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A few years ago, I went to a big event at the Key Arena in Seattle. Tony Robbins was the main speaker and master of ceremonies, but it was an all-day event and many speakers were on the roster. Brian Tracy, the author of some of my favorite audio programs (including The Psychology of Achievement: Develop the Top Achiever’s Mindset), was one of the people giving a talk that day.

Most of the speakers talked about changing your state of mind. This was a “motivational seminar” and I enjoyed it tremendously.

But after it was over I thought, “Here are the best motivational speakers in the world — corporations pay them thousands of dollars to talk to the company’s top executives because what these guys teach is so valuable — and the principles they talk about are the same ones Napoleon Hill wrote in Think and Grow Rich seventy years ago!”

At first I was disappointed. I thought after all these years they should have come up with something new and better.

But then I realized the same few principles that worked on human minds seventy years ago still work on human minds today. Human beings haven’t changed. We’re still human. What will change your state of mind is exactly the same thing that could change your grandfather’s state of mind.

One of the principles Tony talked about was what he called “incantations.” That means changing your state of mind by saying positive things to yourself with feeling. Napoleon Hill called it “autosuggestion.”

This is the same principle as “thought practice.” This is slotrology. The only thing that has changed in the last seventy years is the explanation of why it works.

Napoleon Hill believed your “vibrations of thought” influenced the world and other people and your own subconscious and that’s why it worked so well. Now the explanation is “you are practicing a thought until it comes naturally to mind.” The “how to” is the same and it still works, regardless of why we think it works.

Although the principle hasn’t changed, we’ve learned a few things about how to make it work better. The most important of these is the value of using your face.

Use Your Face

Paul Ekman, author of What the Face Reveals, has been studying facial expressions for a long time. He and his colleagues have created a detailed catalog of 43 “facial-action” combinations. They know exactly which tiny muscles are used in any facial expression, and their system of identifying facial expressions is now the standard for use in many different fields, including psychology and criminal science. Ekman literally has facial expressions down to a science.

As part of the process of finding out which muscles are used in which facial expressions, one day Ekman spent part of his day at the lab trying to reproduce an authentic look of sadness on his own face. When he got home that evening he realized he felt depressed.

Ekman explored further into this and found when he made his facial muscles create an authentic smile, it improved his mood.

Another researcher, Patricia Ruselli, did an experiment completely unrelated to Ekman’s work, but got similar results. Ruselli asked volunteers to watch a slide presentation designed to produce sadness. Half the subjects were told to frown while they watched it. The other half were told not to frown.

For several hours afterwards, the people who frowned felt more depressed than the people who didn’t frown.

Fritz Strack, a psychologist at Mannheim University in Germany, took a group of volunteers and told them he was going to test their physical skills. He showed them a series of cartoons and told them to rate the cartoons’ funniness. But they had to hold a pen in their mouths while they did it. Half of them were told to hold it between their lips. The other half had to hold it between their teeth.

The ones with the pen between their teeth rated the cartoons as funnier.

Apparently, when they held the pen between their lips, they couldn’t smile, but when it was between their teeth, the pen forced at least some of their facial muscles into a smile, and that changed how funny the cartoons seemed to them.

Still another bit of evidence comes from a pilot study that found when people were injected with Botox to get rid of furrowed brows, it improved their mood — it especially reduced symptoms of depression.

Even when your facial expression is changed with a paralyzing toxin, it can alter your emotional state.

The point of all this is to realize when you change your facial expression, you influence your feelings.

Use this fact. When you practice your slotras, say them with feeling — feeling in your voice and with emotion on your face.

In Henry V, Shakespeare displayed his knowledge of human nature, as he did in so many of his plays. During a break between skirmishes while they are attacking a city, King Henry addresses his troops. He gives his men detailed instructions on what to do with their facial expression (and their breathing). In Act III, Scene I, King Henry says:

Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood,
Disguise fair nature with hard-favour’d rage;
Then lend the eye a terrible aspect;
Let it pry through the portage of the head
Like the brass cannon; let the brow o’erwhelm it
As fearfully as doth a galled rock
O’erhang and jutty his confounded base,
Swill’d with the wild and wasteful ocean.
Now set the teeth and stretch the nostril wide;
Hold hard the breath, and bend up every spirit
To its full height!

Basically, King Henry is telling his soldiers exactly how to get their body and face in a good fighting spirit. He tells them how to change their face and body so they feel more courageous and aggressive.

King Henry instructs his men to make themselves tense and hardened, to put a look of rage on their faces, to make their eyebrows low with their eyes glaring out intensely. He tells them to clamp the teeth, flare their nostrils, and to blow out forcefully when they breathe out. If you do this, even while sitting here reading, you’ll notice it does, in fact, make you feel more aggressive, more grimly determined, more ready to fight.

Repeating a slotra is the most basic principle for taking advantage of the awesome power of your mind and fulfilling your potential. When you use it, remember your face. Say your slotras with feeling. And use your tone of voice, your face, your body’s posture, and your breathing to help you intensify those feelings.

Read next: Think Of Slotras As Training

Tags: slotrology by Adam Khan
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If you have a few minutes, a good way to change the way you feel is to say your slotra with only as much feeling as you can muster. Then say it again with a little more feeling. Then again, and again, even more emphatically. It becomes easier and easier to say it with feeling. This can raise you up into the right frame of mind and very quickly.

Escalate the slotra when you say it, each repetition more emphatic than the last, louder than the last, more emotional than the last.

You can see a good demonstration of this in the movie The Edge with Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin. Picture the scene: The two men were out in the Alaskan wilderness. Their plane had crashed and they were trying to get back to civilization. But a huge bear was stalking them. It had already brutally killed and eaten one of their friends. Now it was after them. Their state of mind was fear.

They made a circle of fire and it was keeping the bear at bay for the moment, but they had no food or water, and they were running out of wood, so they couldn’t stay where they were. The bear was faster than they were so they couldn’t outrun it.

In this scene, Bob (Baldwin) has a look of hopeless despair on his face. Charles (Hopkins) is sharpening a long pole, saying he’s going to kill the bear. We, the audience, realize this is really the only way out of their predicament. They have to kill it or it will kill them. They can’t run. They can’t hide. They can’t live if they only play defense. They’re going to have to go on the offensive.

But Bob is in anguish. He doesn’t think it’s possible. It is an enormous bear. He says, “We can’t kill the bear, Charles. He’s ahead of us all the time. It’s like he’s reading our minds — he’s stalking us for God’s sake!” He drops his head. His face has a look of intense anguish. He looks like he’s on the verge of crying. You can tell what he’s picturing in his mind: The horror of being eaten alive and the despair of realizing there’s no way he can avoid this unthinkable nightmare.

Charles says, “You want to die out here, huh? Well, then die. I’ll tell you what: I’m not going to die. No sir. I’m not going to die. I’m going to kill the bear.”

Charles looks at Bob. They’re in this together. And their lives are at stake.

“Say it,” Charles demands. “Say I’m going to kill the bear. Say it!” Charles asks him again. Bob remains silent. Charles yells at him, “Say it! Say I’m going to kill the bear!”

Bob, not looking at all convinced, says quietly and without any conviction whatsoever, “I’m going to kill the bear.”

“Say it again,” says Charles.

Bob says it a little louder, “I’m going to kill the bear.”

“And again!”

This time Bob yells out with a good deal more conviction: “I’M GOING TO KILL THE BEAR!”

“Good! What one man can do, another can do.” Charles is yelling at Bob now, like a coach on the sidelines.

Bob repeats, “What one man can do, another can do.”

Charles makes him repeat this statement a few more times, with increasing feeling, and you see the hopeless despair on Bob’s face slowly transform into grim determination.

This is a very useful and powerful transition to make in a circumstance like that. It is just a movie but the actors are demonstrating something quite real.

The thoughts you think in a crisis can save your life or bury you. No kidding. Read the stories of people who have survived seemingly hopeless situations — Alive, the true story of a Rugby team that crashed in the Andes mountains; Adrift: Seventy-six Days Lost at Sea, the true story of a sailor who drifted alone on his life raft after his boat sunk; Endurance: Shackleton’s Incredible Voyage, the true story of a team of Antarctic explorers led by Earnest Shackleton — they all survived because at least one person was able to say to himself with firm determination, “We’re going to make it. We will survive.” At least one person did not succumb to the despair that naturally occurs to everyone.

Thousands of people have perished in similar circumstances — people who threw up their hands in hopelessness and declared, “We’re dead!” — people who wrung their hands and repeated to themselves how hopeless and horrible it was. Those people didn’t take the steps that might have saved them. Remember this in case you are ever in a seriously dangerous predicament.

But you don’t have to be in really bad straits to use this. This is a tool. A mental tool. It’s simple and it’s good for a great many applications.

No matter how high-tech we get, some tools will never change and will always be useful. People have used axes to chop wood for thousands of years, and in all that time, the basic design hasn’t changed. It’s basic. It is simple. And it does the job.

You can use this mental tool — making a statement to yourself with feeling, and building up the emotional expression of it — whenever you want to change your state of mind. You can use it whenever the state of mind you have fallen into is counterproductive.

My wife and I got into an argument one night as she was getting ready for bed. I went into the other room so she could sleep. But I knew she wouldn’t be able to sleep, and I was feeling too angry and self-righteous to try to help her feel better.

My state of mind wasn’t what I wanted it to be. So I changed it. And I had an effective tool that could do the job. First I said to myself, “I can get out of this self-righteous state.” I said it quietly at first. Then I said it with a little more feeling. Then I said it with even more feeling.

That’s always a good way to approach it. Sometimes at first you can’t really work up any feeling for it. But if you just say it, even in a monotone, the next time you say it, you can say it with a little more feeling.

I was doing this in my head, by the way. You can say things to yourself with feeling. The voice in your head has a tone of voice and a volume.

Then I said to myself (with no conviction at all), “I’m going to go in there and make her feel good.” I wanted her to be able to go to sleep.

I said it again and again, with more feeling every time. And…it changed my state. I was angry to start with. After spending only about six or seven minutes using this mental tool, I changed my state from anger to a firm determination to make her feel good. I went into the bedroom, hugged her gently, and told her I loved her. She hugged me back and thanked me.

You are not a victim to your own feelings. You can control how you feel if you have the right tool. It’s like chopping down a tree — if you have the right tool (an ax, for example) you can do it. If you don’t have the right tool, it is nearly impossible.

Can you change your emotional state when you want? Yes, you can, if you have the right tool. If you don’t, it is nearly impossible.

Read next: How to Change Your State of Mind

Tags: slotrology by Adam Khan
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When Dougal Robertson was in his life raft and responsible for the lives of his family, he often repeated a phrase to himself. It focused his mind on his purpose. He originally heard the phrase from his wife right after their sailboat sank. Dougal was sinking into despair when his wife, Lyn, put her hand on his arm and looked at him. “We must get these boys to land,” she said.

It was so simple, but completely clear. And motivating. That’s the very definition of a good slotra.

The whole family used another slotra. Every morning whoever was on watch said, “What’s the password for the day?” And everyone else answered with feeling: “Survival!”

A slotra is not something you’re trying to hypnotize yourself into believing. And it is not an effort to sink a suggestion into your subconscious mind. And it is not for the purpose of influencing the “ether” with your “vibrations of thought.” It’s not an affirmation. This is thought practice, pure and simple. You are trying to practice thinking certain things so they become familiar and comfortable and natural, and so your new way of thinking comes to mind when you need it.

It helps your slotras feel comfortable if you make them short, tight, and memorable, because most of the time when you need a new way of thinking, you’re busy doing something. It’s not too often you really need help when you’re just sitting around thinking. You need help in the middle of a situation, so you will not want to try to remember anything complicated at a time like that. You need something brief, preferably with some emotional punch.

Tweak your phrases or statements until they exactly suit you, feel right, and fit you. Rearrange your statements and try out different words, until it says exactly what you want it to say, and says it the way you want.

It’s best if you only have one or two slotras you are practicing at a time. Practice those for as long as it takes to make them natural. You know you’ve practiced enough when several times the thought automatically comes into your mind when you need it. Then pick another one or two to practice.

And when I say “practice,” I mean literally saying your slotra to yourself over and over. And say it with feeling, even if you’re just saying it silently to yourself. Your tone of voice has an influence, even inside your head. If you can get away with it, practice your slotras aloud with feeling.

Dig that groove deep into your brain. Make that pathway in your brain easy to go down.

Write your slotras on cards. Even have them professionally printed or engraved. This will help you remember to practice them. Repeat your slotras over and over, forging them into powerful, naturally-occuring thoughts that will serve you for the rest of your life.

I get some of slotras imprinted on military-style dog tags and wear them around my neck. It’s a great way to remind myself of the phrases I’m practicing. If this seems a little fanatical, you don’t quite understand what a huge difference your thoughts can make. The thoughts going through your head influence your feelings and behavior at any given moment. And your behavior will ultimately determine what happens to you. Your thoughts are the rudder. They move the whole thing.

Make sure they’re moving you where you want to go.

Read next: Build Up To It When Using a Slotra

Tags: slotrology by Adam Khan
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Slotras are especially practical in situations you know will happen again. Create slotras for situations when you have the same argument with the same person again and again, or the same thoughts after the same golf slice, or the same explanations for why your client said no. Use slotras for situations where you’d like to change the way you usually respond.

You can change your thinking with this simple tool. You can make your insights stick. You can make your new ways of thinking change the way you react to those tired situations.

The antivirus for your mind is very powerful, but you can add to the power by making a slotra from your insight, and repeating it. This can put your new way of thinking where you need it. The next time a similar situation happens — a situation that used to make you think negatively and commit thought-mistakes — you will want to have your new way of thinking replace the old mental habit. Slotras are especially good at answering this need.

You can think of this as training. A good analogy Tom Miller (author of Self-Discipline and Emotional Control) uses in his corporate-training seminars is that your mind is like a horse. If you’ve ever ridden one of those rented horses that follow a certain path every day, you can get a sense of how your mind works and what it takes to change the way you think.

On a rented horse, it doesn’t really matter if you pay attention to where you’re going. The horse knows where to go. You can just relax and enjoy the scenery. The horse has done it a thousand times before. In the same way, when your spouse gets that certain look on her face, you have the same thought you’ve had a thousand times before. You don’t have to figure out how to interpret her look. You don’t have to figure out what to feel. Just like the horse, your mind will go where it has gone a thousand times before.

But let’s say you want to go a different way on the horse. What would you do? At a fork in the road the horse usually goes right. It has always gone right, but you’ve decided going left at the fork is the best way now. You’ve had an insight and now you know going left is the best way. But every time you come to that fork, if you aren’t paying attention, what happens? The horse will go right.

It is not enough to “know” it is better to go left. You actually have to think of it when you are at the fork. Remembering an hour later doesn’t help.

When you’ve thought the same way many times, your mind is like that horse. It knows where to go and you don’t even have to pay attention to it. But if you want to go a different way, you have to do it deliberately. You have to remember to think the new way when the right time comes. The insight isn’t enough. “Knowing” the better way isn’t enough. If you’re not paying attention, or if your brain doesn’t really have any other option than the old way, that’s the way it will go.

If you have always gotten mad and yelled when your child spills something, that’s what you’ll do next time unless you remember your new insight the moment your child spills something.

It may work perfectly well to take a deep breath when you’re anxious but the method doesn’t do you any good unless you remember to use it when you’re anxious! Five minutes later may be too late.

That’s where slotras come in. A slotra takes your new conclusions and places a sign at the fork in the road, so you can remember to steer your horse down the new path when you come to it.

The whole idea of a slotra is to put the new thought where you need it.

Ideally, the circumstance will trigger the new thought. The situation will act as a reminder to think the new thought.

How? By practicing saying your slotra over and over while thinking of situations where you want the slotra to come to mind.

This is a powerful and simple mental tool that can make a huge difference in your life.

Read next: Practice Clear and Simple Slotras

Tags: slotrology by Adam Khan
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