Maxwell Maltz

His plight is somewhat comparable to the young man who cannot secure a job because he has no experience, and cannot acquire experience because he cannot get a job.

“Nothing succeeds like success.” We learn to function successfully by experiencing success. Memories of past successes act as built-in “stored information,”

Understanding the psychology of the self can mean the difference between success and failure, love and hate, bitterness and happiness. The discovery of the real self can rescue a crumbling marriage, recreate a faltering career, and transform victims of “personality failure.”
On another plane, discovering your real self means the difference between freedom and the compulsions of conformity.

1. All your actions, feelings, behaviors—even your abilities—are always consistent with this self-image. In short, you will “act like” the sort of person you conceive yourself to be.

Theatre of the Mind. I’d close my eyes, then remember and relive my best moments—seeing them play out like a mental movie. My victories. My successes. My happiest times.

See yourself sitting quietly and unmoved while an associate rants and raves. See yourself going through your daily tasks one by one, calmly, composed, unhurried, in spite of the pressures of a busy day.
See yourself maintaining the same constant, stable course, in spite of the various hurry-bells and pressure-bells in your environment. See yourself in various situations that have in the past upset you, only now you remain “set,” settled, poised—by not responding.

The moral is obvious for either mice or men: Practice without pressure and you will learn more efficiently and be able to perform better in a crisis situation.

The word “express” literally means to push out, to exert, to show forth. The word “inhibit” means to choke off, restrict. Self-expression is a pushing out—a showing forth—of the powers, talents, and abilities of the self. It means turning on your own light and letting it shine. Self-expression is a “yes” response. Inhibition is a “no” response. It chokes off self-expression, turns off or dims your light.

The word “crisis” comes from a Greek word that means, literally, “decisiveness,” or “point of decision.”

A crisis is a fork in the road. One fork holds a promise of a better condition—the other of a worse condition. In medicine, the “crisis” is a turning point, where the patient either gets worse and dies, or gets better and lives.

“I always think about what I am going to do, and what I want to happen,” he said, “instead of what the batter is going to do, or what may happen to me.” He said he concentrated on what he wanted to happen, felt that he could make it happen, and that it usually did.