How to Hack Your Mind’s Algorithm
Humans hire me to help them make changes — such as eating better, developing confidence, learning to be more charismatic, and building persuasion skills. They attend my seminars to learn how to meet other humans, be intriguing, and positively impact their conversation partners.
In my mid to late 20s, my clientele primarily consisted of humans wanting to lose weight and stop smoking.
Throughout my 30s, most of my clients were men and women looking for love. These humans had difficulty walking up to a stranger, opening a conversation, and guiding the conversation to a specific end — getting a date.
During my 40s, I specialized in sales. Salespeople are always looking for the magic formula to get their prospects to say "yes" in less time.
In my 50s, my demographic is anyone who needs or wants to learn how to influence others or themselves. This most recent demographic includes everyone I previously mentioned, plus humans who have defined a new category of clients for me — humans who want to evolve. They want to change how they communicate with others because their old way isn't working anymore. Over the last 18 months, many humans have experienced communication breakdowns with friends, family, and strangers. Political and social issues have highlighted the importance of effective communication.
From what I've just described, you may have the impression that I'm a jack of all trades — that's not the case. I'm helping humans with only one thing. Every client I've had since 1991 to today, without exception, had a focus problem.
Humans focus on how hard it is to lose weight instead of focusing on how much better their life will be after improving their health.
Smokers focus on how the next cigarette will help them calm down and relieve stress. Instead, they should be focusing on the idea of not seeing their children or grandchildren graduate from high school.
Many humans focus on the possibility of being rejected by someone they're attracted to — stopping them from walking up and saying, "Hi!" Instead, they should be focusing on how wonderful it could be if they agreed to a date.
Salespeople focus on making the sale instead of understanding what the human sitting in front of them wants and needs.
And currently, humans are listening to politicians and armchair experts instead of focusing on actual medical experts for health advice.
What you focus on, you tend to get more of. But, unfortunately, most humans focus on what could go wrong, what they can't do, and how they're not good enough. Even I sometimes fall into this trap.
When I opened my show in the Gatlinburg/Pigeon Forge, Tennessee area, it was the first time the general public had an opportunity to rate my performance. TripAdvisor was king of ticket sales in that area. If you were one of the top five shows, your seats were filled every night. Within 90 days, my show was ranked #1 out of 60+ shows. I received about 50 reviews after every show — 97% of them were excellent. Yet, I focused on the one negative review I received instead of the other 49 — dwelled on it, to be exact.
So what do you focus on that limits what you can do? And how can you change it?
Your conscious mind has a limit to how much you can focus on at any point in time. When I began my career in 1991, the statistic was you could hold 5 to 7 thoughts in your conscious mind at any moment. However, with the invention of smartphones, I believe that the numbers have fallen to 3 to 5 thoughts. If you haven't noticed, most humans' attention spans are dropping.
This means that your conscious mind deletes much more information than what you're aware of. For example, notice which of your hands is warmer. Before you read that last sentence, you were deleting that information. Now, focus on the feel of your clothes against your body. Again, you were deleting that sensation before you read that sentence. In order to think about your hands or clothes, you had to stop thinking about something else.
Now, get this. Focusing on how you could be rejected when approaching a stranger to say, "Hi," means deleting all of the positive things that can happen instead. If you're trying to change your focus while in the moment, you're likely going to fail. Your mind has already decided what to focus on — being rejected.
So, how do you go about changing what your conscious mind focuses on?
There's a part of your brain called the reticular activating system (RAS). It's a network of neurons in our brainstem that filters out unnecessary information so the important stuff gets through. But, who determines what stuff is important? — You do!
Dale Carnegie said, "A person's name is to him or her the sweetest and most important sound in any language." Because of this, humans can ignore a crowd of conversations and still snap to attention when someone says their name. Since the RAS knows your name is essential to you, it quickly delivers that information to your conscious mind.
The RAS is also responsible for a phenomenon that most humans have experienced. Think of a time you purchased a new vehicle. You probably began to see more of the make and model of the vehicle you bought on the road. Did everyone get the same idea as you at the same time? — Not likely. Those vehicles were always there, but now the RAS has tagged them as important since you purchased one.
Suppose you're attracted to humans with blue eyes, and your friend is attracted to brown eyes. When you go out together, you will notice more humans with blue eyes, and your friend will notice more humans with brown eyes. So you've both programmed your RAS to pay attention to those particular eye colors.
The RAS doesn't distinguish good things from bad things — it simply knows what you like to focus on. It works as a built-in social media algorithm. In other words, the RAS provides you with more posts similar to previous posts you've thumbed up and ignores posts similar to ones you've thumbed down. So if you consistently tell yourself that you're worthless, your RAS will deliver information to your conscious mind to support your belief and delete data to the contrary.
To change what you focus on, you must hack your RAS's algorithm — teach it what's important to you. There are various ways of doing this. I like to use questions. Questions simultaneously direct your focus and activate your RAS. For example, suppose you feel that you're worthless. You could ask yourself, "What can I do today to help someone?" That question presupposes (AKA assumes) you can help someone — displaying that you are not worthless. It also sends a message to your RAS to pay attention to ways that you can help others.
Questions not only direct your focus and teach your RAS what's important, but they also determine what gets deleted before reaching your conscious mind. If we take the example above, "What can I do today to help someone?" — the feeling of being worthless eventually gets deleted as you focus on how you can help others.
These Are My Recommendations for Designing Your Questions
Write down what you want to change. For example, suppose you haven't been successful at starting conversations with strangers. In that case, you could write, "Instead of feeling afraid to talk to strangers, I want to have the confidence to go for it."
Write a question that presupposes what you want while deleting what you don't want. Using the example in step #1, you could write, "What do I need to learn and practice to become comfortable with talking to strangers?" This question focuses your mind on finding a solution and deletes being afraid while alerting your RAS that this is something important to you.
Post your question where you can read it several times a day. For example, some of my clients have used Post-it Notes stuck to their bathroom mirrors. I like to write my questions directly on the mirror using dry erase markers. I've also left notes by my bed to read when I awaken and before falling asleep. Your phone's wallpaper is another excellent place to put your question. We all look at our phones many times a day, and you can remind yourself of your question each time.
Track your success. I journal every day. It gives me a record of how much I've grown over time. As you accumulate wins, you strengthen the belief within yourself.
This process typically isn't instant. If you write your questions today, don't be discouraged if you haven't changed tomorrow. It's a journey and requires consistency to program your RAS to recognize what's important. Think of your RAS as a muscle that needs to be conditioned. It may take some time, but the result is worth it. With that said, I have had clients who had life-changing epiphanies within 72 hours.
