Probably the most amazing reading spot I've ever enjoyed.
Torres Del Paine National Park, Patagonia, Chile
Torres Del Paine National Park, Patagonia, Chile
"If you can remember, worry, or tie
your shoes, you can succeed with
Psycho-Cybernetics."
— Dr. Maxwell Maltz
PRAISE FROM SALVADOR DALI
The cover of The New Psycho-Cybernetics features Salvador Dali's 1966 painting, entitled "Darkness and Light," which depicts his experience with Dr. Maltz's Psycho-Cybernetics program. Dali actually gifted it to Maltz, which Maltz in conversation with him described the painting as:
"...a world divided into two parts. The left is a world in shadow from frustration. Here, in the middle, you have a man's image, shrunken to the size of a small potato, moving away from reality, toward the black angel of destruction. Below you see a ship without any sails, about to capsize in the rough seas of frustration. Now, the other half of man's inner world is of sunlight, of confidence. here, man's image is ten feet tall and is walking toward the sun. Below you see a ship in calm waters about to reach port. And what is this port? Peace of mind! We can learn to walk away from this shadow world of frustration into the dawn of a new world, through confidence."
Salvador Dali was one of more than 30 million people whose life had been transformed by Dr. Maltz's Psycho-Cybernetics program. I include myself in that group too. The plastic-surgeon-turned-therapist offers decades of principled, self-improvement exercises, that are designed to foster confidence, defeat self-imposed sabotage, and achieve success in life.
Read this book! I've made it an 'at-least-once-per-year' re-read since discovering it in 2014 thanks to direct marketer, Dan Kennedy. The New Psycho-Cybernetics is the most helpful self-help book I've come across — and it's psychological perspective has proven more valuable to me than four years of undergrad psych courses.
"...a world divided into two parts. The left is a world in shadow from frustration. Here, in the middle, you have a man's image, shrunken to the size of a small potato, moving away from reality, toward the black angel of destruction. Below you see a ship without any sails, about to capsize in the rough seas of frustration. Now, the other half of man's inner world is of sunlight, of confidence. here, man's image is ten feet tall and is walking toward the sun. Below you see a ship in calm waters about to reach port. And what is this port? Peace of mind! We can learn to walk away from this shadow world of frustration into the dawn of a new world, through confidence."
Salvador Dali was one of more than 30 million people whose life had been transformed by Dr. Maltz's Psycho-Cybernetics program. I include myself in that group too. The plastic-surgeon-turned-therapist offers decades of principled, self-improvement exercises, that are designed to foster confidence, defeat self-imposed sabotage, and achieve success in life.
Read this book! I've made it an 'at-least-once-per-year' re-read since discovering it in 2014 thanks to direct marketer, Dan Kennedy. The New Psycho-Cybernetics is the most helpful self-help book I've come across — and it's psychological perspective has proven more valuable to me than four years of undergrad psych courses.
WHY 'CYBERNETICS' ?
To me, 'Cybernetics' sounds like some outdated technology mumbo jumbo, but Maltz selected it because of the word's ancient Greek origin, meaning 'steersman.' The essence of Psycho-Cybernetics is a training course for one's subconscious mind, by consciously steering oneself toward a chosen goal and not drift into frustration and failure. The latter is a consequence of unhealthy self talk, that scars one's self-image, and confidence that success is possible. Psycho-Cybernetics is the art of healing and fostering healthy self-communication. (39)
Maltz's experience in plastic surgery, showed him that many people's noses, breasts, and stomachs were fine, and that really they were hypnotized by false beliefs that restricted them from seeing the truth about themselves and others. They were adrift, and unable to steer themselves towards success and happiness, because they couldn't believe that success or happiness was attainable for themselves.
Maltz's experience in plastic surgery, showed him that many people's noses, breasts, and stomachs were fine, and that really they were hypnotized by false beliefs that restricted them from seeing the truth about themselves and others. They were adrift, and unable to steer themselves towards success and happiness, because they couldn't believe that success or happiness was attainable for themselves.
MY FAVORITE EXERCISE: 'THE THEATER OF THE MIND'
1. Go to a quiet place and writing a brief outline of the 'mental movie' you want to construct and view. The movie should feature you as the protagonist, achieving success in the areas of life you want: speaking confidently in front of your colleagues and bosses at work, completing your first marathon without having to walk, quitting cigarettes for good, etc.
2. Whatever you choose, spend thirty minutes each day tweaking the movie with a beginning a middle and an end, and lots of visceral details. What are you wearing? How do you carry yourself? How does it feel to hold the object of our desired success in your hand? Who are you with? What are the smells and tastes you experience?
3. After 10 days of refining the movie script, give it a title, with the goal and your name in flashing lights. Then for the next 11 days, pull back a big red velvet curtain and play the movie in your quiet place for 30 minutes every day, meditating on the details and feelings of having achieved the success you want.
Conrad Hilton and Napoleon Bonaparte both used a similar method with great success. Hilton, long before officially getting into real estate, imagined hotels renovated and other properties ideally transformed. Bonaparte soldiered armies on maps for hours at a time in Corsica, before leading them into battle.
The point is this: we spend hundred of hours throughout our lives meditating on potential negative outcomes. Why not imagine yourself successful? We become what we think about. {JG}
2. Whatever you choose, spend thirty minutes each day tweaking the movie with a beginning a middle and an end, and lots of visceral details. What are you wearing? How do you carry yourself? How does it feel to hold the object of our desired success in your hand? Who are you with? What are the smells and tastes you experience?
3. After 10 days of refining the movie script, give it a title, with the goal and your name in flashing lights. Then for the next 11 days, pull back a big red velvet curtain and play the movie in your quiet place for 30 minutes every day, meditating on the details and feelings of having achieved the success you want.
Conrad Hilton and Napoleon Bonaparte both used a similar method with great success. Hilton, long before officially getting into real estate, imagined hotels renovated and other properties ideally transformed. Bonaparte soldiered armies on maps for hours at a time in Corsica, before leading them into battle.
The point is this: we spend hundred of hours throughout our lives meditating on potential negative outcomes. Why not imagine yourself successful? We become what we think about. {JG}
TOP 10 QUOTES
10. "To really live, that is to find life reasonably satisfying, you must have an adeequate and realistic self-image that you can live with. You must find yourself accceptable to you. you must have a self that you can trust and believe in. You must have a self that you are not ashamed to be, and one that you can feel free to express creatively, rather than hide or cover up. You must know yourself — both your strengths and your weakness — and be honest with yourself concerning both." (12)
9. "We can only understand our inner workings in terms of the external mechanical or tele-logical models that we build." (17)
8. "When you see a thing clearly in your mind, your creative "success mechanism" within you takes over and does the job much better than you could do it by conscious effort or willpower." (63)
7. "If you have accepted an idea — from yourself, your teachers, your parents, friends, advertisers, or any other source — and further, if you are firmly convinced that idea is true, it has the same power over you as the hypnotist's words have over the hypnotized subject." (71)
6. "95% of people suffer from self-limiting inferiority complexes. It is not knowledge of actual inferiority in skill or knowlede that gives us an inferiority complex and interferes with our living. It is the feeling of inferiority that does this. And this feeling of inferiority comes about for just one reason: we judge ourselves and measure ourselves not against our own norm..., but against some other individual's norm. When we do this, we always, without exception, come our second best. But because we think, we believe, and assume that we should measure up to some other person's norm, we feel miserable and second-rate, and conclude there is something wrong with us. That we are not worthy." (77)
5. "An old farmer said he quit tobacco for good one day when he discovered he had left his tobacco at home and started to walk the two miles for it. On the way, he saw that he was being 'used' in a humiliating way by a habit. He got mad, turned around, went back to the field, and never smoked again." (92)
4. "A good personality is one that enables you to deal effectively and appropriately with...reality, and to gain satisfaction from reaching goals that are important to you." (134)
3. "...one of the most common causes of unhappiness among my patients is thta they are attempting to live their lives on the deferred payment plan. They do not live, nor do they enjoy life now, but wait for some future event or occurrence. They will be happy when they get married, when they get a better job, when they get the house paid off, when they get the children through college, when they have completed some task or won some victory. Invariably they are disappointed. Happiness is a habit, a mental attitude, and if it is not learned and practiced in the present it is never experienced. It cannot be [solely] contingent on solving some external problem..." (12)
2. "The essence of Psycho-Cybernetics is the accurate, calm, and ultimately automatic separation of fact from fiction, fact from opinion, actual circumstance from manufactured obstacle, so that our actions and reactions are solidly based on truth, not our own or other's opinions." (123)
1. "Martial arts movie star Bruce Lee had an exercise for ridding humself of negative thoughts: he visualized himself writing them down on a piece of paper, crumpling up the paper, lighting it on fire, and burning it to ashes." (128)
9. "We can only understand our inner workings in terms of the external mechanical or tele-logical models that we build." (17)
8. "When you see a thing clearly in your mind, your creative "success mechanism" within you takes over and does the job much better than you could do it by conscious effort or willpower." (63)
7. "If you have accepted an idea — from yourself, your teachers, your parents, friends, advertisers, or any other source — and further, if you are firmly convinced that idea is true, it has the same power over you as the hypnotist's words have over the hypnotized subject." (71)
6. "95% of people suffer from self-limiting inferiority complexes. It is not knowledge of actual inferiority in skill or knowlede that gives us an inferiority complex and interferes with our living. It is the feeling of inferiority that does this. And this feeling of inferiority comes about for just one reason: we judge ourselves and measure ourselves not against our own norm..., but against some other individual's norm. When we do this, we always, without exception, come our second best. But because we think, we believe, and assume that we should measure up to some other person's norm, we feel miserable and second-rate, and conclude there is something wrong with us. That we are not worthy." (77)
5. "An old farmer said he quit tobacco for good one day when he discovered he had left his tobacco at home and started to walk the two miles for it. On the way, he saw that he was being 'used' in a humiliating way by a habit. He got mad, turned around, went back to the field, and never smoked again." (92)
4. "A good personality is one that enables you to deal effectively and appropriately with...reality, and to gain satisfaction from reaching goals that are important to you." (134)
3. "...one of the most common causes of unhappiness among my patients is thta they are attempting to live their lives on the deferred payment plan. They do not live, nor do they enjoy life now, but wait for some future event or occurrence. They will be happy when they get married, when they get a better job, when they get the house paid off, when they get the children through college, when they have completed some task or won some victory. Invariably they are disappointed. Happiness is a habit, a mental attitude, and if it is not learned and practiced in the present it is never experienced. It cannot be [solely] contingent on solving some external problem..." (12)
2. "The essence of Psycho-Cybernetics is the accurate, calm, and ultimately automatic separation of fact from fiction, fact from opinion, actual circumstance from manufactured obstacle, so that our actions and reactions are solidly based on truth, not our own or other's opinions." (123)
1. "Martial arts movie star Bruce Lee had an exercise for ridding humself of negative thoughts: he visualized himself writing them down on a piece of paper, crumpling up the paper, lighting it on fire, and burning it to ashes." (128)
SOME RUNNER-UPS
{*} I.Q., or Intelligence Quotient, as less important than A.Q., Adversity Quotient, which entails:
A. Not blaming others for the adversities or setbacks one confronts
B. Not blaming oneself either; not viewing setbacks as reflecting poorly on oneself
C. Understanding that problems are all limited in size, duration, and can be dealt with
{*} Fable of a man with a boulder on his back, bricks in his bag and weeds wrapped around his legs. Three bystanders draw attention to the issues and one by one he removes them until he's able to stand tall and walk like a man. The issue was not the weights, but his lack of awareness and thought given to them. (154)
{*} "No one sits down and deliberately, with malice aforethought, decides to develop these negative traits just to be perverse. These traits do not just happen. Nor are they an indication of the imperfection of human nature. Each of these negatives was originally adopted as a way to solve a difficulty or problem. We adopt them because we mistakenly see them as a way out of difficulty. They have meaning and purpose, although based on a mistaken premise. They constitute a way of life for us. Remember, one of the strongest urges in human nature is to react appropriately. We can cure these failure symptoms, not by willpower, but by understanding, by being able to see that they do not work and that they are inappropriate." (157)
A. Not blaming others for the adversities or setbacks one confronts
B. Not blaming oneself either; not viewing setbacks as reflecting poorly on oneself
C. Understanding that problems are all limited in size, duration, and can be dealt with
{*} Fable of a man with a boulder on his back, bricks in his bag and weeds wrapped around his legs. Three bystanders draw attention to the issues and one by one he removes them until he's able to stand tall and walk like a man. The issue was not the weights, but his lack of awareness and thought given to them. (154)
{*} "No one sits down and deliberately, with malice aforethought, decides to develop these negative traits just to be perverse. These traits do not just happen. Nor are they an indication of the imperfection of human nature. Each of these negatives was originally adopted as a way to solve a difficulty or problem. We adopt them because we mistakenly see them as a way out of difficulty. They have meaning and purpose, although based on a mistaken premise. They constitute a way of life for us. Remember, one of the strongest urges in human nature is to react appropriately. We can cure these failure symptoms, not by willpower, but by understanding, by being able to see that they do not work and that they are inappropriate." (157)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR & BOOK'S INTRODUCTION
Dr. Maxwell Maltz was a plastic surgeon operating in the United States and Europe throughout the 1940's, but soon began to focus on the psychological aspects involved. By the '50s, his successful plastic surgery and therapy practice, which had attracted celebrities from all over the world, began to focus even more so on the 'surgery' of self-esteem, after realizing many of his patients' self-images and world views were just as damaged after their corrective physical surgeries as before. Maltz wrote two other books during his career: New Faces, New Futures, and Dr. Pygmalion.
Dan Kennedy, the book's introducer and re-publisher of this revised-and-expanded version, is a world-renowned direct marketer.** As Dan mentions in the book's Introduction, he struggled with a speech impediment for years. Using Maltz's techniques of 're-programming' his sub-conscious through a healthy, rational, conscious effort outlined in the book, Dan was able to remove 99% of his stutter. To this day, Dan regularly gives speeches, and coaching seminars across the world to thousands of businessmen.
**I'm a huge fan of Dan's marketing strategies and approach. You can find about 30 hours of his coaching for free on Youtube, and subscribe to his monthly marketing mailer for $70 per month, which I've been doing for 2 years now. His books and sales letters won't win any beauty contests, but their techniques sure do sell.
Dan Kennedy, the book's introducer and re-publisher of this revised-and-expanded version, is a world-renowned direct marketer.** As Dan mentions in the book's Introduction, he struggled with a speech impediment for years. Using Maltz's techniques of 're-programming' his sub-conscious through a healthy, rational, conscious effort outlined in the book, Dan was able to remove 99% of his stutter. To this day, Dan regularly gives speeches, and coaching seminars across the world to thousands of businessmen.
**I'm a huge fan of Dan's marketing strategies and approach. You can find about 30 hours of his coaching for free on Youtube, and subscribe to his monthly marketing mailer for $70 per month, which I've been doing for 2 years now. His books and sales letters won't win any beauty contests, but their techniques sure do sell.
YOU MAY ALSO LIKE
{*} The Obstacle Is The Way by Ryan Holiday {My Rec}
{*} Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion by Robert Cialdini. {My Rec}
{*} Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink & Leif Babin {My Rec}
{*} The Secret Life of Houdini: The Making of America's First Superhero {My Rec}
{*} Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion by Robert Cialdini. {My Rec}
{*} Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink & Leif Babin {My Rec}
{*} The Secret Life of Houdini: The Making of America's First Superhero {My Rec}
