Psycho-Cybernetics by Maxwell Maltz: Summary and Notes

"Every human being has been literally engineered for success by his Creator."

Chapter 3Imagination

Maltz calls imagination the first key to the success mechanism. A man of about 40 was brought in by his family because he believed his large nose and protruding ears made people laugh at him; he had stopped going anywhere. His features were not unusual, and he needed no surgery, only an understanding of how his imagination had wrecked his self-image.

Because the nervous system reacts to what we think or imagine to be true, imagination sets the goal picture the automatic mechanism works toward. Maltz reports that mental practice in dart throwing improved aim as much as physical practice. He cites a Research Quarterly experiment on basketball free throws: a group that practiced every day for 20 days improved its scoring 24%, a group with no practice showed no improvement, and a group that spent 20 minutes a day imagining throwing the ball, correcting its aim when it missed, improved 23%.

Golf teacher Alex Morrison taught mental practice and said the mental side represents 90% of the game. Chess player Alekhine prepared for his upset of Capablanca by playing chess only in his mind for three months. Napoleon practiced soldiering in his imagination for years, and Maltz reports that his notes filled 400 pages when printed. Salesmen who rehearsed sales situations in their minds increased sales by 100% in one Detroit group and by 150% in a New York group, according to Charles B. Roth. Psychologists Harry Grayson and Leonard Olinger asked 45 hospitalized patients to retake a personality test as a typical well-adjusted person would, and three-fourths improved. Maltz closes by warning that the aim is to find the real self, neither inflated nor inferior.

"Conrad Hilton imagined himself operating a hotel long before he ever bought one."

Chapter 4Dehypnotize Yourself from False Beliefs

Alfred Adler's teacher decided he was bad at arithmetic, his parents accepted it, and his grades proved them right, until he solved a problem nobody else could and went on to become a good math student. Maltz argues that most people are hypnotized by false beliefs about themselves in the same way. A businessman patient could not speak in public because he believed his unimposing appearance would fail to impress.

He describes hypnosis demonstrations. A football player told he cannot lift his hand from a table strains until his muscles stand out like cords and cannot do it; a weightlifter who can lift 400 pounds cannot lift a pencil. An athlete whose grip measures 100 pounds pulls 125 pounds once told he is very strong. Maltz argues the hypnosis adds no strength; it removes a negative belief that had kept the athlete from expressing the strength he had.

Effort often makes things worse. Émile Coué's law of reversed effort holds that when will and imagination conflict, imagination wins. Knight Dunlap found that straining to stop a habit can reinforce it, and that the key is a clear image of the desired result. The way out is relaxation: physical relaxation brings mental relaxation and lets the automatic mechanism work. Maltz gives daily relaxation exercises built on mental pictures, such as seeing the legs as heavy concrete and the limbs as loosely tied together with string.

"When the will and the imagination are in conflict, the imagination invariably wins the day."

Chapter 5How to Utilize the Power of Rational Thinking

Maltz rejects the idea that negative beliefs can only be changed by digging into the unconscious. The automatic mechanism is impersonal and works on the data it is given; conscious thinking is its control knob. The negative patterns were formed by conscious thought, however irrational, and conscious rational thought can change them. He cites Dr. John A. Schindler, author of How to Live 365 Days a Year, whose method relied on controlling present thinking.

Prescott Lecky found that ideas inconsistent with a deeply held belief get rejected once the inconsistency is seen. Maltz used this with a salesman terrified of calling on important men, asking whether he would crawl into a prospect's office on all fours or beg for a dime; the man saw he was doing the same thing mentally by begging for approval, and his fear was overcome in one session. Lecky's two levers are the belief that one can hold up one's end of the log and the belief that something inside should not suffer indignities.

Maltz asks readers to trace the belief behind negative behavior and to ask, among other questions, whether they could be mistaken in it. Conscious thought should decide what we want and keep attention on the present task, the way General Eisenhower refused to let his mind dwell on the invasion failing, and then leave the doing to the automatic mechanism.

"Ideas are changed not by will, but by other ideas."

Chapter 6Relax and Let Your Success Mechanism Work for You

Maltz argues that the age of stress comes from trying to solve every problem by conscious forebrain thinking. The forebrain poses and identifies problems, the way an operator runs a computer, but it was never engineered to solve them. Furey adds that a goal-seeker should focus on the journey most of the time and turn to the goal only once or twice a day in visualization.

He gives five rules for freeing the creative machinery. First, do your worrying before you place your bet, not after the wheel starts turning, a line from a business executive who loved roulette, echoing William James's advice to drop all care about the outcome once a decision is made. Second, form the habit of consciously responding to the present moment. Third, try to do only one thing at a time; Maltz retells Dr. James Gordon Gilkey's 1944 sermon on the hourglass, where only one grain of sand passes at a time. Fourth, sleep on it. Fifth, relax while you work, carrying the relaxed feeling of the daily exercises into activity.

"Just as only one grain of sand could pass through the hourglass, so could we only do one thing at a time."

Chapter 7You Can Acquire the Habit of Happiness

Maltz discusses happiness from a medical standpoint and adopts Schindler's definition: a state of mind in which our thinking is pleasant a good share of the time. He reports that people see, hear and remember better when thinking pleasant thoughts, and that internal organs function better when people are happy. Schindler held that unhappiness is the cause of psychosomatic ills, and Harvard researchers concluded that the proverb "happy people are never wicked" held up.

Happiness is a mental habit that can be cultivated, and much unhappiness comes from how people interpret events. Maltz quotes William James on turning an inner attitude of fear into one of fight, and recalls that some of his own happiest years came when he was a hungry, cold medical student working about 12 hours a day. Goal-striving itself produces happiness, because people are built to move toward goals.

Habits are garments worn by the personality and fit the self-image; Maltz writes that fully 95% of behavior, feeling and response is habitual. He separates habits from addictions and offers a 21-day exercise: put on the other shoe first and tie the laces differently each morning, as a reminder to change other habits, and act out happier patterns of thinking and feeling for 21 days.

"Happiness is good medicine."

Chapter 8Ingredients of the "Success-Type" Personality and How to Acquire Them

A good personality, Maltz writes, is one that deals effectively with reality and gains satisfaction from reaching important goals. People improve fastest when given a clear picture of the target. An advertising man in his early 40s felt insecure right after an important promotion; new roles, Maltz says, require new self-images.

He spells the success-type personality with the letters of SUCCESS. Sense of direction: successful people have goals that matter to them. Understanding: good communication, since a guidance system cannot respond well to faulty information. Courage: the willingness to act and take calculated risks; Maltz argues a step in the wrong direction beats standing still, because the guidance system cannot steer a stalled machine. Compassion: regard for other people and their problems. Esteem: Maltz quotes Carlyle that the fearful unbelief is unbelief in yourself. Self-confidence: built on memories of past successes, which Dr. Overholser recommended recalling whenever confidence is shaken. Self-acceptance: giving up the shams and pretenses and accepting oneself as one is, mistakes and all.

Furey notes that some people cannot name a single past success, but when the word changes to happy moments or brave moments, they recall plenty.

"A step in the wrong direction is better than staying on the spot all your life."

Chapter 9The Failure Mechanism

Pressure gauges on boilers and signs on dead-end streets help travelers when read correctly. Symptoms such as the pain of appendicitis serve the patient. Maltz argues that failure symptoms in the personality work the same way: recognized as signposts, they become negative feedback that steers a person back on course.

He spells the failure-type personality with FAILURE. Frustration, which he glosses as hopelessness and futility. Aggressiveness, misdirected, gets turned on others or the self; its proper use is in working toward a goal, and work remains one of the best tranquilizers. Insecurity comes from measuring oneself against an imagined absolute self that should be good or successful, period. Loneliness, a lack of oneness with others. Uncertainty. Resentment becomes an emotional habit that leads to self-pity and hands control of one's feelings to others. Emptiness completes the list. Maltz stresses that no one develops these traits on purpose, and that understanding them is the start of the cure.

Furey adds that internal martial arts such as tai chi and aikido help release tension by teaching breathing and relaxation along with movement.

"Remember that your resentment is not caused by other persons, events, or circumstances."

Chapter 10How to Remove Emotional Scars, or How to Give Yourself an Emotional Face-Lift

The body forms scar tissue that is tougher than the original flesh to protect against further injury, and people do the same emotionally, growing hard and withdrawn after being hurt. George T., a promising young attorney, was left with a disfiguring scar after a car accident and saw a repulsive image every time he looked in the mirror. Maltz argues that emotional scars disfigure the personality and keep people from living fully.

He describes the traits of people without emotional scars, among them seeing themselves as liked and able, accepting themselves as they are and feeling a oneness with others. He offers three rules to immunize against emotional hurts, including developing a more self-reliant attitude by taking responsibility for one's own emotional needs, and relaxing away emotional hurts. A plastic surgeon's incision heals without a scar because no tension is left in the wound, and Maltz says the same holds for emotional wounds received while relaxed.

For old scars, people must become their own plastic surgeons through forgiveness. Maltz separates therapeutic forgiveness, which cancels the debt completely, from forgiveness that cancels one debt only to create another, or that lets the forgiver flaunt moral superiority; real forgiveness, he says, is not a weapon. Readers must also forgive themselves, since remorse and excessive guilt are attempts to live emotionally in the past.

"You cannot forgive a person unless you have first condemned him."

Chapter 11How to Unlock Your Real Personality

Maltz describes personality as something released from within. Everyone loves a baby because the baby is emotionally honest and wholly uninhibited. A poor personality and an inhibited personality are one and the same.

Using the language of feedback, he explains inhibition as too much negative feedback. A person trying to thread a needle may develop purpose tremor, overcorrecting until the hand shakes; stutterers often speak normally when alone. Maltz quotes William James's advice to teachers and students to prepare thoroughly and then trust spontaneity, even to fling away the book the day before an exam. He argues that self-consciousness is really excessive concern about what others think, and that stage fright is fear of being punished for speaking up, often learned in childhood from a misguided conscience.

The cure for the over-inhibited is disinhibition: deliberately practicing being less careful, less concerned and less conscientious, speaking without overthinking, and expressing feelings more freely. Maltz notes that the path to the goal runs between too much inhibition and too little.

"Self-consciousness is really others' consciousness."

Chapter 12Do-It-Yourself Tranquilizers That Bring Peace of Mind

Tranquilizer drugs, Maltz writes, work by reducing a person's response to disturbing stimuli without changing the stimuli, which proves that feelings depend on responses, not on externals. Over-response is a habit that can be cured.

His example is the ringing telephone. People jump up to answer it automatically, yet they do not have to. Practicing letting it ring, and delaying the habitual response to other stimuli, extinguishes old conditioned reflexes. Relaxation is non-response, so daily physical relaxation builds the habit.

He also teaches the quiet room: build in imagination a small, peaceful room with a favorite chair and a window onto a silent beach, and retreat into it for a few moments whenever tension mounts, leaving worries at the foot of the stairs. Maltz calls it a little vacation every day and defends this kind of escapism as healthy. Worry pictures are a response to a fictitious environment, so the right response is to ignore them and keep attention on what is actually happening now. He describes a spiritual thermostat that keeps the emotional climate steady regardless of the weather outside.

"Relaxation is nature's own tranquilizer."

Chapter 13How to Turn a Crisis into a Creative Opportunity

Some people choke under pressure, like a young golfer who holds his home course record yet never places in a big tournament. Others rise to it, like high jumper John Thomas, who in February 1960 cleared 7 feet 1 1/4 inches in competition when his best practice jump had been 6 feet 9 1/4 inches. Maltz argues the difference can be learned.

The first key is to practice without pressure. In maze experiments, over-motivated rats formed narrow brain maps and struggled when their one route was blocked. Shadowboxing, practicing the correct moves with no opponent present, builds a broad, flexible mental map that carries over when the real menace appears; dry firing does the same for marksmen. Furey writes that he has taught the shadowboxing technique to salespeople, musicians, artists and writers.

The second key is to treat a crisis as an opportunity and keep an aggressive goal orientation, since excitement reinforces whatever tendency is in control, going forward or running away. Maltz writes that excitement before a crisis is extra emotional steam and a sign of added strength: Jack Dempsey was so nervous before fights he could not shave, yet used the excitement to put extra power into his punches. He also advises asking what the worst that could happen is, which usually shrinks the threat.

"The more intense the crisis situation under which you learn, the less you learn."

Chapter 14How to Get That Winning Feeling

The automatic mechanism works toward goals pictured as present possibilities, so real to the nervous system that they evoke the feelings of having already succeeded. Maltz points out that worry does exactly this in reverse: people picture failure vividly and repeatedly and feel its emotions in advance. He asks readers to use the same faculty for success, which amounts to positive worry.

Maltz explains, citing Sir John Eccles and Sir Charles Sherrington, that the cortex holds some 10 billion neurons, and that experiences are recorded as patterns, or engrams, that are replayed when we remember. Recalling past successes in vivid detail reactivates the winning feeling, which then helps in the new situation. Golfer Cary Middlecoff described a feeling that gave him a line to the cup as if tattooed on his brain.

Negative feelings can be treated as advice to take or ignore, and reacting to them aggressively turns them into challenges. Maltz compares dwelling on past failures to replaying a broken phonograph record: people do not force a record to sound better, they change it. Changing the mental imagery changes the feelings.

"Change your mental imagery, and the feelings will take care of themselves."

Chapter 15More Years of Life and More Life in Your Years

Maltz asks whether the success mechanism can keep people young and the failure mechanism age them faster. Medical science has no final answer, he admits, so he shares his own over-beliefs, a term from William James, with the reminder that Columbus had to assume land lay to the west before he could find it.

He discusses Hans Selye's research on stress and adaptation energy, which Maltz says is what finally overcomes disease and heals a wound, and argues that frustration and emotional stress add to any physical injury. This edition adds later material on stress and aging, including the finding that children raised in highly stressed environments have shorter telomeres and cells that behave 10 or more years older than their age.

Maltz warns against retiring from life. Many men decline rapidly after retirement because they come to see themselves as useless. He reports that psychologists once thought mental powers peaked at 25 and that later findings put the peak around 35 and holding until well past 70, with learning ability about as good at 70 as at 17. Doctors once warned men over 40 to avoid exercise, advice he calls outmoded. He urges readers to keep goals, keep learning and keep living fully.

"Many men go downhill rapidly after retirement."

AfterwordAfterword

Furey closes with what readers can expect from daily practice: the calm state used before mental imagery grows stronger and carries through the day, and the ability to picture and feel success increases until it feels like flow. He stresses that this comes only from regular, daily practice.

He then tells his own story. At 19, after one season wrestling for Dan Gable at Iowa, he was hit in the face with a glass beer pitcher in a bar fight; glass went into his eye and cheek and doctors said he was lucky not to lose the eye. Gable came to the emergency room. Furey blocked the event out and threw himself into training, and five years later received a $16,000 settlement, a third of which went to the lawyer. He describes using the book's forgiveness and imagery methods on himself decades later to remove the emotional scar that remained, about 25 years after the injury.

"Congratulations! You've reached a new beginning."