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The Mind's Hidden Control Panel: Unlocking Your Potential
Imagine discovering a hidden control panel within your mind that could transform your life. In 1960, a plastic surgeon named Dr. Maxwell Maltz made exactly such a discovery, revealing that our self-image acts as the master switch controlling our success or failure. This groundbreaking work, Psycho-Cybernetics, became one of the most influential self-help books ever written, selling over 30 million copies and inspiring countless success coaches including Tony Robbins, who credits it as a foundational influence. Celebrities from Will Smith to Arnold Schwarzenegger have praised its methods. What made this book revolutionary wasn't just its concepts but its unique fusion of plastic surgery insights with the then-emerging science of cybernetics-the study of self-regulating systems. Dr. Maltz observed something fascinating: changing a person's face often changed their entire personality, yet sometimes it didn't. This led him to discover that our mental self-image, not our physical appearance, is the true key to transformation.
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The Self-Image: Your Life's Operating System
Your self-image-your mental blueprint of the "sort of person I am"-functions like an operating system controlling every aspect of your life. This mental picture has been built from your beliefs about yourself, most unconsciously formed from past experiences, successes, failures, humiliations, triumphs, and how others have reacted to you. Once an idea about yourself becomes embedded in this self-image, you act as if it were true, regardless of your conscious intentions.
This explains why willpower alone often fails to create lasting change. The man who sees himself as a "failure type person" will find some way to fail despite good intentions. The woman who believes herself unworthy of love will sabotage relationships that might prove her wrong. Your actions, feelings, behavior-even your abilities-always align with your self-image.
As a plastic surgeon, I witnessed this phenomenon repeatedly. A shy, retiring woman would become bold and confident after a facial correction. A "moronic" boy would transform into an alert, bright youngster. Yet there were exceptions that puzzled me-patients whose personalities remained unchanged despite dramatic physical improvements. The Duchess who remained painfully shy even after surgery gave her a beautiful nose. The businessman who insisted surgery had made no difference despite everyone else seeing remarkable improvement.
These exceptions revealed something profound: the "face" of personality is not physical but psychological. When this inner self-image remained "scarred," the person continued acting out this role regardless of physical appearance. When the inner self-image was reconstructed, the person changed even without physical alteration.
Most fascinating were patients demanding surgery for purely imaginary ugliness-perfectly normal-looking people convinced they were hideous. A recent survey showed 90% of college women were dissatisfied with their appearance. Obviously, 90% of our population cannot be objectively "defective" in appearance, yet these people experience the same shame and anxiety as if they were truly disfigured.
The self-image explains all these apparent contradictions. To live a satisfying life, you must have an adequate and realistic self-image you can live with-one you're not ashamed of, one you can express rather than hide, one that corresponds to reality so you can function effectively in the world. When this self-image is secure, you feel confident. When threatened, you feel anxious. When it's something you can be wholesomely proud of, you're free to be yourself.
Глава 3
Discovering Your Built-In Success Mechanism
Every living thing has a built-in guidance system or goal-striving device, put there by its Creator to help it achieve its goal-which is, broadly speaking, to "live." In simpler life forms, this means physical survival. In humans, "to live" encompasses emotional and spiritual fulfillment as well. Your built-in "Success Mechanism" is far more sophisticated than any animal's instinct, helping you not only avoid danger but also solve problems, invent, create art, build businesses, and achieve success in any activity that makes for a fuller life.
This success mechanism functions as both a guidance system to automatically steer you toward goals and as an "electronic brain" that solves problems, provides answers, and generates new ideas. It operates like a servo-mechanism-a self-guiding machine that automatically corrects its course when it veers off target.
When you select a goal and commit to it, your automatic mechanism takes over, using feedback data to correct your movements until you reach your destination. It's similar to how a center fielder catches a fly ball-without conscious calculation, he instantly computes the ball's trajectory, wind factors, and his own running speed to determine exactly where to position himself. His built-in goal-striving mechanism handles these calculations automatically, comparing data with stored memories of previous catches, and issues orders to his leg muscles.
Your brain also works like a problem-solver, scanning through stored information until it locates the answer that satisfies all conditions of the problem. Many great thinkers believe this stored information extends beyond personal memories. Emerson spoke of "one mind common to all individuals," comparing our minds to inlets in an ocean of universal mind. Edison claimed ideas were "in the air." Dr. J.B. Rhine's parapsychology experiments proved we can access knowledge beyond our individual memories through telepathy, clairvoyance, and precognition.
When seeking new ideas or solutions, we must assume the answer already exists somewhere and set out to find it. This explains why creative breakthroughs often come during relaxation after intense thought-we've given our success mechanism the goal and allowed it to work without interference.
The critical difference between humans and machines is that we have an "operator"-a forebrain, an "I," the ability to pose problems, set goals, feel emotions, and determine which goals are worthwhile. Your success mechanism is impersonal. It works automatically to achieve goals of success and happiness, or unhappiness and failure, depending on the goals you yourself set for it.
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Imagination: Programming Your Success Mechanism
Imagination plays a far more important role in our lives than most realize. Your imagination shapes your self-image and determines your actions more powerfully than willpower. A human being always acts according to what they imagine to be true about themselves and their environment-this is a fundamental law of mind.
The nervous system cannot distinguish between an imagined experience and a real one, reacting automatically to information from the forebrain. This explains the seemingly mysterious power of hypnosis, where subjects behave differently simply because they think and believe differently when convinced the hypnotist's words are true.
Understanding that our actions and feelings result from our mental images gives us the key to changing personality. Mental pictures allow us to "practice" new traits and attitudes because our nervous system responds to vividly imagined experiences almost as it would to actual ones.
Research proves this-psychologist R.A. Vandell showed mental practice in dart throwing improved aim as much as actual practice, and basketball free throw studies revealed that players who practiced only in their imagination improved 23% compared to 24% for those who physically practiced. Our imagination enables us to rehearse success before experiencing it in reality.
Top golfers use mental rehearsal extensively. Ben Hogan mentally rehearses each tournament shot before execution, perfectly visualizing the swing and follow-through. Golf instructor Alex Morrison developed a system of mental practice that enables players to improve without physical practice, emphasizing that golf is 90% mental. He helped celebrities like Paul Whiteman and Lew Lehr dramatically improve their scores through visualization techniques, proving that having a clear mental picture of success is more important than perfect form.
Successful people throughout history have used mental pictures and rehearsal practice to achieve success. Napoleon practiced soldiering in his imagination for years before actual battle. Conrad Hilton imagined operating hotels as a boy. Henry Kaiser visualized each business accomplishment before it materialized. The science of cybernetics explains why this works-your brain functions as a servo-mechanism that needs a clear target to hit. When you visualize the desired result, you force yourself to use positive thinking and direct your efforts toward your goal rather than wasting energy on mental conflict.
Your creative mechanism can help achieve your best possible self by forming a mental picture of who you want to become. This visualization is essential for personality transformation. Edward McGoldrick uses this technique to help alcoholics cross the "bridge" from old self to new self by having them create daily mental movies of themselves as sober, responsible people enjoying life without liquor.
Глава 5
Breaking Free from False Beliefs
False beliefs act as powerful hypnotic suggestions that limit our capabilities and potential. Dr. Alfred Adler's childhood experience with mathematics illustrates this perfectly-labeled as "dumb in mathematics," he accepted this evaluation until a moment of insight revealed his true ability. Similarly, a businessman I treated couldn't deliver speeches because he believed his appearance wasn't "executive" enough. The solution wasn't changing his looks but replacing his negative belief with conviction about his important message.
Elmer Wheeler discovered a salesman who consistently earned exactly $5,000 per year regardless of territory quality or commission rates. When given better territories, he'd coast after reaching his target; in poor territories, he'd work harder to reach it. Once, he even became mysteriously "sick" after hitting $5,000, recovering miraculously by the new year. The problem wasn't external conditions but his self-valuation as a "$5,000-per-year man."
Every human being is hypnotized to some extent by uncritically accepted ideas. In professional hypnosis demonstrations, athletes can't lift objects they normally could, or conversely, can exhibit strength beyond their normal capacity-not because the hypnotist adds or removes physical ability, but because he removes mental blocks. The hypnotist essentially "dehypnotizes" subjects from their self-limiting beliefs, allowing them to access capabilities they already possessed but didn't know were there.
About 95% of people have their lives blighted by feelings of inferiority. These feelings don't come from actual inferiority in skills but from comparing ourselves to others' standards. The truth is you're neither "inferior" nor "superior"-you're simply you, a unique individual not in competition with anyone else. God created no "standard person" but made everyone individual and unique like snowflakes. An inferiority complex can be artificially created by establishing a "norm" and convincing someone they don't measure up.
Physical relaxation is essential to the dehypnotization process. Our current beliefs, whether good or bad, formed without effort or strain. Therefore, we must employ the same relaxed condition to form new beliefs or habits. Using effort or willpower to change beliefs often produces adverse effects rather than benefits. Emile Coue discovered that "suggestions must be made without effort to be effective" and that "when will and imagination are in conflict, imagination invariably wins."
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The Power of Rational Thinking
Many patients are disappointed when prescribed something as simple as using their God-given power of reason to change negative beliefs. Yet this method works because rational, conscious thinking has direct power over unconscious processes. Your automatic mechanism is impersonal, operating like a machine based on the data you feed it through your conscious thoughts. It was by conscious thought-perhaps irrational-that negative reaction patterns developed, and it is by conscious rational thought that they can be changed.
Buried memories of past failures don't need to be "dug out" to effect personality changes. All skill learning happens through trial and error-making attempts, missing, correcting, and eventually succeeding. These negative experiences contribute to learning when used as "negative feedback data," but once an error is recognized and corrected, it should be consciously forgotten while successful attempts are remembered. Dwelling on errors makes them the "goal" held in imagination.
When a shy person under hypnosis believes they are a confident orator, their reaction patterns change instantly-they act as they currently believe with complete focus on the positive goal. Dorothea Brande discovered this principle after witnessing hypnosis demonstrations and reading F.M.H. Myers' explanation about the "purgation of memory" of past failures. She transformed her writing career by simply "acting as if it were impossible to fail," unlocking talents she never knew she had.
Bertrand Russell overcame unhappiness by diminishing preoccupation with himself and his deficiencies. His method for changing automatic reaction patterns involved examining the causes of irrational feelings and convincing himself in detail of their absurdity. Russell advised making conscious beliefs so vivid they could overcome childhood impressions, pulling up irrational thoughts by the roots whenever they appear.
Prescott Lecky discovered that ideas are changed not by willpower but by other ideas. His method involved showing subjects that their negative self-concepts were inconsistent with other deeply held beliefs. The mind naturally seeks consistency, so when inconsistency is consciously recognized, one idea must be rejected.
To change negative behavior, trace down the belief behind it. Do you feel unworthy of success? Inferior to others? Anxious in safe situations? Remember that both behavior and feelings spring from beliefs. To root out problematic beliefs, simply ask yourself "why?" When you feel "I can't" do something, question whether this belief is based on actual fact or merely an assumption.
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Relaxation: The Key to Accessing Your Success Mechanism
We speak of our era as the age of stress, accepting worry, anxiety, insomnia, and ulcers as necessary parts of modern life. Yet this needn't be so. Our Creator provided us with a built-in creative mechanism to live successfully in any age. Our trouble is ignoring this automatic creative mechanism while trying to solve all problems through conscious "forebrain thinking." The forebrain identifies problems and sets goals but cannot create or do the actual work-yet modern man tries to solve everything through conscious thought.
William James advised in his essay "The Gospel of Relaxation" that we were too tense and concerned for results, suggesting we form the habit of freeing our thoughts from inhibitive reflection and egotistic preoccupation with results. Prudence, duty, and ambition should be confined to making general resolutions and plans-but kept out of execution details. Once a decision is reached, we should dismiss all responsibility about the outcome and let our machinery run free.
In his Gifford Lectures, James cited numerous examples of people who tried unsuccessfully for years to rid themselves of anxieties and worries through conscious effort, only finding success when they surrendered the struggle. The path to success comes through passivity rather than activity-relaxation, not intentness. Giving up responsibility, letting go, and resigning care of your destiny to higher powers allows a greater Self to emerge.
Writers, inventors, and creative workers consistently report that creative ideas aren't consciously thought out but come automatically when the conscious mind has let go of the problem. These inspirations don't come randomly-the person must first be intensely interested in solving a particular problem, gather information, consider possibilities, and have a burning desire for a solution. But after defining the problem and securing information, additional struggling and worrying hinders rather than helps.
Your Success Mechanism produces "creative doing" as effectively as "creative ideas." Skill in any performance-sports, piano playing, conversation, or selling-comes from relaxing and letting the job do itself through you. Creative performance is spontaneous and natural, not self-conscious and studied. A pianist couldn't play if he consciously thought about each finger movement. He becomes skilled only when he can cease conscious effort and turn playing over to the unconscious habit mechanism within the Success Mechanism.
Conscious effort inhibits the automatic creative mechanism. Self-consciousness and awkwardness in social situations stem from being too concerned about doing the right thing. Every action becomes "thought-out" and calculated. Such people have inhibited their own creative mechanism. If they could "let go," stop trying, and give no thought to their behavior, they could act creatively and spontaneously.
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The Habit of Happiness
Happiness is not just a philosophical concept but a medical necessity. Dr. John A. Schindler defines happiness as "a state of mind in which our thinking is pleasant a good share of the time"-a definition that holds up from both medical and ethical standpoints. Happiness is native to the human mind and body; we think, perform, feel, and function better when happy. Russian psychologist K. Kekcheyev found that people experiencing pleasant thoughts had improved sensory perception. Dr. William Bates proved eyesight improves immediately with pleasant thoughts. Harvard psychologists confirmed the old Dutch proverb "Happy people are never wicked" by finding most criminals came from unhappy homes.
Many people mistakenly believe they must wait until they "deserve" to think pleasant thoughts, which often leads to unpleasant thoughts about their own unworthiness. Spinoza noted, "Happiness is not the reward of virtue, but virtue itself." Many sincere people avoid seeking happiness, fearing it would be "selfish" or "wrong." Yet unselfishness itself creates happiness by directing our minds outward and allowing us to express ourselves creatively by helping others.
One of the most common causes of unhappiness is attempting to live on the "deferred payment plan"-waiting for some future event to be happy rather than enjoying life now. As Pascal observed, "We are never living, but only hoping to live; and, looking forward always to being happy, it is inevitable that we never are so." People postpone happiness until they get married, secure a better job, pay off the house, or achieve some victory. Invariably, they're disappointed because happiness is a mental habit that must be practiced in the present.
As Abraham Lincoln said, "Most people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be." Happiness is purely internal, produced not by objects but by thoughts and attitudes we develop regardless of environment. While no one can be 100% happy all the time, we can consciously decide to think pleasant thoughts much of the time. Much of our habitual unhappiness comes from reacting with grumpiness, resentment, and irritability to petty annoyances.
Since humans are goal-striving beings, we function naturally when oriented toward positive goals. Happiness is a symptom of this normal functioning-when striving toward desirable goals, we tend to feel happy regardless of circumstances. Thomas Edison demonstrated this when he lost his million-dollar laboratory in a fire with no insurance. Asked what he would do, he simply replied, "We will start rebuilding tomorrow morning." His aggressive, goal-oriented attitude likely prevented deep unhappiness about his loss.
Ralph Waldo Emerson said, "The measure of mental health is the disposition to find good everywhere." Happiness isn't something that happens to you but something you determine for yourself. Every day contains both good and evil elements-our outlook depends on what we choose to give primary attention.
Глава 9
The Success Personality: Your Blueprint for Achievement
Just as doctors diagnose disease from symptoms, failure and success can also be diagnosed because a person carries their seeds in personality and character. The successful personality can be remembered through the letters of the word "SUCCESS": Sense of direction, Understanding, Courage, Charity, Esteem, Self-Confidence, and Self-Acceptance.
Sense of Direction: We function as goal-seeking mechanisms, built to conquer environment and solve problems. Without personal goals, we feel lost and purposeless. Like a bicycle that maintains balance only when moving forward, or a mountain climber who feels courageous looking upward but afraid looking down, we need direction. The prescription: Get yourself a worthwhile goal or project, always have something to look forward to, and develop a "forward look" rather than nostalgia for the past.
Understanding: Understanding depends on good communication. You cannot react appropriately with faulty information. Many human relations failures stem from misunderstandings-expecting others to react as we would to the same circumstances. Remember that people respond to their mental images, not objective reality. Their reactions aren't meant to make us suffer but reflect their understanding of the situation.
Courage: Having goals and understanding aren't enough-you need courage to act. As Admiral Halsey said, "The best defense is a strong offense" applies beyond war. Problems become smaller when confronted boldly. Faith is the courage to do something regardless of consequences. Often the difference between success and failure isn't better abilities but the courage to bet on your ideas and take calculated risks.
Charity: Successful personalities have interest in and regard for others. They respect human dignity and treat people as human beings rather than pawns. Our feelings about ourselves correspond to our feelings about others-when we feel more charitable toward others, we feel better about ourselves. The person who believes "people are not very important" cannot have much self-respect, as he himself is "people."
Esteem: Self-disesteem is one of life's deadliest traps-the pit we dig ourselves when thinking "It's no use, I can't do it." This defeatism costs both the individual in lost rewards and society in unrealized progress. Low self-opinion isn't a virtue but a vice that can manifest as jealousy and hostility toward others. The prescription: Stop carrying a mental picture of yourself as defeated and worthless. Stop dramatizing yourself as an object of pity. Appreciate your own worth as a creation of God-this isn't egotism unless you take credit for making yourself.
Self-Confidence: Confidence builds upon experiences of success. When beginning any undertaking, we have little confidence until we learn from experience that we can succeed. Success truly breeds success-even small successes can become stepping stones to greater ones. Another important technique is remembering past successes while forgetting failures. This is how both electronic computers and our brains are designed to operate. Practice improves skill not through mere repetition, but because our brain remembers and reinforces successful attempts while forgetting misses.
Self-Acceptance: No genuine happiness is possible without self-acceptance. The most miserable people are those constantly striving to convince themselves and others they are something other than what they basically are. Success often eludes those who strain to "be somebody," yet comes naturally when a person relaxes and simply "becomes themselves." Changing your self-image doesn't mean changing yourself, but changing your mental picture of yourself. Self-acceptance means accepting yourself with all your faults, weaknesses, and shortcomings, as well as your assets and strengths.
Глава 10
Turning Crisis Into Opportunity
Crisis situations can either make you or break you. When you react properly, a crisis can give you strength, power, and wisdom you don't ordinarily possess. When you react improperly, it robs you of your normal skills and abilities.
Some people perform better under pressure while others crumble. John Thomas, the high-jumper, set world records in competition that exceeded his practice jumps. Certain salespeople "sell over their heads" when facing important prospects, while others become inarticulate. The difference isn't an inherent quality, but how they've learned to react to crisis situations.
The "money player" who performs better under challenge has learned to react well to crisis situations. To perform well in a crisis we need to: learn skills under non-pressure conditions, react with an aggressive rather than defensive attitude, and evaluate crisis situations in their true perspective without making mountains out of molehills.
We don't learn well under crisis conditions. Dr. Edward Tolman found that animals and humans form "cognitive maps" during learning. With less pressure, these maps become broad and general, allowing for adaptation. With over-motivation, the maps become narrow and restricted, creating rigid responses. Rats allowed to explore mazes without pressure performed better when later tested under hunger conditions than rats forced to learn while hungry.
People learning to escape a burning building take much longer than those practicing in a calm drill. Over-motivation interferes with reasoning. But those who practice "dry run" fire drills can act calmly and efficiently during actual fires because their muscles, nerves, and brain have memorized a flexible response pattern that carries over to the real situation.
Self-expression means pushing out your talents and abilities-a "yes" response-while inhibition chokes them off. In shadow-boxing, you practice self-expression without inhibiting factors, forming a flexible mental map that carries over to actual situations. You also build a mental image of yourself acting successfully, which enhances future performance.
"Crisis" comes from a Greek word meaning "decisiveness" or "point of decision"-a fork in the road toward either better or worse conditions. The key is maintaining an aggressive attitude, focusing on what you want to happen rather than what might happen to you. Hugh Casey, a successful relief pitcher, always thought about what he was going to do rather than what the batter might do. This goal-directed mindset turns the crisis situation itself into a stimulus for untapped powers, as shown by ordinary people performing extraordinary feats in emergencies.
Many people magnify potential failures out of proportion, reacting to minor situations as if they were life-or-death matters. Bertrand Russell suggested a technique: consider seriously what is the very worst that could possibly happen, face it directly, and give yourself sound reasons for thinking it wouldn't be so terrible after all. Most everyday "crises" are merely opportunities to either advance or stay where you are.
Глава 11
Living Longer, Living Better
Does every human have a built-in fountain of youth? Can the Success Mechanism keep you young? Does the Failure Mechanism accelerate aging? While medical science doesn't have definitive answers, we can draw practical conclusions from what's known.
I believe the physical body is a machine composed of numerous goal-directed mechanisms, but MAN himself is not a machine. The essence of MAN is what animates this machine-his life, consciousness, intelligence and sense of identity. For years, scientists have suspected a universal "energy" or vitality that explains why some individuals resist disease better, age more slowly, or live longer than others. This energy source is something beyond the surface energy from food.
Dr. Hans Selye of the University of Montreal has scientifically established this "life force" through his studies on stress since 1936. He calls it "adaptation energy"-the force that enables us to adapt to stress situations throughout life. This adaptation energy differs from caloric energy from food, and appears connected to the fundamentals of aging. Selye's extensive research has proven that the body is equipped to maintain health, cure disease, and remain youthful by successfully coping with factors that bring about aging.
This life force or adaptation energy manifests in many ways. The energy that heals wounds is the same energy that keeps all our body organs functioning. When this energy is at optimum levels, all organs function better, we feel good, wounds heal faster, and we resist disease more effectively. This same energy makes us feel and act younger-and biologically, we are younger.
I noticed surgical wounds healed faster in optimistic, cheerful "positive thinkers" who had compelling reasons to recover quickly. These patients embodied the "Success Mechanism" I've described previously. Emotional stress, frustration, and other aspects of the "failure mechanism" can literally make physical injuries worse and age us prematurely. If aging results from depleting our adaptation energy, indulging in negative emotions can make us old before our time.
The "rapid-healers" among my patients shared one characteristic: they were optimistic positive thinkers who not only expected to recover quickly but had compelling reasons to get well. They had "something to look forward to" and "something to get well for."
We may unconsciously accelerate aging by expecting to "get old" at a certain age. Dr. Raphael Ginzberg stated that the traditional idea of becoming old and useless around seventy largely causes people to age at that point. Those who think of themselves as "middle-aged" and "over the hill" at 45 tend to look and act older than those who still consider themselves on the younger side of middle age.
Life itself is adaptive, not just an end but a means to achieve important goals. If life adapts in varied forms to act as means toward ends, it's reasonable to assume that if we place ourselves in situations where more life is needed, we will receive more life. Looking forward to the future with joy and anticipation creates this need for more Life Force, especially when we have something important to do and somewhere to go.
Creativity is a key characteristic of the Life Force, and creative people need more of it. Actuarial tables confirm they get it-creative workers like scientists, inventors, painters, and writers not only live longer but remain productive longer than non-creative workers. Michelangelo painted masterpieces past 80; Goethe wrote Faust when past 80; Edison was still inventing at 90. This is why I tell my patients to develop a "nostalgia for the future" instead of the past. Develop enthusiasm for life, create a need for more life, and you will receive more life.
Finally, let us not limit our acceptance of Life by our own feelings of unworthiness. The most adequate and realistic self-image of all is to conceive of yourself as "made in the image of God." You cannot believe yourself the image of God, deeply and sincerely, with full conviction, and not receive a new source of strength and power.
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