I like telling secrets! Especially if I honestly feel something’s been hidden from me and I have discovered the answer.

Like my last post, The Secret to Self-Hypnosis. That “key” to creating a self-hypnotic state was a real mystery to me and now it’s not. And I am now able to put myself into a state I am thoroughly convinced is a state of hypnosis and then guide myself to my desired goals. It’s a great feeling.

And now I come to “The Secret to Building Rapport and the Challenge of Boredom.”

Since this blog is called, “Short Attention Span Blog,” I’ll try to keep it short and not go into all the details that lead up to my discovery. I’ll just cut to the ‘reveal’.

I’ve been studying the subject of rapport and how to create it (induce it, might be more accurate), how to build it and how to maintain it. But I’ve run into a major problem.

To create rapport you’re suppose to ask people all kinds of ‘you’ centered questions, questions about themselves and their interests while you show great interest in everything they say, handing back to them the conversational ball as they reveal more and more to you.

The problem? Actually two, but I’ll deal with the main one: I’m not usually too terribly interested in them. A grave sin, I know. But I’m just not.

And be honest, much of the time they’re not very interesting to YOU either!

(Let me correct that. I’m (we’re) not interested in them as they are usually presenting themselves in whatever social setting we are meeting in. But let’s not get sidetracked into that.)

The solution? Make them interesting. That is, interesting to US. To you and me.

How?

Ask them questions about themselves that WE (you and me) are interested to know about.

For example, yesterday I was in a social situation with a lot of new people and I was half-trying to create and maintain rapport with the couple of different people I was talking to. But at the end of the day I’m not sure I was successful. They seemed intent on asking me about my work and such and they seemed very interested in everything I had to say. It was a little disconcerting! LOL!!

Anyway, one of the people I spoke to was a woman about my age named ‘Toni’ who owned her own business. But instead of talking directly about her business after I’ve asked her about it, she’s asking me questions about my work and how it might impact her business. But the focus is totally on my work. She never even told me what her business is.

Now, today, I’m thinking perhaps what I could have done was ask her not only about her business, but those aspects of starting and running a successful business that I’M interested in. About the psychology of succeeding in her business, facing and overcoming the mental and emotional challenges she faced. And those she continues to face.

This might work because it is something I am truly interested in and would really like to know. So I might not be so easily distracted back onto questions about myself.

And in my conversation with ‘Brian’, I could have asked him about how he motivates himself and his clients and the mental and emotional challenges he faces and how he overcomes them day to day.

In other words, by my questions I could have made both of them more interesting TO ME.

And I wouldn’t have had to FAKE IT.

(Which is exactly how I always felt about Dale Carnegie’s suggestions in “How to Win Friends and Influence People.” Fake interest, he seemed to really be saying; but do it sincerely!)

And in addition to showing them real interest and learning from them, I could have gained their approbation by independently reinforcing for them those behaviors, habits and strategies they were using successfully (or struggling to use), directing their attention to the positive outcomes they gain by continuing to do what works for them. In other words, I could have used covert persuasion and sudden influence strategies to strengthen their commitment to doing the best behaviors for their success.

How does that sound? Pretty good to me.

I can’t wait to test it.

God’s Best to You.

Tom K.

This morning, while reading a really terrific book (Sudden Influence) in which the author was talking about hypnosis, he spoke about how formal hypnosis is not much more than a voluntary state of mind in which the subject agrees to agree with (believe) the suggestions of the hypnotist/therapist. The subject, he insists, does nothing more in a hypnotic trance than agree to “act as if” the hypnotist’s suggestions are true.

Act as if?

That’s right. Pretend.

The therapist gives an instruction like, “your arm in encased in steel and you can’t move it.” The subject, in the voluntary hypnotic state, agrees to go along with the “pretending” of the therapist, and Voila’! The subject can’t move his arm!

Well, as I thought about that, I decided to try it out. I told myself I was going to imagine my arm was encased in steel and that I would “try” to bend it. Of course, implied in the command “try” is “not succeeding”, so that’s what I did.

It felt very strange. I “felt” I couldn’t bend my arm as long as I was willing to “imagine my arm was encased in steel.”

I thought, “I think I’m really hypnotized. Cool!”

I decided to take this experiment a step further. I continued to imagine I was in a hypnotic, that is, a highly suggestible, state.

O.K. Now what?

Now, I said, imagine that your life is exactly the way you want it, your internal state is exactly the way you want it. Imagine your every habit and tendency, whether framed as a strength or a weakness, is a powerful resource to be used in the achievement of your goals and dreams (a reference to another section of this book). I said a little bit more, imagined a little more detail, then. . .

I DID IT!

I reordered my conscious attitude toward my abilities AND toward my weaknesses. I experienced a “generative change” in my consciousness!

What do I mean?

In another section of the book, the author talks about how, in directing the attention of children, even their “bad” behavior can be reframed to make it appear a strength (you’ll have to read the book to find out how). And after you do, the child will then, if the other conditions of a SIE are present, use this new “strength” as a springboard toward more positive and life affirming behaviors!

And that’s what happened to me this morning. For the first time in my life (an exaggeration) I FELT like all that I am was moving in the same direction, taking me where I wanted to go, toward the achievement of my dreams! I “saw/felt” how all of my current behaviors could be utilized to help me reach my goals and fulfill my dreams.

It was, and continues to be throughout this morning, an incredible experience!

I will have to write more about, if I can.

Stay tuned, I hope!

God’s Best.

Wow! I haven’t written in this blog for a while. Been wrapped up with other stuff. . .good stuff. Making headway.

That old saw attributed to Einstein (I don’t think he said it though), about insanity and doing the same thing etc.? Well, the converse of that is to never stop trying something else until you find something that works.

That’s a lot harder than you think!

Let me use as an example what I changed the other day that I hadn’t even thought to try and didn’t even intend to change but wish I had so I could claim genius and insight!

I went to be early and then got up early.

Wow! Talk about a shift in perspective! A change in scenery! A reordering of the world!

Of course, I have never in my life ever wanted to go to bed early. I thought I always (boy, talk about a blindspot! Is this an example of the unsanity of identification a la Korzybski? Sorry. Back to the point!) preferred working late at night when it was quiet and peaceful and distractions were at a minimum. At least that’s how it was when I was in my twenties, single and in the Air Force (like nothing’s changed since then, right!)

You see, I work during the day and the only time I have for my avocations, my true interests, is after work. At night. Or so I thought (since I already knew I worked best at night.)

But first I have to spend time with my wife. Have dinner. Talk. Then, at the ass-end of the day, that’s when I was supposed to devote myself to my real interests and passions.

Yeah. Right.

By 8 p.m. all I felt like doing was watching t.v. for the rest of the night. Four hours — shot!

What a waste of time! Why didn’t I just turn off the t.v. and get to work? How could I be so lazy. So unmotivated. I would never accomplish anything I wanted if I didn’t get off my ass and get to work! Didn’t I care about this stuff? Didn’t I believe in its value? Then why can’t you make yourself care when it really counts? What is the source of your defective character? What inner demon is holding you back from doing what you know needs to be done? Where’s your motivation? Get a grip! Get to work!

(By the way, let me introduce you to my Inner Critic. My inner moralist. My inner inquisitor. You probably have one too. Your own Inner Bastard. The inner bully who beats you up whenever you don’t do what you yourself think you should be doing.

That’s why he’s so hard to ignore. He knows you and what you believe is best for you. And he seems to want you to achieve it, so you listen to him.

Liar!

Him, not you.

But more on him another time. In fact, he deserves his own blog. Well, not his own exclusively. But definitely as a major character. See ” leadyourself.wordpress.com. Not quite the appropriate name, but he only started pushing himself forward after I’d created the blog. Besides, he’s important, but not the whole point of the blog.)

The fact is, I was getting so bored with television (having a DVR will do that, you know. All your favorite programs, at least all the ones that have been on lately, and you no longer have to watch them now!)

Oh, I could read. I had lots of books to read. But I couldn’t pull myself away from the tube and my lounger wasn’t conducive to holding books up to read. . .and so on.

Finally, the other night I just stopped fighting it and went to bed around 9:00. Eventually I fell asleep, around 10 or so.

I woke up about 3:30. I got up.

The house, of course, was quiet.

I made a cup of instant coffee and went and sat in my reading corner. My new wife had helped me reorganize my living room so I would have my own space for reading. We’d bought a used wingback chair with a retractable footstool in terrific shape for just $40 and a floor lamp with an adjustable reading lamp. I piled about a dozen books I’d checked out from the library next to me, put on a new DVD I’d bought online of an album I hadn’t heard in 31 years and sat back to read.

Do you know what Joy is? What peace is? I do.

Do you know what it’s like to feel content? I do.

I looked at the clock and said to myself, “I have three-and-a-half hours before I have to go to work. I have time to do anything I want. Wow!”

I read. thought. got out my notebook and wrote down some thoughts. I looked at the clock agai. “I’ve still got more than two hours before I have to go to work.”

I read some more. made more notes. I got up, went to the computer and wrote a post for another of my blogs.

It was great. Invigorating. Focusing.

I’ve continued to go to bed early and get up early for the rest of this week and in that time I have actually started making progress getting things important to me done.

I feel less like a failure. In fact, I now have much stronger confidence I will accomplish the dreams and plans I have. deep sigh.

Well, that’s enough navel-button gazing for now.

I hope something I’ve said here, some stray word or phrase, some twist of thought has sparked something in you that needed sparking. changing. twisting.

That’s the whole point, after all. Of blogging. For me.

God’s best.

Tom K.

 Over the past five days or so I have probably come up with five or six subjects I’d like to post on.  Especially on this blog, the one I’m going to write about anything in.  But it sometimes seems as though I have my best thoughts when I’m away from my computer.  Especially when I’m lying in bed, either just before I go to sleep or when I wake up. 

Well, I’m not going to buy my excuses!  I’m going to make the time to blog.  I’m finding out I like it! Whether someone else ever reads it or not.  

And I have GOT to find a book or manual or program that teaches how to build a blog in the best way.  What the heck are widgets exactly (I have an idea) and why are the important?  Can I make my blog look more like a webpage?  If I move my wordpress blog to my own host, what do I gain?  What do I lose?    

I’ve check out some books in the library, but these days anything having to do with the web probably needs to be found on the web. . .anything else will by too generic or out of date!  Like comparing snail mail to e-mail.  

But people seem to charge so much for their programs!  

Or am I just too cheap to pay for the value I receive? 

 Good question.  I’ll leave with that.  

Tom Kaye 

I was watching the latest edition of “Nova” I recorded and it was fascinating! It was called “The Ghost in Your Genes,” and it was all about “epigenes” and their newly acknowledged and remarkable effect on how our DNA expresses itself. The title was a play on the phrase “The ghost in the machine,” referring to something mysterious and ghostly about man which nevertheless, the philosopher says, has a naturalistic explanation.

What was so remarkable to me as I watched the program was how they never discussed the discovery of this “epigenome,” nor the true extent to which it makes our traditional understanding of DNA passe.

Here are a couple of definitions from the website.

Epigenome: Above or outside the genome. In a sense, the epigenome is like clothing around the DNA. For example, chemical groups alter the expression of the DNA by binding to the DNA as well as to the histones around the DNA.

Epigenetics: The study of changes in gene expression that do not involve changes in the genetic code (i.e., the DNA sequence) because they lie outside of the genome (i.e., the DNA). In a sense, epigenetics is the study of the genome’s “clothing”.

“. . .changes [that]. . .lie outside the genome“?

But weren’t we all taught just a few years ago that DNA was it? That DNA was the last book written on the facts of all life? And that once we had sequenced DNA it would only be a matter of time before we would understand and could determine everything about ourselves and our progeny?

And wasn’t it that inevitable future that the dystopian film “Gattaca” (which was, in my opinion, the greatest science fiction movie of all time), was all about?

Remember its tagline? “There is no gene for the human spirit.” Fantastic! I LOVE that sentiment!

And it turns out. . .it’s true!

So what’s happened?

Well, first scientists were shocked when they began to discover the number of genes was a hell of a lot less than they thought life required. Barely 30,000 when they were postulating hundreds of thousands. And not nearly enough to explain the fantastic complexity of human biology and consciousness.

And remember how at the beginning of this research, all the left-handed comments tossed around that conveyed the idea that man really wasn’t so great or unique after all? And certainly not as wonderful as we’d been taught by Christianity.

Why?

Well because, don’t you know man shares 98% of his genetic code with monkeys.

So how-now to explain his undeniable differences with those same monkeys?

Enter, apparently, the epigenome.

What is it, precisely? Well read the definition above. It makes it as clear as mud.

Where is it located? No one says.

And what is it telling us?

Reality ain’t as simple as we thought.

It now seems epigenes are the actual controllers over the controllers (DNA) we thought were the only controllers over all life on earth.

So where do these “epigenes” get their instructions from?

No one on Nova even considered the question, that I can recall.

These epigenes, it appears, turn the actual genes on and off, thus controlling their expression.

How and why do they do this? Where do they get their instructions from?

Life experiences, it seems!

Really! That’s what the program said.

Some factors mentioned on the program affecting the epigenes effect on DNA were diet and nutrition, stress, and even nurture or not from your mother(!)

And not just your mother, but your grandmother and grandfather as well!

How much further can science depart from a mechanistic, reductionist model of life before they admit they are blindly going where no man has gone before?

Now, with the introduction of this new “meta-genome,” the existence of unimaginable layers of complexity must now be accepted and considered. It seems we “simple humans” have a long way to go before we can understand the full genius of the One who designed us.

At least, that’s what I was thinking about it just this minute.

God’s Best to You.

Tom K.

While reading the free ebook “Blog Profits Blueprint” by Yaro Starak, I followed his reference to Darren Rowse to “problogger.net“”

Wow! What great content! And quite the business model. But I wonder what software he uses for his blog? And I notice he incorporates his blog into a webpage. How is that done? I don’t know. Can I incorporate all those ads and stuff into my simple wordpress blogs?

Man, so many questions. So much information. I hope I figure it out.

Heads Up! Anyone who reads this blog and follows it will get to see if I succeed. . .or explode!

But from there I went to Darren’s more prersonal blog for his church ministry, “The Living Room“

Very interesting church model. Those Aussie Christians seem to be on the cutting edge of what God is doing today!

I wish I had more time to read more of it!

God’s Best to You

Tom K.