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This is the art of charm.
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Learn everything you need to know to crush it in business, love, and life.
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Welcome to the Art of Charm.
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I m your host, Jordan Harbinger.
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Today we re talking with Dr. Carmen Simon, author of Impossible to Ignore.
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We re gonna talk about memory and how to stay on people s minds, how to influence other people s memory, why remembering the future is more important than remembering the past, and when forgetting is actually better than remembering, and how to influence others to forget as well.
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And with that, welcome to the Art of Charm.
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We bring together the best thought leaders, teachers, and exceptional individuals to teach you how to be a top performer in life, love, and at work.
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If you re new to the show, we d love to send you some top episodes and the toolbox where we discuss body language, nonverbal communication, persuasion, networking, negotiation, and everything else we teach here at AOC.
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In the US, just text charmed to 33444.
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That s C-H-A-R-M-E-D to 33444.
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Everywhere else, go to theartofcharm.com.
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We may not have all the answers, but we definitely have all the right questions.
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All right, here s Dr. Carmen Simon.
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So tell us what you do, Carmen, in one sentence.
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I am a cognitive scientist and I specialize in neuroscience research, focusing on how we can use memory to impact someone else s decisions.
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It s weird to see that there s an interplay between memory and decision.
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When I was looking at the book, to me it was almost a little bit confusing at first until you explained it.
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So can you outline the connection between decision making and memory?
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Yes, so imagine the last decision that you made.
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In fact, tell me a recent decision that you made in any field.
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Give me one of your examples.
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Whether or not to eat breakfast this morning was a decision that I made.
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Oh, there you go.
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And you went with which choice?
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I did eat breakfast, even though I never usually do.
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And why do you think you went with that choice?
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Well, I had a conversation with a friend yesterday, and he said that, you know, hey, if you find yourself crashing a little bit, or you find yourself really, really hungry in the afternoon, or you re gonna have a late lunch, and you re gonna be starving, you should probably start eating breakfast, even though you don t want to.
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And so I did.
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That influenced my decision.
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I already feel like I answered the question, but go ahead.
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You definitely did because imagine the memory of the conversation you had with your friend was still active in your mind and that fueled your choice of having breakfast.
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And usually when the brain decides what to do next, it goes about it in one of the three ways and all three ways are impacted by memory.
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We choose what to decide next based on reflexes.
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So those are innate behavior, so to speak, already prescribed memories, genetically speaking.
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So for instance, it doesn t take a lot of training to realize that we shouldn t touch hot surfaces because we already have the memory of skin equals biological fitness.
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And we also decide habitually.
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So for instance, if you repetitively don t have breakfast, that memory is already ingrained through pure repetition and you make choices that way.
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Or you choose strategically, which is what you did.
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You think about it and then you decide to go one way or another.
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So this makes sense.
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How do we start to apply this?
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I mean, you ve got different research backing your assertions based on memory, and I d love to get into why this stuff is important.
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I mean, clearly, memory is at the root of decision making.
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Is that true for pretty much every decision that we make?
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Every single decision is rooted in one type of memory that you have.
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And whether you created those memories reflexively, habitually, or strategically by having to think about it and focusing on your goals, the source of those memories is different, but it s memory, not less.
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Is this something we can tweak?
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Because I feel like looking at memory and looking at decision making, we can see this happen across the board from relationships all the way through to how we pick our careers and things like that.
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So if you have a memory of a bad childhood or bad experiences in programming, those memories fuel the way that we act now, even though the memory that fueled that decision might be decades old.
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Exactly.
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And the knowledge now that you have of this finding, which is memories at the root of all decision making, can then be beneficial for your own personal use.
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But even bigger than that is to be used in the service of other people.
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So in other words,
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Yeah, we can use that knowledge to improve our own memory and decision making, but what if we were to apply those findings to how we can impact other people s memory and decision making?
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So in other words, imagine if your girlfriend didn t have breakfast habitually and suddenly you wanted to convince her to eat.
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What would that take?
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I don t know.
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I would have to remind her of a time when she didn t eat breakfast and did worse than when she did.
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I don t know.
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Ooh, there you go.
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So now we re starting to answer those kinds of questions based on exactly those three pillars that I shared, either reflexes or habits or goals.
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So in terms of reflexes, there s a set of behaviors.
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They re a set of primary reinforcers, so to speak, that are already a given.
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For instance, we react automatically to taste, to smell, especially bad smells.
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odors, like I said, to sex, to altruism, to beauty.
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A lot of these behaviors are already a given.
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So if you were to tell someone or to yourself in this situation, you can control the environment around you better when you eat, then that decision is almost a given.
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Or if you already are eating habitually, then you already know that eating helps.
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Or if you re thinking, okay, I have a very important meeting for which I need to think straight, therefore eating helps, then you might make that decision easier.
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And then sharing that information with somebody else, then you re starting to develop this persuasive behavior.
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So we can actually improve our own memory slash influence other people s memory then.
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Exactly.
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And I think that the secrets and the strongest skill that any modern communicator can develop these days is to develop skills to influence other people s memory in the process, impact their decisions.
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And I was asking to give me an example from your world right now of something that you re trying to convince someone else of.
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I tried to convince Jen to go to the doctor today because she didn t want to go.
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She wanted to stay home and get work done even though I think she needs to go.
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So I didn t do a very good job of that because she s still downstairs.
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So if we were to appeal to her, impact her memory and then as a result impact her decisions, we have one of those three branches.
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So we can go for reflexes and she would react automatically to the ability to control the immediate environment that s important to her.
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So let s just say that later on she has something to attend or something to complete and she wants to have control over that.
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And if you re sick, you can t.
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That s one way.
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Sex is obviously a strong choice as well.
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Youth and beauty, we also react reflexively to those.
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So sometimes when we re sick, we re not at our best.
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And if somebody reminds us of those, the decision is fairly easy.
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We can go the reflexive route.
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Scientists are reminding us that there is a set of primary behaviors that are already ingrained.
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The memory for those is genetic.
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And we know that we react reflexively to, like we were saying earlier,
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tastes and loud sounds and body temperature and sex and altruism and beauty.
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So alluding to any of these aspects would steer someone a specific direction.
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So in her case, reminding her that she may have better control of her environment.
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The brain always wants to control the environment in order to prolong biological fitness.
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would be a good choice.
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So if she wants to get some work done, she ll be able to have stronger control over that if she s feeling better.
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Another is to remind her of beauty or aesthetics in general.
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Sometimes we are not at our best when we re sick.
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And if we have some choices to improve our appearance,
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The decision is reflexive, so it s almost instant.
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Sex is always a good choice.
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That s why we see it so often in advertising.
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The brain doesn t have to think as much.
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It immediately reacts.
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So that s the reflexive route.
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Another would be habitual.
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So if there s something that she does habitually and we can attach our message to go to the doctor to that, then it s a lot easier to decide.
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So for instance, if she has to run some errands this afternoon and the doctor s office is close by, linking the two eases the decision making.
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And the third one would be a goal-oriented route where you have to remind her to think about some projects that she has to finish or some things that are happening tomorrow and they are important to her.
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And thinking about those influences decisions as well.
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And I have to point out that the difference between the three, reflexes, habits, and goals, is that the first two don t take a lot of cognitive power, whereas goals do.
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So especially when somebody s sick, I would go for reflexes or habits versus making a person think too much.
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So cognitive power, meaning they ve really got to sort of wrap their mind around it logically and come to a calculated outcome versus trying to appeal maybe to somebody s emotions and something that comes a little bit more naturally, a little bit easier.
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Yeah, and cognitive power, we would define it as more like a cognitive energy.
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the world.
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especially when somebody s sick, or if you approach somebody in a meeting at work and it s already late in the day, or it s too early in the morning when caffeine hasn t kicked in, we have less and less energy in order to make a decision.
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And the brain gets depleted very fast as well.
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So that s why with reflexes and habits, because they don t take that much energy to process information, we ll have an easier time going that route and being influenced versus the third one, which takes a lot more energy.
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So if we are focused on, let s say the goal for us is to stay on other people s minds, it seems like we should worry less about improving what we remember and worry maybe more about influencing other people s memory, focus on that skill set.
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Exactly, because so often when people hear about the concept of memory, first we feel guilty because our memory is so fallible.
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So if we focus on that less and worry a bit more about how to stay on other people s minds, we ll find better means to evolve because this world evolves when we have connections with other people and together we find some solutions to everyday problems.
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And usually to find those kinds of solutions, you have to stay on someone s mind long enough in order for some decision making to happen.
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You talk in the book about two different types of memory.
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Not only is memory retrospective in terms of recalling the past or past events, but remembering the future, that prospective memory.
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What are the differences?
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Why is this important?
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I m so glad that you mentioned that the revelation that we re having these days is that in order for the world to evolve and for us to even influence other people s decisions, we have to get them to remember us in the future where decisions happen, not in the past.
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Usually when we tell people, oh yeah, we ll help you create memorable content or you can be memorable in other people s minds and that s great.
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What we mean by that is we don t want them to remember what you did long ago.
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Not only that, it s important to remember the past, but we want them to remember you tomorrow or in a few weeks when they will need to make a decision on something.
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So retrospective memory means simply recollecting the past.
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So something that happened yesterday or two weeks or in your childhood.
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And prospective memory means remembering to act on a future intention.
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So give me one of your examples, something that you set in your mind and you said, at point X, I m not going to forget to do this, and you totally forgot it.
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That s a lot of things in my life, and right now, ironically, I m forgetting what those might even be.
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Probably going to bed earlier, that may be more of a willpower thing, but oftentimes I m just hanging out, doing work, or watching something, or relaxing, and I realize, oh my gosh, it s so much later than I thought.
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Yeah, so you set an intention.
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And that s a good example.
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You set an intention early on in the day, and you totally forget it.
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For me, it s I habitually forget to go to pick up my dry cleaning.
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And in the morning, I ll say, I will not forget to do that thing today.
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And sure enough, seven o clock comes around, and by now they re closed.
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And I m thinking, what in the world?
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I told myself that I would not forget it.
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And about 60 to 80% of the memory problems that we have daily, weekly, are prospective memory problems, not retrospective.
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We don t suffer because we forgot the past.
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It s sometimes unfortunate.
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But where real problems happen is when we set intentions and totally don t follow through.
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Yeah, I mean, it seems like memory is more interesting, anyway, from the angle of influencing it in other people, since it s at the root of all decision making.
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So, how do we stay on people s minds long enough so that they remember us positively in the future, where they make those decisions, theoretically?
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So we stay on people s minds by linking our content, any messages we consider important, to reflexes that they have or to habits or to goals that they consider important.
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And I ll give you some examples.
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Let s just take advertisements, for instance.
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There are thousands of them that we are exposed to every day.
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Which ones are memorable?
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And I m sure that a lot of those creators of those ads would love to know those answers because a lot of money goes into producing them.
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And they too are in the business of influencing memories so that they can impact decisions.
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So an ad that I still remember that I think was very cleverly done just because it linked to reflexes so well, was one that promised to save our identity if it was stolen.
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And the picture that is still in my mind is one of a statue.
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So imagine a statue that you see at a museum and half of the statue s face was still a statue face and the other half was starting to become human again.
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And the promise was to save our identity.
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And because the brain wants to control its environment and have a strong identity, it s an ad that you react to reflexively.
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You don t have to think so much.
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Let s take one that appeals to our habits and no better company to look at doing so than McDonald s, for instance.
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They appeal to many of our habits that we have, whether we re conscious of them or not.
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And there s an ad of theirs that I still remember where obviously they want to advertise food, but they were doing it in a more subtle way where imagine a few French fries that were arranged in the symbol of the Wi-Fi.
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And it was so sweet because with that kind of ad, you appeal to two habits, not only to hunger and the habit that we have to eat, but to the habit that we have these days to stay connected all the time.
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So you go over there and you kill both with one French fry.
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That was nice.
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I love it when companies reflect on their content and they merge habits.
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Like I remember an ad that was promoting a women s golf classic tournament.
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And imagine the golf ball that sits on a patch of grass and the ball was elevated slightly and it was made to look as if it was the back of a high heel shoe.
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It was just so cleverly appealing to several habits that women have.
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Playing golf is one and purchasing shoes is another.
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A third one, if we were to think of examples, so we talked about reflexes and habits, the third one is the goal-oriented one.
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I remember an ad that was from the Museum of Architecture in Moscow, Russia, and it showed this beautiful castle on the surface.
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And then underneath the ground, you would see how the castle continues on.
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You can explore its basements and all sorts of underground structures and the mystery of it all.
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So it made you think, what else goes beyond the surface of something that you see fairly superficially at first.
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But that one invited a little bit more cognitive energy versus just reacting to it very quickly.
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Is influencing somebody else s memory kind of the same way as working on our own?
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It seems like it might be a lot harder, but then again, fooling ourselves tends to be
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really easy, although programming ourselves with good habits, et cetera, is really hard.
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So where does influencing someone else s memory fall in the scale here?
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It s hard in some ways and it s easier in some others.
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It s easier just because you might tell yourself, oh, for the next few weeks, I m going to really work on improving my memory.
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And we may set that intention, but just like with the example that you re giving me about going to bed early, sounds good in theory, but when it comes to applying it, not so much.
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So even though we want better memory, hardly ever do we put that much effort into improving it.
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However, when it comes to thinking of things like, I m going to win a client today, or I m going to send a few messages so that I can prepare for a meeting and look really good in front of my boss or in front of my peers.
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Inevitably, those are plans that you make to impact someone else s memory, and you re automatically willing to put more effort into those, even though you don t know it.
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So from that regard, it s easier.
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It only gets harder when we realize that memory is dependent on many variables, some of which we cannot control.
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Like for instance, right now, I may not be able to control your memory fully if you didn t get a whole lot of sleep last night.
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How many hours of sleep did you get last night?
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I got probably eight hours last night, maybe nine.
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I went to bed and I was out last night, but that s maybe not typical.
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Generally, I get between seven and eight hours of sleep.
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So you re an ideal and also an exception.
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In North America, about 63% of people get six hours or less of sleep per night.
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And that s unfortunate because memories are not formed instantly.
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They need consolidation time and sleep helps with that consolidation.
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You may have the best message ever, which has a potential to be memorable, but if you re talking to an audience that is sleep deprived, then you re missing out on chances and you can t always control that.
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Sometimes I m amazed that people would take their potential clients out for dinner and late night snacks and drinks and almost create an environment where you wouldn t get a lot of sleep.
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And that s unfortunate because if you really want to be on people s minds, short nights are not going to get you there.
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Other variables, like for instance, the amount of stress that you re under right now, or the amount of hormones that are going through your body, or some drugs that you may have been on, or are on, or the amount of alcohol you consumed.
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Those are things that you may not necessarily be able to control in other people.
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However, there are many variables you can control, so we can focus more on those.
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So what are the variables that we can control, or influence?
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The book you mentioned, The Impossible to Ignore Book, lists 15 of them.
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Let s address a few, some easier than others, and some that are more intuitive than others.
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For instance, we all know that repetition is the mother of memory.
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The more often you say things and do things, the more likely that you ll remember them later on.
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And so there s no big surprise there.
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However, there s art to repetition in addition to the science of it all, because there s a fine line between something that is repeated and something that becomes annoying or nagging.
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Can you give me some of your own examples of a message that you heard so many times that now it almost turns you off?
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Let s see.
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Probably something when flying.
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Like, make sure that your bag is under your seat.
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You know that?
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When you re on an airplane and I m like, it s not gonna do anything if it s not under my seat.
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And everybody else has stuff that s not under their seat.
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And it doesn t matter that it s underneath completely.
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It just drives me insane.
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It s so irritating.
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And I love that example because quite often when we hear business messages that are of the same nature, what do we do?
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We may have heard them repeatedly and then we simply just shut off and grab our phones and reach for something that s more entertaining and less annoying.
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So be very cautious as you use repetition because the brain needs a pattern in order to even detect that there s something foreign to pay attention to.
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So at least exposure to three times whatever your message is will get you there.
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And after the brain has detected the pattern, it feels very comforting because remember we were talking about cognitive energy and needing to conserve it.
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Once the brain has detected a pattern, it doesn t have to think as much, therefore expand so much energy.
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That s why repetition is very good for the brain.
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However, after a while, the brain habituates and it habituates very, very quickly.
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Like for instance, do you remember the times that we thought Facebook was so cool and the Fitbit was so cool?
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Give me some of your own examples, something that you thought was just really cool, but now it s like, eh, kind of a mundane norm.
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SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I mean, smartphones, for example, which should be the coolest thing on the entire planet, given what they can do for our lives.
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SPEAKER_00
So many people hate them, and we re addicted to them, or we don t want to use them, or we have to take breaks from them, or people are saying, the next phone I m getting, I don t want that feature in there.
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SPEAKER_00
There s so many, there s so much resistance to things like that.
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Yeah, so imagine in times past, we looked at those devices and we thought, wow, this is just the most amazing thing.
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Or you mentioned flying.
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A lot of people now these days complain by the fact that they can t have internet access when they re flying 40,000 feet in the air.
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Just the simple act of flying is amazing, but we ve habituated to both flying and having internet connection.
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And when you take those things away, now it s just, there s frustration.
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It s like, what do you mean?
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So the brain habituates very, very quickly.
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And as content communicators and as people who want to be influencing in some ways, we have to remember that repetition will carry you only that far.
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After a while, you have to twist things a bit and break a pattern that the brain has learned to expect.
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So I m always impressed by people who can do that.
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Right here in Half Moon Bay where I was walking this morning, you can see house after house after house overlooking the ocean and they re all so beautiful, but after a while they all start looking alike.
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Until you get to this little shack that belongs to an artist, his name is Michael Powers.
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If you re ever in this area, definitely stop by.
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and that breaks the pattern that your brain has learned to expect.
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Suddenly you re looking at something that is very tiny and covered in these wood shingles and there are sculptures and flowers and faces looking right at you that are molded out of nature and it s just an intriguing spot.
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So as you re pondering your own content or messages you have, just think, in which ways can I break a pattern that my audience s brains have learned to expect?
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So, this is interesting for me, because it reminds me of that Louis C.K.
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bit, where he s on the airplane and they announce they have Wi-Fi, and everyone s so excited, and then a few minutes later, the flight attendant says, well, the Wi-Fi s actually not working, and some guy starts complaining, and he said, the thing you didn t even know existed 10 minutes ago, you re suddenly entitled to that, you know?
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And it reminds me of that little bit there, because I do see what you mean, where no matter how incredible something is,
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we start to lose sight of its value when it s not made salient by being surrounded by things that are maybe less valuable.
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And you bring this up in the book where you show examples of you can have a million seaside houses, mansions stacked together, and then they suddenly all look the same.
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And then you get a guy who built a pole barn and put some nature around it, and that s the incredible sight that everybody s jealous of that everybody wants to go and see.
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Exactly, and days from now, if somebody asks me, say, well, where do you remember from that day in Half Moon Bay?
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It was most likely be this little shack compared to those magnificent mansions.
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His neighbors at one point must have been pretty annoyed that they lived next to that, and now they re probably incredibly stoked because they live next to an attraction.
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Exactly, exactly.
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So if we talked about repetition and then that goes hand in hand then with another variable we can use to impact people s memory, which is distinctiveness.
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So allow some similarity to be formed in your audience s brains.
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and then hit them with something that they would find distinct.
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So for example, you re talking about your girlfriend, let s just say that each morning you re having cereal for breakfast.
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Suddenly, if you re having a morning where you re serving her pizza in breakfast and you re half naked, and then months later you re asking, so which breakfast still stands in your mind?
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Then you already know the answer.
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Now you ve mentioned in the book that there are 15 variables.
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Do you have to get all of those right?
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Because it seems like there s just so much there that we have to get right in order to make people remember us that it s next to impossible.
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You don t have to put in a communication segment all 15.
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And by communication segment, I mean any type of communication you create, whether it s, let s just say it s a PowerPoint presentation that you deliver formally, or maybe it s a podcast like this, or maybe it s a blog you create, or maybe just having a conversation with somebody over the phone.
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So let s think of those as communication segments.
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Let s imagine for a moment, maybe you re creating a PowerPoint presentation that is supposed to last 30 minutes.
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And in that communication segment, from my research, I discovered that we would have to have at least nine of the 15 variables.
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So for instance, what else can we put in there?
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We talked about repetition, we talked about distinctiveness, some other ones you can
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Think of our sensory impressions, for instance, of vivid visuals or specific sounds, or the more senses that you ignite in somebody s brain, the stronger the memory trace that you create.
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Social aspects are an important memory variable.
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So for instance, if I m giving you some pieces of information that will make you look good in front of other people, that will tend to stay on your memory longer.
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So for example, tell me some statistic that you learned lately and you thought, oh, wow, that just sounds pretty cool.
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And you just could not wait to share with other people.
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It might be just a personal story or it might be something that you re exposed to.
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And you thought, wow, that s just really cool.
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Jenny and I are always doing these escape games where we have to escape rooms and we can t wait to tell people about them.
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We always encourage our friends to do them too.
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Does that count?
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Yeah, for sure it counts.
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Yes.
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A recent example for me, and you know, I wrote this book, The Impossible to Ignore Book, and only later in the process did I realize that I should have thought a lot more about how what I m writing sounds.
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not what it looks like, but what does it sound like if I were to say it in words out loud to other people.
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And I realized there is a software that it s paired up with your Kindle and it s called text to speech where you can copy and paste and a robotic voice will read back what you wrote.
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And I just couldn t wait to share that with other people who are writing because sometimes things we say
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look and sound so good in writing, but not so much when you say them out loud.
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Like for instance, I was coaching this company just a few days ago and one of their messages said, if you use this device, it will be ingeniously versatile.
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And that phrase looked so good in writing, but I m repeating it to you guys just because I m sharing an example, but there is no way I would sit down at lunch with somebody else and not say,
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You know, Jordan and Jason, I just cannot wait for you to use this device.
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It s so ingeniously versatile.
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Like we just don t talk like that.
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So I couldn t wait to share with people that tool and the way we re connecting this to the variables is that we re saying, yeah, we use nine out of the 15 and social currency, social aspect of what you re talking about are definitely one of the strongest ones because people tend to retain that which makes them look or sound good in front of others.
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Thanks for listening and supporting the show.
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For a list of all the amazing sponsors and discount codes on the show, visit theartofcharm.com slash advertisers.
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SPEAKER_00
Now, back to Carmen Simon.
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Yes, yes, so true.
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I love how you called it social value or social currency.
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Memory by default is motivated.
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It would do us no good to remember things that have no value.
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So we tend to remember that which gives us a reward of sorts.
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Whether that reward is gaining something or not losing something, it s probably one of the two directions.
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But yes, memory is definitely motivated.
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This is interesting because it has that social or persuasive aspect and element, and looking at things that we do, for example, at AOC, Art of Charm boot camps and things like that, we use some of these techniques, but we never really thought about them as influencing prospective memory, but that s actually exactly what it is.
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Exactly.
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So you want to think about whenever you create something, let s just say that you re creating a bootcamp or you re creating an ad or a message of sorts.
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Don t think so much of only what happens in the moment.
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Think of what it is that people will need at point B. So later on, after they will have finished your bootcamp, in order to make a decision, what should they remember?
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If you re communicating at point A, what do they need at point B to remember in order to act on an intention?
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Part of that answer, since we re talking about variables, one of the strongest ones that you can have is cues.
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And what I mean by cues are prompts towards action.
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Memory being so fallible, just because you re saying something fascinating at point A doesn t guarantee that people will remember it at point B. And one of the ways to ease memory and to refresh it is to take into consideration cues that people will have in their environment at.
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point B. So for example, the reminders of sorts that you re sending go automatically or in people s environments, picking or linking your content to things that are already going to be there.
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So when you see that couch, you will remember X, Y, Z, if indeed the couch appeared in your continent point A. When you see that tree, that s when you stop and make a left.
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Remember how sometimes we build on those kinds of even physical cues?
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Yeah, of course.
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Physical cues or what about sound?
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Because I m thinking of jingles in commercials.
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Sure.
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Sounds can be important.
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Obviously, we have the sirens, for instance, in cars.
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Those are cues for us to decide what to do next, whether we want to pull to the right or keep on going.
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But a sound is a strong cue simply because you can t escape it, while some visuals we can escape because we have eyelids.
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For sound, we don t have ear lids.
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The use of those is some of the greatest skew.
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Some advertisements take advantage of that where I m sure you ve noticed on TV where you have a specific volume for some programs and suddenly something really hits you with a stronger volume, then you re forced to pay attention simply because you cannot escape it.
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What about smell and things like that?
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Because I m thinking of those stores, speaking of you can t escape it, the sound, can t escape the smell, where the whole store smells like this perfume or cologne that they sell, and then you smell it on somebody wearing the clothes later on because they bought it with their new jeans or whatever, and you re suddenly reminded of the brand.
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Yeah, that is just brilliant, because now you re building strong associations, and that s how memories are formed.
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They re formed based on associations.
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You experience two stimuli together, and then later on, when you re faced with one, then the other one is brought up automatically.
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And the key word here is automatically, because remember, given the choice to think or not to think, we would rather not think and experience things automatically.
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Have you been to the Westin, the hotel?
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Probably, but I don t remember anything about it.
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The Westin has this distinct smell that they ve started putting in all of their hotels.
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And the minute that you enter, it s like, yup, I m at the Westin, I know for sure.
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And as a result, they re selling now that scent that you can bring home with you for body wash and lotions and some incense that you can put in the burn in your house.
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It s starting to become a distinct smell that now we re associating with their brand.
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SPEAKER_00
Well, we ve talked a lot about remembering, but what about forgetting?
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Is there a specific way that we can influence people to forget things that maybe we don t want them to remember?
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I like this question just because remembering and forgetting are parts of the same coin.
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If you re focusing on somebody remembering something, that often happens at the expense of something else.
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The topic of forgetting is an interesting one and I m intrigued that not more people want to learn about it in comparison to remembering because
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Forgetting sometimes has advantages.
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For example, we couldn t have relationships or loyal customers.
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People didn t forget stuff every so often, would you agree?
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Yeah, of course.
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I mean, nobody would be married or be in a relationship if everybody remembered everything.
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So the fact that people forget something about us can work in our favor.
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Now you have two types of forgetting that could be the accidental forgetting or the intentional forgetting.
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The accidental forgetting is what we want to avoid if we want to stay in business, because obviously you want to be on people s minds.
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So they don t say accidentally, Oh, oops, when I had to make a decision, I chose your competition.
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So that s where you want to go for the intentional remembering.
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Now intentional forgetting is when you want other people to then again forget about your competition and only keep you in mind or intentionally focused on some things you consider important at the expense of something else.
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And since we re talking about repetition that can definitely help you there because forgetting happens
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quite often due to decay.
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So just when you haven t repeated or reinforced specific things, then those memory traces tend to fade away until you find them harder and harder to retrieve.
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It doesn t mean that you re completely erasing memories.
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It just means that you are weakening some links at the expense of others.
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So constantly staying active and refreshing and providing those cues that we re talking about
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repeating something and at some point providing those twists that we re talking to in order to avoid habituation.
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Some of those techniques will get your audiences to focus on what you consider critical at the expense of something else.
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SPEAKER_00
Got it.
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Yeah.
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SPEAKER_00
So it makes a lot of sense to me to be able to just kind of allow for getting to happen by
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A lot of people try to apologize or bring it up again and close the book on something and things like that.
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At least I know from your book, 90% of the things that we forget happen over just a few days.
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And people afterward that will remember a random bevy of things and that s bad, we want to
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highlight things for them to remember, but anytime we highlight something, whether it s good or bad, we re enhancing that memory.
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So if we want people to forget, the best thing to do is what?
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Unless you definitely owe that person some sort of apology because there s bad blood, you should probably just let it go.
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Is that the takeaway?
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I totally agree.
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Sometimes I m baffled when people will start the communication sequence, like let s just say a presentation by apologizing.
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I m sorry, I haven t seen these slides before.
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I m sorry, the audio equipment is not working.
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I m sorry for this or that.
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And then just simply activates a memory that is not useful.
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Why not either let it go, just like you said, or briefly mention something.
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And then for the bulk of the rest of the time, definitely repeat and reinforce things that are very important.
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So those are stronger as a memory trace versus the apologies.
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The apologies, especially in the beginning or in the end, where we tend to be sometimes so self-aggrandizing.
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are unfortunate because we tend to remember first and last in the sequence a lot more than what happens in the middle.
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The middle sometimes is blurry.
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So starting with something that you would much rather have people forget, that s where the skill is very important.
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So it starts strong and therefore a solid memory and the beneficial memory is strong.
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I wanted to re-skim the book yesterday, because I got it so long ago, and so I read the first chapter and I was trying to skim the book, and I noticed there s call-outs and things that are in different colors and little charts, and some of the charts are different colors, and I just thought, wait a minute, this is exactly what you were talking about in the book.
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Some of the words are in red, some of them are big, and then even among the big words, the most important word is in red, and things like that, and I thought that was pretty genius, even the design of the book is designed to get you to remember some of the most salient points without
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necessarily even reading the whole thing word for word, or at least not doing that multiple times in order to get the points.
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So I thought that was very cool.
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Thank you.
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SPEAKER_00
I m so glad that you noticed that.
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And the physical properties of stimulation that you share with other people are one ways to get attention.
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And if you have attention, then attention paves the way to memory, which is why I m so glad that you re mentioning this today, even though you looked at those elements yesterday.
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All of the images in the book are custom designed.
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The cover is a stock photography and I struggled with that because we re talking about repetition and cliched phrases and cliched photos are things that have repeated for so long to the point where we may not necessarily pay attention to them.
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But the advantage of using something that is a stock photography, so maybe it s been seen somewhere else, is that the brain doesn t take that much cognitive power to process it.
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So in talking to the publisher, they convinced me that something that is being assimilated very, very fast in milliseconds works a lot better than something that makes you think too much.
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So I m actually curious what you think.
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If you were to publish a book, would you go for a cover that makes people think or something that gets them to react instantly?
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Sure, I mean, I don t know.
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Design s not necessarily my forte here, but I like the idea of getting people to think because there s another point you made in the book was that making people do a little bit more work makes it more memorable.
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I don t know if we need people to do work, though, when we see the cover of the book.
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Probably an instant reaction is more beneficial since we re trying to get them to buy it.
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SPEAKER_00
Yeah, and especially if you re trying to appeal to the masses.
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SPEAKER_00
The dilemma that I have is that sometimes you do make people think and that may give you access to a smaller amount of people versus getting an idea that is assimilated very fast and that opens you up to a larger population.
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Yeah, and I think it s very important, of course, to address emotions and things like that that you mention in the book in order to get people to remember, along with adding surprises and making things salient.
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I noticed the cover of the book has the red butterfly, which is what we were kind of mentioning when we re talking about making things that are salient stand out from the rest.
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And I love that, per me, it s even the design of the book itself.
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And there s a lot of concepts here which may seem quite simple.
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Of course, you want things to be different to stand out.
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Of course, you want this to have a little bit of variety, or you want this to be surrounded by things that are less important.
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But once we start to influence other people s memory, or other people s lack of memory in terms of getting them to forget, that s where I think this gets really interesting.
4
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So I really appreciate you coming and discussing this with us.
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Is there anything else
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Dr. Carmen Simon, that I have not asked you that you want to make sure that you deliver to us today.
4
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The main premise of our conversation and the book in general is that memory influences decisions.
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And if you look at something that you want to persuade somebody of, step back and ask, how can I be on their mind first in the future where decisions are happening?
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SPEAKER_00
I think once we start looking at communication that way, that opens up a lot of possibilities for creating new ways in which we communicate.
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I noticed that you were on Scott Adams  blog as well with this book.
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SPEAKER_00
Yeah, he s one of our clients and it was so satisfying to work with him because he has a strong message and usually my promise to him is that I make his intelligence visible.
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As human beings, we are visual beings.
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60 to 70% of our body receptors are visual.
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So when people tell you, oh, I m an auditory person, that is my style of communicating, that s maybe a preference, but physiologically,
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We are prone to processing a lot of visuals and remembering them.
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So those are the ways in which we ve been working with him.
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He does keynotes quite often for various companies and we create his visuals and we have a good combination between a strong message he has to say and some strong visuals that we create.
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And he did kind of like a little follow-up.
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SPEAKER_02
That must ve been pretty good for sales, I would imagine.
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SPEAKER_00
Yeah, for both ways, because he too recently published a book that s called How to Fail at Everything and Still Win Big, because he s a great proponent of science and persuasion and he believes in my principles.
4
SPEAKER_00
That has also helped him with the sales of his book, so it was mutually beneficial.
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SPEAKER_02
Carmen, thanks so much for coming on the show today.
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Much appreciated.
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SPEAKER_02
Ciao.
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Really interesting conversation.
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Memory is always one of those things that, well, first of all, we just started to be able to see the formation of memories in the brain and be able to see how influence and memory are linked, so it s great to see a work on this by somebody who s really diving in deep and telling us not only why memory is important, but of course also forgetting.
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I think that s super potent, super interesting, and even though sometimes the outcomes might be obvious, it s really great to have an awareness, especially of the science behind why and how this works.
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If you enjoyed this one, don t forget to thank Dr. Carmen Simon on Twitter.
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We ll have that linked in the show notes, as well as the other resources mentioned on the show, including her book, Impossible to Ignore.
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You can tap our album art in most mobile podcast players to see the cheat sheet for this episode.
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We ll link to the show notes right on your phone.
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I m also on Twitter, at The Art of Charm, and it s the best place to engage with me there.
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If you want articles and insights, or just a direct link to Jason and myself, that s the best place to reach us.
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Also check out the Social Capital Challenge at theartofcharm.com, slash challenge, or in the USA only, text charmed to 33444, that s C-H-A-R-M-E-D, to 33444.
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SPEAKER_02
It s all about improving your networking and connection skills and inspiring those around you to develop a personal and professional relationship with you.
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We ll also email you our fundamentals toolbox that I mentioned earlier on the show.
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I ve also got regular videos with drills and exercises to help you move forward and we recently redid the entire thing.
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There s now a Facebook group for people interested in doing it.
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It s super active.
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SPEAKER_02
There are hundreds and hundreds of people talking in there and of course us as coaches are in there as well.
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That s theartofcharm.com slash challenge or text charmed in the US to 33444.
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This episode of The Art of Charm was produced by Jason DeFillippo.
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Jason Sanderson is our audio engineer and editor.
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Show notes on the website are by Robert Fogerty.
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I m your host, Jordan Harbinger.
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Go ahead and tell your friends because the greatest compliment you can give us is a referral to someone else either in person or shared on the web.
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Now stay charming and leave everything and everyone better than you found them.
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Thanks for listening to the Art of Charm.
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SPEAKER_01
Get more confidence, relationship skills, life hacks, and more at theartofcharmpodcast.com.