Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD)
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder involves thoughts and behaviors you don’t want to experience but can’t figure out how to stop. In some cases, that might involve needing to check ten times if an iron has been unplugged before leaving the house, or thoughts that disaster will happen if you make the wrong move in your daily life such as wearing the wrong shoes. These are basic examples. The variety is unlimited. What they all have in common is they are irrational thoughts and actions that the afflicted can’t seem to stop.
I recently ran an unscientific experiment with my Locals community. I asked any of them who had OCD or knew someone who does to try the reframe I will present to you in this chapter. To my delight, several reported successes. I doubt it will work for everyone, but that’s true of reframes in general.
I explained to my Locals subscribers that hypnotists and psychologists know people can be persuaded—and thus their brains rewired—by anything that feels like a reason no matter how nonsensical it is. As a hypnotist, I know how powerful nonsense “reasons” can be. In this book, I call any nonsense reason a “fake because.” They work best when the subject wants the life change suggested by the fake reason.
For example, if I know there will be a social “fight” over who picks up a dinner check and I want to prevail, I prepare a “fake because” in my mind before the check arrives. When my check-grabbing opponent reaches for the check the same time I do, I slip in the kill shot: “You drove all the way to my town for lunch, so I’ve got this.”
Is that a good reason? No. It only sounds like one. There might be several other variables just as important. Watch how many fake reasons I can generate. These so-called reasons work best if you can touch the check first.
“I got this, for your birthday, in case I don’t see you.”
“Next one is on you.” (An indirect way to say you want to see the person again.)
“We’re celebrating your new job.” (Even if the new job was two months ago.)
You get the point. There’s always some angle you can use to generate a weak or even nonsense reason. I’ve been doing this trick for years, and it works about 90 percent of the time. And it works because the other person wants a solution to the social awkwardness as much as I do. Any reason will do, including a nonsense reason. In those few cases in which someone fought through my fake because and insisted on paying, they had a strong reason. That’s just another way for both of you to win, and you still get credit for trying to pay.
Now consider OCD. No one wants OCD, so this suggests to a hypnotist that a fake because might work for some people in some situations—not necessarily instantly, but perhaps over time, with repetition.
If you have OCD and want to test the method I’m describing, simply invent a fake reason for why you can discontinue your unwanted thoughts and activities, then repeat that fake reason to yourself every time you need it.
Usual Frame: I must do this pattern of behavior or else something bad will happen.
Reframe: I no longer need to do the behavior because less is more.
“Less is more” is a nonsense reason in this context. But it sounds like a reason and feels like a reason probably because most of us have heard that phrase in situations where it made sense. In business meetings, my experience is that those three words—less is more—make everyone in the room nod in silent agreement because it sounds like something Buddha would say. “Less is more” is a powerful bit of programming code that makes everything it touches seem persuasive. Use that to your advantage.
You can substitute any other nonsense reason that sounds more persuasive to you than “less is more.” But it will be hard to beat because it is what I call bumper sticker wisdom—meaning it sounds like something that should be true, and maybe you once heard a smart person say it . . . or a person who sounded smart.
In case you haven’t noticed, I am not a doctor. If you have any concerns about this reframe, talk to a professional and get a second opinion. But I don’t think you have anything to lose by trying some nonsense reasons and tracking how it works. Good luck!
Social Event Anxiety
For the purposes of this book, social event anxiety refers to entering a room full of people you don’t know or don’t know well and feeling uncomfortable. I’ll give you some reframes that will remove much or all of your social anxiety.
The first reframe is the most important.
Usual Frame: Confidence is something you’re born with.
Reframe: Confidence is something you learn.
By the time you finish this book, you will have learned a variety of tricks for acting confident. But that isn’t the only way to develop confidence. Many people report building confidence through learning martial arts or excelling at a sport or hobby. Warren Buffett famously attended a Dale Carnegie class when he was young, as did I. Both of us can confirm it teaches you to be confident in front of an audience or during social chit-chat. You can also improve confidence through physical fitness, better sleep, and even breathing exercises. There are many ways to go about building confidence, and you probably have a mental list of your own. All I’m adding is the reminder that you can easily manage your confidence if you try. It’s a gift that is available to all.
When you enter a social situation, you probably ask yourself two questions:
How should I act?
How are people judging me?
If you knew exactly what to do in each social situation, imagine how much easier everything would be. You’ve probably experienced working or volunteering at some sort of business or event in which you interacted with the public in a well-defined way. If you knew how to do your job, you probably didn’t have much social anxiety. You knew what to do, and you did it. I’ll teach you how to approach any social situation with the same confidence in the “rules” as you might have on the job.
The second question is about people judging you. The good news is that if you learn the rules of social engagement (which will happen in the next few minutes), people will be impressed by your poise and judge you kindly. If you get the what-to-do part down, you won’t need to worry about being judged. You’ll be the star of the gathering. A quiet star, perhaps. But people will notice.
The first reframe for this topic involves imagining you are going to an event in which all the other participants have been selected for their poor social skills. You are the lone exception. You have strong social skills and everyone else knows it. In this imaginary scenario, would you have much social anxiety? Probably not as much as normal because you would feel more capable than the other participants in the skill that matters most at that moment.
The simple techniques I will teach you in this chapter are almost guaranteed to put you in the top 10 percent of socially skilled people. And that means you won’t have to use any imagination to know you are more capable at working a room than nearly anyone else.
Usual Frame: People have better social skills than I do.
Reframe: I am in the top 10 percent of people with good social skills (after reading this chapter).