punctuated emergence: the Tony Hack “Studies of Olympic athletes, world class musicians, and chess grand masters find their unifying trait is the is the ability to motivate themselves to pursue relentless training routines” Daniel Goleman, Emotional Intelligence    The root question(s) of this project were: was it possible to isolate the central generative pattern of a well known motivational trainer, “Tony”, or one of a cluster of them? The CGP would be a simple but potent apex pattern that could give rise to, in current parlance, emerge, other patterns and strategies that could prove effective life tactics and strategies.     If a CGP were isolated, could it then be refined and potentiated with a strategy like that of a Grinder type new code game?     One likely CGP may be found on an audiotape authored by Anthony Robbins titled Powertalk, The Power of Questions, which may be obtained from Amazon.com.      An adjunct technology which has proven useful is the Photosonix Pro light-sound stimulation device. This device is often overstimulating with the light emitting diode goggles, however a high quality result may be had by using the headphones only for controlled auditory stimulation.      The sequence works as follows. It is recommended that the patternee listen to the Robbins tape at least once to understand the trajectory of the pattern.      The pattern is divided into a two day sequence. The first day is the programming day, the second day is the emergence day. Repeat 1-2,1-2,1-2, until confident that the pattern is well installed.       Tony’s hypothesis is that the brain functions differently when processing questions that it does when making declarative statements. His sub-hypothesis is that questions vary in their ability to generate useful results. He distinguishes between these as productive question and non-productive questions. Tony feels that rather than contemplating a possible solution, it is more effective to pose frequent questions to oneself and allow the answers to “emerge” into consciousness.     My project consisted of provisionally accepting this hypothesis in order to develop a mental routine that might accelerate or potentiate its desired outcomes.     On the “1” day, my task was to ask myself as many empowering questions as I had available opportunity to, with structural modifications which will be explained below.     On the “2” day, I would attempt to be mentally silent with regard to the question pattern and allow  whatever wanted to emerge to do so without interpretation. This is important as if one has a preconception regarding the form of  an answer one may miss significant contributions that do not fit one’s preconceptions.     The “1” day employed a cycle of questions, starting with a basic question, e.g. “ what would make my experience of this day as interesting and valuable to my development as possible ?” The question is then repeated in each of the interrogatory forms… “how could I make my experience of this day…?”, “where could I make my experience of this day…?”, “when could I make my experience of this day…? “who could make my experience of this day…”. The Why form is a special case, as it often initiates a backwards looking search that seeks justifications, therefore I often reverse the Why to Why Not ? , e.g. “why couldn’t I make my experience…?” this often triggers a strong polarity response in me of “who says I couldn’t, dammit ?”    An additional mental trick is to use question-like nonsense words. I selected the word “wham”, that my brain would interpret as some form of question that it hadn’t yet learned about… e.g. “wham would make my experience of this day…?” Wham questions feel as if they release an extra squirt of endorphins which makes the question cycle mildly addictive, which is a good thing IF the questions are useful and empowering.    Many persistent life problems appear to be linked to the mind repeatedly asking itself non-productive or disempowering questions, especially dysfunctional Why questions “why does this always happen to me ?”, “why am I so disgusting”, “why were my parents such losers ?”.   On occasion, a shift in the interrogatory can meaningfully change the search, if one insists on asking about events that repeatedly happen, on can restructure this to “where does this always happen to me ?, or “which shouldn’t this always happen to me ?”. The frequent social observation, such as “what an asshole !” can be restated as “when an asshole!” and that will modify the internal search as well as the mental construction of the interpretive “mind drama”   However, it is better to actively pose questions that imply creative, value adding emergent responses from the out of full conscious awareness parts of the mind.    These question are best asked frequently in a full cycle of self interrogation, with one nonsense “wham” or other marker of one’s choosing, to signal to the mind that these ‘who ,what, when, where, how, why not ?” are part of a distinct creative process.    One may also add physiologic game elements, such as when climbing stairs, one may time an exhalation with each second step and firmly ask “what would ?”, step, “who would ?”, step, “when would ?”, step, “how would ?” , step, “which would?”, step, “why wouldn’t ?” step. Etc.   Another approach is to challenge oneself to notice a certain number of visually distinct things in ones normal environment that one has not previously paid attention to, and make seeing each one an anchor for firing a constructive self question. When I see the address “88” on an awning near my office, this will trigger a “how can I make this a most productive and interesting day ?”. Although I often forget the specific instruction if I am distracted or in a hurry, simply seeing the “88” will trigger a resourceful state.   As stated above, the Photosonix mind machine is effective in this context. On the “1” day, or the programming day, I might listen to the auditory portion of the “high range jumps”, a randomized movement through high alpha-low beta frequencies, from 10-18 Hz.. This puts my mind into an proactive, highly focused state that is well suited to posing repeated questions. On a “2” or emergent day, I might use the “mid range jumps” from 8-13 Hz which places the mind in a more fluid, receptive state. I find the light goggles to stimulate an excess of adrenaline and experience that as counterproductive, thus decline to use them. Light goggles have also a risk of triggering seizures in those with epilepsy and seizure disorders, as a general policy I would avoid them if there is ANY indication that one MIGHT have a vulnerability to seizure. So far the results from this pattern, which I have titled the Tony Hack, have been constructive. My mental efficiency has increased, I accomplish markedly more on any given day, and much less prone to negative thoughts and negative thoughts have a weakened impact on my affect and significantly shorter duration. My communication with others has become more efficient and effective. I would suggest that others experiment with it, modify it in any way that works for them, and keep at it for about 2 weeks until it installs itself at the level of habit.