarrassed that I thought that was a Guinness record.

Damn. Damn. Well, Ron, on that note, let's take a break. When we come back, we'll pick back up with your naval career.

Yes, sir.

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That's right, up to 43% off with code SRS at mudwtr.com. After your purchase, they'll ask you how you found them. Please show your support and let them know we sent you. Welcome to Hollywood vs. Reality. They do it right. What does he do in the movies?

Tell me if I'm doing this wrong because I don't watch any of this shit.

A little flick like that, right? Seems pretty cool.

It is pretty fucking cool.

Gotta silence it. In another lifetime, I did gun reviews for a living. Proprietary fuckin' magazines, supposedly the best engineering in the fuckin' world. When that breaks, you're fucked. And now we're bringing them back. It does look pretty fuckin' cool. I got it.

I gotta admit that I lost my entire family. Uh, my mom, my dad, my brother in 18 months.

Um, what?

Yeah, it just, it just in 2022, 2023. And, uh, it just, you know, a memory guy, just it wrecked my brain.

And, uh, so I'm a whole family.

Yeah. And so It— it— not all at once, you know. They had the decency to space it out 6 months, you know, 6 months each. But it really threw me off.

Who was it?

It was my mom, my dad, and my brother. Jeez. Yeah, they all passed real quick. But it threw me off. It threw my business off. It threw my game off. I'll bet it did. Yeah. And I was— had a relationship at the time, and it ended because I— I couldn't focus, right? So then I lost the fourth relationship. But all that to say, it threw my business off. And being here really forced me to focus on those Afghanistan names. It's really helped me to start getting my focus back. You know, I hear you talk about Gabe, and I lost my brother to the same thing you lost Gabe to.

Oh, fuck, dude. I'm sorry, man.

Yeah, but, uh, this is helping me get my focus back.

Good.

I'm grateful for it.

I'm happy to hear that, man. Damn, that's tough. I'm sorry that you went through that.

Well, we all go through loss, right? And, uh, it's just normally not all back to back.

So your military career?

Yes, sir.

Where do you want to start? You're an intelligence specialist. I was an OS. So you went to school at Dam Neck? Yeah, yeah, right, right next door to us.

Wow. Yeah, yeah.

I mean, I never did the job as of an OS, but, uh, because I went to BUD/S right after that. But yeah, I wanted to be an intelligence specialist, but then when I saw how long the school was, I was like, I'm not fucking doing that.

So you, so you picked something much easier. It's gonna be a walk in the park. Mark, right?

Oh shit.

Well, I wanted to be a SEAL, but I just did not, uh, have the qualifications for that. You know, you're in— you know, I didn't. I'm an honest man. I didn't. You know, the funniest thing is, is you're in the military. I remember, you know, being with an IS. You know, we were all sitting out and this guy's out there smoking. You know, he's an IS and we're talking and, uh, he's like, yeah, he said, yeah, I was going to be a SEAL, but I just— you know, he's You know, he's, he's on the Fat Boy program right now, you know, in the Navy to lose weight. He's like, yeah, I was going to be a SEAL, but I just couldn't do it because my eyes, my eyes are bad, you know. And then I said, well, you know why I didn't do it? Because I can't fucking do it. So I was happy with naval intelligence, though.

So did the, did the memorization skill that you've learned help with with being an intelligence specialist?

Well, um, a little bit, a little bit. So a lot, a lot. Um, uh, you, you talked about the school, the intelligence school, right? So you go through this, uh, BRIT is what they called it at the time. Uh, I believe it was Basic Reserve Intelligence Training is what they— it was a course.

No, actually, sorry, we were there at the same damn time because I I went in the Navy July of 2001 and graduated boot camp right at September 11th because I actually had a hernia surgery I was supposed to fly home for. I hid it through all of boot camp because I thought they were going to kick me out because of a hernia. So I lied to them, told them I was fine until the very end. It was like, looked like a fucking softball come, right? You know, and I was like, uh, anyway, so by the time I had gotten through like the couple weeks or whatever rehab it was. It would have been what, probably October, November 2001 that I was at Dam Neck and OS school. Were you there that time?

I wasn't. Um, so I, I, I— my enlistment date wasn't actually until March of, uh, 2002. Okay. Because I went— I was a little bit delayed. I, I enlisted around December, but But I didn't actually— my official date wasn't until March. But you asked the question, does the memory help with the school? It does. But I guess backing up a little bit, I told you I almost got kicked out of the Navy. So during that time, I'm in the intelligence training. The master chief comes in, the SSO comes in and says, Ron, come with me, bring your badge. Everybody's like looking at me like, what's going on? And we go back to her office. And I guess a little bit before that part of the story that needs to be told is when you, you know, go into this community, they ask you a series of questions on a piece of paper. And the questions are, Have you ever smoked weed? Have you ever had a speeding ticket? Have you ever been arrested? Have you ever been 90 days late on your credit? Have you— you know, all these, all these type of things. And so she handed me the form and a piece of paper and I went, no, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, no, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.

And I handed it back to her. And, and at the time, I didn't really realize what was going on. She didn't even pay attention to my answers. Because she got so sidetracked with something else. So I didn't put it all together at the time. She said, Ron, I have never— she's— I've been doing this for 10 years or something. I've never seen somebody answer those questions this quickly, that quickly. They're going through it and they're saying, did I really get arrested or did I not? Was I really 90 days late or was it 89 or was it 91? She were like, you're just yes, yes, yes, yes, no, yes, yes. I've never seen it that fast. I said, well, and I hadn't thought about it. It was, it was yes or no questions, right? So she— guess I didn't pay attention to it. She puts it in her file folder. Fast forward a couple months later, she walks in, Ron, get your badge, uh, go, come with us. And we sat down and she said, Ron, we got your— we've been doing investigations on you and you've been arrested. You've had over 50 speeding tickets.

Uh, I got— I was arrested for, uh, warrants for speeding tickets. Nothing— I wasn't knocking over a 7-Eleven, you You know, but you've been arrested, you've been 90 days late on your credit, all these things. And I said, yeah, I told you that. She said, there's no way you told us that. I said, it's on the form. And she got the form and she was like, I can't believe this. He told us this. But that was actually quite a selling point for me because the whole reason they don't want you to have IRS debt or all this other stuff, right, is so nobody's going to bribe you, right? Nobody's going to go to you and say, hey, China's not going to say, hey, if you don't Nobody's bribing U.S.

government officials, Ron. Come on, who the fuck would do that?

It's all above board, right? Right. Uh, but they figured, well, if somebody goes to bribe Ron, he's just gonna tell them, uh, yeah, I got— I was late on my credit. Tell them, I don't care. But because of that, and because I cleaned up those things I got to stay in and in the basic reserve training, the BRT training, I did use the memory system. You know, I would— I told you I use rooms to memorize. So I would make a house in my brain and the house would be China and this room would be China's aircraft carriers. This room would be China's aircraft. This room would be other important details that I wanted to know about China's military. Well, then I got 10 pieces of furniture mapped out in this room. So now I take the 10 facts about the aircraft carriers, the shape of them, the size, the capabilities, whatever that I think is important to know, and I memorize them around those 10 pieces of furniture. The next room, the 10 features of their aircraft I would want to know. So I'd have facts about this house is China, this house is Iran, this This house is another country.

And so I really did breeze through that training. Then the test would— they would give me the test and the test would be something regards to what's the capability of this aircraft in Iran's arsenal? How far can it fly on a tank of gas? How far can its weapons go? And I would just think back to that room in that house and boom, answer the question. So it really did help me mainly in my training. Training. It helped a little bit prior to getting in the country of Afghanistan because I would read books on Afghanistan and I just memorized certain facts about it. Massoud was the leader of the Northern Alliance, right? So I would know little facts like that to just give me context on the country. Mm-hmm. One day, One day it didn't— it wasn't— didn't— wasn't as well received as I thought. Um, I wanted— they made me a briefer. I was— I, I was the personal briefer for an '06, an Army colonel. Uh, he was the highest-ranking intelligence officer in Afghanistan, and I was his personal briefer. So at the end of every 12-hour shift, I would give him a briefing.

And they selected me for that role just because in my civilian career You know, I give briefings, right? It's not— we don't call it that, but that they thought, okay, that's what we'll do. But I— one day I had this idea that I'm going to give this briefing without reading my notes. So at the end of every 12-hour shift, I would brief him. We call them SIGACs. I don't know if that's a term— it was a broad term in the military, significant acts. So sig acts, the significant acts during the day. And I would prepare a report for him. This is everything that happened. We had this happen in Helmand. We had this in Kandahar. We lost this number of the United States military in this incident or this battle. Some of it was from direct fire. Some of it was from indirect fire. This is how many the Afghans lost. And I would prepare this report and at the end of the day, I would brief him on, on what happened. Well, I had this big idea. That I'd do it without notes and I'd win favor with the colonel. So I gave my briefing, uh, without notes, and I got it.

I got it perfect. But I learned something that day, and that was they— there's no harm in holding a piece of paper when you're given a military briefing. And when it's that detailed, even though I had it right, he didn't have full confidence in me that I got it perfectly Right. And he said, White, that was good. I appreciate the work you put into that, but use paper next time. I want to have full confidence knowing that you— what you're saying is 100% accurate. I said, yes, sir. Um, with that said, I used it in so many other ways.

Interesting, interesting. Anything significant you want to talk about in your military career?

When a United States Navy SEAL says, is there anything significant in your career, you you, you, you blush a little and have a little bit of imposter syndrome, right? I gave a lot of PowerPoint briefings and I did do 51 convoys, but nothing happened on those convoys. And I'm perfectly happy that nothing happened on those convoys. I will say that the airport in Kabul where Abbey Gate was. I've been to that airport 10, 10 times on a convoy. Uh, we— I went on a convoy there one day and nothing happened. Um, I— we leave, we get back to the base, and somebody from our base— I was at ISAF headquarters in Kabul, right next to Hamid Karzai's palace, right next to the embassy, and a base called Camp Eggers. I learned later when I memorized everybody who died in the war in Afghanistan, that that's Captain Daniel Eggers. I didn't know it at the time, but he passed. He was the 150— 135th name I said. The guy left from Camp Eggers and he goes to that airport in Kabul, Abbey Gate, that area. And he, he died. It was a vehicle-borne IED. And I, as an intelligence guy, I remember that, that video.

And I remember thinking, man, I was just there. I was just there. And now he's there and he's dead. And then 2 days later, we shut down convoys for a couple of days. And then 2 days later, I went back. And, you know, that was— I think that's when I first— I always had been briefing the names of the fallen. And I didn't— I didn't say the names of the fallen in my briefings, but I was always aware of the deaths, probably more more than the average person who was deployed, because I had to know every day how many who died. I never knew that guy's name until about 6 weeks ago, and I went and figured it out. Who is he on the Afghanistan Wall? And based on the time and based on where he died, that was Corporal Adam Quinn. And so that name has an attachment to me now. I think there was one other that really all this led up to me wanting to memorize the names. I had teeth problems. I still have teeth problems, but I had a tooth problem when I was in the base. And it's a, it's a question.

Do you want to go tell your chief that you have to go to the dentist when you know that's going to require other men getting in a convoy, doing a completely unnecessary convoy because your teeth is bad? Their lives are at risk so you can go to the dentist. So I kept prolonging it as long as I could. Maybe I can just get to this deployment without having these guys go off base, right? Finally, I decided I had to get my teeth fixed, and I went into the room, the intelligence center, and I sat down. It was 10 o'clock at night, and it was full of people, full of people. And, um, I sat down and I said, what's going on? I mean, high-ranking, high-ranking guys. So what's going on? And they said, somebody's about to get shwacked. And we had these monitors on the screens. The whole room was just TV monitors. It was like the movie, the TV show 24, just a lot less fancy. Right. And they had all the monitors were on the same house and somebody in that house, a high-value target, was getting ready to get killed. And I sat down and I was just watching and the guy said, had on the phone, he was communicating, and he said, "3 minutes out." And then this is, you know, I didn't experience death in the same way you did in your deployment.

I experienced death in a very sanitized way on a television screen. But even at that, I thought, wow, these people are about to die. And they have no idea. That person who just walked out of the house to go to the bathroom or whatever just saved his life and he has no clue. That car that just pulled up and they went in, they're about to die. And then I heard, "2 minutes out." And as a guy who just gave PowerPoint briefings, I'm like, "Whoa." "60 seconds out." And then boom. And you see these people running and you see them being chased by, I guess, a helicopter or some type of and they're, they're shooting at them, and then you see them fall. And I just went back to my room that night and I just wrote in my journal, why do people kill each other? Why is there war? Why is this happening? I understand if we don't kill the Taliban and Al-Qaeda, they're going to kill us, but why, why, why? And it bothered me so much. And that bother in my heart for any death, not just the United States military. And I get, and I get the people who are listening, they're going to say it's just, it's a person, you know.

And, but I understand there's some bad people too. But those questions and all these stories that I just mentioned is what led up to me wanting to do the Afghanistan War. To focus on the death of war. Uh, so my military career really led to, to the tribute I do today.

Right on, right on. That bothered you that much, huh?

Well, it didn't bother me in a PTSD way, right? I don't, you know, not picking that up. No, there's none, nothing.

It wasn't the first time you've seen real death. It was our guys killing bad guys, correct?

Correct. Yeah. It bothered me in the sense it was, you know, it wasn't traumatic, right? It wasn't traumatic. It wasn't necessarily something that I even lost sleep over other than it— but I did, it did start getting that philosophical question in my brain. Why is there war? Why must people kill? Goes back to, you know, it's a story as old as time, you know, Cain and Abel, right? It's not, you know, Harry Billy Joel, "We Didn't Start the Fire." I realized this didn't just start with us, you know, it's the world's been burned. How's the song go? The world's been burning since the world's been turning. But, um, yeah, it's— I think that those moments is what made me want to focus later on the Afghanistan War.

Gotcha, gotcha. Makes sense. You familiar with Polly Market?

Yeah, I am.

All right. This is about war.

So, oh man, here's the question.

Polly Market gives only a 5% chance that the Iranian regime falls by June 30th. You deployed to Kabul as an intelligence specialist. You've seen these con— what these conflicts actually cost. When you look at what's happening in the, in Iran right now, what does your gut tell you?

Will we be—

will the regime fall by June 30th?

I cannot— my honest answer is I don't know, but I do have an opinion. I don't have an answer on the time frame, but I do have an opinion. It is my sincere hope that there are no boots on the ground and that, that there are no names to learn. There are already some names to learn. Yep. You know, I have no idea how it's going to turn out. I have zero idea, and I have no educated guess. Um, with that, my only other thought on this is— and I don't even know, you, you've done You've talked to so many people, Sarah Adams and Joe Kent, and you've talked to so many people who know so much about the background of this war. And I don't necessarily know that, but if it's true, and I don't know if it's true, that we don't want them to get nuclear weapons, which seems to be the thrust of the idea, right? I'm not a fan of war, and I'm not even saying we should have done this because I'm saying I'm just hoping for the best right now. I will say this though, I do fear a nuclear war.

If you, if you say there's only a 0.2% chance of, of a nuclear war every year, 0.2%, every year there's a 99.8% chance of no nuclear war, no nuclear or be it— okay, I can live with that. Well, what happens with percentages is over 100 years, that 2% becomes an 18% chance that it has happened within 100 years. If it's just a 1% chance every year that, that there is a nuclear war, 99% chance there's not, after 100 years, it's a 63% chance that it will have happened. I'm not going to be alive in 100 years, but there are people who are being born today that if there's a 1% chance, there's a 63% chance in their lifetime. On the war in Iran, I hope there's no boots on the ground. I hope it's resolved. I'm a fan of anything that's going on, really. And I don't know all the reasons why, other than I just don't like it.

Yeah.

But I hope— I also see the point of view of nuclear proliferation as a scary thing.

You've memorized the names of 2,300+ Americans killed in Afghanistan. You built that wall so people will understand the scope of the sacrifice before we go to war again.

Iran.

What does it mean to you that we're now in a conflict with Iran?

I don't like it. I don't like it. You know, when I said at— I recited the names, and I was, I was emotional when I finished saying the names, you know. And what I said at the end of that, I said, it is my hope that humans evolve to the point one day that we can solve our differences with words instead of war. I just hope, I just hope that the people who are in our government, the officials, the the politicians, that they are so cautious before they send men and women wearing the cloth of our nation into harm's way. And also they consider the cost on the other side and the overall cost of war. The cost of war is— the names that I said today, Master Sergeant Evander Andrews, that was 25 years ago that we lost him, October of 2001. But today his family's— it's not 25 years ago for him. I met his daughters at a NASCAR race. For them, it's, it's every day. And, and I, I'm not, I'm not a fan of the Iran War.

Yeah. If this escalates and Americans start dying in a war with Iran, which they already have, will you memorize those names too?

Maybe, but probably not. Um, the Afghanistan names it took 10 months to memorize rank, first name, last name. Today on your show was the first time I ever finished it. No kidding. This was it. This was the first time.

Wow.

So I would— I started— when I started memorizing them in 2012, there was 1853. As I was memorizing it, during that time we lost 600 more. It was impossible to finish it because I couldn't. I would set the wall up, I would do it, but more, more were dying. And I've had some personal events in my life where I haven't done the wall in 4 or 5 years. It's never been complete. So I just in the last 2 weeks got the last name, HM3 Maxton-Soviak, memorized. I think what I would like to do eventually is get to where I know the months that everybody died. Like, this was— this was September 2011 or something like that. So I think there's a little bit more I want to do with the Afghanistan wall, but it takes so much time. I would love to do Iraq. Back, but there's 4,500 there. The Vietnam Wall is 59,000. I think Afghanistan is my tribute. I think that's where I focus my time. Roger that.

But congratulations, man. What a fucking time to do it, huh? Memorial Day 2026.

And I finished it on your show. And I also thought the timing was so great because we are in this conflict with Iran. And when I, when I say those names, when I write out the wall, it had— I've done it over 30 times. NASCAR races, Major League Baseball games, and Fox News, whatever. Every time I've done it, people will walk by the wall, they'll look at it, and they'll say, what is this? And well, because they can tell it's something military, it looks like the Vietnam War, I will tell them every single time somebody will say, is this name on the wall? Is that name on the wall? And I'll show them. But the reason I share that story is you mentioned— I finished it today. The people would say when I was memorizing, I had a friend of mine, she said, why don't you just say the names? Which I did today. And it was very fitting, right? I loved it. I got very emotional. I've never had tears. I've never had tears. I've done this 35 times. I had tears today because it was emotional, because it was complete. The greatest— most— I shouldn't say greatest, I don't want to use the word greatest.

The most significant memory project of my life is complete today. And when I got to that final 13 names, the tears were just going down my eyes. I, I, I, I couldn't believe it. But when I was training for this, somebody said said, Ron, we, we, uh, why don't you just read them? That way you don't have to write them. You got— because Jeffrey, you got to spell it. You can spell it J-E-F-F-R-E-Y, J-E-F-F-E-R-Y, J-E-O-F-F-I, J-E-F-F-R-I-E, G-O-F-F-R-I-E, G-O-F-F. That's just Jeffrey. So spelling it is so much difficult. And my friend said, why don't you just say them? You don't have to worry about spelling. And I said no. I want— today was powerful. Today was powerful. But I wanted people to look at it and walk by that wall and say, "Wow, I didn't know it was this many." I want them to understand. And I think today that was accomplished just by saying the names. But it's my hope that maybe a politician heard it and for 2 hours that politician realized, wow, Wow, that guy just talked for 2 hours and he said everybody that we lost— that's not including necessarily all civilians, that's not including everybody in Iraq.

And that's what I want. I want people to understand the cost of war.

Good for you, man. Good for you. That's a hell of a statement. We talk a lot on this show about how important it is for the military to modernize faster because there's no shortage of good technology being built in the private sector right now. The problem is getting that technology into the hands of the people who actually need it. And from everything I've heard, working with the Department of War can be incredibly difficult. Most companies have no idea who to talk to, where the real decision makers are, or How to actually secure funding. That's where SBIR Advisors comes in. They've built a team of over 60 former acquisition officers who understand how that system actually works. They help companies find the right buyers, find funding, and write winning proposals so they can get on the right contract fast. Since 2020, they've helped small businesses win over $600 million in government contracts. And what I like is they're a veteran team focused on getting better technology into the hands of warfighters. If you're serious about selling to the Department of War, go to SBIRAdvisors.com. That's SBIRAdvisors.com. And if you mention my name, you'll get your first month free.

We talk a lot on this show about performance, recovery, and trying to stay ahead of all the stuff in the modern world. And the reality is We're constantly surrounded by things our biology was never really designed for— EMFs, artificial light, processed foods, microplastics, stress, you name it, the list goes on. That's one of the reasons I started using Armoura Colostrum. What interested me is it works at the cellular level to support your body from within. And this isn't just another supplement, it's a bioactive whole food with over 400 bioactive nutrients that support gut immune health, recovery, and performance. I've been using Armor of Colostrum and I've noticed a difference in recovery and overall energy, especially during high-stress work weeks or hard training blocks. I've also noticed less bloating and just feeling better overall throughout the day. And it's clean too. Sustainably sourced, physician-founded, and easy to work into your routine. We've worked out a special offer for my audience. Receive 30% off your first subscription order. Go to armra.com/srs or enter SRS to get 30% off your first subscription order. That's armra.com/srs. All right, so let's move back to your service. So you were going to do— you were going to do the, the Memory Championships while you're in, correct?

Yeah, what happened to that? Some good research there. Maybe you guys are in military intelligence.

Oh geez, don't spread that rumor. Everybody already thinks that.

Oh, that's right, that's right. Okay, all right. Yeah, okay. Yeah, I'm sure. Yeah, anyways, uh, I was— so during a time to join the military, I was perfecting my, my courses. I was really trying to get my business and By the way, if it's okay, if people were interested in this course, they wanted to learn a little bit more, the next step to do that is brainathlete.com. I have a great course there that is really the next step that they need to perfect their memory. But during that time that I was developing the courses and I was developing my business, I thought, I've got to prove that I'm a memory champion. Or I got to take this out of my bio. I don't want to be one of those lame businessmen that says, "We're the top of the world," but you got nothing to prove it, right? So I said, "USA Memory Championship. That's it. That's what I'm going to do." And then I started looking at the records. Ah, this guy memorized a deck of cards in 1 minute 40 seconds. There's no way. A shuffled deck of cards. He memorized it and then he set the cards down and then he reassembled a second deck to match the first deck from memory.

There's no way. And then I looked, this other guy had memorized a 140-digit number in 5 minutes. I'm like, there's no— holy shit. 140 digits. He looked at it. They took the paper away and then he wrote 140 digits and I'm like, oh, now I'm starting to get intimidated. I hated it. This is going to be a redo of the Guinness record thing, except it's not going to be a misunderstanding. I'm just going to lose. I'm just going to flat out lose this. But I thought, you know what? This is it. You got to do this. You got to do this. You have to do this, Ron. So I started training and my goal was to compete in— well, I really didn't start training, but I just set my sights on it. I started thinking about how would I memorize Lots of deck of cards, started developing a strategy. And this was March, February, March of 2007. I'm like, I'm going to compete in the 2007 USA Memory Championship. I'm at the base in Fort Worth, the Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base. I'm thinking about, I'm going to compete in this memory tournament. A guy walks by me and he says, "White, are you going to volunteer to go to Iraq or Afghanistan?" I said, "I can't go, man.

I got a business. I'd have to cancel contracts, refund deposits. I can't go." go. He said, chill out, White, you're not going. 2 hours later, this guy says, White, you're going to volunteer to go to Iraq or Afghanistan? I said, I can't go, man, I got— I got contracts that have to refund. And 2 hours later, my chief said, White, do you want to go? And I looked, I said, I don't want to go, chief, I got a business. I said, but why are you asking me this? And he said, well, we got a list of people here, we're going to send these 25 people, but we're asking for volunteers before they get voluntold. And I said, I don't want to go. He said, you're not on the list. You don't have to go. Over the next couple of days, there was more conversations and I did end up going, which kept me from competing in the 2007 USA Memory Championships. That's why I didn't compete. I was deployed. When I returned, the 2008 USA Memory Championships was happening. I'd been back in the country 6 weeks. I said, I'm going to give this a shot.

I'm pretty relaxed. I have no— I have no reason. If I lose this, this, that's pretty acceptable. You know, I've been in Afghanistan, I haven't been training. This is— if there's any time to lose, this is the time that I have a built-in excuse to lose.

You're gaming the system, looking for a great way to look when you lose.

Yes sir, yes sir. So I go in and I compete and I come in 4th place, and, uh, out of like 50 people. And I'm like, wow, I didn't even train for this and I came in 4th place. I said, I'm gonna win this thing, I am gonna 10. So I began training diligently for the 2009 USA Memory Championship. And I got a former US champion, David Thomas, to give me some ideas and strategies. And he really helped me out a lot. But my biggest coach, and most people can't even understand this, you might understand this, my biggest coach for the USA Memory Championship was not a memory guy. It was a United States Navy SEAL, former SEAL. His name was TC Cummings. He served served in the '90s. And people all the time are like, Ron, why in the world would you hire a United States Navy SEAL to train for a memory tournament? What in the world do they know about memorizing a deck of cards? He knows nothing about memorizing a deck of cards. But what Navy SEALs do know is they do know how to be calm under pressure. They know how to believe in themselves.

They don't, they don't get ruffled. They know how to structure their training so they don't just win, they dominate. So I hired this guy, T.C. Cummings, and he structured my training like a Navy SEAL would structure training, you know, for a memory tournament, not for— but, you know, there was a Norman Schwarzkopf quote, and T.C. would say it to me a lot. The more you sweat in times of peace, the less you bleed in times of war. So he would— he said, Ron, how are your competitors training for this memory tournament? What do you want from it? I said, oh, well, they're telling their kids to be quiet in the next room and they're turning off the radio and they're training in complete silence. He said, that's not how a Navy SEAL trains. We don't train in perfect conditions. I said, TC, what do you want? What are you going to shoot off a gun over my head while I'm memorizing a deck of cards? What are you going to do? He said, you need to make your training— and this was him talking to me, and I'm sure you would feel this as well.

I don't know anything about SEAL training, but he said, Ron, we make our training so tough that sometimes it's tougher than the actual war. And when we get to war, we don't just win, we dominate. He said, that's what you need to do. He said, you don't want to train in perfect conditions. He said, I want you to get— it was, it was the wintertime. He said, I want you to get plastic playing cards. I want you to get snorkel gear and get a wetsuit because it's 30 degrees outside and you're going to train underwater. I'm like, what? I'm gonna train for a memory tournament underwater? So I'm at the apartment swimming pool. I got these goggles on. I guarantee you I'm the only nerd training for this tournament in a swimming pool. And the water's seeping into my goggles. I'm trying to breathe. I'm floating around. I got these plastic playing cards and I'm memorizing underwater. But what it really helped me do was learn how to focus when all these distractions were going on. And that's what he wanted. I wanted. And then I would get out of the pool and I would reassemble the deck of cards.

I got to the point where I could memorize a deck of cards underwater faster than anybody in the United States could do above water at a tournament. I had a trip to Australia during that time, so I didn't have to wear snorkel gear. And there was people all out at the pool. And imagine this, you're at the pool and this guy's walking out there with snorkel gear, plastic playing cards. He jumps in the water, he's memorizing a deck of cards. Kid's got a volleyball It's bouncing off the top of my head. People are bumping into me and I'm memorizing. Then I get out and I reassemble the deck of cards. It was training like that when we got to the actual tournament. So by the time we got to the, the event, the card event, it was like 3 events in. And so we're at the card event. By this time, I had already set a United States record. So all the TV cameras were on me. So I was getting ready to go. All these cameras around me, they were taking pictures and the judge said, go. And when the judge said go, I zoomed through it.

I was like, this is so easy. There's no water going down my mask right now. I set it down, boom. And then it was a minute 27 seconds, fastest in the United States at the time. And the judge flipped them over, Karen Pinson. And I remember like it was yesterday, Karen said, I said, "We got a new U.S. record!" And she high-fived me. And there was some kids over here, my fellow nerds, they said, "We want to protest that score. We want to protest that event." And Tony Dattino, the founder of the USA Memory Championship, said, "Why do you want to protest that event?" He said, "When that event was going on, people were dropping plates in the other room." And they were. I hadn't registered when I was memorizing, but when they said that, I was like, oh yeah, I did hear something. And they said, there's plates and it distracted us. And a whole row of people said, yeah, we couldn't focus after that, we didn't get it. And Tony Dottito said, well, this guy's sitting right here, Ron, he just broke the United States record and the plates were dropping when he was memorizing too.

The results stand. And that's when it really clicked in my mind, man, this training that TC gave me was really focusing my mind to train with distractions. He had me go to country western bars, and, you know, all these cute girls are dancing around or whatever. And he said, Ron, I want you to go up to some girls, find the cutest ones you can find, and ask them if they will watch you memorize a deck of cards. I'm like, TC, that's the most awkward thing to do. Number one, it's not going to get me anywhere. No girl's ever like, oh, hey, how fast can you memorize these numbers? I want to give you my phone number. Right? It never worked that way.

But if she does, at least she'll remember it.

That's right. That's right. Well, believe me, I tried that angle for the first couple of years and it does not work. Maybe it's just me that doesn't work with— maybe a different guy would work. But so I'll be at a country bar, I'll be at the restaurants and have people staring at me. But it was his training and I really owe OTC a lot. I'll say one other thing. There was one— there was one day that I, I, he, we had to be up and training by 8:30 in the morning. I had to be training by 8:30 this day. I wasn't. And we were doing our weekly call and he said, Ron, he's— he was a hospital corpsman in the Navy. So he was always having to listen to his guys. You know, they would not like you. You were hurt in boot camp, right? Is that where you were hurt? Yeah. And you didn't say anything. That's so common, right? Especially with the guys with the SEAL mentality, the warrior, the warrior mentality. They're not going to tell you when they're injured because they don't want to be taken away from their job. Job.

So as a SEAL, as the hospital corpsman guy, he had to listen for the things that they weren't telling him. And he said, Ron, there's something, man, here that you're not telling me. I don't know what it is, but something's not right. So TC, I, I was not training by 8:30. I, I slept late today. He said, well, in the SEALs, when we didn't do something, we had have to face a consequence. If we had a goal and we didn't get it, we had to face a consequence. It wasn't a punishment, but it was a consequence. I said, well, what's my consequence, TC? He said, that's up to you. He said, personally, I didn't like cold. I hated cold. He said, she said, you decide. So I hung up the phone and I thought, I don't like cold either. It's lower than 30 degrees outside right now. I got a swimming pool here. So I get my girlfriend on the phone and I said, hey, I'm getting ready to swim around this pool for a minute or whatever, but if I'm not back in a minute, could you send the paramedics? So I jump in the water.

I, I've never felt water that cold. I thought, I thought, oh, when I jump in the water, I'm going to get used to it and this is going to feel good. That never happened. It was cold. It was like jumping in a glass of ice. Ice tea, you know? And I was, it was, I don't know, it was less than 30 degrees outside and I swam around. I got out of that water. But I tell you what, when I walked into that USA Memory Championship, I knew I could trust myself. I knew that if I didn't do something I said I was going to do, I'd face a consequence. I'd wipe the slate clean and it was no longer in the back of my mind. There was no doubt in the back of my mind. I wasn't going to be sitting up there on stage, getting ready to memorize a deck of cards and think, oh, who am I be the USA Memory Champion. I can't even get up at 8:30. Yeah, I didn't get up at 8:30, but I faced a consequence thanks to my Navy SEAL coach, and it gave me a clear conscience.

One other short story on him. One day I didn't want to train. I said, TC, I'm not training today. I'm sick. He said, oh, wonderful. This is great. I said, why is this great? I'm sick. He said, well, if the USA Memory Championship happens, are you not going to compete because you're sick? I'm like, no, I would compete then, but I'm not going to train when I'm sick. I said, "No, Ron, this is the perfect— this is a gift from God. You are—

this is a gift from God.

You are going to be able to train and see what it's like to compete when you're not your best." Well, in 2009, I walked into that tournament. My belief in myself was so strong because of this training. I walked up to the trophy and I said— and I said it to myself, it wasn't to intimidate anybody else. It was just for me. I walked over to the trophy and I said, "You're going home with me." And I knew it. I just knew it. People were walking up to me and all the competitors, you know, they're trying to size each other up. They're like, "Hey, how was your training on cards? How was your training on numbers?" And I would answer them, but they never once noticed. I didn't ask them, "How's your training going?" Because I didn't care. I just knew I hit my numbers. I'm going to win. That year I set the record for the fastest to memorize a deck of cards, 1 minute and 27 seconds. I set the record for memorizing a 167-digit number in 5 minutes, and I became the USA Memory Champion. How do you—

I mean, so hold on, just walk me through that strategy with the deck and the number. How do you do it?

So it's the same way, really. It's the same way. The first thing that you want to do, if you want to remember anything, you want to memorize anything, there are a couple of different techniques. The, the primary technique that I would recommend to anybody, whether it's a deck of cards, a speech, a student wants to remember, get better grades, create yourself a mind palace for you. This room is a mind palace for me. There's a picture back here behind my head. That's my number one location in this room. This chair is number two. The floor right here is number three. I, I don't know what, what type of weapon that is. What is that weapon?

Which one?

You got quite a bit right there. The one next to the belt.

That is a Sig Sauer MPX 9mm suppressed.

Nice. That's my number 4 location. This flag is 5. That flag is 6. These lights are 7. The cigars are 8. That glass of alcohol up there is 9. The, the shelf with that on it is 9. Um, 10 is this picture with the cross. Um, 11 is this picture of you. 12 is the top of your head. You want to know something crazy, Sean, about the top of my head? You're braver than me. That's the direction I need to go right now. I'm just holding out hope like the people don't notice yet, but everybody notices. But that is my number 12 location. Here's something crazy. This is— this was so powerful. I got goosebumps when I realized this. So to map out this room, to make this room right here a mind palace, which believe it or not, I'm answering your question on a deck of cards. But when I made this room a mind palace, I wanted to get a picture, pictures of the room. Well, the only way I could do that was YouTube, right? So I grabbed this. It was with your interview with Joe Kent. I grabbed a screenshot of Joe sitting in this chair.

So I got this chair and I got that. I grabbed a screenshot screenshot of this for those, right? And then I grabbed a screenshot of you for you and what's behind you. All I was looking for in that entire interview was a picture of a shot of this, this angle with your eyes open. I didn't want to get my screenshot and, you know, you going like that or something like that, right? So I did not plan it at all. I didn't— it wasn't planned at all. This— I saw a picture of you with your eyes open. And I screenshotted it and I put it in my Mind Palace PowerPoint. And then when I attached the final 13 names to Abbey Gate, I attached them to this room. Staff Sergeant Ryan Nass, Lance Corporal Dylan Merola, Corporal Humbert Sanchez, and then Sergeant Nicole G, Sergeant Johnny Rosario, Corporal Davin Page, Staff Sergeant Sergeant Darren Hoover, Corporal Hunter Lopez, Lance Corporal Jared Schmidt, Lance Corporal Riley McCollum, Lance Corporal David Espinoza. Top of your head, Lance Corporal Kareem Nakoo. The screenshot that I caught of you that was not planned, Sean— this was totally unplanned— was a shot of you going like that, and I attached HM3 Maxton Soviak to to your fingers.

Well, it didn't hit me till later. This is the peace sign, man. This is the peace sign. And the whole reason I did the Afghanistan wall is to make us cautious to go to war. So that was powerful for— oh, this is a Mind Palace. That's how I memorized the names. Now I'll transition a little bit to a deck of cards. Let me tell you the most simple way to memorize a deck of cards. There's a little bit more advanced way. Most simple way is this: you map out a room, then you have a picture for every, every card. So for me, the King of Hearts is my mom. Why not the Queen of Hearts? Because in my memory system, this is the way it worked out. King of Hearts is my mom. Ace of Spades is Drew Carey. Right. Let's, let's switch, just switch, let's switch this to you, not me. Think of somebody that you love a lot, a man, a woman, whoever, and tell me. I, I'm not— who do you— who is it?

Tell you?

Yeah, I'm not— I, I cannot do what that Oz guy did. You know what I'm saying? Huh?

My daughter.

Perfect. And Let's make her the Queen of Hearts. What does your daughter like to do? What's one thing she likes to do?

Terrorize people.

Terrorize people. Where does she like to do this? Everywhere. Everywhere. So your daughter terrorizing people is the Queen of Hearts. Now, give me a name of somebody that you know that you worked with in the military, just first name, military, or your drop here, or however you want to do it. You can even make up a name.

Okay.

And what is that?

Eddie.

Eddie. Eddie Penny?

Yep.

Okay, I'm not the mentalist, but I know, um, I got a story about him. Um, Eddie Penny, let's make him— I always like to make spades people that I've worked with. Uh, um, let's make him the King of Spades. Eddie Penny, the king of spades, maybe he's got his weapon, right? Your daughter terrorizing Eddie Penny with his weapon, king of spades. One more. Let's think of a singer, a man or a woman singer famous. Who can you think of?

Mick Jagger.

Mick Jagger. So the number 3, if you put it like this, it looks like an M, right? So the 3 for me is always an M. So let's make Mick Jagger the 3 of clubs because you hear his songs in dance clubs, right? We'll stop there. So now you're at the table and you're memorizing a deck of cards. You think back to this room. First card gets played. And that first card gets played is the King of Spades.

That's Eddie.

Boom. You attach it on your number 1 location. You see Eddie. Shooting up that picture right there. The next card that gets played is the Queen of Hearts. That's your daughter. Now your daughter's standing in this chair and she's terrorizing and she's going crazy right here. And then the next card that gets played is the Three of Clubs, Mick Jagger. So now you imagine Mick Jagger's over here and he's interacting with this right here. Then you set the cards down and you have to recite the cards. You just walk back around the room. Oh yeah, that was, uh, Eddie Penny over here, so that's the King of Clubs. This was my daughter, so that's the Queen of Hearts. And that was Mick Jagger, so that's the Three of Clubs. King of Spades.

King of Spades.

The memory— see, the memory guy— the King of Spades back there. There. But that's, that's the general concept.

Okay.

Yeah. How about the number?

How many digits did you say? 167 digits?

Yeah, same concept. Uh, the— let's do 21's a deck of cards, right? The blackjack table. Uh, 25 could be a quarter, 25 cents. Um, 55 could be a speed limit sign, right? We'll just do those 3. Now the first number you see is 55, so now you've got a a speed limit sign that you're imagining here, but you just can't see a speed limit sign. You've got to imagine cars are zooming by, right? Like, if you just saw a speed limit sign in this picture back here, that's a real passive picture. Your brain doesn't remember passive pictures. You need action and emotion. That's why every single person listening to this right now, they can tell you where they were on September 11th. They can't tell you where they were on October— where were you on September 11th?

I just told you, I was, uh, coming out of surgery.

Yes. And, you know, and even, you know, that, that, that, that emotion of September 11th sinks it in, right? But you can't tell me where you were October 25th of that year. Yeah. We remember things that have emotion tied to them. So you remember the car accident, but you can't remember when you drove 2 weeks ago and you got gas in your car, right? So you got to make these stories crazy. Right here we got a speed limit sign and people are zooming by. That's 55. Right here, you got people at a blackjack table, right? For the number 21, for a deck of cards. So you take the pictures or you take numbers, you turn them into a picture, and then you attach those pictures around the room in a sequence. And that's essentially it. There's a process of turning numbers into pictures. But That's how you could do it with some very basic pictures.

Okay. Yeah, makes sense. Kind of.

It makes— it's the— it's the mind.

How long did it take you to memorize that 167-digit number? 5 minutes.

5 minutes.

And holy shit, what, what is that? That's a— so you're coming up with a— what's 5 minutes? What, 5 times 60 is, uh, what, 300?

It is.

So 300 divided by, what, 167? That's less than— so you're coming up with a story less— a story less than every 2 seconds.

That's right. Um, that's fucking crazy, but kinda, kinda. You're right, you're on the right track there. Based on how I described it to you, yes. Based on what I just said to you is how I did Yes. But I did it a little bit more of an advanced way. I was memorizing 7 digits at a time. So I was seeing a group of 7 numbers, and I was creating a picture for that 7-digit number. So in memory, the more you can compress the data, the faster you can memorize. So let's say you have a picture for every card, right? Your daughter's a card, Eddie's a card. If you do that that way and you want to memorize 52 cards, you need 52 pieces of furniture, right? 52 pictures. Well, what if you can take a series of 3 cards and those 3 cards get played and that's one picture? Then you take that one picture and you put it on the location back here.

Gotcha.

So I was using 17 locations when I memorized a deck of cards. When I would do numbers, it was 7 numbers per location.

Okay.

Wow.

I mean, that's still moving.

It is. But here's the thing, and I'm, I'm an honest man, I don't— I would be remiss if I did not say my record was 1 minute and 27 seconds. The current record is 19 seconds.

19 seconds? Yeah, 19 seconds.

I believe it's right around around the 22nd mark. Yeah, I think— yeah, it was a world record for a while. Yeah. And my record of 167-digit numbers— there's guys doing 400 digits now at the USA Memory Championship. So my— while my records were impressive for the time, you know, they've been beat and I'm okay with that. I love that. I love that. I love that the sport's evolving. And yes, I call it a sport, right? Nerds got— nerds got to have a sport too. But I love that the sport is evolving. I love seeing these guys do things that I was never able to achieve in memory, and I think it's fantastic.

What do these people say out on the street? I mean, your Instagram is just full of going up to what appear to be random strangers, you know, and just going, hey, do you want to memorize the Bill of Rights? If you don't, I'll give you $50.

Right.

You know, hey, do you want to memorize memorize the Ten Commandments? Do you want to memorize whatever it is? I mean, what are these— what are these people like? They look a little apprehensive, but what do they say after it's over?

They're amazed. Yeah. So the funny thing about that, or maybe interesting thing, I don't know. You'll be— you and everybody else will be the verdict if it's interesting or not. But the way that evolved involved. So this is 11 months ago. 11 months ago, I had 13,000 followers on Instagram. I'm about to—

11 months ago?

13,000. I'll cross 1.8 million sometime very soon. I had a business coach. He's not a social media guy. He's just a business coach, right? Andy Elliott. And I sat down with him and he said, I said, Ron, tell me about your business. I told him. He said, I got an idea. I got an idea. Get yourself a camera and go out there and talk to people and walk up to them and do these memory things. I'm like, ah, I really don't want to do this. It's kind of uncomfortable approaching strangers, but whatever. He gave me this idea. Let me test run it. So I would walk And I would say, excuse me, sir. And it really is 99.9% are people I've never met before. There is 1% that I do know. And for those, we, we make it real. I say, this is whoever, I'm going to teach them something today. But I'll walk up to these people and I'll say, excuse me, sir, if I could teach you how to memorize the Bill of Rights, the presidents, the Ten Commandments, whatever, really fast, I'll give you $50. And what I've learned is that even offering people $50, 50% of the people say no, and almost everybody over 40 says no, right?

But, you know, uh, uh, you know, some people have commented, Ron, you're just picking young, uh, young people. Well, they're the ones who are going to say yes to social media. But I go up to them and I, I, uh, will say, I can teach you this. And I think the reason that it caught on so well is maybe the $50 gamifies it a little bit. And people are curious if they're going to— they're going to get that. And spoiler alert, I give everybody the $50 regardless of what happens. I appreciate their time. Right. But as I'm teaching them, I think what drew it to— what drew people to it was they're watching somebody learn something on the spot, somebody who doesn't think that they're smart. The viewers learning something on the spot. Lot, and everybody wins. And that person walks away 3 minutes later like, I can't believe I just— I just memorized the Ten Commandments, or I just memorized the first 10 presidents. Uh, and it's just a real positive thing, and I love doing it.

You got one for me?

Sure.

Um, you're gonna teach me how to do one?

Yes, sir.

All right, let's do it.

Okay.

Um, I'm gonna be fucking embarrassed as shit if I don't get this, by the way.

No, you're not. Everybody says that. Everybody says that and everybody gets it. So you want to do the Ten Commandments?

I already know them.

Okay, nice. I'm assuming you know the Bill of Rights.

I don't.

Okay, let's do that. All of it. Let's do that. Let's use our fingers. So first one, imagine this is a microphone.

Actually, I know the majority of it.

You know the majority. Let's—

yeah, let's do something else.

Yes.

Okay, I don't want to cheat.

Okay, how about this one? Uh, this one's a little bit more involved, but how about we do the Beatitudes? Matthew chapter 5. Okay. Okay, so is there a— there's a picture back here behind me.

There's a lot of pictures back there behind you. Okay, one of the— one, uh, the painting, or just— are you just telling me to pick one?

You pick one. Uh, um, so this is the Beatitudes, comes from the Sermon on the Mount. Okay, there it is. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. On this picture behind me, I want you to imagine the frame is the kingdom of heaven. It's gold, right? It's the kingdom of heaven. And I want you to imagine a spirit, like, like a ghost, is just pouring down. So just— we're not going to memorize the blessed are they, just the main thing: poor in spirit, kingdom of heaven. So what's on the, the back there?

The kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are the poor in spirit.

Blessed are the poor in spirit.

Their's is the kingdom of heaven.

Their's is the kingdom of heaven.

The next one is, blessed those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. We're only going to think the two things. People who mourn are comforted. Imagine me with tears rolling down my face. I'm mourning and I got a comforter around me. Blessed are those who mourn, they should be comforted. So which one is this? Okay.

Blessed those who mourn are in the kingdom of heaven.

7. Blessed are those who mourn, because they shall be comforted. Comforted. Blessed are the poor in— back here on this frame, we had a spirit pouring down. Blessed are the poor in spirit— the frame— because theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Okay.

Blessed are those who mourn— right here— for theirs— blessed, for they shall be comforted. I want you to look down here at my shoes, and I'm telling you a story, and I'm saying these are my shoes. This is me. The word is meek. So what are my shoes going to represent?

Meek.

And they inherit the earth. So they're— we're on the ground, earth. So the meek will inherit what?

The earth.

Now let's just review. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for theirs they shall inherit the earth. The earth. So now we go to Um, let's go to this, this right up here. And blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled. Imagine somebody is hungering and thirsting and they, they want something to eat and drink. So over there they're eating, they're drinking, they're being filled. Hunger and thirsting, being filled. The phrase is this: blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled. So What? What? Blessed are those who what?

Hunger and righteousness, for they shall be filled.

Perfect. We'll do one more and then we'll review. And Blaze, believe it or not, there's only two more. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall be shown mercy. So over here on these UFC gloves, I want you to imagine whose gloves are those.

These ones? Yeah, Andrei Arvlovski's.

He is showing mercy on somebody. He's got those gloves, but he's showing Blessed are the merciful, for they shall be shown mercy. So what is that one?

Blessed are the merciful, so they should be shown mercy.

Let's review real quick. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled. Filled. Filled. They're filling them— they're filling their stomachs up. That's right. Um, blessed are the merciful, the gloves, for they shall be shown mercy. Mercy. And then this last one, or there's two more, blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. I want you to see this guy right here looking out of the airplane, and regardless of what people say about him, I think he has a pure heart. Blessed are the— and I'm making a joke Of course you do. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. You're looking out of that window and you're seeing God. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. The pure in heart shall what?

Seeing God.

See God. One last one, you got this shot, I promise you. I'm gonna say it with you. Blessed are those— let's— this last one is the American flag. The frame is the Kingdom of Heaven, just like the frame was the Kingdom of Heaven over here, right? I want you to imagine that somebody is being persecuted for being an American over there. Blessed are those who are persecuted, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. So blessed are those who persecuted— think of the frame, and what does the frame tell us?

They'll enter the kingdom of heaven.

Perfect. I'm gonna say all these with you and you're done. That's it. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is —what the— think of the frame. What's that? Blessed— the frame is telling us the kingdom of heaven. So back here on this: Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst of righteousness, for they shall be filled. Filled. Blessed are the— the glad— the, the gloves. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall be shown mercy. Blessed are the pure in for they shall— you're looking out that window of the helicopter, see God, see God. Blessed are those who are persecuted, theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Booyah, baby! So now, Sean, that was a little bit more involved than my average video on the street. Um, it's more just one word, you know, freedom of speech, the, the right to bear arms, But you may, right now, you may be saying to yourself, "Ron, I don't got it perfect. I don't got it perfect." You got it in your brain though.

So now this afternoon, you review it. You review it again. You review it tonight. You review it tomorrow. Then you got it perfect.

Kingdom of heaven comforted, filled, mercy. See God, Kingdom of Heaven. Is that it? Is that all of them?

Did you say inherit the earth?

Inherit the earth.

That's awesome, man. That's awesome. And that's how memory works. You take what you want to remember and you visualize it around a room. You see it interacting with that location. If what's important to you is scripture and your faith, you could have— this is called a mind palace. You could map out a mind palace for faith. If it is you want to be— oh, look at this, the seal tried it, how great is that on this Bible? You want to give a business speech, you map out your business speech and you visualize it around a room. This system was developed, as the legend goes, 2,500 years ago by a man named Simonides. The legend's not true, but it's a story that goes back 2,500 years. And Roman orators 2,000 years ago, this is true. Roman orators would use this system to give their speeches on the floor of the Roman Senate. They would take the first thing they want to say and put there, the second thing here, the third thing here, the fourth thing here. Legend has it is that the saying, "In the first place, in the second place, in the third place," it originates from this system.

The speakers would say, "In the first place, in the second place." Is that true or not? I don't I don't know, but it fits the, the system.

I do want to memorize scripture. That's, that's one thing. I'm new at this, actually. I guess I'm not that new anymore, it's been about 2 years, but we're in the Bible Belt here in Tennessee and everybody has scripture memorized except me, right? So, so how do you— I mean, where do you start? I know I saw on your website you have this, this course, the Jiu-Jitsu, a bunch stuff? What— how do you— where do you start with this? Is it specific scriptures, or is it— you can memorize— it teaches you to memorize whatever you want to memorize?

It's whatever you want to memorize. A lot of people, um, want to memorize scripture word for word. A lot of people— which, that's the primary desire. There is others though. So this is— here's a crazy story. Um, I lost my faith a little that, uh, you know, in the 2010 to 2020, that, that time frame. And, uh, my mom, I went up— she was very religious lady, and I, uh, I want to honor her legacy. I, I don't think she would mind me telling this story story. She's passed. She said she was a hoarder. And I wanted to help her clean. It was a huge heartache that I had that she lived like that. And one day, and I'm answering your question on scripture memory, believe it or not. One day, I said, okay, this is the day I'm gonna go over there. And I'm gonna talk to her about this house. And I showed up. And She didn't answer the door. And I hadn't been in her house in the last 10 years, or in that time frame, 10 years. I hadn't been in her house 4 or 5 times. The stench was overwhelming.

It broke my heart. I could— there was nowhere to sit down. Even if it smells like flowers in there, there was one chair and she slept in that chair. There was nowhere to sit down. Stuff was stacked to the roof. I knocked on the door and she didn't answer. And so I said, I gotta go Come on in. I opened the door and I walked in the kitchen. I didn't see her, but I saw a possum, a possum sitting on the counter eating a bowl of soup. And he just looked at me and was like, come on in, dude. You know, I got this bowl of soup. You want any? And I was like, a possum? And I got so mad. The anger just swelled up in my heart, not at my mom, but that she was living like this. And I went in the backyard and I found her. I said, Mom, there's a possum in your house. And she said, no, there's not. I said, yes, there is. She said, show me. So we went in the house and I said, he was right there. I said, no, are you kidding me? I don't, I don't believe that.

I said, Mom, I've had it. I've had it. You're my mom. This breaks my heart. I can't stand this anymore. I'm hiring a professional hoarding crew and we're going to clean your house. Well, I was mad though. And Sean, I said something that day that I'll regret for the rest of my life. It haunts me to this day. I wanted to shock my mom because she wasn't as mad as I was. She wasn't as heartbroken as I was, but she's a woman of faith. So I said, Mom, there's no God. There's no God. God would not let you live like this. And I saw the look on her face. I got the reaction, but I should not have said it. And she— we had a falling out because of that. Not much. My mom loved me. The falling out didn't last but more than a couple of hours. But she would text me, Ronnie, I'm going to be praying for you to get back to God. Ronnie, I'm praying for you. To get your faith back in God. I know you had it at one point. And I said, Mom, I don't care about any of that.

I just want your house cleaned. So August 10th, I had a professional hoarding crew. This was just a couple of weeks after that. They showed up. They were behind me. I knocked on the door and she didn't answer. And I went to the window, looked through the window, and she was on the floor. And I was through that window as fast as I could. And I got down there the day, the day that I had determined was going to be the day we were going to change mom's life. I found her dead on the floor. And I said, Mom, get up, get up, get up. And during that day, I looked at her refrigerator. I'd been in the house 2 weeks prior. There was a picture that was on the refrigerator that wasn't on there 2 weeks prior. And it was a picture of me with Proverbs 22:6, Train up a child in the way of the Lord, and when he is older, he will not depart from it. I knew the scripture because she trained me that way. I knew she had been praying for me to get my faith back in God. And after that happened, it was just a series of events that was undeniable that I saw, okay, this— Ron, you're not the smartest guy in the world.

You haven't figured out there's no God. There's some stuff out here that you don't know about. So that's when I started opening up the Bible again. And that's when I started praying. During that time, I developed a course called the 1189 Bible Memory Course. There's 1189 chapters in the Bible, 1189. By the way, I've never done the course, but I developed this course that somebody could say, what's in Exodus chapter 20? The Ten Commandments. What's in Numbers chapter 9? The Israelites following the cloud of smoke and fire through the desert. So I did it as a tribute to my mom, just to get into the Bible. I created this course. I didn't necessarily memorize it, so I don't necessarily— but I just created it for other people. I put it up there on my website, and one day I was getting sales on my website. I'm like, what in the world is going on? People are buying this $11.89 course and I don't even know what's going on. A guy had done it. He had created a Mind Palace with 1,189 locations, and he knows what's in every single chapter of the Bible now. And he did some podcasts.

And that was my entry into faith. Do you mind if I tell you what Psalms chapter 1 says about memorizing scripture? Psalm chapter 1 says, "Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scoffers. But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night. He'll be like a tree planted by streams of water, who in its season yields much fruit." whose leaf does not wither. In whatever he does, he prospers. But not so the wicked. They are like the chaff that the wind blows away. Neither will sinners stand in judgment or the wicked in the assembly of the righteous. For the Lord watches over the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish. In that scripture, in Psalms chapter 1, right in the middle of it, it says that the person who meditates on scripture will prosper in whatever they do. And it is— when Jesus was tempted, he quoted scripture. Writing the word of God on your heart, whatever your faith is, writing whatever is important to your faith on the tablet of your heart, it gives you comfort in times of trouble.

When you're talking to someone who is going through a difficult time, maybe you're able to say to them— and I know there's AI, I know there's Google, I know there's all that— but there's something different between reading something on Google or AI telling you something and having it written on your heart. Heart, having it written on the tablet to your mind. And so I— if you want to memorize Scripture, map out a mind palace and visualize the Scripture around your home.

Roger that. And thank you for sharing that, John. Yes, sir. Wow. You want to take a break? Sure. All right. Sure.

Let's take a break. Thank you.

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All right, Ron, we're back from the break. I want to move into how memory works and how, how you can train it. Well, first of all, you've had studies on you you didn't— was it UT? Did an, uh, did an MRI on your brain? My, like, people are trying to figure out how the hell you're able to do all this stuff. Yes, I have had— you say you weren't born with it.

It's no special gift. I have no special gift. I have no special ability that anybody doesn't have. I'm, I'm not a dumb guy, but I have no— you know, growing up they weren't saying, oh, that guy's gonna be a memory champion one day. You know, my Amy, who's worked with me for 10 years, you know, I'm always telling her, I'm like, I'm sitting here today, I said, Amy, remind me to pay that bill on Monday. Amy, remind me to call that person. She texts me throughout the day, you gotta, you got a Zoom call at, in, in 60 minutes. And I tell you, I tell you what, 50% of the time my reply is, oh, thank you, I had no idea. Like, what do you mean you had no idea? You're the one scheduled it, or, oh my gosh, I forgot about that. Um, so my, my memory is very average or natural. Now, the one of the— and I'll share with you exactly how I— the best advice I could on how to train it. But the UT study— so there was a, uh, Stan Lee, right? He was the inventor of Spider-Man, The Incredible Hulk, and all that.

You know, he's the, the comic book drawer. He had a TV show in 2010 called Stan Lee's Superhumans, where he wanted to get people that he said were real-life superheroes, right? And, uh, and they selected me as one of Stan Lee's Superhumans. So when I met with the producers, I said, I, I get what you're saying, Stan Lee's Superhumans, but there's really nothing unique about my memory. I, I've learned a system. Anybody can do this. Uh, you're gonna see me do some crazy things here on this show, but I— believe me, there's— I'm not a— I know the name of the show is Superhumans, but I'm just a normal guy. And the producers said, well, that's not really the premise of our show. So we're going to— we're going to delete everything you just said. Now let's go to University of Texas. So we go to the University of Texas. They put me in an MRI tube and they— and that's, you know, when they put— before they put you in an MRI tube, before they put you in, they ask you if you're claustrophobic. And I said, no. Now I know the proper way to answer that question.

You found out. I found out. So I'm in there, you know, I'm like, oh my gosh. I'm like, uh, if it had not been the History Channel, Stan Lee's Superhumans, I would have said get me out of here. Matter of fact, I've got, uh, I had a pain in my side over here last year, and I'm like, Doc, can you just do some blood tests? I'm like, is it anything bad? And he's like, yeah, no, it's nothing bad, but we still don't know. I said, I'm gonna just be— I'm gonna say I'm okay. I'm not getting in that MRI tube. That's how much I hated it. But I get in that MRI tube and I'm laying on my back. And they have these series of words flashing up on the screen that they want me to memorize. And it was like, I think it was like word pairs. It was like this word with this word, this word with this word, this word with this word. And they were scanning my brain as I was memorizing. Then they re-give you the information and you got to click if was, was that, is this, is this right?

Is this the right order? Was that word paired with that word? If you find any mistakes, you hit a buzzer, right? Now that, that's not right. Or maybe, yeah, see, the memory guy, if I'm not memorized, maybe it was the other way. Maybe if it was right, I hit the buzzer. Just proves to you I have a very average memory. But when I'm using that system, so I get out of the MRI tube and, uh, the, the, the guys running it, they said, you got a perfect score. And the, um, the host of the show, not Stan Lee, but he had another guy who was actually the host, Daniel Bryan Smith. Daniel Bryan Smith asked the MRI guy, he said, how often do you see a perfect score? And the scientist said, I've been doing this 20 years. This is the first perfect score. And so on the show, it was perfect for the show, right? Ron has a superhuman memory. And the MRI guy said, 35% more of my brain was lit up, was activated when I was memorizing than they see in the average person, which also, ah, Brian has some superhuman memory.

But it wasn't. So the reason 35% more of my brain was lit up than the average person when they're memorizing is claustrophobic. That was part of it. I'm not giving you that. Freaking the fuck out. They were seeing the, the panic in my brain, right? That prob— I never thought of that. That probably could have been part of it.

Um, yeah, we don't know why there's so much fear, right?

This is, this is memorization. Yeah, they all thought it was the memory guy. Uh, it was a very— yeah. What about you? You— and I'm going to finish this story, but as a SEAL, did you have claustrophobia? Did you experience any claustrophobia? No, no, no.

Yeah, I don't have it. That's my dad has it really bad.

Yeah, but it doesn't bother me for whatever reason. Well, that's why you're able to do what you do. And us normal guys, we salute you. And they pulled me out of that MRI tube and they said his 35% more of his brain is lit up than the average person. And the reason that that is lit up is I was using the Mind Palace. I was visualizing my memories. What they were seeing on the activation of my brain is they were seeing me walk around my house and see this piece of furniture, see that piece of furniture, see that word turned into a picture. So the part of my brain in the prefrontal cortex was lighting up. Up because I was seeing these images. I was seeing my memories. Um, and it, it, it, it does activate more of your brain. Uh, but it also works. They took me to Home Depot after that, and they got a shopping cart, and we walked around Home Depot for 2 hours. And for 2 hours, Daniel Browning Smith pulled a hammer or a tool off of the shelf, and I only got to see it once. He showed me the hammer and I saw the price and I memorized it.

He put it in the shopping cart. He pulled a saw off the shelf. I saw the price. I memorized it. He put it in the cart. For 2 hours we walked around. He took stuff off the shelf. He showed it to me. He put it in the shopping cart. After 2 hours, we go to the cash register and I turned my back to the cash register and the screen lit up, you know, with the price when they scanned it. So they would scan it, the price would light up. They would scan it and I would say the price out loud that I remembered it to be. And I scan this whole shopping cart full of stuff. And when they get all the way done, I'm expecting the high fives. I'm expecting, "Ron, that was awesome, man. You rock. How did you do that? You're superhuman." And that's what they've been telling me all day anyways. So I was expecting this. And instead, the manager of the store, the producer, the TV guys, they all huddle up and they break the huddle like they're coming back to the line of scrimmage and they walk up to me.

Me. And they said, Ron, you did really good, but you missed 3. And I said, I didn't miss any. The computer missed 3. And the manager was there. He was like, dude, no, you missed 3. I said, can we do this one more time? And every time you say I'm wrong, can we do a price check? And they said, okay. So we did it again. They said I was wrong on one. I said, I want a price check. We did a price check and all 3 times the computer was wrong. Now, in fairness, the computer didn't make a mistake. It was the person who typed it in originally. But it worked out perfect for the show. And they only showed 2 of the price checks, but they saved one of them for the very last. So it appeared that I got all of them right. And then the last one was the final price check and I got it right. A Cliff Notes version on how did you do that, Ron? How did you do that? If there's nothing special about your brain, how in the world did you memorize a shopping cart full of products.

It's the same concept of the Mind Palace, but the Mind Palace necessarily wouldn't help me because I didn't necessarily need to memorize it in some certain order. What I just needed to know was this price, this hammer was, let's just say, $21 to make it simple. That's all I needed to know. If you want to remember a name, so when you want to remember a name, you pick out a distinctive feature on their face. You meet a guy with— his name is Brian, and Brian has really big ears. So you're looking at this guy, you're walking towards him, and you're thinking, big ears, big ears, big ears. Hey, my name's Ron. And he says, my name is Brian. Instantly, I now imagine a brain going out of his ears because that's his distinctive feature, right? Brian. A hammer works the same way. He pulls the hammer out of the shelf. I say, what's the distinctive feature? The distinctive feature is that yellow that yellow band, whatever, that's going around the handle right there. That's my distinctive feature. That's what I'm going to zone in on. Then he says, it's $21, deck of cards. Boom. That yellow band is the yellow lights at a casino and the casino is lighting up and there's the deck of cards playing on that.

Boom. He throws it in the shopping cart. As we walk, I'm reviewing, I'm thinking yellow band on that hammer, that's the neon lights, the yellow lights at a casino. And I'm just reviewing. He gets the next one. The saw, that saw had some handle that I zoned in on. And let's say that saw was $25. I imagine quarters, 25 cents, right? On the handle. Boom, he throws it in. And as we're going to the next items, I'm constantly reviewing. Names is the same way. So if you're in a room full of people and you want to remember people's names, just like a hammer or just like a saw, as these people are walking towards you, zone in on them and say, what is unique about this guy? What stands out to me about this guy? He has, it's his ears or it's his chin or it's his nose or it's his eyebrows or it's his beard. And so as you're walking towards him, you're zoning in on these features. Then he says his name, his name is Steve. You imagine a stove on his distinctive feature, right? So you're taking the name, creating a picture, attaching it to distinctive feature.

To button up this point here, When they pulled the hammer out of the shopping cart and scanned it, the whole time I'm looking, yellow band on that hammer. That's Vegas. Deck of cards, baby. 21. $21. Boop. $21. The guy in another scenario, you're at a business conference. The guy you just met leaves the room and then he walks in 30 minutes later. He's walking towards you. Big ears. Big ears. What was on his ears? What was on his ears? Ears, a brain. Brian, good to see you again. It's good for the short term, right? You got the— if I went back to Home Depot today, that was 17 years ago. What's the price of that hammer? I have no idea because I didn't review. The conference that I was at 2 years ago and I met a guy named Brian, if I saw Brian today, I'm not going to know his name. I didn't review. So this is the process of memory, taking images, seeing them as pictures and attach them to what you want to recall. But if you don't, review, you're not going to remember anything long-term. Review is the Beatitudes. If you want to lock these Beatitudes in long-term, you're going to have to review them today, review them tomorrow, review them in a week, review them again, and then get them locked in and get it to where it's smooth and it just flows off your tongue.

But the review is the key to that. It's the most overlooked part of memory, in my opinion.

Interesting. Wow.

That's it. You know, it's—

I was going to ask you, how do you remember people's names? Yeah, that's probably the biggest thing that comes to my mind that people would struggle with is name recognition.

It is. It's important. You know, Dale Carnegie said everybody's favorite topic is themselves. The sweetest sound of the ear is the sound of their own name. Zig Ziglar said people don't care how much you know until they first know how much you care. When you can remember somebody's name, you show them that you care. You know, you show them that they're meaningful. There are so many people out there that are having rough times in life, and just the measure of respect to remember their name, you see them, you call them by their name, and it maybe just lights up their day that day. Wow, Sean just remembered my name, and I just met him once, and he just remembered my name. I feel so special. You get so much out of remembering names. The first thing you get, you make people feel good, and that's enough of a reward. Sometimes it's a great connection, right? And it leads to a a great friendship or a great business deal or whatever. But the first thing is it just makes people feel good. And when you want to remember a name, focus in on something on their face that stands out.

And then here's what's going to be— here's everybody listening to this right now, the thing that's going to hold them up, the thing that's going to make them say, I'm not going to do this, this is too much work, that this is the thing. They can't— they don't have pictures for names. They're going to meet somebody named Brian. And Brian's talking to them and they're trying to turn the name Brian into a picture. And as they're trying to turn that name into a picture, they're not listening to what Brian's saying. And then as they not listen to Brian's saying, they zone out. And then Brian's like, hey dude, are you listening to me? They're like, no, actually I'm not. I'm trying to see a human brain going up your nose right now. And it's, yeah. So this is how I would suggest everybody practice. When you're at the grocery store, look at the name tags. Turn the name into a picture. Even if you don't talk to her or him, turn it— your bank teller, turn it into a picture. You see a sign on a billboard, turn that name into a picture. Just start developing a mental database.

And once you decide the picture for Brian is a brain, it's always a brain for you, whatever it is. In other words, you don't say this Brian is a brain and this Brian is my friend Brian and it's a brain. But once you have pictures for names created, that's what's going to take the most work. I'll tell you this. The first time I spoke for a group, I remember I was 19 years old. There was 5 people in the room. I was speaking for free and I only called on 3 of them. I did not think I could memorize all 5 names and I was there to teach them a memory seminar. Shit. So I only called on 3 of them. I'm glad the other 2 at the end And didn't test me on their names because I didn't know their names. But I say that as a little bit of a measure of hope, right? This is my career. Where did I start? I started exactly where everybody else is starting right now. I started thinking, I can't do this. I'm not good at remembering names. But I did one thing that most people don't do.

I spent the next couple of weeks turning names into pictures. I spoke at a conference in Canada. Decade ago. And I walked up to the guy and he said, Ron, I'm so excited. You're going to recite everybody's name in the audience. I said, Darren, no. I typically do 150 to 200 names. I've never done more than 200 names. And there's over 300 people at this conference. Oh, he goes, no, Ron, you got it. You got it, man. I was like, I stretched my own imagination. Now, here's the thing that I will share. When you're at a meeting like that and you need to memorize massive massive amounts of data, looking at their ears and stuff like that. I will actually use their clothing. Don't do that in real life because it only works for the— for a meeting, right? But I attach stuff to the clothing, I attach stuff to their hats. 301 people stood up. I had my girlfriend at the time over there, she had a notepad. Every time I got a name right, she made a mark, and that's my record. 301.

Damn, man. Wow.

Let's talk about memory faith in the Bible. Yeah, so, you know, I told you I doubted my faith a lot, right? I went through a point in my 20s where my mom just point-blank asked me, are you going to be a preacher? Because I was in church church all the time. I was there on— I led a Bible study on Tuesday nights. I went to church on Wednesday nights. I was at the Saturday night service, and I was there at the Sunday service. My mom, who was a woman of faith, she was happy about that. But she was also like— even for her, it was a little bit much. She said, "Ronnie, you're gonna be a preacher or something." I said, "Mom, I don't know. I'm a memory guy. I kind of like memory guy, but I just love stuff about the Bible." Then I lost my— drifted away. And part of it, I was just— maybe I was Can I trust it? Right? Like, how do I know? How do I know these stories are true? How do I— how do I know? And am I just fooling myself? Or is there some— something here?

And over time, I think I just sort of, like, went like that. But as a memory guy, one of the things that I wonder How can we trust the Bible's true when Jesus died in 33 AD and most of the gospels weren't written until 20 or 30 years later? Right. How that— that's from memory. They're not— there's not taking notes at the tomb. You know what I'm saying? There's a 500-year gap between Abraham and Moses. Moses wrote Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, the first 5 books of the Bible that at least that's what most Christians and Jews believe, that Moses wrote the first 5 books. Well, if there's a 500-year gap between Abraham and Moses, that means what he wrote in Genesis, he didn't live any of that. It was an oral tradition, right? So if that's all oral tradition, all of Genesis, if there was a 20, 30-year gap between Jesus dying and the Gospels being written, how the modern people would say memory is not reliable. My memory is not good. You know, and when modern people, we hear that this, we think memory is unreliable. The ancient people, it was so much different.

They had these group oral traditions. So So you think about it, Jesus spoke in parables, right? What are parables? Parables are pictures. And that's what I've been saying today. Your mind needs to remember a picture. And by the way, the parables are easy to remember because they're a picture. 2 Timothy 3:16 says, "All scripture is God-breathed," right? So when I'm saying this, I'm going to tell you why I believe we can trust the reliability of the scripture based from a memory guide's perspective. Right, not based from a religious perspective. But some people would say, "Ron, it's supernatural. Forget all that stuff about memory and all that other stuff. It has nothing to do with that. It's supernatural." 2 Timothy 3:16 says, "All scripture is God-breathed." It was written by the breath of God through moving the hands of humans, right? But I'm not discounting the supernatural way the Bible was transmitted. But these oral cultures, it's not like we have memory today. It was group memory. They would recite it all together, and they would drill it, and they would repeat it. They would tell the stories over and over again. If somebody in the group would say the story wrong, the group would correct them.

So these oral traditions was almost just as good as writing something down. The way the Bible was engineered itself, Proverbs chapter 1 says, "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge." But the very next verse says, "Fools despise wisdom and discipline." The Bible's written like that in a lot of places where it'll say a line and then the very next line, it's like a contrast. "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and discipline." Those two sentences kind of go together because they're contrasting ideas. I don't know if I explained that the right way or not. But the way the Bible's written, the way it is engineered, is it helps your memory. Psalm, the 23rd Psalm, he makes me lie down between green pastures, laid beside still waters. That's imagery. So when, when these stories were passed down, they were passed down with imagery. Green pastures, still waters, imagery cements it in your memory. If you have the faith of a mustard seed, you can move a mountain. Mountain. Imagery. The way Jesus spoke was imagery. He was— and I don't know why, I'm speaking from a memory perspective, not a religious perspective here, but from a memory perspective, I've got to think, if, if Jesus is who he says he was, he wants these stories to be passed down.

He knows we're nothing but— we're humans, human memory. I've got to tell these stories in a way that they can remember them. So I'm going to speak in parables. I'm going to talk about— I'm not going to say if you have faith you can do anything, that's not a picture. I'm going to say if you have the faith of a mustard seed, you can move a mountain. So I believe the parables were engineered so we could remember them. I believe the group memory. But I will say this, this isn't just the Christian faith. The oral traditions of all ancient societies, or a lot of ancient societies, are very reliable. Fascinating. The Aborigines in Australia, they would pass stuff down in songs, much like I'm saying now. Now. They would sing songs, they would say them in groups, they would tell these songs and stories in, in groups. If somebody got it wrong, they corrected it. These songs were the GPS for Australia tens of thousands of years ago. So, and I don't know what the songs were like, but I do know they could know there's going to be a canyon, there's going to be a mountain, there's going to be a rock formation, and And then there's going to be this right here.

So if they were ever out in the wilderness of Australia, they had it in songs. And I was sort of thinking about how could they do that other than just song lyrics? But I thought I have an idea. I don't know if that's how it is. This is my idea. But the alphabet song, A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P. And you notice how you said that? You said it faster than the other words. A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, element OP. My guess, and I don't know if it's true or not, I know they memorized the landscape of Australia with a song. Well, if it's a tree and then there's a long distance and it's a canyon and then there's another long distance and it's a mountain and then there's 3 mountains real close together, that's the element OP. So this GPS, they could be out and the pauses, the slowness would be the distances. The elemental P, like a topographical map, it's all close together. The elemental P, tree, mountain, whatever. Their songs were so accurate. There was a volcano called Budj Bim in Australia.

Budj Bim, Budj Bim exploded over 30,000 years ago. 500 years ago. So the ancient people of Australia had these songs talking about Budj Bim exploding. There's no way that the— that the people 500 years ago would have known about that if it hadn't been passed down in a song. So these songs of ancient cultures, whether it's the Christian faith or whether the Aborigines, they're doing it as songs, they're doing it with group memory. Group memory is reliable. Individual memory It isn't. But that's how much of the Bible and other things were passed down.

It actually makes a lot of sense.

Wow.

That does make a lot of sense.

It was their identity, right? It was how they survived. Imagine there's a drought in Australia. And in this drought, this one plant maybe is their survival because they can drink the liquid that's inside of it. It saved their lives. It's a plant that you would never eat because it has a sour, bitter taste. Taste, right? I'm giving you a hypothetical here. It's a sour, bitter taste. You would never eat it in a million years, but it becomes part of their song because it saved their lives during this time. Generations later, they don't eat that plant either because it is a sour, bitter taste, but they go through the same drought. Everything dies. They remember the song and it saves their life. So memory, it was a survival skill. It was crucial to ancient humans. Modern humans, I think, were becoming drones. We're outsourcing our memories to ChatGPT or AI and all this other stuff. Here's a crazy study, Sean. There's a study called the PISA, the Program for International Student Assessment. The PISA study tests 15-year-olds on math, science, and all this stuff. They've been doing it for years. This is the first generation, the current generation.

This is the first— the young kids today. This is the first generation generation that is scoring lower on these tests, which they are— it's not an IQ test, but they are correlated into IQ. This first generation that scored lower on IQ tests and these tests than their previous generation. There's something called the Flynn Effect, and the Flynn Effect says every generation the IQ has improved. Every generation, the generation that was before, their IQ has increased until now. And there's a neuroscientist named Horvath, I believe he is saying it's screen time. He's saying it's, he said our kids are even in the class, in the classrooms, the classrooms, they're learning on screens. Well, what happens in a classroom when you're learning on a screen? You're skimming. It's not, this is, this is his theory, but it makes sense. You're skimming. It's not deep studying. It's not deep studying like we had where we're learning for a person. It's skimming studying, and maybe there's alerts and notification that's distracting you. But his belief, and I think it's probably true, is technology is great asset, but it's also harming this current generation and probably generations going forward.

Yeah, I wouldn't disagree. I don't think anybody would disagree with that. Wow. What's that—

what's his name? Jared Horvath. Jared Horvath. He's a neuroscientist. I— somebody just sent me the article a couple weeks ago.

I gotta get that from you. That would be an interesting talk.

It was fascinating what I read on him.

Right on, right on. Well, I got a hot question for you. Ready? Yes. All right, here we go. Ron, when you look at historical minds like Einstein, Tesla, Da Vinci, and Newton, they all had this ability to focus deeply, recognize patterns, and hold complex ideas in their Today, technology remembers everything for us. Social media destroys attention, and AI is starting to think for us. Sounds like what we just talked about. From your perspective as a memory expert, are we becoming more advanced, or are we quietly weakening the human trait that creates genius? It's a great question.

And for years— and I mentioned I've been doing this 35 years— I got asked that question a lot, and not— it was never as eloquent as that. That's a very eloquent way to ask that question. But it was all— the question always got down to, is technology ruining our brains? And I always answer that question, no, no, I don't think so. I think we have, we have more to remember right now, so relying on technology, there's no problem with it. And I still believe that's true, but I do think that it is harming our ability to focus. And it is harming our ability to think almost. You know, Sir Isaac Newton said, if I've stood on the shoulders— if I have seen further than anyone before, it's because I've stood on the shoulders of giants. So Isaac Newton had this knowledge base. And he was able to see experiments and see things that other people couldn't see, not because he was a genius, but because all the people before him had done all all these experiences, and he had that knowledge in his brain, right? Well, today, if the knowledge isn't on our brain, if the knowledge is in the AI and it's in the computer, how are we going to have the ability to see farther than anybody before?

Yeah, we can ask AI. I think AI is a great tool. I use AI all the time, but I, I use it— I take what it's saying, and then I'll step away and I'll think about I'll journal about it. Old school learning, right? I'll talk to it. Technology is— we're outsourcing our brains. We're going to become drones, I think. They've got the drones flying right now. We're going to be the drones and AI is going to be flying us. Your AI is going to control us. Focus is the most difficult part of what I did with the Afghanistan Memory Wall. 100% the most difficult part. When, when I was sitting in the chair and had my eyes closed, I was— if sometimes something would pop in my brain and I'd have to push it out of the way, but that happened 50 to 75 times.

There's a follow-up here. We hear stories of people lifting cars in emergencies, or the brain doing things that seem to be impossible. Are those rare miracles, or proof that humans have access to abilities we usually never tap into? And even though the idea that we only use 10% of our brain is a myth, do you think most people still underestimate what the human mind and body are actually capable of?

I love that last part of that question. The first part was, um, is this, is this, um, a miracle or is it, um, the human, right? Yeah.

Do we have, do we have abilities we usually never tap into. Yeah, yeah.

And first of all, is it a miracle or is it the human ability? It's probably both in some cases. But as far as the brain, as far as the human brain, 100%, 100%, 100%. If there are people watching this right now, if there are people watching this and they've enjoyed it, if they turn off the channel or whatever and they go about their day and they tell their friends, hey, yeah, I heard this memory guy talk and he memorized all this stuff, and he held some records. It was some crazy cool stuff. I could never do it, but it was pretty interesting to listen to him talk. Boom, I failed. That's not the message. People underestimate what they're capable of. Sit down and give yourself a project. You will be astounded at what your brain can remember. Build out this map that I'm talking about, right? This mind palace. Number 5 pieces of furniture in your living room, 5 in your 5 in your living room, 5 in your bathroom. And then tonight before you fall asleep, say those 20 pieces of furniture forwards and backwards, forwards and backwards. When you're brushing your teeth tomorrow, when you're getting ready for work, say these 20 pieces of furniture.

Just get them in your brain. Then find something that's important to you. What interests you? Do you like sports? You want to memorize the roster of your favorite baseball team? Are you a fan of history? You want to memorize the presidents of the United States? Find something that interests you. Interested you. And just, guys, I'm imploring you, everybody who's listening to this, do this because everybody is underestimating themselves. Everybody, every single person I walk to up on the street and I say, I can teach you this, they always say, oh, my memory is terrible. I'm not good. I'm not good at that. When you approach it with this system, it is everybody. Take what you think your memory is capable of, how many numbers you think you could memorize is in 5 minutes. Take that number, whatever it is— it's different for everybody— and then multiply it by 10, 20, 30, 50, or 100, and then that's the real number.

Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Let's, let's move back into the Afghanistan wall. We're closing out the interview. It's Memorial Day. You've accomplished something amazing right here in this studio. This morning?

Yeah. So this was the first time that I've completed it, right? And it was so emotional. And a lot of our talk today has been on how I did it and, you know, on my memory, right? And that's all valid. I'm the one— I am sitting in this chair. There. But I do want to say thank you to some people who helped me train, because without them, I couldn't have done it. Amy Haynes has been, has been with me for 10 years, and she's been with me through a lot of things. And without her sitting in a chair for the last month and listening to me say names, and as I say the names, she, she checks the work and she says, no, Nope, nope, nope. Yep. Without that, this would have been almost impossible today. So, and her support and encouragement was tremendous. So she is the main one that I want to say thank you to for that. When I heard that I was going to be here, I told her not because I was going to bring her along, but just to tell her, right? And she was so excited. Excited. She was more excited for me than anything at all.

And when I saw her excitement, I thought, she's never traveled with me in 10 years of working with me. But I want to say thank you to her for all she's done for me. So I'm going to bring her on this trip. But it worked out so magically, because when I was saying the names, I had the confidence of the training with her. And so thank you to her. Thank you to Esther Vermillion, who also gave me encouragement, and she helped me train and Lori Griffo, who gave me tremendous support and encouragement and also helped me train. The stories of the wall, though, that's why I do the wall. I don't do the wall to show people that I have a great memory, right? It's not about— it's not the USA Memory Championships, the deck of cards, memorizing the numbers. That was to say, hey, I'm legit, dude, look at me. The Afghanistan Memory Wall is to say, these are the men and women we lost. We say you are not forgotten, and we always say you are not forgotten. But I want to say to every single individual person, you are not forgotten. You know, Ernest Hemingway said that everybody dies two deaths.

They die the day they die, and then they die the last time their name is spoken. And in a way, I just wanted to keep their memories alive. So that's the main reason I do the wall. It has made me a better person by hearing the stories of the wall. But that's the meaning behind the wall. It's an individual basis. What I was going to say is when we say you're not forgotten, it's sometimes as a corporate or group whole, you know, Memorial Day, you're not forgotten. Forgotten. I wanted to say Private First Class Austin Staggs, you are not forgotten. Private Buddy McClain, you are not forgotten. Chief Petty Officer Adam Brown, you are not forgotten. Corporal Chad Wade, you are not forgotten. Sergeant First Class Matthew Abate, you are not forgotten. Sergeant James Ayube, you are not forgotten. Individually, you're not I will set up that wall at a NASCAR race. I'll set it up in front of the Alamo, and I'll be writing on the wall, and people will walk by. In New York City, I'm writing the wall, and this lady, she was jogging, and she stopped. She said, what is this?

And my brother, he was my biggest helper back then. She, he, she went up to him and she said, what is this? And he said, told him what it was. And she asked him if a specific name was on the wall. So he brings her over to me and, and she said, is this name on the wall? I had a deadline. I had to be finishing live on Fox and Friends morning show in the last 5. It was, I had to time it to finish live on the air in the last 5 of their show. I was very distracted. I always try to give people the attention because they're the reason I'm doing it. But I was distracted that day. To this day, I don't know the name she said, but I always— I took time with her and I said, "Ma'am, why? How do you know that name?" And she said, "My brother was a little guy and this guy was a big guy. And so he would always carry my brother's backpack and his backpack. And when they went out on a patrol, he always just walked in front of my brother naturally." And because he did that, he is dead today and my brother is alive.

And I said, I'm so sorry, ma'am. And I showed her the name on the wall. She stood there with tears in her eye. I went back to my hotel room that night and I was laying there and I was thinking about the day and I think, oh, what was that guy's name? I think it was Katzenberger. But even if it was Katzenberger, there's two. There's a Specialist Christopher Katzenberger and there's a Staff Sergeant Jeremy Katzenberger. Katzenberger. I don't know who it is, even if it was Katzenberger. And I thought, I wish I knew that guy's name. That's such a powerful story. And then I realized it doesn't matter that I don't know the name. That's the story of all of them. All of them carried our backpacks. All of them walked before us, and all of them made that sacrifice for us and our nation. I don't know his name, but I know that's the story of all of them. And I know you know some of the names.

Yes, I do. I know Adam Brown.

I heard you talk about him, that he was a good man. He was. He was.

Well, Ron, you want to end this with a prayer?

I do. Can I read you a story real quick? Yes, please do. But I do, um, so I want to give you a gift, Sean. This is the stories of over 30 people that we've lost in Afghanistan. This was written by— by the way, this isn't a book where anybody can go get it anywhere. This is just for you. Okay, so this is not anything like that. This was written by Darren Sapp. Darren Sapp was in the Navy. He was a yellow shirt on an aircraft carrier. He directed the planes and that kind of thing. He has a little bit of a connection with you. You— a guy named Bill Brown was the Navy SEAL Swim Foundation founder. He co-wrote a book with him. And Benito Olson, who was the dog handler for a dog named Dego in Eddie Penny's SEAL team, he co-wrote a book with him, and Eddie Penny wrote the foreword. Wow. This book was written by that guy. So it has a connection to Eddie penny. I want to read you one story. This is not one story, one letter. First Lieutenant Todd Weaver, when he was in Afghanistan, he wrote a letter to his wife in case something would happen to him, and he left it on his desktop.

When his computer was mailed back to Emma, and I have Emma's permission to print this, and I also have Emma's permission to read When this letter was— when she got her laptop back, there was one icon on the desktop. The entire computer was wiped clean. And it was this letter right here that he wrote to Emma. And here's the letter. Dear Emma, if you're reading this, I guess I did not make it home. And therefore I was not able to remind you again of how much I love you. I love you so much, baby. And I will always love I love you. Although I may not be here right now, take comfort in the fact that I am watching over you right now. I am not gone, and I will always be with you in spirit. I know this time must be hard for you, but I also know how strong you are. Never forget that God knew what was best for us before we were even born. Take comfort in that. This happened for a reason. Although you may not believe it now, you will one day. I want you to know just how important you are to me.

I could not ask for a more caring, beautiful, and loving wife. The memories that we have shared over the last few years have been the best of my life. Although it may seem like my life was cut short, I lived a life that most can only dream of. I married the perfect woman. I have a beautiful daughter that amazed me every day. I even had two great dogs. Dogs, at least most of the time. I couldn't ask for anything more. If you feel sad, just think back to the memories that we shared. Look at our daughter and how beautiful she is. Be strong for her. Remind her about her daddy and tell her that I loved her more than anything else in the world. Her birth was the best day of my life, and she was the best thing that ever happened to me. Her smile and laughter represent all that is good and beautiful in this world. Tell her that Daddy is in heaven now and will watch over her and protect her every minute of every day. I love you, Emma, but never be afraid to do what you need to do to be happy.

It is also important that you continue to find happiness in your life. Although you may not think that is possible right now, have faith. Much better times are coming. You and Kylie have a wonderful life ahead of you, and I'm so happy to have shared some of it with you. I love you. Your loving husband, Todd. Pod. Emma and her daughter Kylie are thriving now. They're doing very well. It's stories like this that have made me a better person, and thank you for giving me the platform today to tell some of these stories.

That was heavy. That's what this is all about. You want to pray? Yes, sir. Let's do it. Jesus, we just want to say Thank you for today, and thank you for connecting me with Ron. And but more importantly, we just want to say we want to wish everybody a happy Memorial Day, and especially the Gold Star families who lost somebody, just like the letter that Ron just wrote. Pray for them. Please let them be having a damn good time up there. Pray for our country.

Amen. Amen. Amen. Thank you.

Save the heavy stuff for last, huh? Holy—

I wanted to read this. What page is that? That is the first story, so it's the first story you would read. First Lieutenant Todd Weaver.

There it is.

Wow.

Ron?

Yes, sir? Thank you, brother. Thank you.

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