Psycho-Cybernetics Part 16 of 30: The Man Carrying Rocks & Weeds
May 29, 2009 by dr. lam · 2 Comments
There was once a man who was traveling by himself along a lonely stretch of highway carrying a bag over his shoulder filled with bricks, a boulder over the other shoulder, and weeds wrapping around his legs. He was so weighted down that he could only advance with abbreviated, hobbling steps. One day a stranger by the side of the road asked him, “Sir, why are you carrying that heavy boulder on your shoulder?” The man stopped and thought, “Hmm, that’s a great question. This rock has gotten so heavy, but I have forgotten why I am still carrying it.” With that, he let go of the boulder and was able to walk a bit straighter. He then came across another bystander a little farther down that asked him, “Sir, why do you carry that heavy bag filled with bricks?” The man again stopped and could not remember why he was carrying the bricks so he in turn let the bricks down on the side of the road and felt his pace quicken and his heart lighten. A small child then said to him farther down the road, “Why sir are you walking with weeds choking your feet?” Again, the man had no ready answer and unraveled the weeds from his feet only to walk now with a light step and a quickened energy.
The problem with the man was not his carrying the burdens but his lack of awareness of his burdens that he was carrying. What burdens are you carrying today? Do you need to carry those burdens? As an exercise, write the name of each burden that you are unnecessarily carrying on a rock or a heavy object and put it in a knapsack and put it into the back of your car. When you get to work, tell yourself consciously, “I shall leave these rocks here and not take them to work with me today.” When you drive home and are about to get out of your car say to yourself, “I will enter my home at peace without these large bricks of burden.” Obviously, you can use any physical substitute for a brick like a plate or something else. Making it concrete will help you realize just how much you have been carrying without your even knowing it.
Psycho-Cybernetics Part 15 of 30: Raising your AQ
May 28, 2009 by dr. lam · 2 Comments
We all know of our IQ (intelligence quotient). You may also know the term EQ, or emotional quotient, or EI, emotional intelligence, that have been of recent interest. Maltz cites Paul Stoltz, a management consultant, who in 1967 came up with the idea of AQ, or adversity quotient. Stoltz believed that the successful person had a high AQ, i.e., could handle adversity, and Maltz sees the congruity with his own thoughts on how he envisions a successful person with a good self image. Stoltz outlined three attributes of the person with a high AQ:
1. They do not blame others for the adversities or setbacks they confront.
2. They do not blame themselves either; they do not see setbacks that occur as reflecting poorly on themselves.
3. They believe the problems they face are limited in size and duration, and can be dealt with.
Many individuals see their problems as insurmountable. They feel helpless. They cannot overcome their situation in life. They are subjugated by a victim mentality. They are burdened by mounting shame and guilt. They blame others for being weak. They blame God or destiny. They blame themselves.
Stoltz worked to help organizations move people from this victim mentality to see obstacles as small speed bumps rather than brick walls. He found that by helping people raise their AQ to deal with life circumstances, they could help themselves achieve their goals and be happier. Maltz’s view of a high self image is in accordance with the principle of a high AQ. When we have a solid self image, we can then allow our sub-conscious to work its magic by overcoming obstacles without us having to even try in many cases.
Psycho-Cybernetics Part 14 of 30: S.U.C.C.E.S.S.
May 27, 2009 by dr. lam · 7 Comments
Maltz admits that most people out there when ask to envision a goal and to allow their servo-mechanism to go into action cannot conceive of a goal or what a successful type person is. Accordingly, he has come up with a an acronym for success, which is s.u.c.c.e.s.s. to help you envision what a successful person looks like. Here goes:
Sense of direction- Maltz looks at humans as needing goals and striving for goals (as mentioned in the previous blogs). He envisions us like bicycles. When a bicycle is in motion, it moves forward. When it stops, it topples over. When moving with a sense of purpose and goal, we move ourselves forward. When we stop, we lose balance.
Understanding- Understanding begins with good communication — both communication to ourselves and from others. Communication of the truth allows us to attain proper understanding. He likens some leaders to Hitler’s bunker mentality when any messenger that would give him bad news would be shot dead. If we surround ourselves with yes men, we will never know the truth. Our lack of understanding of the truth will lead to our own demise. However, we must first begin with telling ourselves our own truth. We can try by telling ourselves the truth about our own limitation so that we can admit to this fault and move beyond it. This does not mean that we are that fault but we accept the action of making such a fault not by reliving it or accepting the condition of the fault. Rigorous honesty with ourselves and allowing others to be honest with us allows us to attain a measure of success that the person who lies to himself and only wants to hear flattering lies from others will never achieve.
Courage- Understanding should only be the first step. Understanding by itself is not enough. We must act, and that act is being courageous. Courageous to fail because we know that we are not the summation of our past failures, that we can fail in order to succeed. We can fail and remain not a failure. By taking risks and moving forward, we can achieve success. But we must first have a strong self image that allows us to fail without abjectly seeing ourselves as failures. Lee Iacocca said that decisiveness was the number one attribute he looked for in key people. We talked about that in a previous blog.
Charity (Compassion)- When we respect others, we can respect ourselves. Have you ever dealt with people who treat others as mere pawns in their own righteous game? Those individuals are living far from a real world view because people are worthy of respect and love as people. When we help other people with their problems and give them respect as humans then we can look inward at our ourselves with the same dignity and respect.
Esteem- Put the inner critic away. When we have a healthy self-image we don’t worry what others think. When Maltz was asked why a 65-year-old plastic surgeon in the twilight of his career would be updating an edition of his book that probably would not garner much reception, he simply replied he did not even think about what another person thought of him or the reception his book would have. He simply wrote it because he wanted and needed to do so. We need to chastise and chase out our inner demons that limit our own sense of self and not worry what others think of us (again more of that in a coming blog).
Self-Confidence- Success breeds success. We triumph by having even a small success that builds us in our self confidence. We forget past failures but focus on the successes that we have made to arrive at where we are today. However, the mind of the unsuccessful person focuses on all the bad decisions and past failures and fails to see the glory of past accomplishments. He is mired in his own lack of self confidence by reliving past failures.
Self-Acceptance- This means that we accept ourselves warts and all. It does not mean that we create a contrived self image that does not reflect who we are. Conversely, it also does not mean that we live in the squalor of our imperfections. As humans, we make mistakes, but we are not our mistakes. We can fail but we are not failures. Understanding the difference between the act and the condition can help us attain self-acceptance. The individual who focuses on his own imperfections to a fault typically does not have a good self image and lives in a state of self rejection. With a good self image, we can divorce the act from the condition and thereby live to take risks and live to live.
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Speaking of success…I’m really proud of my high-school mentoree, Kristine Nwosu, who shadowed me for the past few months and did a presentation on her experience with me. She also did an anti-drug campaign based on her learning about a reconstructive rhinoplasty case that i did for a cocaine saddled nose. At 16 years of age, she already knows she wants to be a surgeon. She is top of her class, an overachiever, and very intelligent. She came in twice during her spring break week! Here are the highlights from her talk last night for those who are interested:
Psycho-Cybernetics Part 13 of 30: Happiness is not Conditional
May 26, 2009 by dr. lam · 2 Comments
In our pursuit of happiness, we oftentimes are pushed by external circumstances to define that level of happiness. Maltz uses the example of a game show host when the “Applause” sign goes on, we applaud. When the “laughter” sign goes on, we are asked to laugh. We are like sheep that must respond to the external circumstances that dictate to us how to behave. True happiness falls outside of external circumstances.
In his book, a woman of a drunkard asks Maltz, “How can I be happy?” Maltz responded, “I don’t know but you can be happier by resolving not to add resentment and self-pity to your misfortune.” The sage Epictetus said, “Men are disturbed not by the things that happen, but by their opinion of the things that happen.” Don’t add your opinion to unhappy events. Don’t make the situation any worse. Instead, when we try our best to liberate our mind from unhappy events and live in a state of happiness, we can be in a much better place.
Maltz also envisions human beings as goal-striving. When we are moving in a certain direction, we are happy. When we are not, we are not. Obviously, this striving can be read as a stark contrast to the idea of contentment espoused in previous blogs extracted from the Far East. I would say that we can put this paradox to rest by seeing that “goal striving” is a product of what I would like to call purpose or meaning. If our goals are superficial, e.g., just to be rich, then perhaps we will not arrive at happiness. But when we have more meaningful goals in our life, we can perhaps have something to move toward, which can be a source of happiness. Put another way, when the anxiety over that goal makes our current state unhappy, then we have failed to grasp Maltz’s true meaning of being happy today with that happiness amplified by seeing a direction in our life that we are moving toward. All of my faithful blog readers know that I use the word “journey” to describe the process that we are all on in self growth and self actualization. Accordingly, we can fully grasp the apparent paradox of current happiness and goal striving. I think Lao-Tzu would be proud of how we can resolve an apparent paradox. Namaste.
Monday Meditations Part 5: Hindrance Meditation
May 25, 2009 by dr. lam · 2 Comments
Many of our meditative thoughts drift to our concerns and our fears. We cannot stay centered very well because we tend to start to let our worries consume us and we are propelled back to our daily anxieties. This exercise allows us to see what our hindrances are and confront them in a meditative and non-judgmental way. As we start this exercise like all meditations so far, we begin with a grounding in our breath. We focus on the nature and quality of our breathing before we proceed. As our mind naturally begins to drift toward a hindrance or an encumbrance in our life, we center that thought into our mind and allow it to float in front of us. We relinquish our judgment of that thought and let the fear and anxiety that typically surrounds it go and we replace those emotions with love, peace, and acceptance. As further hindrances enter our mind and our spirit we continue to allow those thoughts to mature and to float but we withhold negative ruminations and prejudices about our perceived hindrance. We allow us to see ourselves overcoming our hindrance and allowing us to go beyond the limitations of this hindrance. We allow ourselves to move forward without perturbation or restriction. We begin to see the hindrance no longer as a hindrance but just as, i.e., just let it be. When we have “overcome” or accepted these hindrances, we return back to our centered breathing and end with a focus on the breath. Here is a video guide to help you with this exercise. Wishing you and your family a blessed Memorial Day weekend. Namaste.