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We all have at our disposal one of the most powerful tools known to man but most of us do not know how to utilize that power. I am talking about the human brain. The brain has the capabilities of remembering 10 billion encyclopedia pages of information. That is 300,000 pages a day, every day for over 90 years.
Our brain is the key to getting the best grades in school, getting into a good college, getting a job and promotions within that job, having emotional and financial security, and keeping us young as we begin to age. Yet, the brain never comes close to reaching its potential, the reason why is we never learn how to empower it.
If you figure the typical school year is about 180 days and the average American child is in school for 13 years from kindergarten through high school and the average school day is six hours long, children are in school for over 14,000 hours. What if we took 20 minutes out of each school day and taught kids how to master four very important learning skills: focus, mind organization, memory, and creative thinking, teaching and enhancing a different skill each day. By the time students graduated high school they would have had almost 200 hours each of learning how to focus, how to organize their thoughts, learn how to memorize information for tests, and how to think outside the box. But, we do not do that because our education system is structured solely on what to learn, but they never teach how to learn. And even though people exercise and eat healthier as they get older to keep their body fit, many people stop learning once they get out of school and never develop these vitally important skills. In my upcoming book The Power of Forgetting I encourage everyone to be lifelong learners so you can accomplish all your goals and give yourself the best chance to succeed.
A few years back, ABC News saw videos of kids I taught how to empower their minds and wanted to do a segment about the Brainetics method on 20/20. They challenged me to take a classroom of sixth grade children from a school of their choosing and see what I can teach them to accomplish if I work with them for a short period of time. They aired the story twice in prime time and I received tens of thousands of emails, from parents wondering why their kids are not taught this, teachers and administrators inviting me to come and help their students, adults and seniors wanting to learn for themselves. But, in that deluge of emails, not one came from the department of education, or from a senator or congressman who undoubtedly had improvements in education as part of their platform when they were campaigning.
People are wondering when the next Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Oprah Winfrey or Mark Zuckerberg will come along. If we begin to teach young minds how to learn along with what to learn, we will not have to wait too long before the pool of people that are changing the world becomes much more populated.
Mike Byster is the creator of the award-winning memory system Brainetics, founder of Brainetics, LLC and author of THE POWER OF FORGETTING: Six Essential Skills to Clear Out Brain Clutter and Become the Sharpest, Smartest You.
