Practical EQ

Martin Luther King on "what's the point" - thought for the day

Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree.

- Martin Luther King Jr.

A pen that monitors the writer's emotions

From New Scientist magazine: the Philips company has filed a patent for an 'expressive pen' that monitors how the writer is feeling, and alters ink colour and the shape of the nib accordingly.

Philips says: "Signatures are currently always the same, yet some documents will be signed with enthusiasm, others possibly with hesitation. Having a recording of this could be useful for historical reasons."

It will be a brave politician (for example) who submits to revealing how they feel when signing a treaty. For example, would a signature which expresses doubt or anxiety be viewed as less valid than a determined or happy one?

You are the elephant, you are the rider

How is it that you can want to stop smoking but still continue to smoke? Or want to eat healthily, but still give in to the temptation of junk food? Or resolve to be a better person, but still find yourself getting irritable?

Much has been written down the ages about how puny will power is when compared to our habits and desires, especially over an extended period of time. Sooner or later, our attention strays or our resolve weakens, and old habits reassert themselves.

The best metaphor I have seen for this mismatch between conscious intentions and unconscious behaviour comes from Jonathan Haidt's excellent and very readable book The Happiness Hypothesis: Putting Ancient Wisdom to the Test of Modern Science. He likens these two aspects of our selves to an elephant and its rider. The rider represents the 'controlled' processes of the mind, the planning and reasoning that takes place one step at a time in conscious awareness, while the elephant represents the hundreds of automatic operations we carry out every second outside of conscious awareness.

The elephant has been around a lot longer than the rider. It includes emotions, gut feelings, and visceral responses, and, like Pavlov's dog, responds to stimulus control, whether the stimulus-response pairings are innate (like the startle response) or learned (like the urge to answer the phone when it rings).

The rider, by contrast, has very little influence on behaviour. Although he can look into the future, imagine hypothetical scenarios, and make plans, he cannot order the elephant to do anything. Essentially, the rider is an adviser. Usually, though, we don't realise this: we think either that we are in charge of the elephant, or  (perhaps more often) don't realise there is an elephant, and then are baffled or give ourselves a hard time when we don't stick to our resolutions and don't carry out the actions that we know we "should" be doing.

Problems occur when rider and elephant are not operating in harmony. The great hypnotherapist Milton Erickson used to say that the reason his clients had problems was because their conscious and unconscious minds were out of rapport.

In a direct contest between the rider and the elephant, the elephant will win every time. It's a lot bigger and stronger, and, as Haidt points out, our automatic processes have been honed over millions of years of evolution to work pretty much perfectly. The controlled processes, by contrast, are a recent development - 'Rider 1.0' - and still have some bugs to be ironed out.

It is possible, though, for the rider to use his ingenuity to train the elephant in various subtle ways, to distract it from harmful stimuli, and to refocus its attention on more productive goals. Nor should the flow of information be just one way. The elephant is aware of much more of what is going on in the surrounding environment than is the rider, so listening to what the elephant can tell us (in the form of feelings, intuitions, dreams and even physical symptoms) can help us to make much better plans and decisions.

In future articles I'll be exploring the nature of the elephant/rider relationship further, and outlining some practical ways in which our conscious minds (the rider) can both influence and learn from our unconscious minds (the elephant).

Haidt's book is about much more than this, by the way. Despite being easy to read, it's so rich in information, useful perspectives and research information that I expect I'll be integrating some of its implications and thinking about the many ways in which they can be useful for some time to come. Highly recommended!

Read more about the book: US | UK

Another blog posting mentioning the elephant/rider idea:

Leadership by and for rider/elephants by Dave Shearon on Positive Psychology News Daily

If you would like to learn some ways of communicating with and influencing your elephant, you might want to check out my courses in Manchester, UK this spring:

NLP Foundation Skills 21-24 February

NLP Practitioner Training (18 days in total, starts 21 February)

Self-Hypnosis Made Easy 26 April

New Year's Resolutions - what works, for women and men

A year-long study by psychologist Richard Wiseman has been looking into New Year's Resolutions and what helps people to stick to them, and it's come up with some useful findings. Interestingly, they have been able to generalise that different things work for men and women.

The main findings in brief:

• Don't wait until New Year's Eve to decide on your resolution - take time to reflect on what's really important to you and what you want to achieve.

For men:

• Make your goals specific and measurable. Make a plan, mapping out the steps to your goal, and stick to it. Put the plan where you can see it.
• Focus on the benefits of achieving your goal. Again, list these benefits and put the list where you can see it every day.

For women:

• Go public. Tell someone about your resolution, to make it less likely that you will forget about it.
• Get encouragement - if you slip from your resolution, having someone to encourage you will get you back on track again.

The results were written up in these articles in the Guardian and the Daily Telegraph, although there aren't many details on Wiseman's own web site. The advice is pleasingly in line with what I've written in previous blog entries about goal setting.

Of course, these are generalisations - some of what they found worked for most men may still help if you are a woman, and vice versa. There's nothing to stop you using all Wiseman's tips in combination to give yourself the greatest chance of success. And remember - New Year is just an arbitrary date. You can start making changes in your life at any time.

Emotional Intelligence MP3 downloads - for a limited time only!

Dr Relly Nadler runs an internet radio show on VoiceAmericaBusiness on which he interviews top names in emotional intelligence and related areas of psychology and leadership development. There are 12 shows archived which can be downloaded as MP3s - but apparently they will be wiped on January 7th.

The interviews are well worth listening to, featuring big names like Richard Boyatzis, Marco Iacoboni (the 'mirror neuron' guy) and Marshall Goldsmith. You can download the interviews from this site: http://tinyurl.com/2rc7sl

Like I said, do it now before they disappear!