In 2005, my wife Julie ranked thumb-chewing (and the resultant callouses) as my #1 most irritating behavior. Awesome.  I like nothing better than to knock tasks off a prioritized list,  but I did not know how to fix this sub-conscious self-cannibalization. Cayenne pepper spray, perhaps?  Later that year,  I randomly met Scott Weiner, PhD and hypnotist, at a networking event.  I took a shot. He was so confident. “No problem," he said. "2-3 sessions, $450 a pop and consider it done.”

It worked.  Completely.

Almost.  Seven years later after I decided to sell and then leave my company, I relapsed.  This summer I called Scott.  “A tune-up?” No problem.  One session.  Consider it done.

It worked again.

Scott and I have talked a little bit about his practice.  He juxtaposes hypnosis to meditation.  Some forms of meditation empty the mind.  Hypnosis, on the other hand, suggests specific instructions.  It is not far from “Inception.”  I’m not writing this blog to promote hypnosis.   I’ve had three friends try.  Two were satisfied, one wasn't.  I'm writing because I boil down hypnosis' near-magical effectiveness in to three worthwhile principles that I’ve since applied other places and you might try them too.

“Human beings may be miserable specimens, in the main, but we can learn, and, through learning, become decent people.” 
― Orson Scott Card, Ender's Game

Josh Waitzkin commented that one of the most impactful features of the M5 Jiu-Jitsu program was that the CEO was wearing a white belt, symbolizing that I was learning with everyone else.  

My modeling of thirst for knowledge helped foster this value in the company.  And as I’ve often said, a staff of people who love learning is like a CEO’s wish for more wishes.  The tightest bottleneck for us was not capital, or market demand, or technical limitations - it was me, the team, and our own capacity to get stuff done.  So I’d better be working on that.  Besides, improving my own skills on company time was genuinely fun, a borderline guilty pleasure.  C’mon, the training montage is the best part of every action movie - epitomized by one of the best sci-fi books of all time, now a movie, Ender’s Game. (Get it, the game is the end?)

I thought I’d use four concrete skills as examples. Working on these paid big dividends for me.  This is not ...