© Elliot Essman 2005. All rights reserved.

These pages contain the complete 2005 revised text of Building Yourself, public speaking trainer Elliot Essman's guide to living the successful life.

Elliot Essman Public Speaking Training
Building Yourself Table of Contents
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• None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832)

Unfortunately, there is no such thing as a quiet moment to reflect. We're constantly bombarded by outside thought control. Whole professions and industries are dedicated to molding our thought and behavior. If you take these profes­sions and industries apart you find regular people like you and me. None of these people are out there to commit evil acts. But neither are lions, tigers or sharks. The big cats will kill you and eat you without any trace of malice. The thought controllers will sap your ability to think without any bad intentions. In both cases, however, the possible harm is grievous. Arm yourself well.

Who are today's controllers? Advertising, the media, the makers and molders of public opinion. None of us will ever be totally free of thought control, unless we live in isolation. The advertising professionals have even carefully isolated people who are resistant to the mass‑culture group appeal of conventional advertising. After finding that these people don't like to be considered part of the main group, the ad people, having analyzed every nuance of their behavior, have geared a certain new variety of manipulative, “go your own way” advertising to them.

Let's look at just one of the many examples of thought conditioning in society: the question of what we eat every day. Diet and nutritional fads come and go. A major diet book will come out. A doctor will make pronouncements about what foods are healthy and unhealthy, which foods will make you lose weight. The media will ignore the lack of long term scientific evidence; they'll fill space with the doctor's pro­nouncements because they know people will read what they write. At the time the first edition of this book was written in 1994, the grand culprit was sup­posed to be fat in the diet. Now it's probably a sensible idea to watch the intake of certain kinds of fat, but the public wasn't satisfied with that. Millions of people then felt they could gobble down anything as long as it was low in fat. Unhealthy products filled with chemicals and sweeteners succeeded because they labeled themselves as “light,” “no-fat” or “low-cholesterol.” As I write now in 2005, the great food villains are carbohydrates. Of course you see carbohydrate watchers consuming fats with total abandon.

As any responsible nutritionist or doctor will tell you, sensible, balanced eating habits along with a sensible level of exercise is the best course. But this kind of advice rarely makes a media splash. It takes work to change old ways and maintain lifelong health habits. Many people have done this. But writing about it doesn't sell many newspapers or get you on the best seller list.

Beneath the bust of Mark Twain in the Hall of Fame is a wonderful inscription: “Loyalty to petrified opinion never yet broke a chain or freed a human soul.” It wouldn't do you harm to write this short sentence down on an index card and tape it to your refrigerator, so it can impress itself into your brain. Society conditions thought. It's up to you to un-condi­tion it and to keep your thinking process healthy.