All the great teachers all down through history have all agreed on we become what we think about. Dr Maxwell Maltz discovered the self-image concept as we know it today at in 1960 he was a plastic surgeon and u he realized he he was operating on people he may removed a you know a nasty scar from their face and he noticed sometimes when he removed the scar or maybe did a nose job on them or something there was a great psychological change took place in the person they where they may have been introverted they started to become very gregarious and outgoing and he postulated that there There must be two images that we have an exterior image and we also have an inner selfimage. >> And he started to study this and he wrote a magnificent book on it called psychocybernetics and he explains how every one of us has an image in our mind of our self and it's called a self-image.
Too many people don't know much about themsel and so they don't have a very good image of themselves and you'll often notice that people will shy away from you. They won't look you in the eye. They'll look down or look up.
They'll never try to do anything of any great consequence because they don't think they can. They have a poor self-image. >> Part of that is because through school we're told about we don't do well, we failed here, we had low grades or 60% or whatever.
>> Yeah. I think that um but yes, if we're told we're not very good, you're just like your dad, you know, you're a bum, you're never going to do well, you didn't go to school, you can't win, >> that's all that's that's all false. We can do anything and we should be encouraging a child.
Give him a pat on the back rather than a kick. Okay. What can we do members of our viewing audience right now that most of us walk around with some degree of a self-image.
Is that fair to say? >> We all have a self-image. >> Okay.
Would you say most of us have a have a negative self-image to some degree? >> Well, let's say we can all improve our self-image. I don't care how good your image is.
You can improve it. >> Okay. How can we improve it?
If a person would sit down and let their body relax, totally relax, okay, and then start to visualize in their mind, see themselves the way they want to see themselves, and see how you'd like to live your life. See yourself living it that way. >> Okay?
>> Now, understand that that's a picture in your mind. When you pick up a book, the book is nothing but a picture that an author has painted in words. Van Go, the great artist, was asked one time how he did such beautiful work.
He said, "I dream my painting and then I paint my dream. " To get the picture of the mind, then paint it on the wall or on the canvas. Well, if we would relax, build the image in our mind of how we'd like to see oursel.
>> Mhm. >> How we'd like to see oursel acting in life, relating to other people, our social life. Take that picture and describe it.
Write it out in the present tense. I am so happy now that I see myself. And write it out.
Now, a lot of people will laugh at this and say, "It doesn't make any sense. " It makes a lot of sense. They can't tell you why it doesn't.
I could spend hours telling you why it does, and I could explain it in such detail that everyone would understand it. But write out a description of how you'd like to see yourself. Start to read it and read it and read it and read it every day.
Carry it around and keep reading it. The one point that all the great teachers all down through history have all agreed on. They've been in complete unanimous agreement on it.
We become what we think about. Now, it may be fantasy at first. It might even appear to us as being a lie.
>> But if you read it often enough, you'll start to believe it. And when William James said, "Believe and your belief will create fact. " You will see the person's personality change.
I watch people in the seminars personality change right in front of my eyes. And all they're doing is starting to see themselves different. They're starting to think different thoughts.
