Imagine you listen to a song that you haven’t heard for twenty years.
And you know the tune, but the lyrics seem all jumbled in your brain.
So you play the song once.
Then once again.
By the third time, you’ll remember every word of the lyrics you knew twenty years ago.
So what happened there?
The same thing that happened to me when I went to play badminton.
I hadn’t played for well over twenty years.
The first day back was pure torture.
Both on the court, and off the court.
I was gasping for breath. My head was throbbing. I barely stumbled back to my car. And slept for the rest of the day just catching up on my energy.
Three days later I went back to play.
And something weird happened.
While I was struggling to get the shuttlecock across the net the first day, I was able to get it across a whole lot better the second time. And then I went a third time. And a fourth time. And by the fifth trip to courts, I was able to play eight games. Unlike the first time where I was struggling to reach the shuttlecock, I had no problem at all–sometimes I even had time.
So what’s so interesting about this story?
Here’s what’s interesting.
The five visits to the court weren’t back to back visits.
They were over three weeks.
And in those three weeks, I hadn’t done anything spectacular to bring about this massive change in my body.
I wasn’t exercising more. Wasn’t training more. This incredible change was happening in my brain.
Like some song from long ago, it was remembering the ‘lyrics.’
And letting me improve my game in massive incremental steps.
So that within five visits to the court my brain was remembering moves, and had the capacity to handle energy from twenty years ago. The lights were all switching on.
Your body too responds to long-lost memories
In fact, it’s not even fair to call them long-lost.
They’re more like long-buried. And re-discovered.
Which means that if you’ve been told you can do something exceedingly well, your brain reaches into the long-lost memory. And compares data. And then it does something short of exceedingly well. And then with little practice, it improves in leaps and bounds.
But the brain works the other way too
It can bring up failure-data. And the body then refuses to co-operate. And just like you remember the words of the song, you start to remember the words of failure.
Which makes it imperative to understand how layering and memories are linked.
And how we can get rid of stupid memories with the concept of layering.
And suddenly become far more talented than we thought possible.
Next post: How layering is almost more powerful than memory itself 🙂
They all relate to one simple factor.
Your brain freezes.
It doesn’t have a memory of a fire-drill
So let’s start with the fire-drill, shall we?
The reason why you had a fire-drill in school or at an office, isn’t because the organisation likes making you run out of the building, and onto the street.
The biggest reason for fire-drills, is to know what to do in an emergency.
Because contrary to what you may believe, people don’t actually run helter-skelter in an emergency. They sit there, transfixed, as if in a bad dream.
And in your business, emergencies pop up like 800-pound gorillas
Suddenly you have to write a report. Or create a presentation. Or even worse, write an engaging article.
And your brain panics. It freezes. And it has no memory of any fire-drill.
The brain goes into panic mode. It scans memory bank after memory bank for a memory of success.
On the contrary, it finds failure after failure
Why does it run into failure? And how do we overcome this failure? Listen to this short 7 minute audio, and you’ll understand exactly what goes in the mind of a so-called ‘talented’ person. Why that person is able to walk right past that 800-pound assignment, while you can only watch in terror.
Arthur Benjamin does some amazing feats of brain magic.
He holds an entire audience in awe multiplying numbers such as 57,683 x 57,683.
And says funny words like ‘cookie fission’. Add ‘kerry’ to ‘fission.’ And then ‘rev up’, and add that to ‘fission.’
He has no problem squaring numbers faster than calculators.
In fact he squares two digit numbers, three digit numbers, and four digit numbers like we say ‘three square equals nine’.
He’s able to tell you which day of the month you were born on, based on the year and the date.
And that’s just some of the crazy mathematical stuff he does (and yes, he does it live!)
But is Art Benjamin a liar?
Because he tellls us he’s not a genius.
He says he’s using a method. And when someone says the word ‘method’, it means they’re using a series of steps.
So Art Benjamin is saying he’s not a genius.
Liar!
Susan Polgar, the first female grandmaster in chess says something similar.
Her words are: “You’re in total control of your own destiny. I really believe that if you put your mind to it, and you really want it, you can achieve it. Whatever it is.”
Liar!
Andy Bell is the holder of the title of World Memory Champion
In twenty minutes he has to remember the sequence of ten decks of cards. That’s 520 cards. And he has to remember every card, in its correct sequence. No matter how many cards are fired at him, Andy remembers them perfectly. Everyone correct, and in the right order.
Again, Andy says he has a method. “As I child”, he says, “I had conventionally good memory. But once you learn a technique, like the location method I use, it takes everything beyond what you can possibly do naturally. I think I have the same mental equipment as everyone else. So it’s something anyone can do.”
Liar!
So here’s the irony of so-called genius.
The really smart people say they’re not smart.
They say they have a method. A code. A system.
That they’re like everyone else.
Conventional. Regular. Not genius-like at all.
All liars.
Including the biggest one of them all: Albert Einstein who said, “I am not smarter than anyone else. I’m just more curious.”
Yeah, right!
Note: To watch the video of Arthur Benjamin doing his mathemagic act, you’ll need to go online to: https://brainaudit.com/?p=49
When you look around you and see talented people you may run into a common misconception.
You may believe that those considered ‘talented’ or ‘creative’ require less practice.
Makes sense, huh?
If you’re already talented, where’s the need for practice?
You already have what it takes.
Your brain is genetically engineered towards your talent.
You should be coasting downhill, while the others struggle.
Yet the evidence all around you, points to the exact opposite situation.
The top athletes in the world practice long hours.
The top artists in the world seem to be stuck to their palettes.
The best speakers go over their material, time after time, after time.
The best figure skaters do their routines hypnotically.
In fact, when research was done on the top figure skaters, here’s what the researchers found.
They found that the mark of the top skater is the ability to do their spins and jumps.
And that the absolute crème da la crème skaters did more jumps and spins, when practicing.
The researchers found that the slightly lower-ranked skaters did just a little less practice.
And took more breaks in between their jumps and spins.
Less practice, eh?
And yet we strongly believe that talent is inborn.
Because if talent were indeed inborn, then where’s the need to practice?
Where’s the need to do yet another jump and turn?
Surely even at the highest level of sport, one figure skater would be so overloaded with talent, that it would be impossible for others to catch up. Surely it would be impossible, no matter how many hours of practice their competition puts in.
Talent or creativity is the result of many, many hours of frustrating practice.
Because when we have courses, like say Article Writing for instance, I can tell you who’ll be the star of the course.
I can tell you within days of the course beginning, who’ll write better articles than anyone else.
I can tell you, even without knowing that person’s background, or capability, or any so-called talent.
I can tell you based on momentum.
The ones who consistently write better, faster, and with more panache are those who practice.
Day in, day out. Week in, week out.
The momentum builds on itself.
Suddenly patterns emerge.
Suddenly the achievement is higher.
Suddenly the pats on the back increase.
But is momentum alone enough to create a factor of skill?
Obviously not.
However, it is one of the most critical factors, as compared to everything else.
Because whom would you rather believe?
The perception of the average person on the street—who believes in inborn talent?
Or the figure skater doing yet one more practice jump and turn?
I may have heard Chopin’s Prelude No.4 a least a dozen times.
Or may have never heard it at all.
I couldn’t tell you for sure, you see.
Because there’s all this classical music playing in the background when I go to hotels. And to airports.
And I’m not paying attention.
But there was this one time I did pay attention
You see, I was listening to a presentation given by Benjamin Zander.
And Benjamin Zander didn’t just play Chopin’s Prelude No.4.
He patterned it for me (and everyone else, of course) 😉
So how did he pattern Prelude No.4?
Well he brought my attention to the composer.
And to the music he was about to play.
And then he played it.
And I went through the first phase of patterning: recognition.
I was hearing Prelude No.4 for the first time ever.
Or rather, actually listening to Prelude No.4, for the first time.
Then Msieu Zander did something magical
He repeated the music.
Over and over.
And recognition seeped into my classical-music-starved brain.
And we moved quickly to the layering
Suddenly I wasn’t just listening to the music.
I was being shown specific notes.
Why one note made me feel happy.
Why the other note made me feel sad.
Why the Prelude seems to be struggling. Almost hitting bad notes.
How the Prelude hits so-called bad notes, and then hits the note we’ve been waiting for.
How that note gives me a sense of ‘aha, finally.’
And why that 2 minute Prelude is now an integral part of me.
If I heard it on the street. Or at an airport. Or at a hotel, I’d stop.
And listen. And understand. And try to find more layering in that pattern I know so well.
And it’s only because Benjamin Zander slowed down the pattern for me.
But he only slowed down the pattern for Prelude No.4.
I’m on my own for Prelude No.5. 🙁
Note:As a result of this one presentation, I went and bought over 80 classical pieces from iTunes. All Chopin, for starters. And to date, I’ve heard the same set over 30 times in less than five weeks. I put it on each morning as I’m writing articles, and imagine I’m this great pianist. I type faster when the music speeds up. And slow down when the music slows down. My life is richer because of Benjamin Zander’s presentation. And because he took the time to slow down the pattern for me.
To see Benjamin Zander’s presentation click here.
