Eugene Pauly, or “E.P.” as he would come to be known in medical literature, had been at home in Playa del Rey, preparing for dinner, when his wife mentioned that their son, Michael, was coming over.

“Who’s Michael?” Eugene asked.

“Your child,” said his wife, Beverly. “You know, the one we raised?”

Eugene looked at her blankly. “Who is that?” he asked.

The next day, Eugene started vomiting and writhing with stomach cramps. Within twenty-four hours, a panicked Beverly took him to the emergency room.

He was suffering from viral encephalitis, caused by a relatively harmless virus which in rare cases, can make its way into the brain, inflicting catastrophic damage as it chews through the delicate folds of tissue where our thoughts, memory and dreams reside. The virus had eaten away his memory of more than 30 years and his capacity to form new memories; hence, he had no recollection of his grandchildren, his illness, hospital stay or amnesia. But he had all the habits he had formed for 40 years. Just didn’t remember the past 31 years, he was of 71 at the time.

After a few days, on questioned by scientist, Larry Squire, “When you get out of bed in the morning, how do you leave your room?”

“You know,” Eugene said, “I’m not really sure.”

The doctors had warned Beverly that she would need to monitor Eugene constantly. If he ever got lost, they said, he would never be able to find his way home. But one morning, while she was getting dressed, Eugene slipped out the front door. At first, Beverly didn’t notice. When she did, she became frantic looking for him all over their place and the street. However, Eugene found his way back home but had no memory of wandering out. He said, he didn’t know where he’d been, and couldn’t understand why she was so upset. His general mood was to be happy. He functioned normally out of habit from the past, even though he had no idea where the kitchen or their house was. Gradually, their life began to find a new balance.

Beverly said, “We were married for fifty-seven years, and forty- two of those were a real, normal marriage. Sometimes it was hard, because I wanted my old husband back so much. But at least I knew he was happy.” At 84, he passed away from massive heart attack.

Eugene operated solely depending on his habit loop for more than a decade! Our habit plays out even without our memory.

Amazing trainings and motivational speeches do not become our new behavior despite their valuable insight and our intention to integrate them to our behavior owing to the fact that it is too much of effort for our brain to remember and then, modify our actions. Plus, old habit kicks back as it is our automatic behavior.

People spend thousands on new courses and clothes to redefine themselves but often fail as the motivation and the intention gets sidetracked with the demands of life; and complain, blame and regret that somehow their career progress stagnated. Success is not possible without persuasive communication skills - be it at interviews, presentations, talk for promotion and salary hike, and even with your children - and you cannot always rely on your knowledge of a great insight to talk with authority, this has to become your second nature.

The course is developed with insights from cognitive behaviour psychology to encourage looking inward to develop a natural style that becomes a second nature. Hence, I hope our collective objective of persuasive, commanding, influential and successful communication style is realized through the course.