The Importance of Memories

The thought of losing my memory is terrifying. Apart from the impact in my personal life, it’s all the information to run a business, remembering people’s names, content of training courses, anecdotes and stories. It is something we can so easily take for granted.

Inspired by the book, Still Alice by Lisa Genova, I developed a competition speech for Toastmasters International, entitled ‘Oh Yes I Remember That’. My reason was that I wanted to share the message of how important our memory is in our private and business lives; and the terrible impact of early onset Alzheimer’s. I had always assumed Alzheimer’s was a disease of the very elderly, but this is increasingly not the case. It is something that individuals and businesses are going to have to recognise and develop strategies to cope with.

Because of the messages of  Time to Change and Dementia Action Alliance, I also wanted to inspire the audience to treat people with mental ill-health with more compassion. Mental health is still a taboo subject for many and can generate prejudices.

This is a tall order to achieve in seven minutes and it meant keeping detail down to a minimum. Please note: one error I made in the speech was to say Alzheimer’s lays down ‘amylase’; that should be amyloid. This was my own lapse of memory.

The speech was delivered at Casterbridge Speakers on 19^th March 2014 and went on to win at club and area level.

If you would like to find out more about increasing and protecting the brain power in your business, please give me a call. If you have concerns about your own memory, then contact your GP or the Memory Advisory Service.