Gail Davis: Today we have in studio Ron White. Ron is one of the top memory speakers in the world. He is a two time USA memory champion and held the record for the fastest to memorize a deck [00:01:00] of cards in the US. He has appeared on Good Morning America, History Channel's Stan Lee Super Humans, National Geographic, Martha Stewart Show, Dr. Oz, and many more. Ron is an author, a speaker, and has been a business owner for over 25 years. He knows how to relate memory training to maximizing productivity and profits. He's a great friend, and I'm just thrilled to have Ron here today. Welcome Ron.

Ron White: I am thrilled to be here, thank you. You're a good friend.

Gail Davis: [00:01:30] Well apparently you know my son Kyle from long before you and I met.

Ron White: I do.

Gail Davis: How am I just learning about that today?

Ron White: Just after ten years, yeah. No, I did. I met Kyle, he'll know the year more than I would.

Kyle Davis: It had to be middle school. I don't even know when I started middle school, so what? 2001, 2002 was the last year of middle school. Somewhere right around there?

Ron White: Yeah.

Kyle Davis: Maybe 2002, 2003 somewhere [00:02:00] in that ballpark.

Ron White: And I gave a speech. Chamber of Commerce had asked me to teach their middle school kids, the parents who had middle school kids for their leadership thing they did in the summer. I went in, and so with Gail Davis and associates, Kyle was the first one to see me speak and preview my speech.

Kyle Davis: That's right.

Ron White: That's the reason I'm here.

Kyle Davis: That is the reason. I closed him hard and fast, and I got the deal signed, and now he's speaking-

Ron White: [00:02:30] That's right.

Gail Davis: A shoutout to [Abby Lee Gilman 00:02:33], one of my former employees who officially brought Ron to GDA. We worked with Ron for about ten years and I was just looking, we booked him over 158 times. I have a saying here, every group needs Ron White, they just don't know it yet. Let me just start off by, I want to tell the listeners you know, some of the things that we've used you for with audiences. One of the things Ron [00:03:00] has done for us on many many occasions is he works with the attendees before his actual presentation. It might be a continental breakfast before the general session, it might be over lunch before the afternoon session. He goes around and he meets as many people as he can. I think you've done up to 250?

Ron White: Yeah, 301's my most ever.

Gail Davis: Most ever.

Ron White: 250's a good average.

Gail Davis: 250. He meets these people, and then he gets introduced, and he starts [00:03:30] off. I feel like I can practically give the speech-

Ron White: Right.

Gail Davis: But he starts off by saying, "You know, I'm not a savant. This is a system and I learned it. Most people say they never forget a face, they just can't remember a name, so let me show you how it's done." He asked people who he met before the meeting to stand up and cover up their name badge, and he goes around and calls them by name. When you talk about an attention grabber for the start, I [00:04:00] mean it's really impressive. How do you do that, Ron?

Ron White: Well, thank you, and yes that is exactly how I do it. You're going to start doing my speech for me. But that is. I'll go around and I'll meet everybody and I'll meet 200, 300 people and then when I get on stage I'll say stand up if I met you, and then when I call off your names, sit down. I'll say it rapid fire. I've been asked to do it twice, or two or three times like as a Vegas show. That's how fun it is. Now it's never transpired, it always falls apart. It [00:04:30] never happened, but that just kind of gives you the feel for how fun it is. It's that fun. But I'm not a savant. I'm not any smarter than anybody else. That's like the hardest thing for me to convince people of. You guys know that I'm not smarter than anybody else. But people who don't know me, they assume I'm a genius. The way I explain it, I'm like, "You speak Spanish." Do you speak Spanish?

Kyle Davis: Un pocito. [foreign language 00:04:57].

Ron White: Okay, there you [00:05:00] go. That's pretty good. I tell people, if you just focused on Spanish for months or whatever, do you think you could learn to speak Spanish? They're like, yeah. It's the same thing. I just focused on memory. I learned the language of memory. But when I go around the room, I try to visualize and see their names as pictures. It's a really easy process of turning the name into a picture and imagining that picture on their face.

Kyle Davis: Let's go back in time just a little bit. When did [00:05:30] you discover, I mean we don't want to give away the how so to speak so we're not going to go deeply in depth on how you actually do what you do because it is just a system, but how did you discover the system that you do? Then when did you start finding out about memory challenges and all this other fun stuff? Taking it way back, if you will.

Ron White: Yeah, no it was almost 26 years ago exactly. I hate saying that because I want everybody to think I'm 30 years old. But it was-

Kyle Davis: You sure look 30.

Ron White: [00:06:00] Thank you. Thank you. I think so too.

Kyle Davis: As a 29 year old forever, you look 30.

Ron White: Okay, thank you. Yeah. I had somebody guess my age last week and they guessed it exactly right. I was pretty upset. You know? Like that's not how you play this game.

But anyways, I was 18 years old and I was jobless, you know, not doing well in school and my friend said, "Hey, you want [00:06:30] to get a job as a telemarketer?" That's his company. I'm like, "Yeah, I'll do it." On the third day there, I picked up the phone and I called this guy and he said, "Hey, we don't," I was trying to sell people on getting their chimneys cleaned. I said, "Hey man, we weren't in your neighborhood, we want to come clean. Your chimney," I was 18 years old this was the summer of 1991. He said, "Man, we don't want our chimney cleaned. We're trying to sell our house, but thanks for calling."

As he was hanging up the phone, I [00:07:00] literally said the words that changed my life. I said, "Sir, don't hang up the phone. If you're trying to sell your house, you need a clean chimney." He laughed. He said, "That's ridiculous, but I do need a good salesman. Do you want to go to work for me? I sell memory training seminars, and I'll pay you more than you're making now." Which was a pretty safe bet, you know what I mean? Basically anybody could said that to me. I started taking down his information, and my sales manager was like, "Oh, did you get a sale?" I'm like, "No, [00:07:30] I got a new job." I went to work for him two days later. That was July of 1991.

That's how I got into it. Then I just started doing memory training and probably for the next ten years, just focused on teaching other people. Then part of my bio is, and Gail said it, Ron's one of the top memory experts in the world. Well in 2001, 2002, people were saying that and I was standing at the back of the room and I'm like, "What have I done to prove [00:08:00] that? Am I just saying that?" Then I started competing in tournaments, and then I started winning national tournaments and setting records. That's kind of the transition there.

Kyle Davis: What are some of the records? I know we touched on it, but what are some of the records that you broke or hold currently?

Ron White: Well I was two time USA memory champion. In the process of becoming the national number one nerd in the country, at least for memory, I [00:08:30] set the record for the fastest to memorize a deck of cards. They shuffle up a deck of cards and they set it on a table and they say go. Then I picked up the deck of cards, looked through it as fast as I could, and then set it down. The length of time you look through the cards, that's your score. It's like golf, you want a lower score. Then they give you five minutes to reassemble another deck. I reassembled it, they flipped them over, it was perfect. A minute and 27 seconds was my USA record. That [00:09:00] was a big record for me, you know? I mean I was proud of that. I set another record that same day. I memorized 167 digit number in five minutes. They started the clock, I looked at this number, when five minutes was up they took the paper away, and then I essentially recited 167 consecutive digits. Those are my two big records. I had some other personal records, smaller stuff, but those are the [00:09:30] big ones.

Kyle Davis: 156, that's ridiculous.

Gail Davis: Just now in our office, we did I believe it was a 50 digit number.

Ron White: I think I stopped you at 40.

Gail Davis: 40, okay.

Ron White: And I'm like always a perfectionist, you know. I really thought y'all on the 14th pair of digits, I thought y'all said 77. I even created a little story in my mind because 77's kick like a karate kick. I'm like right there I'm kicking and I just got done shooting a 22, because 22 is the [inaudible 00:10:00]. [00:10:00] I mean I really believed that. I created that whole story about it. But yeah, we had fun.

Gail Davis: It was so much fun. I've seen it so many times, and I tell you, it's impressive every time. Speaking of impressive, I think one of things that you have done that just blows me away is how you've taken your memory skills, and you've used them to pay tribute to the fallen soldiers from Afghanistan. Would you tell the listeners about that?

Ron White: Yeah, so [00:10:30] after September 11th, I joined the military as a reservist. I've been speaking for 25 years, but I became a reservist. I was a speaker for 28 days, and then 2 days I was in the military. That went on from 2002 to 2010. In 2007 I was deployed to Afghanistan. When I come back from Afghanistan December of 2007, the USA memory championship was in March of 2008. Literally 12 weeks later I'm competing in this memory [00:11:00] tournament, and I came in fourth place. I walked out feeling pretty confident, because I had been in Afghanistan and I just walked in that tournament. I won the national championship the next two years and then unfortunately those records I told you about that I was so proud of got broken. Then I'm like, "Got to get them back." So I started training to get them back. Then I just clicked in my head, then what? If you do get them back and beat this guy who's 20 years younger than you, if you do get them back, then what? He's going to just get them right back. I wanted to do something more significant [00:11:30] with my memory than just chasing that record. I printed out everybody that died in Afghanistan in the order of their death. There's 2,300 of them. I memorized them in the order of their death. Rank, first name, last name, it's 7,000 words. It took me a year to memorize. Now what I do is I travel around with this wall and I set it up at a Nascar race, or a football game, and I'll take ten hours. You were there the first time I did it.

Gail Davis: I was there.

Ron White: February 28, 2013. I really appreciated [00:12:00] that. It was very meaningful to me that you came out and took, because you're a busy woman. You know? A successful woman, and you took your entire day just to sit there and watch me write out that wall.

Gail Davis: Well truth be told,-

Ron White: Yeah.

Gail Davis: Ashley and I went over there to make an appearance.

Ron White: Yeah.

Gail Davis: And it was just so powerful. To see the people who came and waited for their person's name to be written and then how you would take the time and you would talk to that mother or that grandmother or that father. [00:12:30] I stayed a lot longer than I intended to, just because it was so powerful. I loved it Ron, I think it's one of the coolest things you do.

Ron White: It is. It's not because of me, but because of what the wall is and what it represents. When I was memorizing it, I have a coach, he's a former Navy Seal. He just keeps my brain, you know, setting goals and that kind of stuff.

Gail Davis: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Ron White: He said, "When you do this, people are going to stand at the wall for [00:13:00] hours to see their son's name be written." I'm like, "Man," his name's TC. I'm like, "TC, I don't know about that. I appreciate you saying that, but," he was so right. That's exactly what happens. People stand there for four hours.

Gail Davis: It's unbelievable, it's really impressive.

Kyle Davis: I think I know the answer to this, but just to clarify. What was your job that you had as reservist and then when you were deployed?

Ron White: Yeah. I was in Naval Intelligence. [00:13:30] In the Army they might call you an intelligence analyst, but I was in the Navy, it's intelligence specialist.

Kyle Davis: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Ron White: I had to prepare intelligence briefings. I gave a briefing in Afghanistan. I worked a 12 hour shift, and at the end of that 12 hour shift, it was actually, in a way it was kind of cool. I guess that's not part of what I talk about a lot, but I would do a 12 hour shift and create an intelligence briefing. Then everyday for six months, I directly briefed the highest [00:14:00] ranking intelligence officer in Afghanistan. Then he would, you know, go report it to the other generals or sometimes to the secretary of defense and then it would go to the President. It was a cool feeling. Now I will say this, I don't want to over hype my job. The stuff that I was preparing was very basic stuff. But it was still fun.

Kyle Davis: Did your memory skills, the reason why I ask a question is because I kind of knew this, what you did, but did your memory skills help in your analysis before you went into a briefing and [00:14:30] other things like that?

Ron White: It did. It did. You know, when I joined the military, a lot of these guys who joined the military, they were just military fanatics. They knew everything about the airplanes and all this, and they just, the military was their life and then they joined. I was a memory speaker, and then I joined the military, you know? I'm like, "Is that an F16 or a Boeing 777? I don't know." I had so much to memorize, because my job as an intelligence specialist [00:15:00] was to be able to look at a satellite imagery and be able to tell you what airplane that is on the ground from its shadow, and what country its from. I had so much to memorize, so it really did help me. Once in Afghanistan, I had made a mistake in Afghanistan. It's a pretty big mistake. Well, I had put some top secret information on an unclassified computer. That's a big mistake. [00:15:30] I wish I just hadn't told that story on a podcast.

Kyle Davis: Should we edit that?

Ron White: Are you recording this?

Kyle Davis: Yes.

Ron White: Okay.

Kyle Davis: This guy's the memory expert. I think you'd remember not to say that.

Ron White: I can't believe I just told this story, that's a story that's come out like five times. But then I knew I had to redeem myself. I gave my next intelligence briefing with tons of technological information with no notes. They were like, "Okay, dude. That's impressive. You're still in trouble, but that's impressive."

Kyle Davis: Got it. No, I was just curious because I think one of the things that I've seen you do the [00:16:00] auditory, like where someone will say a number or say a phrase, tell you their name, something like that. Maybe you even look at numbers, but when I'm looking at it, I don't know what you do, but when I'm looking at numbers, I'm saying the number in my head. Do you ever like compare pictures and like are you really good at spotting the differences because of this? I'm just wondering if there's applicability with that as well.

Ron White: Yeah. People have had me do games like that actually. There's a show on [00:16:30] British TV that's coming out actually. It's called Extraordinary Humans, and they had me do that for that show.

Kyle Davis: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Ron White: They did it because they wanted to see if what I teach is ... they were doing it to see, is this a gift that you have, of photographic memory, or is this a system? I told them, it's a system. But it was a TV show too, so we needed to do it.

Kyle Davis: Right.

Ron White: They did have two images up and then I had to spot the difference, but it was so rapid. I don't [00:17:00] know if I was any better than average that, was their conclusion.

Kyle Davis: Yeah. I guess it just depends on what you're practicing, because it is, like you said, you get back to it it's a system and not like, you're not a savant.

Gail Davis: One of the things sometimes that folks ask me is, is what's the takeaway value? It sounds fun to have Ron coming on, I mean that'll be real interesting for him to memorize peoples' names. What's the takeaway? I know it's there, because almost always when you speak to [00:17:30] a group, I'll get a phone call the next week. Someone was in the audience and most often they say, "I want to bring him in to talk to our sales people."

Ron White: Yeah.

Gail Davis: Talk a little bit about the takeaway and how someone like in sales could use it.

Ron White: I mean, my speech, I try to make it so fun. I mean once somebody said, "Ron, I knew we were going to get great memory training session, but I didn't know we were going to get a comedy show too." I think comedy show is an exaggeration, but I like to make it fun. However, as much as I put on the fun emphasis, I also [00:18:00] want to give away takeaway value. My takeaway value is I really hit home on those, how to remember names and faces, you know which is great for sales people. You sell insurance and you talk to somebody about an insurance policy today, and then three weeks later you're at the baseball game and you're able to call them by their name and ask them about their wife. I mean, that's a game changer. If you see that person three months later and you remember their name, if they need that insurance policy, [00:18:30] they're buying it. But if you see them three months later and you don't remember their name, you might not even go talk to them. Names and faces is one of the huge takeaway values. But I also cover how to remember what you read or how to remember what you learned from a conference. You know, these big corporations they're spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to put on these conferences for their employees. Then six months later if they passed out a test and say, "What did you learn at that conference six months [00:19:00] ago?" I mean they're probably going to fail the test. They spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on that conference. Now there's more value to it than just that. But remembering what you read, remembering what you learned from conferences and names and faces, and giving a speech or a presentation without notes are the four big takeaways. Really I can teach all of that in 60 minutes.

Kyle Davis: Like we mentioned at the beginning of this little recording session, Ron taught me how to do this.

Ron White: Yeah.

Kyle Davis: What? God.

Ron White: 15 years ago.

Kyle Davis: 15 years ago.

Ron White: Yeah.

Kyle Davis: What's funny [00:19:30] is, my mom can attest to this. I wasn't the best student in high school, didn't care. But when I went to college, finally, and decided to go finish finally, I became a history major. The whole reading and then putting stories together and sampling how I did it. I can't explain how I do it because I'm not the teacher, you are-

Ron White: Yeah.

Kyle Davis: But that's how I like created this story. What's funny what I ended up having to do, is learn to purge [00:20:00] because I got so good at it that when we'd have these timed final exams and I have write so many, I would get to like four, five blue books and maybe I got like five minutes left and I'm only like three quarters of the way done.

Ron White: Right.

Kyle Davis: I'm like, "Okay, now I got to, crap. Quick bow on this."

Ron White: Right, right, right, right.

Kyle Davis: Because it was too much. It was like an information dump-

Ron White: Right.

Kyle Davis: Because I just remembered so much versus. But I mean, that's just me because I'm pretty like hardcore on details.

Ron White: Right, right.

Kyle Davis: But yeah. No it helped [00:20:30] me remember so much then.

Ron White: No, that's awesome. That makes me feel good because you know, I was donating my time to teach that leadership academy. I'm pretty sure.

Kyle Davis: Those Colleyville kids.

Ron White: No I'm glad you do.

Kyle Davis: I think in that room, if there's just like I don't know ten or nine, 15 of us maybe, who knows? But at least one of us got something-

Ron White: One of you learned something, no.

Kyle Davis: One of us got an ivy league degree, so thank you.

Ron White: Right. No, that's awesome.

Gail Davis: That's awesome. Well this has been fun. [00:21:00] Can you think of any other topic?

Kyle Davis: Yes, because Ron is going here soon to be going to a tournament to do jiu jitsu.

Ron White: Oh yeah.

Kyle Davis: We're going to talk about that. For a lot of people, like if I mean, who don't know what Brazilian jiu jitsu or even Japanese style jiu jitsu is, it's a form of grappling, wrestling if you will. But there's a lot of movements and maneuvers. [00:21:30] Depending on who you talk you, they'll say it's like the most mentally stimulating of all the martial arts. So I'm just kind of curious, what are your thoughts on it and how do you, because there's just so many different maneuvers and ways you can get in and get out of certain situations, you know how is your memory training helping you with that?

Ron White: Well, yeah. That is a good question. I love it. I gave a speech. The way this started was I gave a speech maybe [00:22:00] five years ago in Washington DC for a bunch of jiu jitsu gym owners and a lot of them were UFC fighters. I'm in this room and these like though tough muscular UFC just guys are going to rip your head off. They're so nice, too you know. I get up there and I memorize everybody's name and I memorize the 50 digit number and I'm just like feeling like so out of place in this room. They're all applauding, they're like, "That's awesome." I made [00:22:30] this analogy. I'm in Washington DC. I said, "Guys, look. I appreciate the applause but I want to make a real quick analogy here. What I just did was all technique, it's not a natural gift that I have." I said, "As a matter of fact, what jiu jitsu, that's all technique. I bet you if I joined one of your jiu jitsu gyms, you could teach me how to do that, correct?" I was just saying it to make a point. I said, "Is that right?" They're like, "Yeah, yeah that's [00:23:00] right." Then I had them going and I'm like, "Okay, cool. Matter of fact, I'll give you my word. If any of you have a school in Fort Worth, I will join." I mean what are the odds? You know I never would've said it if I thought somebody had a gym. This guy raised his hand and I'm like, "Oh no." Then I get off stage and I text my friend Brian. You've met Brian. He's been of my best friends since I was 11 years old. I texted Brian like, "Man, I'm in trouble. I know you od jiu jitsu. I just committed to doing jiu jitsu with this [00:23:30] guy named Paul Halme. Will you go to the gym with me so I don't feel so uncomfortable?" He said, "Dude, that's the gym I've been trying to get you to go to for two years. You are an idiot." I've been doing it. I took Muay Thai, which is kickboxing for two years, and now jiu jitsu for the last three. But I love it, you know? I do it partly for my brain. Because working out helps your memory, you know it helps your brain having a healthy body helps you have [00:24:00] a healthy brain. Part of it do it because memory's my career. But I do try to memorize moves. Paul Hamle that day, when I met him at that conference, he said, "Ron, it will change your entire body." I feel so much more fit now, you know? So yeah.

Kyle Davis: I just started so I've only been doing it-

Ron White: We're going to roll right now.

Kyle Davis: No we're not. But what I find interesting about it, [00:24:30] is that it's physically demanding-

Ron White: Yes.

Kyle Davis: But you have a lot of these like rest periods, where you can take a breath, but you're still in a grapple. You just start thinking about how do I get out of this?

Ron White: Right.

Kyle Davis: Or what is the other person going to. You're thinking, you have like four or five different linear trains of thought going in your head.

Ron White: Right.

Kyle Davis: It becomes very, it's like three dimensional human chess without having to deal with all the other people.

Ron White: Yes. It is. It is human chess. It's very intellectual. I really [00:25:00] only tried to do this the last two or three weeks because I've got a tournament. My friend Brian, he texted me a month ago and said, "Hey man, you should do the Dallas open." I'm like, "Oh no, I wish you would not have said that," because I never would have done it unless I was challenged.

Kyle Davis: Yeah.

Ron White: Now in ten days, I'm going to be squaring off against you know, a guy who's been training for a long time. But I have too now. But the past month I've been trying to really take it serious and apply memory techniques to remembering the moves, [00:25:30] you know? One of the positions is called guard. What do I do when I have somebody in my guard? What do I do when I'm in somebody's guard? What do I do when I'm? I do feel like it's helping me a little bit, but it's very mentally challenging.

Gail Davis: Do women do this sport?

Ron White: Oh yeah.

Kyle Davis: Tons of women.

Ron White: Yeah. Yeah.

Kyle Davis: UFC women is the-

Ron White: Ronda Rousey.

Kyle Davis: Ronda Rousey, Miesha Tate, who else? I don't really watch a lot of UFC, but-

Ron White: Yeah.

Kyle Davis: But yeah, no a lot of women do it. What I find interesting about [00:26:00] it is that once you get just physically exhausted, the mental stuff, it's just gone.

Ron White: I mean if you watch Kyle do jiu jitsu, you'll be like, "Hey man, he's not really expending that much energy. He's just rolling around on the ground, that can't be that hard." But it is so. I've never in my life, I'm 44 years old I'll be in two months, and I've never had workouts that are that hard.

Kyle Davis: Put this in perspective. I'm six foot three, just weighed myself this morning. I'm 245. I was getting like choked out by 156 [00:26:30] pound like five foot five guy.

Ron White: Right.

Kyle Davis: It didn't even feel like that bad. Then all of the sudden I'm like okay, yeah I think I'm going to stop breathing.

Ron White: Right, right, right.

Kyle Davis: It's physically just taxing, but you're not running wind sprints, you're not doing anything else. Then mentally taxing, because now I'm just trying to figure out, how did I embarrass? Because I think the common thing that people have is probably the same thing with being a savant, that if you're physically just super gifted, you could just do whatever you want.

Ron White: Right.

Kyle Davis: Like I said, I'm a big guy. I played [00:27:00] college football. I'm much stronger than this little monkey that's on my back climbing all over me.

Ron White: Right.

Kyle Davis: But they know what. It's a great equalizer.

Ron White: It is a great equalizer. That's a good way to put it. I'll have women in my class. They call it rolling, when you have a match it's called you're rolling with them. I don't take a woman for granted. In other words, I will not you know, you're not going to go as intense, but then you don't want [00:27:30] to go too not intense because the next thing you know, you're tapping out. But it's changed my perspective on life. I mean, I'd say four, five years ago before I took it, you know I had the totally wrong impression of myself. I thought I was a pretty tough guy. I thought if I went out and I got into a fight somewhere, I could handle myself pretty well. Now after having matches three or four days a week with people who are 150 pounds that you would never guess are trained assassins, I don't ever want to get in a fight in my life. Because you never know, you know?

Kyle Davis: [00:28:00] Don't ever want to be in a street fight.

Ron White: No.

Kyle Davis: No.

Ron White: Because you never know.

Kyle Davis: At the end of the day, I mean it could be a bottle in their hand or it could-

Ron White: Yeah.

Kyle Davis: Or they could be a third degree black belt.

Ron White: That's right.

Kyle Davis: Next thing you know, you're eating yesterday's soup.

Ron White: Right.

Kyle Davis: Well that's fun. If look, if y'all want to learn more about Ron White, have him tell you all about jiu jitsu, or congratulate him and learn more names, faces, places, books you've read and everything else, [00:28:30] you can do so by contacting GDA speakers at 214-420-1999, or by going to GDAspeakers.com. If you want to read the transcript, get Ron's book and some other things as well, you can do so by going to GDApodcast.com. With that being said, thanks Ron.

Ron White: Thank you.

Gail Davis: Thank you Ron. It's great having you here.