1. Reminder: Please pick a topic (related to “being successful” or “self-development”) for your midterm group presentation. At least 4 people from each group will need to present, and the duration is limited to 20 minutes.

2. Personal Power: Motivation with neuro-association

3.  Review 1. Ultimate success formula.  Review 2. Pain and pleasure (stick and carrot). Don’t let other people or things use them to drive your behavior.  The meaning we associate to a given situation can strongly affect our thoughts and behavior.  Example 1: diet; charming or dying? Example 2: smile; encouraging or mocking?  Movie: Shallow Hal.

4.  We may associate different meanings to the same thing, and our behavior is driven by the stronger association.  If you haven’t started doing something (which you should have started long time ago), you need to change what doing it means to you.  Not just by talking to yourself. Your whole neural system needs to be convinced.  If we want to change our lives, the first step is to change our neuro-associations.

5.  What are the key associations in your mind that are directing/controlling your life?  If you change them, lots of things also change simultaneous just like magic!  Thinking positively is good but not enough.  When you tell yourself to think positively, usually you do NOT want to think positively at that moment.  In this stimulus-response world, it might be too late when you decide to start thinking positively.

6.  When getting a cold, which medicine do we take? We know the answer without thinking.  Why do we know the answer even without thinking about it?  Because we have been “conditioned” to respond in a specific way.  It is extremely important to “condition” ourselves to respond correctly.  For example, some people link smoking to a cool and mature guy. They are “trained” to feel good in smoking!

7.  Practice: Discuss with your group members and find out some neuro-associations which are actually wrong.  How to design your destiny? From small things, not magic events.  For anything you do, there is an effect.  The accumulation of the effects will move you into the direction toward your destiny.  In order to have the kind of destiny you want, what do you need to believe or associate things happening to you?

8.  The time to design your life 20 years from now is Right Now! Not 20 years from now.  Aware the negative neuro-association which controls you, and change it.  Example: Playing piano with feet. ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3Y2VVzU4MI&feature=related ) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3Y2VVzU4MI&feature=related Blade runner ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3M9cdo-eYI&feature=fvwrel ) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3M9cdo-eYI&feature=fvwrel  The meaning of giving. Do you associate more pain or more pleasure to giving?  Story of offering this class.  Misuse of pain and pleasure: alcohol and drugs.

9.  Whenever we have strong feelings, things happening repeatedly at the same time get linked to the feelings. (Anchoring)  Anchoring in action:  NLP Anchoring Technique for Success and Wealth ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WODlCY4w83Y&feature=relmfu ) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WODlCY4w83Y&feature=relmfu  Derren Brown subway amnesia ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qGlMG71EeM ) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qGlMG71EeM  Banishing Phobias the Bandler way ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4reYnMGpSc&feature=relmfu ) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4reYnMGpSc&feature=relmfu

10.  More about anchoring:  Don’t console someone too often if you really like him/her! (You and the negative feelings will get linked up!)  Are you often reminded by something which has seemingly no relation to the thing you remembered? That is the power of neuro- association.  Scientific background of this: Ivan Pavlov’s experiment of conditioned reflexes in dogs.

11.  We have been conditioned to doings by the influences of TV commercials … etc. Now it’s time to take the control back!  If you want to know why people succeed, just look into their neuro-associations.  The major difference between geniuses and ordinary people is that geniuses quickly focus on and take actions on things they want.  This can be done easily with good neuro- associations.

12. PPractice: Write down two empowering and two disempowering neuro-associations which shaped your life. For the disempowering neuro-associations, how will you change them? WWhen does any psychological therapy work? IIt works whenever the meaning associated to the specific event is changed. EExample: Being dumped by the one you love. MMovie: Life is beautiful.

13.  Neuro-associative conditioning (NAC): similar to tuning a piano or straightening teeth.  We need to condition ourselves frequently until a new lifestyle is shaped.  There are three fundamental elements of NAC. These elements will certainly make you change your life and the changes will last for a long time.

14. 1. Get leverage on yourself. This means you must decide the following: A. Something must change. B. I must change it. C. I can change it. 2. Interrupt your current pattern of association. This is best done by using something unusual. 3. Condition a new, empowering association.

15. More explanations about the above: 1. A lot of courses charge a great deal of money because this is a good way to create leverage. (You must totally believe you can change before willing to pay this amount.) 2. The way we recall an experience is like playing a CD/record. When something happens, our immediate response is to play a related CD. If a CD has too many scratches on it, can it still be played in the same way? (Remember the scene in the elevator in “Shallow Hal”?) 3. Install a new choice, and reinforce it until it is conditioned (= a habit). This can be done by linking pleasure to your new choice.

16. Homework: RRemember in your previous homework you were asked to list new actions you know you should take now. Pick at least one action you listed and do the following: 11. Get leverage: Write down at least five reasons why you must change that behavior now; then list at least five reasons why you know you can do it. 22. Interrupt your old pattern: Design at least two ways to get yourself out of the limiting association and have new positive association when you think of the thing you want to do. 33. Condition yourself with the new positive association. Give yourself a sense of accomplishment and pride or joy each time you start taking actions. Do this again and again until you feel good automatically when you just think about it.