The Mind Maven

How do you persuade people to keep appointments?

2012-01-30T20:57:00.000-08:00

People who fail to show up for appointments cost organizations big bucks. A study in the UK showed that missed GP and hospital appointments costs the National Health Service more than 700 million pounds annually. Research carried out in liaison with the NHS Bedfordshire found that three behavior-change interventions can lead to a dramatic reduction in the numbers of people who fail to turn up for appointments:

Getting patients to confirm their appointment by verbally repeating the details to the receptionist.
Getting patients to write the appointment down themselves (rather than the receptionist doing it for them).
Placing positive messages around the GP practices confirming that attending appointments is the "social norm".

In the case of the Bedfordshire research, the techniques lead to a reduction of 30% in the number of no-shows for NHS appointments. Organizers estimated that if the interventions were replicated nationally, they could deliver savings of up to 250 million pounds annually.

Studies show we're subconsciously drawn to people who look like us

2012-01-22T11:32:00.000-08:00

Next time you find yourself seated in a roomful of strangers, take a look around. What you're likely to find is people who look alike end up sitting beside each other. Sean Mackinnon, Christian Jordan and Anne Wilson did research for the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin where they looked at seating patterns. They found that people tend to sit closer to people who share their physical traits. People with glasses sit closer to other people with glasses. People with long hair sit closer to other people with long hair.

It seems we subconsciously assume people who look like us also think like us, like the same things we do and have similar values and attitudes. We're more comfortable and more likely to open up the more physical characteristics we share.

Same thing happens at a cocktail party. Watch people pick out a stranger to talk to and chances are they'll pick out someone with similar physical attributes. My friend Dr. Karen Stephenson describes it this way:

"In the small talk of cocktail parties, humans are at a random walk, desperately seeking points of similarity through visibility: height, girth, dress, gender, race, accent, hair and eye color, etc. Reading the audience and working a room are ancient skills encoded in us by our forebears who sat cheek by jowl around the campfire; an earlier and more primordial form of cocktail party. I confess to having attended countless cocktail parties and continue to be amazed how, after just a few drinks, I end up with people who like me in some way - same experiences, same clothes, same interest, etc. It's not the alcohol talking, but the ancient drive of seeking similarity: 'You look like me, you think like me, you dress like me...you're one of us'."

Here's an interesting aside. Take a look at the picture on the right. That's Dr. Karen (on the left) around the time she made that comment (late 90s) and me during the same time period when I first starting doing research in this area which later became part of the book Axis of Influence - How Credibility and Likability Intersect to Drive Success.

Re-wiring the brain to save for the future

2011-11-07T08:05:00.000-08:00

Two recent articles provide interesting insight into how the brain works - why most of us tend to opt for instant gratification over future rewards, what that means for our financial futures and how we might re-wire those neural pathways.

Sharon Begley's article in Newsweek - Stop You Can't Afford It - How science unveils how your brain is hard-wired when it comes to spending - and how you can reboot it provides a fascinating journey through neuroscience brain mapping. It turns out the brains of those who naturally default to save or delay gratification are different from those who opt for immediate rewards. What's more, scientists are looking at ways to amp up the save circuits and amp down the spends.

Even though brain scans suggests hard-wiring, brains can learn. How do they learn? Through practice, researchers say. Scientists also found that a squirt of the hormone oxytocin - known as the "love hormone" because of the role it plays in bonding - makes people more patient and likely to opt for future rewards over instant gratification.

One of the keys to changing the brain circuitry is the ability to project yourself into the future and see the future you. It seems we can't get excited about saving for something we can't see or feel connected to.

The second article Face Reality With Aged-Morphed Photos (Wired - Nov 1) references work by Jeremy Bailenson, head of Stanford’s virtual reality lab and coauthor of the book Infinite Reality. Bailenson discovered that avatars or virtual versions of our selves can help us make positive changes, including saving for retirement.

Most people view their future selves as strangers, which makes them reluctant to put away money for a later date. But Bailenson and his team discovered that if people view a virtual version of themselves digitally aged by several decades, that hesitation disappears instantly. In one study, contributions to hypothetical retirement accounts went up by 30 percent.

Worthwhile Law of Attraction SlideShare

2011-06-21T10:08:00.000-07:00

A bit long, but nice....

The Law Of Attraction

View more presentations from RANSON

Stocks with easy-to-pronounce names outperform those with hard-to-pronounce names

2010-10-10T10:57:00.000-07:00

Small percentage differences account for big money when it comes to the stock market. As a psychology writer and part-time trader, I was delighted to discover work by Psychologists Adam Alter and Daniel Oppenheimer that suggested there was a natural inclination to overvalue companies with easy-to-pronounce names and undervalue those with difficult-to-pronounce names. Logical? Absolutely not, but relevant just the same.

Recognizing that people tended to respond positively to words that are easy-to-pronounce and process, Alter and Oppenheimer decided to see if this preference lent it self to picking stocks - i.e. would people prefer stocks with simpler names over those with complex names?

In their first study they presented groups of volunteers with a series of made-up company names - some difficult to get your tongue around - like Xagibdan and Beaulieaux and some easy-to pronounce, like Barnings and Tanley. They asked the group to estimate the future performance of these stocks. They found that participants tended to overvalue companies with easy names and undervalue companies with difficult names.

In a separate study, the researchers tracked ten stocks with easy-to-pronounce names and ten stocks with hard-to-pronounce names on the New York Stock Exchange. These 20 stocks were new to the NYSE and performance was tracked the first day on the Exchange, then after 1 week, after six months and after 1 year. They found that companies with easy-to-pronounce names outperformed companies with hard-to-pronounce names by 11.2 percent on their first day of trading. After six months, the difference was more than 27 percent. After a year, it was more than 33 percent!

In a third study, Alter and Oppenheimer looked at ticker symbols and found the same thing there, although over the longer term the payoff was less. Companies with easy -to-pronounce symbols (such as KAR) outperformed companies with hard-to-pronounce symbols (such as RDO) by 8.5% on their first day of trading and 2 percent after one year of trading. 2 percent may not sound significant, but in the world of trading, 2 percent is big money.

Source: http://web.princeton.edu/sites/opplab/papers/Adam%20PNAS_paper_Stock_Fluctuations_and_Fluency.pdf

Change your dataset - change your mindset

2010-08-24T20:57:00.000-07:00

David McCandless turns complex data sets (like worldwide military spending, media buzz, Facebook status updates) into beautiful, simple diagrams that tease out unseen patterns and connections. Good design, he suggests, is the best way to navigate information glut -- and it may just change the way we see the world.

Is his smile real or simulated?

2010-06-25T07:37:00.000-07:00

For years psychologists believed that a real smile was signaled by upturned lips and crinkly eyes. This genuine smile is named after the French physician Duchenne, who passed electrical currents through live subjects and took photos of their weirdly contorted faces.

Researchers suggested that 80% of us are unable to conjure up a fake smile that will trick others because we don't have voluntary control over the muscles around our eyes which signal the Duchenne smile.

Writing in a recent issue of the journal Emotion, Krumhuber and Manstead question whether this 80% estimate is anywhere near the mark. In the first of a series of experiments they found that 83% of the people in their study produce fake smiles that others mistook for the real thing in photographs.

The researchers also explored how people perceived genuine and fake smiles when they saw videos rather than just static pictures. Then it emerged that fake smiles were easier to spot, but the supposedly crucial crinkling around the eyes didn't help much. Instead, telling a real from fake smile relied more on dynamic processes such as how long people hold it, the symmetry of the expression and whether conflicting emotions are communicated by other facial areas.

So the Duchenne smile has taken a bit of bashing in this research, which suggests that most people can fake crinkly eyes. Not only that but the crinkly eyes aren't as crucial for us in judging the sincerity of a smile as other factors. Rather than just the crinkly eyes, it's the whole movement of the face which tells a tale either of deception or of genuine, felt emotion.

How you speak and write provides clues to your identity and character

2010-05-04T22:09:00.000-07:00

The way we write and speak can reveal a great deal about our identity and character. Here is a sampling of the variables that can be detected in our use of style-related words such as pronouns and articles.

Sex. In general, women tend to use more pronouns and references to other people; men are more likely to use articles, prepositions, and big words.
Age. As people get older, they tend to refer to themselves less, use more positive emotion and fewer negative emotion words. Older people also use more future tense and fewer past tense verbs.
Social class. The higher the social class, the less likely one uses 1st person singular pronouns and the less one uses emotion words.
Honesty. When people tell the truth, they are more like to use 1st person singular pronouns. They also use more exclusive words like except, but, without, excluding. Words such as this indicate that a person is making a distinction between what they did do and what they didn’t do. Liars have a problem with such complex ideas.
Dominance in a conversation. Analyze the relative use of the word “I” between two speakers in an interaction. Usually, the higher status speaker will use fewer “I” words.
Social bonding after a trauma. In the days and weeks after a cultural upheaval, people become more self-less (less use of “I”) and more oriented towards others (increased use of “we”).
Depression and suicide-proneness. Public figures speaking in press conferenecs and published poets in their poetry use more 1st person singular when they are depressed or prone to suicide.
Testosterone levels. In two case studies, it was found that when people’s testosterone levels increased rapidly, they dropped in their use of references to other people.

Adapted from work by James Pennebaker at the University of Texas. http://homepage.psy.utexas.edu/homepage/Faculty/Pennebaker/Home2000/Words.html

Why smart people forward stupid emails

2010-04-10T09:33:00.000-07:00

I receive weekly, sometimes daily emails from friends or family telling me about yet another computer virus, missing child, or lie about our President. Today, I was revisited by the granddaddy of hoax emails - that Microsoft and AOL were going to pay me big bucks for forwarding this email to all my friends. Yes, the person mentioned in the email had already received $24,800!

This email has been circulating since 1997. 13 years folks!!! and a gazillion of tracks back and forth across the airwaves. In fact I'm pretty sure I have received it from the same people 4 or 5 times.

My fascination with this subject is with the instant believability factor. It only takes a minute or two to do a quick Google search to check the validity of the email, but few people ever do that. Why? I think there are three reasons: One, because they want to believe its true - whatever "it" is matches their values. They want to believe Obama is a radical Muslim, or that computer viruses are rampant or there's a chance of winning cash and prizes for doing nothing more than forwarding an email.

The second reason is a combination of mental laziness and an urge to genuinely help people. The act of passing the email on to friends and family in order to help them ranks higher in most people's values food chain than the requirement for validity or fact checking.

The third reason, which is kind of tied to the second reason, is that we don't feel like we have to question it because the email came from someone we know and trust. I trust my friend Paul who trusted his friend John who trusted his sister Kathy who trusted her friend Pam and so on.

So what's the harm in passing these innocent emails along or simply ignoring them when they come in? Maybe nothing in the short term, but after awhile don't we run the risk of becoming sheep, able to be easily herded, cajoled or sold a bill of goods because we're not smart enough or motivated enough to do some homework, check the facts or think for ourselves.

Want to feel happier or less pain during a procedure? Smile!

2010-03-21T10:02:00.000-07:00

It's true - smiling can actually make you feel better. Recent studies suggest that our emotions are reinforced, maybe even driven, by facial expressions.

It was actually Darwin who first suggested the link between facial expressions and emotions. In 1872 he said "The free expression by outward signs of an emotion intensifies it." In other words, smiles will make you feel happier, frowns will pull you back the other way.

Psychologists at the University of Cardiff in Wales found that people whose ability to frown is compromised by botox injections are happier, on average, then people who can frown. Dr Michael Lewis, a senior lecturer at the university’s school of psychology, said “We know from research in the past that if you make someone smile they feel happier. More on this study here

It appears facial expressions also have a relationship to pain. The May 2008 Journal of Pain reported that people who frown during an unpleasant procedure report feeling more pain than those who do not.

For more on this topic, see Scientific American Mind's Smile! It Could Make You Happier

Your brain wants you to be successful

2010-02-15T20:43:00.000-08:00

Research by Massachusetts Institute of Technology neuroscientist Earl Miller suggests that our brains are inherently wired toward success. Miller's research shows that not only does the brain learn more from success than from failure, but it seeks out success.

The pleasurable feeling that comes with successes is brought about by a surge in the neurotransmitter dopamine. By telling brain cells when they have struck gold, the chemical apparently signals them to keep doing whatever they did that lead to success. In other words success leads to more and more success.

"We have shown that brain cells keep track of whether recent behaviors were successful or not," Miller said. Furthermore, when a behavior was successful, cells became more finely tuned to what the animal was learning. After a failure, there was little or no change in the brain - nor was there any improvement in behavior.

http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2009/successes-0729.html

Understanding How Other People See You

2009-11-15T11:08:00.000-08:00

Interesting article in October's Psychology Today on research by Sam Gosling. Mixed Signals: You likely see yourself very differently from the way others see you. A little self-awareness can prevent a lot of misunderstanding.

Worth getting actual print copy for the pictures. I highly encourage you to capture your first impression before looking at the author's results. Michael and I had very different results. I love Gosling's work but my research is more around understanding what it is we are actually seeing in the face or demeanor.

First Impressions

2009-11-15T10:10:00.000-08:00

We (co-author Michael Lovas and I) have written quite a lot about first impressions. In particular the series of subconscious assessments that go on when we first meet someone. We know that the first thing that goes on is the "am I in danger?" assessment.

Every time a stranger looks at you, he or she makes a split-second determination as to whether you are friend or foe. Also among those split second assessments is an analysis of your attractiveness, likeability and credibility.

According to Princeton researcher and professor Alex Todorov, we are "hard wired" to quickly draw these inferences.

“The link between facial features and character may be tenuous at best, but that doesn’t stop our minds from sizing other people up at a glance. We decide very quickly whether a person possesses many of the traits we feel are important, such as likeability and competence, even though we have not exchanged a single word with them. It appears that we are hard-wired to draw these inferences in a fast, unreflective way.”

For more on first impressions, and in particular what people are "reading" to make these assessments, check out our book Axis of Influence - How Credibility and Likeability Intersect to Drive Success.

For more on Alex Todorov, check out All Things Considered, June 9, 2005 - Scientists Search for Winning Look. Forget political polls. Scientists usually can tell whether political candidates will win or lose by testing voters’ reactions to the contestants’ faces. A study in the journal Science shows that voters chose the face that looks more “competent.”

Professor Todorov’s Princeton Website

Visual Representation of Left Brain Right Brain

2009-10-23T12:09:00.000-07:00

What a great representation of the two sides of the brain and how they see the world and relate to each other.

It came from Wired Magazine via this blog: http://informl.com/2005/01/29/random-learning/

Are You a Liar?

2009-10-23T10:52:00.000-07:00

Do people really lie 3 times within 10 minutes of meeting someone new? Find out here.

Are You a Liar?

How Managers Sabotage Performance by Triggering the Threat Response

2009-10-21T11:44:00.000-07:00

A recent article called "Managing with Brain in Mind" in the Autumn 2009 edition of Strategy+Business provides interesting insight into the social nature of performance. We researched the threat response for our book Axis of Influence and found that the first stop on the road to credibility and likeability is trust, which means dealing with the automatic "am I in danger?" threat response.

Research available since that time shows us that our friends in the fight or flight department of the brain are alive and well and influenced or triggered by more than just safety. Recent research by UCLA's Naomi Eisenberger and Matthew Lieberman suggests that the same neural responses that drive us toward food or away from predators are triggered by the way we are treated by other people.

Apparently Maslow had it wrong. Maslow in his "hierarchy of needs" suggested that humans satisfy their needs in sequence, starting with physical survival and moving up the ladder toward self-actualization at the top. In this hierarchy, social needs sit in the middle. But many studies now show that the brain equates social needs with survival; for example, being hungry and being ostracized activate similar neural responses.

Being in this threat response state for any length of time is damaging to both individual productivity and organizational performance. It uses up vital oxygen and glucose from the blood making it no longer available to other functions of the brain such as working memory which processes new information and ideas. This impairs analytical thinking, creative insight and problem solving.

The impact of this dynamic is often visible in organizations. For example, an autocratic manager operating in a carrot and stick mentality triggers a threat response in employees and reduces efficiency, creativity and innovation.

So what can managers do to minimize the threat response and enable the reward response? Here are 3 of the 5 things mentioned in the article:

1. Understand "status" stress and look for creative ways to enable status boosts.
As humans, we are constantly assessing how our status compares to others around us. Research by Hidehiko Takahashi in 2009 shows that when people realize that they might compare unfavourably to someone else, the threat response kicks in releasing cortisol and other stress-related hormones.

As a manager, limit stressful comparisons like forced ranking and 360 degree reviews as well as negative "feedback." Provide praise and opportunities to learn new skills, two critically important status boosters.

2. Be transparent, open and clear about what's going on.
When a person encounters a familiar situation, his or her brain conserves it's own energy by shifting into a kind of automatic pilot. The pattern has been established and minimal energy is taken up. The opposite is true when the brain registers ambiguity or confusion. Uncertainty registers as an error, gap or tension and draws energy away from other functions.

Not knowing what will happen next can be debilitating because it requires extra neural energy. This diminishes memory, undermines performance and disengages people from the present.
Leaders and managers can help create a perception of certainty by sharing business plans, rationale for changes, and by breaking large projects into smaller more manageable chunks.

3. Stop micro managing and let people make their own decisions
A perception of reduced autonomy - for example of being micromanaged - can easily generate a threat response. Presenting people with options, or allowing them to organize their own work and set their own hours, provokes a much less stressed response.

Full article here -http://www.strategy-business.com/article/09306?gko=5df7f

In Battle, Hunches Prove to be Valuable

2009-07-31T09:00:00.000-07:00

Brain Power

In Battle, Hunches Prove to Be Valuable

By BENEDICT CAREY

Published: July 28, 2009

U.S. soldiers are at the center of an effort to understand how it is that some people’s brains can sense danger before others’ do.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/28/health/research/28brain.html

The brain limits the size of the social network

2009-03-03T10:08:00.000-08:00

There is an interesting article in this month's Economist about how the brain influences social networks - in particular how it limits the size of networks.

It references research by anthropologist Robin Dunbar, now at Oxford. Dunbar suggests that the brain is efficient and because keeping up with too large a group is too time-consuming, there is a finite number. Dunbar suggests that number is 148.

(Primates on Facebook: http://www.economist.com/science/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13176775).

Here are snipets from the article:

Primatologists call some of the things that happen on social networks “grooming”. In the wild, grooming is time-consuming and here computerisation certainly helps. But keeping track of who to groom—and why—demands quite a bit of mental computation. You need to remember who is allied with, hostile to, or lusts after whom, and act accordingly.

Robin Dunbar, an anthropologist who now works at Oxford University, concluded that the cognitive power of the brain limits the size of the social network that an individual of any given species can develop. Extrapolating from the brain sizes and social networks of apes, Dr Dunbar suggested that the size of the human brain allows stable networks of about 148. Rounded to 150, this has become famous as “the Dunbar number”.

Many institutions, from neolithic villages to the maniples of the Roman army, seem to be organised around the Dunbar number. Because everybody knows everybody else, such groups can run with a minimum of bureaucracy.

Sociologists also distinguish between a person’s wider network, as described by the Dunbar number or something similar, and his social “core”. Peter Marsden, of Harvard University, found that Americans, even if they socialise a lot, tend to have only a handful of individuals with whom they “can discuss important matters”. A subsequent study found, to widespread concern, that this number is on a downward trend.

The rise of online social networks, with their troves of data, might shed some light on these matters. So The Economist asked Cameron Marlow, the “in-house sociologist” at Facebook, to crunch some numbers. Dr Marlow found that the average number of “friends” in a Facebook network is 120, consistent with Dr Dunbar’s hypothesis, and that women tend to have somewhat more than men.

What also struck Dr Marlow, however, was that the number of people on an individual’s friend list with whom he (or she) frequently interacts is remarkably small and stable. The more “active” or intimate the interaction, the smaller and more stable the group.

What mainly goes up, therefore, is not the core network but the number of casual contacts that people track more passively.

Put differently, people who are members of online social networks are not so much “networking” as they are “broadcasting their lives to an outer tier of acquaintances who aren’t necessarily inside the Dunbar circle,” says Lee Rainie, the director of the Pew Internet & American Life Project, a polling organisation. Humans may be advertising themselves more efficiently. But they still have the same small circles of intimacy as ever.

Check out Caroline Ward's The Four Faces

2008-08-31T10:47:00.000-07:00

There is so much great stuff in Caroline Ward's The Four Faces of Woman, that it's tough figuring out where to start. The concept of the four faces is powerful, and Caroline does a fantastic job of educating and enlightening us about each of these. She provides stories that give us a sense of what it's like to wear each face, outlines what you get, what you sacrifice with each, as well as the relationship to time, power, emotion and God.

If the book had only covered the Four Faces, it would be a remarkable accomplishment, yet Caroline gives us even more. She covers the 8 Powers of the Shakti (the fourth face) in brilliant detail with specific ways of relating to the eight powers. She shares exercises used in the Four Faces workshops along with stories from the workshop.

The third segment of the book covers a variety of topics incuding Answering the Why are we Here question, some reflections About Men (since this is primarily a book for women), Energy in Relationship (how to protect yourself from the negative energy of others), dealing with fear, and reflections, provocations and questions about sex.

I probably would not have picked up this book had I not had an earlier connection with Caroline Ward (we both started companies named About People at about the same time and met via email some time ago), but I'm so glad I did. It had a powerful impact on me and I have just ordered a dozen copies to share with friends.

In a strange but wonderful sort of a way, we seem to be traveling a similar path and I feel especially blessed to know that Caroline is out there leading the way for me (and many others). I love the Hopi Elders' Prophecy she includes at the end of the Four Faces, and most especially the last line - We are the ones we've been waiting for.

Thank you Caroline for a great book!

You might also want to check out Caroline's website - http://www.fourfacesofwoman.com/home.html

Wonderful resources from Dr. Eldon Taylor

2008-06-29T18:59:00.000-07:00

I had the pleasure of meeting Dr. Eldon Taylor and his wife Ravinder recently and I'd like to introduce you to some of their amazing resources.

Eldon's latest book is Choices and Illusions. Here's a description......

Whether you are interested in the science of thinking and beliefs, how your own mind works, how others control your thoughts, why things just don't work out in your life, how you can create the life you have always wanted, how you can realize your true potential, how you can find peace, or on a grander scale, how you can help make the world a better place, Choices and Illusions provides insights for all. Simply reading this book will open your eyes to new worlds of possibilities. Once exposed to the illusions most live under and by, you will change. Putting into practice any of the very simple teachings will improve the quality of your life. Using all of the tools and techniques explained in this book will open the door for you to achieve your highest potential.

You might also want to check out these wonderful videos:

God Plays Hide and Seek

The Chicken and the Eagle

and these articles on the Progressive Awareness website:
Articles by Eldon Taylor

and

Their library of Inner Talk Subliminal audio programs at http://www.innertalk.com/

Guidance for Dream Boards and Affirmations

2008-06-08T08:32:00.000-07:00

Since my earlier post recommending the Vision Board software, I've had several friends ask for help. It dawned on me that a process that I thought was clear and straightforward, in fact isn't. So let's see if I can help.

First - the Vision Board software is simply a tool. It makes the process easier and more efficient, which increases the likelihood that people will do it and get value from it. But the software by itself is pretty worthless. The image library and example affirmations are pretty horrible and unless you are motivated to add your own pictures and create your own affirmations, you will likely not get much value from the experience. Let me say it again - it's a tool, a shell, a vehicle for expression. The expression still must come from within you.

Before I talk about selecting images or writing affirmations I want to spend a minute or two talking about the first step in the process - Deciding what you want. We tend to overlook this important aspect and jump immediately into the selection of images. OK, so what DO you want?

Sounds like an easy question to answer at first blush, but is it? Many times we think we want something, but when it comes down to it, we don't REALLY want it. We don't feel emotionally charged about it. For several years I've put a picture of a new Lexus SUV on my Dream Board and also one of washboard abs. I haven't manifested either and I'm quite certain it's because I lack any real feeling for these two things. If you ask me if I want them, I'd say absolutely I want them, but it's a wish, with no real energy or power behind it.

So first step in the Dream Board process is to get clear about what you really want. How do you know the difference between a wish or thought versus an emotionally charged desire? Simply look inside yourself when you think about it. What does it feel like inside? Can you not only see yourself there - driving the car or showing off your washboard abs - but can you also experience the positive feelings that go along with it. If you don't feel that rush, then maybe this is something that shouldn't be on your board.

Be specific. I can't tell you why, but I've learned over time that the Universe prefers you to be specific. $217,000 in bank account XYZ seems to work better than a desire for money or abundance.

Selection of Images. It's easy to select images when you want a new home or a car, but what if what you want is not so intangible and easy displayed in a visual - like something to go with these affirmations - I am fully present or - I practice simple acts of kindness every day - or My intuition is working optimally or - I enjoy simple pleasures. I like using abstract art that is meaningful to me to illustrate concepts. And I find that if I simply start with something, the perfect photo will magically appear. For example, shortly after I put Simple Acts of Kindness onto my board, our local newspaper reported a classic simple acts of kindness story complete with pictures. http://www.spokane.net/stay_connected/HotTopics.aspx

Affirmation Language. Affirmations should always be expressed in the positive - what you want, not what you don't want. Your subconscious doesn't hear or read negatives, so when you say Don't forget to be nice, it goes into your subconscious as Forget to be nice. Remember, what you focus on grows. If you want to get out of debt, don't focus on the debt - focus on the positive balance in your account. I have a home equity loan I want to pay off faster. On my dream board is an acconting of this loan with a zero balance.

Act as if. Affirmations should be written in present tense. I am a famous author. I have washboard abs. I attract money-making opportunies.

In order for the process to work, it is essential that you have the feeling behind the affirmation and the image. If you're simply repeating it without the feeling behind it, then it's not really getting into your belief system and without belief, there are no results.

Time Thoughts - May 24

2008-05-24T13:15:00.000-07:00

My friend Kelly has always been fascinated with the concept of time. I'm not particularly fascinated with the concept, but I do find that the idea of time is regularly on my mind - in particular not having enough of it. Being one who is always looking for a way to solve a problem or make things better, I've been thinking about ways to change the perception or concept of time - in essence to expand the good time and contract the not so good moments.

Understanding the psychology of loss
In my work I help investors and financial services professionals understand the psychology of money. One of the big psychological tenants there is the concept of loss avoidance. As humans we tend to be overly focused on avoiding loss, particularly when it comes to investing. That makes us do stupid things with our money, like holding on to bad investments because to sell them would mean a loss. Never mind that to hold on longer would mean a bigger loss. Similarly, we don't take tax write-offs we should because again we tend to focus on the loss, rather than the bigger picture of results.

I believe the same thing is true when it comes to time. Our focus is on not enough time or avoiding loss, when it should be focused on maximizing the end result. How can we make the most of time - how can we stretch out the good times and contract the bad or less meaningful time expenditures?

Let's start with stretching out the good times.
I use to work for an oil company and traveled all over the world. I loved experiencing the culture in each place that I went and I made it a point to buy some little artsy trinket that would remind me of the experience. I have those pieces scattered about my house and each time I see one, I immediately go back to the time and experience. It's a way of expanding good time - a trigger to revisit the place or experience.

Photographs work the same way. You revisit the time by looking at the photograph. Music also works this way. The summer of 1972 I worked a concession stand at a park. There was a juke box with about 6-8 songs that got played over and over and over. If I hear any of those songs today I am immediately transported back to that time period.

So one way we can expand time is through association. Add music or food or a visually memorable image. Take a picture, save a menu or buy a trinket - anything you can use to "save" the experience in your brain so that you can easily revisit it again.

Dream Board software - must have tool!

2008-05-24T08:38:00.000-07:00

I've been doing dream boards or vision boards for almost a decade. It's a great process that I highly recommend. I also am a big believer in affirmation decks. I've been doing both vision boards and affirmation decks manually for years, and I've come to realize that more people would do it and even my own projects would be more effective if I had a good tool. I've found one that I think you'll like.

It's a simple software program called Vision Boards. You use it to create a virtual Vision Board on your computer. You can include your personal pictures, affirmations and power words and select your own background. It has an audio module which allows you to incorporate mp3 music and voice recordings, which will then play anytime your Vision Board comes up. You can also create a poster that you can take to Kinkos or Office Depot to print out.

You can have it come up as your screen saver so every time you leave your computer, you come back to a dynamic showcase of your goals and dreams moving along on your computer screen! As you know, it's crucial to keep your goals and dreams in front of you, if you want to achieve them. By focusing on them all the time, and really feeling as if you have already achieved them, you are putting The Law of Attraction to work in the most effective way.

The affirmations feature shows your affirmations in a little pop up balloon on your screen. This increases the exposure to your affirmations and helps to adjust your beliefs system in a powerful way.

There are a library of images and affirmations and power words, but I tend to create my own. It took me less than 30 minutes to put together my vision board screen saver with 10 images and associated affirmations. I love the separate affirmation bubbles as well. What a great reinforcement.

Here's the site where you can purchase the software. (It's $59.) Check it out - www.visualizeyourgoals.com

Let me know how it works for you. At some point I'd like to do a book of stories and photos of Dream Board success stories. Let's get started.

Millennial enlightenment from spiritual humorist Steve Bhaerman

2008-03-13T08:32:00.000-07:00

Some funnies from Steve Bhaerman, aka Swami Beyondananda. Find more from Steve at http://www.wakeuplaughing.com/

Guidelines for Millennial Enlightenment:

1. Be a Fundamentalist--make sure the Fun always comes before the Mental. Realize that life is a situation comedy that will never be canceled. A laugh track has been provided, and the reason why we are put in the material world is to get more material. Have a good laughsitive twice a day, that will ensure reguhilarity.

2. Life is like photography. You use the negative to develop.

3. It is true. If we go through life thinking too-heavy thoughts, thought particles tend to get caught between the ears, causing a condition called truth decay. So be sure to use mental floss twice a day. And when you're tempted to practice tantrum yoga, remember what we teach in Swami's Absurdiveness Training class:
*Don't get even, get odd.*

4. If we want world peace, we must let go of our attachments and truly live like nomads. That's where I no mad at you, you no mad at me. That way, there'll surely be nomadness on the planet. And peace begins with each of us. A little peace here, a little piece there, pretty soon all the pieces will fit together to make one big peace everywhere.

5. I know great earth changes have been predicted for the future, so if you're looking to avoid earthquakes, my advice is simple. When you find a fault, don't dwell on it.

6. If you're looking to find the key to the Universe, I have some bad news and some good news. The bad news is: there is no key to the Universe. The good news is: IT ISN'T LOCKED!!!

Check out Transformational Humorist Greg Tamblyn

2008-03-05T13:09:00.000-08:00

Greg Tamblyn is a kind and wonderful soul with a humorous, spiritually evolved message delivered through music. His song lyrics are hysterical. Here are a couple of titles to give you a taste. Check out his website http://www.gregtamblyn.com and add some of his tunes to your song list.

"Top 10 Whiny Victim Love Songs"
"Shootout at the I'm OK, You're OK Corral"
"I Have a Tendency for Codependency"
"Clyde, My Inner Guide"
"The Great Liver Standoff of 1965"
"Self-Employment Made Harder By Difficult Boss“
“Analog Brain In A Digital World”
“Common Side Effects Include“
"I'd Like to be the Man my Dog Thinks I Am"