Most Important Concepts:

• Subconsious mind is not a ”mind” at all, but a mechanism - a goal-striving ”servo-mechanism” consisting of the brain and nervous system, which is used by, and directed by the mind.
• A human being always acts and feels and performs in accordance with what he imagines to be true about himself and his environment.
• Do the daily meditations. Imagine yourself as the ideal version of you, how you would act, and how you would feel.

How I Can Use this Information:

• Trust the creative mechanism. Chill out a bit. Follow the same routines as before, even when things change, they are showing results for a reason.
• Relax more. Only worry when it is time to make decisions. If the decision has already been made, relax, let it be, let time show you whether it was right or wrong.
• When going into a new setting that requires different moods, or mental adjustments, clear your mental machinery in between. Literally blow off steam in your head. For example, when workday is over.
• Practice ”not responding” to work stimuli, especially at night, when supposed to sleep.

Chapter Recap:

Introduction

• Scientific breakthroughs often come from outside the field of experts, because they bring something new to the table.
• The human nervous system cannot tell the difference between an actual experience and an experience imagined vividly and in detail.
• Requires a minimum of about 21 days to affect any perceptible change in mental image.

1 - The Self-Image

• Personality as a system of ideas, all of which must seem to be consistent with one another.

• Dramatic and sudden changes in personality often resulted from facial plastic surgery.

• To really ”live,” that is, to find life reasonably satisfying, you must have an adequate and realistic self-image that you can live with. You must find yourself acceptable to ”you.” You must have wholesome self-esteem. You must have a self that you can trust and believe in. You must have a self that you are not ashamed to ”be,” and one that you can feel free to express creatively, rather than hide or cover up. You must have a self that corresponds to reality, so that you can function effectively in a real world. You must know yourself - both your strengths and your weaknesses - and be honest with yourself concerning both. Your self-image must be a reasonable approximation of ”you,” being neither more than you nor less than you are.

  When this self-image is intact and secure, you feel good. When it is threatened, you feel anxious and insecure. When your self-image is adequate and one that you can be wholesomely proud of, you feel self-confident. You feel free to ”be yourself” and to express yourself. You function at your optimum. When it is an object of shame, you attempt to hide it rather than express it. Creative expression is blocked. You become hostile and hard to get along with.

  If a scar on the face enhances the self-image, self-esteem and self-confidence are increased. If a scar on the face detracts from the self-image, loss of self-esteem and self-confidence results.

  When a facial disgigurement is corrected by plastic surgery, dramatic psychological changes result only if there is corresponding correction of the mutilated self-image.

• Subconsious mind is not a ”mind” at all, but a mechanism - a goal-striving ”servo-mechanism” consisting of the brain and nervous system, which is used by, and directed by the mind.

• Our subconscious mind works to achieve the mental images that we have of ourselves.