Dramatize your competence!!

A couple of years ago my networking group had a presentation from David Thomas, a memory champion who teaches memory techniques.  As part of the morning session, he taught us a technique and gave us a memory exercise, learning the order of ten random imaginary objects in five minutes.  Meanwhile, he set about learning the order of a shuffled deck of 52 cards.

At the end of the five minutes, he recited the order of the cards with 100% accuracy and then as a bonus, recited the first 250 places of Pi.  That last bit was easy for him - he had learned Pi to 22,500 places and was world champion for a while >>>>>.

This morning I was talking to my friend Martin Dewhurt, whose background is in graphic art and top-level photo retouching.  That takes a lot of different skills, including acute awareness of colour.  One of his party pieces is recognizing the Pantone Reference for any object in a room then the corresponding CMYK separation.  If you have any experience of colour technology, you'll know just how impressive this is.  It's a great way for Martin to dramatize his competence - to present some of what he can do in a dramatic, memorable and relevant way.  Apparently,  "crazy as it sounds, we even taught the apprentices to make our cups of tea to specific Pantone colours"

Below is a sample of Pantone colours, just to give you an idea....