The Power of Forgetting (11 page)

I don’t know anyone who doesn’t fear failing when they’re under the weight of serious pressure or stress. What I want you to keep in mind as we move forward here is that it’s okay to feel uncomfortable when you’re put to the test. But here’s your assignment: Work on using your brain where the consequences aren’t so terrible.

I can’t express in words how transformative it can be to flex the brain where it’s weak and to build skills that haven’t been substantively addressed in formal education. Then one day when you’re asked for real to use your brain in some innovative way while under pressure, you’ll be able to meet the challenge. You’ll rise to the occasion and wow your peers. People tend to practice what they’re good at rather than working on skills they aren’t good at. So let’s change
that, and we’ll start with the most fundamental skills of all: F&C—focus and concentration.

Focus and concentration are the keys to keeping your confidence intact, to thinking logically, to avoiding those catastrophic “I can’t do it” thoughts, to combating anxiety, to beating the pressure, to quelling any burgeoning insecurities, to learning to relax, and to hitting your own balls out of the park. Sadly, though, within the past ten years alone I’ve witnessed a dramatic shift in people’s ability to focus and concentrate. We used to have to focus and concentrate a lot just to survive. We’d have to watch our step as we—and tigers—roamed the savannas in search of food. We’d have to conduct lots of math and science on our own in navigating new territories and exploring the world; think of early pioneers and sailors during the days before GPS. And just a few years ago, we’d have to think about where to find a public telephone if we were caught in an emergency away from home.

Today, however, our modern culture is bursting at the seams with distractions. We have an enormous wealth of technology and media at our fingertips to make life way more convenient and easier to navigate. This same technology and media, however, can steal our attention and prevent us from using the kind of focus and concentration that we still need—skills we must actively preserve and practice. Which is why the problems I often see in classrooms and among adults have nothing to do with people’s inability to actually do math or read. The problem lies in their inability to simply follow directions.

Many of the games I play with students are all about following directions—obeying five or six sequential steps that involve punching numbers into a calculator. But rarely do I have a session with kids where at least half a dozen don’t arrive at wrong answers because they missed a step in the instructions. It only takes a fraction of a second to be distracted, fumble a critical piece of information, and then go down the wrong road. I’ll make students aware of this, show them where they went wrong, and then encourage them to try again until they get it right. But in the real world, we don’t always get second chances. Daydreaming or momentarily losing focus is usually what triggers accidents and mishaps that can cascade into serious problems. People who’ve been in car wrecks after taking their mind or eyes off the road for a mere millisecond know how easy it is to lose your focus, and the consequences can be huge. In the grander scheme, little mistakes here and there can accumulate, affecting your performance at work or your personal reputation.

We’re all aware of how our modern society presents challenges to maintaining focus and concentration. We’ve fallen victim to absentmindedness and being scatterbrained thanks to that errant e-mail or phone call. Or we’ve made mistakes due to interruptions and distractions while we try to complete a task. Rather than center on the negative here, let’s turn this into a positive and dive right into strengthening your focus and concentration no matter how weak and distractible they are. This means reinforcing your “forgetting” muscles so you can train your precious mental energy on important tasks at hand. Being able to forget nonessentials is a critical part of maximizing focus and concentration. I will ask that you avoid all other interferences as you read forward. Turn your cell phone off. Get comfortable in a room
and see if you can spend just a few minutes now bringing all of your attention to the upcoming pages. What we’re going to do is (1) test the strength of your focus and concentration, (2) make you more aware of when you lose your focus and concentration, and (3) develop ways to build your ability to focus and concentrate. Ready?

Below is a sentence. I want you to read it once and concentrate on what it says while counting the number of
f
’s. (Alert: This exercise is meant to be done only once—right now—and that’s it!)

Now look away from this page and recall how many
f
’s you counted. One? Two? Three? Four?

The purpose of this exercise is to show how hard it can be to force the brain to perform two different tasks at the same time: comprehend and count. If you’re like most people, you may have found two or three
f
’s. Maybe you culled four. But there are actually a total of five. It’s common to miss a few of these
f
’s, especially to skip ones in the small words, such as “of.” The mind is naturally inclined to skip the small words and focus on the large words.

We know that the larger words will tell us the important part of the sentence—they are what provides the key thought, whereas the little words are the links, the trivial connectors. Additionally, it’s human nature to think of the “of” as an “uv” rather than a word with a sharp-sounding
f
. When we say “of” in our minds it sounds like we’re saying “uv.” So we hear a
v
and forget that it’s in fact an
f
!

But there’s something else going on here that I want you to notice: Did you find it hard to focus on the meaning of the sentence while counting the
f
’s? Right now, can you explain what the sentence conveyed? Or are you having to go back and reread the sentence, this time without counting anything?

Many of us multitask all day long. So why can’t we multitask at this level? Why can’t we count the
f
’s and soak up the meaning of the information? As it turns out, these two tasks start to compete with each other when we simultaneously count and comprehend. It’s hard to do both at the same time. Molecular biologist and University of Washington professor John Medina explains the reason why in his book
Brain Rules:

I love how Dr. Medina describes the crux of the problem: being able to pay attention, which he calls “attentional ability.”
And therein lies the secret to peak performance: being able to pay attention one “sequence” at a time. Sometimes, however, we can have trouble just paying attention at all, with focusing and concentrating on just the one task at hand before moving on to the next. Which is why I’ve designed the following exercises to help you do just that.

First I’ll showcase a math shortcut that demands focus and concentration; then I’ll move on to a word game that requires even more intense focus and concentration because you have to be aware of what you’re doing every step of the way. And finally I’ll round out this chapter with a test that illuminates your mind’s natural ability not only to focus and concentrate on the spot but also to notice patterns and heighten your “attentional” capacity.

The following exercise forces you to place different information in your brain in sequence and then retrieve certain information at different times in order to arrive at your answer. First, however, I want you to take note of the pattern involved with the solutions to all of these types of equations. Below are four different solutions to the problem of dividing any number between 10 and 90 by 91. Can you figure out what these four solutions have in common?

Can you find the pattern? (Note: I’m giving only the first six decimal places.)

When I first designed this shortcut for dividing any two-digit number by 91, I did so by finding patterns in numbers that relate to the number 1,001. For example, 91 times 11 equals 1,001, and 13 times 77 equals 1,001. Now, before you start trying to figure out how I went from seeing that pattern to arriving at a trusty new formula for working with the number 91 as a denominator, don’t ask. I’ll save you from having to hear the very long story of how I finally reached my shortcut. But it’s worth emphasizing that my shortcut invention wasn’t arbitrary. It was possible due to my pattern awareness. (For those who want to spend time thinking it out, by all means, have at it! You can go online at
www.MikeByster.com
to share your step-by-step approach and see if it syncs up with my formula or offers a whole new approach.)

So, with that in mind, let’s turn back to these equations. In all six digits of the answers, patterns exist in relation to each equation.

Did you find some of them? Here they are.

The six digits of each answer always add up to 27. Hence, in our first answer, 0.791208, if you were to add those individual numbers up, 7 plus 9 plus 1 plus 2 plus 0 plus 8, you’d get 27. The same is true of 0.923076 (9 plus 2 plus 3 plus 0 plus 7 plus 6 equals 27), and so on.

In each answer, there will be three even digits and three odd digits. (Zero is considered an even digit.)

The first and fourth digits of each answer add up to 9, the second and fifth digits of each answer add up to 9, and the third and sixth digits of each answer add up to 9.

Spend time admiring and looking at these patterns if they didn’t jump out at you initially. The next time you’re asked
to find a pattern, maybe it’ll emerge in your mind’s eye a lot faster. Okay, so let me take you through figuring out how to divide any number between 10 and 90 by 91. Note that this shortcut only works for numbers between 10 and 90, and the number cannot end in 0. (Did you catch that? I said between 10 and 90, so you can’t use either 10 or 90. Are you paying close attention? You need full processing power to get really good at this.)

Let’s take 72 divided by 91. Here are the sequential steps to take:

Try three more on your own:

This second exercise works your logic skills. It’s a two-person game, and you’ll need a pen and paper. It can be played as many times as you like. As with physical exercise, your body
can’t ever get enough, so long as you rest between sessions! The more you play, the more your brain benefits from a serious workout. Try playing at least once a month to start and then more frequently once you have the basic rules down and find yourself going through the motions of this game relatively quickly and easily.