4 Truths That Can Change Your Life, Page 3

  Part 3: CONDITIONING

  The third truth is one that we don't realize is out there. We are all part of it, but we just don't get it . Once you understand this and how to control this, you can do something about it and change your life radically.

  The third truth is, CONDITIONING!

  What do I mean by conditioning? You and I and all of us are a product of society. The reality that we life in, what we see, what we hear, what we believe in is all learnt - it is psychosocial, sociocultural,  behavioristic.  In simple terms, the country, the culture, the religion, the place, the influence of our parents and how we have been brought up all plays a role and identifies how we perceive the reality that we live in. We are a product of the society that we grew up in and live in today. Once we understand this, we can start changing changing our lives.

  Often we look at someone from another country and we disagree with their behavior. But who are we to judge them? They also have a right to their beliefs. For all we know, they may find us offensive and wrong! Take a simplistic example. Have you ever had a heated debate, or given an instruction to someone that hasn't been understood? Is it because they were being difficult, or could it maybe be that their perception of what they heard and understood is completely different to what you meant? The reality is... we have all been brought up in differing environments, and hence our perception of reality differs vastly from a person of another culture or country. This is known as cultural conditioning!

  What do I mean by conditioning and how does one become conditioned? When you study psychology, the first thing you learn about is classical conditioning. A very simple example is that you get a puppy and every time your feed the dog you ring a bell! You get the puppy used to the bell sound when you feed him. Guess what? After three weeks you can ring the bell without food being present and the puppy will start to salivate! Why? Because the puppy identifies the sound of the bell with the food.

  There is another simplistic example I have heard of via different sources and I am sure it must be somewhere on the internet. Research has shown the following: Put a monkey into a cage with two openings containing food and have an electrical shock attached to one. Shock the monkey every time he touches the one food. Now add a second monkey in the cage. Whenever the first monkey will want to touch the 'shock' food, the first monkey will start screaming and jump up and down. A warning to prevent the new monkey from getting shocked. After a while add a third monkey, and the initial two monkeys will also jump up and down and scream, in order to warn the new monkey about the shock. As monkeys are added, the others will warn the newcomer. Even if the first monkey is removed from the cage, the rest will always warn the others not to touch the one food, even though they do not know, nor have experienced it shocking any of them. This is called classical conditioning!

  Don't we as humans behave very much in the same way? Are there things you are doing, simply because someone else told you to do it that way? And then you wonder why we are frustrated in life? Isn't that what the media does to us when they condition us to go buy stuff the whole time!  How crazy is this? We get sold all this technology and stuff because the media says we need it. Then we buy bigger houses to store all this new stuff that we don't need. Do you see how conditioned we are? I call people 'sheeples!' A sheep and a person together equals sheeple!

  When I was young my dad taught me that if everybody is going in one direction, go the other way. I remember when working on cruise ships and docking in foreign cities. The passengers would go off and explore in one direction and my wife and I would go the other way. We always had different experiences and often found better bargains than the passengers. Start doing stuff a bit differently! Hey, hang on a minute... by me saying that, am I not conditioning you? Am I not trying to do exactly what I am saying you are guilty of... being conditioned! No! I am merely trying to make you aware that you are conditioned and this is how the world works. Take technology... if it wasn't for the advancement of technology I could not be doing this course on the internet with you. So yes' I am very much for it, but have you ever considered how much we have been brainwashed by technology. I am a baby boomer. When I was younger, we didn't have Blue-ray discs, we had 16mm projectors with that big roll of film. As youngsters on a good summer's night, we would hire a projector plus good movie and set it up outside in the garden. We would hang up a sheet, start a barbecue and have a fantastic evening. Our sound came from one speaker which was in the cover of the projector. DTS digital surround sound was unheard of. Guess what? We had an awesome time!

  What a difference in picture and sound quality today to back then! But, was it really that different? When I was young those evenings were magical for me. Doesn't today's teenager experience the same kind of magic when watching the latest DVD? Is there really that much of a difference in the experience? From CD to DVD to Blue-ray disc! How much sound difference can we really hear? How much picture quality difference can we really see? Isn't that just marketing and brainwashing?  Are we not simply advancing to a more instant gratification society?  Back then you were more involved. You couldn't just download a movie and watch it on your computer. We had to ride to the shop, choose a movie, and learn load the movie reel through the projector - we were more involved. It was an adventure hiring a movie! I don't want to sound like an old fart, saying; “In our day it was better!” I am not saying that at all. I am just putting into perspective how we have been conditioned. In my days we had vinyl records and seven singles.  We could touch them, feel them and smell them. You never lent them to anybody in case they got scratched. Today people are complaining about piracy and illegal music downloads on the Internet. You see, for me the youth don't attach a value to the music anymore. We had to buy the vinyl record, we could touch it and feel it. Today, a youngster has a memory stick, sticks it into the computer, downloads the music, takes it out and there's no difference in weight to the stick, and then goes and loads it somewhere else. The value system has changed! We have been conditioned to start thinking differently. You need to become aware of this, shift your perception and go back to basics. What does society tell us today?  If you're depressed, go to the shopping mall and you can get happiness there. Buy something, or make more debt so you can work harder and be more unhappy. That's the messed up reality we live in today! Get out of that zone!

  If you don't believe me when I say that we are conditioned, have you ever driven somewhere from point A to point B? You arrive at point B, and suddenly you think, “How the heck did I get here? I can't even remember what I thought about, I can't even remember driving here!” Let me share something my wife once told me, and she initially had me confused, until I understood what she meant. I realized, “Wow, how powerful is this. This has made a big difference in my life!” She said to me, “Think about what you think about!”

  In other words, when you've driven from point A to B and can't remember how you got there, sit down, make some quiet time and think back. Force yourself to try and think about what you thought about during this time. Think about that whole trip and suddenly you'll realize, but hang on.... I swore at that car that swerved in front of me, I made a rude gesture to that guy that jay-walked... suddenly you  realize just how many negative things you said and thought. We actually don't realize subconsciously how we have been conditioned to think negatively. If you can learn to think about what you think about, and use 'quiet time' to realize how many negative things we do in our lives, and then negate them... it's amazing how your life can change.

  What time do you wake up in the morning? If I am doing a keynote with a few thousand people, I ask the same question, I get 05h00, 05h30, 06h00, 06h30, 07h00. Most people, wake up on the hour or half an hour with a radio alarm clock – where the radio goes off on the hour or half an hour. I wake up at 17 minutes past 6! Why? I'll tell you why! When the radio alarm goes off on the hour or half an hour, the first thing you hear is the news! And what is the news? Bad! Negative! And guess what? No matter which co
untry you live in... it's ALL negative! And I actually have a challenge... if you are a journalist, here's my challenge to you, and if you're not, see if you agree with me. What is it that the media must always sensationalize events and put the negative angle in the news? The news is negative sensationalism. If there is an accident as an example, the headline will be, “12 Killed in horror crash!” Never mind the fact that the ambulance arrived in two minutes and saved 4 lives. Why couldn't the headline have been, “Ambulance arrives in 2 minutes and saves 4 lives!” No! We must always go the for negative. I challenge any journalist anywhere in the world, if you change the way that you word the headline and report the positive side, in 3 weeks the entire country's attitude will be more positive. But no, the editor says that won't sell! How crazy is that? By the way – that's conditioning!

  Re-condition yourself and start thinking differently. If you wake up on the hour or half an hour, you wake up with a negative news broadcast! Then you go to the bathroom, have breakfast and another half hour has gone by. Guess what? You hear another negative news broadcast! That's the 2nd one! Now you drive to work, and guess what? You hear another negative news broadcast. That's the 3rd one in the traffic, besides the fact that the traffic also irritates you. Now you arrive at work and walk into the office, “Aaargh” (all negative). Can anyone blame you? No! Because all you have heard the whole morning is a lot of negativity.

  When I woke up this morning, do you know what I heard? Mambo No. 5! Hey, guess what? Whether I like the music or not, it's more positive than the news! Thus, if you set your alarm (re-condition yourself) off the hour or half an hour., let us say, 7 minutes past or 7 minutes before, odds are you'll wake up to music. Guess what? The music is more positive than the news! You need to realize that when you are negative, it's not one thing that annoys you, it's a culmination of many little things. So start re-conditioning yourself to negate all the little irritations in your life, and odds are you will become way more positive. It's not much effort, all you need to do is change the setting on your alarm clock! How much effort does that take? And huge difference it makes in your perceptions!

  We have learnt to react without thinking – what I like to call learned reactions. I do an experiment in one of my keynotes where I really mess with people's minds. It's very risky, but it's very powerful when done live. I'll pick on the biggest guy in the audience, someone that looks like he doesn't take nonsense and whom I feel who could be a bit short tempered. I'll pick on him and become insulting until that person either gets up and walks out, or gets up and walks onto stage with the intention of giving me a clout. And then I hopefully stop them in time! So far I have! I shout, “Wait, stop, think about what you are doing, I'm sorry, I'm sorry!” Here they usually do a double take.

  The reaction of getting up, getting annoyed with me and coming onto stage wanting to hit me is not an internal normal reaction. It is a learned response to the behavior I displayed towards that stranger. People are blown away when you do this and actually see someone become so upset. Think about it, if someone does something insulting to you, your immediate reaction is to want to do it back to them, or even hurt them, i.e. teach them a lesson.

  Now if that person had just thought about their reaction, if they had just counted to ten and calmed down, maybe they would have realized that I playing a psychological game on them to prove a point. Or that I had a bad morning this morning, hence my behavior. This person may have come up with different alternatives. But we don't do that! Instead we immediately react because we saw someone on television do it, or we saw our parents do it.

  Stop being a sheeple. Re-condition yourself to think differently! How do you know what is right or wrong? How do you know thinking differently is also not a conditioned learned response? Does it feel right in your heart when you make a decision? Before you make a decision learn to count to ten, breath deeply and relax. When you practice this, you suddenly become aware of whether the decision that you take feels right within your heart. They always say that women have that 6th sense, they have that feeling! We all have it! We are just not aware of it. Personally I think women are more attuned to it.

  Even as a guy... for once just take a step back and ask yourself whether it feels right in your heart. Does it make me feel at peace with what I have decided? Then you are starting to move in the right direction.

  As a keynote speaker I speak in many places and for many organizations. One of these organizations that that has really touched my heart, by the depth of what they do, is Rotary. And they have a 4 way test that says it all.

  The first one is, “Is it the truth?” The heart will tell you whether it is the truth or not. You go with the truth. The second one is, “Is it fair to all concerned?” And that's including yourself. Because only then will you be comfortable with the decision and it will be the right thing to do. The third one is, “Will it build goodwill and better friendships?” Isn't that what it's all about? Building friendships and having goodwill all around? Then you know from within that it is the right thing to do and not some conditioned response which could be wrong. And the final test, and that's a biggie for me, is; “Will it be beneficial to all concerned?” And again, including yourself.

  I think these are 4 awesome tests, and if you want to find the truth, if you want to do something that is not a conditioned reaction, ask yourself those 4 questions! I have huge respect for Rotary because of their 4-way test.

  Here is my own personal example of how we are conditioned. You may relate to it, you may not. I'm not saying I'm right. I remember the first time I tried beer – the first time I tasted beer it was bitter, it wasn't nice at all.  It's not really my favorite drink. I'll drink it, especially on a very warm day, then it's nice to drink to cool me down. In fact in this instance it's not bad at all.  However, if I backtrack, the first time I tasted it, it was bitter and I didn't like the taste at all. How come I've changed my views? The first time you tasted beer, wasn't it also bitter? Thinking about it... we've been conditioned! Everyone drinks beer. You see the ads on television and are conditioned to believe that it's social and a great drink to cool you down. In summer it's great, it's tasty, and that 'tsssshhh' sound when you pop open the can makes it so appetizing! Maybe peer pressure also plays a role. Isn't it just society that's conditioned you to change, to shift your perceptions to like it? Does this make sense? We have to start becoming aware of all the things that are shifting our perceptions. Why do you think they stopped cigarette commercials?

  In summary I would like to leave you with 3 points.

  1. Become aware that we are conditioned and that we are a product of the society we live in. Once you are aware – only then can you try and do something about it. In future when you react, when you make a decision, remember what our parents told us... count to ten before you react. Breathe deeply if something happens and you're not quite sure what to do. Count to ten and think and use the 4 way test before doing anything.

  2. In a similar vein, be at peace with what you do. Find time to be quiet. Think about your day. When you react, don't explode and immediately lose your temper - as per the typical type A personality.

  3. Be aware of what is going on around you so that you can do something about it. Only then will the truth of who you are and what is really going on in the world make sense! Your perception has shifted - you become enlightened – and life starts having a different meaning.

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