“The existence of forgetting has never been proved: We only know that some things don’t come to mind when we want them.” ~ Friedrich Nietzsche
It’s not a fun feeling. In fact, it’s downright frustrating and annoying (and sometimes can be quite embarrassing). It’s that experience of having something at the tip of your tongue. . . something that at one time you knew but which you have now drawn a complete blank. Short term, long term, medium term, it could be a historical or political fact, it could be the wife’s birthday, it could be the name of a valued and important client who you have had numerous interactions with. (This is the most frustrating of all.)
Our cognitive abilities seemingly decline over the years. But is this a given? Or are there things we can do to lessen these ’senior moments’ (regardless of whether or not we are seniors)? By using our brains in ways that might not always be easy, we allow them to be all they can be.
Some people keep their brains agile with crossword puzzles or Sudoku (if they prefer going it alone) or games such as Scrabble if they like the more social aspect. These are all great activities to “aerobically exercise” the mind.
Studies have shown that older adults neither see, hear, taste, nor feel as accurately as younger people do and this is partially due to the fact that once people retire, they tend to do things that they are good at, things that don’t challenge them incredibly. So part of the key to keeping your brain agile is giving it new, different activities and problems to challenge it.
Biochemical responses also vital to inspiring and stimulating the mind and brain. These are very active when we are young children because everything is new to us. The world is still fresh, there are so many possibilities to explore, and this keeps us fully engaged in the learning process. Another thing that motivates when we’re kids, especially, is the idea of being rewarded for what we do.
So how can I apply this to persuasion? Well, when we study persuasion, a fortunate byproduct is that we enhance our brains immeasurably through the challenges of thinking a new way.
In studying things like the 36 Chinese stratagems, or the 24 Doorways of the Magical Objection Mastery, we are flexing, swinging from the macro to micro. It can be thought of as looking at problems with a telescope, a broad overview, and then alternately taking a microscope and really hashing out the details.
What is this doing? And why is it so hard? It’s challenging us to use different parts of our brains. It’s getting us to view one issue or problem or objection, from a number of angles. And isn’t it great that this has the added bonus of keeping our minds agile and our memories accessible?