07/05/2026
Embarassing story. I once forgot my own name.
I’m not even kidding!
It was the early 90s at an audition for Crazy for You in the West End. They called my name three times. I nearly missed my spot.
My mate shouted across the room and said, “Hey Scottish! (one of my many nicknames over the years), I said, “What!? Oh, wait a minute, that’s me!”
The whole room laughed.
I’d changed my name a few months before. But that wasn’t really the problem.
The problem was I wasn’t there. Not fully. My focus was scattered, my mind was somewhere else entirely and I completely missed it! That happened a lot.
I actually ended up getting that gig.
A year later I created Monkhouses Memory Masters, went out to 8 million on the Beeb. Teaching people how to improve their memory (ah, the irony!)
The last 30 years I’ve spent “a lot” of time understanding why we get into unfocused states and how to turn them on. There’s actually a story that happened 5 years later that was way worse (I’ll save it for later).
The upshot, here’s what I’ve found: most people think memory is about information. Facts. Names. Numbers.
It’s not.
It’s really about focus, how you’re primed (by the way so is productivity, so is your ability to manage emotion). Your ability to take control of where your attention goes.
That’s what puts you fully in the room. Fully in the conversation. Fully in your own life.
And when you learn to do that?
You don’t just remember more. You show up differently.
Click link in profile .channon to learn how
