Encoding Your Mind for Success - - Manifest Moments, Issue 38

P rofessor Richard Wiseman at Hertfordshire University in England has spent more than a decade researching why some people have more ‘luck’ than others. In fact he has a book called The Luck Factor.

The results will not surprise any of my readers. To change your fortune Wiseman says it’s NOT about luck... “rather it’s a way of thinking and behaving.” He quotes Louis Pasteur who said, “If you lay the groundwork, then when something happens by ‘chance,’ your memory goes right to work and you notice it.” You act on it. You ‘seize’ the moment!

Or as Colleen Seifert PhD says it, “Success needs to start the day before a success event happens.” Colleen is a Professor of Cognitive Psychology. She’s discovered that people are not very good at recalling intentions when they need to. “Though you know what you want, the knowledge doesn’t always come to mind at the right time to guide your behavior.”

Therefore the success or behavior change you want needs to start in your mind first. “You have to ‘seed’ your mind with the vision of success first.” In other words, you have to imagine yourself acting in a certain way in a certain situation. “This gives your mind instant access to the information it needs on how to act when the time is right,” emphasizes Seifert.

One example she gives is the person who wants to become less shy and have more friends. In that case it’s important to visualize using more eye contact, shaking more hands, being more open to chance meetings, and being excited about meeting new people.

Two experiments come to mind to support that. One is from Tony Robbins. I heard him say once that when he was poor, struggling and unknown, he decided that he wanted to be successful and well known. So he said to his wife, “Honey, how would you like to become a public figure?” Then he said, “OK, we’re going to walk through the lobby of this hotel as though we are already a public figures.” And the rest is history. We have to see it in our minds in order to make it materialize.

Another experiment was in basketball. Perhaps you remember it - Two groups of players, both new to basketball and both equal ability, were shown a training film. Then the two groups were sent out to practice. There was only one difference. One team had a ball to practice with and the other had to practice in their minds. The result of the experiment was that the ones who used only their minds to practiced making baskets, than the one who used the ball.

Here’s the bottom line. According to Colleen Seifert’s research, “Preparing your mind for a certain behavior increases (by as much as 50%) the chance that you’ll pull off that behavior.”  She says, “If you think about what you want, you imagine the situations in which you’ll need to remember it, you’re more likely to get it.” That’s what she calls, ‘predictive encoding the memory.’

3 MINUTE ACTION TIP: Why not ‘encode’ your memory with the success or behavior difference you want in life? All you need to do is this - STEP 1: Think of the success you want. STEP 2: See yourself acting the new way when the event or opportunity presents itself. STEP 3: Put yourself out there where it’s most likely to happen. Then let your mind work do the rest through the encoding you’ve given it.

Much love,
Christine

About the Author: Christine Harvey is the author of six international marketing and leadership books now published in 25 languages by 48 publishers, including ‘In Pursuit of Profit.’ She was the first woman and first American elected to Chair a London Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and a business start-up initiative launched by Prince Charles. She served as Director on the International Board of Zonta, with 36,000 members in 62 countries, as well as two venture capitol boards – one in the UK and one in the US. She’s been honored to address two Parliaments of the world on the ‘Privatization of Industry,’ and ‘Policy for the Growth of Private Industry.’ She has been interviewed by the media in dozens of countries. Her company trains people in sales, motivation, management and presentations with persuasion - in America, Europe, Australia and Asia.

Giving Your Power Away - - Manifest Moments, Issue 37

Eckhart Tolle talks about the ‘pain body,’ and how we have to stop giving into ‘lurking in self pity.’ A Course in Miracles talks about the ‘ego,’ and how pervasive it can be – that voice in our head making us believe ‘things are against us.’

No matter how you slice it, if you give into negative feelings, you are giving your power away. By giving your power away, I don’t mean it in the conventional way – I don’t mean giving your power to another person. By giving power away in this sense, I mean giving power away by giving into the negative thoughts in our minds which are so human – self pity, being an underdog, someone is against you, someone said something you didn’t like, how hard a task will be, how impossible something is, how awful it was, and on and on and on.

Going back to the Tony Robbins premise that our minds can only hold one thought at a time, the answer is to chose a different thought. Eckhart Tolle and A Course in Miracles would both say, ‘Choose Love.’

Something that brings love into your heart quickly will help you kick start it. I like to think of my precious granddaughter. What’s an image that brings love instantly into your heart?  I also like to hear music – the real thing works good but music in my head works good too – nice Hawaiian music for me. What’s your favorite?

Choosing love may seem very hard if we have let ourselves give into the ego or pain body for very long – by that I mean minutes or hours. The longer we stay in it, the stronger our impression is that the negativity is true. But of course it is not true, it just seems true to the ego we’ve given our power to for those seconds or minutes or hours, because each second it goes uncorrected gives it reinforcement of it’s untrue belief.

And the longer in life that we let that go on, the stronger it gets – but that’s no reason to continue to give our power away to it. If we live in untrue negativity, it’s like living in a fairy tale – but one in which there is no happiness.

Yes, there are problems in life, but not the ones we make up in our heads. I had  an email yesterday telling me that a friend is going in for open heart surgery next week. Would you want to trade your fairy tale problem in your head for her problem? And yet even she is drawing on her faith to see her through.

The answer is to come to recognize all negativity of the mind and body as fairy tales. If you get a thought that someone is against you based on something they said or did, ask them if it’s true. If you hold it as real (and 99% of the time it’s not) then it’s an injustice to them AND a huge injustice to you. Why should you suffer unnecessarily? The problem is that our minds convince us that we are ‘right’ or that we ‘know’ so many times in life, so many times each hour, when in fact we don’t ‘know.’ We may know something ‘about’ it, but we don’t ‘know’ it completely. It’s just the ‘ego’ or ‘pain body’ again filling in the missing pieces. It’s making the fairy tale seem true.

Recently I wrote about how to start the day with motivation. This is a way of keeping the ‘ego’ or ‘pain body’ at bay. It’s a way of being proactive, recognizing that it will always be there, but taking a stand for love, joy and happiness and being all you can be. It’s a way of reclaiming your power and declaring that you will choose love and the ability to stay in the moment.

Here’s input from one of our members, Walter Blackburn in the UK on the subject... “Your last 2 Manifest Moments – on Morning Motivation and Letting Courage Drive Your Success – have echoed strongly with me.
 
I think this (morning motivation) is potentially one of the most valuable ideas that you have written on recently – it certainly echoes with me! I agree with you about books by the side of the bed, though it’s been a while since I’ve read anything in the morning – thank you for reminding me. Books I keep by the bedside are generally the latest book I’m reading – at the moment it’s Robert Fritz on Structure in Organisations. As well as Dale Carnegie on How to Win Friends and Influence People.... and two I’ve come across recently “Your best year yet” – a wonderful concept, I think, and “Why should anyone be led by you?”.
 
The idea of courage is sitting with me at the moment, as I come up to a possible change of direction – what I’m doing and who I’m doing it with. All power to you to continue bringing these great ideas to life for me and for others!” (Thanks Walter for sharing these books and thoughts with the team.)

3 MINUTE ACTION TIP: What steps will you take when the negative fairy tale thinking of the ego tries to have a hold over you? Will you choose love, knowing that the mind can only hold one thought at a time? If so, what trigger of happy memory or music will you have ready? What steps will you use to be proactive, be it be books by your bedside or other? When will you start?

Much love,
Christine

About the Author: Christine Harvey is the author of six international marketing and leadership books now published in 25 languages by 48 publishers, including ‘In Pursuit of Profit.’ She was the first woman and first American elected to Chair a London Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and a business start-up initiative launched by Prince Charles. She served as Director on the International Board of Zonta, with 36,000 members in 62 countries, as well as two venture capitol boards – one in the UK and one in the US. She’s been honored to address two Parliaments of the world on the ‘Privatization of Industry,’ and ‘Policy for the Growth of Private Industry.’ She has been interviewed by the media in dozens of countries. Her company trains people in sales, motivation, management and presentations with persuasion - in America, Europe, Australia and Asia. To sign up for the weekly ‘Manifest Moments’© and ‘Profit Pointers’© curriculum, go to WomenforWealth.com