I was a young middle-aged man again. Several people who worked for me in the military and at IBM were working for me again. I was setting them up with some kind of project. Terry, Gil, and Lainie were at a round table. I stopped by to provide more instructions.

For some reason, I ended up asking Lainie if she knew her fours table because she had to use them for some task I was setting up. She was hesitant. Knowing she’s often hesitant because of self-doubt, I began quizzing her – what 7 * 4? She didn’t know, so I tried, what’s 3 * 4? She correctly but slowly responded, twelve, with a shy smile.

Encouraging her, I then asked, what’s 4 * 4?

She wasn’t sure. Terry responded, 16.

I began going through the fours table with Lainie with the others sitting there. As we did, she made wrong guesses about the numbers, sometimes saying numbers that ended in three or five. I told her that the result would always be even, and that it would end in a 2-4-6-8 or zero. I then began taking her through the table and went from 1 * 4 to 200 * 4, pointing out the repetitive pattern in the results.

Everyone grew quiet, listening as I went through the times table. When I finished, Terry and others said, “I never knew that about the pattern.”

I replied, “There’s a pattern to everything. Always look for the pattern. If you can find that, many other things fall into place.”

Dream end