A Professional Golf Association Champion had, rather too frequently, driven into the same waterhole in a particular tournament. When he returned the following year, all the reporters buzzed around him, asking him if he was going to do it again.

He assured them he was not, because he had been practising 'positive thinking techniques' during the year, and was confident of an improved performance. When he came to the tee in question, what do you think he did? Yes, you guessed - he went straight into the waterhole!

As he was lining up the shot, you could see by his very body language, and the fact that he kept looking toward the waterhole, that his brain was repeating to himself something like...

' this is the tee where I drove into that waterhole last year; I'm not going into that waterhole again; I'm not going into that waterhole; which is about 15 degrees to my left and 70 yards away; I'm definitely not going into that waterhole again.

As he was repeating his positive thinking thoughts to himself, you could see his body unconsciously lining up to drive the ball toward that waterhole! His brain, having been instructed for a year, and intensely on the day and on the green, had in effect said to him. OK you know what you want! If that's where you want it to go, that's where I will put it for you. And in the ball did indeed go, even more accurately than the previous year.

SB, through his internal dialogue, programmed himself persistently and consistently that he would not go into the waterhole. But, thinking that focuses on what you do not want, is equally successful as the thinking that directs your thoughts towards what you do. By the nature of the way our brain works it will not process negatives. When I say to you, 'don't think about a blue tree', you must first think and create the blue tree in your mind, before eradicating it, if indeed you are able.

The goal of true Progressive Thinking is to create thoughts that direct you toward what you want to have happen.

Let us consider another story that illustrates how thoughts and beliefs become strong boundaries that create our reality and determine how we behave.

A patient who was being treated by a psychiatrist would not eat or take care of himself, claiming that he was a corpse. The psychiatrist spent many hours arguing with the patient trying to convince him, he was not a corpse. Finally the psychiatrist asked the patient if corpses bled. The patient replied, 'of course corpses don't bleed as all of their body functions have stopped.' The psychiatrist then convinced the patient to try an experiment. The psychiatrist would carefully prick the patient with a pin and they would see if he started to bleed. The patient agreed. After all, he was a corpse. The psychiatrist gently pricked the patient's skin with a needle and, sure enough, he began to bleed. With a look of shock and amazement the patient gasped,'I'll be darned... corpses do bleed'.