← The Shawn Ryan Show
The Shawn Ryan Show
#307 Ron White - The 2,500-Year-Old Memory Skill the Romans Used That We've Completely Lost
03:00:44
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- [00:01]
Ron White
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- [01:00]
Sean Ryan
Ron White, welcome to the show, man.
- [01:03]
Ron White
Thank you. It's quite the honor.
- [01:05]
Sean Ryan
It's an honor to have you. I found you doom scrolling Instagram I think maybe a month or two ago and usually my feed is all everybody's going to 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 a memorize stuff. And so that's. Then I dug into you and I was like holy shit. And then we found out you memorized all of the names of our guys that were kaid in Afghanistan. And so we decided to be awesome Memorial Day segment. So that was. That was like two and a half hours. You've. You recited every single service member's name who was killed In Afghanistan?
- [01:56]
Ron White
Yes.
- [01:56]
Sean Ryan
7,000 words.
- [01:58]
Ron White
About 7,500.
- [01:59]
Sean Ryan
7,500 words. How many names?
- [02:03]
Ron White
The official count is around 2461. The DoD official count 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 eight or nine more than the official count, man.
- [02:33]
Sean Ryan
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.
- [02:41]
Ron White
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. You know Master Sergeant Evander Andrews. The first one was October of 2001.
- [02:51]
Sean Ryan
Wow.
- [02:52]
Ron White
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.
- [03:08]
Sean Ryan
It's my honor, man, seriously. But yeah, I was kind of joking around before this. Got to be careful what you say around. This guy remembers everything. So, so what did you have for dinner last night?
- [03:21]
Ron White
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, is, is extraordinarily average if I'm not using a system, you know, I will. Amy, who's worked with me for 10 years, she, she tells Ron, you got to make this phone call today. Ron, you got person today. Rod, did you mail that IRS format? I'm like, no, I didn't.
- [03:58]
Sean Ryan
So it's a system. How did you. We'll get into all that stuff. But what I am curious, what's your first memory?
- [04:06]
Ron White
I do have a first memory. You know, it is. I was about two years old. Two years old, but two. It had to been two because I know where I was living and it's just a blip. You know, it's just a four 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 and she's like, oh, 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 memory's special to me in the sense that it was know my mom, my family. But I guess who else you're going to be around it too, right?
- [04:50]
Sean Ryan
Well, let me start you up with a introduction here. Ron White, a two time USA memory champion, a US 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 11, served as an IS1 intelligence specialist, and deployed to Kabul, Afghanistan in 2007. You memorize 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, 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.
- [05:55]
Ron White
Thank you.
- [05:58]
Sean Ryan
And a couple of things to knock out here before we get going. I have a Patreon account. 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?
- [06:34]
Ron White
Well, you know, on something like that, you know, from a non doctor's point of view, I'm a, 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 it 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 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.
- [07:48]
Sean Ryan
Roger that. One last thing. Everybody gets a gift.
- [07:52]
Ron White
Oh, nice, nice. All right, that's very not healthy.
- [07:57]
Sean Ryan
But mostly gummy bears. Made in the USA, legal in all 50 states. So you're clean to take those home to Texas.
- [08:06]
Ron White
Yes, I will, I will 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 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.
- [08:25]
Sean Ryan
I do the same shit.
- [08:27]
Ron White
Yeah.
- [08:27]
Sean Ryan
But.
- [08:28]
Ron White
Wow.
- [08:29]
Sean Ryan
But. 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.
- [08:35]
Ron White
When I was 18. Yeah.
- [08:36]
Sean Ryan
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?
- [08:47]
Ron White
Born in Northwestern Hills, Texas, or Fort Worth, Texas. I grew up in Northwestern Hills, which is just about 15 minutes away from Fort Worth.
- [08:56]
Sean Ryan
What were you into?
- [08:58]
Ron White
Well, growing up, I was pretty uncoordinated kid, but I loved baseball and I still do. You know, they put me in right field and they had 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 a 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 paper boy. 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, you know, they gave me a good work ethic, I guess you'd say, and baseball, military throwing papers.
- [10:18]
Sean Ryan
How'd you get into the memory stuff?
- [10:20]
Ron White
Well, so it was two weeks out of high school, and my friend Brian, he said, hey, man, I just got a job as 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 two weeks out of high school. We sit down and I'm making 80 phone calls a day. Can we clean your chimney? Can we clean your chimney? Can we clean your chimney? Imagine. It was a thrilling job, right? 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. 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 and 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. My freshman year of college, I had a 0.9 GPA, so, you know, Albert Einstein's not in my family tree. And the telemarketer, she said, good luck with that. You know, you're going to be back here in two weeks. And that was 35 years ago. Wow. So I. I've been doing my career, I guess you would say, for 35 years. Wow. And it's. 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 two or three hundred 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.
- [12:43]
Sean Ryan
So everybody that you sold the STEM program to probably could do this, huh?
- [12:48]
Ron White
I've never. That's what I'm going to start calling it now, the damn program.
- [12:53]
Sean Ryan
But, no, that's how it happened. So you just took the program that you were selling?
- [12:59]
Ron White
Yeah.
- [12:59]
Sean Ryan
It worked.
- [13:01]
Ron White
Yeah. I took his course he laid it out. He laid out the system, and I did it. I perfected it. I probably had an advantage. I was talking to your security guy today and I said, man, I'm kind of jealous of you in a way. I like jiu jitsu, but 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 like that. 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.
- [13:50]
Sean Ryan
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- [17:16]
Ron White
Yeah.
- [17:17]
Sean Ryan
So when you've evolved the course, I guess is what I'm saying, correct.
- [17:22]
Ron White
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 in Psalms, in the Bible, you know, in Psalms chapter one, it says that the man who meditates on scripture will prosper in whatever he does. So I'm like, okay, then 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.
- [17:53]
Sean Ryan
Interesting. Interesting. What, so what are some of the. Tell me about the course. You know, what, what, what does it teach you?
- [18:02]
Ron White
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, at a conference. You mentioned the, the, the memorizing of 200 names. When people arrive for a conference, I'll memorize two 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 two or 300 people I met, stand up. Two or three 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 six 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 guy? I've seen his face. Two 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 we remember it later because you remember what you see. So the course teaches you how to think in pictures, right? 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 really geared towards, like, if 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.
- [19:57]
Sean Ryan
Your.
- [19:57]
Ron White
Your viewers right now who want to give a speech or a presentation without notes, or they want to learn 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.
- [20:13]
Sean Ryan
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.
- [20:41]
Ron White
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 our Staff Sergeant Darren Hoover. So I placed what I wanted to remember and I visualized it 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 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, and hitting that flag right there. And the flag falls on the floor. They continue to talk for another two minutes or one minute, and then you can look up there and remember what you wanted to talk about.
- [22:12]
Sean Ryan
I'll be damned. That right there comes in handy. I'm always trying to hang on to questions.
- [22:17]
Ron White
Yes, yes, yes.
- [22:18]
Sean Ryan
And I probably lose 75% of them.
- [22:20]
Ron White
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 two or three things that I want to talk about. And then when I get a moment, I ask you about those things.
- [22:38]
Sean Ryan
Interesting, interesting. And so you, you started. So you were working for a tele telemarketing company selling memory courses, but did you start selling your own too, as a teen?
- [22:52]
Ron White
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, two years. And things happened that led to me leaving that company. It was my decision, it wasn't their decision for me to leave. 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, you know, 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 to the courthouse, 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, and I looked like I was 12 years old. So, you know, I've started shaving my head right here, you know, give myself a little bit of age. You know, the other things have given me some age. But when I was 19 years old, I remember giving my first speech. I walked into this. 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, you know. And he was like. He looked at me and he said, he. He said, ron, I appreciate what you're doing. I like your go getter attitude. But my guys are pros in there, you know, if they're seasoned salesman, 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, okay, 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 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.
- [25:20]
Sean Ryan
And then you joined the military?
- [25:23]
Ron White
I did. So I started my business, or 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.
- [25:38]
Sean Ryan
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?
- [25:49]
Ron White
Yes, I was.
- [25:50]
Sean Ryan
Okay, let's go back to that first.
- [25:52]
Ron White
Okay.
- [25:52]
Sean Ryan
I thought that you. Yeah, let's go back to the business. So you made the decision to start your own business?
- [26:00]
Ron White
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. And I was trying to do it all myself. I made so many mistakes and it held me back so much. There's so much now. Fortunately, I got a great accountant, right? You guys go make the money and 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.
- [26:43]
Sean Ryan
You couldn't just tell him you don't remember?
- [26:47]
Ron White
So I, I had no business experience, right? I just had the. I wasn't afraid to make cold calls. That first 10 years, I was making 80 cold calls a day. So five, five days a week. So 400 calls a week, you know, maybe 1600, 2000 calls a month, 20 plus thousand calls a year. 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 made call 80 a day. I called, I made 400 cold calls a week. 2,000 plus, around 2,000amonth. 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
- [28:09]
Sean Ryan
skip all the journey, just go to this.
- [28:11]
Ron White
Yeah, that's right.
- [28:12]
Sean Ryan
It's crazy.
- [28:14]
Ron White
And, and, and probably you too, right? You know, I mean, You've all you've accomplished in your life. And, 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.
- [28:32]
Sean Ryan
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's it.
- [28:34]
Ron White
You get the.
- [28:36]
Sean Ryan
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 for over 10 years now.
- [28:45]
Ron White
Wow.
- [28:46]
Sean Ryan
You know what I mean? Media stuff. Been doing the podcast since 2019. I didn't just pop out of nowhere.
- [28:51]
Ron White
Wow.
- [28:52]
Sean Ryan
I've dumped everything into this, as I'm sure you have, too, you know, and, and so, yeah, a lot of fucking work.
- [29:02]
Ron White
They're seeing the finished product.
- [29:04]
Sean Ryan
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.
- [29:12]
Ron White
Yeah. 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 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, 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.
- [29:46]
Sean Ryan
Yeah.
- [29:46]
Ron White
I would be sitting at home and, you know, working or whatever, and the electricity would go off. I 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.
- [30:01]
Sean Ryan
Wow.
- [30:02]
Ron White
So I, 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 customer's names, that kind of thing. So I would call them and I'd say, hey, can I speak for free, by the way? I don't do this anymore. But I said, hey, can I speak for free for your, for your company? 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 five years into that, there was a rental company, Color Time, and they, like, 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 they 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 gonna 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 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 I'm. Nobody's paying me to speak. Which nobody was. And so I said, I got to figure this out. So I emailed him 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, you know, on the way. And you could tell they were like, that's a long drive, dude. That's. That's the craziest idea 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 it, picked up all these doubles and I go out to where my, 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. My. 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.
- [33:49]
Sean Ryan
Wow.
- [33:50]
Ron White
Right on. That's what the first 10 years was like.
- [33:52]
Sean Ryan
No kidding. So where do we go from there?
- [33:56]
Ron White
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 two day workshop. And they would go to my, 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, 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 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
- [35:07]
Sean Ryan
you need to focus on? Is it exercises? Is it developing the course? What exactly are you focusing on at that point?
- [35:16]
Ron White
There was a guy named Billy Burden. And I don't know if Billy Burden's 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 tell 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 I do? He said, create a memory course on cassette. And that right there was a massive game changer for me 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 my events, 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 from 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 gonna bring your memory course 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 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 Jim Row 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. Two weeks later, he called again, Ron, I need 2,000 more. Two weeks later, he called again. I need. He was. He's a. 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 we became friends. And one day he called and said, you want to drive to Shreveport, which is three hours 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'm not thinking, 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. On the way back, he said, hey, man, how'd you do? I said, oh, I left where I came with. I came when I came with. And we did that a couple times on 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 one naval intelligence. I said, I owe the IRS $40,000. I have no way of paying this. And 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.
- [40:57]
Sean Ryan
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?
- [41:07]
Ron White
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. Like learning how to do that, but salespeople think about it. You know, 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 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 two weeks later you see them out and you're like, sean, Katie, how are you doing? You know, 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. So, and those are the business reasons, I think the primary ones. But there's another group, and that group is the students. The students. One of your Patreon members asked me on a question today. 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 in your mind is a lot of things for a lot of people of faith. So faith based students and those business people who want to just close more deals.
- [43:14]
Sean Ryan
Makes sense. What about the speed reading?
- [43:17]
Ron White
Speed reading is possible now. I've gone. My opinion on this has shifted over the years. First, I believed it's not possible. That's what I believe for two 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 would after my class, hey, Ron, can you teach me how to speed read? And I'd just tell them, hey, look, I don't think it's possible. And I'm not gonna 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 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 is 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 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 sub vocalize the words. 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's 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.
- [45:57]
Sean Ryan
Makes sense. Makes sense. Where do we go from here?
- [46:03]
Ron White
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.
- [46:18]
Sean Ryan
Absolutely.
- [46:19]
Ron White
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 fold. He's a black belt in jiu jitsu. He's gonna fold me up for saying that.
- [46:55]
Sean Ryan
But
- [46:58]
Ron White
we were sitting in his living room right after September 11, and he said, don't laugh at me, but tomorrow or this week, I'm gonna join the Army. And it was one of those moments. I was 28 years old. I was a decade into my career. 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 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 fil. 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 two 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, for a reservist, you, your, your two 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.
- [49:22]
Sean Ryan
I think we skipped something.
- [49:23]
Ron White
Yes, sir, the Guinness Book of World Records, maybe I ignored that. What happened there? Oh, gosh, that was a FIA. So 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 Rules records off the shelf. As fate would have it, I opened it up, and when I was flipping, I saw a memory record. Gert metering memorized a 27 digit number, and it said the digits were flashed on the screen for three seconds. Seconds. And I looked at it and I said, three seconds, 27 digits. So three 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 World Records. I do this every day at my speeches. I can break this record. She's like, yeah, whatever, pal. You know, if you could do it, why don't you do it? And I said, you know what? I'm gonna do it. So I called the Fox Good Day Dallas show, and I said, I showed him the Guinness record. I'm like, I can. I can break this record. And they said, okay, 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 gotta 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, 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. 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, 27 digit number. 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. So I was telling everybody, I was, hey, book Guinness record breaker Ron White for your next conference. 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. Couple years down the road, I got 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 three 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 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 three 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 gotta make this right. I've gotta 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. 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 given 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.
- [54:41]
Sean Ryan
Wow, that's humble. But that was humbling, huh?
- [54:44]
Ron White
It was humbling. I also just felt foolish, you know, sometimes. Attention. I was foolish that I thought that that Guinness record would be that simple because a minute 27 seconds for a 27 digit numbers 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.
- [55:06]
Sean Ryan
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.
- [55:12]
Ron White
Yes, sir.
- [55:15]
Sean Ryan
If you've listened to this show for a while, you've probably heard me talk about functional mushrooms before and why I'm interested in that whole space. So when I started using Mud Water, it made a lot of sense to me right away. What I like about it is the energy feels a lot cleaner and steadier. Their original blend is made with cacao chai, turmeric and functional mushrooms like lion's mane and reishi. So instead of feeling overstimulated or crashing later, it's just a smoother, more focused start to the day. And if you still like coffee, they also launched a low calf coffee blend with only 45mg of caffeine plus L theanine and functional mushrooms. So you still get that real coffee flavor but without feeling completely wired afterwards. The biggest thing I've noticed is there's no hard spike and no crash. It just feels more balanced throughout the day. And everything's USDA organic, non gmo, gluten free, vegan, all of it. You just mix it with hot water and you're good to go. Ready to make the switch to cleaner energy. Head to mubwater.com and grab your starter kit today. Right now, our listeners get an exclusive deal. Up to 43% off starter kits plus free shipping and a free rechargeable frother. When you use code SRS. That's right up to 43% off with code SRS@MUD WTR.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 versus Reality. They do it right. What does he do in the movies? Tell me if I'm doing this wrong because I don't to want watch it and little flick like that, right? Seems pretty cool.
- [57:15]
Ron White
It is pretty cool.
- [57:18]
Sean Ryan
Gotta silence it. In another lifetime. I did gun reviews for a living. Proprietary magazines supposedly the best engineering in the world. When that breaks, you're
- [57:36]
Ron White
and and now
- [57:37]
Sean Ryan
we're bringing him back. It does look pretty cool. I gotta admit that.
- [57:49]
Ron White
I lost my entire family. My mom, my dad, my brother. In 18 months.
- [57:54]
Sean Ryan
What?
- [57:55]
Ron White
Yeah, just in 2022, 2023. And it just, you know, a memory guy, it wrecked my brain and so.
- [58:07]
Sean Ryan
Your whole family?
- [58:08]
Ron White
Yeah, and so. Damn, dude, it. It. Not all at once. You know, they had the decency to space it out. Six months, you know, six months each. But it really threw me off.
- [58:21]
Sean Ryan
Who was it?
- [58:22]
Ron White
It was my mom, my dad, and my brother. Yeah, they all passed real quick. But it threw my me off, it threw my business off, threw my game off. I'll bet it did. Yeah. And I had a relationship at the time. It ended because 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 too?
- [59:07]
Sean Ryan
Oh, fuck, dude. I'm sorry, man.
- [59:09]
Ron White
Yeah. But this is helping me get my focus back.
- [59:14]
Sean Ryan
Good.
- [59:14]
Ron White
I'm grateful for it.
- [59:15]
Sean Ryan
I'm happy to hear that, man. Damn, that's tough. I'm sorry that you went through that.
- [59:21]
Ron White
Well, we all go through loss. Right. And it's just normally not all back to back.
- [59:27]
Sean Ryan
So your military career.
- [59:28]
Ron White
Yes, sir.
- [59:30]
Sean Ryan
Where do you want to start? You're an intelligence specialist. I was an os. So you went to school at Damneck? Yeah, yeah, right. Right next door to us.
- [59:40]
Ron White
Wow.
- [59:41]
Sean Ryan
Yeah.
- [59:42]
Ron White
Yeah.
- [59:42]
Sean Ryan
I mean, I never did the job as of an os, but. Because I went to BUDS 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 doing that. So you.
- [59:56]
Ron White
So you picked something much easier. What can I do? That's gonna be a walk in the park, right? Oh, well, I wanted to be a seal, but I just did not 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're all sitting out and this guy's out there smoking. You know, he's an is. And we're talking and 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.
- [60:50]
Sean Ryan
So did the, did the memorization skill that you've learned help with being an intelligence specialist?
- [60:57]
Ron White
Well, a little bit. A little bit. So a lot. A lot. You. You talked about the school, the intelligence school. Right. So you go through this. Brit is what they call it at the time. I believe it was basic reserve intelligence training is what they. It was a course.
- [61:23]
Sean Ryan
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 with. Right at September 11th, because I actually had a hernia surgery I was supposed to fly home for. I hit it through all of boot camp because I thought they were going to kick me out because of a hernia. So I lied to him, told him I was fine until the very end. It was like. Looked like a fucking softball, you know, And I was like. Anyway, so by the time I had gotten through, like the couple weeks or whatever a rehab it was, it would have been, what, probably October, November, 2001, that I was at Damneck and OS School. Were you there that time?
- [62:09]
Ron White
I wasn't. So my enlistment date wasn't actually until March of 2002 because I was a little bit delayed. I enlisted around December, 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, you know, I, I told you I almost got kicked out of the Navy. So during that time, I'm in my. The, the intelligence training, and the, the master chief comes in. The SSO comes in and says, ron, come with me. Bring your batch. 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 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 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, 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 later? 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. 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. I was arrested for warrants for speeding tickets. Nothing. I wasn't knocking over a 7 11, 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 as 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 gonna bribe you. Right. Nobody's gonna go to you and say, hey, China's not gonna say, hey, if you don't.
- [65:10]
Sean Ryan
Nobody's bribing US Government officials, Ron.
- [65:13]
Ron White
Come on.
- [65:18]
Sean Ryan
Who the fuck would do that?
- [65:21]
Ron White
It's all above board.
- [65:22]
Sean Ryan
Right?
- [65:22]
Ron White
Right. But they figured, well, if somebody goes to bribe Braun, he's just gonna tell them, yeah, I was laying on my credit, tell him, 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 Brit training, I did use the memory system, you know, I would. I told you, I use rooms to memorize. So I would make. 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 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 in 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. 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. One day, one day it wasn't as well received as I thought I wanted. They made me a briefer. I was the personal briefer for an 06, an army colonel. 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, 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 sigacts. I don't know if that's a term. It was a broad term in the military, significant acts. So sigacts, 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 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 without notes, and 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. With that said, I used it in so many other ways.
- [69:35]
Sean Ryan
Interesting. Interesting. Anything significant you want to talk about
- [69:39]
Ron White
in your military career, when a United States Navy SEAL says, is there anything significant in your career? 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. I went on a convoy there one day, and nothing happened. We leave, we get back to the base, and somebody from our base. I was at ISF 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 135th name I said. The guy left from Camp Eggers, and he goes to that airport in Kabul, Abbey Gate, that area, and he died. It was a vehicle born ied. And as an intelligence guy, I remember 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 two days later, we shut down convoys for a couple days, and then two 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. I didn't say the names of the fallen in my briefings, but I was always aware of the deaths, probably 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 six 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, there was Corporal Adam Quinn. And so that name has an attachment to me now. I think there was one other time 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 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 in to 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 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 schwacked. And we had these monitors on the screens. The whole room was just TV monitors. It was like 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 on the phone, he was communicating and he said, three 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 two 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 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 Wall, to focus on the death of war. So my military career really led to. To the tribute I do today.
- [75:23]
Sean Ryan
Right on. Right on. That bothered you that much, huh?
- [75:28]
Ron White
Well, it didn't bother me in a PTSD way. Right. I don't, you know, not.
- [75:32]
Sean Ryan
I'm not picking that up.
- [75:33]
Ron White
No, there's none. Nothing.
- [75:34]
Sean Ryan
It wasn't the first time we've seen real death. It was our guys killing bad guys. Correct?
- [75:42]
Ron White
Correct. Yeah. It bothered me in the sense it wasn't traumatic. Right? It wasn't traumatic. It wasn't necessarily something that I even lost sleep over other than. But it did start getting that philosophical question in my brain, why is there war? Why must people kill? Goes back to. It's a story as old as time. Cain and Abel. Right. It's not Billy Joel. We didn't start the fire. I realized this didn't just start with us. The world's been burned. How's the song go? The world's been burning since the world's been turning. But, yeah, it's. I think that those moments is what made me want to focus later on the Afghanistan war.
- [76:26]
Sean Ryan
Gotcha. Gotcha. Makes sense. Are you familiar with Polymarket?
- [76:31]
Ron White
Yeah, I am.
- [76:31]
Sean Ryan
All right. This is about war, so.
- [76:35]
Ron White
Oh, man.
- [76:37]
Sean Ryan
Here's the question. Polymarket gives only a 5% chance that the Iranian regime falls by June 30th. You deployed to Kabul as an intelligence specialist. You've seen what these conflicts actually cost. When you look at what's happening in Iran right now, what does your gut tell you? Will we be. Will the regime fall by June 30th?
- [77:03]
Ron White
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.
- [77:35]
Sean Ryan
Yep.
- [77:36]
Ron White
You know, I have no idea how it's going to turn out. I have zero idea. And I have no educated guess 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 Kemp, 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 say there's only a 0.2% chance of a nuclear war every year, 0.2% every year There's a 99.8% chance of no nuclear war, no nuclear. 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 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 not 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.
- [79:42]
Sean Ryan
Yeah.
- [79:42]
Ron White
But I hope I also see the point of view of nuclear proliferation as a scary thing.
- [79:52]
Sean Ryan
You've memorized the names of 2300 plus Americans killed in Afghanistan. You built that wall so people will understand the scope of the sacrifice. Before we go to war again. What does it mean to you that we're now in a conflict with Iran?
- [80:07]
Ron White
I don't like it. I don't like it. You know, when I said, 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 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. 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'm not. I'm not a fan of the Iran. More.
- [81:08]
Sean Ryan
Yeah. If this escalates and Americans start dying in a war with Iran, which they already have, will you memorize those names, too?
- [81:20]
Ron White
Maybe, but probably not. 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.
- [81:42]
Sean Ryan
Wow.
- [81:43]
Ron White
So I would. I started. When I started memorizing them in 2012, there was 1,853. 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 were dying. And I've had some personal events in my life where I haven't done the wall in four or five years. It's never been complete. So I just, in the last two weeks, got the last name HM3 Maxton, Soviet, 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, 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.
- [82:53]
Sean Ryan
Roger that. Congratulations, man. What a fucking time to do it, huh?
- [82:59]
Ron White
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 say those names, when I ride out the wall, I've done it over 30 times. NASCAR races, Major League Baseball games, 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? Because they can tell it's something military. It looks like the Vietnam War. We'll 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. People would say when I was memorized, and 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. 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 couldn't believe it. But when I was training for this, somebody said, ron, we. We. 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 A Y. J E, F F E R Y J E O F F 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. 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 two hours, that politician realized, wow, that guy just talked for two hours. And he said, everybody that we lost, that's not including necessarily all the civilians. That's not including everybody in Iraq. And that's what I want. I want people to understand the cost of war.
- [85:42]
Sean Ryan
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 right 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 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 Armor of 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 health, 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 armor.com SRS or enter SRS to get 30% off your first subscription order. That's a R M R A.com SRS. All right, so let's move back to your service. So you were going to do, you were going to do the memory championships while you were in, correct?
- [88:36]
Ron White
Yeah.
- [88:37]
Sean Ryan
What happened to that?
- [88:37]
Ron White
Some good research there. Maybe you guys are in military intelligence.
- [88:41]
Sean Ryan
Oh, geez, don't spread that rumor. Everybody already thinks that.
- [88:44]
Ron White
Oh, that's right. That's right. Okay. All right. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, I'm sure.
- [88:49]
Sean Ryan
Yeah.
- [88:49]
Ron White
Anyways, I was so during 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. 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 gotta 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 a minute, 40 seconds. There's no way. A shuffle 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 140 digit number in five 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. This is gonna be. This is gonna be a redo of the Guinness record thing, except it's not gonna be a misunderstanding. I'm just gonna lose, you know, I'm just gonna flat out lose this. And. But I thought, you know what? This is it. You gotta do this. You gotta do this. You have to do this, Ron. So I started training, and my goal was to compete. Well, I really didn't start training, but I just set my sights on it. I started thinking about how would I memorize a. A 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, what, 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. He said, chill out, White. You're not going. Two 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 contracts that have to Refund. And two 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 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 six weeks. I said, I'm gonna give this a shot. I'm pretty relaxed. I have no reason if I lose 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.
- [92:22]
Sean Ryan
You're game in the system. Looking for a great way to look when you lose?
- [92:26]
Ron White
Yes, sir. Yes, sir. So I go in and I compete and I come in fourth place out of like 50 people. And I'm like, wow, I didn't even train for this. And I came in fourth place. I said, I'm going to win this thing. I am going to win. 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 T.C. cummings. He 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 with structure training, you know, for a memory tournament. Not for. But, you know, there was a norm. I believe it was a Norman Schwarzoff quote. And TC 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? I said, oh, well, you know, they've got. They're telling their kids to be quiet, you know, 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? 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 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. You know, 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. 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 ball. 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 trained 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 three 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, we got a new US Record. And she high fived me. And there was some kids over here, my fellow nerds. They said, we wanna protest that score. We wanna protest that event. And Tony ditino, the founder of the USA Memory Championship, said, why do you wanna 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 some something. And they said there was plates and it distracted us. And a whole roll of people said, yeah, we couldn't focus after that. We didn't get it. And Tony Dattito 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 girls ever like, oh, how fast can you memorize these numbers? I want to give you my phone number right that never worked that way.
- [98:06]
Sean Ryan
But if she does, at least she'll remember it.
- [98:08]
Ron White
That's right. That's right. Well, believe me, I tried that angle for the first couple 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 Country Bar. I'd be at the restaurants. I'd 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 day that 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 was a hospital corpsman in the Navy, so he was always having to listen to his guys, you know, they wouldn't 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. 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 was not training by 8:30. I slept late today. He said, well, in the SEALs, when we didn't do something, we had to face a consequence. If we had a goal and we didn't get it, we had to face a consequence. Wasn't a punishment, but it was a consequence. I said, well, what's my consequence, T.C. 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 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 to my blazer? So I jump in the water. I've never felt water that cold. 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 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. 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 to 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. He said, no, Ron, this is the perfect. This is a gift from God. You are. You are.
- [101:30]
Sean Ryan
This is a gift from God.
- [101:32]
Ron White
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 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. A minute and 27 seconds. I set the record for memorizing a 167 digit number in five minutes. And I became the USA memory champion. How do you. I mean, so hold on, just walk
- [102:30]
Sean Ryan
me through that strategy. The deck and the number. How do you do it?
- [102:34]
Ron White
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 different techniques. The primary technique that I would recommend to anybody, whether it's a DECA card, 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 don't know what type of weapon that is. What is that weapon?
- [103:11]
Sean Ryan
Which one?
- [103:12]
Ron White
You got quite a bit right there. The one next to the belt.
- [103:16]
Sean Ryan
That is a Sig Sauerkraut mpx, nine millimeter suppressed.
- [103:22]
Ron White
Nice. That's my number four location. This flag is five. That flag is six. These lights are seven. The cicars are eight. That glass of alcohol up there is nine. The that shelf with that on that is nine. Ten is this picture with the cross. Eleven is this picture of you. Twelve is the top of your head. You want to know something crazy, Sean,
- [103:52]
Sean Ryan
about the top of my head?
- [103:54]
Ron White
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 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 pictures of the room. Well, the only way I could do that was YouTube, right? So I grabbed. 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 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. It wasn't planned at all. 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 Abby Gate, I attached them to this room. Staff Sergeant Ryan Nass. Lance Corporal Dylan Morola. Corporal Hubert Sanchez. And then Sergeant Nicole G. Sergeant Johnny Rosario, Corporal Davin Page. Staff Sergeant Darren Hoover. Corporal Hunter Lopez. Lance Corporal Jared Schmidt. Lance Corporal Riley McCollum. Lance Corporal David Espinosa. Top of your head. Lance Corporal Kareem Naku. 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 you 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 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 card. So for me, the king of hearts is my mom, but 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 this. 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'm not. Who is it?
- [107:04]
Sean Ryan
Tell you?
- [107:05]
Ron White
Yeah. I cannot do what that Oz guy did. You know what I'm saying?
- [107:09]
Sean Ryan
My daughter.
- [107:10]
Ron White
Perfect. And let's make her the queen of hearts. What does your daughter like to do? What's. What's one. One thing she likes to do?
- [107:24]
Sean Ryan
Terrorize people.
- [107:26]
Ron White
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. Of somebody that you know, that you worked with in the military. Just first name military or your job here or however you want to do it. You can even make up a name.
- [107:46]
Sean Ryan
Okay.
- [107:47]
Ron White
And what is that?
- [107:48]
Sean Ryan
Eddie.
- [107:49]
Ron White
Eddie. Eddie Penny.
- [107:51]
Sean Ryan
Yep.
- [107:51]
Ron White
Okay, I'm not the mentalist, but I know I got a story about him. Eddie Penny. Let's make him. I always like to make spades people that I've worked with. Let's make him the king of spades. So 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?
- [108:24]
Sean Ryan
Mick Jagger.
- [108:25]
Ron White
Mick Jagger. So the number three, if you put it like this, it looks like an M, right? So the three for me is always an M. So let's make Mick Jagger the three of clubs. Cause you hear his song in dance clubs, right? We'll stop there. So now you're at the table and you're memorizing a deck of cards. You've got. 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 one 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 is 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 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 clubs. King of spades, king of spades. See the memory guy, the king of spades back there. But that's the general concept. Okay, yeah.
- [109:59]
Sean Ryan
How about the number? How many digits did you say? 167 digits.
- [110:03]
Ron White
Yeah, same concept. Let's do 21's a deck of cards, right? The blackjack table. 25 could be a quarter, 25 cents. 55 could be a speed limit sign. Right? We'll just do those three. Now the first number you see is 55. So now you've got 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 on 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 October. Where were you on September 11th?
- [110:46]
Sean Ryan
I just told you I was coming out of surgery.
- [110:48]
Ron White
Yes, and you know, and even you know it, that, that, that, that emotion of September 11th synced 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 two 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, around the room in a sequence. And that's, 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.
- [111:45]
Sean Ryan
Okay.
- [111:46]
Ron White
Yeah.
- [111:46]
Sean Ryan
Makes sense. Kind of.
- [111:50]
Ron White
It makes, it's the, it's the mind. How long did it take you to
- [111:53]
Sean Ryan
memorize that 167 digit number? Five minutes.
- [111:56]
Ron White
Five minutes.
- [111:56]
Sean Ryan
And holy. What, what is that? That's a. So you're coming up with a. What's five. What, five times 60 is what?
- [112:05]
Ron White
300 it is.
- [112:08]
Sean Ryan
So 300 divided by what? 167. That's less than. So you're coming up with a story less. A story less than every two seconds.
- [112:22]
Ron White
That's right.
- [112:26]
Sean Ryan
That's crazy, but kinda kind.
- [112:29]
Ron White
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 it. Yes. But I did it a little bit. A little bit more of an advanced way. I was memorizing seven digits at a time. So I was seeing a group of seven numbers and I was creating a picture for that seven 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. You know, 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 three cards and those three cards get played and that's one picture. Then you take that one picture and you put it on the location back here.
- [113:23]
Sean Ryan
Gotcha.
- [113:24]
Ron White
So the more. So I was using 17 locations. When I memorized the deck of cards, when I would do numbers with seven numbers per location.
- [113:32]
Sean Ryan
Okay, wow. I mean, that's still moving. It is.
- [113:38]
Ron White
But here's the thing. And I'm. 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.
- [113:51]
Sean Ryan
19 seconds? 19 seconds.
- [113:55]
Ron White
I believe it's right around there. Around the 22nd part. 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 records were impressive for the time, you know, they've been beat. And that. 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 to have a sport, too. But I love that the sport is evolving. I love seeing these guys do things that I. I was never able to achieve in memory. And I think it's fantastic.
- [114:35]
Sean Ryan
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 bucks.
- [114:49]
Ron White
Right?
- [114:50]
Sean Ryan
You know, hey, do you want to 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?
- [115:04]
Ron White
They're amazed. So the funny thing about that, or maybe interesting thing, I don't know, you and everybody else will be the verdict if it's interesting or not. But the way that evolved. So this is 11. 11 months ago. 11 months ago, I had 13,000 followers on Instagram. I'm about to.
- [115:27]
Sean Ryan
11 months ago, 13,000.
- [115:30]
Ron White
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 Elliot. 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, you know, it's kind of uncomfortable approaching strangers. But whatever he gave me this idea. Let me test run it. So I would walk up 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 make it real. I say, this is whoever. I'm gonna teach him 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 bucks. And what I've learned is that even offering people 50 bucks, 50% of the people say no. And almost everybody over 40 says no. Right. You know. You know, some people have commented, ron, you're just picking young. 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 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 gonna. They're gonna 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 viewer's learning something on the spot, and everybody wins. And that person walks away three minutes later like, I can't believe I just. I just memorized the Ten Commandments or I just memorized the first 10 presidents. And it's just a real positive thing, and I love doing it.
- [117:45]
Sean Ryan
You got one for me?
- [117:46]
Ron White
Sure.
- [117:48]
Sean Ryan
You're gonna teach me how to do one?
- [117:50]
Ron White
Yes, sir.
- [117:50]
Sean Ryan
All right, let's do it.
- [117:51]
Ron White
Okay.
- [117:54]
Sean Ryan
I'm gonna be embarrassed as if I don't get this, by the way.
- [117:58]
Ron White
No, you're not. Everybody says that. Everybody says that, and everybody gets it. So you want to do the Ten Commandments?
- [118:08]
Sean Ryan
I already know them.
- [118:09]
Ron White
Okay, nice. I'm assuming you know the Bill of Rights.
- [118:13]
Sean Ryan
I don't.
- [118:14]
Ron White
Okay, let's do that.
- [118:15]
Sean Ryan
All of it.
- [118:16]
Ron White
Let's do that. Let's use our fingers. So, first one. Imagine this is a microphone.
- [118:23]
Sean Ryan
Actually, I. I know the majority of it.
- [118:25]
Ron White
You know the majority.
- [118:25]
Sean Ryan
Let's. Let's. Yeah, let's do something else.
- [118:27]
Ron White
Okay.
- [118:28]
Sean Ryan
I don't want to cheat.
- [118:29]
Ron White
Okay. How about this one? This one's a little bit more involved, but how about we do the Beatitudes. Matthew, chapter five.
- [118:39]
Sean Ryan
Okay.
- [118:40]
Ron White
Okay. So is there a. There's a picture back here behind me.
- [118:44]
Sean Ryan
There's a lot of pictures back there behind you.
- [118:46]
Ron White
Okay.
- [118:47]
Sean Ryan
One of the one. The painting. Or just. Are you just telling me to pick one?
- [118:52]
Ron White
One. You pick one. Okay. 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. The main thing. Poor in spirit, kingdom of heaven. So what's on the. The back there?
- [119:41]
Sean Ryan
The kingdom of heaven.
- [119:42]
Ron White
Blessed are the poor in spirit.
- [119:44]
Sean Ryan
Blessed are the poor in spirit.
- [119:46]
Ron White
Theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
- [119:47]
Sean Ryan
Theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
- [119:49]
Ron White
The next one is blessed those who mourn. For thou shall be comforted. We're only going to think the two things. The 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, listen.
- [120:09]
Sean Ryan
Those who mourn are in the kingdom of heaven.
- [120:11]
Ron White
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. Breasted are the poor in spirit. The frame. Because theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
- [120:25]
Sean Ryan
Okay.
- [120:26]
Ron White
Blessed are those who mourn right here. 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. Me. The word is meek. So what are my shoes going to represent?
- [120:40]
Sean Ryan
Meek.
- [120:41]
Ron White
And they inherit the earth. So we're on the ground. Earth. So the meek will inherit what?
- [120:46]
Sean Ryan
The earth.
- [120:46]
Ron White
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 go to this right up here. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled. Imagine somebody is hungering and thirsting and they want something to eat and drink. So over here, 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? Blessed are those who.
- [121:30]
Sean Ryan
What Hunger and righteousness, for they shall be filled.
- [121:33]
Ron White
Perfect. We'll do one more and then we'll review. And 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.
- [121:51]
Sean Ryan
These ones?
- [121:52]
Ron White
Yeah, Andrea.
- [121:53]
Sean Ryan
Or velocity.
- [121:54]
Ron White
He is showing mercy on somebody. He's got those gloves, but he's showing mercy. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall be shown mercy. So what is that one?
- [122:02]
Sean Ryan
Blessed are the merciful, so they should be shown mercy.
- [122:05]
Ron White
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. 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 there. 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?
- [123:02]
Sean Ryan
See in God.
- [123:03]
Ron White
See God. One last one, and you got this shot. I promise you. I'm going to 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?
- [123:36]
Sean Ryan
They'll enter the kingdom of heaven.
- [123:37]
Ron White
Perfect. I'm going to say all these with you. And you're done. That's it. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is 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
- [123:53]
Sean Ryan
theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
- [123:55]
Ron White
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.
- [124:06]
Sean Ryan
Blessed.
- [124:06]
Ron White
Preaching are the gloves. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall be shown mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall. You're looking out that window of the helicopter.
- [124:19]
Sean Ryan
See God.
- [124:20]
Ron White
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. It's more just one word, you know, Freedom of speech, the right to bear arms. But you, man, 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.
- [124:56]
Sean Ryan
First. Kingdom of heaven. Comforted, Filled. Mercy. See God. Kingdom of heaven. Is that all of them?
- [125:12]
Ron White
Did you say inherit the earth?
- [125:13]
Sean Ryan
Inherit the earth.
- [125:14]
Ron White
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 your faith if it is you want to be. Oh, look at this. The seal. Trident. 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 know, but it fits the system.
- [126:29]
Sean Ryan
I do want to memorize scripture. That's one thing. I'm new at this, actually. I guess I'm not that new anymore. It's been about two years, but we're in the Bible Belt here in Tennessee, and Everybody has scripture memorized except me.
- [126:44]
Ron White
Right? So. So how do.
- [126:46]
Sean Ryan
I mean, where did you start? I know I saw on your website you have this. This. This course or Jiu jitsu, a bunch of stuff.
- [126:53]
Ron White
How do you.
- [126:54]
Sean Ryan
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.
- [127:01]
Ron White
It's whatever you want to memorize. A lot of people 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. I lost my faith a little bit, You know, in the 2010-2020, that. That time frame. And. My mom, I went up. She was very religious lady, and I. I want to honor her legacy. I don't think she would mind me telling this 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 going to go over there and I'm going to 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 period, 10 years. I hadn't been in her house four or five times. The stench was overwhelming. It broke my heart. 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 in the roof. I knocked on the door and she didn't answer. And so I said, I gotta go 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 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, opossum. 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. She said, are you kidding me? 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 clue, 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 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 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 my mom's life. I found her dad 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 two weeks prior. There was a picture that was on the refrigerator that wasn't on there two 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 had 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, 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. And during that time, I developed a course called the 1189 Bible Memory Course. There's 1189 chapters in the Bible. 1189. And 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 nine, following the Israelites. The Israelites fall in 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 of my website. I'm like, what in the world is going on? People are buying this 1189 course, and I don't even know what's going on. A guy had done it. He had created a mind palace with 1189 locations, and he knows what's in every single chapter of the Bible now. And he did some podcast, and that was my entry into faith. Mind if I tell you what Psalms chapter one says about memorizing Scripture? Psalm chapter one 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 and 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 right righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish in that scripture. In Psalms chapter one, 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. 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, having it written on the tablet to your mind. And so if you want to memorize scripture, map out a mind palace and visualize the scripture around your home.
- [133:54]
Sean Ryan
Roger that, man. Thank you for sharing that drum.
- [133:58]
Ron White
Yes, sir.
- [134:01]
Sean Ryan
Wow. Gonna take a break?
- [134:04]
Ron White
Sure.
- [134:04]
Sean Ryan
All right. Sure. Let's take a break.
- [134:06]
Ron White
Thank you.
- [134:09]
Sean Ryan
We've talked before about how Stanley's basically family in our house, and once you start thinking about it that way, you start paying a lot more attention to what you're actually feeding your dog. That's one of the reasons we started using Sundays for dogs. Sundaes is different because it starts with over 80% all natural meat and then uses ingredients like kale, ginger, and blueberries. And instead of blasting it with high heat like traditional kibble, they gently air dry it so it actually looks like real food. Honestly, it looks more like jerky than dog food. And Stanley, he absolutely loves it. The second he hears the bag open, he's right there. What do you think, Stanley? And one thing I really like is there's no prep involved. No fridge, no freezer, no mess. You just scoop it and serve it. It was also founded by a veterinarian, Dr. Tori Waxman. And you can tell the whole brand was built around giving dogs better quality nutrition without making it complicated for owners. Make the switch to Sunday. Go right now to sundaysfordogs.com SRS50 and get 50% off your first order. Or you can use SRS50 at checkout. That's 50% off your first order at sundaysfordogs.com SARS50 Sundaysfordogs.com SRS50 or use code SRS50 at checkout. 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.
- [135:59]
Ron White
You didn't.
- [136:00]
Sean Ryan
Was it. Ut Didn't. Did an MRI on your brain. 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.
- [136:12]
Ron White
It's no special gift. I have no special gift. I have no special ability that anybody doesn't have. 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, 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 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 that scheduled it. Or, oh, my gosh, I forgot about that. 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 Stan Lee, right? He was the inventor of Spider man, the Incredible Hulk, and all that. You know, he's 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 they selected me as one of Stan Lee's Superhumans. So when I met with the producers, I said, I get what you're saying, Stanley. Superhumans. But there's really nothing unique about my memory. I've learned a system. Anybody can do this. You're gonna see me do some crazy things here on this show, but believe me, I'm not. I know the name of the show is Super Humans, but I'm just a normal guy. And the producers said, well, that's not really the premise of our show. So we're gonna. We're gonna 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 asked you if you're claustrophobic. And I said, no, now I know the proper way to answer that question.
- [138:16]
Sean Ryan
You found out, huh?
- [138:17]
Ron White
Found out. So I'm in there, you know, I'm like, oh, my gosh. I'm like, 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. 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 a click. If it's, 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's not right. Or maybe 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 the guys running it, they said, you got a perfect score. And the host of the show, not Stan Lee, but he had another guy who was actually the host, Daniel Browning Smith. Daniel Browning 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 was perfect for the show. Right. Ron is 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 Ron 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 like, dude, they're freaking the fuck out. They were seeing the panic in my brain. Right. I never thought of that. That probably could have been part of it. Yeah.
- [140:41]
Sean Ryan
We don't know why there's so much fear.
- [140:43]
Ron White
Right. This is. This is arborization. Yeah. They all thought it was the memory guy. It was a very. Yeah. What about you? You and I'm going to finish this story. But as a seal, did you have cloth? Did you experience any claustrophobia? No. No, no. Yeah, I don't have it.
- [141:01]
Sean Ryan
My dad has it really bad.
- [141:03]
Ron White
Yeah.
- [141:03]
Sean Ryan
But it doesn't bother me for whatever reason.
- [141:07]
Ron White
Well, that's why you're able to do what you do. And us normal guys, we salute you. 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 because I was seeing these images. I was seeing my memories. And it does activate more of your brain, 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 two hours. And for two 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 a shelf. I saw the price. I memorized it. He put it in the cart for two hours. We walked around. He took stuff off the shelf. He showed it to me. He put it in the shopping cart. After two 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 know, how did you do that? You're superhuman. 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 and they said, ron, you did really good, but you missed three. And I said, I didn't miss any. The computer missed three. And the manager was there. He was like, dude, no, you missed three. 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 three times, the computer was wrong. Now, in fairness, the computer didn't make a mistake. It was the person who. 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, right? 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. And 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? So, same concept of the mind palace, but. But the mind palace necessarily wouldn't help me. Cause I didn't necessarily need to memorize it in 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 ear. 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. Off 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 of the casino. And the casino is lighting up. And there's a deck of card 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 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. Thirty minutes later, he's walking towards you. Big ears. Big ears. What was on his ears? What was on his ears? A brain. Brian, good to see you again. It's good for the short term, right? You got the. You got. If they. 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 two years ago when 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 attached 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 gonna 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.
- [147:53]
Sean Ryan
Interesting.
- [147:56]
Ron White
Wow. That's it.
- [147:57]
Sean Ryan
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 this name recognition.
- [148:07]
Ron White
It is. It's important. You know, Dale Carnegie said, everybody's favorite subjects themselves. The sweetest sound of the ears, 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. 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 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 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 gonna be. Here's everybody listening to this right now. The thing that's gonna hold them up, the thing that's gonna make them say, I'm not gonna do this. This is too much work, that this is the fake. They don't have pictures for names. They're gonna meet somebody named Brian, and Brian's talking to him, 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 says in their 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 tag, turn the name into a picture. Even if you don't talk to her or him, turn 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 gonna 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 five people in the room. I was speaking for free, and I only called on three of them. I did not think I could memorize all five names. And I was there to teach them a memory seminar. Shit. So I only Called on three of them. I'm glad the other two at the end 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 weeks turning names into pictures. I spoke at a conference in Canada a 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 conversation. Oh. He goes, no, Ron, you got it. You got it, man. I was like, I don't. I stretched my own imagination. Now here's a thing that I will share. When you're at a meeting like that and you need to memorize 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 attached stuff to the clothing. I attached 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.
- [151:49]
Sean Ryan
Damn, man.
- [151:51]
Ron White
Wow.
- [151:57]
Sean Ryan
Let's talk about
- [152:00]
Ron White
memory.
- [152:00]
Sean Ryan
Faith in the Bible.
- [152:02]
Ron White
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 all the time. I was there on. I led a Bible study on Tuesday nights. I went to church on Wednesday nights. I was 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 just, 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 wondered, 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? That's from memory. 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 five books of the Bible. At least that's what most Christians and Jews believe, that Moses wrote the first five 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's unreliable. The ancient people, it was so much different. They had these group oral traditions. 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, you know, 2 Timothy 3:16 says all scripture is God breathed, right? So when I'm saying this, I'm gonna tell you why I believe we can trust the reliability of the scripture based on a memory guide 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 scriptures 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. But the way the Bible's written, the is engineered. It helps your memory. Psalms, the 23rd Psalms. He makes me lie down on green pastures, lay beside still waters. That's imagery. So when these stories were passed down, they were passed down with imagery. Green pastures, still waters. Imagery cements in your memory. If you have the faith of a mustard seed, you can move a 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 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 paraphrase, 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, they would sing songs, they would say them in groups, they would tell these songs and stories 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 then. 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 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, that you said it faster than the other words. A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P. My guess, and I don't know if this is 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 three mountains real close together, that's the elemental picture. 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 exploded over 30,000 years ago. So the ancient people of Australia had these songs talking about Budj Bim exploding. There's no way 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 it's the Aborigines, they're doing it as songs. They're doing it with group memory. Group memory is reliable. Individual memory is. But that's how much of the Bible and other things were passed down.
- [160:01]
Sean Ryan
It actually makes a lot of sense. Wow, that does make a lot of sense.
- [160:09]
Ron White
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 tast. 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 has 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 or. 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 Test 15 year olds on math, science and all this stuff. And 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 that is scoring lower on these tests, which, 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 Jared 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. This is his theory, but it makes sense. You're skimming. It's not deep studying. It's not deep studying like we had when we're learning for a person. It's skimming, study, 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.
- [162:34]
Sean Ryan
Yeah, I wouldn't disagree. I don't think anybody would disagree with that.
- [162:40]
Ron White
Wow, what's that?
- [162:41]
Sean Ryan
What's his name?
- [162:42]
Ron White
Jared Horvath.
- [162:43]
Sean Ryan
Jared Horvath.
- [162:45]
Ron White
He's a neuroscientist. I. Somebody just sent me the article a couple weeks ago. Ago.
- [162:49]
Sean Ryan
I gotta get that from you. That would be an interesting talk.
- [162:53]
Ron White
He was fascinating. What I read on him.
- [162:55]
Sean Ryan
Right on, right on. Well, I got a hot question for you. Ready?
- [162:59]
Ron White
Yes.
- [162:59]
Sean Ryan
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 mind. 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?
- [163:39]
Ron White
It's a great question. And for years, and I mentioned I've been doing this 35 years, I gotta ask that question a lot. It was never as eloquent as Lat, that's a very eloquent way to ask that question. But the question always got down to is technology ruining our brains? And I was always answering that question. No, no, I don't think so. I think 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 the 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 use it. I take what it's saying and then I'll step away and I'll think about it it, 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, you know, they 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 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.
- [165:48]
Sean Ryan
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 need 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?
- [166:13]
Ron White
I love that last part of that question. The first part was, is this a miracle or is it the human? Right, yeah.
- [166:24]
Sean Ryan
Do we have abilities we usually never tap into?
- [166:28]
Ron White
Yeah, yeah. And first of all, is it a miracle or is it the human? Billy? It's probably both in some cases. But as far as the brain, as far as the human brain, 100%. 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, this mind palace number. Five pieces of furniture, and you live in them. Five in your kitchen, five in your living room, five 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. 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 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 in five 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.
- [168:28]
Sean Ryan
Thank you. Thank you. Let's move back into the Afghanistan mall. We're closing out the interview. It's Memorial Day. You've accomplished something amazing right here in this studio this morning.
- [168:48]
Ron White
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. Has been on how I did it and. And, you know, on my memory. Right. And that's all valid. I'm the one I am sitting in this chair, 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 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 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. 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 a corporate or a group whole Memorial Day, you're not forgotten. I wanted to say, Private First Class Austin Staggs, you Are not forgotten. Private Buddy McLean. You are not forgotten. Chief Petty Officer Adam Brown. You are not forgotten. Corporal Chad Wade. You are not forgotten. Sergeant First Class Matthew Abadi. You are not forgotten. Sergeant James Yoube. You are not forgotten. Individually, you're not forgotten. I will set up that wall at a NASCAR race. I'll set it up in front of the Alamo, and I'll be riding on the wall, and people will walk by in New York City. I'm riding 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 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 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 five. I had to time it to the finish live on the air in the last five minutes. Minutes 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. 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.
- [174:34]
Sean Ryan
Yes, I do. I know Adam Brown.
- [174:41]
Ron White
I heard you talk about him, that he was a good man.
- [174:44]
Sean Ryan
He was. He was. Well, Ron, you want to end this with a prayer?
- [174:52]
Ron White
I do. Can I read you a story real quick?
- [174:54]
Sean Ryan
Yes, please do.
- [174:56]
Ron White
But I do. 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. A book where anybody can go get her 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. 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 Deego and Eddie Penney's SEAL team. He co wrote a book with him. And Eddie Penny wrote the forward. This book was written by that guy, so it has a connection to Eddie Penny. I want to read you one story. This is. 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. 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 this. When this letter was. When she got her his 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 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. 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. 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.
- [178:44]
Sean Ryan
That was heavy. That's what this is all about. You want to pray?
- [178:50]
Ron White
Yes, sir.
- [178:51]
Sean Ryan
Let's do it. Jesus, we just want to say thank you for today and thank you for connecting me with Ron. 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
- [179:12]
Ron White
wrote, Pray for them, please.
- [179:16]
Sean Ryan
Let them be having a damn good time up there. Pray for our country.
- [179:21]
Ron White
Amen, man. Amen. Thank you.
- [179:26]
Sean Ryan
Save the heavy stuff for last, huh?
- [179:28]
Ron White
Holy. I wanted to read this.
- [179:30]
Sean Ryan
What page is that?
- [179:31]
Ron White
That is the first story. So it's the first story you would read first. Lieutenant C. Weaver.
- [179:40]
Sean Ryan
There it is.
- [179:43]
Ron White
Wow.
- [179:45]
Sean Ryan
Ron.
- [179:46]
Ron White
Yes, sir.
- [179:47]
Sean Ryan
Thank you. Thank you, brother. No matter where you're watching the Sean Ryan show from, if you get anything out of this at all, anything, please, like, comment and subscribe. And most importantly, share this everywhere you possibly can. And if you're feeling extra generous, head to Apple Podcasts and Spotify and leave us a review.