CHAPTER 1
Wake-Up Call
You are what you feed your mind
An Aha! Moment about Feeding the Mind
I was in my early thirties when I began reading books about personal development. A colleague who read similar books asked me if I’d heard of Zig Ziglar. I thought he was kidding and had made up the name. But I learned that Zig Ziglar, from Yazoo City, Mississippi, was a real person from a real place.
My friend said Ziglar would be speaking in Oakland in a few days and urged me to check him out. Then I saw an ad in our local paper about “A Day with Zig.” I needed a lift, so I bought a ticket and called in sick for the next day (teachers call this a mental health day). I was looking to “renew and rejuvenate” myself, as the ad promised.
Early the next morning I drove to Oakland and managed to land a front-row seat. Hoping for an uplifting experience, I got far more. That day turned out to be one of the most meaningful of my life—what the great psychologist Abraham Maslow called a peak experience, one that changed my thinking, feelings, and life.
Zig opened the day by making jokes about his name, about Yazoo City, and about some of his stumbles earlier in life. He had amazing charisma, and I was hooked, mostly because he seemed so genuine. His main theme was that we can vastly improve the quality of our lives, even during hard times, if we can learn to change our thinking. His workshop wasn’t about positive attitude or positive thinking or positive mindset or positive outlook or positive anything. He said firmly that he was 100 percent in favor of all of those. Then he added, “But they don’t just happen.” He emphasized that no one can give them to us, and that we can’t will them into ourselves. The most important point of the day, the one he wanted us to go home thinking about for the next several days, was
You are what you are because of what goes into your mind.
Zig hesitated after saying this, knowing that most of us were writing it down. He asked, “How many of you have heard that statement before?” No hands went up. “How many of you would like to know more about it?” All the hands went up. He said, “Let me ask you a few more questions that might help you get a better grasp of my main point.”
• Would you allow someone carrying a 50-pound bag of trash to dump it in your living room?
The room was silent for a few minutes. He wanted us to think about it and form some mental images. I was wondering why he asked such a no-brainer question. Then came the next one.
• Do you allow anyone to dump trash into your mind?
This was my Aha! moment. The guy next to me said, “I had never thought of that. I guess a lot of crap does get dumped into our minds every day. I better start paying closer attention.” I was thinking exactly the same thing. And I’ve paid much closer attention ever since. That defining moment led to the better care and feeding of my mind. It also had an immensely positive effect on my teaching.
Three More Questions
Zig broke us into small groups and asked us to answer and discuss three more questions, which are just as relevant today as they were in back the early 1970s.
1. How much information goes into your mind during an average day?
This question was hard to answer then and is even harder to answer today. But thanks to neuroscientists who have a bent for research, we have some credible answers. If we translate “bits of information” into language, we take in well over 100,000 words per day (or 34 gigabytes, if you prefer tech terms). That comes out to about 220 book pages. This amount was much less in the disco-loving, non-tech 1970s.
In our current hi-tech world, we get peppered daily with a wide array of sounds, words, and images. It’s no wonder that social psychologists tell us we’re on sensory overload, as our eyes, ears, and minds are bombarded with increasing frequency. The good news is that we have effective ways to keep much of the trash out.
2. Who or what is feeding your mind?
Then: The main sources of information in the 1970s were newspapers, magazines, books, radio, TV, news media, family, friends, colleagues, faith and social groups, and various other organizations.
Now: All of the above are still with us, but their levels of influence have significantly changed. In addition, we’ve added the Tech Big Five: computers, Internet/email, websites/blogs, smart phones/tablets, and social media. With them has come an increasing explosion of information.
Please don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying any of these sources of information are bad. I use all of them extensively, and deeply appreciate each. But I also keep in mind that there’s a dark (yin) side to everything. A constant stream of horrible crimes and unspeakable cruelty is available on the Internet, which gives us another good reason to look for the yang.
3. Is the information healthy or unhealthy?
Zig pointed out that some of our input is neither positive nor negative. It’s simply information we need to function on a daily basis, such as getting directions. He said, “Let’s focus on those messages we receive that evoke strong feelings, the ones that lift us up or drag us down. How can we take in more of the healthy and less of the unhealthy?”
The group I was in agreed that Zig had increased our awareness of the huge number of messages we were receiving, the sources and intent of those messages, how they affected us, and, most important, that we needed to take more control over what goes in to our minds, and what shouldn’t go in. That was the theme of the day, as it is the theme of this book.
Zig closed this part of the workshop by distributing what looked like a postcard. He suggested we read the card frequently and give serious thought to our answers. I did exactly that, and it resulted in a significantly positive change in what I was feeding my mind. It was a simple, helpful, and powerful instrument. I hope you’ll try it.
Wrapping Up with Zig
At the end of the day I got in line to meet Zig and buy his book See You at the Top. Since the books were at the back of the room, and I was at the front, I ended up last in line. That turned out to be a bonus. When I finally got to Zig, he smiled and said, “I see they saved the best for last. Welcome, my friend.” I thought he would be tired and anxious to get away, but he made me feel like the most important person in his life. Great leaders do that.
He asked what I did for a living. When I told him I was a teacher, he lit up even more. “The toughest job in the world,” he said, then hesitated and added, “and the most important.” I was starting to love the guy. He went on to explain that he had always admired his relatives who were teachers because of their dedication, caring, and hard work. “What I do is way easier than what they do,” he added. I thought he was joking, but about twenty years later I became a speaker, and it dawned on me that what he had said about speaking being easier than teaching was the absolute truth.
Zig asked me what stood out during the workshop. I told him that I had come needing a lift and had received a bigger one than I had hoped for. I added that the opening session on what we feed our minds was of the most value because that was a question I had never given much thought to. He smiled and said, “I hear that a lot. What goes in between the ears has a way of coming out in our lives. We say or do things as the result of our thoughts, and our thoughts come from what our minds are fed. Our minds are blank tablets when we’re born, but they start getting filled in pretty quickly, for good or for bad. Oh, how I wish more people understood this, and that they taught it in school.” I assured him that I would do my best to pass on his teaching to my students, which I did for the rest of my career. Not only did my students hear, “You are what you are because of what goes into your mind,” they saw it in writing in big letters every time they came into my room. I’m a big believer in visible reminders, so I had a sign made and put it up in front of the room. I explained it to my students, told them about my day with Zig, and assured them I would do my best to put only positive and helpful information into their minds. The big reminder on the wall helped.
Two Modern-Day Examples of What Goes into a Mind Comes Out in a Life
Example #1. A child becomes a terrorist
This extreme example is a sad one, but it’s real. It shows us what happens when a young mind is constantly filled with negative and hateful messages. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) put out a booklet in 2017 titled Handbook on Children Recruited and Exploited by Terrorist and Violent Extremist Groups. It explains the techniques used by terrorists, particularly indoctrination, often called brainwashing, that lead to children turning into monsters. If they’re enslaved, exposed to constant fear, and told over and over that people of other races, other religious beliefs, and other cultures are evil and must be destroyed, they start moving in that direction. The more times you hear something, especially when you’re young, the more likely you are to believe it and act on it. These children become what they are because of what goes into their minds.
Example #2. An angry child grows kinder
My friend Jenny is a loving and dedicated fourth-grade teacher in Virginia. Several years ago, she got a new student, named Billy, who was major trouble right from the start. He was angry, at times withdrawn and at times boisterous; he hit other kids, yelled, and generally disobeyed.
Jenny looked into his record and learned that Billy had just been taken from his home because of verbal and physical abuse, neglect, and unsanitary living conditions. Both of his parents had serious drug problems. He had been told from the beginning that he was worthless, stupid, and would never amount to anything. What had been going into his mind was coming out in his life.
The school social worker, the principal, Jenny, and two caring foster parents, all working together, changed the direction of Billy’s life within a year. How? With love, kind words, encouragement, praise, and every positive experience they could provide for him. He entered a new world in which he was told that he was important, capable, and good—new environment, new messages, new person. Billy is now grown, married, a father of two, and an award-winning teacher. He became who he is today because five loving people changed what was going into his mind.
Choosing Your Input
“You were given a free will—the power and freedom to make choices. What you do with it will determine the quality of your life.” I learned this in my first college philosophy class when I was seventeen. It stuck. It became a foundational piece of my life as an individual, a father, a teacher, and an author. “We live by choice, not by chance” is the title of an early chapter in Life’s Greatest Lessons. The concept also appears in all my other books, so it’s no surprise that it fits in this one as well.
If we are what we are because of what goes into our minds, then it’s in our best interest to choose positive, healthy, and uplifting input whenever possible. From that input come our beliefs, values, and being. You are what you are because of what goes into your mind.
Granted, we can’t choose all of it. We can’t choose what other people say, what we hear at work and at social gatherings, or the images we see throughout the day. But by increasing the awareness of our power to choose, we can screen out much of the harmful and let in more of the helpful.
