forgetting things so i picked up this book called moon walking with instein and that's really what hooked me. i started to practice memorizing kind of silly things like numbers and decks of cards and it kind of just hooked me. it's hard to describe but it became an obsession. >> i remember when he first started doing this. alex actually had a really bad memory. and i feel like i can say that because i'm his wife. >> alex and his wife kathy are both medical students in jackson, mississippi. they took a year off to focus on memory. allekts became both the u.s. and world memory champion. when he returns to medical school this summer he plans to use these techniques. >> my ability to come up with that has definitely gotten better. i didn't consider myself to be a really creative person so i was worried about my ability to make associations but it's definitely something with practice you get better at and more creative.