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" That advice of William James’s. It didn’t make too much of an impression when you told me, but while I was playing roulette it came back to me. I noticed any number of people who appeared not to worry at all before placing their bets. Apparently odds meant nothing to them. But once the wheel started turning, they froze up, and began to worry whether their number would come up or not. How silly, I thought. If they want to worry, or be concerned, or figure odds, the time to do that is before the decision is made to place a bet. There is something you can do about it then, by thinking about it. You can figure out the best odds possible, or decide not to take the risk at all. But after the bets are placed and the wheel starts turning—you might as well relax and enjoy it—thinking about it is not going to do one bit of good, and is wasted energy. Then I got to thinking that I myself had been doing exactly the same thing in my business and in my personal life. I often made decisions or embarked upon courses of action without adequate preparation, without considering all the risks involved and the best possible alternative. But after I had set the wheels in motion, so to speak, I continually worried over how it would come out, whether I had done the right thing. I made a decision right then that in the future I would do all my worrying, all my forebrain thinking, before a decision was made, and that after making a decision, and setting the wheels in motion, I would “dismiss absolutely all responsibility and care about the outcome.” Believe it or not, it works. I not only feel better, sleep better, and work better, but my business is running much smoother. "
― Maxwell Maltz , Psycho-Cybernetics, A New Way to Get More Living Out of Life
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" DON’T FIGHT STRAW MEN OUT OF THE PAST For example, a patient of mine became jittery and anxious in business meetings, theaters, church, or in any formal gathering. “Groups of people” were the common denominator. Without realizing it, he was attempting to react to some environment out of his past where “groups of people” were a significant factor. He remembered that, when he was a child in elementary school, he had wet his pants, and a cruel schoolteacher had called him up in front of the class and humiliated him. He reacted with feelings of humiliation and shame. Now one factor in the situation—“groups of people”—was reacted to as if it were the entire past situation. When he was able to see that he was “acting as if” he were a ten-year-old schoolboy, as if every gathering were an elementary school class, and as if every group leader were the cruel schoolteacher, his anxiety disappeared. "
― Maxwell Maltz , Psycho-Cybernetics, A New Way to Get More Living Out of Life
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" An old farmer said he quit tobacco for good one day when he discovered he had left his tobacco 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. Clarence Darrow, the famous attorney, said his success started the day that he “got mad” when he attempted to secure a mortgage to buy a house. Just as the transaction was about to be completed, the lender’s wife spoke up and said, “Don’t be a fool. He will never make enough money to pay it off.” Darrow himself had had serious doubts about the same thing. But something happened when he heard her remark. He became indignant, both at the woman and at himself, and determined he would be a success. A businessman friend of mine had a very similar experience. A failure at 40, he continually worried about “how things would come out,” about his own inadequacies, and whether or not he would be able to complete each business venture. Fearful and anxious, he was attempting to purchase some machinery on credit, when the seller’s wife objected. She did not believe he would ever be able to pay for the machinery. At first his hopes were dashed. But then he became indignant. Who was he to be pushed around like that? Who was he to skulk through the world, continually fearful of failure? The experience awakened “something” within him—some “new self”—and at once he saw that this woman’s remark, as well as his own opinion of himself, was an affront to this “something.” He had no money, no credit, and no way to accomplish what he wanted. But he found a way—and within three years he was more successful than he had ever dreamed of being—not in one business, but in three. "
― Maxwell Maltz , Psycho-Cybernetics, A New Way to Get More Living Out of Life
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" THE LESSON OF THE HOURGLASS Dr. James Gordon Gilkey preached a sermon in 1944 called “Gaining Emotional Poise,” which was reprinted in Reader’s Digest and became a classic almost overnight. He had found, through many years of counseling, that one of the main causes of breakdown, worry, and all sorts of other personal problems, was this bad mental habit of feeling that you should be doing many things now. Looking at the hourglass on his desk, he had an inspiration. Just as only one grain of sand could pass through the hourglass, so could we only do one thing, at a time. It is not the job, but the way we insist on thinking of the job that causes the trouble. Most of us feel hurried and harried, said Dr. Gilkey, because we form a false mental picture of our duties, obligations, and responsibilities. There seem to be a dozen different things pressing in on us at any given moment; a dozen different things to do; a dozen different problems to solve; a dozen different strains to endure. No matter how hurried or harried our existence may be, said Dr. Gilkey, this mental picture is entirely false. Even on the busiest day the crowded hours come to us one moment at a time; no matter how many problems, tasks, or strains we face, they always come to us in single file, which is the only way they can come. To get a true mental picture, he suggested visualizing an hourglass, with the many grains of sand dropping one by one. This mental picture will bring emotional poise, just as the false mental picture will bring emotional unrest. "
― Maxwell Maltz , Psycho-Cybernetics, A New Way to Get More Living Out of Life
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" Your present negative beliefs were formed by thought plus feelings. Generate enough emotion, or deep feeling, and your new thoughts and ideas will cancel them out. If you will analyze this, you will see that you are using a process you have often used before—worry! The only difference is you change your goals from negative to positive. When you worry, you first of all picture some undesirable future outcome, or goal, very vividly in your imagination. You use no effort or willpower. But you keep dwelling on the “end result.” You keep thinking about it—dwelling on it—picturing it to yourself as a “possibility.” You play with the idea that it “might happen.” This constant repetition, and thinking in terms of “possibilities,” makes the end result appear more and more “real” to you. After time, appropriate emotions are automatically generated—fear, anxiety, discouragement—all these are appropriate to the undesirable end result you are worrying about. Now change the “goal picture”—and you can as easily generate “good emotions.” Constantly picturing to yourself, and dwelling on, a desirable end result will also make the possibility seem more real—and again appropriate emotions of enthusiasm, cheerfulness, encouragement, and happiness will automatically be generated. “In forming good emotional habits, and in breaking bad ones,” said Dr. Knight Dunlap, “we have to deal primarily with thought and thought habits. ‘As a man thinketh in his heart so is he. "
― Maxwell Maltz , Psycho-Cybernetics, A New Way to Get More Living Out of Life
