Genius by Mike Byster - Excerpt
Genius by Mike Byster - Excerpt
Genius by Mike Byster - Excerpt
ISBN 978-0-307-98585-9
eISBN 978-0-307-98586-6
1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
First Edition
3
A Memorable Story
down to the neurons and synapses. I don’t have an MD, and I’ve
never studied neurology. But I do know this: training your brain to
unleash its fullest potential doesn’t hinge on genetics, inherited IQ,
access to the best schools, or even medical breakthroughs. Accord-
ing to researchers at both the University of Illinois and Princeton, I
possess one of the fastest mathematical minds in the world. Why?
Because I continually teach myself how to use my brain in fun
and cool ways that enable me to process and memorize informa-
tion much quicker than others. These techniques have helped me to
become smarter, more productive, and exceedingly more imagina-
tive. In this book, I’ll share them with you.
Let me be clear: this is not a “memory” book. I’m not here
to just teach you a trick to memorize or recall the Declaration of
Independence in a heartbeat. Without question, you will learn ef-
fortless ways to memorize information, from the driest and most
arbitrary details to comprehensive facts and lengthy passages,
but I want you to know from the get-go that the strategies in this
book will help you become a better, more effective individual in
all that you do. These lessons and their related exercises will en-
hance your ability to communicate, innovate, impress others, stand
out in a crowd, get ahead of your peers, move up the social— and
corporate—ladder, magnify your employability and moneymaking
capacity, learn to make excellent decisions, solve problems large
and small, spot trouble and keep a keen eye on the future, plan
that future, speak publicly with ease, be a stronger player in games
and sports, ask for what you want, adapt to new situations and
circumstances, handle crises, work under pressure, be more inde-
pendent, and so on.
I could list hundreds of abilities that can be enhanced by mas-
tering the skills detailed in this book. Throughout the chapters,
I’ll point out specifically why you’re learning a given stratagem or
being told to do something that seems impossible or impractical
Even if you’re terrified of math, hate numbers and puzzles, and de-
spise games like Scrabble and Boggle, I believe I’ve got something
for you that you can not only enjoy but use to enhance your mental
capacity. By the end of the book, you will have amassed your own
unique collection of tools that make sense to you— and that work!
You won’t find these lessons in formal education or even in
adult enrichment courses. They are unique to me, and while some
of my techniques follow long-established secrets to speeding up
mental processing and sharpening memory, the vast majority of the
strategies in this book were invented by me, starting when I was
just eight years old.
began to notice patterns at a very early age, a lot sooner than most
people. When I was just three years old, playing card games with
my great-grandmother taught me about higher and lower num-
bers. During preschool, at the age of four, I memorized all of the
US presidents’ birth and death dates, in order. I was developing a
talent, but I still didn’t know exactly what I was doing. In other
words, you couldn’t have asked me then how I managed to be so
“smart,” much less teach anyone my method. In the third grade,
my teacher, Mrs. Carlson, told the class that we had to memorize
the planets of the solar system. I vividly recall her instructing us
to move to the back of the room, saying, “Don’t return to your
seats until you have all of them memorized.” She then added that
we should think about the following sentence: “My very educated
mother just served us nine pizzas.”
Obviously, she had given us the clue to having all of the planets
stitched into our brains quickly. It took me about five minutes to
memorize the list from Mercury to Pluto (which technically is no
longer a planet, but it was back then). Flash-forward one year. In
the fourth grade, my class was sent home with the task of commit-
ting all fifty states and their capitals to memory. Contrary to what
you might think, I still didn’t know how to make this easy for my-
self. I studied all night long, staring at the list of all fifty states and
their capitals: Bismarck, N orth Dakota; Columbia, South Caro-
lina; Salem, Oregon. . . . Some states seemed to have unlikely capi-
tal cities, while others were just plain hard to remember, let alone
spell (Montpelier, Vermont?). I thought perhaps the words would
magically melt into my brain if I just glared at them long enough.
My parents kept coming into my room yelling, “Michael, get to
bed already!” But I wouldn’t give up.
The next day I felt defeated, tired, and overwhelmed. I didn’t
have the capitals memorized, and trying to push all that informa-
tion into my brain at once made me barely able to recall anything
Up until that point, with the exception of a few times when I per-
formed as a bar stunt, I mostly kept my gift to myself because I
was embarrassed by it. Part of me still felt abnormal; “Rainman,”
after all, was my nickname at work because I could freakishly do
wild math in my head, just like Dustin Hoffman’s character in the
movie of that name. I didn’t know what the kids at my cousin’s
school would think of me. But I was delightfully surprised by the
reception I got. Those teenagers loved me. I think they were sur-
prised that I didn’t show up in geeky-looking clothes and a pocket
protector. When one of them asked, “Can we learn how to do that
too?” my world soon took a dramatic turn.
This request presented a whole new challenge for me. Initially,
I didn’t know which of my skills were actually teachable. I’d take
long walks by the lake and try to break down the methods that
came so automatically to me. “Okay, what am I doing when I’m
doing that? What do I do next?” Since over the years I’d trained my
brain to work so fast, slowing it down to make sense of it all was
tough. But I eventually simplified my tricks, patterns, and short-
cuts down to bite-size pieces that I could share with others. And
no sooner did I start interacting with kids than I began to realize
that much of what I can do is in fact very learnable. It somewhat
startled me to know that others could pick up on how I use my
brain and likewise perform some of these amazing mental gymnas-
tics just by trying and practicing. This was a defining moment for
me, because once I had proof that my skills could be taught, I cre-
ated an interactive presentation and began to visit more schools in
my local area. Because my presentations were so lively and engaged
the kids, they were more like “shows” than the lectures or formal
lessons they encountered in their classroom studies.
It didn’t take long for word to get around about what I was
doing. I started to focus more on the younger students, the kids
between grades four and eight, including those with special needs
in life. We not only zoom past our peers in formal education and
perform well on tests—including the SAT, LSAT, MCAT, GRE,
GMAT, all the tests following law school and medical school,
and other professional licensing tests—but we quite automatically
attain other skills that are essential to anyone who wants to get
ahead and succeed. Best of all, we attract more opportunities that
feed cycles of achievement. And that is my wish for you. My hope
is that you will acquire these fundamental learning skills now so
that you can maximize whatever it is you’re doing in life, whether
you’re sitting in a classroom most of the day, occupying a chair in
a cubicle, working on Broadway, or leading a company.
Which brings me to this book. If ever there was a written guide
on how to learn, Genius is it. I know that I can go only so far in
my live presentations and DVD program. People have long wanted
me to write a book in which I can dispense all my strategies in one
place, to help anyone maximize his or her learning—and, in turn,
memory— capacity. There are certain lessons and techniques that
actually work better in a book format, and writing this book has
also allowed me to offer more background and provide interactive
exercises that you can take anywhere. Genius takes the best of
Brainetics and my live presentations and puts it into what I hope
will be an engrossing read, and it also breaks new ground by giv-
ing you an entirely new array of exercises, tips, and secrets that are
not found in any of my programs. They are unique to this book.
But just as Brainetics engages the minds of nine-year-olds and
ninety-nine-year-olds alike (and everyone in between), so too does
Genius. I have written this book to be enjoyable and valuable for
anyone, at any age—from the student hoping to do better in class
to the senior eager to stay sharp.
Please don’t be intimidated by the title. I realize that many read-
ers may think that the word “genius” doesn’t describe them. In the
common understanding, the term “genius” is typically applied to
the book across the room), then don’t beat yourself up. Skipping a
few of the exercises won’t be the end of the world. You’ll still gain
a tremendous amount of knowledge and smarts simply by reading
and trying your best.
You might also be inclined to read the main text and save the
harder exercises for a later date. You can choose to read the chap-
ters of this book however you want, even out of sequence if you
like. Although I’ve designed this book to build from one chapter to
the next, in reality all of the lessons and skills I teach are of equal
weight. Some will come naturally to you, while others will require
extra effort. Hey, we’re all different in how we learn, as well as in
how we synthesize stored knowledge from the past to solve prob-
lems in the present. All I ask is that you try not to be intimidated by
anything you encounter in this book. I will provide as much guid-
ance as possible, and then it’ll be up to you to take it from there.
I expect you to return to this book to remind yourself of certain
strategies and to refresh your learning skills. As students of life,
we are never really done with learning. We are confronted with
new information daily, increasingly more so in our modern digital
age. Having the tools to navigate through the influx of all the data
we encounter increases our chances for success. Whether you’re a
parent, teacher, student, executive, or simply an “average” person
hoping to enhance the speed, effectiveness, and overall health of
your mind, this book will equip you with a set of skills that will
return multiple benefits to you in the future.
And that future can be as early as today. . . .