Name it. Tame it. Slay it.
#Fearhacking, mind hacks and recoding the human mind …
In November ‘chief mind hacker’ Patrycja Slawutato from New York delivered a keynote at the Melbourne Creative Innovation conference Ci2016, where she shared her concept of ‘mind hacking’. Taking fear for a walk resonated with the audience as the psychologist, entrepreneur and business founder drilled down into her list of mind hacks such as:
- Name it to tame it.
- Taking it for a walk.
Interviewed in March this year by CNN Patrycja said this of the human mind:
Like computers, we too are programmed. We’re wired with the beliefs instilled in us by parents, religion, culture and friends. It’s our “code.”
Training under practitioners such as Philip Zimbardo (a psychologist and a professor emeritus at Stanford University known for the famous 1971 Stanford prison experiment) she has a Masters degree in Psychology and is PhD candidate. She says she likes to “… explore the dark side of human nature and how powerful it is.”
Having worked directly with CEOs, startups and big companies — so sure of the human ability to ‘recode’ Patrycja founded her business SelfHackathon around it. She hosts monthly events in the US where her years of research are put into practice to help individuals rewire their thought processes. Her events are so popular they invariably sell out.
“It’s one of the ways you can start seeing your own code … Do you believe that the universe is malevolent or benevolent?” Patrycja Slawuta
‘Self hacking’ is Patrycja’s way of bridging the gap between academia and the wider world, built on the premise of microlearning, where lessons are broken down into manageable pieces of information with an end goal of transforming small learned behaviors into unconscious thoughts.
“The human mind is the most difficult code there is” Patrycja Slawuta
The nascent community of mind hackers on board includes a diverse range of practitioners including physiologists, anthropologists, sociologists and machine learning experts. She also draws on the research of Harvard professor Amy Cuddy, a social psychologist, author and lecturer known for her research on stereotyping, discrimination, and nonverbal behaviour.
One of Patrycja’s references is a quote by American writer Steven Pressfield author of The War of Art:
“If you find yourself asking yourself (and your friends), “Am I really a writer? Am I really an artist?” chances are you are. The counterfeit innovator is wildly self-confident. The real one is scared to death.” Steven Pressfield
“We fear discovering that we are more than we think we are. More than our parents/children/teachers think we are. We fear that we actually possess the talent that our still, small voice tells us. That we actually have the guts, the perseverance, the capacity. We fear that we truly can steer our ship, plant our flag, reach our Promised Land. We fear this because, if it’s true, then we become estranged from all we know. We pass through a membrane. We become monsters and monstrous.” Steven Pressfield
Mind hacking in and of itself is straightforward. Experts identify what actions give people desirable traits, identify how others can incorporate those actions, and train people to build those actions into their daily routine in small chunks.
Name it to tame it.
