There’s a good chance that you are already familiar with the work Ivan Pavlov and his dogs. Just in case you are not, let me explain. When Pavlov would feed his dogs, he would ring a bell and the dogs would salivate because of the food in front of them. After doing this enough times, Pavlov would ring the bell, and even when there was no food in front of them they would salivate. In their minds they had connected the ringing of the bell with having food in front of them, so they responded to the stimulus accordingly.
Human beings function in a very similar manner. We live in a stimulus-response driven world. However, most people are unaware of this. Put on a certain piece of music and it will bring back a certain memory. See a certain person and you will feel a certain emotion. Advertisers and marketers are extremely aware of this and spend fortunes on influencing your stimulus response mechanisms. In fact, if I name of about 20 different tag lines, most people would instantly know what products are associated with those tag lines.
So, what’s the upside? You have the ability to create your own neuro associations. First you need to figure out what your existing neuro associations are. Some might be empowering, others might not. Isolate the ones that are empowering and make note of them. With a car, you can’t add new features and functionality once it’s built. With the brain, you can keep adding features and functionality, hence the reason it’s important to build a comprehensive owner’s manual. If you want to add new neuro associations decide on the stimulus, decide on the response and repeat the stimulus response over and over until the two are associate in your head. Even if you have gone through Tony Robbins program or any other programs, sometimes we forget what our neuro associations. That is why, unlike the owner’s manual for a car, we have to refer to the owner’s manual for our brain on a regular basis. Stay tuned for the next segment on creating an owner’s manual for your brain
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I can’t speak highly enough of Assaraf’s and Murray’s book, “The Answer”. I’ve nearly finished it. It teaches you a lot of the most recent knowledge on what we know about the human mind and how to make it work better for you.