ANT Farm

ANT Farm Podcast:
Review of Maxwell Maltz’s The New Psycho-Cybernetics

In episode 25 of ANT Farm, Anil Prasad, Nikki Daniels, and Tommy Esber provide listeners with a riveting review of the book The New Psycho-Cybernetics by Maxwell Maltz. Learn about how Maltz says you can learn to acquire happiness and success and to what extent his practices worked, or, more often than not, failed. In this critical analysis, we’ll discuss Maltz’s text in the context of distinguished critical theorists, and then spend some time relating our experiences and thoughts on some of Maltz’s proposed self-help practices. This podcast episode is for everyone, as we discuss a book that teaches everyone how to communicate with and learn the language of the internal self, something many of us struggle with.

ANT Farm podcast: Review of Maxwell Maltz’s The New Psycho-Cybernetics. Transcript available here.

Show Notes

Photo of Maxwell Maltz (author of The New Psycho-Cybernetics) speaking at the University of San Diego.
Photo of Maxwell Maltz (author of The New Psycho-Cybernetics) speaking at the University of San Diego. (Alcalá yearbook, 1975, University of San Diego)
Graphic: The Success Mechanism
The Success Mechanism

Created by the hosts of ANT Farm, this graphic explains the nature of Maltz’s Success Mechanism. As shown in the graphic, a child imagines himself graduating from high school and creates a strong mental picture for him to work towards. In an almost automatic fashion, the Success Mechanism takes that visualization and makes it a reality through self-directive action.

Graphic: Feeding the Success Mechanism
Feeding the Success Mechanism

In a second graphic made by the ANT Farm team, you can see a visualization of the practice host Nikki Daniels describes trying. She talks about how she used Maltz’s practice to visualize herself sitting at a movie theater watching her ideal self as a medical professional. Listen to see if it worked for her or not!

Texts Referenced in this Episode

Maltz, Maxwell. The New Psycho-Cybernetics. Edited by Dan Kennedy, Prentice Hall Press, 2001.
Maltz, Maxwell. The New Psycho-Cybernetics. Edited by Dan Kennedy, Prentice Hall Press, 2001.
Smiles, Samuel. Self-Help; With Illustrations of Character and Conduct. Ticknor and Fields, 1863.
Smiles, Samuel. Self-Help; With Illustrations of Character and Conduct. Ticknor and Fields, 1863.
Hamid, Mohsin. How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia. Penguin Publishing Group, 2013.
Hamid, Mohsin. How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia. Penguin, 2013.

Binkley, Sam. “Happiness, positive psychology and the program of neoliberal governmentality.” Subjectivity 4, 371–394 (2011), https://doi.org/10.1057/sub.2011.16.

Marcuse, Herbert. “The Affirmative Character of Culture.” Art and Liberation, edited by Douglas Kellner, Routledge, 2017, pp. 82–113.

Hendel, Hilary Jacobs. “Ignoring Your Emotions Is Bad for Your Health. Here’s What to Do About It.” Time, Time, 27 Feb. 2018.

Further Reading

Jessen, Lauren. “The Benefits of a Gratitude Journal and How to Maintain One.” HuffPost, HuffPost, 8 July 2016, www.huffpost.com/entry/gratitude-journal_b_7745854.

Robbins, Tony. Awaken the Giant Within: How to Take Immediate Control of Your Mental, Emotional, Physical & Financial Destiny! Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, 1992.

Ziglar, Zig. See You at the Top. Pelican, 2000.

Transcript

Available for download here.