The End of the Up Experience Didn’t Leave Me Down
Gail Davis, 10 November 2011
The audience was now primed for Ron White, another speaker booked by GDA. Ron, a two time national memory champion and record setter, brought his skills to the UP Experience with a jaw dropping presentation.
Ron worked the room and met over 100 people prior to his presentation. He then had these complete strangers stand, cover their names tags, and then he proceeded to remember all of their names. The audience loved it.
Earlier in the day Ron had spent time with 400 high school students who were participating in the Junior UP Experience. During that presentation, he memorized a 60-digit number. He had one of the students attend the later presentation with the number in hand and, more than four hours later, he recalled the number!!!
Ron is impressive and the point of his presentation is even more so. Ron is NOT a savant. He has no special gifts. He literally trained his brain to focus, create a file, take a picture, glue it into his memory bank, and review. Apparently it works.
The day ended with one of my all-time favorite speakers, Benjamin Zander. He is the conductor of the Boston Philharmonic orchestra and uses music as a metaphor for life and business. He is engaging, interactive, full of passion, and a real treat to listen to every time.
My hat is off to the organizers, Sheryl and Ernie Rapp. It is a great event and I am honored to be involved.