Well now, how does one become the "foremost memory-training specialist in the world,"  "The Yoda of memory training"?  Okay, short version.

When I was about eleven years old I had great motivation to get better grades in school. That motivation was fear. My father believed in corporal punishment, and when I brought home failing grades on my tests, he “corporal punished” me. Of course I knew why I was getting those failing grades. I simply wouldn’t, couldn’t, put in all the necessary study time. But, finally, the proverbial light bulb went on. "Hey," I thought, "if I can remember the answers to the questions, if I could simply know/learn those answers faster, I wouldn’t have to put in all that study time.

I realized that "remember," "learn," "know" are synonyms; they all mean basically the same thing. If you know something, you’ve remembered it; if you remember something, you know it. And if you know/remember it, you’ve learned it!

That realization started it. I ran to the library and read some books on "how to remember," some dating back to the 18th century (some of which are now in my private library). At that time of life – remember that I was only eleven years old – I managed to understand only an infinitesimal amount of the information I read. But that tiny bit of information was the beginning of the solution to my problem – getting better grades with only a fraction of the study time, so that my father would be happy.