I never cease to be amazed at the power of the mind. One of the absolutes is that if you can get your subconcious on your side you’re on to a winner.

How do you do that? Well, there are plenty of books on the subject. They vary from Affirmation (“I must, I must, develop my bust” or “Every day, in every way, I am getting better and better and better”) to Prayer, to Meditation and so on.

My personal method (thanks to Sedley Burger – here’s his son, carrying on in his footsteps) relies on a form of self hypnosis. Sedley never put it in those words, but having fairly recently undergone hypnosis by a professional (more out of curiosity than anything else) I found that the methods used by a professional hypnotist were very similar to those that Sedley taught me all those (more than 40) years ago.

I truly believe that the subconscious responds far better to pictures and emotion than to words. So I don’t rate Affirmation compared to my method which has worked incredibly well for me over many years. Simplistically, it involves getting yourself into a very relaxed state of mind (again there are books on this) and then visualising and getting excited about what you want to achieve. The more you practice the easier it gets. I can “switch off” in about 3 seconds now.

But there is a whole lot more to it than that. You must help keep the garden of your subconscious free from weeds (where did I read that? “The man who sold his Ferrari”, I think). This means working hard at taking responsibility for your own emotions, keeping out negative thoughts, letting others be themselves, not pushing wheelbarrows (a previous post), in short, smiling at life.

Anyway, what started me out on this? I was reading “A Long Walk to Freedom” and saw that one of Nelson Mandela’s given names was Rolihlahla. I mentioned to my wife that I had met a Rolihlahla (a student who came for mentoring) in my office many months ago. The very next day Rolihlahla sent me an email updating me on his academic progress! It happens so often – I will think of someone that I haven’t met or heard from for ages and they will phone me within 24 hours. Now read Teddy bears and telepathy. The power of the mind!

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