A personal trainer for your brain: How Nelson Dellis became a memory champion and coach

Fitness is not just for the body. You can train your mind to memorize hundreds of words in just minutes. This is what memory coaches like Nelson Dellis devote their careers to.

Dellis, 39, is a five-time USA Memory Champion based in Miami. He has broken multiple records with his ability to memorize names, faces, terms, and digits, including memorizing 235 names in 15 minutes. And what started as a memorization hobby became a coaching career, helping others expand their memories. He has also written two books on the subject.

“I didn't study memory. I don't have a degree in neuroscience or anything like that. But what I developed was this practical training of memory techniques,” Dellis said. “I realized I had a lot to offer people. At first I was a zero-time champion, then after winning two, three, four [championships], I felt like I had more confidence in saying, ‘Listen, here's the proof. I can show you how to do this.’”

Dellis’ professional life involves “teaching in different forms,” he says. He spends the first part of his day teaching computer science at his alma mater, the University of Miami, then works on his memory coaching business later in the day. He also runs a nonprofit organization called Climb for Memory, which uses mountain climbing as a way to promote awareness of Alzheimer’s disease.

“There are a lot of parallels between memorizing and mountain climbing, as weird as that sounds,” Dellis said. “A lot of [memory training] has to do with focusing on the task at hand. Mountain climbing, especially the high-altitude mountaineering I do, has to do with how you can… block out the distractions and focus on just putting one step in front of the other.”

From Memory Hobbyist to Competitor

Dellis’ fascination with memory began in the 2000s when his grandmother Josephine began showing symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease. As Dellis watched her condition worsen, he began to study the brain and memory.?

“She was losing her memory noticeably at least for a few years before she passed away in 2009,” Dellis said. “When she passed away, that was really the marker that hit me really impactfully and it made me question whether that's going to be my fate as well.”

He competed in his first USA Memory Championship in New York City that same year, where he earned 13th place. The championship consists of tournament-style events including memorizing faces, names, decks of cards, and even unpublished poems.

“I met so many new people and was just so inspired,” Dellis said. “I wanted to come back the next year, and then it paired with the passing of my grandmother that summer. It just felt like the right time to dive all in.”?

At the time, Dellis was working as a software developer, but he wasn’t passionate about the job. So he spent every free moment he had honing his memory skills. He placed third in the 2010 USA Memory Championship, then went on to take the Memory Champion title for the next two years, and again in 2014, 2015, and 2021.

“I spent loads of hours just in my room, staring at numbers, cards, and names, memorizing,” Dellis said. “Any moment I had in the day, I was doing that. A lot of people around me who were close to me were questioning what I was doing and thought I was wasting my time, but it paid off.”

His initial goal with the memory competitions was self growth, not profit. People would approach him asking for advice on building memory skills, and he often gave it for free. But when a tech firm called Fusion-io approached him in 2011 to be a brand ambassador, he realized he could quit his software development job and monetize his memory skills. Over the two years he worked with them, he was able to focus on his memory coaching business more fully.

“The connection was there. [Fusion-io] had the world's best memory computer, and I had the best memory, so we did a bunch of events together,” Dellis said. “I thought, ‘OK, maybe there's something here. I can monetize this, teach people, find different projects that have to do with improving your memory.’ And here I am, more than a decade later.”

Dellis also became a computer science instructor at the University of Miami in 2011. Since then, he has balanced teaching with running his business and nonprofit, along with speaking at events and writing books.

“I'm always trying to see where I can grow my business,” Dellis said. “I feel like right now, it's the prime time to push on this.”

Training Your Memory in Three Steps

Most of Dellis’ memory coaching clients have no experience with memorization techniques, and their goals with his program range from wanting to improve memories in their personal lives to wanting to compete in memory competitions. So Dellis always starts with the three steps he uses when he is memorizing: visualization, storage, and review.

Start by associating whatever you are memorizing with a mental picture. According to Dellis, people remember mental images “much better than abstract information, which is probably 95% of the information that is thrown at us each day.”

Then once you have this image, you must figure out where to store it. Dellis said for most people, the issue with memory is not that they forget information entirely, but that they can’t recall it. That is why it is important to visualize where you are storing that information.

“Usually when we memorize things, we don't really think about where we're placing it in our brain,” Dellis said. “But there are techniques that have been around for thousands of years to help organize those mental images. And that's really the key to having amazing memory.”

The final step is to review the information regularly to ensure it stays in your memory. And following the first two steps will make the review step easier.

“Our brains are designed to forget over time, that's what they do. So to combat that, you have to have a strategy to review,” Dellis said. “The more you look at something, the more you think about something, the stronger and longer it sticks [in your head].”

Making Memory Training Your Career

Dellis said most memory professionals will likely need to keep their day jobs, as memory coaching alone won’t generate enough to be a main source of income.?

This is why having passion for memory training is crucial for making a career in it. Dellis never intended to turn his memory skills into a career, but his passion for training his brain led to a career in coaching.?

“I didn't think doing the memory thing was a career possibility. Why was I doing it? Well, because it was important to me,” Dellis said. “This is not revolutionary advice, but it's true. If you're very passionate about something, and you truly resonate with everything about it, and you put everything into it, you'll make something happen out of it.”

And for those looking to improve their memories, Dellis said the best thing you can do is start practicing.?

“Memory is a skill. Memory is something that you can work on even if you think it's terrible,” Dellis said. “The simplest thing you can do to start is to try to memorize something. Forget about techniques. Just try. Because if you really want to memorize something, if you have the intent to do so, you will be surprised how powerful your memory is.”