Episode 188: The 21-Day Rule!

manifest some dramatic improvements in your life. And in fact, if you just go online and do a search for twenty one day rule, here's the first thing that pops up. The idea is that it takes twenty one days to form a new habit and this originated from a book called psycho Cybernetics by a doctor named Maxwell Mattz. Maltz observed that it took his patience about twenty one days to adjust to a new physical feature, such as a nose job, and he then extrapolated this observation to other

areas of life, including habit formation. Interesting, you know, before I continue, I've heard of this kind of thing before, maybe not exactly the same, but for example, there was this experiment that I've heard about for years that's attributed

to NASA. Here's one version of it from a website called successful Mindset for Life dot com says back in the early days of the space program, NASA designed an experiment to determine the physiological and psychological effects of the spatial disorientation astronauts would experience in the weightless environment of space.

NASA needed to know if the environment of space would have some unexpected negative consequences, would they blackout they'd be unable to function, etc. So it says NASA scientists outfitted each of the astronauts with a pair of convex goggles which flipped everything in their field division one hundred and

eighty degrees. In other words, their world was literally turned upside down, and the goggles were on the astronauts twenty four hours a day, seven days per week, even when they were sleep and of course they experienced all kinds of symptoms of anxiety and stress. Gradually they adapted to their new realities, and according to this account, on the twenty sixth day of the experiment, something amazing happened for

one of the astronauts. His world turned right side up again, even though he continued to wear the goggles twenty four hours a day, and between days twenty six and thirty, the same thing happened for each of the remaining astronauts. And so the implication here is that after this length of time, the astronauts' brains sort of rewired, created these new neural pathways that would allow their brains to see their worlds normally again, even though it had changed very

dramatically in terms of sensory input. And these accounts go on. But that's the gist of it, and that's if true. That is sort of amazing.

has done. In fact, if you go to NASA dot gov, they have a pdf there called the Brain and Space where they talk about these kinds of experiments with perception being done not only with people but also animals. In fact, back in nineteen ninety eight, there was a mission, let's see called STS ninety using Columbia, and it said that it was basically referred to as neuro Lab, a space Lab module mission focusing on the effects of micro gravity

on the nervous system, et cetera. And so NASA has done these types of experiments, but I just can't say for certain if all the details of that account are accurate, even though it's widely reported. Maybe one of you will be able to go and find it if you are a better Internet sleuth than I. But you know what, even long before that, there were other scientists who had done experiments that were almost just like this and got

the same result. There was a European scientist named Theodore Airisman who lived from eighteen eighty three in nineteen sixty one, and he worked with another scientist named Ivo Kohler, and they created what was known as the Innsbruk goggle experiments, and they were pretty much, you know, doing the same thing.

They were using these special upside down goggles, as they're called, and these are goggles that you put on that invert what you see using prisms, mirrors, all that kind of stuff, and they're all I mean, this is very well documented history. You can actually go out and buy your own set of upside down goggles today. Some people, I guess Russians

call them invertoscopes. And apparently what they actually did, and they were not the very first scientists to do such things, but they got groups of people and they made them wear these upside down goggles for anywhere from days to weeks. I think in one case, there may have even been something like months. And you know, people who volunteered to be a part of this, they would have to live on a campus so that they could be helped and

you know, move around and survive. Then at night, they were taken into a dark room and they had dark patches put on their eyes, so they literally were only able to see the world in that inverted way. And my understanding is, and the results of that experiment, sure enough, some people only after a matter of days began to adjust and were able to function as if they were

in an upright world without any problem. Now, according to that experiment, though in most cases, when a person finally removed his or her goggles, then within a matter of minutes, everything would start to reverse back to how it originally was. So I just bring this stuff up to show you that the science behind all this, there's real science behind it, so to speak, but the specifics are a little bit fuzzy.

So therefore, let's take a closer look at this guy who was the doctor Maxwell Maltz, last name spelled Maltz, who really popularized this whole thing that's being promoted now as the twenty one day rule. Okay, so who was he exactly? Well, he lived from eighteen ninety nine to nineteen seventy five. He was an American cosmetic surgeon, and he wrote this very popular book in nineteen sixty called

Psycho Cybernetics. I have a copy of it right here, which was a system of ideas that he claimed could improve oneself image leading to a more successful and fulfilling life. And this description of his life is quite impressive, And at first it seems a little weird. Do you think, like, well, how is it that a guy who was a very successful cosmetic surgeon primarily came up with this concept of the twenty one day rule. Well, if you go to

his book and I have the let's see. This is the updated and expanded version of Psycho Cybernetics, and it says at the top it says the internationally best selling classic published this version in twenty fifteen, says on the back here when loosely translated from the Greek, cybernetics means a helmsman who steers his ship to port and the contemporary definition of cybernetics is the scientific study of how people, animals,

and machines control and communicate informations cybernetics was coined by doctor Maxwell Maltz, meaning steering your mind to a productive, useful goal so you can reach the greatest port in the world. Peace of mind. Wow, that sounds nice. How would you like to have peace of mind? Well, when we come back from this break, I'm going to tell you exactly what this book really says, and let's see how how much reality there is to this. Can you

tap into this and profoundly change your life? I want to also let you know that I get emails from time to time from people saying, man, I love that good Fortune tone that you often play on the show. Where can I find that and download it and listen to it whenever I want to? Well, when you sign up for my free e newsletter at Joshua Pwarren dot com, you will find that you get an automated email for me, and that email has links to all kinds of goodies free online gifts. One of them is a five minute

money Secret. If you click that, then you will be able to read a free ebook, listen to a free audiobook, and download various versions of the Good Fortune Tone. You will enjoy that and much much more, all for free. Just go to Joshua Pwarren dot com. And right there on the homepage you'll see in the slimergreen letters where it says click here for Joshua's free newsletter. Put your email address in there, hit the submit button. It takes you two seconds, and you will be good to go.

All right, I am Joshua pe Warren, and you are listening to Strange Things on the iHeartRadio and Coast to Coast AM Paranormal Podcast Network, and I will be right back. Stay right there, there's more Joshua P. Warren coming right out.

Psycho Cybernetics by doctor Maxwell Maltz. Here's what the preface says. It usually requires a minimum of about twenty one days to affect any perceptible change in a mental image. Following plastic surgery. It takes about twenty one days for the average patient to get used to his new face. When an arm or leg is amputated, the quote phantom limb persists for about twenty one days. People must live in a new house for about three weeks before it begins

to quote seem like home. These and many other commonly observed phenomena tend to show that it requires a minimum of about twenty one days for an old mental image to dissolve and a new one to Jail says, Therefore, you will derive more benefit from this book if you will secure your own consent to reserve critical judgment for at least three weeks, and during this time, do not be continually looking over your shoulder, so to speak, or trying to measure your progress during these twenty one days.

Do not argue intellectually with the ideas presented. Do not debate with yourself as to whether they will work or not. Perform the exercises they give you various exercises in this book here is this is kind of interesting that the doctor writes how a plastic surgeon became interested in self

image psychology. He says, offhand, there would seem to be little or no connection between surgery and psychology, and yet it was the work of plastic surgeons that first hinted to me the existence of the quote self image and raised certain questions that led to important psychological knowledge. When I first began the practice of plastic surgery many years ago, I was amazed by the dramatic and sudden changes in character and personality that often resulted when a facial defect

was corrected. Changing the physical image in many instances appeared to create an entirely new person. In case after case, the scalpel that I held in my hand became a magic wand that not only transformed the patient's appearance, but transformed his whole life. The shy and retiring became bold and courageous. A stupid boy changed to an alert, bright youngster who went on to become an executive with a

prominent firm. A salesman who had lost his touch at his faith to himself became a model of self confidence. And perhaps the most startling of all was the habitual hardened criminal, who changed almost overnight from an incorrigible who had never shown any desire to change into a model prisoner who won a parole and went on to assume a responsible role in society. Okay, so you see what

he's saying. He's talking about, how that the self image, this projection that you have, the way you feel about yourself, whether it's physically or mentally, has the potential to transform you after this period of time. He says, Habitually, you put on either your right shoe first or your left shoe. Habitually you tie your shoes by either passing the right hand lace around behind the left hand lace, or vice versa. Tomorrow morning, determine which shoe you put on first, and

how you tie your shoes. Now consciously decide that for the next twenty one days, you are going to form a new habit by putting on the other shoe first and tying your laces in a different way each morning. As you decide to put on your shoes in a certain manner, let this simple act serve as a reminder to change other habitual ways of thinking, acting, and feeling

throughout that one day. Say to yourself as you tie your shoes, I am beginning the day in a new and better way, and then consciously decide that throughout the day. There's a lot of information in this book, and it says here on the back that these techniques of visualization, mental rehearsal, relaxation have informed and inspired countless motivational gurus, sports psychologists, and self help practitioners for more than fifteen years.

So that's kind of like, you know, I didn't sit down and read every word of this book, but the book isn't saying this. You know, this is a magical number twenty one days and bang, you will instantly morph into this improved being. And if you get online and you start looking at what others are saying, there is a lot of criticism out there. I mean, like, well,

first off, here's this is kind of interesting. There's one page that I found here and it's it's goes so far as to say, there is the twenty one slash ninety rule. Did it takes twenty one days to create a habit, but it takes ninety days to create a lifestyle. It's like, huh. And this this article says a guy talked about this in his book Atomic Habits named James Clear.

The twenty one ninety rule refers to the fact that it takes twenty one days to develop a habit, and then practicing that habit for a ninety days becomes a permanent lifestyle change, and that in reality, the average time it takes for a new habit to stick is sixty six days, according to a two thousand and nine study. Okay,

well that's a little confusing, isn't it. What's exactly the difference between a habit and a lifestyle change, because it seems shouldn't like a habit sort of be a lifestyle change. And then they're all kinds of you know, more mainstream articles that criticize this. Here's one from Forbes, the headline habit formation. The twenty one Day Myth by Jason Selk. He talks about the habits of highly successful people allow

them to consistently perform behaviors that breed success. Michael Jordan spent his off seasons taking hundreds of jump shots a day. Cy Young Award winner CI Young Award winning Phillies pitcher Roy Halliday routinely does ninety minute workouts before practices. The young Venus and Serena Williams would take up let's see, they would wake up at six am to hit tennis balls.

Blah blah blah. And he says most people believe that habits are formed by completing a task for twenty one days in a row and then voila, a habit is formed. But he says that this is a misinterpretation that Maltz doesn't even come right out and stated that plainly. Here's another article by a man who is a behavioral scientist named Joris Beirda, and it's called the myth of twenty one days and the truth about habit creation. And he says that that's a myth that research has shown it's

not that simple. In fact, the truth about habit creation creation is much more complex and involves a variety of factors. So he gets into saying that it depends enormously on the individual and the goal. And he says here that research has shown in a study published in the European Journal of Social Psychology that it takes an average of sixty six days for a new habit to form, However, it varies a lot, and then he gives tips on like supposedly practical things. If you're going to develop a

new habit, start small. Begin with a simple behavior you can repeat daily, such as drinking a glass of water every morning. Set specific goals. Define exactly what you want to achieve, how you want to achieve it. Make a plan. Create this plan for how you're going to incorporate a new behavior into your daily routine. Track your progress and celebrate small victories along the way. Stay motivated, reminding yourself of the benefits, and enlisting the support of friends and family.

This kind of stuff is what he's talking about, all right. So I've never really dug into this before. I just heard about it for years. So now that I've seen the source material and I've seen what a lot of like self help gurus are promoting out there, and now I see what some of the more modern day psychologists and scientists are saying about it. Well, what is my conclusion. Well, when we come back from this break, I'm going to give you my ultimate conclusion on this thing, the twenty

one day rule and does it work? And then I want to move on into some things that are a little more paranormal and on the spooky side, because you know, I recently did this podcast about people who have teleported through time possibly and time slips, and there are some spooky things associated with that. There's a there's a story I forgot to tell you that I want to tell you,

and I also have something kind of cool. I forgot to tell you one time about the haunted Stanley Hotel where the book and the movie The Shining was based. You know, it was based on that. And then oh yeah, I've got something to tell you also about new ways that you can figure out if you have a spirit around you or a UFO is dipping around you, things that we can all do that are kind of easy. I'm Joshua P.

my bad habits are. And usually you fall into a bad habit because at some point it gave you some joy or some peace, or helped you cut a corner somewhere, and so you just kept doing it. And sometimes you know, these little solutions they work temporarily, but over time, they cause bigger problems. And so if you form a bad habit, even if it's unintentional, well then you should be able to also form good habits. But that's that's harder. Of course.

Can you do this in twenty one days? It seems to me that what everybody's saying here is like, look, if you are going to seriously try to form a new habit, set aside twenty one days, three weeks to just try to as almost mindlessly as possible, repeat that thing that you want to do, and if you can make it twenty one days, then that is a threshold point where you are on your way. But it does not work the same way for everybody, and it doesn't

apply to all habits. So look, the honest conclusion is you just have to try it out and see for yourself, because we are all different. So get a calendar and make a note to do something every day for just twenty one days, and then after twenty one days, see for yourself if it starts to feel more natural. Maybe you do one push up every day or one sit up every day. That can't hurt, right, I mean, like you might say, well, what good is one push up

or one sit up. Is it gonna do well? If you haven't done one in a month, it's better than nothing. Or maybe you eat an almond a day. I've heard that's good for you, where you drink something healthy when you might have drank something that was unhealthy instead of

a big sugary soda. You know, you go for something that is supposed to be good for you, or maybe you try to at the same time each day write down the same wish something you want to attract into your life, or draw a picture if you can that represents something that you want to attract. I guess the sky is kind of the limit when you start thinking about what it is that you in particular personally want to amplish. And so is there a hard and fast,

magical twenty one day rule. No, but that should be I think a very good goal for you to shoot for, because if you can make it twenty one days by forcing yourself to do it, then it might suddenly become much much easier for you to continue developing that habit. That's what I think about it. And if you can find a better, clearer, more definite, scientific explanation than that, please send it to me. But I think that is

what I have found is the truth. And you know, it's funny even doing this podcast the way I do it. You know, I do this podcast, well, one comes out every week, you know. Sometimes I have to record the weeks in advance, but generally speaking, every Friday podcast comes out. I've been doing this for years, and when I do this, you get it becomes a habit. And that doesn't make

it any easier to do it. In some ways. It still takes a lot of energy and effort, but at least I understand what I'm doing and now it's just a natural part of my routine. Hey, by the way, I want to share something with you real quick before I forget about it. Okay, hang on just a second, Sorry about that? Did that? Did that make you jump a little bit?

them as they were running into battle. That would just make the hairstead up on the back of their enemies necks, that just scare the heck out of them. And I have at least one listener, a fellow named Robert and Arizona. Hi Robert, and I think his cat Felix or Phoenix, your cat. I'm sorry, but anyway, he said he would write me and say, man, you know, I can't believe

you played that whistle. I try to doze off to sleep at night listening to your show and I heard that thing, and I never you never get over it. So that was for you, Robert. Occasionally I might make you jump a little bit if I just randomly, spontaneously give you a little of the Aztec death whistle. That will wake everybody up and make sure you're not dozing to sleep. From my show, I told you I was going to tell you about something kind of spooky though, right,

that's a good way to start. And one of my recent shows, I was talking about people who have teleported and how that relates to time slips and possible time travel, and that kind of thing. And I didn't have time to tell you about this videographer that I used to know. This is well over twenty years ago. His name was Jack. Real nice guy, very talented, and he was a very honest,

down to earth, practical man. And he told me one time that he lived in the mountains of New Jersey, which is kind of funny because I never really thought about or is he having mountains at that point, I don't think i'd really been up there and explored too much. But he said that for a while he lived in this really creepy house. It's like a cabin with a

roommate out in the middle of the woods. And he said that, you know, they the thing that like they liked the least about it was that apparently there were snakes that lived in the walls, and at night you could hear these snakes slithering up and down within the walls. Could you sleep in the house like that? I couldn't.

But as if that weren't enough, he said that one day he walked into the house and best I remember, he said that he turned and saw one of these situations where there was furniture there that didn't belong to him, and there was like an old man and an old woman standing there, and he at first he said, it was so confusing because he knew he was in his house, but he thought, this can't be my house. The whole environment had completely changed, and they all kind of looked

at each other and then they disappeared. This is a person that I knew, you know, who told me this face to face. Is that a matter of a form, of course, surely we call that a time slip, but also is that something that we would think of as being part of a teleportation experience where these two these two time periods blended together. I was thinking about that, and it reminded me also of some of my trips

I've taken to the Stanley Hotel. The Stanley Hotel is in Estes Park, Colorado, and it's the place where Stephen King was staying when he was inspired to right the novel The Shining and uh, let's see here, I did it. The last time I was there was last year, and I did an episode two let's say, no, Episode one fifty four about this and I'm looking back here, Okay. So I always loved going there, and so I was there with Lauren and my mom and dad and sister

and her fiance Andrew. And I'm holding something in my hand right now that's really really interesting and cool, because you know, when I think of the Stanley, I almost think of that story representing a sort of a time slip in which, you know, this guy goes there to be the caretaker and then he walks into these scenarios where he doesn't just see a ghost, but he sees like an entire ballroom full of people and tables and you know, like whole banquets that have disappeared, and it's

like he's literally walked into her teleporter back at the time. That story reminds you a lot of the time slip phenomenon. And let me tell you what I'm holding in my hand. When we drove up the long winding drive to go through the gates of the Stanley and park, when we pulled up to the parking gate, the attendant said, it costs ten dollars to park, but in return, we're going

to give you this coin. It's a token. It looks like it's made out of brass, and this thing is worth five dollars of trade in value at the hotel. So basically, you can either keep this coin as a souvenir, or you can use it and make some money, or you use it as money at the hotel. So it's kind of an interesting business proposition. Of course, we decided to keep it. When we come back, I'm gonna tell you about that. I also have an update for you on again some ghost stuff, some UFO stuff. I'm Joshua

pe Warren. You're listening to strange things on the iHeartRadio and Coast to Coast AM Paranormal Podcast Network, and I will be right back. Hang on, josh will be right back.

it's Phoenix the cat. You live in Arizona. All right, let's get back to the Stanley Hotel. Uh so, yeah, you could? You know you can pay well, you pay ten dollars for parking and they give you this. It looks like a brass token to me. It's larger than a quarter. And uh, I just love this this coin. On one side of it, it has an engraving of the face of the hotel and it says the Stanley Hotel since nineteen oh nine. But then the wildest part

is on the back. On the back of it, they have got us well imagery that is com totally devoted to the movie. The shining the background image is the very distinctive pattern of the carpet that Stanley Kubrick used in the movie. And then on top of that is

an axe. For God's sake, you remember that scene here's Johnny and then it has the number two seventeen, and two seventeen is that's the room that Stephen King apparently was staying in when he had the inspiration to write the book, and that's the number he used in the book, I guess. But apparently when Kubrick made the movie, the hotel did not want him to use that number two seventeen because they were afraid that it would frighten people away and they would lose money on that, and so

he changed it to two thirty seven. I believe room two three seven. Uh, but yeah, it's got that, it's got the carpet and the ax and uh. You know, at some point we're going to start up an Instagram page just to show you, you know, images of interesting things like this that I talk about on the show. So I like to have that right here next to me along with my compass from Transylvania. You've heard me

talk about this before. And you know, here's a tip for you if you were ever out there doing a paranormal investigation or no, get let me let me rephrase that. If you are out there going about your and you end up in a place that you think is haunted and you want to do a paranormal investigation of some kind,

but you don't have any tools. You know, I've told you before that you can take a simple compass and the compass should always point north, and if it stops pointing north, or it starts especially spinning or something like that, then something is influencing it, and that may be a paranormal electromagnetic field. But if you don't have a compass, I found that I have an Android phone and it

does a pretty darn good job for me. If I go to let's see, and I'm not being paid to promote this or anything, Onlinecompass dot app, Compass spelled of course co m p A s S Online Compass dot app app, Online Compass dot app. If you do that on my phone anyway, it instantly brings up a very sensitive interact compass. And I've been comparing it to some of my physical compasses, and it seems to do a great job and you can walk around and use that.

I think that's more valuable than all of these other like apps that you can download supposedly that give you like, you know, spirit box stuff and that you know, Frank's box kind of I don't trust all that stuff, but I do trust picking up electromagnetic anomalies. And there are supposedly some other things on here that you can use, like there's one that says EMF meter, light meter. I don't know if I mess with all that stuff, because it looks to me like you have to download something

for those. But just for the basic online compass, it does a really good job. Just take that thing out and just walk in a straight line and it should stay pointed more or less in the same direction unless you encounter some strange paranormal field and then it may start spinning. But you know, having said that, I as a general rule, I mean I don't I don't ever recommend relying on smartphones as scientific instruments or paranormal investigation instruments.

Smartphones are misleading, especially these apps and stuff. They are not. Smartphones are not scientific instruments, Okay. An instrument is generally devoted to one type of thing. So for example, when it comes to UFOs, you know, I have my camera, I think it's called a Sony RXO two that I use to film the sky at one thousand frames per second to see if I can capture some kind of a UFO that's moving too quickly for the eyes, the naked eyes to see. And I've had some pretty interesting

success with that. But I'm using a camera that is has all of its resources devoted to being one thing, and that's a case ever, and a smartphone has got it's supposed to do everything for you, and it's all of its resources are being used in a gazillion different ways. So I don't think there's ever a substitute for having something that's that's devoted to a goal versus trying to like tap into some thing that your uh, that your

smartphone has, like some inspector gadget gadget. But the next best thing is you know Jason Sarachi, who, of course he's my buddy here who runs vegasufos dot com where he can take you out on skywatches. He was telling me that he has a Samsung phone that is claiming that it can shoot nine and sixty frames per second, and I said, wow, really that's kind of hard to believe.

So I started to look into it and on the actual Samsung dot com site, it says it's called the super Slow Mo feature and nine hundred and sixty frames per second it says it captures moments the human eye can't normally see by playing them thirty two times slower than normal and a lot time many times slower than

video shot with other existing slow motion options. So I was looking into this, and on this other page it says that when they claim that these like Galaxy S two, twenty one and S twenty one plus support nine hundred and sixty frames per second super slow motion, that that only does it and burst up to one half a second. So you talked about getting lucky, like my Sony RXO two can shoot for two seconds, but this and you got to be super lucky to catch something in two seconds.

So to catch something in a half a second, ooh, you're reducing your chances tremendously if that's in fact capturing things the way it's supposed to. But then also on my camera, when I get these UFOs using high speed, you know, I'll that two second burst will turn into like forty second clip. And so the math sometimes does add up the way that this half second burst is coming up to a clip that's like thirty something seconds.

I don't want to get too technical on you, but I just want you to know, like look, hey, if you have one of these phones that supposedly can shoot nine hundred and sixty frames per second, go out and use it. Point it at the sky. Just shoot like ten or twenty clips on a clear day. Obviously, don't point your phone towards the sun. It might be a problem, it might hurt your lens. But if the phone support if the phone is supporting nine hundred and sixty frames

per second, go ahead, give it a shot. I want to leave you with this because I think this is really interesting and kind of inspirational. Back in June of twenty eighteen, Laren and I bought this glass globe that's basically a biosphere, and it's full of shrimp, and the shrimp supposedly have everything in there that they need to live,

and you can't get into it. It's completely sealed, and they have certain vegetables and a certain amount of air and minerals and all that, and it represents what life is like here on Earth, supposedly where you live in a bubble. Well, you know what, this June of twenty twenty four will be six years since we got those shrimp, and they are still in there, thriving without any outside input.

Isn't that crazy? And one time, one insane person emailed me and said, that's so cruel for you to keep those shrimping there.

Follow me on Twitter at Joshua P. Warren, Plus visit Joshua Pwarren dot com to sign up for my free e newsletter to receive a free instant gift, and check out the cool stuff in the Curiosity Shop all at Joshuapwarren dot com. I have a fun one lined up for you next time, I promise, So please tell all your friends to subscribe to this show and to always remember the Golden Rule. Thank you for listening, thank you for your interest and support, Thank you for staying curious,

and I will talk to you again soon. You've been listening to strange things on the iHeartRadio and Coast to Coast am Paranormal Podcast Network.