Finding Common Ground On Political Matters

Are you having any political disagreements lately? If that means uncomfortable conversations, or strife between you and family members or people you work with, or even just frustration at how members of the "opposing party" could possibly be so stupid, I've been doing something I'd like to share with you that creates a feeling of common ground rather than division.

It comes from an article in Scientific American Mind on the differences between liberals and conservatives, mostly about research by Jonathan Haidt, the author of The Righteous Mind. It seems counterintuitive that delving into the differences between liberals and conservatives would bring people together, but that's exactly what happens.

Several times now, when I've gotten into conversations with people about politics and when the conversation started feeling divisive, I brought up some of Haidt's findings, and it shifted the conversation because his discoveries point to an important fact: Conservatives and liberals have a lot of common ground, and often share values. The priority of those values may be different, but they often both recognize that those values are important.

For example, in one study, when they showed people collages of photographs, conservatives' eyes spent more time looking at the more disturbing or unpleasant images in the collage. Many studies have demonstrated, in one way or another, that conservatives are more alert to threats, but that doesn't mean liberals are necessarily cavalier about safety and security. They may differ on their thresholds — differ on how bad it has to be before they are alarmed enough to do something about it — but they still care about it.

Conservatives are more anxious than liberals, generally speaking. That's one of the reasons they resist change. They want things to stay stable because change can be scary, and sometimes things change for the worse, not the better. Again, this is a sliding scale, not a black-and-white (or should I say "blue-and-red") division. Liberals also feel anxiety, just not as strongly as conservatives. And the feeling of safety versus anxiety is not fixed in any given person. In the SciAmMind article, the author writes:

When people feel safe and secure, they become more liberal; when they feel threatened, they become more conservative. Research conducted by Nail and his colleague in the weeks after September 11, 2001, showed that people of all political persuasions became more conservative in the wake of the terrorist attacks.


Haidt's work suggests that we all share six basic, inborn moral values, which are then influenced by culture and experience. The six values are:

1. Care for others.
2. Fairness and justice.
3. Liberty and freedom from oppression.
4. Loyalty and freedom from betrayal.
5. Respect for legitimate authority.
6. Aversion to harmful, disgusting things, foods, or actions.

Liberals tend to care more about some of these than conservatives, and less about others. What I think you'll find when you look at the studies is that the point of view of both right and left are necessary, rather than one being right and one being wrong, and that is an insight that can help bring us together.

So that's my recommendation for improving your mood during trying political times. When the conversation starts to feel divisive — even if you're talking to someone you agree with, but it starts feeling like "us versus them" — bring up some of this research. Just say something like, "I was reading an interesting article," and share some of the research findings. I think you'll find it improves your mood and the person's mood you're talking to. Maybe we can build more bridges between us this way.

Read the Scientific American Mind article here: Unconscious Reactions Separate Liberals and Conservatives.

Explore your own moral values here: Test Your Morals.

Watch a TEDtalk with Jonathan Haidt: The Moral Roots of Liberals and Conservatives.

And here's another video, this one of Bill Moyers talking with Haidt: How Do Conservatives and Liberals See the World?

Adam Khan is the author of Principles For Personal GrowthSlotralogyAntivirus For Your Mindand co-author with Klassy Evans of How to Change the Way You Look at Things (in Plain English). Subscribe to his blog here. You can email him here.



The Righteous Mind: Why We Are Politically Divided - Season 1, Episode 14 of the Adam Bomb Podcast

Why can't liberals and conservatives get along? Has something changed? Can something be done about it? Jonathan Haidt's book, "The Righteous Mind," provides the best answers I think we'll find. I discuss the book in this podcast.

Listen to The Adam Bomb podcast here:

Also, check this out: 

What Could Stop Our Divisiveness 

It's an interview with Jonathan Haidt on TED.

Adam Khan is the author of Principles For Personal GrowthSlotralogyAntivirus For Your Mindand co-author with Klassy Evans of How to Change the Way You Look at Things (in Plain English)Follow his podcasts, The Adam Bomb and Talk to Klassy. You can email him here.


Don't Tempt Yourself

Roy Baumeister is a researcher. In one of his experiments, he discovered an important fact: Exerting willpower to resist temptation reduces your ability to persevere on a goal, at least in the short term.

The experiment was simple: Subjects walked into a room that smelled like baking cookies. There was a table in the room with a bowl of radishes and a plate of cookies.

Some subjects were asked to eat radishes, some were asked to eat cookies. Then they were all told to try to do a difficult puzzle. The researchers timed how long it took people to give up trying to solve the puzzle.

Those who resisted eating the cookies gave up after EIGHT minutes. Those who didn't resist (who ate the cookies) persisted for NINETEEN minutes. 

Resisting a temptation depleted some kind of perseverance energy.

So to whatever degree you can, try to make your environment less tempting. Don't keep candy in your house, for example, because if you eat the candy, you lose. But if you resist eating the candy, you also lose.

Look around in your life for sources of temptation and see if you can remove them. This can give you more energy and perseverance to accomplish what you want in your life.

Read more about this: What you need to know about willpower: The psychological science of self-control.

Adam Khan is the author of Principles For Personal GrowthSlotralogyAntivirus For Your Mindand co-author with Klassy Evans of How to Change the Way You Look at Things (in Plain English). Subscribe to his blog here. You can email him here.



Psycho-Cybernetics by Maxwell Maltz

Maxwell Maltz was a plastic surgeon. He said when someone's disfigured face is corrected with cosmetic surgery, their personality usually changes dramatically. They may have avoided people out of embarrassment, but he says in his book, Psycho-Cybernetics, after the surgery their social life begins to bloom. They are willing to meet new people and they're more open and communicative. They're more confident. They feel better about themselves.

In other words, when their face changes, their self-image changes with it. But it doesn't always happen. Sometimes people look dramatically different after surgery but they don't feel any different. Maltz was intrigued by these unexpected responses he saw in his patients. Psycho-Cybernetics was born from this original, curious observation.

Maxwell Maltz's interests began to turn more and more to psychology. He wanted to help these people. But how? Ultimately, his solutions were: 1) self-image psychology and 2) cybernetics (which is how he arrived at the strange name for his book, Psycho-Cybernetics).

Cybernetics is the study of self-correcting, goal-seeking mechanisms such as heat-seeking missiles or self-guided torpedoes. When you aim a missile at a target, it starts moving toward the target, but it almost immediately begins to drift off course. The purpose of cybernetic machinery is to detect this drift and make adjustments — correcting the course — aiming the missile back to the target, where it begins to drift off course again, etc.

Maltz realized human beings are like that. He said we have what amounts to a "cybernetic mechanism" in our brain. It only needs a goal and the motivation to take action, and it will help you continually correct your course until you achieve the goal.

But sometimes it doesn't work. Sometimes you set a goal and take action but nothing ever comes of it. Something is blocking your achievement. That's where Maltz's self-image psychology comes in — the "psycho" part of Psycho-Cybernetics.

Let's say you have a goal of becoming a supervisor for your company. If you attain your goal, you'll have better hours, more respect, and more pay. You want the job. But you believe you're not "the kind of person" who can boss people around.

Now you've got a problem. You have a goal, but your self-image prevents you from achieving it. You may try very hard, but your self-image — your belief about what you are capable of — will prevent it from happening. All the willpower in the world can't make it happen. The only way to reach your goal is to correct your self-image.

As Maltz wrote in Psycho-Cybernetics: "Our self-image and our habits go together [because we formed our habits to fit our image of ourselves]. Change one and you will automatically change the other."

One of the most important principles in Psycho-Cybernetics is that self-image is more powerful than willpower. If your self-image conflicts with your conscious will, your self-image will always win.

A woman wrote to me recently in response to my article on sociopaths to tell me she keeps choosing sociopaths over and over again for boyfriends. She wants to change but keeps making the same mistake. This is an example of the self-image being more powerful than goals, effort, or willpower.

How can you change your self-image? Maltz had two answers: Rationality and hypnosis. Don't be put off by the word "hypnosis." It's not magical or mysterious; it simply uses relaxation and imagination to change beliefs (learn more about that here).

Rationality is the other way of changing your self-image and limiting beliefs. Click here to learn more about it.

I have recently re-discovered Psycho-Cybernetics. I read the book when I was younger, and it made an impression on me. But I re-read it because of a story in the book, You've GOT to Read This Book!. The story was written by Rudy Ruettiger, the one they made the movie Rudy about. If you haven't seen the movie, you really should. It's an inspiring true story of determination and persistence in the face of tremendous obstacles.

According to Rudy, his goal started becoming a reality after he read the book, Psycho-Cybernetics.

You may wonder why Maltz wrote about goal-setting, self-image, rationality, and hypnosis all in the same book. It's because you can't achieve a goal if your self-image conflicts with it, and the two most reliable ways to change your self-image are hypnosis and rationality (reality-checking your own limiting beliefs).

Psycho-Cybernetics is an easy read, full of interesting examples. The main message of the book is this: Set a goal, imagine it clearly and in detail — what you want, not what you don't want — and if your self-image blocks your goal, use hypnosis and rationality to change your self-image. That's Psycho-Cybernetics in a nutshell.

I have read the original Psycho-Cybernetics and also the New Psycho-Cybernetics. The new version is better.

Learn more about setting goals: The Impact of Purpose on Your Mood.

Learn more about imagining it clearly: The Only Technique You Need to Live the Life You've Always Wanted.

Learn more about using self-hypnosis: How to Relax Your Mind.

Learn more about using rationality: The Antivirus for Your Mind.

Adam Khan is the author of Principles For Personal Growth
SlotralogyAntivirus For Your Mindand co-author with Klassy Evans of How to Change the Way You Look at Things (in Plain English). Subscribe to his blog here. You can email him here.



Fasting is Natural

In the book, Catching Fire, which is a very interesting book but has nothing to do with fasting, the author wrote, "In deserts like the Kalahari, the result can be difficult indeed (to find enough to eat in some seasons), but periodic shortages of energy like this are routine in all living hunter-gatherers, just as they are in rainforest chimpanzees. Judging from studies of bones and teeth, which show in their fine structure the marks of nutritional stress, energy shortages (shortages of sufficient digestible food) were also universal in archeological populations. Until the development of agriculture, it was the human fate to suffer regular periods of hunger — typically, it seems, for several weeks a year — even though they ate their food cooked."

The book, Catching Fire, is about how cooking changed an ape-like animal into homo sapiens. It's a fascinating read.

Read more about fasting: Fasting Articles.

Listen to my podcast about fasting: What's So Great About Fasting?

Adam Khan is the author of Principles For Personal Growth, Slotralogy, Antivirus For Your Mind, and co-author with Klassy Evans of How to Change the Way You Look at Things (in Plain English). Follow his podcast, The Adam Bomb. 

Why Motivation Doesn't Last

For those who dislike or harbor suspicion about the motivational speakers of the world, a common expression is: "motivation doesn't last." In other words, you go to a motivational seminar and you feel enthused about your goals, but then after awhile, it somehow peters out.

Motivation doesn't last. I've always thought of this as a legitimate indictment of the motivational-seminar industry, but I heard something Zig Ziglar said about it that changed my mind.

Zig Ziglar is one of the most successful motivational speakers of all time. He's not my favorite, but he says something once in awhile that betrays his intelligence. He said the reason motivation doesn't last is that the world is full of demotivators.

Tell your dreams to your friends and family, for example, and you'll hear at least some of them tell you why it won't work. That is demotivating, or at least it can be.

On your way to any goal, you are bound to encounter obstacles. This can be demotivating too, especially if your usual way of explaining setbacks is somewhat pessimistic. Reality seems to be stacked against you for various reasons.

The movie, Pleasantville, had a great illustration of a world full of demotivators. It showed teachers from different classes, one after the other, saying things like this:

"For those of you going on to college next year, the chance of finding a good job will actually decrease by the time you graduate...the median income for those jobs will go down as well."

"By the year 2000, the chance of contacting HIV from a non-monogamous lifestyle will climb to 1 in 150."

"By the time you are 30 years old, average global temperature will have risen two and a half degrees, causing such catastrophic consequences as typhoons, floods, widespread drought, and famine."

The world is full of demotivators. Not because everybody is trying to bring you down, although some may be. But for many different reasons, your motivation and enthusiasm can be continually drained away.

If you're already well aware of the demotivational nature of the world and want some practical steps to do something about it, go here.

The world may be full of demotivators, but you can protect yourself from them if you know how. You can keep your motivation and enthusiasm. Read or listen to this book to find out all about it: Cultivating Fire: How to Keep Your Motivation White Hot.

Adam Khan is the author of Principles For Personal GrowthSlotralogyAntivirus For Your Mindand co-author with Klassy Evans of How to Change the Way You Look at Things (in Plain English). Subscribe to his blog here. You can email him here.



The Silva Method: What Is It and How Does It Work?

The Silva Method was created by Jose Silva in the 1950s. It’s a method of putting yourself into a relaxed frame of mind, and then using that relaxation for useful purposes like improving your self-image, finding solutions to problems, increasing your ability to accomplish goals, improving your relationships with others, and getting better grades at school.

The Silva Method is simple and straightforward. You simply close your eyes and take a deep breath. While you’re breathing out, you imagine seeing the number “3” in front of you. Then you do the same with "2" and "1." Read more about the process here.

That’s the basic Silva Method relaxation technique, although Jose Silva came up with many “deepening” techniques. Follow the link above to learn more about those.

Silva called the achievement of a relaxed frame of mind “going to your level.” He also called it an “alpha state” because when you relax, your brainwaves slow down and pulse at a certain frequency, known as “alpha brainwaves.” The Silva Method is a way to use this relaxed state to accomplish things.

The Silva Method contains a host of “formula-type techniques” you can use to solve problems and help you accomplish your goals. Here are seven of the key techniques:

1. The Workshop of the Mind. This is my favorite technique from the Silva Method. You create a workshop or laboratory in your imagination, complete with any tool you can imagine (literally), and it includes a giant screen on which to visualize things. Your workshop also comes equipped with a resident wise counselor of your choosing, for any advice you may need.

Once you create this workshop in your mind’s eye, you can use it for the rest of your life.

2. Dream programming. Dreams can be a good source of ideas and solutions to problems. The “Glass of Water technique” and “dream programming” are the two Silva techniques that can help you utilize this relatively ignored fountain of creativity.

These techniques of the Silva Method entail going to your level and giving yourself the suggestion that either you’ll have a dream that will give you an idea to solve a specific problem, or when you awaken in the morning and finish drinking a glass of water, an idea will pop into your head.

Many creative people get breakthrough ideas in their dreams. I just came across a reference to this in the book, Psycho-Cybernetics. “Mrs. Thomas A. Edison has said that each evening her husband would go over in his mind those things which he hoped to accomplish the next day,” wrote the author, Maxwell Maltz. Sometimes he would make a list of the jobs he wanted to do, and problems he hoped to solve.”

In the book, The Psychology of the Inventor, Joseph Rossman wrote, “When stumped by something, he [Edison] would stretch out in his Menlo workshop and, half-dozing, get an idea from his dream mind to help him around the difficulty.”

Maltz also wrote, “Kekule’s discovery of the secret of the benzine molecule during sleep, Otto Loewi’s Nobel Prize-winning discovery (that active chemicals are involved in the action of the nerves), and Robert Louis Stevenson’s ‘Brownies,’ which he said gave him all his plot ideas while sleeping, are all well known.”

Dreams can be a powerful source of creativity. Jose Silva simply created two formalized methods to harness some of the untapped potential of sleep.

3. Mirror of the mind. On your mental screen (in your mental workshop) visualize a specific problem you’re having or a situation you need to deal with, and visualize it in a mirror — see the image like a reflection of a mirror directly in front of you. The mirror has a blue frame.

Then move the mirror to your left, change the frame to white, and visualize your problem resolved. From that point on, whenever you think about your problem, only think of the “solution image” framed in white. This is one of the most useful techniques in the Silva Method. (Find out more about the direction to move the mirror.)

4. Three fingers technique. At your level, suggest to yourself that you’ll be able to quickly reach the alpha level by putting the thumb, index finger and middle finger of one hand together. This technique brings the power of the Silva Method into your wakeful activities.

The three fingers technique is useful for calming yourself when you feel stressed or upset, getting into in a good frame of mind to remember something, or helping you concentrate your attention when you need to focus.

5. Envisioning goals.
Imagine what it will be like when a specific goal is achieved. Envision it in detail. You can do it with something small, like a meeting you have tomorrow with your boss (imagining it turning out the way you want), you can imagine a big goal five years in the future, or anywhere in between. Envisioning goals is a central principle of the Silva Method. Read more about envisioning goals here.

6. Simple suggestion. You can use the Silva Method to give yourself “post-hypnotic suggestions.” This helps you program new behaviors and new thought-habits.

For example, let’s say I want to get into the habit of looking people in the eyes when I’m talking to them. I can go to my mental workshop and envision myself on the screen talking to various people while looking them in the eyes. And I can add the suggestion, “Whenever I talk to people, I look them in the eyes.”

Do not underestimate the power of simple suggestion — especially when your mind is relaxed (and therefore less critical and rejecting).

7. Cancel cancel. This is the Silva Method technique I use more often than any other. When you go to your level, one of the post-hypnotic suggestions you can give yourself is that when you hear a negative comment or a pessimistic point of view, you say “cancel cancel” to yourself, and when you do, the negativity will have no influence over you. It’s kind of like a mental cloak of protection.

For example, when I hear someone say, “Well that tends to happen as you get older,” I think to myself, “cancel cancel.” I don’t want to be influenced by such limiting or negative beliefs.

The Silva Method is simple and basic. There is nothing fancy about it. But it works. I’ve used it for 27 years and I still use it.

The Silva Method gives you tools to do mental work. And it gives you structure — mental structure — for mental achievements like improved self-esteem, more self-confidence, better memory, changing habits, clarifying goals, finding solutions to problems, etc.

Without tools and structure, it would be difficult to get anywhere doing mental work because the mind is like an infinite-possibilities multimedia machine. The structure and tools of the Silva Method make your mind actually useful instead of merely full of potential. It allows you to use more of the mind’s possibilities.

As if that weren’t enough, the Silva Method is a form of meditation, and has all the positive health benefits associated with other forms of meditation.

You can start going to your level right now. Follow these instructions. Simply go to your level and then bring yourself back out of it, or you can use one of the seven techniques while your mind is relaxed. Either way, when you’re done, you’ll feel refreshed and relaxed.

You can easily practice the Silva Method on your own without further instruction and achieve great results. If you’d like more training, the Silva Method Course is an excellent two-weekend class that trains you in all the techniques — the seven above and many more beside.

There are also some good books and audio programs you can use for training yourself in the Silva Method. I first learned the techniques in Jose Silva’s book, The Silva Mind Control Method and successfully used them for a long time. Then I took the two-weekend course. Since then I have used two audio programs, both of which are excellent: The Silva Method from Nightingale-Conant, and The Silva Method “Choose Success” Home Study Course, which is the most complete. The home study course is the closest thing you can get to the two-weekend training.

Many famous people have used the Silva Method. Dr. Wayne Dwyer, one of the most popular self-improvement authors in the world, said, "I have used the Silva Method for many years. It has helped me overcome illnesses and accidents and avoid surgery. I urge you to attend Mr. Silva's training sessions that are presented around the world."

Burt Goldman, "The American Monk," said: "We have all heard many times that anyone can control the direction and pattern of their lives if they just know how. In Silva, you will learn simple, practical and safe ways to bring about this control. The Silva Method consists of scientifically researched, tested, proven techniques which you receive in a step-by-step, learn-by-doing manner. You will see noticeable results quickly."

Dr. O. Carl Simonton, author of Getting Well Again, said, “The Silva Method gave me a tool to use in teaching the patient how to begin the interaction and how to become involved in his own health process. I would say that it is the most powerful single tool that I have to offer.”

Joe Girard, the top car and truck salesperson in the world and author of How to Sell Anything to Anybody said about Silva’s book, "I love it, fantastic, a much needed book to make you become the World's Greatest Anything."

"You can count on Silva Methods to skyrocket your sales,” said Mark Victor Hansen, author of Chicken Soup for the Soul. “This teaches how to sell your way through the top. Learn to enjoy success, achievement and all the benefits of the good life like time, money, and lifestyle freedom while selling yourself by Silva's ideas."

Another famous author, Shakti Gawain, wrote, "The most important technique I learned in the Silva Method was creative visualization...I found that it was amazingly effective."

Russell "Bucky" Dent was a young baseball player with the Chicago White Sox when he first learned the Silva Method in 1975, along with several of his Chicago White Sox teammates. In 1978, after joining the New York Yankees, his contributions were so great, when they won the World Series, they named him their Most Valuable Player (MVP). “The Silva Method helped me with my concentration, and it helped me to relax before the pressures of a game,” Dent said. He went on to become the manager of the Yankees.

Richard Bach was hopelessly stuck on a book he was writing until he discovered the Silva Method and used its techniques to find the inspiration to complete his book — the bestseller, Jonathan Livingston Seagull.

The Silva Method is simple and practical. Try it out and see what it can do for you. Start here: How to Relax Your Mind.

Adam Khan is the author of Principles For Personal Growth
SlotralogyAntivirus For Your Mindand co-author with Klassy Evans of How to Change the Way You Look at Things (in Plain English). Subscribe to his blog here. You can email him here.