An Extract from Emotional Intelligence: Very interesting THE MAGIC OF EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE: At school I was a shy, geeky-looking kid. So geeky, in fact, I was bullied every day. The guys would hit me, but their punches were nothing compared to the pain I felt when the girls in class would call me ugly and laugh at me. Every day I would do my best to avoid doing anything that gave them an excuse to laugh at me or humiliate me. But they did it anyway. When I left school, I thought that I would be able to start again. A new me. Unfortunately, things didnt go to plan. You see, I started a new office job and everything was going well for a year or so. I kept to myself and whilst I didnt really have any good friends at work, it was nice to not be bullied every day! One day, things took a turn for the worse. I was asked to do a presentation in front of my colleagues. I was asked on a Friday and the presentation would be the following Thursday. As soon as I was asked, I started to feel really anxious about it. Then, as the day got nearer, I struggled to sleep. And on the morning of the presentation, I had a full blown panic attack. I rang up work and said I was ill. I just couldnt face it. The problem was my boss really wanted me to do this presentation. So he rescheduled it for the next week. Again, I had sleepless nights. And then another panic attack. I told my boss and whilst he was pissed off, he told me I didnt have to do the presentation. He also said I had to go and see a therapist or it may affect my job in the future. Now, to say that I was angry about that would be an understatement. Me, going to see a therapist? No way! Im not crazy. Im not mentally unstable.Im just low in self-confidence, thats all! I didnt want to go. But I knew I had to. Little did I know, those panic attacks which made me feel like even more of a loser...So there I was at the first session with the therapist. He asked me how I felt about therapy. And I told him I thought it was bullshit. Im just born this way. You cant change me! Anyone can be changed, he said. Your brain is what is causing your panic attacks. It is triggering thoughts and emotions connected to your past. But it can be fixed! You just have to know how. And thats what youre paying me for. A big smile spread across his face. I thought he was crazy.Over the next few minutes though, he got me excited. You will be excited to hear this, too... He told me about a famous experiment by a physiologist, Ivan Pavlov. Maybe youve heard of him. His experiment in the 1890s is known as Pavlovs Dogs. Pavlov would ring a bell each time he put food in front of his dogs. Then he would measure their saliva levels to see if their mouths watered. The dogs saliva levels would increase each time the food was put in front of them. Much like a humans mouth would if a big steak was put in front of us. He repeated this procedure several times. He put the food in front of the dog and rang a bell as he did so. Then he would measure the increase in saliva. Heres the interesting bit... After awhile, Pavlov could just ring the bell and the dogs saliva would increase. Even when there was no food in sight. The dogs had formed a CONNECTION in the brain between the ringing of the bell and getting food. The result of this association was their mouths watered. This reaction in the dog happened instantly and automatically. The dogs had no choice in the matter. The bell would ring and their mouths would water. They had been unconsciously programmed to associate the bell with food. This is known as Classical Conditioning. I had heard of this experiment before in class. But it meant nothing to me then and nothing to me now. What was he getting at? He continued. Psychologists werent sure if humans could be conditioned in this way. So, in 1920, a man named John B Watson carried out another famous experiment known as The Little Albert Experiment. Little Albert was 9 months old. He was shown a white rat, a monkey, a rabbit and various masks in order to scare him. But, he showed no emotional reaction. They did not affect him at all. He showed no fear. However, what did scare Albert was when a hammer was struck against a steel bar behind him. The sudden noise startled him and made him burst into tears. Once a week, for the next seven weeks, the rat was put in front of Albert, and at the same time, the hammer was struck against the steel bar behind him. Can you guess what happened? By the end of the seven weeks, every time Albert saw the rat he would cry,even when the noisy hammer was not used. Whilst this experiment was not nice for the young boy, it did prove something. Human beings can be conditioned too, just like Pavlovs dogs! This is all interesting, I said. But what has this got to do with me? Everything! he answered. You were bullied at school. That meant that you felt embarrassed and humiliated in front of your classmates. Is that correct? I nodded. Did you feel embarrassed when you had to talk in front of class? Yes. In fact, one time I stood up in front of the class to speak and everyone started chanting ugly. They wouldnt shut up so the teacher made me sit down. The therapist smiled reassuringly. With Pavlovs dogs, the ringing of the bell made their mouths water with pleasure because they had built up an unconscious connection between the bell ringing and food. With Little Albert, the rat made him feel fear because he built up an unconscious connection between the rat and feeling scared. You have built up the unconscious connection between speaking up in front of others and the feeling of humiliation. Human beings, very quickly, make unconscious connections between things. If they experience something that makes them feel good, they will want to experience more of it. If they experience something that makes them feel bad or scares them, they will avoid it. This is called The Law Of Effect.When you were asked to do the presentation, your brain unconsciously searched in your memory banks for similar experiences in your past and found your painful memories at school within milliseconds. This triggered anxious feelings and eventually, your panic attacks. The therapist paused and looked at me, waiting for a reaction. I felt a flutter of excitement in my stomach. Things were starting to make sense. So...I wasnt born with low self-confidence and panic attacks? I asked. Absolutely not! Your brain just likes to protect you from getting into situations that are similar to ones in your past that made you feel bad. So, it causes you anxiety to try to make you avoid getting into similar situations. The problem is, the brain isnt always right. A bad experience in school does not mean every time you speak up in front of someone, you feel humiliated. In this case, the connection it has made is faulty. All we need to do is rewire those connections using Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, and help you to develop self-confidence using Neuro Linguistic Programming, and you will be a brand new man. Brand new man. I liked the sound of that! Over the next few weeks, the therapist introduced me to some pretty cool tricks I had never known existed. Let me give you one that you can use to skyrocket your self-confidence. Neuro Linguistic Programming, or NLP, is a mind technology used by therapists around the world. One NLP technique is called anchoring. This is how you can use Pavlovs Dogs and Little Albert for your own benefit. If you want to be able to develop a surge of self-confidence on demand, you can develop a confidence anchor by doing the following... Put on a piece of music that really gets you pumped up and excited. Something that makes you feel powerful and that you can achieve anything in life. As you listen to the music and feel positive emotions, squeeze your index finger and thumb together hard on both hands. Do this five or six times throughout the song. And repeat this process five times a day. After a few weeks, you will be able to squeeze your thumb and forefinger together and feel the same power and positive emotions you did when the music was playing. But youll be able to do it without needing the music. Your brain will have developed a connection between squeezing your fingers together and feeling confident. And you can use it anytime you want a surge of self-confidence. Pretty cool, huh? They should teach this shit in school. That trick alone would help a lot of people in their day to day life. AN EXPERIMENT: There is an audio lecture recorded at M.I.T, a private research university in the United States.In this lecture, a professor is speaking about the Law Of Effect, just like my therapist had. If something feels good, you want more of it. He talks about how, when he was a student himself, he and a few classmates decided to test the law of effect on a lecturer who had come to his university to do a talk on psychology. Whilst the lecturer was speaking on stage, if he walked to the left, a section of the class would smile and start taking notes. Not all of them, because it would have been obvious. But a quarter or so of the class who were dotted around the room. So, as the lecturer was speaking, if he walked to the left of the stage people would smile and take notes. If he stood in the center or walked to the right, no smiles were given or notes taken. Can you guess what happened? By the end of the class, the lecturer was mainly over on the left hand side of the stage. Whereas at the beginning, he was mainly in the center and the right. After class, when he was told about the experiment, he laughed and said he was completely unaware of what had happened. His brain had unconsciously connected that when he walked to the left, his students did what he wanted and this made him feel good. This was all completely outside of his awareness. He had been unconsciously programmed by the students in the class. How crazy is that? This lecture is free to access online and available to the general public. Ill tell you about where you can listen to it later. So remember, if people carry out an action that makes them feel good they will continue doing it. To further examine this theory I picked up some travel brochures from my local travel agents and went to a coffee shop. I saw a girl sitting by herself, so I sat on the table next to her and flicked through the brochures. After a few minutes, I spoke to her...Hi. Quick question. Im booking my parents a holiday as a gift for their anniversary. Can you recommend anywhere nice? Money is no object. I have to book within a few hours and Im struggling. The girls face went blank at first, I think she was a bit shocked a stranger was speaking to her. But then after a few moments, A big grin spread across her face. I went to Florida in the United States last year. It was amazing. Such a beautiful place. I ended up chatting to the girl for about five minutes about her trip to Florida. She was smiling and laughing and telling me about her trip. I didnt say much. Probably because I was stunned it had worked. After a few minutes, I thanked her and left. I walked round the corner and punched the air. I had got the reaction I had hoped for. And heres why... ...By asking an stranger or in this case a girl if she could recommend anywhere nice on holiday, her brain didnt have enough time to stop and think, why is this guy trying to speak to me? Instead, my words triggered her brain to zip through her memory to find her previous holiday experiences where she had a great time. It took milliseconds for her brain to find one. Because she was remembering something pleasurable, she felt good. I had made her feel good with one simple question. The blank look was her brain kicking into action...and then a big smile as she remembered Florida. Now, this is very, very important, Listen to this... From a young age, all children, especially women, are conditioned to not speak to strangers. This is one of the reasons it is so hard to start a conversation with stranger especially a woman. As soon as you try to start a conversation in this case, with a woman you dont know her defense goes up unconsciously. However, by asking her a question that makes her feel good virtually straight away, you are stopping this conditioned response before it has time to occur. She hears your question and within seconds, feels good. This means she will be open to speak to you. this is called Emotional Hijacking.
Posted on: Fri, 16 Jan 2015 12:57:43 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015