Vividly see that 14-carat gold coin (or bar or nugget or ring; you choose).

Take the two digits of number 15 and squeeze them together into a dollar sign.

See 16 flaming candles on a birthday cake. Maybe even sing the song…

See that young wizard with the round glasses graduating from Hogwarts at age 17. (I said it was a stretch).

See that golf green with its perfectly cropped green grass on the 18th hole.

See 19 sweaty guys in that sauna. (I said there's no logical connection, but you're seeing it anyway, aren't you?)

See that round, light-up dartboard with the 20 scoring stripes and the number 20 on the top.

Now take a moment to review in your mind and see the images vividly and clearly. Ready? Now go to the next page and without looking back, write down the 20 items on the unicorn list. If you get stuck on one, don't freak out, just skip it and come back to it a little later. Go for it.

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How did it go this time? Better, I would guess. In our live workshops, the average score the second time through jumps from about six to about 18, and most everyone gets them all. Why?

First off: True it's the second time through, which is an automatic advantage. You also do have that logical numerical connection for most of the items, which also helps. Most importantly, however, you created a vivid image for each of the items—you actually spoke the language of your memory. Just for kicks, take one more quick quiz:

Without looking back, what was:

#4?

#8?

#17?

What # was:

Sauna?

Dime?

Dollar Sign?

See? Even out of order, those images serve you well!

Two Plusses and One Big minus of What You Just Did

There are two things in that baseline exercise that are really useful for training your brain, and one really big problem. What's useful is that, if you played along, you first started using the visual centers of your brain more purposefully, and second, you probably gained some confidence.

Both of those are really significant for your progress, more so than you probably realize right now,

The big problem is that the whole list was rigged. I am aware of that. I am also aware that life doesn't usually hand you information in a way that works quite as conveniently as when "4 just happens to be a truck" and "11 just happens to be chopsticks." But are you aware now of just how quickly you can make progress with just a little bit of training? Does that build your confidence at least a little? It should. I mean, who knew you were such a genius?

It's true however, that because life very rarely gives you people's names, details of conversations, or any other information prepackaged with such convenient associations, you will want something that can deliver instant recall. If you can remove the need for a logical connection, you then develop the tools for remembering literally anything at any time. That's next.

The Mental File Folder System

I want you to imagine right now that you are in the office of a Fortune 500 company. You and I are standing in front of a filing cabinet that's filled with the files of every client this company has. There are literally hundreds of thousands of files, organized alphabetically by last name. Now I want you to imagine that I've asked you to get:

your file,

my file, and

some guy named Arturo Rodriguez's file.

Would you be able to find those files quickly? Of course you would—why?

Because there's a system for organizing this information.

You may have thought "because it's alphabetical," which is also true. I said the information was organized alphabetically, but fundamentally the reason you'd be able to locate those three files (or any number of files for that matter) quickly is just that there is a system. Your brain is designed to operate on the same principal, with an organizational system in place. A huge part of why you have trouble recalling the stuff you have trouble recalling is simply that nobody's ever taught you how to organize information mentally. The opportunity here is that when you do develop an organizational system for your brain and then speak the (visual) language of your memory, you become so effective at storing and recalling information that you gain a huge competitive advantage.

Here's how we do it:

It's called the Mental File Folder System, aka the F.I.G. system. F.I.G. is an acronym (also a very helpful memory technique) that represents the three things you need to develop instant recall of anything, from names to presentations to this book to a grocery list to where you left your keys. It's awesome.

F stands for File

I stands for Image

G stands for Glue

Get a good clear mental image of a fig. If you don't know what a fig looks like, visualize a Fig Newton. Either one works perfectly. Let's break these down.

F is for File

The first thing necessary for instant recall is a file, which is just a place to store information. We've already discussed this concept, so what can you use as a mental file? Anything you can see. Anything you can see with your eyes, or just with your mind's eye can work as a terrific place to store information. Your home, your office, your car, your body, and so on. Literally anything that you can see can be used as a place to store information. In this book, you'll get two filing systems in place.