The answer to that question is complicated and my answer is usually yes, but you have to be careful.  We live in an age of explosive growth of knowledge.  Much of it comes to us in the form of truth claims.  Many of those claims are irrelevant to our lives, but some of them aren’t and some of them may are quite important.  We all have busy lives and we can’t be experts at everything so in the end we have to rely upon the real experts, but we have to be very careful in how we do so.

Imagine you are sitting on a jury and you are presented with a prosecution and a defense expert that are saying very different things.  You are forced to choose between them but other than their presentation you have no basis on which to know which is correct.  It could be that 99 out of 100 relevant experts in the field would agree with the prosecution expert, but the hired-gun by the defense sounds very persuasive.  You don’t know this information on expert consensus, but you are still forced to choose between them.

This same scenario confronts us almost daily.  The media while trying to be balanced will often present “both sides” of an issue and leave one with the impression that it is controversial when in reality there might be a consensus of opinion among the relevant experts.  Search engines rank results on the popularity of the pages and not on their accuracy.  They don’t know who is correct so you may do a search and end up with a bunch of pages spewing quackery at the top of your results.

We also have a bunch of experts that end up being popular with the media.  Dr. Oz is a medical doctor and obviously knows more about medicine in general than I do.  However, the advice he dispenses is not always backed up by strong science.  Dr. Oz came to prominence because he had a very important fan named Oprah.  That doesn’t mean you should trust what Dr. Oz says.

You should almost never trust just one expert.  Given that we can’t be experts on everything ourselves, we ultimately have to trust those people who are expert in the relevant fields.  But we need to understand what the majority of experts believe on any given issue.  That doesn’t mean the majority is always right, but given that we are unlikely to have the expertise to be able to determine that ourselves (otherwise we would be experts), the most rational thing to do is usually to go with the majority.

It matters whether that majority is 60/40 or 90/10.  If 90% of climatologists believe that the earth is warming (I’ve recently read that number is now 97.5%) and that at least part of that is due to human activities, the odds of a non-expert like you or I being able to determine that the other 10% are correct and the overwhelming majority wrong is very slim. You don’t have the expertise to do that despite what you read on the Internet.  If you did you would be a climatology expert and a very elite one at that.  Just because you can find experts on the other side of an issue doesn’t mean it’s rational to believe them.  Years ago I had serious doubts about warming of the earth.  Now I don’t.

Determining just who are the experts sometimes is not easy.  For example, there is a difference between nutritionists and nutritional scientists doing real scientific research or reviewing the research of others.  Your local pastor may claim to know the age of the universe based upon what he reads in his holy book, but you probably should go with the consensus of the elite theoretical physicists on that one.

In the end you are responsible for your own decisions.  However, just because you read an article on the Internet or because the people you agree with yell louder than the other side doesn’t make them right.  Like everyone else I have my own biases and preferences.  I like to find some intelligent expert who agrees with my position and thereby confirm my own bias.  That is very easy to do in the age of the Internet.  When I find myself inclined to do so, I have to force myself to behave more rationally.

What To Do?

My advice can be summarized as follows:

• If something is very, very important to you, then you should spend considerable time learning and understanding the issues involved.  You should be able to speak reasonably well about what the evidence is and why the various experts believe as they do.  If you are going against the majority, especially if that is a strong majority, you should have very, very good reasons.
• For most things you care about but aren’t as important as the first category you simply are not going to have enough time to gain the expertise to make rational decisions for yourself.  You need to rely on the experts whether you want to or not.  If there is not a strong majority either way, say at least 2 to 1, then there may be no good basis upon which to decide and choosing either could be considered rational.  If there is a strong majority then you are probably being irrational to not go with that majority.  In that case you are claiming to be an expert that is more expert than most experts.
• For things where you have to decide but aren’t that important.  Do whatever you feel like!

For me it sucks to admit most relevant experts disagree with what I would like to believe.  This happens to me fairly often.  I’m just admitting I don’t have any rational basis to think I know more than they do no matter how I feel.

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Something around 50 people (round number) are murdered every day in the U.S.  I have a great deal of sympathy for the families involved, but this is not a national tragedy and doesn’t deserve the attention it is getting.  I do have an opinion on a certain aspect of the case that I will share at the end of this article, but before that I want to say something else about the reaction to it and the attention it is getting.

It must be stated that the people protesting in the street, the parents, the media pundits, bloggers, you, me, and everyone else do not really know what happened during the confrontation and probably never will.  Two people were there.  One is dead and the one that is alive has a huge motive to lie about it so it is likely we will never really know.

Despite the complete lack of knowledge of the facts, much of the country believes they are in a position to pontificate loudly about what should be done or not done to George Zimmerman.  I don’t know what should be done.  I don’t know if he broke any laws.  What do Jessie Jackson and Al Sharpton know about this case and exactly how are they helping?

Since blacks and liberals are protesting and talking about guns and racism, the right is shouting back and now they are both yelling at each other and calling each other names.  It’s no longer about Trayvon despite what all these people pretend.  It’s an opportunity to claim to be right about the larger issues which they each hold near and dear.  The dead boy and the shooter are now just vehicles to further their respective causes.  The people who are shouting are far more concerned about winning debating and political points than winning justice in this case.

No matter what the issue is anymore, as soon as somebody lines up on one side somebody else lines up on the other side and it turns into an absurd shouting match with nobody really knowing what they are talking about and with no solution in sight.  Ambiguity, uncertainty, complexity, or grayness are no longer allowed in public debate.  Everything has to be a binary choice between right and wrong or good and evil.  I’m right, you’re wrong.  I’m good, you’re evil.

Please name one important issue anywhere were calm rational discourse occurs in a way that really matters.  We are either shouting at each other or shooting at each other.  (Obama is flying little remote control toy planes all over the world shooting missiles at people he doesn’t like.)  The people who aren’t shooting or shouting have mainly withdrawn from public and just go on about their private lives.  This is the approach I take most of the time.

I don’t expect people to agree, but I do expect them to be reasonable. This case has reminded me that I’ve pretty much concluded that reasonable people are forever more going to be hopelessly drowned in a sea of shouting, name calling, and fear mongering.

I do have an opinion to share on this case and I’ll try not to shout or call people who disagree with me any names.  I don’t know what happened in the confrontation between George Zimmerman and Trayvon Martin and I don’t think anyone else does either.  However I think we do know what happened earlier, before that confrontation.  We all have choices to make and by his own voice on his call to 911, George Zimmerman showed he had a fundamental choice to either mind his own business or to poke his nose into someone else’s.  Like many people these days he chose the latter.  That is the real problem here.  People think they have the right to tell other people what to do.

It is not against the law to walk down the street wearing a hoodie.  That’s what ticks me off about the whole thing and is getting lost in the debate about “Standing Your Ground”.  Conservatives and Libertarians should not make George Zimmerman their poster boy for the right to defend yourself with guns.  (btw I believe people have the right to carry a gun and defend their person or property).  George Zimmerman made the choice to confront Trayvon likely knowing full well it could turn into something ugly.  I don’t know what happened when he decided to pull the trigger (and nobody else does either), but George Zimmerman’s choice to confront Trayvon instead of staying safely inside his car was the ultimate cause of all of this.  For that reason I blame him for what happened whether he committed any crime or not by Florida law.

All the talk of cries for help, cuts on the head or broken noses is after the fact rationalization that are not part of that first decision he made.  He may not have committed a crime and he may have, but I believe from his own words that he made made a wrong decision.  That is a tragedy.  George Zimmerman was not protecting his person or property from a threat when he made the decision to engage Trayvon Martin.  So his self-defense claim later rings pretty hollow to me.  Maybe Trayvon felt threatened and was defending himself.  I don’t know.

I have to let the police handle this.  We may not like it, but it’s the only choice we have.  That’s called the rule of law and something we should hold dear.  They may be biased and have an agenda but so does everyone else. What are we supposed to do, let the mobs in the streets make the decision? Do the people protesting in the street really want to go back to that?  I don’t like street justice of either George Zimmerman’s kind or the kind that some people are now calling for.  Al Sharpton and Jessie Jackson need to go home.  I don’t want street protests to decide this case.  Everyone else needs to stop shouting and calling each other nasty names because they happen to be on the other side of some political or cultural divide.  That not only gets us nowhere, it makes the problems worse.

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This is a review of the book The Idea Factory: Bell Labs and the Great Age of American Innovation. I loved this book.  It’s amazing to think about what the people at Bell Labs accomplished in this corporate American lab in the mid-twentieth century.  I knew it was important, but I didn’t realize the extent of the innovations and inventions that came out of those labs.  We owe much of our modern information technology and connected world to work that was done in those labs.

The science and technology that came out of the labs during that period are mind-boggling; active satellites, cellular networks, information theory, transistors, microwave transmission, and much more.   A dozen or more Nobel prizes were awarded to employees of the Labs, which I consider an amazing accomplishment.  The impact of transistors alone is almost beyond belief.  It’s hard to imagine how much different things would be without them.  They were an incredibly complex innovation even though they now permeate every aspect of our lives – in the quintillions.  That’s not an exaggeration either.  I read somewhere that in a few years the number will exceed 1,000 quintillion which means we will be talking about sextillions of them (1000000000000000000000).

There were some commercial failures as well.  Did you know the picture phone was sold by AT&T in the 1960’s and bombed?  In a way it’s hard to believe that affordable technology was available that long ago.  It wasn’t until the 21st century with the explosion of apps like like Skype and FaceTime that “picture phones” use was actually realized in any real sense.

Bell Labs did major general scientific work and wedded it with incredible technological expertise in a way that was never done before and likely will never be repeated.  I almost wanted to cry reading the last couple of chapters that described what has happened to the labs and why something similar is unlikely to happen again.

I love good biographies, histories of specific events, and good story telling.  This book by Jon Gertner has it all and to me at least it was very compelling.  It’s not about how to have good ideas from an individual perspective.  It’s really a biographical history book about a certain place and time where great ideas and practical applications came together and changed the world.   Gertner really gets into the lives and the work of a few brilliant individuals who worked at the labs during this period.  I found them and their story absolutely fascinating.

The book is fairly long at least by today’s standards so it isn’t a quick read.  There is nothing practical or self-help about it either.  However, if you like technology, ideas and their history, and/or biographies I think you will like this book.  I loved it.

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Because it happens over time, I don’t think we really realize how much stuff we collect.  Most people would buy more stuff if they had more money.  We dream of the stuff we would buy and how happy it would make us.  The only problem is people with more stuff aren’t happier.  Over my adult life I have accumulated a lot of nice stuff but to be honest I don’t think it has made me any happier.  I’m pretty sure the 30 years of stress making the money to accumulate it has contributed to a lot of unhappiness at times.

If you go into debt, and most Americans do, in order to buy stuff then you essentially are a slave to your stuff.  It owns you.  Your stuff has a mortgage on your life.

You also have to manage your stuff once you have it.  You have to organize it, store it, maintain it, dispose of it, etc.  If we see a new version of something we already have we feel an almost irresistible urge to get it even though the version we have is performing its function adequately.   In the 21st century the latest and greatest comes out so frequently it makes your head spin.  This is by design.  People who sell us this stuff know the most advanced scientific techniques to stoke our urges to “upgrade”.

A year ago I bought a very nice new car that replaced my perfectly nice existing car. I like my new car, but I also liked my previous car. Objectively it is more luxurious than my old car, but on a day to day basis that makes no difference. It only really matters when I think about it. I’m no happier, but I spent a lot of money getting no happier.  Does that make any sense?  I think we are suffering from a collective illness.

People go into debt to buy bigger homes to hold more stuff that puts them further in debt. It’s an endless cycle.  We enslave ourselves to our stuff.  I don’t really know what to do about it.  I’m guilty of it but I’m getting better.  Spending some time reflecting on it (like writing this article) helps when I have the urge to get something new.  We’ve enslaved ourselves with the help of advertising and the media, but we can also choose to set ourselves free.  Maybe you have enough stuff.  It’s worth considering anyway.

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I know this is a rather strange suggestion, but I have recently finished an excellent book on willpower: The Willpower Instinct: How Self-Control Works, Why It Matters, and What You Can Do To Get More of It.  Towards the end of that book there was a chapter called “Don’t Read This Chapter: The Limits of ‘I Won’t’ Power”.  The key idea was that trying to put things out of your mind makes those things more likely to stay in your mind and thus more likely that you will act upon them.  It’s called ironic rebound.  Instead you should actually think about whatever it is you don’t want to think about or do and you will be less likely to think about or do it.

This is incredibly counter-intuitive.  If you crave something, pondering it should intensify the craving right?  Actually some research is showing that it does just the opposite.  The author describes experiments on chocolate, smoking, and dieting that show people who try to suppress their thoughts about a craving actually end up indulging to a much greater extent.  In one experiment women who were encouraged to avoid thinking about chocolate subsequently ended up eating twice as much of it as women who were encouraged to think about and express any thoughts they had about chocolate.

I’ve been trying this out myself and strangely enough it seems to work.  Whenever I have the urge to snack on something I know I shouldn’t be snacking on, I just imagine how it would taste and how it would make me feel.  Then I choose not to act on it and move on.  Instead of averting my eyes I look right at the tasty treat.  Amazingly this seems to dispel the urge and allows my mind release the thought.  Strange but true.

“When you stop trying to control unwanted thoughts and emotions, they stop controlling you.  Studies of brain activation confirm that as soon as you give participants permission to express a thought they were trying to suppress, that thought becomes less primed and less likely to intrude into conscious awareness.  Paradoxically, permission to think a thought reduces the likelihood of thinking it.

This solution turns out to be useful for a surprisingly wide range of unwanted inner experiences.  The willingness to think what you think and feel what you feel – without necessarily believing that it is true, and without feeling compelled to act on it – is an effective strategy for treating anxiety, depression, food cravings, and addiction.”

– Kelly McGonigal, The Willpower Instinct

The key is to think and feel whatever you want, but don’t act upon those thoughts and feelings.  This is just one of many ideas in this excellent book and I thought it was worth sharing with you.  It certainly seems to work for me.

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This is a review of Guitar Zero: The New Musician and the Science of Learning.  It comes from my reading of a copy of the book prior to its release date.  My review on Amazon is the first one and listed under “Book Fanatic”.  Some parts of that review are also included here.

Guitar Zero is a sometimes inspiring story of Gary Marcus, a 40 year-old psychology professor, who followed his musical heart (not talent) fairly late in life.  After playing Guitar Hero he decided he wanted to learn to play the guitar, something he had wanted to do all his life.  During a sabbatical he decided to immerse himself and see if he could do it and what he could discover about adult learning.

I found the story quite interesting.  It is a story about human learning told through the perspective of music.  The specifics are music but I think the message is much broader.  Its about the science of adult learning and the plasticity of the human brain.  The author managed to interview and otherwise interact with some talented musicians and others in the field and you get some fascinating insights from them. 

I do have a quibble with a part of the description of the book on Amazon: “Guitar Zero stands the science of music on its head, debunking the popular theory of an innate musical instinct and many other commonly held fallacies.”  This is very misleading because while the author indeed does not believe that music itself is an “instinct”, he implies he believes in inborn characteristics that make us more or less talented musically.  In fact the author specifically mentions musical prodigies and repeatedly says he himself is lacking any musical talent.  As I write this I have just finished watching Dateline’s tribute to Whitney Houston.  I’m pretty sure she was born with something very few others are ever blessed with.  Anyway, part of what makes the book interesting is his struggle against his lack of talent and ultimately the degree of progress he makes despite his obstacle.

I think this book will be of interest to those who are musically inclined.  It will also be of interest to those who are interested the science of learning or just someone who wants to following a passion later in life.  I definitely enjoyed it.  Please be aware that this is most certainly not in any respect a how-to book. This book does not teach you how to play the guitar or any other musical instrument.

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Consider this: one month from now you can have easily taken 300 steps towards your highest values.  In three months 900 and in a year 3,650.  It’s very simple and surprisingly powerful.  I’m not a big proponent of commitments that will tie you down and that’s what is so beautiful about the daily 10.  You are only making one commitment and that’s to the daily 10 itself, and those 10 things can be whatever you want them to be on any particular day.

We all need help and reminders to live our life in a way that progresses us towards what we value the most.  Otherwise our survival brains will cause us to live in a way our conscious brains don’t necessarily want us to live.  We will fail to do those things we know we should and we will do things we know we shouldn’t.  What follows is a simple tool to help you achieve your highest values on a daily basis.  It’s so simple and flexible it can be whatever you make it.  However, the cumulative power of tiny actions day after day can be immense.  It has been very effective for me.

Here’s how it works:

Step 1:  Create your list of highest values.  I like to list 10 but it can be whatever number you want.  Here is a nice checklist to give you some ideas on values you can choose: Values Checklist.  Review and revise the list as often as necessary.

Step 2:  Every day create your list of 10 “do’s” and “don’ts” for that day.  These do’s and don’ts are anything you can do or avoid doing that day that are consistent with and progress you towards those values you listed in step 1. Each and every item on your list of 10 must be related to something in your value list.  You are not creating a list of things you have to do that aren’t related to your values.  The most important thing to keep in mind when creating this list every day is that these actions can be very tiny and simple actions.  If you think you are going to create a list of 10 major accomplishments every day you are simply going to create a failure list.

Step 3:  At the end of every day note whether you did what you said you would do.  This is a powerful incentive.  If you failed on any one thing during the day then you simply note you did not do what you said you would do.

Repeat steps 2 and 3 every day.

The daily 10 can be work, personal, or preferably both.  Sometimes you will want to list important, urgent, and significant tasks, but more often they should just be small things that over time will massively improve your life.  The number 10 is not magic, it can be anything you want.  I like to evenly mix do’s and don’ts together but that too is flexible.

As an example of a don’t I use that helps me achieve one of my values of  “Health”, I have been putting “No extra snacking” on my daily 10.  This is a bad habit I’ve developed and I want to kill it.  So every day I put it on my list of daily 10.  Every time I’m tempted to have an unscheduled snack, I remember how much I don’t want to write that I did not do what I said I would do that day.  You can’t just fill up your list with habits.  It would be cheating to put something like this on my daily list if I was going to do it anyway – if it was already a habit.  Only put these habit type items on your list when you are working towards creating a good habit or killing a bad habit.  Once you have succeeded then it isn’t needed on your list anymore.

If you value your relationship with your daughter you might add an item once in a while like “Ask (daughter’s name) how her day went after dinner tonight.  If you want to get something started or finished you have been procrastinating put it on your list.  You can put “Stop by and chat with Sally for 5 minutes this morning” or anything else however large or small that will make you the person you want to be.

There aren’t any real rules.  It is totally flexible, but you must stick with it every day.  If you start letting things slip and failing to do what you say you are going to do, then it will just deteriorate into another useless waste of time.  If you find you are frequently writing that you didn’t do what you said you were going to do, then make the list smaller and easier.  Start with 5 tiny don’ts.  Don’ts are easier than do’s.  If you get into the habit of achieving your daily 10 (or 5 or 7) you can ratchet up the significance of the items on the list.

Give it a shot for a month.  You might be surprised at how effective it can be.

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Over the past few decades there has been a vast wave of pseudo self-esteem washing over our culture.  Pseudo self-esteem has displaced true self-esteem and created a nation of the entitled and narcissistic, especially in the less than 45 age group.

True self-esteem is based upon an a self-appraisal of one’s own competence and worthiness.  Pseudo self-esteem is based up feeling positive about oneself just because one exists or shows up.  Please don’t misunderstand me.  I believe that every individual deserves the benefit of the doubt.  Every human has some basic worthiness as a matter of simply being a human.  That is an intrinsic worth that is part of everyone.  What this article is about is what goes beyond that.  It is the result of personal action and intention.  That true self-esteem can be high or low as a result.  It is not a free-pass given by society.

Pseudo self-esteem arises when we heap underserved praise on others or on ourselves.  I’m sorry but you don’t deserve a gold star just because you showed up.  You don’t deserve credit just because you exist.  Simply repeating affirmations that you are good doesn’t mean you behave in a way that could be called good.  There has to be some basic values to which you strive to feel true self-worth. You must strive for accomplishment to feel true self-competence. 

True self esteem comes as a result of actions and intentions.  It is not something bestowed upon you by well meaning others.  The culture of the self-esteem movement tells us that self-esteem leads to accomplishment.  They have it exactly backwards.   It is accomplishment that leads to true self esteem. You develop the sense of self-worth and competence because you strive for and sometimes achieve results.

Telling your child he is smart is not going to make him successful.  In fact studies show it will make him avoid challenges that might shatter that illusion.  Telling your child you are proud of his effort will encourage him to continue to strive.  I feel I am good because I strive to be good and not because my mommy or my teacher told me I was good.  You can tell a group of children “everyone wins”, but that simply strips all meaning from the word.  At some level everyone knows whether they deserve the praise others have heaped upon them or that they heap upon themselves.  When it is undeserved it doesn’t lead to true-self esteem.  It leads to narcissism and entitlement.

I believe we should praise effort in others and ourselves.  I can feel some sense of accomplishment if I tried hard and failed, but I will feel a greater sense if I tried and succeeded.  I can feel some sense of worthiness if I try to be good (whatever your definition of “good”) and failed, but I will feel a greater sense of worthiness if I succeed in acting in accordance with some basic values.

If you want to feel good about yourself then try acting in a way that will lead to that feeling automatically.  Staring at a mirror like Stuart Smalley and repeating affirmations to yourself is not going to do it.  If you want to develop self-esteem in your children teach them to behave in a way which will lead to its natural development.  Those American children who have been told daily how smart and good they are suck at math compared to the rest of the developed world.  And yet they have lots of false self-esteem; they rate number #1 in confidence about their math abilities.

I think the following sums it up very well:

“Most feel that a sense of competence is strengthened through realistic and accurate self-appraisal, meaningful accomplishments, overcoming adversities, bouncing back from failures, and adopting such practices such as assuming self-responsibility and maintaining integrity which engender ones sense of competence and self-worth.”

– Robert Reasoner

Amen.

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Here are some books I have read recently that I think are worth checking out.

Blah Blah Blah: What To Do When Words Don’t Work – This is an excellent book.  If you communicate ideas to other people then you want to read this book.  It is worth its weight in gold.

Smart Thinking: Three Essential Keys to Solve Problems, Innovate, and Get Things Done – This is simply a smart book.

Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking – I’m an introvert and I loved this book.

Off Balance: Getting Beyond the Work-Life Balance Myth to Personal and Professional Satisfaction – A very insightful book on personal and professional life satisfaction.

Thinking, Fast and Slow – A superb book on how our minds work by a giant in the field.

The following two books are short singles so get the kindle version which is much less expensive.  They are both excellent.

Three Cups of Deceit: How Greg Mortenson, Humanitarian Hero, Lost His Way

Read This Before Our Next Meeting

Here are some other worthwhile books:

Innovation You: Four Steps to Becoming New and Improved

Organize Your Mind, Organize Your Life: Train Your Brain to Get More Done in Less Time

What Makes Your Brain Happy and Why You Should Do the Opposite

18 Minutes: Find Your Focus, Master Distraction, and Get the Right Things Done

Mindhacker: 60 Tips, Tricks, and Games to Take Your Mind to the Next Level

Stepping Up: How Taking Responsibility Changes Everything

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Note from Stephen:  This is a guest article from Dr. Sean Sullivan.  Dr. Sullivan has a book and online course available called “The Mind Masters Silent Journey” which I am currently evaluating.  I will be writing a review of them when I’m finished.  The last part of this article is an excerpt from his material.

As a psychologist who spends his days focused on researching and teaching (and living) the characteristics of “peak performance,” studying the influence of the “unconscious” on our lives is a primary area of my work.

To properly honor www.ratracetrap.com with this year-end guest post I’m giving a nod to a most popular post from the beginning of this year. Not surprisingly, Stephen’s article Unconscious Influences on Our Behavior, and the 3 influences below in particular, attracted me…

#1

People exposed to stories about moral indiscretion are twice as likely to choose cleaning products as gifts as those exposed to stories of moral virtue. It seems they feel the need to “clean up” (Unconscious Influences on Our Behavior).

Ring a bell about any holiday gifts you gave this year? I bet there are some funny stories out there. Leave me and Stephen a Comment if you have a good one!

The somewhat ironic-sounding trend of the unconscious part of our minds getting a lot of conscious attention in our best scientist’s labs lately seems only to be gaining momentum. Each passing year, cutting-edge science demonstrates with increasing clarity that our unconscious processes account for even more of our behavior than previously thought.

Beyond controlling all of the vital functions necessary to allow us to remain alive, for example, scientists are bringing to light new details of our unconscious world. These details suggest that the unconscious aspect of our lives is actually ushering real materiality into our lives…

#2

“People ate 69% more jelly beans when all the colors were mixed together than when they were separated by colors.  Along the same lines, presenting 10 colors of M&Ms instead of 7, increased consumption 43%” (Unconscious Influences on Our Behavior).

Now, that’s a fairly literal example of the unconscious creating actual “materiality” in our lives (i.e. our bodies).

Thankfully, we can apply all this emerging knowledge to our advantage as well. By better understanding the unconscious mind we are also learning how we can make conscious decisions to prime our unconscious mind to behave in ways that benefit us. Take a look at the following example of how you can make use of the power of your unconscious mind by consciously priming it to grow your “material” life in ways that you desire…

#3

Reading stories about money making will actually improve your performance on tasks where you can earn money” (Unconscious Influences on Our Behavior).

Simply acknowledging that we are being influenced by the stimuli we encounter each moment helps us recognize the importance of making conscious choices about how and where we focus our attention.

During my latest explorations while writing and creating The Mind Master Journey, I discovered my newest favorite examples of how our unconscious mind ushers materiality into our lives. It turns out that how much we influence the people we are in direct contact with is difficult to overstate.

It is now clear that our choices about exactly who we choose to spend our time with, and exactly how we spend that time, has a undeniable influence on our material lives.

The piece that follows comes directly from The Mind Masters Journey. It describes exactly how our relationships often have a significant impact on how long we live. The piece is a great reminder of how intertwined our lives are with others.

I hope the segment inspires you to honor the importance of your relationship to yourself and to your loved ones this holiday. It certainly does for me. From my family to yours, here’s to hearing, reading and most importantly, writing your own story of health, happiness and wealth in the New Year!

Where Your Inner and Outer Worlds Collide

Today, the view that your inner world is separate from your outer world, or that your inner world functions independently from the inner worlds of the people you are surrounded by, is as scientifically bunk as the notion that the earth is flat. Over the last several decades, our growing scientific understanding of the scope of influence that the invisible dialogue occurring within you has on your outer world has been complemented by an explosion in our scientific understanding of the impact of the invisible communications that occur between individuals and groups.

As it turns out, your story and your body, and other people’s stories and bodies, are so intertwined and interdependent that scientists have now identified and documented a broad range of physiologically based, empirically documented health benefits associated with the non-material transactions that occur in a type of relationship that researchers call an “empathic relationship.” An empathic relationship is a relationship in which at least one person in the relationship experiences and mirrors the emotional state of the other.

We now know that being involved in an empathic relationship provides a range of benefits to your body that extends way beyond simply “feeling good.” The value of an empathic relationship extends well beyond having a vital influence on your emotional development. Researchers have now demonstrated over and over that empathic relationships play a significant role in physical health improvements ranging from better immune function to shorter post-surgery hospital stays to a stronger response to placebos to fewer asthma attacks and even to experiencing a shorter average duration of the colds we catch.

The physical health impact of the non-material transactions that occur in any one of your relationships does not tell the whole story, though. It turns out that the web of relationships you maintain may be the most significant predictor of your future health. The social web that your inner world inhabits, and your outer world manifests, has a direct effect on the duration of the life of the cells that comprise your vital organs. Hopefully, it goes without saying that you require the health of your vital organs to live a long, healthy life!

Even if you experience a good deal of daily stress, having a network of people you can turn to for your emotional needs mitigates the risk of your stressful lifestyle. Conversely, if you don’t have a web of dependable people in your life (and in your head), the emotional stress can profoundly raise the likelihood of your death as compared with people who lead a calm life. Your social web is a vital aspect of your non-material story that determines the health of your materiality—the cells that comprise your body.

Dr. Sean Sullivan is a performance psychologist who teaches how to clearly see the details of your “inner world” by creating your own Mind Map. Dr. Sullivan has written and spoken for ESPN properties. His work has received endorsements from top performers including USA TODAY’s David Weiss and NFL Quarterback, Mark Sanchez.

The Mind Master’s Guided Journey is a 21-day online course that details step-by-step how to create a precise personal map of your “inner world” to follow to becoming an expert creating at whatever “outer life” you choose. “Once you can actually hear and see your “inner world” with clarity, you can’t help but to create and follow your own map that will lead you to the “outer life” you choose to live.” – Dr. Sean Sullivan

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