Memory rarely becomes a concern when life is calm and the information remains visible. Its value becomes clear during the examination, interview, meeting, or speech where an answer must appear without assistance.
In UNTAUGHT: The Memory System You Were Never Taught To Use, Harold Affram explores how readers can move beyond uncertain recall and begin developing memory as a practical, trainable skill.
Beyond Reading and Repetition
Many people learned to study by reading the same page several times. The words eventually became familiar, which created a sense that the material had been learned. Once the book was closed, however, that confidence could disappear.
UNTAUGHT pays close attention to the difference between familiarity and recall. Seeing information repeatedly may help someone recognize it later, but an examination question or interview prompt requires the mind to retrieve that information independently. According to the book’s central premise, this ability develops through training.
Harold organizes the process into four levels: Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced, and Elite. The structure gives readers a clear route through the material and allows each technique to build upon earlier progress. Someone who has never studied memory systems can start with the fundamentals, while committed readers can continue toward more demanding forms of recall.
The Memory Palace is part of the program, though the complete system extends further. Readers encounter multiple techniques designed to improve how they absorb, organize, retain, and retrieve information. This range helps the book feel like a developed training course rather than a collection of clever shortcuts.
A notable benchmark appears at the Advanced level, where the reader works toward recalling an entire chapter two weeks after reading it, without opening the book again. It’s a challenging goal, yet it clearly communicates the kind of durable memory the system seeks to create.
Skills That Fit Real Lives
The book’s target audience is broad because memory pressure appears in many settings. Students may understand their course material and still struggle to produce clear answers during an examination. The disappointment can be especially sharp when the final grade seems disconnected from the effort invested.
Professionals encounter different versions of the same problem. A forgotten name can weaken a promising conversation. Missing a key detail during a meeting may create an impression that lingers long after the information returns. Interviews carry their own pressure, as candidates must communicate knowledge and experience while being assessed in real time.
For public speakers and preachers, dependable recall supports a more natural connection with an audience. Frequent glances at notes can interrupt rhythm, eye contact, and emotional presence. A well-trained internal structure helps the speaker remain focused on the room while moving confidently from one idea to the next.
UNTAUGHT also considers reading speed and comprehension. Moving through pages quickly accomplishes little when the central ideas fade soon afterward. The system encourages readers to approach information with greater intention, giving important material a stronger chance of remaining accessible.
Readers who want guided practice can continue with The Complete UNTAUGHT Training Workbook. The companion workbook provides exercises that help turn intellectual understanding into repeatable performance. It supports the gradual nature of the main system, allowing readers to practise each method until it feels usable in everyday situations.
About the Author
Harold’s interest in trained memory began with an experience that many readers will immediately understand. He once sat across from an interviewer after preparing every answer, only to find the information disappearing when the questions arrived.
The event led to a decade-long exploration of memory and performance. In 2014, Moonwalking with Einstein changed how he understood the subject. He began to see memory as an ability that could be developed level by level through deliberate practice.
His professional life has included marketing strategy, business consulting, copywriting, public relations, advertising, and content development. He has written for brands, training rooms, and audiences across Ghana and beyond. His work in a hospital Health Information Management department also places him in an environment where information must be handled with precision and care.
Harold writes from Tema, Ghana, covering subjects that include business, faith, mindset, and the inner systems that shape effective thinking. His own interview experience gives UNTAUGHT an authentic emotional foundation. The book comes from someone who has felt the cost of losing an answer at the wrong moment.
A More Confident Relationship With Memory
UNTAUGHT gives readers a practical reason to reconsider the belief that memory is fixed. Its four-level system turns improvement into a visible process, with each stage offering another opportunity to strengthen recall.
The book is available on Amazon in Kindle, paperback, and hardcover editions. For students, professionals, speakers, and preachers who want information to remain available under pressure, Harold’s work offers an encouraging starting point and a structured path forward.
We had the privilege of interviewing the author. Here are excerpts from the interview:
Thank you so much for joining us today! Please introduce yourself and tell us what you do.
My name is Harold Affram. I’m a writer based in Tema, Ghana. By day, I work in a hospital’s Health Information Management department — a strange place to end up, if you know what my book is about, since it’s a job surrounded by the cost of forgetting things that actually matter. By calling, I write about memory, mindset, and the systems that let ordinary people perform when it counts. UNTAUGHT is my first book, and it grew directly out of something that happened to me, not something I studied from the outside.
Please tell us about you journey.
Years ago, I sat across from an interviewer with every answer fully prepared. Then the question came, and where all that preparation used to be, there was just silence. Not a blurry answer — nothing at all. I walked out of that room certain something was wrong with me.
It wasn’t. What was missing wasn’t knowledge. It was training. In 2014, I came across a book called Moonwalking with Einstein, and it changed everything I thought I knew about memory. It wasn’t a gift some people had and others didn’t. It was something you could train, the same way any skill can be trained, if someone actually teaches you how.
That discovery stayed with me for years before it became a book. I kept coming back to the same question: why does school teach us everything except the one skill every single subject depends on? UNTAUGHT is my answer to that — a four-level system that trains memory the way an athlete trains one specific move, built for the student, the professional, and the speaker who’ve all felt some version of that same silence I did.
What are the strategies that helped you become successful in your journey?
The biggest one was refusing to accept “some people just have good memories” as an answer. Once I saw memory as something you can train, everything changed — even how I went about writing this book.
One small strategy I still use today, and it’s in the book: whenever I need to hold onto something quickly, I turn it into one vivid, slightly strange picture instead of trying to remember the words. Your brain holds onto a strange picture far longer than it holds onto a sentence. It sounds almost too simple, but it’s the seed the whole system grows from.
The other strategy was patience. I still have a full-time job outside writing, so this book was built in small, steady sessions around everything else — not in some perfect stretch of free time that never actually shows up.
Any message for our readers?
If you’ve ever walked out of a room certain you’d let yourself down — an exam, an interview, a moment you’d prepared for — I want you to know that wasn’t a verdict on your ability. It was just a gap in your training, and gaps like that can close. You were never incapable. You were simply UNTAUGHT.
Thank you so much, Harold Affram, for giving us your precious time! We wish you all the best for your journey ahead!
