Carlin Day

Summary

In this engaging podcast episode, Ben Mitchell welcomes guest Carlin Day, who has managed the seemingly impossible feat of memorizing the entire Book of Proverbs. Carlin shares his journey of Bible memorization, a process he started as a child and has refined over the years. Through discussion, the duo delves into various memory techniques like the Memory Palace, a method that uses spatial memory to recall information. Carlin's story is an encouragement for anyone looking to enhance their memory skills or deepen their connection with scripture, highlighting that with discipline and the right techniques, anyone can achieve impressive memorization feats.

Highlights

• Carlin Day memorized the entire Book of Proverbs using just 15 minutes a day. Incredible dedication! 🚀
• Starting with a powerful question, 'How can I memorize Proverbs?' sparked the journey 🌟.
• The Memory Palace technique uses familiar spaces to anchor and recall information creatively 🧠.
• Carlin compares learning to memorize with juggling — anyone can do it with practice! 🤹‍♂️
• Daily discipline and practice are the keys to unlocking memory potential and achieving seemingly impossible goals 🔑.

Key Takeaways

• With the right techniques, memorizing large texts like the Book of Proverbs is achievable for anyone 📚.
• The Memory Palace technique is a powerful tool for memorization, utilizing familiar locations to store information 🏰.
• Discipline and daily practice are crucial in developing effective memory skills and achieving goals ⏰.
• Memorizing Scripture can transform not only one's knowledge but also one's character and life decisions 🌟.
• Sharing memory techniques with family can inspire a collective journey of learning and personal growth 👨‍👩‍👦.

Overview

In this captivating episode, Ben Mitchell sits down with Carlin Day, a man who has accomplished an extraordinary feat—memorizing the entire Book of Proverbs. The conversation journeys through Carlin’s childhood start with memorization, his disciplined practice, and his motivation for taking on such a monumental task. Carlin explains how anyone can develop this skill with the right mindset and strategies.

Carlin shares the innovative Memory Palace technique, a method utilizing one's familiar environments, like a childhood home, to anchor new memories. This visualization method, combined with daily discipline, allowed him to memorize extensively over time. The discussion broadens into how these skills can be applied to daily life and how engaging with scripture deeply can enrich one's personal and spiritual life.

Through anecdotes and shared experiences, Carlin emphasizes that his achievement wasn’t due to any unique talent but rather persistence and creative memorization strategies. His story is an invitation for listeners to start their own memory journeys and discover the transformative power of memorizing scripture and other meaningful texts, encouraging a deeper connection within families and communities.

Carlin Day Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 you memorized the whole Book of Proverbs u verba i mean that is that's incredible and so I asked this question how could a person memorize all of Proverbs almost everyone can learn to memorize and and be very good at it it just was a 5 to 10 minute thing every day and then reviewing it each day so probably a total of 15 minutes a day so then we got flying cars and sash Jam
• 00:30 - 01:00 out of this episode I mean it's going to change the world my [Laughter] friend so I'm so excited to have our guest Carlin day on the podcast this morning Carlin welcome thank you for having me here Ben it's great to to meet you like this yes Carlin Carlin you've done something that most people would think is impossible
• 01:00 - 01:30 you've memorized what a few whole chapters of the Book of Proverbs yeah all of them all of them all of them every chapter you memorized the whole Book of Proverbs um verba I mean that is that's incredible absolutely incredible so I first heard about you after I started following Josh Summers on YouTube he wrote wrote this book here memorize what matters um were a guest on a show and I
• 01:30 - 02:00 just I thought that was that episode was so fascinating uh then we've interacted a little bit on on X and um then you were in in our 15 laws of growth Mastermind um but one thing that has really impressed me is that almost everything I hear you say is quotable I mean like you're like a stream of wisdom oh thank you it's I I would say it's it's evident
• 02:00 - 02:30 that that you steeped your heart and your minds in wisdom U so I just want to talk today about how you did it why you did it h how we can do it too we're even going to throw a couple little pop quizzes in here and and see you quote a couple random verses from Proverbs from memory so that's that's going to be a lot of fun oh I enjoy doing that whenever you spend time memorizing Proverbs good to get a chance to use them like this to be able to do that this isn't a thing you get to do everywhere hey can you just
• 02:30 - 03:00 throw me out some Proverbs it's so it's kind of a unique experience so yeah how you take it away however you want to go forward okay okay let's let's um throw it right off the bat here how about proverbs 4 423 Proverbs 4S 423 is above all else guard your heart for it is the Wellspring of life nailed it nailed it and I promise
• 03:00 - 03:30 we didn't talk about wi vers beforehand this is completely off the cuff here um so we we'll do a couple more here but I've just been this is gonna be great I've been looking forward to this conversation for a long time now so um but first Carlin tell us a little about yourself what do you do for a living just tell us a little bit of your story okay yeah um I live in Oklahoma I'm uh married U I got married young
• 03:30 - 04:00 like 21 we have five kids uh me and my wife have five kids and uh for a living last 10 years I've been um owning and operating an insurance agency owning for the last five years and so that's how I get to serve people and that's how a way that I found to um you know provide and to and to work and help people so uh insurance we do um just a regular Home Auto that kind of that kind of insurance
• 04:00 - 04:30 but then we also specialize in H churches and Farms wow very cool very cool so so you're you're not a minister you're not doing this fulltime you're um you're kind of a regular regular guy just just like me and um just doing this memorization Journey on the side yeah Bible memory has been something that I picked up in the last um I mean I memorize Bible I was I was a Christian at at a young age and I was
• 04:30 - 05:00 involved in church so we had things like aana uh and then also I went to a Christian School where we you know we studied God's word and we memorized verses but just in the last three years through um can I kind of connecting with Josh but also that was why I was connecting with Josh as I was memorizing chapters of the Bible so yeah that's been real memorizing like to heart and to to keep it forever that's been a new thing where I really owned it and kind
• 05:00 - 05:30 of learned the skill of that yes how did you meet Josh I'm really curious um through uh I say I have a a unique unique experience of having uh the internet and the Holy Spirit um and connecting things so like I had a mentor that I met through Google that I typed in and found him Josh I found through the internet and sent him a message through um uh
• 05:30 - 06:00 through Twitter I was back when we really called it Twitter I sent him a message and so then we started just kind of this dialogue eventually ended up with me being on a on a small group of guys with him when he was starting that uh the the Bible memory goal so yes that was really awesome to do that and at the time when I met him I had no I knew no one who memorized the Bible like I was memorizing the Bible wow wow
• 06:00 - 06:30 so you say you started this as you say you started this memorization Journey kind of as a as a kid right so you've been doing this for on some level for a while is that right yeah on so I knew in my heart and valued Bible the Bible and memorizing the Bible but at the same time someone was to ask me verses and references I probably couldn't name you know more than 20 or 30 which you know so I didn't know a lot and I one time in um in high school we had memorized uh the whole
• 06:30 - 07:00 book of like I think it was second Timothy or first Timothy I can't even tell you which one it was because I can't remember it but I guarantee I like aced that test and and did well and I knew the entire thing but now I know I can recognize it but I could cannot quote it to you right right wow so then what was what was the inspiration for like as an adult saying okay I want to make this a big big part of my life I'm going to go from you know
• 07:00 - 07:30 teachers telling me you got to do this to I'm taking the W by horns I'm going to do it on my own initiative yes sir well I had um Proverbs was a thing I was I'm a Proverbs of the day guy so I had a habit of of reading Proverbs every day I'd miss a couple days here and there but most of the time I would try to read whatever day it was I'd read that chapter of proverbs and uh close to 10 years ago um a question led me on this
• 07:30 - 08:00 journey because I thought if a guy reads it every day what if he could memorize it and so I asked this question how could a person memorize all of Proverbs and so I wish I could see how many times I would Google search that because I always looking for some kind of new information right like is there is there a way that I could do it to where I wouldn't waste my time so that I would then forget it
• 08:00 - 08:30 um kind of like I did with the with the chapters that I had learned in in high school you know do I have to review it every day is there a way and so I was trying to like kind of figure out like a a trick or a hack or a skill and then uh God used around the way somehow that question um through searching for that somehow I got distracted or the algorithm like on YouTube or Google some somewhere I found a person memorizing a deck of cards and I got really attached
• 08:30 - 09:00 to that memorizing a deck of cards and so I learned how to do it and when I learned how to memorize cards after I had wasted so much time going through them and like getting faster and faster and my wife saying like you know that's kind of weird I don't know why you're doing this you know right but that led me back to this this question of how could a guy memorized Proverbs it just kind of hit me and I was like this is how you do it you use this skill to do do this and so at that point I just
• 09:00 - 09:30 tried it and once I did chapter one I was like I can do the whole thing and probably uh a year you know I thought I could do it in all a year which ended up to not be true but once I had deci figured out I could do it and I did it it was then I had just set a goal I'm going to do it so that's that's how I got to be as a a grown man the father memorizing all of Proverbs wow I think you started with an incredibly powerful question that I want to highlight you you asked how can I I
• 09:30 - 10:00 think a lot of us approach it with with right either I can't or can I but you flipped that question to how can I or that that assumption that you could you just had to figure out how that was kind of baked into that question um and you figured out how on the other side of this it's powerful yes yeah yes yeah and then and so then it's it's exactly it's kind of like a experiment how can I a hypothesis
• 10:00 - 10:30 of like kind of like this idea like I I could we could change the world right now Ben I say we could make flying cars okay here's the question we could make flying cars all we have to do is get it from here to here like how can we do that this idea of like well you think of like flying around but like what if we could just make it just be off the ground to just remove the friction you know like make it the simplest way how could we I hope someone watches this and
• 10:30 - 11:00 thinks how could we just go like that far maybe Elon mus watch ground just a little bit maybe must watch this I I think he asked that question a lot how can I so maybe he'll watch this and you know he he'll invent the flying cars for us that's you're right questions are very powerful and you used to remember that that moment when when it struck you and you thought I've got memorize the
• 11:00 - 11:30 whole book and so tell us a little about when when that that realization kind of just washed over you like I've got to do it well it would have been it would have been like uh it had been like three years ago and I had just memorized uh the whole chapter one and so this idea was like I had memorized the cards I had figured out that it's possible to memorize something quickly and without losing it for the long term and I had figured out
• 11:30 - 12:00 that I had done chapter one and it was I mean when you when you had a piece of paper like and I was would write it down and say I look at the clock and I memorize five verses let's say in 15 minutes and then I go back to them and I think I know all of them perfect it just was a a kind of crazy experience and so I just was like a little over my head but that's okay I was like I can do it in a year I'm like I'll just do it just memorize all the Proverbs in a year yeah and but what happens is you do have to when you have so many verses you have
• 12:00 - 12:30 some review problems that you can't speed becomes a a problem you have to go back and review a little bit right that's so but that's when I just when I figured out I could do it then I just set a goal that I'm going to do it I think everybody watching this now would probably be wondering or probably be thinking Carlin has got to have a photographic memory do you have a photographic memory I have I have good memory I I am blessed
• 12:30 - 13:00 with that but um we have to I always I tell people like I'll speak on memory and I say I bring up this point and I'll ask a group of people in a room how many of you here can juggle Ben can you juggle yes I can juggle I can do two or three balls you can juggle yeah you really can so in a group of like there's about 10% of people maybe 10% or less maybe 5 to 10% of people that can juggle have you always been able to jugle
• 13:00 - 13:30 Ben no I learned it in high school in high school did somebody teach it to you or did you just learn it on your own I learned it on my own so I I got this little it was like a $9.99 kit I found I don't even remember what store it was but I just I had this Fascination like I just I've got to learn how to do it so I bought this kit had the juggling balls in the in the book and I just kind of went through step by step over the course of a week or two and um I got it down right that's awesome so so I tell
• 13:30 - 14:00 people that memory is the exact same way almost everyone can learn to memorize and and be very good at it but very few people will push past the limits that it takes to become um skilled at memory and the biggest thing is the belief part with juggling and with memories people say I have a terrible memory people say I'm not good at sports or or however that would be but I say if I put a
• 14:00 - 14:30 bounty on the skill of of juggling like people would sign up right when I ask this question I'm like what if it was 5,000 $10,000 $100,000 and I give you 30 days to juggle there's hardly anyone in the room who would admit that they cannot juggle they could do it if they aligned what they wanted to do and what they can do for the you know for the goal of it so I to answer your question I don't have a photographic memory I have a good memory I have a creative memory and skills in drawing that aids in my memor
• 14:30 - 15:00 that does help yeah but you can memorize with stick figures as long as in your mind you know they're real people or real things like that you don't have to be good at drawing but it does help because it makes it more fun if you're good at drawing yeah yeah so I'd like to get into some of these these memory techniques um yeah I've heard that so as we just demonstrated earlyer you've you've memorized Proverbs with such Precision that you can quote any verse in Proverbs and you can tell me where it's from so I like to pick up that fun
• 15:00 - 15:30 little exercise we started earlier um so how about this all I'll just start the verse and then you finish it and then you tell me where it's from so we're going to we're going to up the ante here a little bit I like it yeah that's good but so what version are you in it's the ESV and you've memorized in the the old CL we'll try we'll try it okay okay yes sir an excellent wife who can find she
• 15:30 - 16:00 is far uh she's worth far more than rubies is what is what uh the niv84 says and that is in chapter 31 and it's verse 10 nice nailed it um how about how to give you I'll give you a reference and then you can quote it from memory okay Proverbs chapter 9 verse
• 16:00 - 16:30 10 Proverbs chapter 9 uh verse 10 and that's um the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom and knowledge of the Holy one is understanding yes yes wow okay so I'm impressed now let's do one that I like to really do Ben you just you got to just look at the screen okay and then I'm going to tell you what verse you're thinking of and what reference and quote
• 16:30 - 17:00 it no I'm kidding I can't do that this this is where it gets really [Laughter] [Music] good do that yeah that's awesome but these techniques work I mean I mean they work and so let's get into these techniques for that that you've used for committing such a large large chunk of scripture to memory um now if I were to ask the average person this question
• 17:00 - 17:30 is your memory good enough to remember the whole Book of Proverbs and most people would say absolutely not this kind of gets into what we were talking about earlier um but you're saying that people with average memories can can use these techniques absolutely I think it's as um as true as being rich so I think any person can decide to be rich and most
• 17:30 - 18:00 likely can get rich if they will do all the things that it takes to do that um and I would say most people don't lack the skill they would I would challenge their discipline immediately that would be the number one thing um that would be the determining factor is their discipline would be the very first problem they would face yeah so they've got to believe they can do it they've got to trust the process they've got to have the discipline um to do it so all right so let's let's jump in let's God
• 18:00 - 18:30 gave them God gave them the memory and I can prove that as we talk about this God gave them the memory he they can do it so let let's start here if you were to start over and memorize Proverbs Chapter 1 how would you go about memorizing that first chapter what would be your process um going if I did it again I could do it a lot faster except now I already know it so why would I go back and do it but I can help people if they were going to do do chapter one Proverbs chapter one anyone can do this you take
• 18:30 - 19:00 your the number one house that you know your child's home or the the home that is dearest to your heart that you spent the most time in that you have the best memories at you're going to use that that house and what you're going to do chapter one has 33 verses what you're going to do is you're going to create a path in clockwise patterns around that house in fives so you want to have a section like in mine fives and the front yard I go around to the left which is
• 19:00 - 19:30 going clockwise five is in the backyard that's 10 then I five on the very back side of the house is 15 and then I have another five on the other side of the house and then I go into the so that's 510 15 20 25 I go into the garage 30 and then I go down into the basement for 33 so three three more verses and so in chapter one what I did is I knew I was going to use that house for two chapters so I wanted to stay on the outside so that's why I didn't go inside but you can go inside so what I'm saying
• 19:30 - 20:00 is chapter one if you're going to use that one house 33 locations and fives the fives is so that you can easily find the the verse number so if somebody says uh verse eight you can go five and then three and you can do that very quickly so that way you just the location is tied to the number so I'm probably a little a little ahead of you but if you know anything about memory palaces yes this you would follow this a little bit but create a house and create 30 three exact locations where you know at
• 20:00 - 20:30 location one I'm standing and I'm looking at the cabinet or I'm looking at the door you know and you go in fives clockwise and around the house in five different like one room would be five next room would be five next room would be five in a clockwise fashion so it's very organized that's the first thing you would do yes and so so you're getting into something called The Memory Palace technique I think is what I've heard it called um and i' used it myself it actually is very effective but I
• 20:30 - 21:00 think there's probably a pretty small percent of the population who's even heard of this so people listening like what on Earth are they talking about right so so so so so you have these different locations that that you know from memory you can visually walk through and and then you're you're in some way pegging these verses to these different locations so if you have your your first location outside your house you've got these these five little locations you
• 21:00 - 21:30 can you can look around in your mind and then Peg one verse each of those five locations so you could have five verses pegged um and so and so I think we're still yes so people are probably still thinking H what does it even mean to Peg a verse so let's let's drill down to that even a little bit more and talk about how you can break a verse down into your mind and how these these visual cues you can visualize and then link those visual cues from the verse to that spot um so you can you can remember them in your mind
• 21:30 - 22:00 okay yeah um absolutely the uh the first thing you could do is really if you got those 33 is you could actually just imagine in your mind's eye or in your um like in the spectrum of your vision of your brain of your mind of imagination if you imagine yourself standing at location one you could do what I would do is create images and create a system or create a way to memorize the verse if you don't want to test that out you want to just try the Memory Palace you can
• 22:00 - 22:30 literally memorize a verse just pretending you're at that location and you will see the powerfulness of the effectiveness of the location storing the memory see that's the file that's going to hold the memory so if you just remember like you always have like uh a plus b plus you know or George Washington Adams you just try to like the way people just would do rope memory just over and over and over again and you just stand at that location in your mind's eye you it will actually store because what
• 22:30 - 23:00 it's doing is saying okay these files are the same they're putting them together you're putting them together and your brain will understand that and say I see what he's doing so that's you can try it that way just get the locations and try to remember something just by being there but the visual cues you talk visual cues you're talking about are creating basically a language that is incorporated with that location it's attached to that location it's ingrained in that location interacts with that location and then
• 23:00 - 23:30 that information that we've drawn or thought about is on that location and it can be decoded into the exact text that we need it can work for anything from bible verses to test material anything that you want to um to remember so let's demonstrate this with with with a very simple exercise so I'm going to the store okay I need to remember let's just keep it simple for three things I know you could go to 50 or 100 things on on this list but just
• 23:30 - 24:00 for the sake of brevity so people can really understand this I I want to I want to go to the store and remember to get bread milk and eggs in that order bread milk and eggs and so um so demonstrate this with like this Memory Palace idea where you know you have three locations you Peg these three items to the three locations and then can can you can you talk about kind of what what you're seeing in those three locations and then and then maybe some
• 24:00 - 24:30 of the crazy visualization that you you do to kind of inextricably link you know each of those items red milk and eggs in that order um to each of these three items so what we gonna get we're gonna get bread and milk and eggs just the normal things yeah okay so I would do I'll give you an example so anyone watching this can do this themselves is where are you going to go get bread milk and eggs think about where you're going to go to get bread milks and eggs so we already know we're going to drive there you're not going to forget that part but
• 24:30 - 25:00 wherever you park bread however many loaves you want to buy crushes your car okay uh on the way in you slip on uh however many times you slip on however many gallons of milk you want to buy that are spilled all over the on the sidewalk and then at the very entry of the store people throw eggs at you and how many cartons of eggs do they throw at you now you've got it I like it I mean that's that's super easy this is something you can use every
• 25:00 - 25:30 day just for something simple like your your shopping list right um and then say you know one way that that we could do this is there's a I'm sitting in my office right now so I've got a door over here a window here and a window here and so I can visualize you know um a Lo a big loaf of bread somehow attached the door knob and just swinging on that knob and and it's the biggest over bread I've ever ever seen you know and then I've got the first window and
• 25:30 - 26:00 someone throws a jug of milk through the window and and you know soaks the loaf of bread you know and and my next my next window someone's throwing cartons of eggs through the window um and so I can go back in my in my mind just go back to my office like okay I walk on the door there's a loaf of bread hanging on the door and then I look at the next window just going around in that that clockwise fashion um and you know someone's throwing the milk through the
• 26:00 - 26:30 window the next one is throwing eggs through the window and so and so the crazier the visualization the more it's going to stick right it can yes it can that can be very helpful and you're right on track with like what what becomes why did the the example of where you're going is created that way because that requires no uh work up front you know someone's just getting they're going to go get it they can just do this they can actually use what we just said you know they can do that anyone can do that but what you're
• 26:30 - 27:00 saying is super uh is more powerful in the fact of you having a a laid out Memory Palace that you know forward and back very well that you're you're so comfortable with you can fly through the locations like this and it's like a magnet like the memories can just stick to it very much more powerful to do it you're saying is to use your house with a with numbered systems that you already know right right and so if I just wanted to remember only the third item on the list I just go to the Third location which is that second window like oh
• 27:00 - 27:30 someone's throwing eggs through that window okay so yes item number three is the eggs coming through the um so I would like to get with my with my simple illustration you have you don't know that you can't you can't know that you have to go through all of them to follow your story but with yours you can just Peg it to the exact location exact verse just like I did with Proverbs yes yes so how long did it take you to memorize the entire Book of
• 27:30 - 28:00 Proverbs uh I did over about three years but um I tell I tell people also it's like it's kind of like to be honest it's kind of like uh selling uh annuities or selling large whole life uh whole life whole whole life insurance um or selling um let's say real estate is that you can finish it in 30 minutes to an hour but you have to be honest with yourself is that it really takes 20 years plus 30
• 28:00 - 28:30 minutes and an hour and the fact that we have to be humble and say that I was memorizing proverb I was reading Proverbs every day so my mind knew the text if that makes sense I couldn't quote every verse but it's familiar with it and we have to be honest with that but so it it it was once it became fun it be I did a month a chapter a month and 5 to 10 minutes a day is all that I did sometimes five days sometimes s may
• 28:30 - 29:00 maybe sometimes seven days a week but yeah it just was a 5 to 10 minute thing every day and then reviewing it each day so probably a total of 15 minutes a day can you tell us about your review process cuz in talking you know listening to to Josh and other people who have memorized a lot um it's actually that review process that becomes the more challenging piece where're we're talking about the discipline kind of where the discipline comes in yeah yeah so I use I use the Bible
• 29:00 - 29:30 memory app um I've grown to not like using it um because I've I've done it too much and I don't like tapping and I don't like the voice to it has a voice recognition which is really cool but I just don't like it sometimes doesn't pick up and I'm waiting on it and so usually when I review now I just like to do it in my in my head or while I'm driving or um even while I'm reading I like to go back and and read it it's crazy that seems and just kind of think about it read it
• 29:30 - 30:00 internalize it um but I did that's how the review process while I was doing it is I used the Bible memory app and I did you know the chapter of the day every day reviewed it until I was done so it really stuck with me that way so that that app is that app is incredible I still use that probably close to daily but like I said I'm not I may not be doing Proverbs on it yeah so how often do you review Proverbs now just to keep it
• 30:00 - 30:30 fresh yeah I probably I probably do um it really has become like once you know something it's kind of like how much do you listen to your favorite song well not daily do you I don't know you know like people have a favorite song if you listen to it every day would it I don't know if it would be you say well I kind of getting getting tired of that song I think it was a that's kind of the the what happens is I do memorize it I have I do review it
• 30:30 - 31:00 probably close to I think of Proverbs daily and every once in a while I'll go into the Bible memory app and I'll review three chapters or I'll use my notebooks that I've that I memorize on this is crazy look at this I'll show you this so here's a here's the Proverbs basically manuscript that I printed out of all the drawings and everything I did yeah it would make no sense to anyone watching except to me because it's all my drawing and and and my artwork and my
• 31:00 - 31:30 you know the way I did it so um I'll use go through there and kind of refresh the pictures did you draw out every single location in the Memory Palace and like every every image you have P to that location right yeah so what I what I ended up doing is once I got a system down I have five verses on each page so on five verses on each page and then each location you know it's one verse and so I'll draw I'll write out the verse then I'll draw I'll start by
• 31:30 - 32:00 drawing where I'm at looking at it you know what it looks like and then I'll add the verse to that and so they're all I mean they're all rough I didn't try to make that I didn't spend time on them I just sketched them out real quick so some of them are quite very simple yeah yeah that's really helpful um in fact I might even use that technique cuz I just I just finished memorizing the first chapter of J and I have to I just did it all
• 32:00 - 32:30 mentally and I think that would I think that would be helpful for me to go back and because sometimes I find myself it's been a little while so I find myself losing like some especially the the the last several verses um it's like the the first half of the chapter you I reviewed it so many times like I've got it but as you get towards the ends you know I review those less because it's towards the end and but I feel like I should probably I might put that to use just kind of go back and redraw everything
• 32:30 - 33:00 physically in my little in a little notebook like that um yes that be be fun too yeah yeah um so how so you you're a busy guy I mean you you're you know father husband bu you know business owner um you know H how do you make time for this so I guess you said you know you spend about 5 to 10 minutes a day but does that include review like where do you fit this into your
• 33:00 - 33:30 day yeah I like to I like you know the Bible memory app on your phone it can also be pulled up on your computer so uh currently what'll H what will happen which is kind of a great thing is you'll I think of a Proverbs because of a situation and I'll know what it is but I might be missing one word and I think oh that makes me mad that I can't why can't I get that word clear what's going on with that word what did I miss yeah so I'll pull up the uh the Bible memory website and I'll just fly through that chapter and uh kind of like uh review it
• 33:30 - 34:00 and you know that and so that's that's kind of how I do that now but before it really was just I got up in the morning and in my quiet time 5 10 minutes added to that of Bible memory that was a fun part of my Bible of my you know time by myself before my kids get up and then also just when the kids are sitting around the house and we're all playing let's say they're watching TV or they're doing something where I'm not actively involved I would just sit down with my notebook and my papers and work on it
• 34:00 - 34:30 and you know and there was times where I I spent 30 minutes an hour a long time working on something I'd like push myself how many me verses can I memorize in you know in this time so that was kind of fun yeah yeah that's that's really cool did you get your kids involved or um teach them to memorize some of these with these techniques yeah I've been teaching them some one of my kids has memorized almost 25 verses this way um
• 34:30 - 35:00 but he I will tell you that the young mind is not ready for what we're doing with the with the Memory Palace because the memory palace's key unlocker is Association and the less you know the less you can associate so the more you know I would say someone who's 35 and disciplined can use the memor The Memory Palace to memorize very quickly in in special ways when you're younger you probably have a sharper mind so you have a little more Advantage there but you
• 35:00 - 35:30 don't have a creative associating mind like an older person because we know we've been a we've we've seen more we understand more about everything right so more way more powerful like you have uh medical like correct B are you uh what's your title yeah so I I'm a physician assistant I work in cardiac surgery right so you have this whole you know all the stuff that you've learned and this working knowledge that be that
• 35:30 - 36:00 can be applied all of that is valuable and it can all be applied to memory it can all be associated with something else because you know it like you had to know it and you use it so all that knowledge that you know and use can be used to associate to to remember things so you have when you so that's what's amazing anything that you know is going to be very powerful when it comes to to uh remembering Bible verses or any kind of uh memory skill right and if we're talking about a 5-year-old an 8-year-old even a
• 36:00 - 36:30 2-year-old they're still forming those those base memories that that now you and I are using to to associate new information with let's take this a little bit more granularly and let's memorize a verse live here so someone can you know I think it could be so a little vague in some people's minds like ah like Memory Palace you know associating cues I sort of get it but let's actually do it here uh so people can can take these techniques and really apply
• 36:30 - 37:00 them is there a particular verse that you'd want to choose verse verse what verse you want to do okay um let's do Hebrews you want pick a random verse all right I'm writing it down Hebrews Hebrews 4:12 [Music] 412 all right I'm going to use my Bible see I'm in niv84 okay so what I would do is first we got to know the text we got to know what it is to to remember it so Hebrews 4:12 says says for the word of God is living and active sharper than
• 37:00 - 37:30 any double-edged sword it penetrates even to the dividing Soul and Spirit joint and Marrow it judges the thoughts and the attitudes of the heart first step we going to do is choose a shorter verse Man okay okay no I'm kidding Jesus no it's fine all right here we go I've got that one Jesus wept no one of my one of my kids favorite verses which I can share here is um uh job 3:2 you can look that up while
• 37:30 - 38:00 I'm writing this down share that with people it's it's one it's Jesus wept is one of the one that people like to use as the shortest but I'm really into job 32 right now it's a really good one he said it's the easiest verse to me to memorize if you can memorize it was if you can remember was it a man or a woman man what did he do he said or she said so what I'm is I I usually would write what I'll do is write down all the
• 38:00 - 38:30 verse okay and then what I'll do is I'll take all the first letters of each one in niv84 it says for the word of God is living and active sharper than any two- edges sword it penetrates even to divide Soul and Spirit joint and merrow it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart so then what I would do is I would use a couple different methods I would just look over this and I'd say for one is the verse short enough that I can just use some imagery to do the whole verse and I would immediately say no I don't think it is cuz it's long so I can't just um look at it and then think
• 38:30 - 39:00 of anything but when I do look through it I see a couple things I see in one of the first letters it has the word States it's St a t s is right in the middle and then it has the word pet p um I'm looking for the biggest one I can do at the end um we got a lot of uh like I'm looking for like repeated uh initials repeated things um I got SAS
• 39:00 - 39:30 Jam SAS Jam that's interesting uh at the end I almost tattoo and it's Str doing is you're you're looking at the first letters kind of all all strung out from the verse and pulling out words it's almost like um almost like upwards or what's that other game Scrabble right so like we're pulling out words that the first letters of the words spell and then those can give us
• 39:30 - 40:00 images uh that we we could then do something with yeah now the at the very beginning I have the word t wo spells two mhm and so uh what I would do is I would use a location like uh let's just use the grocery store that it's already in your mind from earlier and um I would just use one of those locations so like one of the locations could be your car at the parking at the parking spot and
• 40:00 - 40:30 that's location one and on your car I could put two State tags um on the car so I'm using I'm using just the words that I picked out the rest are just going to be piled on to those when I think about recalling the verse so two State tags on the back of it so going to imagine two State tags and then I have the word pet uh so I need to have a pet trying to
• 40:30 - 41:00 break out of the car some verses are direct they sound like the verse and look like the verse this one has nothing to do with the verse but the that's okay because like if you ever think about any kind of word it has nothing to do it's just spelling but we know it creates an image in our mind that word does so that's what we're doing here and so now you just go through there and you have to figure out what do those uh initials mean I'm going to use sass
• 41:00 - 41:30 Jam which is very powerful as well because all I would do in my picture is I would do a jar of jam and I would create a brand on that jam I would like zoom in in a little box and I would make the jam sass Jam I don't even know what it is Ben what is sash Jam I don't know but it's delicious and dogs love it the pet the pet dog he loves it and it's spilled and he wants to go he wants to go eat it so he's breaking out of the car so now I've got a car with two State tags um a pet is trying to break out of
• 41:30 - 42:00 it to get sash jam and I think that would be enough because I kind of know this verse and so now if I think about this I think I can do it here we go okay let's do it so we got for the word of God is living and active sharper than any two-edged sword
• 42:00 - 42:30 yeah I think it's penetrating even to divide here's the SAS Jam Soul and Spirit joint and Marrow is able it is able or it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart close but we got was very close very close I mean but we worked on it for I missed that last part where I don't have enough encoding what was the last part yes the last part was I missed that last part we didn't have in
• 42:30 - 43:00 coding um it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart so it penetrates even to dividing Soul and Spirit joins marrow it judges the a the thoughts and attitudes of the heart not bad I mean so what happens spent three or four minutes on it now when you draw that out and you review that you're going to all the other text like the part that I missed is going to blend in with the other CU it's all in one file and your and your mind will remember that and uh this very that's very
• 43:00 - 43:30 powerful and it's a great example of how um we can do it quickly and even some verses are lightning fast because like the sash Jam when I described that why would a person ever forget sash jam it might even be a great new product so now we got flying cars and sash jams out out out of this episode I mean that's I love it I love it so we didn't know it's going to change the world my
• 43:30 - 44:00 friend and and I threw you a tougher verse right I mean it was a long verse you know it wasn't job 3:2 or or was it Luke 11 Jesus wept right so um but I mean you demonstrated very powerfully how you br that verse down you use the first letter technique which some people use that that technique alone like my wife for example you know she she's like why would anybody use the you know the Memory Palace um but she she is extremely effective that us just the first letter technique um I mean she can blaze
• 44:00 - 44:30 through she she recited most of the most of Galatians chapter 5 to me just yesterday and I mean she nailed it she didn't been working on it for I mean it wasn't long several days a week something like that um but she uses she she loves a first letter technique use it very effectively um but then you into a step further took those first letter started pulling out uh started pulling out words from from the first letter of the words in the first right and then created images for those words and then
• 44:30 - 45:00 pegged those kind of visually Associated those those those images from the words with with the objects that car on the parking lot um incredibly powerful and so I mean just just I mean just for the audience think about doing that in in in a house like just in just in my office you know I've got a door a couple Windows my desk you know a filing cabinet whiteboard you know so right there I mean just walking through that location in in my mind I could easily visually associate you know five verses
• 45:00 - 45:30 with with just those those locations and come back to that you know a week a month a year from now and and still walk through my office and recall those verses um that's that's incredible incredibly powerful technique I just so I mentioned briefly my my two-year-old and and so we're you know I think one of the the benefits of of of me doing this in my family is the whole family does it so my you know my wife is memorizing
• 45:30 - 46:00 Galatians 5 um she's done other passages and and my two-year-old he knows almost all of Psalm 23 and so I can wow yeah I can leave out now obviously he's not using this this mind Palace technique right but he just has that sharp mind and so you know if we start young with our kids they just absorb so much and so that's he I'm sure he's going to have Psalm 23 for the rest of his life if we if we keep working on with him but you can just leave out any almost any word and he'll just fill in
• 46:00 - 46:30 the blank um the only one he he kind of switches up a little bit is instead of anoint my head with oil he'll say you anoint my head with water that's interesting yeah because he has no association with oil yes yes and you probably told him that it's like water you know you pour it on their head and he's like okay I got it no it's not water it's oil buddy yes so yeah so but the benefit of me doing this to my family is the whole
• 46:30 - 47:00 family does it but just really quickly what what are some of the benefits that you personally have had from dedicating this huge chunk of scripture wisdom literature to memory and maybe benefits for your family yeah well family you know my kids um will tell people that their dad memorizes the Bible that's interesting you know that's a something that's very powerful and that's inside of them they' watched me do it they've watched podcasts with me being H they watched me speak about it um so that's an example
• 47:00 - 47:30 of Bible memories important um It's Made Me Love scripture more I've memorized other passages um and you know I'm really trying to maybe find that next project I'm kind of leaning towards um couple chapters in Romans and kind of being my next thing but the way that um to answer your question the way that it um has changed and affected me is that in in Proverbs the number one verse you'll hear people quote is Proverbs 35
• 47:30 - 48:00 and 6 which is about trusting God following him you know in all your ways acknowledge Him uh but um in uh Romans 12 uh verse 2 it's about like following the will of God and it's we have to know uh God and know the scripture to be able to test and approve what is the will of God and so in
• 48:00 - 48:30 Proverbs uh 3 verse 5 and 6 the verse everyone uses it's not going to work very well if you didn't do verse one 2 and three which says that you're supposed to bind them around your neck write them on the tablet of your heart listen to your father's instruction let love and faithfulness never leave you and then verse proverbs 3: 5 and 6 that says now we can we can trust in the
• 48:30 - 49:00 Lord with all our heart you know you can't do that and so memorizing the Bible has allowed me to understand that our thoughts and everything that we have in our mind are very affected by knowing god knowing the scriptures and it changes the way we think because I've Proverbs has changed the way I think on a couple on a couple items a couple areas in my life greatly yes yeah and it's incredible that you
• 49:00 - 49:30 have that whole context you know you're we don't just have the The Limited context of Proverbs 35 and 6 you know where and and that's that's kind of where I am like I've got I've got those verses but I couldn't tell you what's in the first part of that that chapter right but you have that whole context of knowing what's got to come first if if I'm actually really going to live out this verse you know these verses five and six what's the rest of the story and and and you've got that um that's
• 49:30 - 50:00 powerful and I would like to go one step farther is do you know I'll just test you Ben do you know of Proverbs 3:7 oo I could I could not give that to you let me tell you something very powerful is the Proverbs 3:7 is do not be wise in your own eyes fear the lord and shun evil stray Away From Evil isn't it wild that it's almost like that verse it's great 3 five and six is great but 1 2 3 4 and then seven adds so
• 50:00 - 50:30 much to that passage yes yes I love it I would encourage anyone to especially men to memorize the Bible it gives you purpose and it gives you a hobby it gives you something so much better than like let's say those other things of of playing video games or watching TV or watching movies or doing things you shouldn't be doing uh this builds a a habit of
• 50:30 - 51:00 discipline that will correlate with other habits such as working out such as um being faithful in areas of business and life that it will just compound Bible memory is a skill that will help any man just get on track in life that's that's powerful that's powerful well you're truly an inspiration Carlin and I really hope this conversation today helps to motivate and equip people just
• 51:00 - 51:30 just to try it out just to hide God's word in their hearts and watch God transform you me us just just watch that transformation happen um I did me I I mentioned the book memorize what matters uh this Bible memory book by Josh armmer so this covers a lot of the techniques that we've we've talked about today including um some additional ones I I will put a link to this book in the show notes for anybody who wants to check that out and purchase that um but Carlin
• 51:30 - 52:00 for for everyone out there wanting to follow you where can people find you um daily I'm on I'm usually on X if I'm not too busy I'll at least be there so you can connect with me there send me a message um I still check that personally I hate when I send a message to someone and I get a professional response so I hope to not be that guy oh I like to be be available there uh I I I know that that's tough but also I would appreciate if you follow my newsletter I
• 52:00 - 52:30 have the elevating value newsletter and I send that out weekly and I'm G to have um some memory things there that I'm trying to come out with so if you if that's interest you sign up for that um my my email newsletter is about value so it's not necessarily about a Bible memory it's going to be about um you're going to get uh ski business skills sales things like that that are kind of in my in my Niche but but also it's not about insurance sales or anything like that it's just about how to add value to
• 52:30 - 53:00 your life and I look at specific areas of character vision and skills and we've talked about that a little bit today of how those all correlate to making something happen so I'd appreciate that if you could put that link and then if they could just follow my newsletter that would be great it's free and it's just a a way to stay connected and get absolutely yes yep I've been subscriber for for a while now so got some high quality some great stuff in there so I'll certainly put that in the the notes below but Carl thank you thanks so much for what you do thanks for sharing your
• 53:00 - 53:30 time this morning and I know our paths will continue to cross so thank you