How to build discipline and brainwash yourself | Hacker News Reader

How to build discipline and brainwash yourself

ryanwaggoner.com

253 pointsryanwaggoner128 comments

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Reasons to not buy the book:

1. I am a scientist. This sure doesn't seem like science to me.

Reasons to buy the book:

1. I am too ignorant to be pessimistic.

2. The source of the suggestion. Ryan's judgement usually seems pretty sound.

Two reasons are better than one. Just bought the book.

I'll start on Monday. I'll start on Monday. I'll start on Monday. I'll start on Monday. I'll start on Monday. I'll start on Monday. I'll start on Monday. I'll start on Monday. I'll start on Monday.

Ha! I'm flattered; hope it works for you.

On the science question, I'd be interested to read more about the science of motivation. It seems intuitive that reading the same thing over and over would tend to reinforce it in your mind. Isn't that the basis for propaganda and brainwashing in general? However, intuition and science are often orthogonal, so some hard data would be interesting.

The brainiacs at LessWrong have been thinking, discussing and arguing about akrasia for a long time - http://lesswrong.com/tag/akrasia/. You will find some references to scientific studies and data there.

Sounds like a very difficult nut to crack.

Regular LessWrong reader, infrequent LW contributor here.

I think the problem with akrasia is it's a lot like "being sick" - if you call your physician on the phone and say, "I'm sick" he won't be able to really help you without further diagnosis.

Seems like akrasia could be any one of a couple dozen things (fear of failure, fear of success, habit, chemical addiction, many more things). We're not at a point in anti-akrasia/rationality/motivation/etc to be able to accurately diagnose and treat all of the causes of it.

I think we'll get there, though. Someday. Quite a ways off. But progress is being made. In the meantime, I'll second Ryan's recommendation for the book. It's good.

We also may just not be able to fix it. Some things we just can't do, regardless of our science and engineering.

For example, we are the most prosperous civilization in history, yet we have record rates of suicide and unhappiness compared to more "backward" civilizations. In fact, the 20th century has been the most horrific in the history of the world, yet it was also the most advanced.

If akrasia is something we can "fix," why haven't we fixed it by now? Surely not for lack of trying.

I don't see much evidence of trying, and where I do see evidence of trying I see a lot of "fixing".

I see Buddhists and meditators fix their problem of "I want to do something but can't make myself do it" by erasing the "want" part, I see disciplinarians and organisers strengthening their ability to make themselves do things and meditators and organisers reduce the obstacles in their way of doing things.

How many people do you know who have one or two self help books which they read (or partly read) but didn't really act on? Does that count as trying?

How many schools and colleges and night schools do you know which have courses in "curing yourself of procrastination"? Any?

It still seems very much stuck in the past, like natural philosophers talking about phlogiston. Some self help techniques work, but finding which you click with and doing them right and keeping trying until you get results and avoiding the dross and doing so while not being affected by whatever problems you have that you want to change isn't a simple thing and people generally don't seem to "try hard" at it (in the right ways).

I am a scientist. This sure doesn't seem like science to me.

I'm not an expert in self-motivation so I don't know if there are placebo controlled randomized experiments to test effectiveness of self-motivation, but it seems like a reasonable and testable hypothesis that there are some real cognitive effects.

We know that athletes exhibit "muscle memory" where after prolonged repetition of a physical motion there are real changes that occur in the brain to make future repetitions sub-conscious, i.e. "being in the zone".

I suppose there could be an analagous system for higher order cognitive processes.

Given that the placebo effect is real, why not just use a placebo. Sure, this book may not be better than a placebo, but it's $8. If you get any positive effect at all it's probably worth it.

This book requires you to do something for 3 time everyday for a year. That time is probably wroth a lot more than $8. So, I'd say some proof wouldn't be asked too much.

Like most diet plans, this is one of those things which is very difficult to prove in the general case and quite easy to test for the individual. If you think it might work you can try it for a couple of weeks and see if it has any noticeable effects. If it does, that's well and good; if it doesn't, big deal.

Now, from my point of view the idea that something like this could work is quite plausible. Repeat something to yourself often enough and you'll start to believe it? Sure, that sounds like the kind of thing that the human brain is just dumb enough to fall for.

Personally I wouldn't do it in this precise form. Repeat that passage to yourself and you'll feel silly. For starters, it's written in pseudo-archaic English words which the author doesn't actually understand. "I will be liken to"? That isn't even a sensible grammatical construction.

If the excerpt given in the original post is any indication, the wording of the passages is probably too general to be of any direct effect but there is some evidence that forming what are known as "implementation intentions" does have some effect in helping direct oneself in goal attainment (http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/dont-delay/201001/implem...). So it could be that reminding your self to "persist" can lead you to form a more specific intention that does help you towards goal achievement, but you're probably better off just making your own set of implementation intentions and reading those each day.

I'm a fan of implementation intentions and have found them to work well.

There is a good book chapter from Bas Verplanke called "Habits and implementation intentions". A pdf of the chapter can be downloaded from http://uit.no/getfile.php?PageId=1935&FileId=312 The chapter focuses on habits and then how implementation intentions can be used to change them.

Priming effects could also explain the results: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Priming_(psychology)

There's most definitely an analogous system for higher order cognitive processes. If you play Starcraft a lot, you will get better at Starcraft. If you program a lot, you will get better at programming. If you write a lot, you will get better at writing.

The part I'm not sure about is that additional level of abstraction. In my experience, if you read about programming a lot, you may get marginally better at programming, but nowhere near as good as you would've gotten had you spent that time programming. Similarly, if you read about persisting a lot, I doubt you'll get as good as you would if, every time you thought about quitting, you told yourself 'no' and kept going.

There is a point, since there will be diminishing returns, but you miss the concept of complementary training.

For instance, it is afaik hard to become a good chess player without reading a bit about opening theory and reading about old matches. It is hard to become good at graphics programming without some math. And so on.

Well, we all know that spending time in the company of achievement minded, practical people tends to help with achievement. After all, friendships are really just a regular series of communications with people we tend to agree with. We can even be changed / motivated by people we've never actually met, such as politicians, actors, preachers, whomever. So clearly you don't even need a two-way communication for this to work. It's also possible to be affected by an 'enemy' if you spend enough time with them. So clearly you don't even have to see the person as a friend to accept influence, although it's likely that the less you respected the source, the less influence they woudl have. And it's also clear that, unless this process takes place over time, it's unlikely to be 'life changing'.

I can see how a book of repetitive phrases would tap into the same process that causes us to be influenced by friends and other people we respect. The book is really just a way of a message being communicated back to us. You could probably think of it as a hack to get positive ideas burnt into your subconcious on a large scale. And also, it's obviously important that you respect the book (and by extension, the author). Friendships work when you let the friends have influence over your life because you value their opinion.

I read a lot of these types of books, and I've been questioned why. I figure I'm just going to spend the time either reading fiction books or watching TV, anyway, so why not?

"I'm not an expert in self-motivation so I don't know if there are placebo controlled randomized experiments to test effectiveness of self-motivation, but it seems like a reasonable and testable hypothesis that there are some real cognitive effects."

Maybe. But people sure buy a lot of different self-help books that claim to be THE WAY.

A large part (to all) of the benefit from those books is certainly from placebo, so that claim is logical...

What does it mean that the book is not scientific? It's just a tool. Is a spade scientific?

You only need scientific method to organize observations. There are no observations here. There's nothing scientific about 'discipline', but it's still useful.

The approach taken in writing the book was not scientific. There were no studies to determine if the phrases and methodology actually work better than a placebo (whatever that would be...lorem ipsum?). It's possible that this approach is no better than anything else, and it only seems to have a positive effect on people because it's what they happened to be doing.

Not being scientific doesn't mean it doesn't work. Plenty of tools and techniques have been invented and developed without science that turn out to be effective when subjected to scientific analysis (example: many plants used for medicinal purposes). It seems to me, though, that many more turn out to be hogwash (examples: many plants used for medicinal purposes, blood-letting, homeopathy, prayer-as-treatment).

In short, P(tool developed w/ science is effective) > P(tool developed w/o science is effective), and I don't know of a methodology more effective than science for determining the effectiveness of a tool or technique.

P(tool developed w/ science is effective) > P(tool developed w/o science is effective)

Agreed, but there was no claim to science, at least from the description.

To me the original article seemed to air an opinion. Asking 'where's the science?' is akin to asking for proof, which makes no sense when we're discussing opinions.

To me, "it's unproven" is just unfavorable opinion without articulating reasons. So I don't think it should get a vote in edw's comment :)

(upvoted you, btw. You were at -1. Downvoting such a high-quality comment is a classic example of voting by agreement. I think I'm going to start a site highlighting the stupidest votes on HN everyday..)

> You were at -1

Thanks. This isn't the first time I've made a thoughtful reply to a "science isn't important" comment. The last time, my comment didn't get as many upvotes as its parent, so I'm not too surprised that my comment wasn't received well this time, either.

To you, "it's unproven" is not a valid reason for rejecting this book. But it is a valid reason for many other people, especially since it takes a great deal of commitment to use this (unproven) tool.

Full disclosure, I just bought the book :) Would still really like to see it proven effective by science, but am not putting the burden of proof on anyone in particular (original author is dead) nor holding my breath.

"Would still really like to see it proven effective by science.."

Absolutely. Proven or disproven, or more likely a more nuanced picture will emerge of when repetition works.

I think of science as this wavefront that lags the frontiers of what we work on. But it'll get here eventually.

I don't know of any scientific studies which the best type of broom to sweep a hallway with or the best hammer to hit a nail into a piece of wood with. Yet somehow I've managed to use these tool.

I don't know of scientific studies showing the effectiveness of repeated affirmations (though I'd suspect there are some). They still seem like a very plausible tool.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. By that token, there are some claims so ordinary that they only require the ordinary evidence of experience.

You haven't heard of ConsumerReports.org?

Edit: go ahead and make decisions based on whatever criteria you feel is appropriate. Nobody has the time to read peer-reviewed journals on everything, and at some point you have to rely on the recommendations of your friends or people with the relevant expertise. You may feel that these techniques are equivalent to a spade or broom or hammer, but others may feel it's a large time commitment they would not otherwise make, or be too close to the realm of psychology/medicine, and require more than just "Works for me!" before trying it themselves.

As I said before, the lack of science didn't stop me either.

I completely agree, and I would love to see some evidence like this, one way or another. However, I'm not going to avoid trying it out in the absence of scientific evidence. That's just not an effective way to live, and we have an array of tools to evaluate things where science hasn't yet poked its nose. For example, if someone posts a link to a library or framework that they really enjoyed and found useful in a project, we don't avoid it until we find a study comparing it to a control group. No, we try it out, we look at the advice of those we trust, we look at what others have done with it, etc.

There are more questions in the world than science can ever hope to address, and sometimes you have to make a decision with limited information.

There are plenty of things that science has shown can work in the areas of motivation, discipline, etc., that one would think it would at least make sense to look there first.

Is "plenty of things" enough to post a link to some? Do you practice any of these things? Otherwise, your comment does not add much to the discussion (and hence the down votes, I think).

I did in another comment: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1938239, and anyone with rudimentary Google skills should be able to find others, but my comment here is that in this area there are so many things put forth as useful with no evidence but that this is also an area where many people doing real science are finding things of practical use that it's probably better to start by seeing what those people have found first and trying that. It is not, as the OP suggest, a place where "science has not yet poked its nose". Do I have to provide links to cancer treatments shown to work before recommending people try experimental treatments only as a last resort?

And we also do the science ourselves by trying it and sharing our observations, as you did. Thanks for the link, and I hope it works for me!

Edit: oh, and I said pretty much the same thing as you just did in another of my replies[1]. Maybe I didn't put enough disclaimers in my original post?

[1] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1938305

What does it mean that the book is not scientific?

There's no scientific justification to its methodology. So we don't know that repeating particular phrases over and over can change one's mind or behavior in a meaningful way.

Who cares if it's a placebo if it works.

We're hackers here. There is no magic behind the scenes.

I bought the book, but I don't think that it being a placebo is the only danger. What if it has negative effects on your way of thinking? What if it has no effect for most people? What if it has a negative effect (e.g. on people with low self-esteem as another comment points out)? What if there's a better way of achieving the same result? What if we don't even know what the right 'what if' questions to ask are?

The low self-esteem is a very valid point. I've had some very strong negative reactions to people telling me to "get over it" in terms of a couple of personal insecurities and faults, and going over the thoughts makes it worse, at least in terms of dealing with the emotions as valid. In fact, thinking about these faults conventionally leads to a deepening of the unwanted behavior.

Having started to meditate in the Vipassana style has started to teach me to accept, but not embrace these emotions. In a less hippy-dippy way, there could be actualization training that helps people get on the right path first, defeating these types of emotions.

What is a placebo in this case?

I posit that it's something that will make you think it worked (and you'll recommend the book to all your friends), but won't make any actual positive impact on your discipline. Basically if it's a placebo, it would give you self-delusion instead of results.

Actually, the placebo effect is not a delusion, that's why it's called that and not "the placebo delusion." A better analogy would be something that worked despite not believing that it will. Results despite opinion, as it were.

The upshot is that discipline is self-evident. Anything that has an effect on discipline is indistinguishable from placebo. Either you're getting more done or you aren't, there's not a lot of room for "getting stuff done, but in a fake way."

Unless you take time to measure how much you get done (how would you even measure such a thing consistently?) - you might think you're getting more done even though you're not. Kind of like multitasking can feel really productive, even though productivity actually decreases.

I didn't say we don't know how it works, we don't even know if it works.

Actually I haven't read much of Ryan's blog/comments to make any opinion about him. But I definitely know that edw519 makes many interesting, informative comments on hn. And if he believes in Ryan's judgement, so will I.

It's not science, it's engineering.

Ummm, no. I'm really happy that bridges are built using more rigor than is found in self-help books.

What weights are you assigning to each or your reasons that the sum of the 2 reasons "for" outweigh the 1 reason against?

By the power of anthropic principle, AKA naïve reasoning, I call upon the practice of double-counting my evidence and gain a BOOK.

Follow some psychology courses and then review your assertion that it doesn't seem like science.

From a behavioral and cognitive view of psychology, gaining motivation from passages in the book is comparable to observed learning. If the motivation one gains from reading the book results in positive results then according to contingency conditioning theory it should result in reinforcement of the behavior, thereby producing an upward spiral. The book probably also influences humans' by altering their beliefs and therefore perceptions during top-down processing of information.

From a biomedical view of psychology, reading a passage 1000 times probably alters your brain structure in significant enough ways that it alters your motivational attitudes. I think that if you put people who read the book in an fMRI scanner you'll see some difference compared to control people.

>> I am a scientist. This sure doesn't seem like science to me.

maybe it's nietzsche or one of the romanticists you should start with then

I hesitated before submitting this here, because motivational / self-improvement stuff is a hard sell with the HN crowd (and for good reason). However, I've found it very helpful, and thought someone else here might as well. We all like to read deep, technical things that make us smarter and more knowledgeable, but it turns out that most people fail not because they're not smart enough or knowledgeable enough, but because they lack the discipline and drive to match their goals and ambitions.

How about writing your own mantras and them repeating on the book's schedule?

I agree that this could be a really effective approach, and I did consider it, particularly because I'm a Christian and I spent more time reading this book than I do reading my Bible :)

Actually, you've just given me an idea; I'm going to put together something like this for hackers and founders. Come to think of it, that's a little of what we're doing at http://hn.21times.org, though the articles are too long for this kind of repetitive reading. Any suggestions?

Proverbs. It conveniently has 31 chapters (one for each day of the month) and is full of useful... well, proverbs. The mix of the painfully down to earth and strongly God centred is helpful sometimes as well.

Edit: this isn't so much a suggestion to founders/hackers in general, more to the Christian ones given your comment above. Plenty of good stuff in there for everyone, though.

These are some of my positive mantras I got from a book that had been very helpful.

Replace

"I have to" with "I choose to"

"I must finish" with "When can I start"

"This is so big" with "I can take a small step"

"I must be perfect" with "I can be human"

"I don't have time to play" with "I must take time to play"

There is no reason you can't - but I find the advantage of taking someone else's mantra is that it comes 'baggage free'. I feel that if I absorb an 'external' mantra, it has more authority and lacks the subconscious emotional baggage that I would bring writing my own.

I realise this is very 'airy fairy' thinking, but heck, the whole article is about playing mind games with yourself to gain a benefit so it's not that out of place :)

To ameliorate that you could find external mantras that resonate with your idea of who you want to be. I feel like the biggest weakness of this system could be that, if the mantras don't jive with your conception of a better person, you'll never be able to stick to the schedule.

Totally agree. It can be it's biggest weakness, but it can also be its greatest strength depending on what you are trying to achieve. If you are trying to improve a specific aspect of your behaviour/life, then a specifically tailored set of mantras would be appropriate. If you are seeking to generally improve, then a 'preset' set of mantras could be as good, and may even be better (based on the principle that you can't improve what you don't know needs improving).

I guess an analogy being the reason I like reading HN - it covers topics that I didn't know I would find interesting until I read about them. If I only read web pages specifically covering my interests, I'll never grow as a person as I would be forever stuck in my limited worldview.

Even worse- it won't work if you don't believe it won't. It's a clear placebo effect type of situation.

I'm one of those weird people that thinks medications- even ones given to me by a doctor- won't work. As a consequence, even biologically active drugs often fail to do anything for me. It's called the nocebo effect. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nocebo

Anyway, for me, I'm so skeptical about things that self-help books are as helpful to me as being hit on the head with a frying pan. I actually did get the 4-hour work week out of the library but my eyes spent so much time rolling out of my head they started to hurt, so I threw it across the room.

You should totally download my eBook which covers all of the intricacies of properly selecting self-help reading material. Free for an unlimited time: http://rapin.com/self-help.html

More subtlety would have helped.

Wow, apparently Hacker News is filled with people who believe in stupid shit created by Indian mystics! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mantra

If you believe this, perhaps you'll also believe I have psychic link with my cat... I swear, I know what she's thinking. It involves mice, so I know it's true.

The practice of Mantra recitation is only one application of a trait of the human brain and how it functions. Namely, that reciting something aloud speeds up the process of internalization. Have you ever had a music instructor that made you sing your part instead of playing it? Same concept.

If you associate certain ideas with each other over and over again by force, your brain will start to perceive the association as correct.

"Mantra" has sort of become a linguistic shortcut for referring to this effect and its application.

Question, is the major benefit that you had the discipline to read this book for a year? You didn't go into what you're doing differently now that you weren't a year ago.

I'll cover that in another post, but yes, I feel much, much more disciplined and in control now. Particularly around daily habits. I have about a dozen habits that I do Mon-Fri and I haven't missed a single one in more than a year. For the last three months, I've been getting up at 345am seven days a week and I haven't missed a single day. It's not all this book and it's hard to describe, but there's a difference.

You mean you have been getting up at quarter to four? That's impressive. When do you go to bed?

I find that I need so much sleep, that getting up at four would require me to go to bed at 18.00 or so.

A month ago I started getting up an hour earlier and exercising before work. Now that I'm getting exercise I'm sleeping better and thus need less sleep. YMMV

Interesting.

I have started Rippetoe's strength training program in April 2010, and it works nicely, but it did not affect my sleep.

(Although on days when I don't exercise I sometimes have a harder time falling asleep. Especially when I have just picked up caffeine on that day again.)

I've been getting up at 345am seven days a week and I haven't missed a single day.

For me it sounds like a solid reason not to touch this book, ever.

There was a study which pointed out that this only works if you have self confidence, then you can brainwash yourself with affirmations like those.

But if you are insecure, then affirmations actually make you worse of because it is like poking your vicious inner self-critic with a stick.

I'd love to cite the study but my google-fu fails me today.

http://www.economist.com/node/13815141?story_id=13815141

http://www.psychologicalscience.org/media/releases/2009/wood...

Read this sentence three times a day for five weeks:

"The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results."

Why is that insanity? Is it because you expect that the future will be like the past and thus continuing to do the same thing that you've been doing will produce the same results?

Well, why do you think the future will be like the past?

Is it because, in the past, the future was always like the past, and thus by induction the future will continue to be like the past?

But why should you trust induction? Is it because in the past induction has been trustworthy and thus you expect it will continue to be trustworthy in the future?

Well, why do you expect the future to be like the past?

But I often do the same thing repeatedly fully expecting different results because in between the state/context has changed...

I think this was a joke, but I hope no one has ever made any assessment or decision of any sort on the basis of this quip (incidentally, not Einstein's[1]).

This, of course, is not the definition of insanity, nor is it a remotely good proxy. Doing things over and over again -- whether chopping at that tree or going to the gym or working on a difficult problem -- should absolutely yield different results. All actions accumulate, some more than others.

[1] http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Rita_Mae_Brown

I always thought of the 'different result' as meaning improvement, and the action in repetition as being suboptimal. Thereby no matter how much you practice you will be at best improving sub-optimally.

This makes particular sense when you're practicing a musical instrument, bad habits will be more and more engraved as you repeat more. The best instrument players are those who have been taught or self-discovered good ways to improve, and put in the hard practice/repetition.

Have you ever used a computer?

That definition of insantiy is worthless. Consider this:

You push the button once. Nothing happens. You push it again. Nothing happens. Does that mean nothing will happen in the future? No; that all depends upon what's going on when you push the button. Perhaps nothing that _you can observe_ happens.

FWIW, 'insanity' has many different definitions depending upon what kind of insanity you're talking about. There are different types of psychoses, schizophrenia, and sociopathic behavior as well.

The repeating of the sentences every day has to do with your subconscious mind. Repeating it will record these words in your brain and with time your thinking will change along. If you read it once, probably tomorrow you won't remember what it said.

I'm not religious but this seems like prayer, where you repeat with similar frequency some ideas. Unlike established religion, here you can pick the subject you want to transfer to your mind as new habits of thought. Nice! I will check this book.

Christian prayer is usually non-repetitive. However I know in other religions (Islam say) that prayer is more often strictly formalised. I guess if you used the Book of Common Prayer or something then it would work for Anglicans too.

More like meditation, it made me think of Ps119:97+ or the last para of Phillipians; or indeed any of multiple places where the Bible reader is encouraged to meditate on scripture and hold it in their hearts (or indeed as the Jews act out "pin it to your forehead").

There are a lot of good motivational/business advice passages in the Bible, I'd be interested to see if somebody's assembled all of those into a collection.

A lot of them are already conveniently gathered in the book of Proverbs (see my comment above)

This was done, by no less than Thomas Jefferson:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jefferson_Bible

resulting in a 46 page bible.

Mormons also have their requirement to read Book of Mormon and pray daily. I'd caution to be really careful what information one chooses to reprogram their mind in that manner. You may end up believing or living by ideas that have no bearing on reality.

I just don't buy that saying something like:

Henceforth, I will consider each day’s effort as but one blow of my blade against a mighty oak. The first blow may cause not a tremor in the wood, nor the second, nor the third. Each blow, of itself, may be trifling, and seem of no consequence. Yet from childish swipes the oak will eventually tumble. So it will be with my efforts of today.

I will be liken to the rain drop which washes away the mountain; the ant who devours a tiger; the star which brightens the earth; the slave who builds a pyramid. I will build my castle one brick at a time for I know that small attempts, repeated, will complete any undertaking.

is going to help me do anything but look silly. Maybe I'm just a pragmatic rationalist.

Maybe I'm just a pragmatic rationalist.

Interesting that you chose the word pragmatic, since pragmatism says that an idea needs to be tested and found valid before considered true. I've done that to the best of my ability in my own life, while you're rejecting it out of hand, without testing or validation.

As for rationalism, are you really convinced that it's irrational or unreasonable to believe that reading the same thing over and over will help reinforce it in your mind? Perhaps you're the type of person who can hear something once and immediately apply it to all relevant areas of your life, but I'm not.

I know that I should just small steps towards a very challenging goal. I know that not giving up in the face of overwhelming adversity is important. I know that time is the most valuable resource I have. But those things are hard to remember in the thick of it, when my emotions are telling me to stop, give up, waste time.

At the end of the day, you are a slave to your habits and your defined ways of thinking about yourself and the world around you. Better to be a slave to good habits and positive ways of thinking. Greatness is rarely achieved without a healthy dose of hubris about one's own abilities, ignorance about what is realistic, or both.

Let's flip this around: what are you trying to accomplish with your life? And what's the biggest internal roadblock to you accomplishing it?

As much as I enjoy and have profited by reading Mandino's books, I have to point out that from a hacker perspective, there's a significant case of prior art in Benjamin Franklin's attempt to perfect his character by practicing each of 13 virtues for a week, cycling through them all four times over the course of a year. Not having computers, he used the technology of his time and made a chart to mark his progress. It's detailed in his autobiography and I would be greatly surprised if Mandino was unfamiliar with it. Googling "Benjamin Franklin virtue chart" will provide lots of discussion with anecdotes on the efficacy of the approach.

Mandino specifically discusses Franklin's method in Chapter 3 of "The Greatest Secret In The World"; this is from the Kindle edition thereof, the only one of Mandino's books I've seen, so I don't know if earlier editions or Mandino's original book mentioned it.

Does anyone else find it a little obnoxious that ryan waggoner insists on posting every one of his blog posts on HN? If that's what I wanted, I'd just subscribe to his RSS feed.

First, I don't post all of my posts. It might seem that way because I blog every day, but out of the 21 or so blog posts that I published in November, I've submitted exactly four to HN. And only two have made the homepage.

Second, if people don't find it useful or engaging, they'll stop upvoting it.

Should i say: http://www.amazon.com/Pragmatic-Thinking-Learning-Refactor-P...

The book: http://pragprog.com/titles/ahptl/pragmatic-thinking-and-lear...

A mindmap that describes the contents pretty well: http://media.pragprog.com/titles/ahptl/MindMapWeb.png

The remainders of "The Greatest Secret in the World" replaced with exercices and pieces about being more aware of many essential skills. Through the exercises and losely coupled chapters, you can learn some core disciplines of the whole human race.

Let me explain.

It's like a manual for the simplest things in live like control about yourself, how the brain works, performance in any situation and so on. It makes a real difference for you, once you have understood and practiced for a while. But it is worth the effort.

Books are like a stream of knowledge, when they are really packed to the smallest possible pieces of text. The first read through is an enjoyment of well written text and assembled graphics, tips and exercises. But when you work while you read it gets even better.

Riding a bycycle is a pretty good metaphor on the whole thing. You need to learn how to ride a bike. So you need a bike.

I assume you already have a brain, since you are reading this.

Then you probably want to know how it works and evolves, in many details and exercises? One chapter. Go for it.

It reads closely to the offense of structure of very well written code, but in human readable text.

This is my opinion and i'd like to hear from others what they think, by all means. :)

I reject the term 'brainwash' and choose instead to replace it with 'creative visualization.' A technique familiar to most serious athletes and the rationale behind the word 'training.'

The thinking is simple: Visualize your goal in full detail before you actually create it. Edwin Moses' '13 steps' rule is a perfect example.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwin_Moses

In this regard, it's not that far from 'The Law of Attraction.' Through discipline, hard work, patience, and confidence, the goal approaches you as you approach it.

I can only imagine that if you are writing a post about the book that you did in fact read the passages as recommended. I personally am curious however if you ever reached a point of skimming? I am not sure if I could see the benefit in re-reading the same thing over and over. Yes, it instills the point their trying to make, but at what point is it overkill? Not to discredit it, but it reminds me of the whole process people with anxiety take to calm themselves down..."It will all be fine", "I am ok", "Things are out of my control", etc.

My grandfathers managed to get their work done, all of it, without chanting mantras on a schedule. One of them was a farmer and part-time blacksmith, the other a cod fisherman.

Are you sure?

May have something to do with starving if the job was not done. Quite a strong motivator. Not sure if it's a good thing or not, but not many of us will literally starve if we do not get some of our job done, so being sloppy does not have severe negative consequences.

That's exactly what I was shooting at. I realize that my occasional apathy is a great luxury that my grandparents didn't have.

I find inspiration in knowing that I am a stone's throw away from real hardship.

I would seriously consider acquiring an audio version

Or make your own.

Great post Ryan. Curious, do you think it would be more helpful to repeat statements like these or questions that make you think?

In other words, which of these repeated daily would have more of an effect on self discipline:

“Today, I will multiply my value a hundredfold." vs. "What am I doing today to multiply my value by a hundredfold?"

I think the latter is a more advanced form of the original. The first is just a statement. The 2nd assumes the statement to already be true, you're just examining the possibilities of how to manifest it's "trueness".. for lack of a better word.

I would agree. It begins to make one think of the "how" behind it.

The Greatest Salesman in the World is still being published, I have a copy sitting on my bookshelf right now. It was a gift, and I never read it. If anyone knows, what are the difference between the two?

Maybe I'm a big softie, but does anyone else think that some of the images used in the excerpt are overly aggressive?

"blow of my blade against a mighty oak" "the ant who devours a tiger"

I'm not sure such images would inspire me.

Does anyone know if there is a plugin for this HN upvote message? I love it: https://skitch.com/kadavy/rb5pk/hn-upvote

just put it on the pirate bay.

Scroll I Today I begin a new life. Only principles endure and these I now possess..For what is success other than a state of mind? Which two, among a thousand wise men, will define success in the same words; yet failure is always described but one way. 'Failure is man’s inability to reach his goals in life, whatever they may be.'

Scroll II I will greet this day with love in my heart. And how will I act? I will love all manners of men for each has qualities to be admired even though they be hidden. With love I will tear down the wall of suspicion and hate which they have built round their hearts and in its place will I build bridges so that love may enter their souls.

Scroll III I will persist until I succeed. Nor will I allow yesterday’s success to lull me into today’s complacency, for this is the great foundation of failure. I will forget the happenings of the day that is gone, whether they were good or bad, and greet the new sun with confidence that this will be the best day of my life. So long as there is breath in me, that long will I persist. For now I know one of the greatest principles of success; if I persist long enough, I will win.

Scroll IV I am nature’s greatest miracle. Since the beginning of time never has there been another with my mind, my heart, my eyes, my ears, my hands, my hair, my mouth. None that come tomorrow can walk and talk and move and think exactly like me. All men are my brothers yet I am different from each. I am a unique creature.

Scroll V I will live this day as if it is my last. And if it is my last, it will be my greatest monument. This day I will make the best day of my life. This day I will drink every minute to its full. I will savor its taste and give thanks. I will maketh every hour count and each minute I will trade only for something of value.

Scroll VI Today I will be the master of my emotions. And how will I master my emotions so that every day is a happy day, and a productive one? I will learn this secret of the ages: Weak is he who permits his thoughts to control his actions; strong is he who forces these actions to control his thoughts.

Scroll VII I will laugh at the world. And with my laughter all things will be reduced to their proper size. I will laugh at my failures and they will vanish in could of new dreams; I will laugh at my successes and they will shrink to their true value.

Scroll VIII Today I will multiply my value a hundredfold. One grain of wheat when multiplied a hundredfold will produce a hundred stalks. Multiply these a hundredfold, ten times, and they will feed all the cities of the earth. Am I not more than a grain of wheat?

Scroll IX I will act now. My procrastination which has held me back was born of fear and now I recognize this secret mined from the depths of all courageous hearts. Now I know that to conquer fear I must always act without hesitation and the flutters in my heart will vanish. Now I know that action reduces the lion of terror to an ant of equanimity.

Scroll X Guidance. Never will I pray for the material things of the world…only guidance will I pray, that I may be shown the way to acquire these things, and my prayer will always be answered. ---

From wikipedia.

It seems like a "poor man's" or lazy guy's autogenic training.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autogenic_training

Did it for quite awhile. And I got great results, amongst them: lucid dreaming, increased focus, reduced anxiety. I used to race downhill bikes at the time - and autogenic training combined with autosuggesty actually helped me reach previously inconceivable levels of performance.

What the book and the article gets wrong (and probably most people who are trying it) is the time frame in which you perform your training.

You absolutely must not think in past or future tense. Form the mantra in present - it doesn't matter if the statements don't sound right. Present yourself with affirmative thoughts and you will get considerably confident and motivated about your goals.

Before races I would repeat in my mind(speaking or murmuring is even better): I am well trained. I am well prepared for the task ahead of me. I know the track. I am calm. My heart rate is low. I am a champion. On this track I am the dog to beat. - while visualizing the track and breathing slowly.

You see I learned this while suffering grave lack of self esteem due to insane levels of preparation and training that left me lacking any considerable results. I also suffered due to lack of acknowledgement of my skill from other riders. And then I came across this writing that proposed that Ego does need to get stroked and patted for confidence. BUT that it is not necessary for other people to do it, any kind of encouragement works - even self induced. This is a case where build it and they will come actually works.

> and autogenic training combined with autosuggesty actually helped me reach previously inconceivable levels of performance.

You keep using that word 'inconceivable', I don't think you understand what it means ;)

Why was it inconceivable that you could achieve such levels of performance if you then actually went about and achieved them ?

When you have low self esteem the only thing you know is that you can't do shit, you may work as hard as you want. Like Henry Ford said: "Whether you think you can, or you think you can't--you're right."

So I just wanted to say that for me, using a psychological tool (a hack if you will) really worked.

The black Friday bug seems to have hit HN. Two purchasing suggestions in two days with loads of social comments (making it enticing of course).

So why do we celebrate Thanksgiving?

Give it time, soon Thanksgiving will become an artifact of a holiday with a small loyal following and Black Friday will become the real holiday.

So you chaps really do celebrate Thanksgiving - I thought it was just a plot element in sitcoms...

Well, if by "celebrate" you mean "eat a lot of food", then yes!

Who's we? I don't.

Remind me: why is this on the frontpage of HN, again?

Because there are loads of slackers reading HN, who'd like to change.

Now go back to work!

Why couldn't I just make a little book for myself that would include inspirational quotes from my own personal heroes and just read them out aloud them every day?

I mean seriously... That example scroll just seemed kinda tootsy wootsy, some might even say "gay", like in a harry-potter-fantasy-world kind of way.

You could. And probably should. I've thought about doing that myself, as I have no shortage of quotes and inspirational passages that I have collected from my readings over the years. But this book was a good place to start, and while corny, I found the message to be solid.

Hey, this might do absolutely nothing for you, which is fine. Like I said, I found it helpful and I perceive a difference in my attitudes and behaviors after spending a year with this book. But that's just me.

I already have one. :)

I didn't question whether this book has worked for you or not, it's good if it has and more power to you.

It's about the reader's own attitude towards it. If you really believe in those passages (which, based on the passage, seem to be written like horoscopes) then of course they're going to work for you. Just like horoscopes magically seem to work into every situation.

In my humble honest opinion, advice like "I will persist until I succeed" just creates train wrecks. Especially when repeated 75 times in a month. I also believe that self help books like this one tend to cloud the reader's judgement and inflate their egos - which is not nice.

But then he wouldn't get the Amazon affiliate revenue :(

Yeah, that $0.48 commission is why I spent a year reading this book three times a day. You caught me.

It's a bit mean to call you out over an affiliate link; but if you didn't care about the commission, you wouldn't have provided the link.

Of course he cares about the commission, but he obviously (I hope) didn't care about it so much that it became the reason why he wrote the post. It's just a bonus perk that happens to be available -- why should he turn it down?

If I invite you to a party and you get yourself a drink when you get there did you only come to the party so you could get a drink?

If you care about him not having the commission then it is simple to work around.

I don't care one way or the other.

However I do think it's slightly disingenuous to brush off a comment about affiliate payments in such a flippant way, when monetisation seems to provide at least some motivation for writing the blog (http://ryanwaggoner.com/2010/11/october-2010-blog-income-upd...).

The original poster suggested that one could simply put together a booklet of custom sayings and read that, to which mike-cardwell responded that I wouldn't receive the Amazon affiliate revenue in that case. This makes it sound like the culmination of all the work I put in over the last year is to be able to post this blog post and collect some affiliate revenue. I find this completely ludicrous; I'll be lucky to make $10 off this post. I'd make more money billing for a client in the time in took me to respond to this thread. I put affiliate links on everything I promote on my blog, but that doesn't mean that I live large sections of my life out differently so I can hopefully collect a few dollars down the road.

Fair enough - but I don't think the poster was insinuating you spent a year reading the book to be able to gain affiliate payments (especially since you read it back in 2007)

The insinuation was probably that you chose to write this post in order to advertise the book (as a monetisation strategy).

Anyway, good work with the blog :)

Good for you - earn some income for recommending a product you believe in. Nothing wrong with that. I hope it yields you enough income to pay for the people who can't/don't want to purchase the book and call you on your offer to purchase for them.

KHAAAAAAAAAAAAAANNNNNN

It was a joke, and implied nothing of the sort. Interesting that this was your response.

Sorry, just tired of the HN crowd (many of whom hope to create and sell products to people for money) freaking out any time a blogger links to something where they'll make a few pennies if someone purchases.

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