Welcome to Self-Discipline and Emotional Control.
In this innovative and entertaining program, author and presenter Dr. Tom Miller takes you on a wild ride, shaking up your self-limiting beliefs, challenging your self-defeating perceptions, and showing that you can make the changes in your life that you want and need.
Over a 20-year period, Dr. Miller has developed and constantly expanded the content of self-discipline and emotional control. He has honed every word, every action, every response, with just one thought in mind.
To take complex psychological theories and make them so easy to understand that you will be able to apply them to your own life right away. So throw away your preconceptions and strap yourselves in for Volume 1 of Self-Discipline and Emotional Control.
Here's Tom.
My name is Tom Miller and I'd like to welcome you to Self-Discipline and Emotional Control.
I'm only going to do one thing with you in this program and that is to give you a system to be able to control your emotions and change your behavior patterns so that you can perform your job even better than you do now and be more fun to be with when you get home.
The overall goal of this program is dramatic performance improvement.
When most intelligent, motivated, and well-intentioned people perform poorly, they do so because of one or two reasons.
One, they periodically overreact emotionally and they exhibit counterproductive behavior patterns.
Or two, they have one or two bad habits that they haven't been able to change even though these characteristics have been pinpointed year after year on their performance reviews.
Again, what this program will give you is the ability to take any overreactive emotional reaction you have, get rid of it, and replace it with a reasonable one.
Take any behavior pattern that you have that you don't like, get rid of it, and replace it with the one that you do like.
Won't that be nice?
The specific system you're learning today is called Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy, or REBT for short.
REBT was made up in the mid-50s by Albert Ellis, who's probably the most powerful and influential psychologist that's alive today.
The big name of the system is Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy.
But the normal name I call it, Psychological Chaopectate.
And we'll let you figure that one out as the program goes on.
Now the most important variable in behavior change, and that's all self-discipline is, is being able to change your behavior pattern so you can live your life the way you would like to.
But the most important variable in behavior change is forcing yourself to behave differently than you feel.
Let me say that again.
The most important variable in behavior change is forcing yourself to behave differently than you feel.
So during the program I'm going to be trying real hard to get you to do some things that you will initially feel uncomfortable about doing.
They're just stupid little silly things like audience participation, making certain symbolic gestures and things like that.
But I get you to do them for a very serious reason.
And that is to give yourself your own evidence that you can in fact force yourself to behave differently than you feel.
And after you do them a couple of times, you'll notice you'll actually start having fun doing them.
And that'll give you another important piece of information, and that is you are quite capable of changing your emotional reactions to things.
You started out feeling uncomfortable, but you ended up having fun.
Now the second most important variable in behavior change is generating the power and the intensity within yourself to turn your intentions into reality
or to make the changes in your life that you would like to make.
So periodically during the program I get quite loud or get real mean looking and intense.
Just to give you demonstrations of how you have to get within yourself in order to make any changes in your life that you would like to make.
So whenever Tom gets going real mean looking and loud, remind yourself, oh, Tom's just acting.
He's just pretending to be this mad just to show me how I have to get in order to make any changes in my life that I would like to make.
Now that's a real important point. That's me and you go over it again. You ready?
Listen, whenever Tom gets going real mean looking and loud, he's just what?
Helping me change my behavior.
Right, but I'm just acting, right? But I'm real good at it. I might fool you. Am I going to fool you?
No.
No, right. Now listen, when I pretend to get real mad, am I being rude and obnoxious?
No.
Right, I'm just what?
Acting.
Right, but I'm fooling too, right? Listen, if I call him big guy, does that mean I'm being demeaning?
No.
No, I'm just what? Fooling. Listen, if I call you honey, does that mean I'm being sexist?
No! I'm just what? Fooling.
Matter of fact, that's a very important point, so let's all write it down.
Write on the inside front title page of your workbook. Get it open to the front title page.
Right above the word self in big print, write this down. Write down, he's, come on, he's just fooling.
Write that down, big print, he's just fooling.
Alright, now check both people on both sides of you to make sure they wrote that down.
Now to see that I try to conduct the seminar in as most normal, basic English as possible,
to see how I say, force yourself to behave differently than you feel in normal English,
if you open up the workbook now to page 16, it's about a page from the back.
And at the bottom, read those big print words out loud at the bottom. What's it say down there?
Fake it till you make it. Now that's called normal English.
Now let's be real clear up front. Fake it till you make it does not mean suppression.
Suppression is what normal people out there do.
Suppression is when you make yourself behave differently than you feel for a bad reason.
We're going to be trying to get you into the habit of forcing yourself to behave differently than you feel
for a good reason, and that is, that's exactly the necessary step it takes to produce any emotional
or behavioral change.
Now just to tie the end of the program with the beginning of the program,
if you look about three inches above fake it till you make it, see it says number six,
real life practice, don't wait to feel, underline the word, comfortable.
If you first wait to feel comfortable before you try to produce behavior change,
you will absolutely never produce any behavior change.
You have to be willing to drive yourself through the initial uncomfortability that every human being feels,
and then after you do the new behavior enough, then and only then will you become comfortable
with the new behavior.
If you want to get an idea of whether or not you're getting an excellent program,
then let me tell you the emotional state you should be in all program long.
You know those little round things we give kids at Christmas?
They're usually made out of glass or plastic.
They've got a cute little scene in them, and you take them like this,
and you shake them up into wet flies all around.
Those are called snow globes.
Well if you're getting an excellent program, then all program long you should be having
the distinct impression that I'm reaching out there, grabbing you by the side of your head,
taking your head and going, and your brains are just kind of scrambling around in your head,
and you're feeling extremely overwhelmed all the time with two things.
One, the amount of information, and two most importantly, the differentness of the information.
The goal of the program is to take your head and shake it up so that maybe when your brain
settled back down, they settled back down into more logically sound piles
than they were when they walked in with you.
Now if that snow globe feeling gets a little overwhelming at times,
let me show you how to relieve yourself.
Take any one of your hands right now, place it flat anywhere in the workbook, just anywhere.
Alright, now pet the workbook.
Alright, now say this while you're petting it.
Oh, it's all in the workbook. Come on, say it.
Oh, it's all in the workbook.
See now that will calm you down now if you get a little overwhelmed.
Now if you're not catching every little single nuance that I go over in the program,
don't get yourself upset about it.
I build in repetition after repetition after repetition after repetition.
You will catch on during one of the repetitions.
Don't worry about it.
If you're not seeing how the first three quarters of the program goes together in a total package,
that's because you're very observant.
Oh, let's try that one again.
That's because you're very observant.
That's supposed to be funny. What's wrong with this audience?
All I'm doing during the first three quarters of the program is building separate little puzzle pieces
so when we get to the end of the program or the yellow brick road,
that's when I'll take all the puzzle pieces and put them together for you
and you'll see the yellow brick road mapped out.
Now I do have a New Year's resolution that I ask every audience to help me with.
You know the self-discipline part of this program?
And sometimes I have a bad habit of talking too fast or too emotional.
So whenever it gets going too anything now, just for practice,
everybody gets their hands up like this.
Put them down. Some of you didn't do it.
Now we have to have our first talk.
Those of you who did not put your hands up like this,
did you hear a little voice in your head that said,
Oh, don't put your hand up like that.
You're going to feel stupid if you put your hand up like that.
That little voice is the voice we're out after.
If you continue to listen to that little voice in your head,
you will absolutely never get what you came here for.
That little voice in your head that you heard is purposely there
to keep you the same as you are right now until you die.
One of the major goals of this program is to get you to learn
how to talk back strongly to that little voice in your head.
So let's try it again.
Whenever it gets going too loud, too intense, too anything in here,
just for practice now, everybody get your hands up like this.
Then go like this. Go, ah, ah, ah, come on, make some noise.
Ah, ah, ah, ah.
See, then I know to kind of slow it down or calm it down.
You know, hey, give me some feedback, will you?
Now everybody do this. Everybody go, come on.
Sometimes that little light in there,
don't go on in the seminar for a while.
You can get yourself upset about that. That's fairly normal.
But if by the middle of the program the little light ain't at least glimmering,
that's a good signal for you to talk to me at the breaks
because I'm real good at helping people reach in and clicking on the little light.
Because if the little light don't go on,
you're going to think this is the stupidest seminar you've ever been to.
Now one more thing on the inside front cover,
remember where we wrote before? Get that open.
One more thing right down there. I don't care where you write it.
I want you to get that front cover, big print, right down.
Don't believe, don't believe anything that Tom says.
Write that down.
Don't believe anything that Tom says.
Now that doesn't mean I'm asking you to disbelieve it.
The first thing I want you to do is see if you understand it.
If you understand it, then I want you to think about it with your own brain,
step back a little bit and see if you think what you understand makes sense.
If you think it makes sense, then believe it.
I've been developing this program for over 20 years.
Each and every pause, word, phrase, each stupid thing I do,
each seemingly silly thing I get you to do
has been specifically designed to achieve only one result,
and that's to increase the probability that you're going to be able to understand,
remember, and therefore be able to use this system
to make the changes in your life that you would like to make.
So as the program gets going a little crazy, try to remember that now.
Are you going to remember that?
I'm going to remember that.
Good, okay.
Now let me tell you three generic stories
to drive home the major point of the program.
Let's suppose that you and I have a couple friend,
and the male of that couple gives the female of that couple a whole bunch of flowers.
Now when she gets the flowers from him, that's just something that happens to her.
In a total emotional and behavioral reaction pattern, there's always four separate,
distinct things that always happen to a human being.
In the first case, some event is presented to you.
In this case with her, she got the flowers.
The very next thing every human being does is they go, whew,
and they decide in here what that event means.
Then depending upon what they think it means,
they get an emotional reaction that's logical for that interpretation process.
That emotional reaction then generates some type of observable behavioral response pattern.
So if you had to guess in my story,
how do you think the female probably ends up feeling emotionally
when she gets the flowers from him?
That's not a hard question, folks.
Come on, how do you think she ends up feeling?
Happy.
And if we were the proverbial fly on the wall watching her,
what type of behavior might we see her engage in?
Smile, yeah, what else? What about hug, kiss, put the flowers in the vase,
say thank you, aren't they pretty, those types of things.
So so far in the system we've covered three out of the four things.
The event was she got the flowers.
We skipped over the, you guys told me she felt happy,
happy into happy generated da.
Now knowing that she ends up feeling happy,
because that's what you told me,
what do you think she thinks it means that he gave her the flowers?
This means that he loves me, isn't that wonderful, boy, am I lucky,
those types of thoughts, those types of thoughts make her feel
happy into happy generates da.
Now there's a problem though, isn't there?
Females don't always feel happy when they get flowers from males, do they?
Sometimes they get the big S, what is it?
Suspicious.
Suspicious, yeah, you know.
And if she ends up feeling suspicious,
we know he ain't going to be getting those big warm hugging kisses, is he?
No.
No, she's going to be acting somewhat less warm.
We also know she's not sitting there thinking,
this means he cares about me, isn't this wonderful, boy, am I lucky.
If you had to take a shot at what you think she thinks it means
when she ends up feeling suspicious,
what do you think she thinks it means then?
What, did he do good?
What did he do?
Bad or wrong.
Or she could be thinking, well listen,
he don't really care about me that much.
He's just using flowers, hopes he gets lucky.
But she's having some type of negative thought pattern
to interpret the meaning of getting the flowers from him.
Now we're going to do something interesting.
Let's suppose the point between our two noses
is where she gets the flowers from him.
And over here is where she thinks it means he cares about me.
Boom, makes her feel happy.
Over here is where she thinks it means he's up to something no good.
Boom, makes her feel suspicious.
Now back up here is his actual two possible motivations.
This one is he really does care.
This one is he really is up to something no good.
Now both of these motivations lead him to do exactly the same thing,
which is to give her the flowers.
Now I'll do the first three quarters,
and you guys practice audience participation.
Now audience participation means I tend to ask you questions all program long,
just like I have been doing.
And I would greatly appreciate it if you would answer them back out loud.
Now I know some people feel a little bit uncomfortable
answering questions out loud in a group setting like this,
because you're not used to it.
If you feel the least bit uncomfortable,
please at least lip-sync your answers back.
Now many times I get together with my speaker buddies.
One of the things we always end up talking about somehow
are you guys, the audiences that we get to present in front of.
One of the things my buddies always complain about
is those people in the back of the room,
how uninvolved those people always are.
I tell my buddies, listen,
I have never ever had a problem with the people in the back of the room.
Matter of fact, some of my best friends sit in the back of the room.
Hi, I'm Tom. What's your name? Kelly.
Kelly. Guess what, Kelly?
You're now the captain of the people in the back of the room.
The DND's rows or back is now considered to be the back of the room.
Now just to see how loud the back is supposed to be all program long,
we're going to practice the first answer on the count of three
to get a reading on your volume level back here.
Now remember, the first answer in this routine is happy.
Now many times when I ask you questions,
I'll tell you guys ahead of time what the answers are.
The answers in this routine are happy, suspicious.
Now those aren't too hard, are they?
All right, so back of the room only.
Give me a nice, full, loud, happy on the count of three.
Ready, one, two, three.
Happy.
They're going to bury you people in the front of the room now.
What's your name? Sarah.
Sarah. Guess what, Sarah?
You're now the captain of the people in the front of the room.
Now just to be fair, we'll let the front of the room practice.
So front of the room only.
Give me a nice, full, loud, happy on the count of three.
Ready, one, two, three.
Happy.
All right, now just the boys.
Ready, one, two, three.
Happy.
Now the girls.
Ready, one, two, three.
Happy.
All right, here's the review.
The fact is he really does care about her, gives her the flowers.
She thinks that it means that he cares about me.
She's going to feel?
Happy.
Did you hear me, you boys?
Come on, boys, this ain't tough.
Remember, it goes, happy, suspicious, happy, suspicious.
Matter of fact, the people sitting near the boys,
when you're saying this loud, you listen to the boys out the side of your ears
to make sure the boys are saying this real loud too.
Let's try it again.
The fact is he really does care about her, gives her the flowers.
She thinks that it means that he cares about me.
She's going to feel?
Happy.
He really does care about her, gives her the flowers,
but she thinks it means he's up to something no good.
She's going to feel?
Suspicious.
And he really is up to something no good, gives her the flowers,
but she thinks it means he cares about me.
She's going to feel?
Happy.
And?
Suspicious.
So you see how she ends up feeling don't have a wham thing to do with his motivation, doesn't it?
Because she can end up feeling suspicious when in fact he cares.
She can end up feeling happy when in fact he's up to something no good.
And it really doesn't have anything to do with the flowers per se,
except they have to be there as a functioning reality,
or one or both of them are hallucinating.
But the real cause of the factor of how she ends up feeling is where?
Is where?
Alright, right. So does he do it to her?
No.
Hear the drop in volume?
Back to the room only.
The answer to this one is no.
Let's try it again.
So does he do it to her?
No.
Back to the room only now. Do the flowers do it to her?
No.
Everybody now, do she do it to her?
Yes.
Yeah! She do it to her every...
You better get used to this honey. This goes on all program long now.
Second story.
You and I get a pain right here.
Now when we become aware of the pain,
that's just some event that's happening to us.
The very next thing every human being is going to do after they become aware of the pain,
is they're going to go...
They're going to decide in here what that pain means.
That's the function of this thing up here.
This is what you guys think. You guys think...
It's just gas.
Something I ate a little while ago, it'll be gone in a half an hour.
Now you think those three thoughts to interpret the meaning of this pain,
you're going to get yourself about this upset.
Remember I have the same pain you do, caused by the very same thing.
Except when I notice my pain I think,
Oh my goodness, it's cancer!
I'm going to die!
And it's going to be extremely painful.
Do I get this upset?
No. I proceed to blow myself out of the water.
Do we both have the same pain?
So it cannot be the pain now that's causing the aging of how you and I end up feeling.
So when you get this upset in a pain story, who causes that?
You.
Well you don't know which pronoun to use.
So whenever I ask you to answer for yourself, you guys always say, I do.
Let's try it again.
When you guys get this upset in a pain story, who causes that?
I do.
And when I get this upset in a pain story, who causes that?
You.
You don't say I do for me, now come on, you say you do for me.
Let's get the pronouns straight.
Now I want you to be thinking about a buddy of yours at work that's not here today,
if you have one.
And a buddy of yours at not work, somebody you hang out with outside of work that's obviously not here today,
and rather quickly after you get out of here, I want you to get to those two people,
teach them as much as you can remember about what we covered here today,
so we create two support systems out there for you to keep using this stuff with over and over and over again,
until you become an absolute expert at it.
But remember now, when you're teaching a buddy the pain story,
always remember to make you out to be the stupid one.
Just like I did. I mean I could have switched the story, right?
It's my story.
I could have had you guys been the one that thought you had cancer.
I could have been the one that thought I had gas.
Would work both ways, wouldn't it?
So you're teaching the buddy the pain story?
Always let them be the one that's got gas now.
Makes it easier for them to listen.
You be the one that has cancer.
Now do the third story.
Two people in an airplane, 30,000 feet in the air,
going 400 miles an hour, so they're both exactly in the same event.
One's a male, one's a female.
The female's sitting there, calm as a cucumber,
getting a little work done, meeting some people next to her.
The guy's sitting there, shaking so bad,
he don't even dare touch his cup of coffee because he knows if he does,
hey, get it all over everybody in the plane.
So obviously being on the plane is not the causative agent of how these two people are feeling and behaving.
If you had to take a shot at the females,
interpretation process of the meaning of the safety factor being on this plane,
what do you think she thinks the safety factor is?
Right, what's the guy's thinking?
Right, this sucker's going down and I know it's going down.
Hey listen, I wouldn't be nervous if it wasn't going down.
So since I'm nervous, it proves it's going down.
Brilliant thought process, isn't it?
Now we're going to do a review called the seven dos
that establish the entire point of the whole program.
Seven answers, two words each.
Second word in each answer is do.
Now some of you look a little confused.
I'll tell you ahead of time what the answers are.
The answers are she do, she do, I do, you do, she do, he do, I do.
Now some of you English majors in here probably realize that's not correct English.
And hopefully you've already picked up on the fact like the play around with the tenses
and switch them around, change them and those types of things.
And I hope that's all right with most of you.
I know some people feel a little bit uncomfortable using English incorrectly,
especially out loud in a group setting like this.
So just to get you used to it, we'll practice the first one on the count of three.
Now remember the first answer in this routine is she do.
I'm going to ask you this once all program long.
Pretty, pretty please the first six times I get you to do the audience participation part of this program,
force yourself to engage loudly in it.
Because the better you do at that part of the program, which means the louder you are,
the better I will be all program long and the more you will help everybody in this room
get a much better program.
So if you're going to force yourself to be real loud the first six times we do it,
because I find after most people do it about six times,
they actually start to like it by then.
But it's a little difficult for some people.
So if you're going to force yourself to be real loud just to be a nice person,
so they help everybody in the room get a better program,
I want you to confirm the fact that you're going to be loud now
by turning to your buddy at the count of three and giving him a big wink.
Ready, one, two, three.
I said one wink.
All right.
Now remember this one's just for practice.
So for practice only give me a nice full loud she do on the count of three.
Ready, one, two, three.
She do.
Okay, here's the review.
The female in the flower story, when she ends up feeling happy,
who causes that?
she do.
Female in the flower story when she ends up feeling suspicious
who causes that?
she do.
When you guys get this upset in a pain story, who causes that?
I do.
And when I get this upset in a pain story who causes that?
you do.
The female on the plane when she's calm who causes that?
she do.
Male on the plane when he's nervous who causes that?
you do.
When ever you get upset about anything who causes that?
You didn't know that before!
You used to think it do, they do.
You see, you've just become absolutely abnormal.
Less than 1% of 1% of the entire human race understands what you just learned.
You just learned the most powerful fundamental fact for governing the rest of your life.
He has the power to determine your emotional and behavioral reactions other than who.
Yeah, so who's got total control over their emotions now?
Right, how's that feel?
Yeah, except you don't know what the heck to do with it.
But don't worry, that's what the rest of the program's all about.
However, once you remain normal, like all the rest of the people that aren't in this
room, and you continue to make the fundamental mistake of thinking that it's the actual events
that happen to you, or the way other people treat you that cause the way you feel and
behave, and you know that's the way you used to think before you walked in those doors,
and you know that's the way everybody outside of this room thinks, because everybody in
this culture is brought up to believe, think, and talk like that.
You know, the people out there still say things like,
Ah, the boss really made me angry this morning, so and so hurt my feelings.
Such and such situation makes me nervous.
John Denver even sings nonsense like that, you finish it.
Sunshine on my shoulders makes me happy.
That's drivel.
The sun does one thing.
Shines.
That's it.
So if John ends up feeling happy about the sunshine, who's causing that?
Not he is, that's he do.
He do.
That's the eighth do.
We're going to write him a group letter, tell him to fix that song.
Stop spreading these lies all over the universe.
However, once you remain normal, and you continue to make the fundamental mistake of thinking
that it's the actual events that happen to you, or the way other people treat you that
cause the way you feel and behave, then that mistake relegates you to two normal options
when you're dealing with the people out there.
Normal option number one is somehow you have to find a way to get them to stop it.
Stop treating me like this.
Doesn't that make sense?
Once you think that it's the way they treat you that gets you this upset, and you don't
like being this upset, that isn't your only, quote, supposal option to not be so upset
is you got to get them to stop doing what was supposedly upsetting you in the first place.
Well, obviously, every single one of you in this room has miserably failed at that task,
haven't you?
Otherwise you wouldn't be here today now.
But don't make yourself feel bad about that, because everybody miserably fails about that
task because who controls how they behave?
They do.
Very important point to remember, you see.
So after you've tried and tried and tried and tried all your imaginative, creative ways,
see if you can get them to stop it, and you have to brilliantly conclude that there just
seems to be no way to do it, then that relegates you to normal option number two.
Transfer them!
And if you can't figure out a way to transfer them, somehow you have to try to transfer
yourself away from them.
But you see, many, many times transferring them or you is not politically or economically
feasible.
So then you end up being stuck with them, and the only active problem-solving behavior
you engage in is every night you have nightmares.
It's about killing them!
And some people rush to be at the break, and they say, Tom, Tom, they're not nightmares
now.
I enjoy them.
Now I'm going to show you how fast this thing in here works.
I'm going to ask you a question about this thing in my hand.
I want you to watch how fast, how easy, and to just kind of drop south your mouth.
The speed and the ease at which you can answer this question is going to show you how fast
this thing in here works.
What's the color of the card?
Red.
Couldn't get it to the table before you answered, huh?
Did anybody in this room have to consciously think a thing to answer that question?
If you did, don't admit it.
But you see, if I asked you that question when you were about this big, you wouldn't
have known what the heck I was talking about.
Because you didn't even know what the word color meant, let alone know names of the colors,
or have the ability to hook them up with the right shades.
But then if I re-asked you that question again when you were about two feet off the floor,
when you're right in the middle of learning colors, you would have had to consciously
think it through.
You couldn't have answered as fast.
And if you talked out loud to show us your conscious thought patterns, they would have
gone something like this.
Ah!
I know a little bit about colors!
Let's see, is that black?
No!
Green?
No, not green!
Blue?
No, not blue!
Red!
Why, it might be red!
I think I'm going to tell her red.
Then out loud you behave very tentatively, you go, um, is it, is it, is it, is it red?
Huh?
Huh?
Is it, is it, is it red, huh?
WAMMIT!
IS IT RED?
Thank you.
Then with a little more practice and repetition, that learning dropped into a deeper party
brain ever since then.
Deish!
Fell out of your mouth just like it did a few minutes ago.
The point is you weren't born genetically knowing colors.
How'd they get in here?
Oh, come on, that's not hard!
How'd they get in here?
Learned them!
You think you learned everything else?
It goes on and there.
Here's the premise of the program.
The way you behave is directly influenced by how you feel.
And the way you feel is always and only created, controlled, and maintained by what goes on
in here.
The way you feel and behave is absolutely never, ever caused by the way those people
treat you or the things that happen to you.
The power and the control is totally in here and everything in here has been learned.
That was the premise, anything that was once learned can be unlearned and something else
relearned to replace that old learning with.
So if you can train yourself to think in much more hard, oh what is this?
Thank you.
If you can train yourself to think in much more hard, literal, precise, and accurate
fashions when it comes to interpreting what it really means that these big bad events
are happening to you or these people are treating you so badly.
That's exactly the way nobody in this culture is brought up to think, hard and all this
more precise and accurate in the emotional areas.
You've just learned the two most important variables in behavior change and the keys
to dramatically improving your performance.
In segment two, Tom discusses the program concepts of the horse and the rider.
Here's Tom.
There's two parts of your brain we're going to be talking about all program long.
There's not one in there like everybody thinks.
There's two.
The outside part of your brain, the big word for it is the neocortex.
That's the conscious center of your brain.
That's where you actually hear yourself thinking what you're thinking.
Not only do I like to play around with the tenses, I hate big words.
So you will not hear neocortex again.
Whenever referring to the conscious part of the brain, we'll make a symbol for it like
this with this hand.
That part of the brain I call the rider.
Now the deeper part of your brain, the big word for it is the limbic system.
That's where all your learned, stored, habitual, automatic information is kept.
That's the part of your brain that answered this color question a little while ago.
That part of your brain, symbol for it is whenever I do this with this hand.
That part of the brain I call the horse.
I call it a horse because it tends to function like one.
Have a horse, let's say, in a riding area play stable or whatever.
You can teach that horse a certain path.
Horse able learned that pass so well.
You could put any rider on that horse and the horse take it right around the path.
But if the rider tries to deviate off that path, the horse resists like crazy and always
wants to come back to this initially learned path.
Well, this part of our brains works exactly the same way.
Now go back to when most of you around 16, 17, 18 years old.
Now realize that's a ways back for some of you.
But back when you first learned how to start and drive the car, well before you ever got
your hot little hands on the wheel what you did in the, say rider, say rider, say it loud.
Rider part of your brains you learned a very detailed sequential set of instructions as
to the exact behavior body part.
When it was to put your body through in order to start and drive the car correctly.
Now if you can actually go back that far in time right now, kind of right now kind of
feel yourself sitting there for the first time ever to drive the car.
You'll remember that you literally had to talk yourself through each one of those steps.
Now you probably didn't talk out loud, but if you did it would have gone something like
this.
Yup, that's the right key.
All right, keep those little teeth up.
All right, now stick it in the hole.
Now turn it on and hold it.
Now give it a little gas.
Not too much gas.
And you literally had to talk yourself through each one of those steps.
The very first time you did that those thoughts were extremely high in consciousness in the
rider part of your brain.
And then with repetition and repetition alone, the repetition drove those thought patterns
lower and lower in your brain requiring less and less conscious brain energy to get your
body parts to still do the correct behavior.
Once the repetition had pushed those thoughts low enough close enough to the horse, that's
when the horse reached up and ate them.
And after the horse ate those thoughts, you no longer had the conscious to think about
it.
Just seems like you get in your car and do it.
Now haven't you ever gotten in your car?
Driven someplace that you usually go to?
Got in there?
Gotten out of the car?
Slapped in the face with the awareness that you don't ever remember driving there?
Who drove the car?
Come on now, who drove the car?
The horse drove the car.
The horse does almost everything for you without you having to consciously think about it except
when you're learning something new.
When you're learning something new you got to use your rider.
Now let's say you get a great lateral job transfer with extra bucks, but it's over to
England.
Part of your job over there requires you to drive.
Well, you know who is thoroughly conditioned in driving here.
But you got a smart rider.
So the rider gets over there, figures out what's the same, what's different, knows the
information in there is correct.
Would even bet money that the information in there is correct.
So your rider instructs your body to go get in the English car.
Unfortunately, who also has to come along now?
The horse.
So as soon as the horse gets in the English car and it looks around, it goes, this ain't
right now.
Now would you ever be so stupid as to let the horse drive the car in England?
Not long you wouldn't.
You'd get immediate corrective feedback.
Well, let's suppose I was the passenger you were driving and I said, hey, you're driving
correctly.
You say, hey, dummy, look at the road, of course I am.
I say, oh, excuse me.
I understand you intellectually understand you're driving correctly, but look in your
guts now.
How does it feel like you're driving?
And if you look down there, you're going to tell me it feels like you're driving wrong.
Even though you intellectually understand you're driving.
Right.
Two points to remember forever now.
Whenever you're...
Horse.
Oh boy, some of the people in the back are real slow.
What are you laughing about?
You were slower than they were.
Whenever I do this, everybody's supposed to say what?
Horse.
I do this, they're supposed to say?
Rider.
Let's try it again.
Whenever you're...
Horse.
Runs into something different than it's used to.
It does not code it up as different.
It codes it up as...
Wrong.
Second point.
You can have one set of thoughts consciously going on in your rider that by definition
you're actually aware of.
At the exact same instant, you can have the opposite set of thoughts be going on in your
horse that you're probably not aware of.
And you will always get the emotional reactions that are logical for the way your horse is
talking to you, even though you're just consciously thinking the opposite set of thoughts in your
rider.
And if you don't understand that fact, you can get absolutely thoroughly confused as
to what emotions really mean.
But we'll cover that a little bit later in the program.
Now let me ask you a question.
How many people here, raise your hand, if you've been to at least one talk, lecture,
workshop, seminar, keynote address, some type of talk, but not on technical training, you
know, where they teach you how to run a piece of equipment or a computer program, but on
topics that would fall under the general umbrella of professional development or personal growth.
How many of you have been to at least one?
Let me see hands.
90% of you, okay, put them down.
Would you say it's generally true when you've been to most of those, that the person up
where I am, at least some of the time they're up there, they seem to be going over some
reasonably sensible content information based upon whatever the title of the talk is?
Would you say that's at least sometimes true?
All right, well go back in your past, find one of those talks that when you were at it,
you remember liking it.
You know, you remember thinking, hey, this is some good stuff, baby.
I'm going to use this stuff, search your brain.
Let's suppose that particular day I was sitting next to you and from watching you and talking
to you, looked like you're pretty interested, maybe even a little bit excited about how
you're going to use all this new great content information, put it in your life, come up
with all this behavior change and make your life easier, more effective, more productive
and happier.
Well, this is what I've done.
Two weeks before that talk, you're thinking about, I snuck in your life with a secret
videotape crew.
We documented every single one of your real life behavior patterns for a full two weeks,
24 hours a day.
And I talked again at the talk, you tell me how excited you were about all this behavior
change you're going to come up with, put in your life, make your life easier, more effective,
more productive and happier.
And in two weeks after the talk now, after the talk, the videotape crew and I sneak back
in your life again.
We take another two week recording every single one of your real life behavior patterns for
a full two weeks, 24 hours a day.
Then I take the pre and the post videotapes and I push them through the computer and I
command the computer to compare and contrast those two sets of tapes, looking for any difference
that exists between the two.
You guys tell me, what's the difference between the two sets of tapes?
Nothing.
I hate that.
That gives me a bad reputation, doesn't it?
You see, when you go to those types of things and you just make one baby pass through your
rider with the information, but your horse never ever let you come up with the behavior
change, then you turned that day into a perk, didn't you?
See, the people next to you that aren't laughing, that means he didn't get it.
Listen, a perk is when the organization gives your butt the day off.
They continue to pay your salary though.
They pay my fee for coming in here and they know it won't do a way and better good because
you won't change your behavior patterns.
You see, we're going to be going over a very specific system that will allow you to take
any behavior pattern that you have, any emotional reaction pattern that you have that you don't
like, get rid of it and replace it with exactly the one that you do like.
But if you just intellectually understand what you're supposed to do in your rider,
but your horse never ever let you deliver those new behavior patterns at the right time
with the right face, with the right tone.
I'll do that a lot today so let's everybody do it.
If your horse never ever let you deliver those new behavior patterns when at the right time,
with the right face, with the right tone, then you've turned today into a vacation day,
haven't you?
And I don't go around the country giving people vacation days.
You're not getting out of here without learning exactly how to put this stuff into practice.
As a matter of fact, when you're done with the program, you're going to be able to go
in your past, rescue every single bit of behavior change you wished you'd put in your life.
You know, all those things that you know you should be doing, but you're not doing.
And by the time you get done with the program, you're going to be able to protect every single
dollar that your organization spends on your butt for training in the future.
Because by the time you get out of here, you're going to know how to break who.
Right.
Now go back to a number of months ago, right around the end of last December, when a certain
part of your brain was engaging in mental foolishness called resolutions.
Now which part of your brain was engaging in the foolishness, the horse or the rider?
Right.
Don't think your horse be deaf.
Your horse was sitting down below listening going, pfft.
We'll see.
And tell me by what time of the afternoon of January 1 had you broken every single one
of those?
And who did that for you?
Your horse.
Your horse's major job is to keep you the same as you were before you started this program
until you die.
And you best write this down in neon in your brain somewhere.
Horses almost always win, don't they?
Probably the thing that human beings are universally the worst at is changing any of our established
emotional and behavioral reaction patterns.
Aren't we terrible at that?
And now you're beginning to understand why.
Because who's so good at their job?
The horse.
And the horse has a trump card it plays every time to win.
Remember the way the horse talks to you causes how you feel.
And everybody in this culture is brought up to believe that you're supposed to behave
in line with how you feel.
Well, we're going to take that one away from your horse later, too.
Now think about the person that sent you here today.
I can feel some of the horses in the back wincing going, oh no!
How did Tom know I was sent here?
I know that 13% of you were sent here today under not pleasant conditions.
You know, your boss saw the brochure and the boss suggested that you attend this one.
They sent you here to be fixed, you know?
And I know who every single one of you are.
Because you're sitting there like this mad as heck about having to be here with this
big puss on your face saying I am going to stare back at Tom like this all program long
and try to ruin the seminar for everybody.
Now the rest of you, quickly look around and find those people.
See how they slowly uncross their arms.
Now let me show you a few moves that the horse tend to pull on people.
You ever been attacked by one of those loud, mean, nasty types of people?
You know like a boss or a boss's boss?
You know, you make a small mistake at work, but oh no, they catch you in the hallway,
boom!
They blow you out of the water as if you just crippled the entire organization or something.
Well listen, I'm going to be standing over there in a few seconds.
When I'm over there, don't see me.
See you.
You know what tie you got on?
You, how you got your hair that day.
Now when I'm over there, I'll be representing your horse.
Here you are, hanging out in the hallway, and this boss or the boss's boss comes right
up to you and goes, boom! blows you right out of the water.
Well, instantaneously, your horse drop out the backside of your body.
Stand up on its hind legs, grab you by all, and I mean all of the garments around your
waist and go, where's your pants now big guy?
What are you busy in the next few moments doing going, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, and when
you're busy trying to pull your emotional pants back up, in what position are you to
be dealing with this big bad person in your face?
Not good.
That's why the big bad person wins every time.
Now there's a couple of people on earth that have figured out how to deal with those types,
but they have trouble with the demeaning ones.
You know the ones that treat you like you're good for nothing gopher?
You know that's all you're good for is go for this, go for that, go for the other thing.
Hey listen, anybody going to do the thinking around here?
It's me.
If ever I want to know your opinion, you just sit there and shut your face.
I'll tell you what your opinion is.
Now you see most people get pretty bent when they get treated like that.
What your horse doing in those conditions, of course, comes up with its front hoof and
it bends your nose.
This means you're bent, but it also means you're taking things personally.
Why is she the only one that knows the answer to these things?
You're taking things personally.
Probably what you didn't know.
So every time the horse come up just glance your nose, let alone smush it, release a physiological
catch in your body.
You know what that physiological catch releases?
Adrenaline?
Adrenaline?
No.
Pants!
Go wear!
Down!
In case you thought wearing dresses would be a protection, nope.
Listen, I say to horse grab all the garments.
External garments and external garments.
Don't care where the zipper is in the front or the back or the side.
And it don't care about ripping things.
It just goes, die!
Now she do have everything above the waist still covered.
Now you see when a horse does that to somebody it does what we call emotionally freezes you
when you go, ahhhh!
And when you've been frozen like that emotionally, that's what reverts you into varial behavior
patterns.
And then you put those varial behavior patterns out there for the world to see.
But those are in fact the very behavior patterns that after you do them you're not too pleased
with how you behaved.
And there's a whole bunch of people who have to live and or work with you who are also
not too pleased with how you behave.
So you see when a horse gets somebody, do you need a private lesson?
What's this?
Remember, at least move your lips now or you're going to get caught.
Remember, you see when a horse gets somebody, over upset.
It's going to revert you into one of two very counterproductive behavior patterns.
About 10% of the people out there when their horse gets them over upset in their guts,
they'll flash a front hoof out in your direction, grab you by the top of your forehead, rip
your face off!
That's what we call overreacting behaviorally.
So we get flipped into the opposite behavior pattern called wimping out or what we call
avoidance behavior patterns.
Avoidance behavior patterns cover all those forms of procrastination behavior you engage
in.
All those promises that you make to yourself that you don't keep.
All those promises that you make to other people that you don't keep.
All those things that you know you should be doing but you're not doing come under,
wimping out.
Where you want to be?
Somewhere in the middle.
Being?
Going to get a private lesson now.
What's this?
Reasonably upset.
I know I want you to say things out loud so you remember this stuff.
Now come on.
Where you want to be?
Somewhere in the middle.
Being?
Reasonably upset and taken care of.
Business.
Whether you're at home or at work or anywhere in B.
Tween.
Right.
I'm sure you've all had the primary or the secondary experience being in the grocery
store a little bit back in the checkout line when all of a sudden right in front of you
there's a two year old wildly dusting the floor.
Supposedly because his mommy won't buy him a candy bar.
Well we know it has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that the mommy won't buy
him the candy bar.
It has everything to do with the fact that what the little kids horse tells.
You better start moving your lips big guy.
What the little kids horse tells him it?
No the function of the horse is not to tell you what you want.
The function of the horse is to tell you what things mean.
Another big word for horse in your head is interpreter.
As events in life come at you your senses pick them up.
Eyes, ears, sense of smell, whatever.
And they form at the top of your head what we call a perception of that event that's
happening to you.
Think of it like it's a big curved TV screen at the top of your head.
What you're seeing right now is not me.
You're seeing a picture of me in the top of your head on the screen.
Your horse's job is to be sitting underneath that screen like in a tilted astronaut's
chair watching every single event that happens to you over that screen.
And your horse's job is to be telling you what that event means.
Depending upon the exact sentences your horse is talking to you at the moment, the exact
words in those sentences, and most importantly the meaning that you let your horse have for
those words in the sentences will be causing you to have the exact type of emotion you
got going on in your guts at that moment and the exact size of that emotion that's going
on down there.
But you'll see most first thoughts on a horse's part are rather accurate.
So the first thing the little kid's horse tells him is, wham it, mommy won't buy me
a candy bar.
But you see that's pretty factual.
The horse will then always go on to interpret what that means.
So we're going to be the little kid's horse now.
I'll do most of it.
You guys do the sentence completions.
Say mommy won't buy me the candy bar and that means that she doesn't?
Love me.
There's one person on earth supposed to be able to love you.
It's your mom.
Even your mommy can't care about you.
That must mean you an unlovable slug.
Nobody's ever going to be able to care about you.
You won't have any friends.
You won't be able to get married.
You won't have kids yourself.
You just have a terrible life in front of you.
You aren't going to be able to stand this.
You've got to get some proof right now she cares about you.
Only way to do that is to make her buy you the candy bar.
On the floor every time.
Now let's suppose when this little kid was six months old he was my buddy.
But I was also six months old.
But I knew then what I know now what I'm going to teach you in this program.
Taught it to him at six months.
So now he's two years old again back in the same grocery store.
Same mommy, same candy bar.
But he's had a year and a half to practice his stuff.
He is getting good at it.
But he has brought a normal two year old buddy with him that don't know none of our stuff.
So my buddy asks his mommy for the candy bar.
Mommy say no.
We check out my little kid's body.
Yes in fact his knees are slightly bent.
We check his face.
He does seem a little bit frustrated and disappointed.
But he is miles away from riding on the floor.
But you should see his normal little two year old buddy standing here next to him.
Tugging on his sleeve going hey, hey, say what's wrong with you?
You're supposed to be on the floor.
Don't you know what this means?
And my buddy turns to his little buddy and says what?
Are you talking about?
I know this don't mean she don't care about me.
The only thing this really means is that she's cheap.
Now which is closer to the truth?
She don't care about him or she's cheap?
Cheap.
Right, now she might have other reasons, right?
Too close to dinner.
I'm worried about his teeth.
He's hyperactive enough already.
Now as a group we might be able to think a whole bunch more reasons.
Let's say all the reasons we can think of are laying here right on her lap.
And as a group we go and we get the number one reason we all think she say no.
We get that one and put it on the list number one.
Then we go get the second most likely reason we think she say no.
Put it at two, three, four, all the way down.
What's the absolute dead last reason we leave on our lap as to why we think she say no?
She doesn't love him.
But I want you to see an extremely powerful fact.
It doesn't matter.
If that little kid's horse gets away with telling him that this means that she don't
love you, that lie will put him on the floor every time, won't it?
What you're going to see later is that horses in and around our ages in these same types
of emotional areas for us do not think one single bit better than that two-year-old kid's
horse that throws him on the floor.
And that's why we're periodically such basket cases and blow ourselves out of the water
and then exhibit those wonderful behavior patterns called ripping somebody's face off
or what most of us do is wimp out.
Now we're going to do the review.
See how much you guys know to review.
In order to get your major concern and comps up being here today, which I hope is to dramatically
improve your performance, in order to do that though, you first have to change your, I looked
right in your face and told you that answer.
Now don't you remember?
What did I tell him?
See, she listens.
Give me five for listening.
Let's do it again.
In order to get your major concern and comps up being here today was to dramatically improve
your performance.
You first have to change your behavior.
In order to change your behavior, you have to keep your pants up.
Keep your pants up.
You have to keep your hoof away from your, which means you're not taking things.
Who said bent over there?
Sometimes this means bent and sometimes it means personal.
You're supposed to be smart enough to know the difference.
Now we got to do this whole wham thing again just because of you.
All right, now come on, let's do the review.
In order to get your major concern and comps up being here today was to dramatically improve
your performance.
You first have to change your behavior.
In order to change your behavior, you have to keep your pants up.
You have to keep your hoof away from your, not face.
Now we got to do it again.
Come on, in order to get your major concern and comps up being here today was to dramatically
improve your performance.
You first have to change your behavior.
In order to change your behavior, you have to keep your pants up.
You have to keep your hoof away from your, which means you're not taking things.
Which means you're not letting your horse tell you lies.
What put the little kid on the grocery store floor?
Lies told him by his horse.
So we want you to use your emotions as signals, especially if you know your horse is getting
you.
Over upset.
Because I'll guarantee you if your horse is getting you over upset, your horse is telling
you what in here?
Some lies.
Right?
But nonetheless, that feeling is still what?
Real and logical and correct.
So never trust your feelings.
Use them as signals, especially if you're over upset.
To have the thoughts that just went on in your horse come up into consciousness and
have who take a look at them.
See if they make sense or to find the lies and correct them.
Now the horse always also do something called snake thinking.
Snake thinking go like this.
Let's suppose this one of me go camping, make a rock campfire.
All of a sudden out of the blue I say to her, watch out, there's a snake behind you.
Now those are just words coming out of my mouth.
Right?
If her horse thinks, time will lie to me, snakes are dangerous and my ass is in trouble.
What emotion horse give her?
Fear.
How fast that happen?
Shut up at this quick.
How fast?
Move your fingers.
How fast?
Okay, now you got it.
Now.
Then the horse do what?
Snake thinking.
Snake thinking always start like this.
I'm not stupid.
Horse thinking always start like that.
The horse go, I'm not stupid.
I wouldn't be sitting here feeling afraid if there wasn't a snake.
So since I feel afraid that proves there's a snake.
You can't do that.
Where did the fear come from?
The snake?
No.
From my words?
No.
Where did the fear come from?
Her horse.
You cannot use the thoughts that went on in your horse to prove that there's a snake back
there.
Or that your thoughts are correct.
Now she could have just as easily thought, oh, Tom's fooling around with me.
Isn't that nice?
I like that.
That means he kind of likes me.
Now if she thought those thoughts, would she feel afraid?
No.
She'd feel what?
Calm and maybe a little amused.
She then noticed that she feel calm and amused and then she do what?
Snake thinking.
How's snake thinking always start?
Come on.
I'm not stupid.
Move your lips.
Now come on.
I'm not stupid.
I wouldn't be sitting here feeling calm and amused if there was a snake.
So since I feel calm and amused that proves there's no snake.
You can't do that one either.
But people do it all the time.
Now let's go back to the flower story when she ended up feeling suspicious.
You know if we go out there and we get a hundred females who ended up feeling suspicious when
they got flowers from a male and we ask those hundred females, listen, tell us what does
that suspiciousness feeling mean?
Her horse thinks that he's up to something no good.
Now is the horse always right?
No.
No, sometimes the horse gets things wrong or bent.
But you always, always end up feeling the way who talks to you.
Because the horse is telling you the truth or the lies.
So if the horse is telling you lies, that's what we call horse stuff.
Right, stuff.
Right?
Stuff.
Horse stuff.
If your horse tells you horse stuff, you're going to end up with emotions that are horse
stuff.
And then you're going to produce behavior based on those emotions that are based on
horse stuff.
Ain't a great way to go through life.
So you use your emotions as what?
Signals to use your rider to see if what your horse just told you makes sense.
If it makes sense, fine.
If it doesn't make sense, then have your rider fix the thoughts.
So you keep your pants where?
Up.
Okay, give you some break work.
Break work, you got it?
Things to do on the break.
One thing, I want you to start tuning your ears to listening to people talk.
I don't care where you are.
Over here in yourself, other people listening to music, I don't care.
And I want you to hear the way they talk.
They always say that some external event is causing you to feel a certain way.
Remember the ones we did before?
Boss makes me angry.
So and so hurt my feelings.
That situation makes me nervous.
John Denver sings sunshine on my shoulders makes me happy.
Where's the blame placed all the time?
Out on the external event.
It absolutely never happens that way.
So turn your, what are these?
Tune your ears to start hearing those things.
So what I want you to do when you hear them, like when you hear John Denver sing sunshine
on my shoulder makes me happy, you're going to change it in your mind.
Uh-uh, John.
It's John that's making John happy about the...
Where does that place the responsibility?
Back on top of John's head.
All right, you hear somebody say that situation makes me nervous.
How do you change that?
I make myself nervous about that situation.
So and so hurt my feelings.
Let's say her best friend right back there is sitting there going, oh, you know, you
hurt my feelings yesterday.
Now, unless your friend has been here, you do not say to her, uh-uh, honey, your horse
hurt your feelings yesterday because she won't understand unless she's been here what that
means.
Now, but she did something yesterday that her horse made her feel hurt about.
So where do you place the responsibility?
Back on the person that's feeling hurt.
So I want you to practice using that.
Turn it around.
So you always take the responsibility and place it back on the head of the person that's
having the feeling.
Everybody else out there places it where?
Out on the event or the way people treated you.
Of course, that turns your life exactly around backwards though, doesn't it?
Because you've been brought up to think what?
That it's the other way around.
When it's the other way around, how much power you got over your life?
None.
Go ahead.