Leland became interested in memory at the age of 13. He discovered a book called “Moonwalking With Einstein”, which follows the journey of a NYTimes reporter into the world of competitive memory. The author encountered memory techniques for the first time as a journalist, trained his memory for a year, and proceeded to enter and win the USA Memory Championship. After finishing the book, Leland convinced his parents to drive him from Baltimore to New York to watch the 2014 USA Memory Championship.

The competition featured impressive “mental athletes” who could memorize a shuffled deck of playing cards in under a minute. They could also memorize over 400 random numbers in the span of 5 minutes, 200 random words in 15 minutes, and over 200 names and faces in 15 minutes (USA Memory Championship). And here's the exciting part: No one at the competition was born with an exceptional memory— their skills were developed with training. With enough practice, anyone can compete in these competitions.

Leland was determined to discover the limits of his own memory, and used the techniques to memorize thousands of French vocabulary words over a single summer. This allowed him to skip four years of French language and score a perfect 5 on the AP exam as a 9th grader. Impressed by his efforts, his friends pushed him to train them on his back porch, where he began honing his coaching system into what it is today: A blend of practical firsthand experience and expertise in cognitive psychology and neuroscience.

LB Memory maintains a network of skilled coaches to support expanded training needs, manage breakout rooms, and take individual clients.