''The days that make us happy make us wise.'' John Masefield
You can recycle, clone or transplant your most successful, your happiest moments, to be
enjoyed again and again. You can duplicate those good feelings of fun, warmth,
achievement, delight, flow and confidence the way you can turn out dozens of cookies using
the same cookie cutter. And you can learn from one good experience how to turn on similar
feelings in another. The problem is, too many of us forget to use the emotional and mental
skills we already have-- the wisdom our Positive experience days have taught us. For
example, we start on a project or a trip and gather all the props--pens and paper, tools,
skis and poles, or shampoo and suitcases--but we forget to unpack valuable recollections
and the winning behaviors we used in related situations, behaviors we could use again.
These were the times when we wrote the perfect report, skied the ideal run, beheld the
most beautiful sunset. We can learn how to resurrect and apply our recollections of the
feelings and behaviors we used in those peak times to inspire enthusiasm or echo even
greater successes in new, different situations too.
Each time we achieve such a rare state of satisfaction or pleasure, it is a freshly
minted coin we can spend over and over, without making all the effort it took initially. I
call the mind/body strategy used to re-activate these feelings a ''macro.''
A macro is like an elevator in your mind. It zooms you to the peak of your potential
when you push just one simple memory button, rather than require you to take a hundred
single steps to get there. A macro is a simple, abbreviated command that causes a long
sequence of commands to be completed. It works like a conditioned reflex. For example, a
virtuoso violinist can play notes faster than his mind can actually direct his fingers to
the proper positions. He has developed a kind of macro reflex so he merely thinks '' note
sequence X Y Z,'' and his muscles go to work automatically to reflexively perform that
sequence.
Computer software works like a macro. It allows you to give a name or letter or some
other code to groups of words or a long sequence of commands, so the whole sequence
doesn't have to be typed-in each time it's used. For example, with the macro I created for
''The Happiness Response,'' I enter only five keystrokes rather than the 27 keystrokes it
would normally take to produce the complete phrase and underline it. Why waste all that
time and energy re-creating the wheel?
The macro concept has exciting potential when applied to human behaviors, thinking,
reflexes, performance, habits, skill development, creativity, stress, coping responses,
self esteem, competition, learning, attention, motivation, social interaction and the
like.
The Macro Is Like Magic
When I first realized the power of the macro, it astounded me. I just sat silently,
enjoying a heartwarming feeling, grinning and glowing, as though I had just stolen fire
from Mount Olympus. It means that you don't have to start from scratch, emotionally and
mentally, each time you experience a new event. You can take your best past moments that
apply, plus your best past response patterns that fit, and process the new experience
through those recalled mental/physical/emotional states. Your positive experience memories
act as template software.
For example, you have to speak before a group of 200 strangers. You are nervous. It's
natural, even though you've been looking forward to the presentation. To relax, you refer
to your positive experience memory bank and recall teaching checkers to your six-year-old,
or explaining to an elder family member how to operate a microwave oven or VCR. You
remember their fascination and enthusiasm at the time. As you prepare to walk before this
dignified group of 200, you relive the comfortable, nurturing feelings of fun you had
together, how appreciated you felt. By the time you reach the podium, you feel
comfortable, warm, caring, open--a very good way for a speaker to come across.
You used your positive experience memories as mental-emotional template software, and
processed your new ongoing experience of public speaking through it, just as you would use
spread-sheet software to process data in a computer. You didn't have to start at ground
zero to turn on the right feelings. You had a target, an emotional filter pattern and a
road map of neural circuitry already in place. You merely set the wheels in motion and
plugged the old positive experience memories into the new context. It's a kind of
mental/emotional transplant.
This is not a new concept. Duplication of this sort harks back to the earliest life
forms. DNA, the double helix molecule that constitutes the alphabet of genetic structure
for all living things, creates new cells and new life using the same template principle.
You can widen the scope of your macros by blending several positive experience memories
together. Or add positive experiences you've observed in others, watched on TV, or
fantasized for yourself. Then the mix is yours to use for easier, more rewarding days.
IN 1978, I invented a ski biofeedback device that used the performance patterns of
experts to teach beginners how to ski more skillfully. I concentrated on the key to easy
skiing, which is learning where and when to shift your weight. An experienced skier glides
almost effortlessly down an intermediate slope, enjoying taking advantage of fine-tuned,
automatically coordinated reflexes. A beginner expends at least ten times the effort,
un-necessarily positioning hips and toes, working and sweating all the way down, staying
rigid as a stick figure, taking five to twenty times as long, repeatedly finding
themselves falling on their faces or behinds.
The ski biofeedback device I developed senses pressure changes from weight shifts and
translates them into sounds. I recorded the sounds of expert skiers to use as a movement
feedback audio template. Then I had beginners listen to them, and practice mimicking the
same sounds as they learned the proper skiing movements indoors. They weren't told how to
move their hips or knees or legs. The students were shown the total movement and told to
match the sound template. Then they went out to the slopes.
The training worked. Once the beginners relaxed, they were able to use the weight
shifting pattern they got from the audio feedback to ski effectively much sooner than
average beginners. Even the instructors at the slope wanted the prototype devices for
themselves; they said the instrumentation would prevent their falling into bad habits.
Keep a Good Thing Going
"Consciousness of our powers augments them."
Vauvenargues,
Wouldn't it be nice if we had an emotional counterpart that could remind us to stay in
a good mood, to stay in the groove and keep the right patterns of emotional activity
going? An important goal of this book is to teach you to automatically monitor and
optimize your emotional, mental and physical states--in effect to make more use of your
''emotional-mental macro software'' inner resources-- your emotional intelligence.
Dan was a corporate executive supervising 30 people. He suffered from free floating
hostility, in certain situations, ready to explode at any moment an excuse came along. He
was also very much afflicted with time urgency, always in a hurry to finish what he was
doing so he could move on to the next task he could hurry through.
This added up to a big problem going to department stores and using credit cards. It
takes a few minutes more to pay with plastic. He was so impatient himself, he assumed that
if he took the time in a line to pay with a card, or even if he didn't have the exact
change ready, the people behind him and the cashier at the cash register would become
angry, since that's what he thought he'd do. His problem had worsened to the point where
he'd developed agoraphobic, panic disorder symptoms.
Yet Dan was a wonderful manager at work-- firm, confident, running a smooth but happy
ship. He was fully capable of giving instructions to all 30 of his subordinates, including
reprimands and terminations. I suggested he try "cloning" his state of mind--
his self confidence and assertiveness-- when he was at the department store. The strategy
worked, and his emotional transplant helped him reach the point where he now enjoys going
shopping.... with plastic.
Emerson said, "So much of our time is preparation, so much is routine, that
the pith of each man's genius contracts itself to a very few hours." We must
make the most of our own best hours, our own best experiences by using those moments as
tools for rising to new challenges. Of course, we think of using these templates in
competition or creativity or in anxiety situations, but we can also use them to grow, to
have fun, or repeat pleasures. Every time we have a hearty laugh, we draw on our wealth of
humor experiences--the muscles and reflexes we use, the pacing and intonation of our
heartiest laughs.
Comedians Eddie Murphy, Carol Burnett, and Phyllis Diller all have trademark laughs,
and so do you. Pay attention to the ingredients of your laughter when you feel funniest,
happiest, when you feel delighted, cheerful. or when you playfully let down your hair. Try
to repeat them. Modulate different parts of them. Experiment with the components of your
laugh to boost its effectiveness in new situations. It's another tool you can use to
magnify good moments.
Good habits can be derived from macros. Seize the opportunities as they speed by. For
example, if you wake up one morning feeling particularly energetic and cheerful, take a
moment to review the sequence of actions and feelings of that morning. Try to clone the
key ingredients of that happy time and adopt them as habits for waking up every morning.
You can use emotional positive experience macros as replacements for negative
reactions. Keep a ready library of strong positive experience macros at your emotional
fingertips, ready to be activated as needed. We all have them, waiting to be recognized
and used.
Learn where your strengths are and use them, putting your best assets forward,
accepting that even the greatest people have average and weak aspects. Ralph Waldo Emerson
said, ''A man is like a bit of Labrador spar, which has no luster as you turn it in your
hand, until you come to a particular angle; then it shows deep and beautiful colors. Each
man has his special Talent, and the mastery of Successful men consists in adroitly keeping
themselves where and when that turn shall be oftenest to be practiced...''
Visualization--Shortcut to Good Feelings
Denver sports psychologist and olympic coach Richard Suinn, shows athletes how to win
their events by using visualization. They relax and mentally practice their routine,
actually feeling all the sensations of their best performance. Jack Nicklaus, Chris Evert
and Dwight Stones have used what Dr. Suinn calls VMBR (Visual Motor Behavior Rehearsal).
You can use it to prepare for any goal you want to do well.
Prepare for your high performance, success visualization exercise by describing aloud
and in every detail the scene you want to produce or reproduce. Next, combine the muscle
tense-relax and deep breathing exercises described in chapter 6. Then switch on the scene
in your mind, making it as realistic as possible. ''You feel you are actually re-living
it, you are really there.'' After about a minute, turn off the scene and go back to the
relaxation for a minute or two. Then return to the imagery scene again. Alternate between
imagery and relaxation about four or five times. Alternate between images of successful or
peak performance and images of simply going through the moves or stages comfortably,
coping effectively.
Underline your positive experiences by anchoring them so you can call them up as macros
quickly and easily. When you have an experience, or when you dig up a memory, develop a
simple movement or muscle contraction. Do something specific, like touching your
forefinger to your thumb, knee or nose, or repeat a special word silently to yourself.
Repeat this simple action as an anchor to evoke a Positive experience macro reflex that
helps you recall the winning or high performance feelings, images, sensations and
thoughts.
Napoleon said, ''The reason I beat the Australians is they did not know the value of
five minutes.'' Don't let that be said of you. Recognize that you constantly have
opportunities for positive experiences, even ten second ones, that might reverberate
throughout the rest of your life. Search your positive experience library and look at each
new experience as a teacher and source of macros that allow you to be your own mentor.
Take a tighter grip on your positive experiences.
We let so much of what we learn pass through our hands. Recycle your positive
experiences as though they were a natural resource you can't afford to waste.
END CHAPTER 8
