📖Psycho-cybernetics: updated and expanded

authors
Maltz, Maxwell
year
2015

  • pp.xix–xx Positive thinking works when it’s consistent with self-image and does not when it is not

  • p.2 all your actions are consistent with self-image and you cannot act otherwise

  • p.3 self-image can be changed

  • p.4 personality is a system of ideas that must seem to be consistent

  • p.5 self-consistency: A theory of personality by Lecky (out of print) #book

  • p.12 subconscious mind is not a mind at all but a machine of brain and nervous system used by “conscious” mind. (There is a single mind.)

    • the subconscious is a goal-striving machine (“Creative Mechanism”)

  • p.13 mental images are our goal

    • self-image is the most important of them

  • p.13 our attitudes and interpretations define problems to solve

  • p.20 unlike animals, man can set their own goals

  • p.21 “cybernetics” from Greek = “steerman”

  • p.22 man is not a machine but has a machine that he uses

  • 2 types of servo-mechanism:

    • pursuing goal

      • move forward, make mistakes, correct them

    • selecting goal

      • the “goal” already exists—you just filter your options

  • p.30 a man cannot develop a new self-image by pure will or arbitrary deciding to do so. There must be some justification why the previous image is incorrect and new image is appropriate.

  • read ch.2 3 times per week for 21 day

  • p.31 you only have to select the goal. the mechanism will sort its way through

  • rehearse situations and imagine answering the most difficult questions and situations correctly

  • p.84 if you can openly speak before friends, you can do public speaking—you only have to perceive audience as your friends

  • p.84 “piano men” (I have never tried)

  • §5 use your reason to shake off irrational beliefs

  • §6 relax and let you machine work

    • worry before you bet, not after

    • be in the present moment

    • do not multitask

    • sleep on it

    • relax while you work

  • p.108 happy people are generally more successful (or vice versa?)

  • p.113

    Men are disturbed not by the things that happen, but by their opinion of the things that happen. —Epictecus

  • p.127 Success

    • S—Sense of direction (have a goal, project(s) or a cause)

    • U—Understanding (seek truth in the situation, not your guesses)

    • C—Courage

    • C—Compassion

    • E—Esteem

    • S—Self-confidence

    • S—Self-acceptance

  • p.146 Failure

    • F—Frustration, hopelessness, futility → unrealistic goals

    • A—Aggressiveness (misdirected)

    • I—Insecurity

    • L—Loneliness (lack of “oneness”)

    • U—Uncertainty

    • R—Resentment

    • E—Emptiness

  • p.150 → You cannot correct your course if you’re standing still

    You cannot correct your course if you’re standing still.

  • Use these negative signs as symptoms/indicators and take corrective actions.

  • p.200 disinhibition

    • the people need to think before they say, but not you

    • p.203 speak louder to disinhibit

  • p.210 delay your response to stimuli (to calm down)

  • p.228 learning without pressure creates broader “cognitive maps.” Learning under pressure ingrains one way of solving problem → Learning without pressure creates broader “cognitive maps”

    • p.254 learn the feeling of success

    • p.255 gradually increase difficulty

  • p.281 the man does not peak at 25 and then decline. Latest findings show that man peak at ~35 and then maintain level until well past 70 → Man peaks at 35 and then maintains

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