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The Incredible Power of Self Talk

August 23, 2016
James Jensen

We are grateful at IONS to have a spectacular Board of Directors who help guide the Institute in fulfilling its mission and in affecting personal and collective transformation. Made up of approximately 17 talented and accomplished individuals, each board member has a rich professional and personal life, and express their passions to positively impact the world in a variety of ways. In this post, we’d like to highlight one of our Board Members, James Jensen, and his book 7 Keys to Unlock your Full Potential. The following gives a flavor of what you can expect in his new book, touted as “a tool kit to improving performance in every area of your life.” Enjoy!


What we say to others is not nearly as important as what we say to ourselves. We talk to ourselves all day long at the rate of 150-300 words per minute, or over 50,000 thoughts per day. While you are reading these words you are having a simultaneous dialog with yourself about what you think of this writing while also “discussing” internally the most important items on today’s “to do” list as well as other pressing matters. This thinking, or SELF TALK, occurs through the CONSCIOUS area of our mind.

What most people are unaware of is our self talk becomes an instruction to our SUBCONSCIOUS whose duty is to carry out the “orders” from the “boss” or the conscious area of our mind, positive or negative. The subconscious is our own personal servo-mechanism that works on our behalf 24/7. It never sleeps.

Imagine an ocean liner crossing the sea with the captain barking out commands to the crew. The crew may be located in the hold of the ship, below the waterline unable to see where the ship is headed. The captain is analogous to the conscious area of the mind. In this example, the crew is like the subconscious area of the mind. So, as the captain commands to the crew, “Full speed ahead, 15 degrees north, etc.,” the crew simply responds, “Aye, aye, sir” and carries out its orders PRECISELY. The crew does not care whether it runs the ship into the rocks, collides with another vessel, or, gets the ship safely to its destination. This is a powerful analogy of the relationship between the conscious and subconscious areas of our mind. These are not two separate minds but rather two spheres of the same mind.

It is also important for us to realize that our Self Concept is created by our own Self Talk and it is our self concept that determines our level of performance in any area of our life. We have hundreds of individual self concepts which make up our overall self concept. We may have a high self concept of ourselves as a skier, i.e., ” I am an excellent skier.” Conversely, we may have a low self concept of our self as a golfer, i.e., ” I am a lousy golfer. I seldom shoot under 100!!” Our subconscious then works hard to insure our performance is consistent with our self concept, for better or for worse.

The subconscious is totally non-judgmental. It does not argue what is right or wrong or what may be best for us. It simply works to effect what it is being told to do by our conscious mind. In his book, 7 Keys To Unlock Your Full Potential, author C. James Jensen provides the reader with a great amount of detail about the powerful relationship between these two areas of the mind along with step by step procedures on how to make the positive changes in our lives we desire. As was written about Jim’s book by Jack Canfield, co-author of the Chicken Soup for the Soul series, “I have seldom read a book that so clearly leaves the reader to better understand the incredible relationship between the conscious and subconscious areas of the mind. I highly recommend it.”


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