Psycho-Cybernetics Deluxe Edition: The Original Text of the Classic Guide to a New Life (The Psycho-Cybernetics Series)

by Maxwell Maltz

One of the biggest mistakes we can make is to confuse our behavior with our “self”

“I am a failure” (noun form) does not describe what you did, but what you think the mistake did to you. This does not contribute to learning, but tends to “fixate” the mistake and make it permanent. This has been proved over and over in clinical psychologic experiments.

“You” make mistakes. Mistakes don’t make “You”—anything.

Carrying a grudge against someone or against life can bring on the old age stoop, just as much as carrying a heavy weight around on your shoulders would. People with emotional scars, grudges, and the like are living in the past, which is characteristic of old people. The youthful attitude and youthful spirit which erases wrinkles from the soul and the face, and puts a sparkle in the eye, looks to the future and has a great expectation to look forward to.

This real self within every person is attractive. It is magnetic. It does have a powerful impact and influence upon other people. We have the feeling that we are in touch with something real—and basic—and it does something to us. On the other hand, a phony is universally disliked and detested.

negative feedback is working properly, a missile or a torpedo reacts to “criticism” just enough to correct course, and keeps going forward toward the target. This course will be, as we have previously explained, a series of zigzags.

Voice teachers advise that we record our own voices on a tape recorder, and listen back to them, as a method of improving tone, enunciation, etc. By doing this we become aware of errors in speech that we had not noticed before. We are able to see clearly what it is we are doing “wrong”—and we can make correction.

Excessive carefulness, or being too anxious not to make an error is a form of excessive negative feedback.

If you want really to do your best in an examination, fling away the book the day before, say to yourself, ‘I won’t waste another minute on this miserable thing, and I don’t care an iota whether I succeed or not.’ Say this sincerely, and feel it, and go out and play, or go to bed and sleep, and I am sure the results next day will encourage you to use the method permanently.”

The way to make a good impression on other people is: Never consciously “try” to make a good impression on them. Never act, or fail to act purely for consciously contrived effect. Never “wonder” consciously what the other person is thinking of you, how he is judging you.

James Mangan cured his self-consciousness by remembering how he had felt, and how he had acted, when he “was going to the kitchen to eat with Ma and Pa.” Then, when he walked into a ritzy dining room, he would imagine or pretend that he “was going to eat with Ma and Pa”—and act that way.

“stage fright” and self-consciousness when calling upon big shots, or in any other social situation, by saying to himself, “I’m going to eat with Ma and Pa,” conjuring up in his imagination how he had felt and how he had acted—and then “acting that way.” In his book, The Knack of Selling Yourself, Mangan advises salesmen to use the “I’m going home to eat supper with my Ma and Pa! I’ve been through this a thousand times—nothing new can happen here,” attitude in all sorts of new and strange situations.

The Knack of Selling Yourself,

Here, the principle of cybernetics enters into the picture again. Our goal is an adequate, self-fulfilling, creative personality. The path to the goal is a course between too much inhibition and too little.

If you are shy around strangers; if you dread new and strange situations; if you feel inadequate, worry a lot, are anxious, overly-concerned; if you are nervous, and feel self-conscious; if you have any “nervous symptoms” such as facial tics, blinking your eyes unnecessarily, tremor, difficulty in going to sleep; if you feel ill at ease in social situations; if you hold yourself back and continually take a back seat—then, these are all symptoms showing that you have too much inhibition—you are too careful in everything, you “plan” too much. You need to practice St. Paul’s advice to the Ephesians: “Be careful in nothing. .

Don’t wonder in advance what you are “going to say.” Just open your mouth and say it. Improvise as you go along. (Jesus advises us to give no thought as to what we would say if delivered up to councils, but that the spirit would advise us what to say at the time.)

Don’t plan (take no thought for tomorrow). Don’t think before you act. Act—and correct your actions as you go along. This advice may seem radical, yet it is actually the way all servo-mechanisms must work. A torpedo does not “think out” all its errors in advance, and attempt to correct them in advance. It must act first—start moving toward the goal—then correct any errors which may occur. “We cannot think first and act afterwards,” said A. N...

3. Stop criticising yourself. The inhibited person indulges in self-critical analysis continually. After each action, however simple, he says to himself, “I wonder if I should have done that.” After he has gotten up courage enough to say something, he immediately says to himself, “Maybe I shouldn’t have said that. Maybe the other person will take it the wrong way.” Stop all this tearing yourself apart. Useful and beneficial feedback works subconsciously, spontaneously, and automatically. Conscious self-criticism, self-analysis, and introspection is good and useful—if undertaken perhaps once a year. But as a continual, moment-by-moment, day-by-day, sort o...

Make a habit of speaking louder than usual. Inhibited people are notoriously soft-spoken. Raise the volume of your voice. You don’t have to shout at people and use an angry tone—just consciously practice speaking louder than usual. Loud talk in itself is a powerful disinhibitor. Recent experiments have shown that you can exert up to 15 per cent more strength, and lift more weight, if you will shout, grunt or groan loudly as you make the lift. The explanation of this is that loud shout...

Let people know when you like them. The inhibited personality is as afraid of expressing “good” feelings as bad ones. If he expresses love, he is afraid it will be judged sentimentality; if he expresses friendship, he is afraid it will be considered fawning or apple polishing. If he compliments someone, he is afraid the other will think him superficial, or suspect an ulterior motive. Totally ignore all these negative feedback signals. Compliment at least three people every day. If you like what someone is doing, or wearing, or saying—let him know it. Be direct. “I like that, Joe.” “Mary, th...

When she felt that she simply had to run away, she would say to herself—“very well, but not this very minute. I will delay leaving the room for two minutes. I can refuse to obey for only two minutes!”

one of the best ways that I have found for entering this quiet center is to build for yourself, in imagination, a little mental room. Furnish this room with whatever is most restful and refreshing to you: perhaps beautiful landscapes, if you like paintings; a volume of your favorite verse, if you like poetry. The colors of the walls are your own favorite “pleasant” colors, but should be chosen from the restful hues of blue, light green, yellow, gold. The room is plainly and simply furnished; there are no distracting elements. It is very neat and everything is in order. Simplicity, quietness, beauty, are the keynotes.

Practice Exercise: Create in your imagination a vivid mental picture of yourself sitting quietly, composed, unmoved, letting your telephone ring, as outlined earlier in this chapter. Then, in your daily activities “carry over” the same peaceful, composed, unmoved attitude by remembering this mental picture. Say to yourself, “I am letting the telephone ring” whenever you are tempted to “obey” or respond to some fear-bell or anxiety-bell. Next, use your imagination to practice non-response in various sorts of situations: See yourself sitting quietly and unmoved while an associate rants and raves. See yourself going through your daily tasks one by one, calmly, composed, unhurried, in spite of the pressures of a busy day. See yourself maintaining the same constant, stable course, in spite of the various “hurry-bells” and “pressure-bells” in your environment. See yourself in various situations which have in the past upset you—only now you remain “set,” settled, poised—by not responding.