Virtually every one of my weight loss clients have demonstrated a great attitude, belief in the program and more importantly a belief in themselves.  Alyson certainly demonstrated this on her way to losing over a stone (16 pounds approx) in just over a month.  But what has been more impressive has been Alyson’s attitude.  She really wants it and her enthusiasm has led her to really understand and live on that healthy lifestyle path.

Here’s what she kindly  had to say about the programme:

Well done Alyson, and good luck to all the other Best Self Clinic Slimmers in their quest to reach their target weights.

For more information on the Best Self Weight Loss Courses visit the Best Self Weight Loss Clinic Website here or for the online home version visit www.NeuroGastricBand.com

Okay, so they asked mystery shoppers in 32 locations to buy broccoli, pears and coriander at a supermarket convenience store (eg Tesco Metro, Sainsburys Local), a large supermarket store (eg Tesco, Morrisons, Sainsburys) and an independent seller.

When the prices they paid for these three items were analysed there was some interesting results:

• The supermarket was 12% more expensive than the independent seller.
• The convenience store branch of their supermarket was a third (35%) more expensive than the independent seller.
• The convenience store branch of their supermarket was 28.91% more expensive than the main branch.
• Items were average 26% more expensive in Sainsbury’s Locals than in the Sainsbury’s supermarkets.
• Items were 31% more expensive in Tesco Express than in the larger branches of Tesco.

When it came to individual items:

• Coriander was 76.98% more expensive at the supermarket convenience store than at the independent seller or 15% more expensive at the supermarket than at the independent seller.
• The pear was 24.69% more expensive at the supermarket than the independent seller and 31.65% more expensive at the supermarket convenience store than at the independent seller.

In addition to this the market sellers were cheaper still sometimes as little as a third of the cost of the local supermarket convenience store.

When you think about how much these supermarket giants drive down farmers prices and just how large their economies of scale are you can clearly see that now they have succeeded in closing down most independent traders they are fleecing the consumer for everything we have.

My revenge

So I humbly swear to avoid shopping at any major supermarket for the next month. And if it doesn’t cost me  a lot more time and inconvenience I will extend it until the rest of the year.  I already know that my corner shop is A LOT cheaper than my local co-op and Sainsburys local.  I have access to the excellent fruit/veg/fish/meat market in Leicester as well as a local fruit and veg and butchers near where I live.  I also have access to a local Aldi who in terms of price definitely seem to pass on savings to customers.

So if you’d like to save money, eat healthier and support your local trader then please join me and enjoy the benefits.

Be your best,

Marvin

Or are you going to ‘Take Control and Make Things Happen?’

As much as I enjoyed Christmas it can be a peculiar time in many ways.  I had a list of goals that I created 12 months ago, many of them I achieved but I found myself kicking myself at not achieving some I was sure to complete.  The inevitable problems of life can take a toll and stop us from reaching our goals as quickly as we would like but that doesn’t mean you’re not good enough to achieve them and you should quit trying.  In fact the realisation that you are one year older and wiser means you’re one year wiser and ready to really take control and make things happen. The process of reassessing your goals and re-calibrating your mission is perfect for getting you in the right frame of mind to produce your best.

Here is a quick check list of 5 things I recommend you do to lay the foundations for a great year ahead.  I hope you find them useful.

1. Be Grateful.  Have you been grumbling about having to go back to work or the state of the weather or the state of your life?  Be thankful for what you have.  Be thankful that you are alive.  Be thankful for the opportunities that are in your life for life is amazing – fact!

2.Get out your pen and paper or your ipad/smartphone document or whatever you have and start writing your goals down if you haven’t already.  Put them somewhere where you can see them, laminate them perhaps but let this be your map and compass for the year.

3. Be Accountable. Tell people about your mission and goals for the year.  Tell people what you are going to do.  Making yourself accountable to others will give you ownership and a strong impetus to really get moving and not lose face.

4. Get a teacher.  Never be without a teacher.  This can be a coach such as myself but a simple way to have a teacher is by reading the books of those people with something to teach.  Books next to bed include books by Bradley Wiggins, Nelson Mandela, Viktor Frankl and Richard Branson.  Who do you think could inspire you to achieve your goals?  Who has already achieved similar results?

5. Start each day being productive in working on your future.  What I mean by this is that there are always daily activities that we will always do, housework for example but if you choose to do something for your long term contentment first those other day to day activities will still get done.  If you want to lose weight it may be doing some exercise in the morning, if you want to write a book or learn a language it may be starting that first thing.  Either way if you start productively you will already be feeling more in control of your life and less of a slave to short term habits.

There are millions of people out there who at some point decide to be better than average.   So let 2013 be a year of taking control and making things happen.

Best,

Marvin

We all have love in different forms, love for our families, our friends, our partner, our pets, our football team, our hobbies.  The psychologist John Lee categorized 6 major types of love: eros (erotic desire for an idealized other), ludus (playful or gamelike love), storge (slowly developing attachment), mania (obsessive and jealous love), agape (altruistic love), and pragma (practical love).  Although I don’t see that general love for life in general that some people seem to be blessed with.

I believe one of the problems perhaps is that the discussion of love between anyone other than your object of desire is just not very cool and trendy.  In my experience this is particularly the case between men.  The discussion of love is either seen as some sort of weakness or as a feminine trait and yet I would wager that any man who has enjoyed the feeling of love knows full well how precious it is. If this is true then any intelligent conversation about whether there is any valid reason for not talking about something so important would lead to no good answer other than to preserve the status quo of machismo man. As a result I would bet there are many men out there who are much poorer of mind all in the name of beer, football, women or any other topic of discussion that doesn’t involve emotion. I suggest they are personally compromised as a result particularly if they have never had a partner who has successfully engaged them on the topic.

Having taken many people in unhappy states through psychoanalysis it is becoming increasingly clear that all important memories that brought happiness into their lives centred around love and that every negative neuroses centred around an absence, betrayal or some kind of destruction of that love.  It becomes even more clear that a betrayal of love, usually from a family member or ex-partner, usually leaves behind some undercurrent of negativity that remains in the psyche of the ‘victim’ usually until an effective psychological intervention rather than finding love again.  The most effective of these interventions is regressional analysis where under a state of hypnosis a patient revisits the source of their negativity (e.g. hatred, anger, resentment, jealousy, anxiety, fear), and then ‘reframes’ the event allowing essentially reconciling the  memory by imagining a more mature reaction to the original circumstance.  This can be hard work for the client  and may include feelings of forgiveness or sympathy to the perpetrator who will after all have to live with their own consequences of loveless behaviour. Often in these circumstances the client returns the following session extolling stories of genuinely appreciating life more, of having let go or removed a weight off their shoulders and not be so short tempered or emotional because of tainted memories.  Essentially they re-find love, not just of others, but more importantly of themselves and then hopefully of life in general.
I am a firm believer in the adage that to really love others we must first learn to value and love ourselves.

I don’t agree with Freud’s mechanical idea of love as a finite commodity that we share and receive from those closest to us.  I believe that we can nurture a greater and greater amount of love in our lives and that the more we are aware of love and the more we send it out in our actions the more we will benefit from it.  This is not simply because we will receive more as that is often not the case but more because that general feeling of sincerely appreciating what’s in your world gives you an enormous sense of well being.
In a world where one person may sing in the rain whilst the other will express how the rain is just another example of how miserable everything is, it is easy to see who understands the power of utilising love and who doesn’t.  Letting go of negative experiences of the past and practicing a new perspective centred around love, could be, as the Beatles say, all you need.

Be your best,

Marvin

Marvin will be presenting a lecture on the psychology of love on Monday November 19th at the old Leicester Central Library on Belvoir st at 1pm.

See the Best Self website at Leicester Hypnotherapy for details.

Sigmund Freud is the most famous dude in psychology. He came up with all kinds of weird and wonderful theories of the mind and some of his dream interpretation is  way out there. But one of his most influential theories was his structural theory of the mind. Rather than simply being a theory it is something that I use day-to-day with my clients and as a part of my own life. Freud suggested that the mind was split into three distinct parts the id, the ego and the super ego.

The Id

Okay, so let’s consider  a newborn baby or toddler. As adorable as they may be they are inherently selfish. All they seek is pleasure, self gratification. They just want to be hugged or fed or wander about trying to see where their fingers fit or what that they can find to  fit up their nose. But one thing they do have is emotion.  Before we’ve developed language, emotion is our main tool of communication. Babies and toddlers can laugh and cry, be happy or sad they can even be jealous. Freud suggested that this inner child, stays with us and although hopefully we stop trying to see what fits up our noses (often batteries or crayons), we certainly continue a life seeking pleasure and if we don’t get it the result can be any number of negative emotions.

The Ego

As our brain develops, such as our prefrontal lobe at the front of our brain, we start learning rules. We learn about control, reason, and common sense. Freud said this part of the mind is what sees reality and he called this the ego. When the id seeks pleasure the idea is that the ego works out the rules of the steps needed to bring that pleasure into reality. For example a young child in bed may really want a biscuit. The ego responds by saying I can get the biscuits but it’ll take a plan and a bit of time. It will mean slowly creeping down the stairs sneaking into the kitchen slowly opening the biscuit barrel s o it doesn’t make a sound before slowly returning back up the stairs to bed negotiating the creaky stairs, with biscuits in hand.  My mum always was surprised at how many biscuits we got through as kids.

The Super Ego

The part of Freud’s structural mind to develop is  the super ego. He suggested that this device is similar to what we call the conscience. Our moral compass perhaps. As we move through life we have a lot of people who help to guide us and influence us, hopefully positively. These people may include parents,  older siblings, teachers, even employees. As we grow up and become more mature Freud suggested that this super ego gradually becomes stronger and stronger. It is this super ego that stops us going off the rails. The super ego challenges and criticises the Id who always wants to do the self gratifying instantly pleasurable short-term things in life. It is the super ego that gets us to  work early so we don’t start the day stressed and emotional. It is the super ego that hopefully makes us have a healthy lifestyle and keeps as a way from the vices in life. It is also the super ego that helps us strive for success.

How this affects you.

Ever felt at lost in the world? Heard of the midlife crisis? As we become more mature or adults (in my opinion something that happens in your 30s rather than your late teens or 20s) we start to lose the influence of parents and employees. We finally become responsible for most of the things in our life. We tend to become teachers ourselves either at work or with our own families.  Freud called the super ego the part of our mind that identifies with the parental agency. What he meant was that we take over this mantle and the reliance on others passes over to ourselves. I sincerely believe that if we understand this concept then we can accept that it may be a bit of a challenge to reach a new level of wisdom and control in life. If we are aware of this mechanism we can learn to be more patient, to control our emotions, and to be the cool calm collected individuals that people and loved ones fully respect. If we are not content with the standard of our health, wealth or love then it is the super-ego  that can take the action needed to improve whatever area you need to improve.  So the next time you think about shouting at your partner or kids for not doing the dishes or you want to murder the guy who cuts you up in traffic think about the super ego and be more reasonable and patient.  Succeed and you will know that you are getting mentally stronger, hurrah.

So the next time your emotion is in danger of getting out of hand, think of Freud and handle things better.  It will help you have better relationships with family, procrastinate less and stay in control of everything you do.

Obviously the end result  is satisfaction, happiness and peace of mind.  Once we have achieved this we can retire and slowly revert back to our immature ways and nasal explorations in our old age.

motivation problem

This is about a TED talk I just watched with Dan Pink.

It is based initially on the work of psychologist Karl Duncker who found that people who are extrinsically incentivised to perform complex problems tended to take loner to complete them that those who didn’t.  Only the narrow focused easy to understand tasks were completed faster with a monetary reward.

In addition, work carried out by MIT and sponsored by the federal reserve found that in some cases the higher the incentive the worse the performance.  Pink suggests that many of our carrot and stick assumptions for productivity don’t apply to  a 21st century intelligent workforce.

I have always said that the biggest motivator is your reason for doing it.  If you can identify and hold on to and build on that reason then your motivation will increase as a result.  This is another word for intrinsic motivation, your why factor.  People will be motivated if the things they do are important to them, if they feel a sense of achievement from doing them if it fulfills them in some sort of way.

Pink states that motivaiton revolves around 3 main areas -

1. Autonomy – the urge to direct our own lives.
2. Mastery – the desire to get better and better at something that matters
3. Purpose – the yearning to do something larger than ourselves.

Management is not a natural thing, self direction works better.  Pay people fairly then get the issue of money off the table.

At google 20 per cent of the  time development google employees can work on anything they want.  This autonomy has led to half of all new products at google coming from this time.

Then there are ROWE envrionments – Results Only  Work Environment  – People don’t have schedules, they show up when they want  and all they have to do is that they just have to get the work done.  Meetings are optional.  As a result Productivity goes up, satisfaction goes up. Job turnover goes down.

If you want another example try Wikipedia versus Encarta. Wiki is ran by people who do it for fun.  Encarta staff where paid bonuses and a large wage and yet which company turned out best?

Personally I think this would be a great argument for removing the huge bonuses from the banking industry and giving them all ROWE time!

Time and time again you heard Olympians saying, anything is possible if you follow your dreams.  But many people still fail to achieve as much as they would like, there is something lacking in their life or they’ve simply accepted that life isn’t going to get any better, even when they’re not particularly happy with it.

Many people who come to see me are essentially asking for a new mind-set, whether that’s to lose weight, gain confidence, quit smoking or overcome fears.  So how do you get that Olympic mind-set?

1. Have something to aim for. – Sounds obvious but many people exercise, read and learn without actually knowing what their targets are.  Set clear defined aims.
2. Strengthen your mental foundation. – We are a product of our past experiences whether we like it or not, and often our fear of success and other weaknesses are learned responses due to the pain of past failures or other experiences. By using regression hypnotherapy you can go back to these times and reframe them so that instead of having a weak mental foundation it is strong and confident.  Probably the most powerful psychological treatment available.
3. Strengthen your beliefs.  Our strongest held beliefs are very powerful, whether it’s brushing our teeth every day, paying bills on time or looking after our loved ones our beliefs can be almost impenetrable. Every day using suggestion hypnotherapy I associate clients existing beliefs with new beliefs of success. What if you had an impenetrable belief that you were going to work your hardest and succeed no matter what?
4. Analyse what you need to do. Create an outline of what steps you need to take from where you are today to where you want to be. Doing one step at a time soon turns into great progression.
5. Develop and reinforce the habits of a winner. Continue to invest in a healthy mind therefore strengthening your mind-set, this will allow you to keep focused on your goals.
6. Stay determined and stay persistent. Just keep going, work harder than everyone else and you will be rewarded more than everybody else.

If other people can do it so can you but get your foundation right first and soon you too can feel like an Olympic winner in your own choice of endeavour.

Be your best self,

Marvin

The things I have learnt from getting married  that can help us  achieve in life are:

1.      Be relentless and keep moving forward towards your aspiration.
2.      It definitely helps to have a list of everything you want to achieve.
3.      If you want your relationships with family or friends or your spouse to be fulfilling you must always work at them.  Reward only comes through effort.
4.       If you love someone, getting married isn’t just a certificate, it’s a real achievement, something to be proud of and something to cherish and protect.
5.      Listening to Fleetwood Mac is a great stress reliever.
6.      If you have 6 bridesmaids don’t expect them to agree on a dress in a hurry!
7.      No matter what hurdles cross your path, always think, what would your best self do.

In summary, a wedding built together does change things, it makes you stronger as a partnership, it adds value and it shows you that that shared effort gives you shared reward when the day turns out so perfectly and all the difficulties prove to be worth it.

Best,
Marvin

In the next post, I’ll be talking about the Olympic Mind-set and how you can achieve it for yourself and your own goals.

This all culminates in our minds arguably becoming more full of information than at any other time in the history of man.  We still know comparatively little about the human mind, we believe that it is a myth that there is a significant portion of the mind we do not use but are conditions perfect for the next gene mutation that will deliver a new hyper intelligent species of human?   Do increasing numbers of gifted autistic children point to this change?  Will the mapping of the human genome result in the ability to download our memories into an upgraded body?

Who would have thought 100 years ago that in the future we could visit a plastic surgeon and change our body?  Ultimately it makes sense that one day we will be able to upgrade our mental ability.

As Vladimir Ilyich Lenin said “There are decades where nothing happens and there are weeks when decades happen.”

Please watch this superb TED video by Juan Enriquez and see if this idea really is far fetched or not.

http://www.ted.com/talks/juan_enriquez_will_our_kids_be_a_different_species.html

[ted id=1467]

 photo credit: Ryan Somma