The Power of Positive Suggestion
In the right state of mind, every one of us is susceptible to the suggestions of others. Advertisers have been planting ideas, catchphrases, taglines, mottoes, and anything else they can slip through our mental filters for the length of human history. Every day, we witness how powerful irrational and sometimes dangerous beliefs can be, yet we constantly expose ourselves to them through the inputs we choose. Just today, I heard a well-known senator plant the seed that Americans are ready for civil war. And I know he knows exactly what he's doing. He's made a long political career out of the power of suggestion. If you hear the same messages over and over and over again, at some point, you stop questioning their validity, and they become "true" to you. After several hours of concentrated work this afternoon, I listened to a YouTube video while finishing some reports. About 45 minutes after the video had ended, there was a phrase that kept inserting itself into my awaren...