A few of us recently opened checking accounts at a bank that just opened near our office. It’s a major named bank, known everywhere (and one that hasn’t requested any special treatment from Uncle Sam…at least as of today). Trying to drum up business, they ran a special that gives $100 to anyone who opens a checking account at the new branch.  I like free money, so I put a $100 in hoping to double my money in 30 days (which is how long you have to keep it there). That’s a pretty good investment if you ask me.   In fact, it would be the ONLY investment of mine that hasn’t tanked this year, but I’m not able to talk about that without breaking things, so I’m going to complain about something else: PIN numbers. I remember the good old days when we could pick our own four digit numbers, probably one that corresponds to an important date. But now, this new bank wants to mail a PIN number for my ATM card.  A random number! It probably won’t have ANYTHING to do with my kids’ birthday, my divorce date, my address or my phone number. How will I keep from confusing it with my old checking account PIN number or my savings account PIN number?  Three strikes and the machine eats your card. (Learned that the hard way.)  I logged in to the bank’s website using their temporary password which was 49 numbers long with a couple of letters tucked in for good measure (this may be a slight exaggeration). Luckily, it only took me 23 minutes and 2 attempts because three strikes and they lock you out. (Learned that the hard way too.) Then I was prompted to choose a picture that will appear each time I log in. That’s way too much pressure. I have to pick something that really speaks to me. Fortunately, they have 53,297 to choose from (this may be another slight exaggeration). I finally settled on the burger because all that work was making me hungry. Next I had to pick questions to answer in case I forget my log-in information. Some of the questions would seem pretty straight forward. “On what street did you grow up?” Okay, now we have a dilemma.  Do I use my house where I lived during grades 1-3 or the one from 4-12? I better make a note of that. “What was your first pet’s name?” Another predicament. Do I count the goldfish or the dog as the first pet? The fish only lived about a week. I better make a note of the answer. “What is your favorite movie?” “What’s your favorite food?” Let’s see, those things depend on my mood and “favorite” is such a permanent sounding word. Those answers could change after my next date. This is getting tricky. I better save my notes in my computer with a password so no one will be able to open it and find my answers to the security questions.  But where should I make a note of THAT password? I wonder if $100 is worth all this trouble.

A couple of months ago a very nice gentleman called to let me know about a great training program that can teach our employees extremely valuable tools to help them do their jobs better. Blah, blah, blah. I probably get at least 3 phone calls a week from some company wanting to bid for our lawn care, save us money on our printing, will clean our office better, give us cleaner drinking water and faster internet service. Sure, I let them bid, as long as I don’t have to sit through a presentation (either in person or on the phone). What usually happens is, they can’t beat the current price we’re paying, but they promise to do a better job. Thanks anyway. So how did seven of us end up at Freedom Personal Development’s Memory Training Workshop earlier this week? When the persistent nice gentleman called the second time, he asked if he could come in and give a short demonstration for no cost, no obligation. I thought that it might add a fun twist to our next Employee Meeting so I agreed. Jay showed up and asked us to say some items and he’d remember them. I think it was 15-20 things (I forgot how many we yelled out because I hadn’t gone through the training yet). Anyway, he waited until we were finished and recited them back to us. He even remembered our names after the first introduction. I know salesmen are supposed to be energetic, but this guy was way beyond passionate about this program. He made it sound incredible and life changing. He was right. We learned that our memories are perfect…we just have trouble recalling the information when we need it. So we learned several techniques to mentally “file” images that we associate with things that we want to remember. One example: if you want to remember my name, Michele, you might picture you and me playing Tug-of-War with an enormous sea shell. The trick is to attach the person’s face to an image of their name. (This works with “phone” friends too because you hear their voice and it triggers this image). We also learned a fun way to remember the Quadratric Equation by telling a story with a bee and a circus tent. We didn’t know at the time that we were learning this difficult algebraic formula, but after we learned the story, our teacher wrote it out as we recited the story back to her. AMAZING!! How can memory training help employees do their jobs better? We learned how to remember the list of people to call back, how to memorize customers’ kids’ names and birthdays, how to remember which coverage applies to which class. The possibilities are endless. It takes practice to attach images to things because it’s a new way of thinking. But if I can recall 20 unrelated items perfectly, then anybody can. Shoot, sometimes I can’t even remember why I walked across the office. I have to go back to my desk, sit down and wait until it comes to me. Hopefully, when I get really good at the memory thing, I’ll save myself a trip.