Bob Gray, now a motivational keynote speaker and memory expert, discovered his first memory technique when he was seven. He was given a magic book that showed him how to remember a twenty-item list. Shortly thereafter he was called on to ‘do the memory trick’ at family parties and gatherings.
Encouraged by praise at home, he began to find memory techniques could have a valuable role in other aspects of his life. With a little ingenuity, he adapted the ‘memory trick’ to help him with his work at school. The reward was a significant rise in his grades.
Years later, Bob immigrated to Canada from his native England. At the time he was working as an entertainer, and he had to prove to Immigration that he wasn’t taking a job away from a Canadian. As the Immigration authority quickly learned, he wasn’t taking a job away from anyone else in the world! Traveling and entertaining under the stage name of ‘Backwards Bob the Memory Man,’ Bob demonstrated the unique abilities that have netted him a place in the ‘Guinness Book of World Records’ and a recent appearance on ‘Ripley’s Believe It Or Not.’
For the first several years after arriving in Canada, he traveled throughout North America, appearing in Comedy Clubs, Colleges and Universities, where he demonstrated his unique abilities in front of tens of thousands of people. Soon however, he decided to take a break from the road and entered the business world. Starting in the Fitness Industry, he quickly found that by adapting the memory techniques he had been studying and developing over the years, he was able to move ahead in his career faster than he or anyone else had expected. From never losing track of detailed information, to remembering everything about his many clients, including not only their names and occupations, but also the names of their family members, their birthdays, hobbies and fitness goals, he got the job done with confidence and ease. Along with making a lot of new friends, Bob saw the sales retention of his company increase by 13% in the first year alone.
After teaching his memory techniques to his own sales staff, with highly acclaimed results, there was a phenomenal demand for him to teach his systems to other companies and organizations. At one point, he was invited to share his techniques at a national fitness convention. Because he incorporated his unique brand of humour and the incredible abilities he had developed in his stage days, his presentation was an instant success. From then on, there was no looking back. Bob was again doing what he loved. He was performing. Only this time, he also had the satisfaction of knowing that he was educating his audience as much as – if not more than – entertaining them.
A recognized authority on memory systems, Bob has spent the last twenty five years traveling the globe entertaining, keynote speaking, and training corporations, governments and associations to adapt memory systems for their particular needs. He has developed a series of sales oriented personal development keynotes and workshops, which have been popular on six continents, as well as writing the best selling book “Right Brain Rapid Recall“.
When Bob is not presenting or developing his memory systems, he is an avid golfer and enjoys playing squash and blues piano. He resides outside of Toronto with his wife and their daughter who has been memorizing a list of twenty items at family parties since she was six. Bob also enjoys setting new records for the people at Guinness, and is currently training himself for ‘Speed Calendar Memorization,’ another mental feat he is happy to teach to interested parties.
His many TV appearances include, ‘Ripley’s Believe It Or Not,’ ABC Regis Philbin, NBC Today Show, CBC, Britain’s BBC 1 and the Steve Harvey Show.