Chapter 9: Dropping Anchors 155
Humour offers an incredibly resourceful and valuable way to change state.
For example, cartoon characters often provide the ability to see the opposite
perspective on your experience; to take a serious subject and put it in a new
light. The skill of any leader – whether as parent or manager – lies in your
ability to pace somebody through these different states and lead them to a
positive outcome.Altering states with anchors
Your states are constantly shifting, and the value of anchors is that they
enable you to alter your state to a more resourceful one when you need to.
Say, for example, you have a difficult decision to make, a person to meet, or
an event to attend – at weddings and funerals, emotions run high and you
may want to manage your feelings closely. By being in the right state, you can
make the best choices and act for the best result.As an analogy, imagine that you’re sailing a dinghy in a storm, and you want to
reach a safe harbour. By developing the ability to fire anchors, you can secure
a calm state for yourself or switch to an energetic, risk-taking mode as neces-
sary. An anchor, by definition, is attached to a stable position: it keeps you safe
and stops you floating away. Strength and stability are the keynotes here.Whenever you notice that you’re not in a ‘good’ state, you have a choice.
Either you stick with this uncomfortable state because, for some reason, you
get some value out of it. Or you decide that you prefer to identify and shift
into a ‘better’ state. To do the latter, you can fire off an anchor to create a
more positive state for yourself. (Flip to the earlier section ‘Setting an anchor
and building yourself a resourceful state’ for how to do so easily, in just three
steps, and see Chapter 6 for more on resourcefulness.)Constantly overriding negative anchors with positive ones can lead to prob-
lems. Negative anchors can be one way that the unconscious mind indicates
to you that you need to work on an underlying issue. For example, feeling tired
may be an indication that your current work patterns are exhausting you. If
you continue to override this warning sign with an energetic anchor, you can
become burnt out.
Getting with the baroque beat
The Ancient Greeks knew it, early psychologists used it, and modern science
confirms it: music affects both mind and body. Music alters the brainwaves
that demonstrate the electrical activity in your brain. When you’re relaxed,
your brainwaves are slower and they speed up as you become more ener-
gised. Music with around 60 beats per minute seems to be the most comfort-
able across cultures, because it corresponds to the beat of the human heart
at rest.