Tansel Ali Memory Coaching

Hi, Tansel here. Welcome to my site.

Most people think because I've memorized 2 Yellow Pages phonebooks, won the Australian Memory Championships twice and broken several memory records, that I'm 'gifted' and have special memory powers unlike most others.

This is untrue.

My story began when watching late night television and seeing memory experts remember audience names and 20 words at random. I always thought these were some sort of 'tricks' or a scam to sell related products. You see I never had a brilliant memory. In fact I used to forget a lot in my daily life and at work. It would be frustrating and I took it as a normal thing for me to have a crap memory.

One day my friend told me he could memorize a list of 40 shopping items. I laughed and didn't believe it until one day I tested him and surely enough he memorized them all effortlessly. At that moment I was still sceptic. I thought he knew a trick of somesort to be able to pull off what he just did. There was no trick. It was not deception. He actually did memorize the list in random order. 

Ok so now that he had wow'd me, I had to know how to do it myself. I thought it was pretty cool. I had no idea what I could use it for but just thought I'd like to be able to do that. Once I was shown by my friend I was amazed at how easy it was to remember, especially with my crappy memory.

That little success I had remembering inspired me to look at how else I could memorize things. I got into memorizing playing cards, list of words and numbers, all taken from a few website and books I had read. Excited by my new found skills, Google helped me further my search for memory and I came across the Australian Memory Championships.

My friend and I thought hey why not, let's enter it. We'll most likely come last, but who cares it will be fun testing what we've learned in the few months against 'the nerds'. We both played guitar in rock/metal bands at the time so we were anything but your typical nerd/geek/etc.

We entered the 2002 Australian Memory Championships with no expectation whatsoever. The event was held at Docklands in Melbourne and Tony Buzan had flown down to convene the event. For those of you who don't know, Tony Buzan is the creator of Mind Maps and had several books on memory, speed reading and mind mapping. An inspiration to millions. It was an absolute honour.

2001 was the inaugural Australian Memory Championships event and the event scores from that year had scared us a little. We were not that good, but we were interested and kept an open mind about memory and its potential. We were not afraid of making mistakes or forgeting. This was purely for our education.

The first event was a list of random words. We had to memorize as many as we could in 15 minutes. The competition difficulty was that the words were given in rows of 20 and if we made a single mistake, like forget or misspell a word, then we would be given a score 10 out of 20. Two mistakes and we get a score of zero. Very tough indeed! The other events also followed a similar pattern which penalized you for making a mistake, so you pretty much had to recall perfectly to achieve a score.

The 2001 random words record was 60. I was lucky enough to get the highest at 78. My first event and I had broken the Australian record. I was shocked as I wasn't expecting much. I had beaten all the so called 'nerds' at their own game. Having said that, there was actually no sign of any nerd at the event. My perception completely shattered, which turned out to be a good thing. I realized that people from all walks of life had competed in these championships. From documentary makers, to accountants, to teachers, and general enthusiasts like myself who were just interested in making use of their new found skills.

During the lunch break we got the football out and were having a kick inside. How appropriate with AFL Football headquarters just around the corner. After the exhausting day of memorizing, I came second and my friend came third with only a difference of 10 points separating us. In memory competitions this is extremely close! We had also broken a few memory records between us. We couldn't believe what we had accomplished all in just a few months of learning. 

From that moment on we were interviewed on national television, radio, print and featured online as well. I still could not believe that someone with such an average memory like mine could get on television for something that was a weakness. The more exposure we received, the more the community's interest grew for memory. 

The following year we entered the 2003 Australian Memory Championships with the aim of coming first and second. I came second and my friend came third again. However we did break a few records still and personal bests so it was another exciting period. We thought we should try our luck against the best in the world, so we entered the 2003 World Memory Championships in Malaysia. We thought why not again, we'll probably come last but who cares. After all there were to be over 70 competitors from all over the world. We had no chance!

After ten events in three days, I had broken five national memory records and achieved a grandmaster of memory status for memorizing a deck of randomly shuffled cards under three minutes. A feat which only a number of people had achieved at that particular time. I also came fifth for remembering the most names and faces as well as random historic/future dates, even beating past memory champions who have won the championships several times. It felt great but I was still amused by this as how could someone like me with an average memory do something like this.

It came back to something really basic. Memory techniques.

Knowing memory techniques enabled me to memorize and recall countless amount of information. The best part was that it was so easy to apply. For people that know me, I'm the kind of person who does not like doing things the long way. I try and look for short-cuts to work more eficiently and effectively. Knowing memory techniques allowed me to do that very easily. 

If you're reading this now and telling yourself you can't improve your memory, then go back and re-read my story. It's not rocket science. Apply techniques and then be prepared to amaze yourself. 

After the world memory championships I realized the true power of memory and decided to teach others to be more efficient and effective. I started working with students and helping them to learn how to learn. Something which isn't taught in schools suprisingly. This lead to working with dyslexic students and helping them to learn just as fast as anyone else. I then moved on to corporate and ran training sessions on using your memory to deliver a speech without notes, manage information overload, speed reading, use memory at work, remember names and build rapport, effective communication, etc. The results were amazing. The experience, rewarding. 

Ten years later, I had managed to train thousands of people from all walks of life in all fields. The diversity was huge. But everyone had one thing in common – to better themselves so they could make a positive difference.