The Power of Forgetting (36 page)

For this exercise, get out a piece of paper and a set of markers. Using a green marker, write the word YELLOW at the top. Using a red marker, write the word BLUE beneath the top word. Continue down the page: using a blue marker, write the word ORANGE; using a yellow marker, write the word BLACK; using a purple marker, write the word RED; and using an orange marker, write the word GREEN.

Now, do not read the words, but say aloud the
color
of each word as you look down your list of words. How hard do you find it to say the correct color and not be distracted by the word itself? This is a type of psycholinguistic test that poses some difficulty because the portion of the brain that handles language has the conflicting tasks of verbalizing the color of the written words while ignoring the meaning of the words representing colors.

Let’s try one more.

Do you think the vertical lines are the same exact length or different? Turns out that they are the same length. Our eyes cannot always be trusted (nor can we always trust the part of our brain that tries to accurately interpret what our eyes are seeing), and there are lots of tricks to be played based on this weakness.

One of my favorite crowd-pleasers is Gotcha. Here’s how to dupe your best, smartest friends.

Ninety percent of people will fall for this card trick. Your victims—ahem, audience—might think you’re playing with a fixed deck, but they won’t think that you’ve fixed the deck in the way I’m going to tell you to fix it. So yes, for this trick you’ll need to rig a deck of cards such that the first four cards off the top of your facedown deck are:

Perhaps you already see the pattern, but hang on a second. What you’ll do is ask someone to take the top two cards from your facedown deck, look at them in private, and then return them to anywhere in the deck, which you’ll fan out for them in your hand. Say something like “Abracadabra” over the deck, or maybe smash the deck behind your head and flip through it without shuffling them. Then turn over the top two cards, show them, and ask: “Weren’t these
your cards?” These two cards won’t be the exact cards they first chose, but they will be similar enough that your audience won’t know the difference. They’ll think that you’ve actually rigged the deck to have two 9 of spades cards and two 8 of clubs cards and that they are looking at the same exact cards they first pulled. In other words, their mind won’t instantly say, “Oh, I must not have looked at the suit carefully.”

How does this happen? The numbers and colors are too close for the mind to quickly distinguish. Obviously, you could do this trick using any set of four cards that are close in color and looks, such as a 9 of hearts, 8 of diamonds, 8 of hearts, and 9 of diamonds. Once again, your victim won’t be able to register the cards exactly in terms of suit and number—unless he or she is paying exceptionally close attention or has a hunch that you’re bending the mind in this unique way.

This game—an updated version of the classic
Newlywed Game
—
works best when it’s played among couples who know each other pretty well. Each couple pair is a team, and one other person needs to be the leader and cannot be part of a team.

Now, position each couple back to back; they can be sitting down on the floor or in chairs. Each person holds a shoe from his or her partner in addition to his or her own shoe. So if I’m playing this game with my wife, she’ll hold one of my shoes and one of her own shoes in her hands, while I hold one of hers and one of mine in my hands. We
can’t see each other because our backs are lined up. The leader starts by asking a series of questions related to who is better or worse at particular tasks. The players respond to each question by holding up the shoe of the person they think is better or worse. Let’s say the question is, “Who is the better cook?” If my wife and I hold up the same shoe, then we’re in agreement and we win a point. If we don’t agree, our shoes won’t match and we don’t get any points. After a round of twenty questions, the couple with the most points wins.

Below is a list of questions that can be used. The leader is encouraged to make up other questions as well, especially as they pertain to the group at hand.

How does this game improve your mind? These questions are designed to stimulate your memory and plunge your mind back in time. You’ll find that these types of questions force you to recall situations and events in your life to validate your response. If you and your partner disagree on an answer, explain to your partner why you answered the way you did. Think back and cull the details and facts you need to make your case. This isn’t about fighting over a response—it’s about being able to quantify and qualify your memories.

Many of us don’t reminisce unless we’re forced to. But when we do, we’re actually working our brains in ways that can help us optimize their functionality. The mere act of pulling data from the farthest reaches of our brains taps all the six essential skills (focus, concentration, information retention, thinking outside the box, organizing, and even forgetting). It also verifies the full extent and power of your brain. As I’ve been reiterating throughout this book, the mind can retain and work with much more information than we typically think it can. We just need to push it to unleash its fullest potential. Games like the ones in this chapter help you do just that.

One of my favorite mind-sharpening exercises is to take an ordinary sentence, assign three letters to most of the words in the sentence, and try to memorize all the letters in a few
seconds. It’s a great mental exercise because it teaches you how to process information quickly. Plus it helps train your mind to work with patterns and use mnemonic devices.

On the next page are four sentences and a list of three-letter sequences that correspond to them. The smaller words that aren’t as critical for recalling the sentence—such as the pronouns (
my
), prepositions (
on
), and articles (
the
)—are not included; hence they are not shown in all-caps here. Pick one of these four sentences and try to memorize it and its nine three-letter sequences—then turn the page and see if you can recall all nine sequences!

Okay, so working with one sentence at a time, try to remember all of the letter sequences in each one. You can recite it out loud or write it down.

How well could you do this? Did you look back to find letters that you missed? Obviously, the pattern that you’re supposed to identify is the use of letters that convey a whole word without using the entire word, and using only those words that communicate the main thrust of the sentence. So as your mind is having to go back to that original sentence, it’s simultaneously picking out the chosen letters in an organized fashion. It’s doing this task over and over again, as if jumping through hoops. This back-and-forth mental motion is the equivalent of a pencil sharpener. The chronic yet intentional maneuvering of your thoughts hones your mind and fuels its processing speed.

Attention, parents of kids younger than ten: confidence building cannot start early enough in life, especially in the math department. Number awareness in young children can set the stage for a lifetime of success. Simply encouraging kids to count the stairs as they climb or descend, or to count the sugar packets on a restaurant table, are wonderful exercises that don’t require serious math. And here’s a trick you can teach anyone who can count to 10. I’ll explain how it works as if you’re performing the trick, and then once you learn it you can teach your youngsters in your own words.

First, take out a sheet of paper and create three columns that look like this, making sure you use the numbers provided—do not change anything or the trick won’t work!

Now find ten pennies and put them into a pile. Pick a three-digit number from each of the columns above. Let’s say you choose the numbers 124, 343, and 217. The goal is to add these numbers up quickly, which will be an impressive feat for someone who can only count to 10!

Obviously, you’re not going to actually “add” the numbers up traditionally. And you’re not going to use a calculator.
You’re going to apply a shortcut that works with these particular numbers.

To start, what you’ll do is look at the hundreds digit from each of the three numbers, and then pull pennies from your pile to create a new pile based on those numbers. For example, in the number 124, the number 1 occupies the hundreds digit, so you’ll take one penny from your pile and start a new pile. Then you’ll do the same for the next number, 343, whose number 3 occupies the hundreds digit. So you’ll remove three pennies from the original pile and add them to the new pile. Repeating again with the third number, 217, you’ll remove two pennies from the old pile and place them in the new pile. Now you’re ready to find your answer using the final three steps:

When you teach a young one how to perform this shortcut, obviously you’ll want to avoid using the terms “hundreds digit” and “ones digit”; you can simply tell them to look for the “first number” or the “third number” in each three-digit
number. Your youngster will also want to ask the audience to choose which three numbers to add. Doing this trick in front of several people can be a huge crowd-pleaser. When adults watch a child add three big numbers like that, they are impressed and the child gains a lot of positive reinforcement to his or her self-esteem.

My son and I rarely share a quiet ride in the car. We’re constantly engaging each other’s mind on some crazy level. It’s rewarding for me to be able to interact with him in such an innovative manner that not only strengthens our bond but also manages to spin my own brain around in fun and stimulating ways. Here are two of our favorite games—no pencil, pen, or computer required. Try them the next time you’re traveling with children!