Interest rates are rising. The housing boom is over. Sales are slowing down and homes are taking longer to sell at lower prices. People who wanted to refinance have already done so. My company’s profits are being squeezed since there are fewer loans in the pipeline and the cost of funds has increased. Times are slowing down and we are headed for even tougher times. It’s just tougher than it’s ever been to bring in a quality loan that will fund! My company’s cutting back on perks, advertising and training budgets and personnel.

Sound familiar? Is this what’s going on in your mind? If it is, I have a prediction for you. That is exactly what you are going to experience in the next year and beyond. Psychology declares it and science proves it!

It’s called the Placebo effect. Let me give you a different example. To illustrate this point in my live presentations I’ll ask the audience if anyone in the arena has a fear of snakes. I’m looking for someone who is outgoing, energetic and clearly displays this fear. I’m looking for a shift in their physiology as I ask the question.

With the help of the rest of the audience I will bring this person up on stage. I assure them that nothing dangerous is going to happen and it is absolutely safe. I show them a picture of rattlesnakes and then I hand the person an envelope and tell them that I have rattlesnake eggs. I tell them again that it is perfectly safe and I ask them to open the envelope. They do. A popping sound and movement follows and they jump back and scream. My point is made!

I next show them what they were screaming about. I show them a U shaped wire with a rubber band stretched across the open side. There is a washer in the center that is wound tight. When you open the envelope it unwinds and makes a noise against the side of the envelope and moves forward. All of this generates the flight or fight fear physiological response from the volunteer.

The lesson is that they expected to experience something dangerous, rattle snakes, and it didn’t matter what I said to them, ( it’s completely safe). Anything I said was over ruled by their pre set expectation of danger.

I do this test one more time but this time I show them the wire, the rubber band and the washer. I tell them that there will be a popping sound when they open the envelope. I also show them the same picture of the rattlesnake. They open the envelope and the same exact event occurs as previously, the noise, the movement, but there is no response by the volunteer, they remain calm.

There expectations are different. They were predisposed to have a different interpretation of the exact same circumstances as before only this time without fear.

A Baylor School of Medicine study, published in 2002 in the New England Journal of Medicine evaluated surgery for patients with severe debilitating knee pain. The lead author of the study, Dr. Bruce Moseley, “knew” that knee surgery helped his patients. “All good surgeons know there is no placebo effect in surgery.” But Moseley wanted to know what part of the surgery was giving the patients their relief. The patients in the study were divided into three groups.

Moseley shaved the damaged cartilage in the knee of one group. In the second group he flushed the knee with a fluid that would remove floating materials that would cause inflammation. Both of these are standard treatment.

The third group received “fake” surgery. The patient was sedated and Moseley made three standard incisions and then talked and acted like he was doing the surgery. All three groups received the same postoperative care, including an exercise program, and the therapists were not aware of the experiment.

The results were amazing. Yes, the groups who did receive the surgery as expected, improved. However, the placebo group improved just as much as the other two groups. This lead Moseley to pronounce, “My skill as a surgeon had no benefit on these patients. The entire benefit of surgery for osteoarthritis of the knee was the placebo effect.”

In a 2002 article in the American Psychological Association’s Prevention & Treatment, “The Emperor’s New Drugs,” University of Connecticut psychology professor Irving Kirsch found that 80% of the effect of antidepressants, as measured in clinical trials, could be attributed to the placebo effect.

Doctors have long thought that the placebo effect was psychological. Now, scientists are amassing the first direct evidence that the placebo effect actually is physical, and that expecting a benefit or negative outcome, (called nocebo effect), can trigger the same neurological pathways of healing as real medication does.

University of Michigan scientists injected the jaws of healthy men with saltwater to cause painful pressure, while PET scans measured the impact in their brains. During one scan the men were told they were getting a pain reliever, actually a placebo. Their brains immediately released more endorphins-chemicals that act as natural painkillers by blocking the transmission of pain signals between nerve cells and the men felt better.

“Our brain really is on drugs when we get a placebo,” says Christian Stohler, University of Maryland.

“Your expectations can have profound impacts on your brain and your health. ” Tor Wager, Columbia University neuroscientist.

In 1974, a Nashville physician, Clifton Meador, had a patient, Sam Londe, a retired shoe salesman suffering from cancer of the esophagus, a condition that was at the time considered 100% fatal. Londe was treated for that condition but everyone “knew” that the cancer would return and he would die. A few weeks later he died after this diagnosis. The surprise came when the autopsy found very little cancer in his body, certainly not enough to kill him. In fact, there was no trace of the esophageal cancer that everyone thought caused his death. He died because he believed and expected that he would die. He thought he had cancer.

Our positive and negative thoughts and beliefs not only impact our health, but also every aspect of our life. What are your thoughts and beliefs about the future? What are you predisposed to see? What false assumptions are you operating from and holding as being true? What lies are you buying into? How’s it going so far? If you don’t like what you’ve got in your health, business and personal life, then I’d recommend that you create a new set of expectations and set out to make those come true, and help your coachees do so too. This is the best time of the year to do this as well! What would happen if you decided that next year was going to be your best year ever instead of paying attention to the experts in the marketplace?

Henry Ford was right when he declared about the power of the mind, “If you believe you can or if you believe you can’t …you’re right!”

What do you believe? I believe in YOU! Create your business plan for next year. Make decisions on what you need to do to accomplish your goals. Next create a behavioral contract for the next seven days with what you will do and make sure that you have a consequence for non-performance. This will ensure that you use the placebo effect to live the life that you love!

Bob Davies, M.Ed. CPPC MCC, of High Performance Training,Inc 20992 Ashley Lane, Lake Forest, CA 92630-5865 949-830-9192 fax 949-830-9492