Milton Erickson
This past summer, the box office of "Nezha" broke 4.8 billion, ranking second in the film history of China and becoming a milestone in the history of domestic animation. At the same time of the movie fire, the word "changing life against the sky" also spread throughout the circle of friends.
Not only the story of Nezha in the film, but also the director's own life experience can be called another version of the story of "changing fate":
When I was a junior, I followed my heart and abandoned medicine to literary animation. Resign from the advertising company and concentrate on making personal works a blockbuster; Open a studio, encounter domestic animation winter and never give up; You can't live without being crazy. After four years of hard work, Nezha finally succeeded ... and it was very exciting.
The so-called "going against the sky and changing one's life" is to break the constraints of birth and prejudice and achieve an extraordinary life with the spirit of not accepting fate.
Speaking of fate, you may also think of the famous physicist and cosmologist Stephen Hawking. He was imprisoned in a wheelchair because of the gradual freezing of people, and he still made proud academic achievements and rich life through his own efforts. In the field of psychology, there is another example of "going against the sky and changing your life". He got polio at the age of 17 and was almost paralyzed for life. He also has defects such as color blindness, color blindness and dyslexia. However, he was not limited by his own environment and conditions, but through constant self-tempering, he became a world-class psychotherapy master and a leading figure in hypnosis in the twentieth century.
He is Milton Erickson. He pioneered modern hypnosis, and his influence in the field of psychology is comparable to Freud's.
Milton Erickson, the father of modern hypnosis.
Although it seems to outsiders that he has a life of "changing against the sky", the most important point that Eriksson summed up is "following the trend".
Here, "following the trend" does not mean adapting to the external environment, but mainly adapting to one's own talent and state. It is not only the principle of Eriksson's life, but also the core idea of his psychotherapy-not to treat problems as enemies, but to find the resources owned by individuals while accepting problems, awakening and adapting to their own talents.
Eriksson told us: whether we were born in a slight cold or seemed to have average qualifications, whether we were infected with diseases or fell into a low point in life, each of us has our own talents and uniqueness. What really changes fate is not complaining, but awakening talent and conforming to the trend.
Yes, a person's talent and its closely related professional knowledge have a great influence on our lives. But everyone has talent, but it is hidden and often difficult to detect; Talent is not the same as being good at it. Being talented doesn't mean being good at it. So, we often ask:
What exactly is talent? How can I find my own talent?
What can I do to cultivate my talents into truly outstanding talents without wasting them?
In addition to awakening talents and giving full play to their strengths, how should they face their own shortcomings and "problems"?
Today, we will combine the story of Eriksson and discuss it together.
X-SIGN model opens the door to secret talents
"Talent" is a mysterious word. When it comes to talent, we always think of genius and prodigy, and IQ that is considered innate.
In the eyes of many people, talent is talent, a certain intelligence and potential, and an innate natural qualification.
However, talent is not just talent.
Ken Robinson is a famous British education scholar and the most watched TED speaker in the world. In his book Discover Your Talent, he defined talent as a combination of talent and enthusiasm:
Having a certain talent means having a natural ability to be good at certain things or certain fields, and naturally being able to maintain great enthusiasm for these things and grow faster than others.
Everyone has his own talent, and everyone's talent is different. From a biological point of view, this is because each of us has a unique gene, and everyone's existence is a small probability event, which is the result of a series of choices made by parents and ancestors. This determines that everyone's life is unique and everyone has a unique talent.
Although talent is important, it is hidden and often not easy to be detected. How can I find my unique talent?
Marcus Buckingham, the founder of advantage theory, put forward a sign model of talent discovery in his book Now, Discover Your Professional Advantage. The two concepts of "advantage" and "talent" used in the book roughly correspond to "good at" and "talent" respectively. SIGN (signal) is the abbreviation of four words: success, instinct, growth and demand.
Success: I have a high starting point, an extraordinary hand, and I am confident in doing something, feeling that I will succeed.
Instinct: spontaneous and eager to try.
Growth: learn quickly and make progress faster than others.
Demand: be happy when you do it, and be satisfied after you do it.
After careful consideration, you will find that success and growth correspond to talent, representing the high starting point and growth of a certain ability and the corresponding sense of self-efficacy;
Instinct and demand correspond to enthusiasm and represent the internal driving force based on instinct and demand.
Therefore, we can combine Ken Robinson's definition of talent to expand Marcus Buckingham's symbolic model and transform it into the following X-symbolic model:
The letter X has always been a representative of the unknown and mysterious, such as the X-Men and the X-Files. Here, it is also the shape of this model, which symbolizes the mystery and infinite possibilities of talent.
The line of X is talent, connecting success and growth. Human talents are diverse, including many types of intelligence: language, logical numbers, visual space, music, interpersonal communication, introspection, sports, natural observation and so on. Everyone has one or more kinds of intelligence, which is naturally stronger and grows faster. For example, some people are born with strong computing ability, while others are born with developed motor cells. There are more possibilities when different days are combined.
The other line of X is enthusiasm, connecting instinct and demand. Everyone's enthusiasm is also very different. Some people will be almost instinctively attracted to something and feel satisfied that "doing this thing itself is a reward", while others may be indifferent to it.
Using the X-SIGN model, you can discover your talent from the flashing signals and clues in your life. It is the core algorithm to upgrade your life system and the secret door to happiness and achievement.
Let's look at the story of Milton Erickson.
It happened to be 100 years ago, in the summer of 19 19, on a farm in the United States.
Ericson, 17 years old, was violently attacked by polio just after graduating from high school. He is completely paralyzed and can't do anything but talk and eye movements. After consulting two professional doctors from Chicago, the country doctor concluded that the boy would not survive the next morning. Even if you can survive, you will be paralyzed for life and never stand up.
Eriksson was very angry when he heard these cruel judgments about his family and himself, but he didn't despair. He is unwilling to accept such a fate and is determined to challenge.
What happened after that was a miracle. Eriksson accidentally discovered the power of the subconscious, not only survived, but also recovered slowly with the careful care of his family and the exploration of the subconscious. Lying in bed, he constantly recalled the picture of picking apples when he was a child, realized every subtle movement of his body in a state of concentration and relaxation, and gradually recovered the movement ability of related muscles.
Finally, Eriksson not only stood up, but also swam across the Mississippi River alone in the summer of three years later, relying on a canoe, simple food and camping equipment and a little money.
That summer, Eriksson had planned to go with his friends, but they changed their minds at the last minute. Despite his physical disability, Eriksson decided to set out alone without telling his parents that it would be a solo trip.
In this adventure, Eriksson encountered many difficulties that others could not imagine-the great pain of muscle cramps and the extremely bad weather-but he overcame them one by one. He also met many friendly and interesting people along the way. They helped him move the canoe and gave him a lot of help.
When Eriksson completed the canoe voyage of 1200 miles, his health was greatly improved, his shoulder muscles became stronger and stronger, and he was able to carry canoes alone. His mind is also more mature and tenacious, and he deeply understands that a person can do what he really wants to do.
It is precisely because of this pilgrimage and the experience of fighting against physical diseases that Eriksson has developed infinite curiosity and enthusiasm for human resilience and potential; The exploration of subconscious use and the healing miracle that happened to him also made him discover his talent. He opened the door to his talent.
This trip became a turning point in Eriksson's life. After the trip, he applied for medical school and embarked on a long road of becoming a doctor with his knowledge of talents.
From the story of Eriksson's discovery of talents, we can also see that:
Talent may be born or influenced by nurture. Especially the passionate elements in talents are often related to growth experience and cultural environment. It is better to regard talent as a natural and acquired talent than to regard it as a talent completely determined by genes.
Everyone has a unique talent and a chance to shine. Never be bound by prejudice, never be bound by other people's judgment. "God closes a door for you and opens a window for you" is not chicken soup. As long as you are good at finding it and polishing it properly, even a stone that looks dull may become a dazzling gem one day.
Worse than incompetence is infertility.
After talking about what is talent, how to find talent, and then talk about what you are good at and how to cultivate talent from talent.
According to the list of popular words in China's resume published by LinkedIn 20 17, the word "good at" ranks first, followed by "rich experience", "leadership" and "sense of responsibility". In the global user list, "good at" still ranks first.
Being good at it is not only the most common trait of job seekers, but also the most concerned trait of employers. It not only represents the core competitiveness that you can stand out from others, but also is an important label that distinguishes you from others. Many managers will consider your possible position in the team and how to form cooperation with others according to this label.
By comparing talent and being good at it, we can know that talent is only a hidden potential and a high probability of becoming excellent, while being good at it is our explicit ability to influence reality and the capital to achieve our goals in life.
At the same time, the two are closely related. If specialty is a tree, talent is the seed. Without seeds, you can't cultivate people who are really good at it.
Then, I finally found the seed of talent, how to make it better, without wasting or wasting? The answer is: keep watering to help it grow. It is represented by a formula:
Good at = talent * devotion
Some people say that the biggest counterattack opportunity in life is to invest in yourself. This sentence is quite right, but where should I put it? Investment talents, of course. Because its corresponding ability has the fastest growth rate and the largest room for improvement, it is most likely to become your core advantage.
Input here refers to the input of various resources, including time and energy, knowledge and skills, money and materials. The way to invest is to study actively and practice for a long time around talent.
The so-called "deliberate practice" is an efficient learning method put forward by another American, Eriksson, and psychologist Anders Millard J. Erickson after studying a large number of outstanding people. The key to deliberate practice lies in clear promotion objectives, a lot of repeated training, timely and effective feedback and so on. Through deliberate practice based on talent, hidden potential can be turned into explicit "super power" and talent can become good at it.
We continue to read the story of Eriksson's "awakening" talent.
/kloc-the summer of 0/922 ended, and with enthusiasm for psychotherapy, Eriksson embarked on the road to study. He was admitted to the Department of Psychiatry, University of Wisconsin School of Medicine. After graduation, he worked as an intern in Colorado mental hospital for one year.
Eriksson's learning comes not from textbooks or teachers in the traditional sense, but from self-study and self-training. While reading books on psychotherapy such as psychoanalysis, he regards patients as his best teachers. This also allowed him to find a new path and gain many new insights without being restricted by his previous school.
Eriksson is very diligent. When practicing hypnosis, he often writes a hypnotic induction of 15 pages to a patient, and cuts it down to ten pages, five pages and the last two pages, and then he will use it on the patient.
Through continuous awareness, perception, inspiration and practice, Eriksson has developed strong observation and communication skills. These two abilities are extremely important for psychotherapy, enabling him to understand the psychological motivation behind human nature and human behavior.
In particular, his observation of subtle things is legendary. This is by no means an untrained talent, but the result of long-term self-motivation and deliberate practice by people who are good at it.
"Observe, observe and continue to observe" is a mantra of Eriksson in his teaching and life. He always trains himself to find hidden clues, which show the strengths of patients-strengths that can be used to solve problems. In some ways, he handled the case like a detective like Sherlock Holmes.
Eriksson invented many methods to train observation, not only for his own use, but also for his students. For example, observe a group of children on the playground and predict who they will play with and what they will do next; Another example is to observe the interaction of a group of people and judge who will leave first and who will be the next speaker … and so on.
Eriksson urged himself to keep learning and making progress until his later years. When his eyesight was too weak to read any more, he changed to watch TV. Once there was a track and field competition on TV, and Eriksson wanted to challenge himself to predict the winner. He carefully watched the runners warm up. Some runners looked around and were obviously distracted by the audience. He predicted that these people will not win, and those who are really focused and dedicated may be winners.
Eriksson has been engaged in psychotherapy for more than half a century, and has been constantly investing in talents, investment and re-investment. He has created many far-reaching therapeutic techniques from these seemingly simple basic skills of observation and communication, and is regarded as the most creative master in therapeutic practice.
From this story of Eriksson, we can see that:
The more excellent talents, the more huge investment is needed. Worse than incompetence is infertility. In fact, there are too many smart and talented people around us. After inadvertently opening the door to talents, I don't cherish my talents, or I don't understand the importance of continuous investment. Finally, they all disappeared.
With deliberate practice, from quantitative change to qualitative change. The process from talent to Excellence is a long process of active learning and deliberate practice. By accumulating subtle progress, quantitative change leads to qualitative change, reaching the realm of "being a good hand for nothing but oil seller" and "knowing the cow by skillful hands".
Accept shortcomings and dance gracefully with "problems".
I have talked about how to find talents and how to train talents to be good at them, but since a person has strengths, he must have weaknesses. How to manage your shortcomings and "problems" in life and career if you want to counterattack in life?
At all times and all over the world, many people who are very successful in their own fields often have shortcomings or even serious problems, but they have exerted their best efforts and made outstanding achievements, thus being remembered by the world.
For example, Churchill, who suffered from depression for a long time but won World War II, Hawking, who was in a wheelchair for life and wrote A Brief History of Time, and Eriksson, who suffered from polio, color blindness and dyslexia, became the fathers of modern hypnosis.
Eriksson knew how to get along with his own defects from an early age; At the same time, he has been engaged in psychotherapy for decades and has received countless patients with "problems". He has a good knowledge of how to deal with problems. Its core is what we said at the beginning, following the trend.
"Going with the flow" contains two meanings, one is to give full play to talents and expertise, and the other is to accept and transform shortcomings and "problems".
Let's see how Eriksson did it.
Eriksson once created a miracle of physical recovery after suffering from polio at the age of 17, but its sequelae still accompany him all his life, especially in the second half of his life.
In the late World War II, Eriksson, a middle-aged senior psychiatrist, instructed novice doctors in the hospital, and at the same time, he had to do mental health examination for enlisted soldiers at the recruitment station. Due to heavy work, his polio condition recurred seriously and he had to be hospitalized. Since then, he has been ill many times and lost some physical activity every time. Until he was in his sixties, he could only sit in a wheelchair completely.
However, Eriksson frankly accepted the inconvenience brought by life. He is always grateful for what he has. He always enjoys what he has instead of focusing on what he lacks.
Many people regard their own "problems" as enemies and try to eliminate them, but Eriksson's approach is to accept "problems" rather than confront them. Follow the trend, dance with the "problem" in a more elegant way, and then turn it into a unique resource.
Because their shortcomings, or resources and problems, are like two sides of a coin, which are contradictory and unified, and can often be transformed into each other. From this point of view, Eriksson's "following the trend" is full of the charm of the oriental Taiji thought that advocates "Yin and Yang are born together".
Erickson was born color blind and only sensitive to purple. He is not restricted, but uses this mysterious color to express his personal style, enjoying a "purple" life, wearing purple clothes and using purple cups. There are many purple decorations in his office, and students often give him purple gifts. The mysterious purple makes Eriksson more like a magic master.
Dressed in purple, Eriksson looks like a magician (video of Dr. Sade, Eriksson's disciple, "Five Minutes of Treatment")
Eriksson is still tone deaf. When he was 6 years old, he passed a church and saw many people practicing chorus. He couldn't hear the music they sang, just wondering why these people were so happy when they made such strange noises. He found the answer, oh, they breathe together, and the rhythm of breathing is the same, so they are so happy.
So, from the age of six, when others talk to him, he breathes with others. When the rhythm of breathing is consistent, a strange harmony arises. Later, this became an important basis for Eriksson's hypnosis.
Eriksson always turns his "shortcomings" or "problems" into available resources and advantages. At the same time, he also widely applied this concept to psychotherapy.
Eriksson suffers from many physical diseases, but he always remains optimistic and grateful. His attitude towards life greatly increased his persuasiveness as a therapist. When he encourages patients to appreciate life and transcend pain and limitations, patients know that he is giving them advice and help with his own personal experience.
Eriksson died on 1980. His wife said, "He lived to be 78 years old, much longer than he expected. Until the week before his death, he still lived an active and unremitting life. "
Eriksson never considered himself a weak person. He encourages people to be responsible for themselves. It is useless to complain about the misfortune of fate, the injustice of life and the cruelty of the environment. If you are responsible for your unique life, you will never establish yourself as a weak person, but will constantly strive to achieve a better self.
As the father of modern hypnosis, Eriksson explored and demonstrated the great potential that hypnosis has brought to human beings, and its achievements are unparalleled so far. He turned hypnosis into modern psychotherapy, which was widely used all over the world, and had a great influence on many psychotherapy schools, helping thousands of people in Qian Qian.
People say that he is the greatest communicator in the world.
The best teacher is to help students find themselves.
Finding talents, cultivating talents and managing shortcomings, I have read Eriksson's "Going against the Heaven" and "Going with the Trend". At the end of the article, I want to talk about the documentary "After Zero" which is being shown.
After 12 years of continuous shooting, the film tells the growth story of two children-Chi Yiyang and Rourou after zero zero. They are not good students in the traditional sense. Chi Yiyang is a naughty king among children. He often makes trouble in kindergarten and is complained by many parents. Rourou likes singing, dancing and poetry, and is sensitive to the beauty of life, but she is often isolated because she is unwilling to obey the games that other children are playing.
After entering primary school, they encountered great problems. Chi Yiyang can't finish his homework, he is criticized every day, and he is sad every day; Rourou is very artistic, but she is not good at math, saying that math is her hell. Under the framework of exam-oriented education, they are even regarded as "problem" children.
As an observer and recorder, Director Zhang Tongdao, with strong sympathy, is waiting for the turn of the children's fate.
To Chi Yiyang and Rourou's relief, their lives later turned around.
Chi Yiyang, 14 years old, found his confidence after he met football in king of the children. He showed great talent and enthusiasm in rugby, and was lucky enough to be selected for the national team and participated in the international rugby youth competition.
However, Rourou, who is not good at math, chose to go abroad to study in high school instead of taking the college entrance examination under the protection of her parents. In a more tolerant educational environment, she achieved excellent results and got offer from ten universities. She chose education as her major, hoping to help more children in the future.
This documentary provides valuable observation and thinking for our education. Every child is a unique existence, with unique talent and enthusiasm. However, if all children are evaluated by a unified standard, many children may be suspected, accused of "poor talent", "stupid" and "not studying hard", and live in the shadow of "other people's children" all day.
The film tells us that we should respect the uniqueness of each child's talent and don't judge everyone with unified standards and prejudices. As Einstein said, everyone has talent, but if a fish is judged by its ability to climb trees, it will think that it will be stupid all its life.
Of course, not only children, but also adults face the same problem.
Director Zhang Tongdao said: Many people fail because they want to be someone else all their lives. I think this is a directional mistake. Everyone finds his own position, which is the most successful education. I think the best teacher is to help students find themselves.
Eriksson is such a teacher. He not only carried out the idea of "drifting with the current" into himself and psychotherapy, but also helped students to develop their talents and become themselves by experiential teaching methods. He has taught hundreds of psychotherapists in his life. Among them, Sadr, gilligan and other disciples are now world-famous masters with their own styles.
In the process of writing this article, I thought of the summer 100 years ago more than once:
The young man who was once "sentenced" by the doctor to be paralyzed for life, the young man who recovered but was still disabled, rowed a canoe alone and went down the Mississippi River.
Facing the difficult channel of life, he chose to accept the problem calmly, give full play to his strengths and face the unknown bravely.
That scene is more like the life you and I will experience in 100 years.
May we, as well as children, break the shackles of prejudice, awaken talents and conform to the trend;
May we, as well as our children, shine a unique light in the long river of life and become ourselves.
It is better to live an infinite life than to have a good starting point.