FOUNDATION

The Journey Begins

This book is about change, about how to influence yourself to make lasting and positive changes. It is not just about refreshing your memory and telling you what you already know. Now, my journey into the realm of influence is a little different from most. It's not psychology or psychiatry, although we do pay attention to their cutting-edge findings. My field is military interrogation. Military interrogators get paid to get the information our country wants as quickly as possible to use it against whomever we consider the enemy.

Interrogations are conducted with subjects that are not happy to talk to us (not unlike our inner selves sometimes ...). They curse at you, spit, reject, deny, withdraw, lie, and play mind games to avoid surrendering the information we want. How do you get someone who wishes the most painful and excruciating death upon you to essentially betray what they hold dearest and help those whom they were raised to hate?

You do so by understanding how people construct their inner world, their sense of identity, their values, and their view of the world. You do so by sidestepping all the false walls, the masks, the defense mechanisms and go straight to the core of what makes them "tick" – their values, motivation, and beliefs about themselves and the world – and use it to our advantage.

We get trained to do in a few minutes or hours what may take therapists to do in years: to open you up like a book and read your deepest secrets. Our goal is to exploit weakness, which means that we gain a unique insight into what makes us both strong and weak.

Perhaps you're asking yourself how we sleep at night getting paid to do this. Well, some sleep better than others. And while I firmly believe in the mission (we do this to keep our country safe), I realized at some point that I'd rather use this knowledge to help people grow and be their best.

After practicing my craft for several years, I became one of the senior trainers at the U.S. Army's interrogation school. And while I will not teach you here how to interrogate, I will teach you what I've learned about human nature and the possibility of lasting change. I will also teach you how to deal with others without letting anyone drain your power.

Essentially, I will teach you to do the opposite of what we do as interrogators. The pinnacle of our triumph is to "break" our subjects; that is, to break their will to resist giving away their secrets. What we'll address in this book is how to become unbreakable; that is, how to strengthen you to avoid being broken by life, by other people, by fear, and by our own pain.

This book doesn't address the individual as a machine to be programmed and reprogrammed. That is a simplistic approach that doesn't work in the long run. We are living, breathing, dynamic organisms with a spiritual core.

You may have attempted to change something in you, whether a habit, diet, depression, insecurities or simply achieve more success. You may have resolved that things will be different from now on. You might have been able to sustain some momentum for a few days. But then it happens! We crash and burn yet again. Why?

This little book will show you why. Somewhere deep within us, we somehow know that we have the ability to create massive and lasting change, in an instant. I've always been amazed how a single traumatic experience can scar us so deeply, sometimes for life. We don't visualize a trauma or phobia for 21 days, we don't pray about it, we don't "fake it till we make it."

A single event can have such a profound impact on our behavior, our emotions and our sense of identity. We don't forget to have the nightmares. We don't need sticky notes in the mirror to remind us to feel afraid. We don't need to listen to MP3s while we commute. The brain has a powerful ability to influence itself in "permanent" ways. It's time to learn how to tap that ability consciously.

This book has a peculiar style. It is written in such a way to deliberately assist you in codifying the information for easy assimilation and use. It uses "parentheses within parentheses;" it seems to go off a tangent and then comes back to the initial topic. This is done because (a) some learning must be put in place before additional learning can be properly assimilated, (b) to set the necessary emotional tone for proper assimilation, and (c) so we can tell our brain how and when to access the new learning.

Accordingly, it is highly recommended that the book is read in order, from beginning to end. The last part of the book feeds off the first. The intended effect of the book will be significantly diminished if pages are skipped. Also, take your time when pondering the questions posed throughout the book. It will maximize what you get out of it.

As students, we've all experienced having memorized the test material, only to go through the frustrating experience of temporary amnesia. How many times have we remained quiet during a confrontation, only to come up with the best comebacks ... 24 hours too late? In these instances, our inner resources (memory, creativity, etcetera) are somewhere "floating" in the mind. But because we did not wire our brains to access them when needed, they did not surface at the right time.

We must not confuse understanding with change. Our minds want to understand. We get a sense of empowerment when we understand. But understanding doesn't necessarily lead to change. Beyond those "aha" moments, we must seek to anchor our changes into our future. This book will show you how.

Still, understanding is useful and can support the change. Therefore, let's look at some of the major "laws of change" before we proceed to make them.

Laws of Change

Before we immerse ourselves in addressing the long laundry list of changes that we want in our lives, it is useful to understand what interrogators have noticed in trying to change others, and how these "laws of change" can be applied to self-work.

First, we look at what we want to change. Where does the urge to change come from? Our social programming may have told us that we need to be thin, hard-charging, successful, or more "spiritual" (especially when our blueprint of spirituality doesn't fit in with who we really are).

What drives our desire to change? Are we changing because we think we must, and in the process going against our own core? It's not that we can't make changes that go against who we really are. Unfortunately, we can! Our very social conditioning is a testament to that.

But a violation of our core leaves us empty, always feeling that something is missing. It is this very feeling that keeps us looking for the next book. We must dig deep into our core to find out if the changes we want to make will really make us happy and fulfilled.

Next, we need to identify what actually needs to change. How many car batteries have we wasted before we realized the problem was the alternator? How many hours and money have we spent trying to fix something, only to realize later on that the problem was something else?

One of the gravest mistakes we can ever make is to try to eliminate from ourselves something that is supposed to be there. Let me explain. How many times have we desired to eliminate all fear, all shame, all anger from ourselves? We freeze when we should've said something, and then we're mortified! We hate ourselves for displaying such "weakness!" Or we lash out in anger, only to feel remorse and regret later on.

Some of us hate it that we seek approval and validation from others. We may wish to be self-sufficient, impervious to all feedback from the world. We might despise feeling vulnerable and hate ourselves for caring. We put on armors and masks to hide who we are and what we're really feeling. Many of us praise indifference and aloofness. Some of us believe that true strength lies in not feeling, in being "like a rock." We often see ourselves as broken and in need of fixing.

We then engage in a frantic search to overcome fear, to be confident, assertive, in control. We may think that the problem is our emotions, and we get stuck for years in trying to fix something that will not go away. But this approach is like getting angry at the fuel gauge because there's no fuel in the car.

Emotions are there for a reason. They are one of the primary ways that our core has to communicate something to ourselves. We need not get angry at ourselves for feeling fear, insecurity, shame, anger or vulnerability.

Feeling those emotions tells us that we're working perfectly fine. The root of the problem is deeper than the alarm system wired into our brains. We need to go straight to the root of the matter. We need to address what caused the emotion.

The next major rule of change has to do with emotional intensity. This is a big one! I mentioned traumas and phobias as evidence of our amazing ability to change quickly. What those experiences have in common is the intense emotion we feel during that experience.

Each of us has an emotional threshold that, once reached, will ensure that the change will stick. It's like applying enough pressure for a metal bar to bend, and stay bent. This is the secret of those phobias and traumas that happen once, and stay forever! If you reach your emotional threshold, change will happen in an instant.

The less intense the emotion that accompanies the experience, the slower it will take for the change to stick. So, if we're sitting there with no emotional engagement whatsoever, change will either not happen, or it will take a very long time to do so. Intensity is key.

Even our memories are coded emotionally. When we go back to our past memories, which are the ones that come to mind first? The intense ones; either really pleasurable ones or really painful ones. This is an important piece of information, because the most emotionally intense memory or memories we have will define how we feel about our lives, about us and about our future possibilities.

As interrogators, we know that our subjects need an emotional jolt to be guided in the direction we want. Everything we do, from our nonverbal behavior and words to environmental props, is designed to produce intense emotional reactions. This is how change happens. Failure to engage the emotions equals failure to change.

Within this rule of emotional intensity, it's important we keep in mind that the two fundamental emotions we feel are pain and pleasure. We divide all other emotions we experience into one of these two categories. What we need to realize, and use to our advantage, is that eliminating pain will usually prevail over our quest for pleasure. Many of our difficulties in changing can be explained by this simple principle. What we need to do is engage the pain of not changing, of the status quo, even before we feel the pleasure of achieving what we seek.

The final law of change we'll address at this time is the law of sequence. Just as we can't paint a house before stripping the old paint first, we can't attempt to insert new changes with total disregard to the existing programming. We must break the existing patterns before our brains will accept the new ones.

Perhaps you have attempted to build yourself up by using affirmations or visualizations to produce that which you wish to feel. But here's the problem. Old beliefs and thought patters are already there. If our new programming contradicts the old in any way, the old wins every time. Why? Because our old programming has evidence!

It makes reference to the past. We can attest to how many times the old "truth" has been so. And most importantly, we feel a sense of continuity that flows from past to present. The new programming lacks this, and so it feels fake, disconnected from our reality. The old and the new can't coexist, at least not in the way that the old is currently coded in our brains.

And that presents another clue. I've seen a lot of techniques out there that attempt to erase what was there, as if it never happened. But our brains know it happened. We can't fool ourselves that way.

We'll continue to address these and other rules of change throughout this book. Here's one more.

The Context

Can we conceive of a bright future when we're depressed? Can we envision ourselves doing great things if our self-esteem is low? "Set some goals," people say. "It will make you feel better." But a depressed mind projects its current state into the future, which looks bleak, black and blank.

Emotions are like sunglasses; they color what we see. When we look at the world, at ourselves and our future, whatever shades we use will determine what we see. When we are angry, we only see and remember what causes us anger. When we feel tempted, everything is a temptation! And when we're happy, even the "bad stuff" doesn't seem so bad.

It's important to remember this fact and use it when doing self-work. Otherwise, our future will remain bleak, and we won't know why those bright spots seem so out of reach. Our emotion of powerlessness pushes power away.

Some resources invite us to discover our gifts in order to give meaning to our lives and find our calling. But a mind trapped in meaninglessness cannot see those gifts. And even if it does, it cannot derive meaning from them.

We could try to "jumpstart" the system by forcing a new emotion. We can put on motivational music, take some pills, use our bodies to excite our minds, use affirmations and visualizations and conjure many more manipulations. And while these may cause a change in mood, it won't last.

We can attempt to unplug the "check engine" light from the dashboard, but the real problem has not gone away. We must invariably address the root of the issue. And this is where theories abound! What exactly is the change that truly makes the difference?

We have been making changes since birth; most of them unnoticed and unintended. These changes produce more changes, and soon we have layers upon layers of programming that influence our every behavior, emotion and thought, and we have no clue where to start making sense of it all.

Perhaps it's time to retrace some of these layers back to the source and figure out once and for all why we do what we do, and how we can set a new course for our lives.

We're about to embark on a profound journey that will take us to our very core. Along the way, we may discover repressed anger, shame, sadness, inadequacy and powerlessness. But we will also discover our forgotten strengths, dreams, joy and meaning.

Curiosity is a powerful emotion. Sometimes, we just have to know. Aren't you curious of what lies underneath all the pain, all the masks we've been using? Can you sense the possibilities of what can be, even if we can't quite see them yet? Curiosity is powerful indeed. It sidesteps pessimism and cynicism. Marketers know this. Even if we think we know what we'll find, we still want to see it for ourselves. It feels good to be curious about ourselves.

As we feel that sense of anticipation and curiosity growing more and more, let us look at the very beginnings of our programming.

What Do We Seek to Change?

Motivation. Self-esteem. Confidence. Joy. Security. Power. Significance. Connection. Fulfillment. Success. Notice what's common about them. They're all emotions. When we seek change, we usually seek to change how we feel about something. Essentially, we want to feel good! Good about being with other people, good about our work, our lives, our future, ourselves.

Along the way, we "learned" that some things produce these emotions. We learned that money "brings" security and power. We learned that people "bring" joy. We learned that fame "brings" significance. And we learned that our Facebook account is the gateway to fulfillment in life ... So our lives consist of chasing things that we believe will cause us to feel the emotions we crave.

We may go so far as to place prerequisites to our emotions, such as when we wait to have a diploma to feel ready, or to earn a job description to feel self-worth. We wait to find a life partner to feel complete. And we hold off happiness and security until our bank account reaches a specific balance.

We might decide to talk ourselves out of looking for money to be safe. We may attempt to seek joy in the present, disregarding completely the dozens of hoops we've placed ourselves in the past.

But simply denying these impulses is not enough. Our programming to search for these is deeply embedded in our past, and we must deliberately and consciously work with it.

Self-esteem or self-worth is often seen as the fundamental change to make. With self-esteem, we become indestructible: impervious to destructive criticism, with massive amounts of energy and power. Or so we think.