First off, I don't believe them.

Second, if it's true, they need to sell me on the benefits IMMEDIATELY, and provide photos or testimonials on their home page... or let me browse all the non-restricted items and then upsell me to creating an account so I can see their "exclusive" content.

The way they have this implemented is just dumb.

One of the worst!

There is so much stuff moving on the pages, I can't focus enough to read the text.

The blue and green bold text that looks like it should be links ISN'T links.

The lines of identical animated dump trucks, flags, and castle doors ARE links. What were they thinking?!?

The videos are amazing. I've never even imagined a live bird show that good. Nighttime water shows look amazing also.

But the controls to full-screen the videos are almost invisibly small, and only visible if you mouse over them. (They're at the bottom of each video.) The videos start automatically when the page loads, so by the time you find the control, the video is partway through, and it's very difficult to rewind. The controls are also tiny even on my 19-inch monitor.

The site navigation is baroque... or Roman, or something... Fonts too small, site too small. Great content; I'd love to visit the park; but the site should be redone. Surely an outfit that can put on shows this good has the budget for a redesign...

What were they smoking when they built THESE websites? They are unbelievably, ludicrously bad. I'm sure my housemate thought I was being attacked by Hittites when he heard the screams of laughter from my office...

I love that the navigation item labeled "Mission PLEASE READ" goes to a page (http://www.futuro-house.net/page3.html) that is utterly unreadable: blue text on a black background of sparkling stars. LOL!

Well, it made me laugh!

Not only did the carousel links not work for me, but trying to click one of the left-hand navigation items instead dragged the graphic. Great Scot!

I don't think categorizing problems as "superficial" vs. "deep" is particularly useful, as those distinctions don't tell us anything useful about the underlying structure.

I have noticed that standard NLP techniques tend to be effective when a problem develops in response to a small number of experiences. Whereas if the problem arises from hundreds or thousands of related experiences, as is often the case with for instance a response to an ongoingly abusive or crazy home environment, changing it may require a complex, multi-pronged approach. I suspect that the structure in the first case is rather simple, whereas the second case results in multiple redundant self-reinforcing structures. But I haven't formally tested this.
My recent post Lessons learned from Tom Hoobyar

My favorite technique for dealing with inner critics is to figure out what they want, dialog with them a bit to hepl them get pointed in a constructive direction, then send them to coaching school and turn them into coaches!

Critics are VERY motivated to help the person avoid bad outcomes or achieve good ones -- that's why they're critics! They're a problem because they don't know how to get their outcomes in constructive ways.

I usually find it helpful to ask an inner critic how well what it's been doing has worked, on a scale of 0 to 100%. Generally if it's causing or having enough problems to come up in a session, the number is low or 0. Once it realized how ineffective its behavior has been, the critic is usually happy to get some coaching training. I have the client "send it off to coaching school," then suggest that it will learn skills such as:

+ notifying the person of potential problems BEFORE they happen, and suggesting corrective action (instead of criticizing the person after it's too late to avoid the problem);

+ noticing what the person does that DOES work, and encouraging the person to notice and do more of that;

+ helping the person feel good when they do good things;

+ when something doesn't work, helping the person figure out what to do next time to prevent, avoid, or minimize the problem;

+ talking kindly and lovingly to the person;

+ talking to them with the sexiest and/or most loving voice in the whole world -- the kind of voice they LIKE to listen to, and will pay attention to...

...and so on.

As a person who at one time had literally THOUSANDS of negative internal voices myself, it is amazing to me to live with a mind that is so peaceful, happy, and quiet. Instead of the inner critics that made my life hellish, I now have inner coaches that comfort, teach, motivate, and inspire me. They still do the useful functions inner critics do, and they do them in kind, loving, constructive ways. Most of the time now, they don't need to say anything. :)
My recent post Lessons learned from Tom Hoobyar

Great post, Duff! I've noticed this phenomenon myself, especially in this form:

I want to achieve tangible goal X... but to "take action" on it, I do something symbolic that does nothing to move me tangibly closer to my goal.

For instance, if I decide to get in shape, joining the gym is a symbolic activity. Only actually doing exercise will help me achieve my goal. That doesn't require gym membership; I could walk to the store, go up and down stairs, ride my bike, swim, use canned goods for free weights... Having a gym membership might or might not help me actually exercise. For many people, gym membership is a symbolic substitute for doing the tangible exercise that would help them toward their fitness goals.

Often the best way out of this bind is to quit doing the symbolic substitute. Now whenever you think about task, project, or goal X, instead of telling yourself "I'm doing it!", you notice that you're not doing it, and that tends to inspire action. Give away the paints, model railroad track, or engine rebuild parts you've been hoarding for years, and you're actually more likely to paint, build a model layout, or tweak that engine. Go figure.

My recent post Powerful persuasion technique used by successful companies- individuals

Typinator is another bit lever for the Mac. It is less buggy than TypeIt4Me, better supported, and has more features.

(I've used bit levers on Macs since around 1990.)

Also, boost productivity by tweaking your computer's interface so it works the way you think. Examples:

Set up files and folders you use most so you can access them quickly and easily.
If you need to see files to notice them, and you're running out of space on your desktop, use a utility like DragThing to add pull-out drawers around your screen.
If you like pull-down menus, a program like Classic Menu helps you find files and folders you want.
If you find listening easier than reading, use a text-to-speech program to select text in emails and on web pages, then read it aloud to you. (The Mac has a built-in text-to-speech utility that I use for this.)