Are you running a pattern of destruction or success?

Posted on February 16, 2012 by Jason D. West

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit. Aristotle.

Are you running a pattern of destruction or success?  

We all have them…patterns that we run our lives by. Patterns are automatic habits or unconscious behaviors that we live our lives by. It’s how we create some sort of normalcy in our hectic lives. Without them, life would be chaotic and unpredictable.

Some of the patterns are good, like getting up at 6am every morning, going to the gym 3 times a week, or brushing our teeth after meals. Some of them are bad, such as uncontrollable eating, biting your fingernails, or uncontrollable emotional outbursts.

 Click here to change your patterns NOW!

Some patterns take place at such a subconscious level that we are not even aware that we are running them. Have you ever noticed that some people seem to date the same type of person over and over again…always winding up in an abusive relationship, or dating a complete loser? Others always seem to be broke…even if they come into a considerable sum of money or have an amazingly well paying job.

On the other side of the spectrum, you have people that always seem to wind up with the most amazing, beautiful, and successful people at their side. If one leaves, another amazing person quickly takes their place. You have people like Donald Trump, who have filed for bankruptcy several times, but no matter how many times he fails, he always seems to come out on top. He simply CANNOT be broke. It’s not in his DNA.

How is it that some people have these patterns of success while others who are equally, if not more capable seem to live a mediocre life, never living up to their full potential. Some people might just say they are lucky. But it actually goes much deeper than that. It comes down to the subconscious patterns that we are running every day, whether we realize it or not. How do we develop these patterns? Past experiences, values and beliefs from family, friends, and others all contribute to developing these patters.

Fortunately, these patterns can be changed. While you cannot change the past, with hypnosis, neuro linguistic programming (NLP), and other types of mind therapy, you can break behavior patterns by changing the way you feel about the past, and you can change your perceptions on your beliefs and values and install new strategies of success so that you automatically begin running healthy patterns of success.

Many years ago, I was running a pattern of negative thinking that took me into a downward spiral loop of major suicidal depression. While the medications I was prescribed put a nice pretty temporary band aid on the problem, it wasn’t until I began to change my patterns of thinking that I was able to completely conquer the depression I was in. Now, even though I still encounter many of the same issues I had in the past, I think about them differently, and I’m known by many as the happiest person they’ve ever known.

WHAT WOULD YOUR LIFE BE LIKE IF YOU COULD REPLACE YOUR DESTRUCTIVE PATTERNS WITH PATTERNS OF SUCCESS?

Hypnosis is considered by many experts to be the most powerful method of changing your thought patterns. In addition, it has been approved and/or endorsed by many medical and psychological associations, including the British Medical Association, American Medical Association, and American Psychiatric Association among others.

If you are interested in breaking negative patterns, click here to book a hypnosis session.  I can do hypnosis in Orange County, and I can also do hypnosis via Skype.

Dear Jason,
Thank you so much for all the effort and care you have so genorously given me. I am so grateful. Since our meeting and working together i have experience unbelievable changes in my life, where nothing has changed, yet everything has changed sort of thing if you know what i mean. Everything from embracing my work challenges and walking through somewhat fearful tasks, to meeting the girl of my dreams, and finally to consciously and diligently working with other people listening and embracing what is in front of me, task or friend. Dude my attitude has been outstanding even when i feel otherwise. I dont know what else to say other than, i am so grateful to you for taking me on and working with me despite my shortcomings and how little i had to offer, your efforts have contributed greatly in my opinion to the recent changes and goodness i feel around me, and we both know how i felt when we met !!!! Thank you so much !!!!!!!!! – Derek S.

 

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Insight Into PowerPersuasion(tm)

Posted on January 26, 2012 by MetaShifts

I’m so amped up about your ability to persuade and influence this year!  I’m offering my PowerPersuasion(tm) Course to facilitate your growth and potential.

Here’s what some previous attendees have to say about it.

“Best course for people who are starting off in sales, or wanting to improve in sales, or take it to the next level.”

“What is learned here, can be applied to any field.”

“I Particularly like way Jason went about teaching this course. To go over exercises, actually practicing what you are learning – there’s no better way to committing to memory and having it become a part of you.”

“This will make me better at relationships personally or professionally.”

“You can learn how the unconscious mind works and how you can use that to leverage in your business – it has an immediate effect.  If you are trying to persuade or influence then look into this course!”

Sound good? Look into this course now – right here! Interested? Okay, one more comment from a professional in the insurance business.

“The activities we did were good- we put into practice right away and it gave me a feeling of doing it correctly.”

This course gives you practice time to really learn the principles of persuasion and influence so you can walk away with tools you can use immediately!

Sign up or contact me for personal training or coaching.

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Influence – Fact or Gut Feeling?

Posted on January 24, 2012 by MetaShifts

I found an interesting study in influence and how the factor of “gut feeling” is tied to our acceptance of information being presented to us.

This new research looks at one form of influence – teaching, and one controversial topic – evolution –  to determine if students accepted the concepts based on the facts presented. “The whole idea behind acceptance of evolution has been the assumption that if people understood it – if they really knew it – they would see the logic and accept it,” said study co-author David Haury, an associate professor of education at Ohio State University.

What did the researchers find? They found that neither being religious nor knowing the facts about evolution were reliable predictors of an individual’s acceptance of evolution. But “intuitive cognitions” about evolution were predictive. In other words, students knowledgeable about evolution were more likely to accept evolution if they also had strong “gut” feelings that the facts were real.

Could this be tied to the persuasiveness of the influencer?  I think so.  To learn more about making sure your audience is accepting whatever it is you’re communicating, check out my PowerPersuasion bootcamp, or contact me for personal coaching.

The original article here.

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Memory Metashift

Posted on January 19, 2012 by MetaShifts

I read a recent article where Joe Vitale talks about some events from his childhood that had shaped his life today.  Interestingly, he remembered that as a teenager he helped his dad build a house.  He had strong kinetic and emotional experiences that helped locked in that memory.

But he was wrong. While the memory of the experience is right,  Joe’s father reminded him that Joe was NOT a teenager, but a mere 10 years old when they completed the house.

Isn’t the mind strange?  Maybe some of the grudges you hold about how you were raised are completely off base.  As Joe points out, this story shows how inaccurate our memories are… and since most of us can’t remember what we ate for lunch yesterday, recalling memories from decades ago is ripe for inaccuracy.

We can use this capability of the mind to create and reposition our perception.  Keep learning more at this blog.

Read the original article here.

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Becoming an Influence in 2012

Posted on January 16, 2012 by MetaShifts

It’s a new year! Time to set goals, make resolutions…or not.  However you do it, there’s a lot of focus on making changes whenever that calendar turns over to a new year.

Would you like to be able to influence your own outcome this year?  You can actually learn how to use influence to persuade the situation to go your way.  Two keys in influencing are rapport and positive recall.

One part of rapport is understanding that everyone has various styles of communication.  Some may be visual communicators, where they “see” what you are saying and often express themselves in imagery and physical attributes. Some are auditory communicators, where they “hear” what you are saying, and may express themselves with sounds.  Some are tactile communicators, where they “experience” what you are saying and may look for connections to the physical senses as they express themselves.  One of the things I teach in my PowerPersuasion(tm) Course is to identify and adapt to the different communication styles.  There are several other aspects of building rapport, and I teach those in my course, too.

Once you have rapport with someone, you can then establish an environment for them to receive the idea as you see it. When is the best time to make an ask or persuade someone to give you something?  When they feel good, right?  In order to lead someone in feeling good, one technique I teach is positive recall. This is the technique a child might use when they want a new toy.  First, they say, remember when I cleaned my room without asking?  And when the parent is feeling really satisfied of their own parenting and pride in the behavior of the child, the child knows that is the time to make the ask.

These techniques are based on science, but there’s an art to it, of course, so you don’t blatantly go around analyzing communication styles and asking people to remember something good.  Being aware of how you listen and respond to the different styles, and asking positive questions about the other person is a good start to a year of influence!

For more powerful techniques, and to learn the complete system of developing influence and persuasion, attend my PowerPersuasion Bootcamp, or contact me for more information.

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The Mind-Body Christmas Stress Connection

Posted on December 16, 2011 by MetaShifts

Does Christmas really make us crazy?

Dr Robert Lustig from the University of California at San Francisco says  the season’s hectic schedule and excesses of festive eating can wreak havoc upon hormones.

Just how much those ‘Christmas hormones’ take hostage of our bodies was described by Dr. Lustig on ABC’s Good Morning America saying the season is fraught with hormonally-driven behaviour – driving irrational actions and thoughts.

He says a potent mix of cortisol, serotonin and dopamine are at play over the holiday season.

While the togetherness of Christmas – ultimately what the day is all about – fosters surges in the happiness hormone, serotonin, the build up is characterised by high levels of stress, or cortisol.

We seek quick contentment fixes in food, for example, which boost dopamine levels temporarily.

And the more that dopamine is triggered, the larger the amounts of food that are needed to feel the hormone’s pleasurable effects – which leads to over-eating, peaks and troughs of insulin and sugar highs and lows.

In the meantime, high stress levels see rises in blood pressure, suppression of the immune system and increased sugar production, he told the show.

It’s only to be expected that mood swings – and arguments – may ensue.

It’s perhaps no surprise, then, that close to 70 per cent of Americans say they are fatigued by Christmas, says the American Psychological Association.

Some comfort, though, can be taken in another finding by the American Psychological Association, as cited by GMA, that almost 80 per cent of Americans feel positive and happy around the holidays.

Rather than let the holiday’s excesses defeat and traumatise, the secret is to make the most of your companions, family and friends over the period, suggests Dr Lustig.

‘Happiness has nothing to do with money. It has nothing to do with food,’ he told the show’s site.

‘The best is to have a community and to be happy with what you’ve got.’

Read more.

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The Mental Game of Marathons: Life or Death?

Posted on December 15, 2011 by MetaShifts

A recent news story talked about two men who died at or near the finish line of the 8th Philadelphia Marathon.  The apparent cause was-heart related according to a source for the article,  Dr. Lewis G. Maharam.  Maharam explains that it seems like we’re seeing more deaths, but the death rate has remained the same – there are just more people entering marathons and half-marathons.  He went on to say that some runners’ hearts are particularly vulnerable to an adrenaline surge that occurs when they first spot the finish line, a location Maharam called “The X Spot,” which he said “comes from the excitement of knowing you’re going to finish.”

I’m wondering if adding mental training to the physical training of a marathon or half marathon is a matter of life or death for some people.  By harnessing the power of the mind, an athlete can learn to control surges of adrenaline and minimize the effect on the body.

An interesting observation by a colleague in the field says that mental preparation may help with reducing eliminating panic attacks that may be a cause of deaths of triathletes in the swimming leg.

It seems like there’s a connection to me.  What do you think?  Follow the discussion at http://www.metashifts.com/blog.

For more information on the Philadelphia deaths, see this ABC News article.

For more information on deaths among triathletes, see this article.

Also see Brian David Phillips’ perspective on mental preparation for extreme athletes.

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The Art of Self-Handicapping

Posted on December 14, 2011 by MetaShifts

The flip side of the fear of failure is the fear of success, and it’s possible to unconsciously handicap ourselves with excuses, diversions, or procrastination.

A recent post in PsyBlog discussed a common fear of failure comes from  partly because we don’t want to look bad in front of others but also about how we see ourselves. We are afraid to fail because it damages our view of ourselves, our self-esteem.

To protect our self-esteem, psychologists have found that people use all sorts of self-handicapping strategies (from McCrea, 2008):

  • Not trying very hard.
  • Procrastination.
  • Listening to music or using another type of distraction.
  • Drinking alcohol and taking drugs.

Sounds like an opportunity to make a metashift, right? Our strategies can help you work on overcoming these distracting strategies and get to the core of the problem.  Watch our blog at www.metashifts.com for more information.

See the original post at PsyBlog.

 

 

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Build Rapport in Sales

Posted on November 22, 2011 by MetaShifts

You’re in a prospect’s office, and you look around as you usually do for things to comment on and build rapport.  Only one problem!  You can’t relate to anything you see.  S/he has horses, you have dogs.  You’re not a fan of that team or even sport.  Family pictures are nothing like yours.

Good news – you don’t have to rely on external clues to build rapport. When I work with you, I can coach you in techniques to build rapport in subtle ways that won’t even by noticed by your prospect.

And, if you want a complete course in persuasion and influence, check out my PowerPersuasion bootcamp at http://www.metashifts.com/pp

 

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Intuition: More than meets the eye – The Kindness Gene

Posted on November 15, 2011 by Jason D. West

There may be more to that gut level feeling we have about certain people.  Perhaps there is more to intuition, or that ‘sixth sense’ than people get credit for.  An Oregon University study shows that people can actually recognize in others a gene trait linked with being kind and caring.

What does this mean for you?  Among other things, be willing to trust your gut if you feel that someone might be shady and untrustworthy…you are likely to be right.

People with a certain gene trait are known to be more kind and caring than people without it, and strangers can quickly tell the difference, according to US research published on Monday.

The variation is linked to the body’s receptor gene of oxytocin, sometimes called the “love hormone” because it often manifests during sex and promotes bonding, empathy and other social behaviors.

Scientists at Oregon State University devised an experiment in which 23 couples, whose genotypes were known to researchers but not observers, were filmed.

One member of the couple was asked to tell the other about a time of suffering in his or her life. Observers were asked to watch the listener for 20 seconds, with the sound turned off.

In most cases, the observers were able to tell which of the listeners had the “kindness gene” and which ones did not, said the findings in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences edition of November 14.

“Our findings suggest even slight genetic variation may have tangible impact on people’s behavior, and that these behavioral differences are quickly noticed by others,” said lead author Aleksandr Kogan, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Toronto.

Nine out 10 people who were judged by the neutral observers to be “least trusted” carried the A version of the gene, while six out 10 deemed “most prosocial” had the GG genotype.

People in the study were tested beforehand and found to have GG, AG or AA genotypes for the rs53576 DNA sequence of the oxytocin receptor (OXTR) gene.

People who have two copies of the G allele are generally judged as more empathetic, trusting and loving.

Those with AG or AA genotypes tend to say they feel less positive overall, and feel less parental sensitivity. Previous research has shown they also may have a higher risk of autism.

“The oxytocin receptor gene in particular has become of great interest because a select number of studies suggest that it is related to how prosocial people view themselves,” Kogan said.

“Our study asked the question of whether these differences manifest themselves in behaviors that are quickly detectable by strangers, and it turns out they did.”

However, no gene trait can entirely predict a person’s behavior, and more research is needed to find out how the variant affects the underlying biology of behavior.

“These are people who just may need to be coaxed out of their shells a little,” said senior author Sarina Rodrigues Saturn, an assistant professor of psychology at Oregon State University whose previous research established the genetic link to empathetic behavior.

“It may not be that we need to fix people who exhibit less social traits, but that we recognize they are overcoming a genetically influenced trait and that they may need more understanding and encouragement.”

via Strangers can spot ‘kindness’ gene: study – Yahoo! News.

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