Sleight of Mouth language patterns are incredibly effective in overcoming objections, turning big issues into non issues, and covertly removing limiting beliefs in yourself or others.

Today’s pattern is called “Reflexively Apply to Self.” Since that definition is about as clear as mud, let’s take a closer look.

In this, the “Self” is the person saying or expressing the objection, belief, or argument that you’d like to easily demolish with your linguistic Jedi skills.

And the thing you apply, is their own stated belief. This creates a kind of infinite feedback loop,and sometimes is enough to break the pattern.

When I was a kid, my Dad bought this video camera. You could plug it into the TV, so you could see on TV what you were filming. If you pointed the camera at the TV, you saw an endless stream of smaller and smaller TVs going off into infinity. This is what this pattern will do to the mind of your listener.

So basically, the idea is to take whatever belief they say, and apply that same thinking right back at the belief itself.

For example, if the person says something like:

I don’t have a college degree, so I can never get a good job.

The belief is not having some kind of certificate or training, and that being a limitation of obtaining something deemed worthy and valuable (e.g. a job).

So to throw it back at the belief, you might say something like:

Did you need any special training or courses to come up with that belief? Or did you decide that without any professional assistance?

Or even more abstract:

Did that belief need a college degree to be true and shape the way you look at things, or did it just decide to do that without any “official” approval from some accredited belief creation review board?

Or if somebody says:

I can’t afford your product, it’s too expensive. (Expensive product means I can’t buy it.)

How expensive do you think it is to limit yourself to products based on a cursory review of their immediate benefits without taking a look at the long term value?

Was it affordable to buy that belief that seems to be controlling what you can or can’t do?

Or if somebody says:

I’ll never find true love, I’m just not an interesting person. (Me not being interesting means nobody will ever truly love me.)

Did that belief need to be interesting in order for it to convince you of it’s truth?

Do you truly love that belief enough to let it go, so you can share your uninterestingness with others?

That belief sure isn’t interesting, yet look how much you are attached to it!

Or if somebody says:

My parents were always poor, so I’ll be poor myself.

That belief doesn’t sound like it’s worth very much.

Is being poor very valuable to you?

Did that belief’s parents share similar outlooks as it, or were they completely different?

Keep in mind these particular reframes aren’t particularly logical, and sometimes don’t make a lot of sense. The way they work is by getting the listener to take something that perceived as solid, and written everlastingly in stone to pause and say, “Huh, wait, wha?”

This is often enough to show that their belief isn’t as rock solid as they thought it was. This can either be enough to let the belief or objection die a natural death, or to leave the door wide open for you to throw in some other patterns that can continue to weaken and eventually destroy this old belief or objection.

Usually, it’s best to just keep on talking while you get them in the “wait, huh?” state of mind. Otherwise they might circle their wagons around their belief and dig in for a protracted siege. This will have the opposite effect, as people’s beliefs are strengthened whenever they defend them.

Also, keep in mind to be very careful to not make your listener feel as though you are putting them on the spot, or using their own words or beliefs to insult them. There’s a fine line between coming from a point of curiosity, where you show your listeners beliefs to them in a new and interesting way, and taking them and throwing them back in their faces.

The first way works well, the second only works to make enemies, so be careful.

Share this:

There have been many psychologists and philosophers over the years that have claimed that the brain is nothing more than a cause/effect creator, creating imagined relationships between events in the outside world.

While this may not be entirely accurate, it is true to a certain extent. Seeing one thing, and seeing something else happen in the same order a couple of times, and then developing a cause/effect belief about the pair of event is a huge time saver when it comes to cerebral processing power.

For example, if you were a caveman, and smelled a distinctive odor just before seeing a tiger, you’d certainly remember those two events as linked, so that in the future you’d be able to run quickly away at the same smell, instead of waiting to see if it meant tiger.

This powerful brain process can be used effectively in persuasion. In the Milton Model, “Cause and Effect” is a power linguistic tool. It can be used several ways.

You can phrase your idea as some kind of cause, and use a generally desired event or condition as the effect.

Buying my product will cause you to be very happy.

Participating in this investment program will cause you to become wealthy.

Participating in this exercise program will cause you to lose weight.

You could also turn it around, and lead with the desirable effect, and then imply the cause to the positive effect.

If you really want to be successful, you should study these language patterns.

If you’d like to easily lose weight, you should exercise every morning.

If you want to have a comfortable retirement, you should start investing now.

If you’d like to enjoy your grandchildren growing up, you should quit smoking.

You can also link an increase in one event or condition to an increase in another state or condition, by using “the more…the more”

The more you exercise, the more weight you’ll lose

The more you study, the smarter you’ll become.

The less you watch TV, the more free time you’ll have.

Another way to make these sound a bit less obvious is phrase them other than “X causes Y,” as this can be easy to refute with a simple “no it doesn’t.”

Another way to say “X causes Y” is:

X leads to Y

X can make Y a real possibility

X is naturally followed by Y

You can also soften it up even more (and therefore making them harder to argue with) by quoting some other group, either real or vague.

Many people have discovered that exercise naturally leads to easy weight loss.

More and more people are starting to realize that the sooner you start with dollar cost averaging, the easier you’re retirement will be.

It’s been proven time and time again that by learning conversational use of the Milton Model, you’ll easily become the most persuasive speaker that anyone has ever come in contact with.

And of course, as I’m sure you’ve realized by now, that the more you read this blog, the easier it will be to do just that.

Share this:

Once there was this little armadillo. He had separated from his tribe, and was starting to get a bit worried. He wasn’t old enough to be out by himself after dark, but he was old enough to start feeling a little frustrated and anxious whenever his parents started to boss him around. So while he was getting a bit concerned, part of him kind of secretly relished the idea of facing the elements on his own for the night. He was an armadillo, after all, and I’m sure you know what that means.

Many people aren’t aware that armadillos tend to be loners, and not hang out in packs. They don’t hunt in packs, as they prefer to scavenge alone for various ground dwelling animals, like squirrels and small rabbits. Occasionally an armadillo will survive on only insects, but it much prefers the meaty taste of a ground squirrel, or even a house. (Although mice are the hardest to catch. They seem to have a sixth sense that keeps him just out of reach of the armadillo).

It wasn’t always like that. Back during the heyday of the armadillos’ evolutionary period, it had several different iterations of itself. For a while it was even capable of short flights, up to a hundred meters on occasion. But Mother Nature soon corrected herself, as the flying armadillo didn’t really have any advantage, from a hunter-gatherer standpoint. It was more of a passing fad than anything else.

But our hero of this particular tale was heading due east, away from the setting sun. This had been programmed into the animal’s instincts by Mother Nature herself, as it just made it easier to forage for food. They started out with the sun at their backs, and scavenged around until the sun hit its apex. When the sun was in front of them, they merely turned and headed back the other direction.

This, incidentally, why armadillos only live in areas near the equator. There used to be quite a large armadillo population in the north, but due to the angle of the rising and setting sun, they never quite headed back at the end of the day to the same spot. So for a while, armadillos seemed to migrate in huge arcs across the northern plains, but that was merely due to the structure of their environment. If you happened to build yourself a time machine, as well as a human armadillo communication device, you would likely find that the armadillos didn’t really have any idea what was going on. They just knew that when they went home every single night, somebody had moved their house. So every night they would have to build a new one, only to find the same thing happen the next day.

(Altough, one would tend to wonder why you should build such a device if you had the technology to do so. You may be better of curing cancer or something, rather than going into the past and interviewing armadillos)

So it makes perfect sense as to why this particular species of northern armadillo didn’t survive.

Back to our story.

So as this young armadillo was following his ever-lengthening shadow, he started seeing thing moving about him that he’d never seen before. These small creatures that looked like mice, but they could fly. And they flew in a strange pattern. They didn’t fly in straight lines like insects; they kind of fluttered about as if they couldn’t see where they were going.

He figured if they couldn’t see where they were going, it would be pretty easy to eat them. So he crept a couple of low flying ones that were close by, and just as he stretched out his mouth, they shrieked this really high-pitched screech, and fluttered out of the way.

Try as he might, and despite getting very close to these strange creatures, he couldn’t sink his jaws into them. It was maidenly frustrating.

Then he heard the voice from behind him:

“Young hunter. You will need to determine more stealth to catch your prey. Despite their seeming ineptness, those creatures are equipped with a guidance system much different than yours. If you want to catch them, you must enter their world. You must learn to see in the dark, and respond to sound, and not sight.”

He turned around, and saw just the faint shadow of whatever creature had spoken to him slither off into the darkness.

He turned, and watched all these delicious fluttering entities that so far had proved to be just out of his reach.

Darkness.

The armadillo closed his eyes, and began to listen for the creatures. He heard cacophony he’d never imagined before. The fluttering of their wings, the insects under his feet, the breeze through the cacti. Suddenly, instinctively, he leapt into the air, and sunk his deeply into a fluttering creature of the night.

It was delicious.

The lost armadillo of the day, whose ancestors had followed the sun in circles across the northern plains, was now a hunter of the night.

Share this:

Once a long time ago I took a drive with a friend of mine. We started in Los Angeles, and our only goal was to make it to some city in New Jersey within a certain amount of time. I think it was something like five days. That’s about three thousand miles over five or six days, which is a lot of driving each day.

We had the route planned out, and our destination was clear enough, and the math was all figured out. Our basic plan was to wake up at six every morning, and start driving. We didn’t even figure on mileage per day, we just figured if we drove for twelve hours a day, with a minimum of stopping, we’d make it in time.

Sounds like a good plan, right? Only there was one thing we neglected to take into consideration. While this small detail didn’t affect the overall outcome of the trip, it made it a little bit more troublesome than we’d anticipated.

I had a friend once that really enjoyed math, and so he majored in math in university. He never really knew what he was going to do, he only knew that he liked math. He ended up being a high school teacher, but for a while he was a bit worried. When he graduated, he started looking through the want ads, and going to job seminars, and even went as far as to sign himself up with a few headhunters.

The thing about a degree in math is that by itself, it’s not all the applicable to very many industries. If you studied some kind of applied math like statistics, or actuarial science, you can do pretty well for yourself. I remember even reading several years ago about some huge ranking a major newspaper did on different jobs, using all kinds of factors like salary, working conditions, opportunities for advancement, etc. And an Actuary was ranked number one.

But my friend didn’t study any applications, just basic math theory. I think they called it foundations. Most people who focused on that aspect of math usually went on to get their PhD’s or something. Which was why my friend was a bit worried.

He figured just by doing something that he liked, that would be enough. Luckily, he really enjoys his teaching job, and he graduated when there was a severe shortage of math teachers in the public schools, so he could pretty much choose any school he wanted. But had he majored in something like history, or art or something, he wouldn’t have been nearly as lucky.

My other friend was much more specific. He studied a specific branch of electrical engineering. And when he was only halfway through university he already had talked to several different companies, and knew exactly what kind of people they hired, and what kinds of extra curricular backgrounds they liked for their fresh graduates. Needless to say, he was much more focused, and when he graduated he already had several offers lined up. And they were all for quite a bit of money. That must have been a pretty good feeling at graduation ceremony.

I went to this seminar once on goal setting. It was one of those local things they have every now and then down at the learning annex. This guy was saying that there are two kinds of goals. There are directional goals, and milestone goals. He said the directional goals are like walking toward the horizon. You will always walk in the same direction, but no matter how far you go, the horizon will always be a fixed location way off in front of you.

So long as you pick a point off in the distance, you’ll keep walking in the same direction. But if you only have a directional goal, it’s easy to get discourage, as you will never seem to make any progress. It’s tough to stay focused through will power alone.

On the other hand, there are milestone goals. Like if you pick something specific, and you know exactly what will happen when you achieve. Not only will you have something solid to look forward to, but you’ll also have evidence that you’ll collect along the way.

But if you only have a bunch of milestone goals, you could very well end up walking in a circle, so to speak. Each time you achieve your goal, you could pick another one, but if may take you back toward where you started. It’s easy to fall into a trap of oscillating back and forth between two extremes.

The best is to have a combination of the two. When you choose a solid directional goal, and several milestone goals that are lined up in the same direction, it would be like walking toward the horizon, and achieving several significant goals every so often along. These will be enough to keep you motivated and keep you going, and the horizon will always be there beckoning you to keep going. If you keep this up, pretty soon you’ll be accomplishing some pretty fantastic stuff, as they will tend to increase in size along the way.

The easiest way is to pick something way off in the distance, and then work your way backwards until you have several small pieces of achievements laid out in front of you just waiting for to start walking along your path and scoop them up along the way.

The funny thing that happened to us on the way to New Jersey was we’d get to six or seven at night, and figure we’d done enough driving. So we decide to stop for the night, only to look on our map and find that the next town wasn’t for another hundred miles or so. And when you’ve been driving for twelve hours, and you’re about ready for a cheeseburger and a couple beers, and a soft bed, another hundred miles is a long way.

But at least it was a hundred miles in the right direction. I’d hate to imagine what it would be like to realize we made a mistake and had to turn back for a hundred miles. That would be devastating.

(Advertisement)

To learn how to easily set, and achieve both short term and long-term goals, click below to learn some powerful NLP secrets:

Success with NLP

Share this:

The other night I was flipping around the TV and I came across an old episode of Seinfeld. It was the one where George decided to do the opposite of everything he’d normally do and he suddenly had fantastic results. He would walk up to girls and tell them he was unemployed and lived with his parents, and he would have startling success. It was pretty funny. I hadn’t watched a Seinfeld episode in a couple years, so it nice to get a dose of that style of humor.

For some reason, it reminded me of this seminar I attended a few years ago. It taught of a strange mixture of skills, from NLP to hypnosis to a bunch of other stuff. While it was only a three day seminar, there were several speakers who came and gave lectures, and did demos, and showed us how to do some pretty cool stuff with language and intention and all sorts of metaphysical style exercises, like throwing energy balls at each other and stuff. It was remarkable how well that stuff seemed to work.

One of the speakers was talking about how prolific metaphors are in daily life. He referred a couple of times to George Lakoff and Mark Johnson’s work on metaphors, starting with their groundbreaking “Metaphors We Live By,” and how most of our language is shaped purely by metaphors.

For example, when you say something like “I’m in a meeting,” why do you use the preposition “in” instead of on, for example? According to Lakoff and Johnson (and many other linguists) whenever we use an intangible noun, we have to fit it into a category, in our brain, of a tangible noun, so we know what words to use when we talk about it.

For a meeting, it falls under the “container” metaphor. The beer is in the fridge, the pizza is in the box, and I’m in a meeting.

Another example is that in English, “up” is generally good, and “down” is generally bad. Things are looking up. Why do you look so down, etc. This guy at the seminar said that it goes much further than that. He said that our brains are hard wired for up to be good, and down to be bad. As an example, he had us stand up, hold our heads level, and look up with our eyes. In this position it was quite hard to think unhappy thoughts. On the other hand, when we stood, heads level, and looked down, it was pretty easy to think negative or depressing thoughts.

I suppose this could be explained going back to our evolutionary past. If you were looking down all the time, you might miss out on some food, or get eaten by a tiger. So people that developed an aversion to looking down lived longer, reproduced more, and made more people with the same aversion to looking down.

Another thing he talked about was more vague and far-reaching metaphors. He said that we have two basic strategies in life. One as children, and one as adults. Back in the old days of tribal style nomadic living, there was a clear boundary between the two. If you were a kid, you were a receiver. If you were an adult, you were an achiever and a provider. If you were an adult, and didn’t achieve or provide, you either didn’t find anybody to mate with, or you were outcast from the group. It wasn’t a very good strategy back in those days to be a freeloader.

He said that women made the metaphorical transition from childhood to adulthood pretty naturally. When they had kids, they naturally switched from being a receiver to a provider. Of course that required that they do a good job of selecting their mates, so they would be stuck raising a kid by themselves. There’s a pretty good “thought experiment” regarding different scenarios in Dawkins’ “The Selfish Gene.”

But men, on the other hand, unless they were actually forced out on a hunt, in a live or die situation; they would stay in the childhood “give me” mode of thinking. That’s why societies developed those coming of age rituals for males but not for females. Females had them by default whenever they had kids.

But in modern society, it can be extremely difficult to go through that coming of age process without forcing yourself into it. He said that what makes it even more difficult is that you can do pretty well for yourself simply by expecting to receive.

One trap that people fall into is that we expect to get things because of “who we are,” instead of “what we do.” This guy said that the “who we are” is based childhood thinking. We want something; therefore we expect to receive it. That only works until you are about ten years old. After that you’ve got to start getting stuff on your own. But many people never fully break out of the “because of who I am” mindset.

This is confusing, because there really is no “who you are.” Every day you have new experiences, which affect your beliefs, which affect how you see the world. Even on a molecular level, you are constantly changing. Since you are always in flux, there really is no “way you are,” or “who you are.” Sure, there’s that self-awareness at the center of all this, but that awareness is simply that. You who are aware of your constant changing and updating state of being.

He said that it can take a long time to switch from the “give me because of who I am” to the “obtain because what I do” mindset. But when it does, it can seem uncomfortable, because the world can seemingly flip upside down. Things that used to work don’t any more, and things that you would never have dreamed of even trying only a couple weeks ago are working like a charm today.

The greatest part comes when you completely release the “because of who I am” mind set, the fear of rejection, in all situations, completely vanishes. Since there is no “who you are” to reject, everything simply become strategies and how effective they are. “Who you are,” doesn’t factor into the equation at all.

And once that happens, you can pretty much get anything you want out of life. You’ve just got to figure out the right strategy, and it’s yours.

(Advertisement)

To determine exactly what you want and precisely how to get it, click on the link below:

Success with NLP

Share this:

Once there was a group of kids that had been sent on a mission. They were not to come back unless their mission was successfully accomplished. To do so you not only mean obvious failure, but also would indicate their lack of ability to take on further missions. They had been charged by the elders of their tribe, and had been on the road for some time. After they had set out, it had been quite for a while. None dared to speak, lest they violate the silent tension that clung relentlessly about the group.

At first the silent tension was troublesome. It gave rise to thoughts and anxieties of failure and rejection. But then the tension became accepted, then comfortable, and finally like an unseen security blanket that bound the group together. They would all fail or succeed together. To speak would snap the tension, and likely destroy any chance of success. Or so they thought.

Pain is an interesting thing. Biologists tell us the body evolved an inability to grow resistant to pain, as to do so would certainly not lead to reproductive success. Any creature from any species that had the ability to grow accustomed to pain may become injured, and not take reconstructive efforts. A bleeding animal wouldn’t lick it’s wounds and give it self the anti-bacterial effects of it’s own saliva. It would slowly remove itself from its own gene pool, and after only a few generations, any individual within the group with this “ability” would be extremely rare.

Other sensory input, on the other hand, that doesn’t require immediate attention can easily be temporarily ignored. Hunger, thirst, smell, slight discomfort due to outside ranges in temperature.

But emotional pain is a completely different ballgame. Neuroscientists are only just beginning to understand the role that emotions play in everyday human life. And even then the input they have is still a mystery. From a scientific perspective, emotions are nearly impossible to measure. You can’t very well hook somebody up to an emote-o-meter (unless you are a scientologist) and see what effects the different emotions have on physiological and biological functions of the mind/body/nervous system.

Until very recently, most scientists believed that emotions played on part in decision-making. Emotions were viewed from the Vulcan standpoint of getting in the way of logical thinking. It was believed that without emotions, we could always make the best choices, and never make mistakes.

Then a couple of surgeons had the opportunity to test this theory out during a particularly interesting brain surgery. The portion of the patient’s brain that was thought responsible for emotional feelings was temporarily “disconnected,” and since brain surgeries can be performed with an awake patient, they figured they ask him a couple difficult questions (like the kind you find in a high school ethics book). They were stunned to find out that he couldn’t even make the most basic decisions without the input of his emotions.

If you break everything down into either a pain or pleasure emotional response, and assume those are the drivers behind every decision, it makes sense. Your brain has this amazing capability of imagining several future outcomes of every single decision, usually unconscious, and checking to see what would produce the most pleasure, and the least amount of pain.

Luckily, through millions of years of evolution, things that keep us alive and safe, as well as propagate the species generally give us the most pleasure. Like good food, good sex, and a nice safe place to sleep at night. Things that put us in danger tend to give us emotional pain, like high places, loud noises, and tigers.

It can get complicated when our rational minds know that one particular choice is a good one, but it goes against our hard-wired programming from millions of years of evolution. No matter how scientifically sure you are that it’s probably not a good idea to have one more bowl of ice cream, it can be near impossible to squash your desire through willpower alone.

Of course, if you successfully avoid the ice cream enough times, you’ll build up a resistance to that evolutionary drive to continually eat whenever there’s food available. And pretty soon you’ll get used to expending emotional energy to suppress your million years old biological urge. So much so that when you do have an occasional bowl of ice cream, the “guilt” associated with it, which is really a temporary release of that emotional discomfort that you’ve grown accustomed to, is enough to mess up your pleasure of eating.

Of course, if you are trying to lose weight, this isn’t so bad. For many, to lose their craving and taste for something rich and calorie dense like ice cream would come as a blessing.

But what about more complicated things? What if you make a decision, one that requires some conscious willpower and faith in the face of unconscious resistance, but you aren’t nearly as scientifically sure as you were when you avoided the ice cream? When you put up with the emotional discomfort long enough, it’s easy to start to question your decision that you made earlier; no matter how sure you were when you made it.

It can be extremely helpful to set up some good anchors and targets to stay focused on, if you expect those tough times to come. Figure out exactly why you are embarking on your mission, and what the specific pay off will be when you get there. So when you do come across those rough patches, you’ll have something to focus on to pull you through. If you make a decision that isn’t really in your best interests, either because it’s not really your goal to begin with, or you aren’t sure what outcome you’re after, it’s extremely difficult to stay on track.

Make sure you take enough time to build your target, and make it as compelling as possible before starting on your operation.

When the group boys finally returned after a successful mission, they were given generous accolades from their tribe. They hadn’t known it, but this was a ritual performed on young boys to ease them into manhood. This had been passed down for generations immemorial, and in previous generations had been used to prepare young boys for the life and death struggle of the daily hunt. In recent times however, the ritual had gradually taken on a symbolic meaning, as the tribe had slowly evolved into a successful agricultural community, and hadn’t needed to hunt animals for many years. Nevertheless, they found it useful to send the boys on a quest, to give them a taste of setting their sights on something far off in the distance, going after it, getting it, and bringing it home.

To make your own life the most successful mission possible, click below:

Success with NLP

Share this:

Had I known things were going to end up like this, I might have started differently. I might have decided to shoot for another outcome, or come up with a backup plan.

Maybe, but not likely.

I was about three minutes away from find out if it really was going to end up like I feared. Probably. What’s the worst that can happen? Well, I didn’t really want to think about the worst. I have a pretty good imagination; I can imagine some pretty awful things. If I let my imagination run loose unrestrained it wouldn’t take long for me to turn into a raving lunatic. Maybe that’s I didn’t plan for too many options. That would require looking too carefully into the future, a future that might have me ending.

I remember once when I was a kid, me and a couple of friends had always wanted to climb to the top of this mountain. Not really a mountain, more like a hill, the elevation was only a couple hundred feet. But when you’re a kid, that’s high enough. The trees were thick, and it didn’t take long to lose sight of the road below. We’d tried a couple times, but never got really far.

There wasn’t anything particularly special about this one little hill. There hadn’t been any mass murders, or abandoned mines that swallowed kids whole, or a couple of wildcats that lived in the area. It was just a hill. But every time we’d started out, we’d lost our nerve. The trees were thick, and the road wasn’t the only thing we lost sight of.

You could easily see the top as you walked toward it, but once you started pushing through the brush, all you could see was five maybe ten yard ahead. The only thing that kept you pointed in the right direction was the slope of the hill. We figured that as long as we were walking up hill, we were going towards the top.

But there was one area that had these really strange trees. They had very thick branches, and blocked most of the light from coming through. So it got pretty dark, pretty quick. There was also that strange feeling, just outside of consciousness, like we were being watched. We never made it very part past that point.

At least until that one day.

We’d always given each other a hard time, never taking full responsibility for not following through. Always blaming somebody else. Of course, we’d jump on any excuse we could to turn back, but once we got back to the main road, and our fear had vanished, we would turn that excuse into an example of weakness for whoever had originally come up with the excuse.

I had been two weeks, and we’d been talking to each other pretty harshly. Brining up all the previous times we’d given up, sharing as much criticism of each other as we could remember. We made a pact, to the top. Only to the top. No excuses. No backing out. Even If we saw the living dead we wouldn’t turn back.

So we started out, until we got to the dark spot. Again we hesitated. But we pushed through. We were surprised when we saw the cabin. Not really a cabin, more like a shack. We were sure that nobody lived up here.

We stopped, studying the shack. It looked deserted. We approached it slowly, the strength of our unbreakable pact quickly shrinking into the back of our minds. We peered into the window. Nothing. We checked the front door. Not even a lock. We pushed it open, nothing. Empty.

Just a shack.

We decided to keep pushing toward the top. We’d check the shack again on the way back. We left the shack and started walking up hill. Within about twenty minutes, the trees thinned out considerable, and we could see the top. The sun became bright again, and we started running. When we reached the top, all of us were smiling. Big, huge, smiles of both happiness and relief. All those times we’d started out, and then turned back gone. We’d beaten those demons in our heads.

We remembered the shack. Our minds raced with excitement. Maybe we could sleep there one night. We formed a plan. We’d tell each of our parents we were staying at each other’s house. Then we’d all meet up with our sleeping bags. We’d have to bring some flashlights, and some candles. And maybe some food. Like a loaf of bread, and a jar of peanut butter.

I checked my watch. It was time. I blocked the fears from my mind, and pushed forward into the light. I suddenly had a feeling somehow that everything was going to work out.

I walked out on stage, and audience stood, and applauded. I smiled.

It was showtime.

(advertisement)

To learn how to quickly and easily blast through any resistance for maximum success, click on the link below:

Success with NLP

Share this:

So the other day I was supposed to meet my friend downtown. She didn’t show up, and she usually isn’t late, so I gave her a call. Turns out I had my dates mixed up, so I figured I’d wander around. We were going to hang out at a coffee shop and then go see a movie, so I figured I might give that a shot. Only I hadn’t brought anything to read, and sitting in a coffee shop by yourself without anything to read can get pretty boring.

So I thought maybe I’d strike up a conversation with a stranger, and see how far I could get. I walked into the coffee shop, no luck. Nobody seemed interesting, or interested in having a chat with some strange guy who can’t keep his days straight. No worries.

I headed over to the bookstore; maybe they’d have something interesting enough. I checked the movie times, and there was something that looked interesting that was starting in a couple of hours. That’s the problem with living in a foreign country where not too many people speak English. When you go to the movies, often times you don’t have much choice.

Not like back home, where I can roll up to a thirty screen multi plex and spend fifteen minutes pondering the many movies starting within the next twenty minutes. Bookstores here are the same. If they do have an English section, there’s sometimes something interesting, sometimes not. Today there wasn’t anything that looked good enough. Back out to the street.

Which way, left or right? Left. I headed left, and figured I’d wander this direction for an hour or so before turning around. That way I’d make it to the 4 pm show. I’d hoped. I wasn’t aware of the incredible adventure I was about to go on.

Once when I was a kid I got lost in the mall. I thought my mom had deserted me. One minute she was there, the next she’d vanished, like in that creepy movie where aliens sucked people right through their bedroom windows.

This lady had this husband, and a kid, or something. Then these weird things started happening, like she’d remember her husband, but nobody else would. It was like he was erased from everybody’s memory but hers. All his pictures, her wedding ring, everything.

Then her son disappeared. Same thing. Nobody remembered him but her. She was all-alone, and everybody, from her best friends to her psychiatrist told her she’d always been alone, and she must be imagining the whole thing.

Only later to find out that aliens were stealing certain people, and erasing the memories of everybody around them. But when they took the people, they would snatch them, and suck them really really fast up into the sky. It was pretty funny, although I’m pretty sure it wasn’t supposed to be. Great set up, but goofy ending.
Anytime they have aliens as the culprits, you know something is fishy. Unless the fish themselves are aliens, in which case you’ve got some serious explaining to.

So there I was on the street, suddenly realizing I had no idea where I was. That was ok, as I sort of remembered some landmarks as I wandered about. Only when I looked around, I couldn’t see any of the landmarks I’d chosen. Perhaps I should have chosen some taller ones.

Suddenly I heard a voice from behind me.

“Son, you look lost.” He said. He sounded as if he had a thick Scottish accent. Only I wasn’t in Scotland. Hadn’t been for years.

“Yea, I was wondering how to get back to the…” Where was I going?
“The Movie Theater?” He finished my thought for me. How did he do that?

“Up that street, and then…” after that I couldn’t understand a word he said, as it was in such a thick Scottish dialect, he could have been sending me to the organ donor hospital for all I knew. I tried following his gestures, but they only told me to head back in the direction where I thought I’d come. Big help Scottish guy.

“Wait, one more time, please. More slowly.” I asked. He repeated the directions, only this time his gestures and words seemed completely different. I wasn’t sure what to make of it.

I was reminded once of a distant relative in New York who explained that if you are lost, and happen to stop someone long enough to ask for directions be careful how they answer. If they give you a short, direct answer, they’re usually being truthful. However, if they give you some long winded answer, they are likely sending you on a wild goose chase to end you up in some location that is further removed from where you thought you’d wanted to go in the first place.

“But first, son, have a dram with me.” He said, putting his hand gently on my shoulder. He motioned his head back, and behind him was a Malt Whiskey bar. I didn’t know they had those in this part of the world.

“What the heck,” I figured. I didn’t really want to see that movie anyway. And it had been long time since I savored a nice single malt.

What happened next, is a story for another day.

(And Now For Something Completely Different)

To stay on course and NEVER get lost in life, click on the link below:

Success with NLP

Share this:

I was reading this book a few weeks ago. It was an old, out of print book that I picked up in some old bookshop, by an author that wrote another, more popular book that I’d read. So naturally, I picked it up, since it was only a quarter. The first book “Dress For Success” by John Molloy was a bestseller, and although written back during the seventies had all kinds of useful advice for what kinds of clothes to wear in what kinds of situations.

The interesting thing about Dress For Success was that it wasn’t written as an opinion piece, it wasn’t just another collection of self-proclaimed fashion guru’s advice based on his own personal tastes and experience. The materials in the book were the results of scientific research. The author owned some kind of social research organization, and they would frequently conduct “experiments” by sending people out in public, and have them perform certain tasks. And the only variable they would vary was the clothes that the people wore.

Of course, many of the results were the results of surveys, e.g. asking people’s opinions after “experimenters” would pass by wearing certain clothes. One example is that they had a bunch of guys go out wearing black raincoats. Then they would follow them, and ask people what they thought of them. They would say they were doing an experiment, and have them fill out a questionnaire. Invariably, the people that were wearing beige raincoats were judged to be more professional, and more upper class than those wearing black raincoats.

Another interesting experiment was they sent several men out in public, and had them eat in a restaurant. After they’d finished eating, they’d explain to the waiter/waitress that they’d forgotten their wallet, that contained their ID’s, but they had their checkbook. (This was before debit cards were invented, and many people still paid by personal check). About 80% of the guys swearing button down shirts with ties had their checks accepted, while almost none of the guys without ties had their checks accepted.

The entire book was filled with useful information on how to dress if you are interested in how others perceive you.

But this other book, called “Live for Success,” was more about general lifestyle habits rather than what kinds of clothes you should wear.

For example, they had several guys that were wearing clothes and had bodies and faces as close together as they could get. The randomized them, and then had them walk into social environments, like bars or clubs, for a long enough period of time so that people would remember them when asked a few minutes later.

Half of the group walked with their shoulders slumped forward, and their head hanging down. The other group walked with erect posture, shoulders rolled back, and head straight up. Keep in mind that everything else between each group was as consistent as they could make it. Clothing, hairstyle, facial makeup, facial hair, etc. What the found, although not really surprising, was interesting nonetheless. The group with erect posture was rated an 8 out of 10, on average, while the guys with poor posture were rated at a 6.5 out of ten. The obvious take away from this is that simply by walking with correct posture, holding your shoulders back, and your head up will increase your “attractiveness” score by a full point and a half out of ten.

What I found to be the most interesting chapter was on congruence. They did a case study on a guy that, on paper, should have been a fairly likeable guy. Decent job, decent family, good income, decent education. But when they interviewed his friends and coworkers, they all described him in completely distasteful terms. The company that employed him had consulted with Malloy’s company (the author of the book) to try and determine what it was about this guy that turned people off so much. Many times people just couldn’t stand to even be in the same room him. The guy didn’t swear, didn’t have excessive body odor, didn’t leer at females inappropriately, nothing obvious that you would think of when you would hear somebody described with such obvious distaste. Nevertheless, whenever his coworkers would see this poor guy coming, they would make a beeline in the other direction.

After a few weeks of study, Malloy and his associates found out what it was. The guy was completely incongruent. His facial expression was incongruent with his message, his body language was incongruent with his speech, and even when he was agreeing verbally with what somebody was saying, his body language and facial expression was screaming the complete opposite. His body language, facial expressions and gestures were always completely opposite of his speech and his language.

Now this may have had some deep psychological reasons based on childhood or something, but Malloy and his associates weren’t there to fix that. All they were hired to do was to find out what it was about his guy that turned people off so much. Once they put their finger on it, they gave him some exercises and pointers to get his non-verbal communication more in line with his verbal communication. They had him do practice exercises in the mirror, hold his head and body still while he was talking, and other things that slowly brought his body language in line with what his verbal message was.

The interesting thing was that although everybody knew that didn’t want to be in the same room as this guy, nobody could quite put their finger on why. And it took a professional social research firm a few weeks to figure it out as well. After several week of practice, most people accepted him as “normal” and didn’t despise him as much. And he found it much easier to make friends, and be productive in his work when it involved interacting with others outside the company.

The clear take away from this is to always make sure you’re body language is in congruence with your verbal message. Any guy who has come home late at night, and tried to lie to his wife or girlfriend, knows how quickly significant others can pick up on incongruent communication, especially females. Females seem to be much better at picking up incongruencies in communication than males.

If you’re in sales, being incongruent can kill a sale before it even starts. Even if you believe in the product you are selling, your body language can shoot you in the foot. I used to work with this guy that would shake his head back and forth (the universal sign for “no”) whenever he talked about his product. This would turn of clients, as it appeared this guy had a distaste for his own product.

But the truth was, when he was speaking of his product, his thought was “nobody can do it better than us” which led to his head shaking. This was often misinterpreted by potential clients as a disbelief in his product’s quality. So even if you have a strong belief in something, you can project a conflicted message if you’re not careful.

The simple way around this is to simply get out of your head, focus on who you are speaking with, and focus on your message. Just like the guys in the bar, hold your head up, keep your back straight, and look them in the eye. You’ll have much more success this way.

Many more strategies are waiting for you to put them to use for a powerfully successful life when you click the banner below:

Success with NLP

Share this:

Once I had this friend of mine that came in to stay with me from out of town. I never really understood this guy, as he had quite a bit of money, but whenever the traveled, he would stay at friends’ houses. You’d think a guy like that could afford hotels. I know that I much prefer staying at hotels than with friends, but that’s just me. You never know when you are going to get yelled at for raiding the fridge in the middle of the night. At least at a hotel, you know the price of everything on the inside.

The reason this guy was in town was that he was at this inventor’s convention. It was a convention for people that were struggling with getting their inventions the patent stage and into the production stage. Most people think that getting a patent is a great milestone, but it’s not really that complicated. All you have to do is prove that it’s a new idea, and you were the one that thought of it. It depends on the country, but usually showing something written down in a notebook is sufficient to show originality of an idea.

And the kind of originality is pretty staggering, and not in the way you’d expect. If all bicycles happen to be made with a certain metal in the chain, and you come up with an idea for a new chain with a unique metal, then that is enough to warrant a patent. I used to work for this biomedical engineering company, and the smallest changes in plastic molded parts that warranted their own patent was mind-boggling. Before, I though that getting a patent was some kind of genius level milestone. But if you can change the angle slightly on a barbed connector for medical tubing and get a patent for it, there can’t be much to it.

Some companies use patents strictly for marketing purposes. They get as many patents as they can, useless as they may be, just so they can use them in their marketing literature. Product X has seventeen patented parts that you won’t find anyplace else.

There’s even companies that have a business model of creating ideas, and filing patents for simple household items, and then doing nothing except to wait for another company to independently come up with the idea, and start selling the product. Then the original company simply has to show that it was there idea, sue them, and forever collect a percentage of the profits.

It would seem that there is more to it than simply building a better mousetrap and waiting for he world to beat a path to your door. I suppose if the world you happened to live in was infested with disease carrying mice that ate your eyeballs while you slept, and your particular idea for a mousetrap would guarantee a mouse free house with little cost, then maybe you might have something. But when you come up with a patent for the new design for that little plastic thing that goes on the end of your shoelaces, then you’ve got some marketing work ahead of you.

Which was basically the gist of the seminar my freeloading friend was going to. It was primarily for people that came up with patents that they thought were marketable enough to invest some time and money in, but hadn’t picked up any kind of corporate sponsorship. Even if you come up with the greatest idea since sliced bread, you’ve still got to figure out a way to market it and manufacture it on a large scale.

If you have a product that is very similar to other products, and it is an improved version, like a bicycle tire that will never go flat, then it may be a little easier to sell. All you’d need to do is create some fliers, mass mail them to bike shops, bicycle manufacturers, etc, and hope they buy enough of your product to make it worthwhile. If you can get enough pre orders to pay for your production, so much the better.

But if you come up with a new environmentally friendly way to cook bacon, you’ve got your work cut out for you.

My friend has been doing this for quite a while, and he does pretty well. He has about twenty patents, three of which were picked up by large manufacturers. Two of them he got paid a nice lump sum, and the other one he got a really good deal where he gets a certain percentage of every sale. This of course gives him plenty of motivation to keep thinking and trying to figure out how to come up with new ideas.

He said that the hardest part is the time when he has an idea, that he is sure will eventually make money, but he’s been working on it for a while, and poured in a significant amount of time and money, and hasn’t seen anything yet for his efforts. He said that all three of his big money makers were like this. He had a great idea, asked a few of his friends, and asked a few people in the particular industry he was targeting, and they all enthusiastically agreed that he had a winner. But each one took more than a year of effort, and lot of time, money, and many, many rejections.

But he said that once he gets one that works, and a company either buys it outright, or pays him per sale, it’s all worth it. He said that is the biggest cause for failure among all the other inventors he meets at these conventions. They all have great ideas, but they give up way to easily, and way to quickly. If they would only try a few more weeks, or even days, they might get a break that would make all the difference. But he said that most people still believe in that old mousetrap myth. They think just because they have an idea, somehow the population at large should get some telepathic message from the gods, and each send them a dollar or something. They don’t understand that coming up with a good idea is not good enough. You’ve got to come up with a good idea, and then convince everybody else that it’s a good idea.

I asked him how he was able to push through those early days when all he had was an idea, and no money, and he said it was his imagination that pulled him through. He would imagine himself in the future, already successful, and looking back on his tough startup times with fondness. He created a vision of the future, and focused on it above all else, and never let anything distract him.

Maybe that’s why he likes staying at his friends’ houses instead of hotels, because it keeps him grounded or something. Because he is as creative and energetic as ever. Every time he visits, he talks about his new ideas as if they are his first one, and he is as hungry as ever. You would never know by this guys clothes that he’s worth several million dollars, but I guess that’s what it takes to keep pushing ahead.

To choose your own goals and pursue them with relentless determination, click below:

Success with NLP

Share this:

I remember once, a long time ago, way back when I was in Junior High school, I was playing golf with a couple of friends after school. There was one hole that I always had trouble with. The first 80 yards or so, you had to hit your ball over part of a lake. The part of the lake that you had to hit over ended on the left edge of where the fairway would be, and to the right it only got bigger. Being a habitual slicer, I usually sliced off to the right, and into the water.

In order to get over the water hazard, I only had to hit a normal shot. My normal shot didn’t start to fade until about fifty to a hundred yards or so, which gave me enough distance to get over the water if I could ever hit a normal shot. My problem was that on that particular hole, I never hit a normal shot. My drive was rarely more then ten yards or so off the ground and sliced a lot earlier and more pronounced than normal, sending my ball straight into the large area of the lake.

From a pure physics standpoint this is easy to understand. If you flinch even slightly in the direction of lifting your head to see where the ball went, you’ll hit the ball just a little bit higher than normal, giving you less height, and in my case, more slice, as I twisted the club head just a little bit more than I normally would have.

The funny thing is that I lifted my head because I was unconsciously worried about slicing into the lake. And because I lifted my head, I sliced into the lake. My unconscious actions, (e.g. lifting my head up and turning the club head more than normal,) which were based on my fears, actually caused my fears to come true, rather than preventing them.

From a structural standpoint, it went like this: I had this fear about an outcome based on a planned action. My anxiety going into the action changed the action slightly, and became the direct cause of my fears coming true.

In this particular case, it was one off shot, so to speak. I hit it in the water; walked about halfway up the fairway, about even where my ball went into the lake (next to all my other balls) dropped a ball, took a penalty and went on my way. This was a one-time event, which in the end only increased my score by two. The rest of the course was wide and open, so I could slice all over the place and be OK.

Naturally, every time I teed up on that particular hole, I remembered all the other slices into he water, which of course increased my anxiety, and made it much more likely to repeat the error. But only being a golf game, and only being in Junior high school, I figured that was normal. Until my friend shared with me a powerful secret that I still use today, and you can to, to break out whatever rut you happened to be in.

This problem, often called a self fulfilling prophecy, can present itself in many ways, and the feedback loop can be much more debilitating that a couple of strokes on an afternoon golf game.

Suppose you are a single guy, and you see a girl you like. You walk up to her, introduce yourself, and she blows you off. Happens all the time right? Only next time you walk up to a girl, you remember the last one that blew you off, and it makes our approach less effective. You are nervous, can’t hold eye contact, and basically come across as kind of creepy. This makes you get rejected even more harshly, which in turns makes approaching another girl too scary to even contemplate. You have effectively locked yourself into a vicious circle of defeat, by using your worst possible past in order to hallucinate a likely outcome. The likely outcome terrifies you so much; it cripples your behavior, and virtually guarantees itself.

Another example. You go ask your boss for a raise. He turns you down. You become depressed, and your motivation to work hard decreases slightly, which in turn decreases your productivity a little bit. Next time you ask for a raise, your boss is even less likely to give you one, based on your productivity. If you get locked into this horrible tailspin, you may very well find yourself on the list of people who are expendable when budget cuts are mentioned.

One of the insidious things about these self-defeating cycles is that it is incredibly easy to blame others for your predicament. The guy who is approaching girls can blame women for being stuck up and not having the ability to see his true worth. Maybe they think he’s too short, or doesn’t make enough money. This can lead to a belief that all women are shallow and materialistic

The guy who never gets a raise can blame his boss, the economy, his coworkers for talking about him when he’s not around, and so on.

As difficult as it sounds, only when you take responsibility for your lot in life do you have a shot at bootstrapping yourself up and out of any vicious cycle of defeat you may find yourself in. Even though that often times others are culpable, some bosses do play favorites, and many people, both men and women, are shallow and materialistic, that doesn’t help you a bit. You can’t change the world, but you can change how you interpret it and react to it. That is completely in your control.

So one day, just as I was teeing up, my friend, says “Hey wait, before you hit, just close your eyes and pretend there is nothing but a huge patch of green grass in front of you.” I tried it, and it worked. I don’t think I ever hit another ball in the water after that.

The funny thing is that he didn’t tell me to visualize my ball bouncing on the other side of the lake, like most sports psychologists would have you do, or visualize how I’d feel when I hit it over the water. The advice my friend told me was to imagine the playing field, the course, was physically different than it really was. By imagining a different playing field, my actions changed automatically.

It’s so easy to argue until we’re blue in the face that “the playing field isn’t equal” and that others have advantages and opportunities that we don’t have. But what if you could simply hallucinate a more helpful playing field, and allow your actions to naturally respond to your hallucination?

What if before approaching some cute girl in a bookstore, instead of going through the difficult procedure of imagining a positive outcome, and planning his various openers, he simply imagined that all girls were irresistibly attracted to his type? There’s no rule that says your imaginations have to be true or accurate, only that they lead to behaviors that get you what you want.

And what if the guy in the office imagined he was the boss’s nephew, or that he’d pulled him out of a burning care a week earlier, or something else as ludicrous? Sure, it’s completely false, but what if it works?

Something to think about next time you’re gearing up to imagine yourself into a positive outcome.

(advertisement)

To quickly and easily develop strategies to catapult you ahead of your competition in all areas of your life, click on the link below:

Success with NLP

Share this:

One of the advantages of being human, and not some other animal is that we have the ability to imagine different scenarios in our minds. Some evolutionary psychologists argue that was one of the driving forces that led to human, rather than some other animal developing a big brain.

In all animals, there are basically two driving forces, which propel them forward through evolution. Between species, and within species. Between species is a fight with other animals for resources, namely food, and shelter if that’s the kind of animal we’re talking about. Many times a food source is linked closely with a location, so an animal can develop a strong sense of territoriality.

Within species, it’s a whole different ballgame. Within species, the competition is largely between the males for the females. Generally speaking, the females choose the males best suited to provide the best DNA. They don’t consciously decide, rather their instincts and impulses are shaped over many generations, so that the ones who have the impulses to mate with the fittest males are selected for survival, and others who happen to be driven to mate with unhealthy males are naturally selected out.

Different animals have different methods to determine who is the fittest male. Usually it is based somehow on aggression, and physical dominance. In gorilla’s, the silver back is the biggest. In elephant seals, the dominant male is the most aggressive. In peacocks, the ones with the most colorful tales are deemed the most fit. Scientists suspect there is a correlation between colorfulness of tail feathers, and resistance to parasites and disease. So when females use colorfulness of tail feathers as their deciding factor, they’re also giving their future offspring genes with strong resistance to disease and parasites.

So what was the inter-species driving force in humans? Apparently it was brain size. Language, imagination and creativity are highly desirable traits in males, according to anthropologists. They say that in parts of the world where tribes still live according to ancient ways, the tribal leaders, who usually have many wives, are extremely eloquent, persuasive, and charismatic speakers. The driving force with which humans were selected over the last million years was our ability to use words. And not just putting a couple of words together, like “give me a banana,” but to string them together in such a way as to evoke powerful emotions in others.

Think of this scenario. Millions of year ago, there were several tribes. The women naturally fell for the guys that had serious game, meaning they could woo the women with only their words. They could use their words to organize and lead hunting parties, so they were instrumental in the survival of the group. They could use their words to form coalitions and defuse potentially dangerous situations between rivals. They naturally had more kids that the not so eloquent, and every successive generation produce more and more eloquent people. This in turn creates evolutionary pressure to build bigger and bigger brains to accommodate this need.

There is another reason for the ever-increasing brain of man. Humans were nomadic for the bulk of our human history. Humans had to think and plan and to imagine different scenarios, and weigh the probable outcomes, and then decide which would be the best course of action. Even throwing a spear at a gazelle that was running at an odd angle required a quick calculation and projection into the future of a couple seconds, so the spear thrower in question would know where to point he spear, how hard to throw it, and what angle. This was all done unconsciously, without any thought of the thrower. He just knew. This required immense computational power, involving delicate visualization skills.

Your brain is the result of millions of years of evolution that created a computer with such power that we will likely never create a machine that can even come close to its abilities. You can think into the future, imagine hundreds of different scenarios, judging each one by it probable effect on your future, and come back with a decision on what to do. All within a split second, and all out of your conscious awareness.

Your brain can think of desire, a goal, an intention, and through the powerful use of language, enlist the help of others to make your imagination about the future come true. Your brain can take thought, and turn it into reality.

In the last twenty years or so, there has been a huge leap in understanding in how the brain works. There have been several different strategies designed and codified to take the mystery out of how some people are wildly successful, while others struggle. Experts have been modeled, and their unconscious methods have been uncovered and described in precise detail, so that the rest of us can emulate them, and achieve exactly the same success as them.

That is the promise of NLP. With NLP you have an operators manual for your brain, perhaps the most complicated thing ever created in the history of the universe. You have the keys to unlocking exactly how achieve whatever it is you want. Hundreds of thousands, if not millions, have already discovered how NLP can powerfully enhance your life in as many ways as you can imagine.

With NLP, there is no more need for hoping, or wishing, or disappointment. There only desires, planning, and achieving. To find out how you can start uncovering your magnificently powerful potential today, click on the banner below.

Success with NLP

Share this:

Do you remember what it was like before you knew the difference between a small “b,” and a small “d”? Some adult, maybe a teacher, parent or an older brother or sister would write a bunch of squiggly lines, that were supposed to have some kind of meaning. After a period of time, they start to make some kind of sense to you. And pretty soon you knew all the letters.

After that you started to notice, or maybe it was pointed out to you, that certain letters always showed up together, and when they did they actually had meaning. Meaning of something that existed in the physical world that you already knew about. You knew what an apple was, maybe you even ate one every day. You knew what others meant when you heard the word “apple,” and you could say it yourself.

But somehow, when you first saw that collection of letters, a p p l e, it took a few tries to sound out what that word meant, and what it was referring to. After a few tries, you could look at the word and immediately think of an apple.

And before you knew it, you could look at the word apple, and you would think of an apple just as quickly as if somebody said it, or even just as quickly as if you saw a real one right here in front of you.

If you’ve ever studied a foreign language, you get to repeat this process all over again. It takes a while to get used to automatically connecting a thought to a spoken sound, and then a little bit longer to produce the sound yourself. The next step, of course, is to recognize it in written form. If you are learning a language that uses roman characters, that isn’t such a big deal. But if you are learning a whole different writing system, like Sanskrit or Chinese, then you’ve got to go through the whole squiggly line learning process. Once you’ve learned the sounds, both how to hear them and how to make them, and how to recognize a specific set of squiggly lines and automatically associate them an apple, then you’re back on automatic pilot, and can spend your precious brain resources on other stuff.

This process happens over and over again as we move from the cradle to the grave. Unfortunately, for some of us, as we get older, it happens less and less frequently. Few skills are moved from the area of total confusion into autopilot. It seems to be much easier when we are younger. And we also seem to only associate “learning” with school, and things like language, mathematics, and classical literature. But it doesn’t have to be that way.

There are four discreet stages of learning in the human mind. Unconscious incompetence. We don’t know that we don’t know. After we are introduced to a topic, like a new language, and we first get started, we move into the conscious incompetence. Meaning that we know about this skill, and we know that we are no good at it. This can be very frustrating if you are trying to learn something new.

After this comes conscious competence. This is when we are good at something, but we need to really pay attention to what we are doing. We need to sound out every letter to understand what the word means, or we need to turn of the radio and tell our friends to shut up if we are driving just after we got our license.

The next phase is unconscious competence. This is obviously the best part. We know how to do something, and we don’t have to think about it when we do it. We can drive while listening to the radio, having a conversation, and shaving. Many times we drive somewhere, and forget completely how we go there.

Athletes that get into the “zone” say that everything just “clicks,” and they don’t really have to think. It’s like they are merely observing themselves giving a stellar performance. Conscious thinking becomes an obstacle.

Bruce Lee described a punch three ways. He said that at first, a punch is just a punch. Then when you study a punch through the frame of Jeet Ku Do, a punch is a complex movement of breath, body, energy and intention. After you skillfully master those elements, a punch is just a punch again. An altogether more effective and potentially deadly punch, but to the conscious mind, it is just a punch.

The great promise of the human mind is that you can learn any skill to the level of unconscious competence. You can easily learn to do anything without needing to think about it. There are literally thousands of things you’ve already learned to do in your life, where you moved through this process. Things that at one point in your life, you didn’t even know existed, but now you can do them without a thought.

So what skills would you like to have? Powerful public speaking? The ability to walk up a woman and sweep her off her feet within moments of meeting her? The ability to write a sales letter that will convert fifty percent of its readers? Artistic talent? Gold medal sports skills? The skill to look fear in the face and still have the courage to act?

When you learn the structure of learning, it becomes much simpler to make learning life long habit. You don’t need to sit in boring classroom, or study boring textbooks. With NLP, or Neuro Linguistic Programming, you can break any skill you want to learn into easy manageable tasks. NLP studies the structure of learning in such a way that you can model others who are performing at levels that you’d like to be at. You can basically reverse engineer their skill set, and make it your own.

While it’s not magic by any means, it can seem to be if you are stuck in the idea of learning the traditional, classroom way. With NLP you are able to explode your potential, and turn yourself into a life long learning machine, someone who will always be growing, and always be improving.

For more information on how you can use NLP to powerfully enhance every aspect of your life, click on the banner below for more information.

Success with NLP

Share this:

I remember once I was talking to a friend of mine in a bar. It was about halfway between afternoon and night, and there weren’t that many people there. We had met earlier by coincidence, and decided to hang out for a while. He started telling me these problems he’s having with his girlfriend. He says that he’s having the same problem with his current girlfriend that he’s had with all of his previous girlfriends. Right when they get to the “serious commitment” stage, he starts to do all these stupid things (stupid according to him) that he claims that he doesn’t know why he does them, and they invariably lead to fights. These usually continue until the relationship breaks up.

I asked him if he does these things intentionally, and he said that he didn’t. He said they were little things that added up over time, like showing up late or flirting with other girls when they were together. Eventually she would put him on the spot, because to her it would seem as if he wasn’t taking the relationship seriously. He would always claim that he was, she would press him, they would fight like that for a couple weeks or months, then they’d break it off. It was always her that broke it off, saying that she wanted something serious, while he didn’t seem like it, despite his objections to the contrary.

He claimed he has no idea why he does those things, and only starts to do them when the relationship is beginning to get serious. To an outside observer, it seemed to me to be a clear case of unconscious self-sabotage. Part of you wants something, part of you doesn’t, for whatever reason, so you are conflicted at a subconscious level, and this comes out in your behavior. It seems to me that my friend, despite his conscious objections, doesn’t quite feel ready yet for a serious, committed relationship, on a deep unconscious level and it comes out in his behavior. He is in his late twenties, and a serious committed relationship to a guy that age usually means giving up the single life for good.

I asked him if he really wanted that kind of relationship, and he said he really did, but he didn’t know why he was doing these things. I am by no means qualified to give advice on this, but it seemed clear to me (especially after a couple beers) that he had some issues regarding commitment that he needed to deal with before was able to go into a life long relationship with both eyes open.

I haven’t really known this guy for that long, and I didn’t really want to ask him about his childhood or if his parents were divorced, but I suspect something happened to him earlier that made him feel extremely and deeply conflicted about committing to one person for life.

I was reading this book recently about psychology, and the author was talking about this thing called cognitive dissonance. This is the amazing ability of people to be incredibly self-deceptive. Scientists, namely evolutionary biologists suspect this arose out of the need to constantly deceive one another. Back in the day (before agriculture) when people lived in small groups of a couple hundred or so, it became really important to be able to detect “cheaters” in the group. People that wouldn’t contribute their fair share would pose a serious threat to the safety of the group, so humans developed this uncanny ability to detect when others are lying, through body language and facial expressions.

So, the more we developed a sense for detecting liars, the better we got at deceiving. In order to better deceive our neighbors, we had to be able to deceive ourselves, so we wouldn’t give off any subconscious clues. It’s been time and time again that one measure of a psychopath is somebody that can tell a lie, knowing it’s a lie, and get away with it.

So we have this automatic capacity to easily deceive ourselves, not only to lie to others without getting caught, but also to lie to ourselves to protect ourselves from facing inconvenient truths about ourselves. Keep in mind that this is always happening unconscious. We don’t go around telling lies on purpose.

A good example is when two people meet in a bar, and “hook up.” In the moment, they really believe that they are “right” for each other, and that there is at least the potential for a relationship. In reality, the urge to have sex is so great, that the reality of the situation is ignored, and self-deception allows one or both people to believe that this encounter is more than it really is.

Many people know somebody that has been in an abusive relationship, one that is obvious to outsiders that they should get out of. But from the inside, they convince themselves that it would be better to stay. If they were to leave, they may have to face the thought of being alone, or rejected, or worse.

The secret is to be able step in and out of your own personal situation, and see things from different perspectives. In NLP they call this “associated” and “dissociated.” People that can see themselves objectively in a situation are “dissociated” while people that are seeing themselves from a person, subjective point of view are “associated.” One is not better than the other, but it can be extremely helpful to be able to switch back and forth to get a better understanding of the situation that you’re in.

People that are stuck in an associates state are the people that are stuck in abusive relationships, or people like my friend that always ends up self sabotaging himself without knowing why. People that are stuck in a dissociated state are people like Spock (who is a fictional character), and psychopaths who have no conscious or feelings or morals.

When you study NLP, you learn how to do this at will, so you can be in any situation, and check it from a dissociated viewpoint, to make sure it’s healthy and empowering, and then switch back to an associated viewpoint, so you can enjoy it as much as possible.

If you’re interested in learning how to use NLP in your own life to increase happiness, wealth, and positive relationships, click on the link below. This is a basic course that shows you exactly how to use NLP to structure your thinking so that getting what you want out of life is automatic.

Success with NLP

Share this:

Have you ever been window-shopping, and maybe decided to venture into a store to get a better look, and one thing led to another and you ended up buying something that you hadn’t set out to buy that day? Or maybe you were kind of in the market for something, like maybe a TV or something, and weren’t quite ready to make a purchase, but you came across a salesperson that somehow seemed to make buying a TV that day the most obvious choice in the world?

We’ve all had the experience of being hounded by a salesperson that just wouldn’t take no for an answer, and know what it feels like to be on the receiving end of hard sell after hard sell. You know a salesperson is desperate for a sale when they relentlessly follow you around despite your clear indications for them to take a hike.

So what’s the difference? Why does on salesperson seem to be helpful, and when you do make the decision to buy something, you feel grateful and want to tell your friends about him or her, while other sales people, they just emit an aura of desperation that triggers every single one of your warning signals?

Or more importantly, if you are trying to persuade somebody, whether it is in direct sales, marketing, or other form of persuasion, how do you be the first salesperson and not the second one?

Most people will tell you that being able to sell things is a natural gift that you either have it, or you don’t. Like a guy being a “natural” with women, wherever he goes, women follow. And no matter how hard you try to emulate him, you just can’t figure it out.

Part of the problem with so-called “naturals” is that they themselves have no idea how they do what they do. Unless they’ve gained their skills through long concentrated practice, they likely have no clue what makes them such a persuasive and charismatic salesperson. And unfortunately, many books on sales are written by these “naturals” and aren’t all that helpful, as they don’t really know how to describe what they are doing in a way that makes it easily repeatable by others.

They may say things like “respect the client,” “develop rapport,” “be sincere,” but these are particularly vague. How exactly do you “respect the client?” What is the best way to “develop rapport?” if you ask ten different successful salespeople these questions, you’ll likely get ten very different answers, which will likely be just as vague and unhelpful.

Enter NLP.

NLP, or neurolinguistic programming was developed as a powerful modeling tool to figure out exactly what these “naturals” were doing that made them “naturals.” It all started with therapists. Most people, when they think of therapy, they imagine going to a shrink every week for many years, and talking endlessly about childhood problems and parental issues (like Tony Soprano). But when NLP was first developed, they studied a few therapists that could “fix” people in just a few sessions.

Somebody would have this deep emotional problem, they’d go see one of these “naturals” and in a couple of weeks, through three or four sessions, their problem would be completely obliterated. And these weren’t your basic problems like not being able to smile at a pretty girl, or ask your boss for a raise. These were deep emotional problems that had to do with sexual abuse, alcoholism, and other serious relationship issues.

So how did they do it? The interesting thing is when one of the co-founders of NLP, Richard Bandler, showed one of these therapists her specific language patterns, she was surprised. She herself didn’t even know that was how she was doing it. Bandler basically showed her that she was using the same language structure over and over again with her clients, and it was creating magical results. Much better than that stereotypical image of a useless psychiatrist who just sits there and says, “how do you feel about that? What do you think that means?” over and over again.

Through the creation of NLP, people were suddenly able to model excellence in human behavior and human communication. By asking the right questions, and paying attention to the specifics of the communication structure, they were able to figure out exactly how those “naturals” were doing what they were doing.

And a major part of their “natural” abilities was a strong belief about their capabilities. This went far beyond affirmations in the mirror every morning. This was a deep, powerful subconscious belief that they totally capable of doing what they were setting out to do, whether it be curing a child of his bedwetting, or selling a fifty thousand dollar car to somebody who was merely “looking around.”

There were subsequently several method and procedures developed in NLP to install these beliefs in people, or for people to install them in themselves. It became possible to become a natural without experiencing the random childhood that produced a natural salesperson or therapist. As Richard Bandler put it, with NLP, it’s never too late to have a happy childhood.

There is a huge amount of free NLP information available on the web, and there are several great sources of self study NLP courses, as well as NLP based self development products. With NLP, there really isn’t any reason why you can’t be a natural in your chosen field.

One powerful program that many people have been having massive results with is success with NLP. If you check out this website, you’ll find that this is just one of the many programs that uses NLP to help you become successful in any field you choose.

Success with NLP

One thing about studying NLP is that it is by no means a “quick fix.” Many of our beliefs that we’ve been carrying around for a while can take some effort to re engineer, but once you do, you’ll be amazed at how much you can accomplish in life. Take a look at success with NLP and see for yourself.

Many people discover that once they start down the path of self-development with NLP, they realize that the sky really is the limit, and studying and mastering NLP becomes an obviously essential skill of life.

Share this:

Be careful though, you can easily misuse this power to trick them into doing something or buying a product that is against their interests. If you do this, then woe be unto you.

So how do you elicit criteria? Simple. Once you establish rapport, and generate a sufficient level of comfort, just ask them what’s important about something. Be sure to ask respectfully, and with genuine interest. Most people are a little bit shy about talking about their deep desires and criteria, and will quickly close themselves off to you if they smell any amount of incongruity.

For example, let’s say you are on a first date with a girl. Or maybe not even a first date. Maybe you are just talking to her at a party or a bar. You look around, comment on all the single people. Say something about how hard it is to find the right person for a relationship. If she agrees, then that’s good. It’s usually good to go first, and reveal a little bit about yourself first.

So you mention something about your relationship (make sure not to say anything bad about anybody) mention some of the good things, and mention something more that you were looking for. For example, you could say that your last boyfriend or girlfriend was a good friend, and a good conversationalist, but they really didn’t like to travel. They were a great guy/gal, but they weren’t as adventurous. So you needed to move on. Being adventurous is important to you.

Then you ask the person you are talking to about what is important to them in a relationship. It’s key to make sure to agree that whatever they say is important.

Then ask what is important about that? For example, if they said they want to meet somebody with a good sense of humor, casually ask what they find important about that. They may say that they want somebody that can laugh at themselves. Somebody that doesn’t take themselves too seriously.

One of the great things about this is that just by talking to somebody about what is important to them, they will subconsciously start to think of you in those terms, provided you have enough rapport. If you do this several different times, they will really start to develop deep feelings for you.

Another example.

Let’s say you are selling long distance plans. You get somebody on the line, get them talking, and ask them what long distance they are currently using. Instead of jumping right into switching them, like most people do, ask them what they like about their current plan. Ask them what is important about those things that they like. Be sure to agree with whatever they say.

Lets say they mention they like that it is part of their current bill. And you ask them what is important about that (make sure not to sound like you are going to convince them that it shouldn’t be important, agree with whatever they say). They will say something like they don’t have to worry about two separate bills. It’s easier that way. They don’t have to worry.

Then simply convince them that with your new plan, it is totally simple, and they won’t have to worry. Just let them know that it will fulfill their existing criteria, and will save them money.

This can take some time to get down, so that you can use it conversationally, but when you do you will realize how powerful this is. You will notice a significant increase in your sales and your ability to conversationally persuade and influence others.

Share this:

So this morning I was out on my morning walk, like normal. And I came across this guy that was building this model airplane. Not just a regular model airplane that you build and put it up on your shelf. This was the kind that had an engine, and a propeller, and a remote control to fly it. It wasn’t quite like most remote controlled airplanes that you buy straight out of the box and send flying. This was the kind you have to build from the ground up.

I asked him now long he’d been working on it, and he said for a few weeks. He mentioned that he had flown other planes, the out of the box kind, but they didn’t quite give him the pleasure of actually building something from scratch, and then seeing it take off. He said the possibility of making a mistake is enough motivation to get him to focus on his project so he makes sure to put it together correctly.

I remember once I had this kid when I was a kid. It was a 75 in 1 electronics kit from Radio Shack, which is a chain of small electronics shops. You could build lots of things, from a simple light with a push button switch, to a lie detector, where you could actually hook up the electrodes to people and question them regarding there whereabouts on the night of August 17th, or whatever.

I seem to remember that at first, when I built simple things like the push button light bulb, it gave me a pretty quick sense of accomplishment, but it was short lived. After all, it only required hooking up three wires. Anybody could do that. The lie detector was a bit more complicated, and took almost an hour to set up the first time. After a couple of times, though, that became pretty easy as well, and didn’t quite give the initial satisfaction that it did the first time.

So of course, I moved on to bigger things. I tried taking my regular bedside lamp, cutting the plug that went into the wall socket, and running it through the switch. When I realized that it worked, I was amazed. I actually had built an additional switch into my bedside lamp. I tried it again with the strobe light circuit. And it worked. Now I had a strobe light in my bedroom. My mind spun with the possibilities.

Here I was looking at this kit, inside this wooden box with a built in circuit board that was supposed to be used only with the self-contained things in that kit. Nowhere in the instructions did it say it was ok to take normal, everyday object like a light and run it through these small circuits, but I did it anyway.

And it worked.

Thinking of this story reminds me of this book about evolution I was reading the other day. One of the many books by Richard Dawkins. Be careful of reading him if you are of any kind of a religious mind, because he makes it quite clear where he stands on that particular set of beliefs.

But what he was talking about in this book is the problem that keeps coming up among evolutionary biologists. Why did man become the predominant species on the planet? What was it about homo sapiens sapiens that made us be able to build cars and houses and waffle makers?

Many argue that one that humans have developed, that no others animals have developed is adaptability. We can (and have) survive; even thrive, in pretty much any environment. If you take a bunch of penguins or polar bears, and stick them in the Sahara desert, they won’t last long. If you take a sidewinder snake and put him on the North Pole, he’ll be dead in a few hours.

But humans are different. We have learned to adapt, to change, and to expand to match the size of our containers, until we break the container and expand even further. How else would some societies be able to dig holes and live in the sides of cliffs?

When you realize that your human potential comes pre programmed with the capacity to learn from, use and overcome your environment, you can gain massive amounts of clarity when it comes to facing the challenges of everyday life. The history of humanity is filled with examples of people meeting the challenges of their environment or situation, and overcoming them with incredibly innovate solutions, many of which eventually make it into mainstream consciousness.

If you look at a shark from a million years ago, they still swam around hunting in exactly the same way they do today. Prehistoric bees still made honey the same way they make it today. Humankind, on the other hand, seems to make huge progress with every generation, the current generation being no exception.

Even if you look at your own life, I’m sure you can find plenty of examples of things that you are more than capable of excelling at today, that you had no clue how to do only a short time ago. When you compare the skills you have today to only a couple of years ago, just imagine what you’ll be like five years from now?

After I had success with my bedside lamp, I tried to run it through the handheld speed control on my electric race care set. It was this track with cars that ran around it through this slot, which were connected to a hand held speed control. I wondered what would happen if I ran the hand held speed control through my Radio Shack electronics kit. Unfortunately, it didn’t quite work out so well. The first time I tried it, it literally burst into flames in my hand. I was dejected, but vowed to continue.

And the guy I saw on my walk this morning got pretty excited when he started telling me about this model airplane convention he is going to in a couple weeks. They’ll be a lot of like-minded people there to share new ideas and tips, as well as many vendors with the latest gadgets and accessories. It should be interesting to see what happens.

Share this:

I’ve been reading some really interesting books on language recently. Specifically a couple by Stephen Pinker. If you haven’t read any of his stuff, or seen any of his lectures, you should. If you want to watch a couple of his talks, head on over to ted.com and do a search for his name. You’ll find a couple.

One of the things he mentioned in one of his books is how people will rarely use confrontational language. For example, if you are sitting at the dinner table with friend or family, even if you’ve known them your whole lives, you would rarely make a direct command to pass the salt. Most people use an indirect command, or even an indirect request.

So instead of simply saying:

“Hey, Joe, pass me the salt.”

We usually say something like:

“Could you pass me the salt?”

Or

“Would you mind me the salt?

Or, (if you just watched the movie “Office Space,”) you could say:

“Yea. If you could just pass me the salt… that’d be great. Yea…”

The underlying principle I’m getting at here is that humans rarely will confront each other with language. So we’ve developed all kinds of “weasel words” and “weasel phrases” to sneak in our requests to save face for both ourselves, and the person we are asking. Maybe this stems back from our evolutionary days of living in small groups of people, where getting rejected and ejected from the tribe meant certain death, so we have a deeply built in aversion to confrontation.

The most obvious form of confrontation is war. During times of war the enemy is dehumanized and animalized to make it easier to kill them. Nevertheless, there have been stories of soldiers from opposite sides of the battlefield forming instant bonds in unique circumstances.

Even when arguing with spouses, loved ones, or bosses and co-workers, we couch what we really want to say with these weasel words and weasel phrases.

For example, if you yell at your husband “you’re always late!” Is that really what is bothering you? If he were late because he was working overtime in order to get a better salary so you could afford a bigger house in a bigger neighborhood, would you still be angry? If he was a doctor, and was the best neurosurgeon in the world, and sometimes had to perform marathon surgeries, would you still be angry? Maybe, but probably not.

So when somebody yells “You’re always late!” The issue really isn’t being late, the issue is what the person assumes “being late,” means. And usually this means that they don’t care about the person enough to not be late.

So why don’t we just say “You don’t care about me!” That would cut right to the chase, wouldn’t it? Maybe not. What if we said “you don’t care about me,” and they said, “Yea, you’re right. I don’t.” Then what?

By focusing on the “being late” part we avoid directly confronting the deeper issue. Just like being reluctant to ask for the salt, we are much more reluctant to face a deep fear of a horrible and painful rejection.

So we get in fights over being late, leaving the cap of the toothpaste, and leaving the toilet set up or down or whatever. We dance around the issue that we are afraid to face directly.

But guess what? Your biggest fears almost never come true. The things we are terrified of the most will probably never happen. Even if they do, they won’t be nearly as devastating as we think they will.

This can be difficult to accept, let alone learn how to deal with. People spend years in therapy just to uncover what their deeper issues are, and then years more to figure out how to deal with them.

Just realize that when you are fighting with somebody, you are rarely fighting about what linguists call the “surface structure” of the argument. It’s usually not about being late, or leaving the cap off the toothpaste.

If you can take some time, on your own to find out what you think that really means, then you’ll have much more of a chance of dealing with it appropriately and effectively.

One easy trick that you can use today is from an old assertive method. Just express how you feel when somebody does something you don’t like. Avoid assigning meaning to their actions; just let them know how their actions make you feel.

This too, can be difficult as it raises fears of rejection. But you’ll be surprised what a positive effect it will have on other people. No longer will you be putting them on the spot or putting them on the defensive. You are simply letting them know how you feel and allowing them to choose how to respond.

Share this:

I was listening to this lady on a talk show the other day. Apparently she is well known best selling author of several books. I was doing other stuff, so I wasn’t really watching, more like listening in the background. Every time they said something interesting, I would pause momentarily to check this out, as this sounded like something that might be of immediate benefit.

She was talking about setting goals, and other stuff. She had written a book that, at least in my opinion, puts a kind of a new spin on an old idea. That old idea being that while you aren’t in control of much of reality, you are, whether you realize it or not, in complete control of how you respond to your reality.

The one thing she mentioned that grabbed my attention and made me focus on this was that you should claim ownership of all your emotions, and emotional responses. The biggest thing we say to ourselves is “he makes me so … whatever.” As soon as you imagine that somebody else has some kind of magical power over your emotions, you lose. Your emotions suddenly become out of your control and at the whim of every passing stranger you see.

See some guy that reminds you of somebody that broke your heart in high school?

BAM!

You just voluntarily gave up control over your emotions to some stranger on the street. Somebody says something in a tone of voice that reminds you of the way your second grade teacher used to embarrass you in front of the rest of the class?

WHAM!

You just served up your hot button of emotional pain to somebody that wasn’t even thinking about you all that much when they were speaking.

You hand in a report you worked on all week to your boss, and he makes some comment that indicates he is not as appreciative of your efforts as you’d like him to be, causing you to feel resentment, anger, and dangerously close to giving him an attitude that may negatively influence your next review?

SMACK!

You just grabbed the metaphorical loaded gun he was holding out of his hands and shot yourself in the foot with it.

So how do you assume ownership of your emotions? Just like any other response, you need to practice. It helps if you think of things like this not in touch-feely terms that are usually vague and not much help, but more like a sport.

If you’ve never played catch before, you would likely need to practice before you can play catch with somebody, listen to your mp3 player, and watch girls walk by all at the same time. You need to consciously focus on the ball as it is coming at you, and focus on moving your glove to just the right angle, and closing it at just the right time, with the precise amount of force.

It might be a little clumsy at first, but the more you practice, the more automatic it gets.

The same goes with responding to the world. The first step is to simply practice stopping and thinking how to respond in certain situations. Instead of standing there waiting for your emotions to kick in, you can make a choice to quickly observe the situation objectively, and think of the best response. Any emotional response comes only after you brain realizes you don’t have one already prepared, and it looks for the nearest one that may work. Usually this doesn’t work out so well.

Just by getting into the habit of stopping everything, and choosing the best response before you emotions come up, you will generate enormous choice and emotional freedom.

For the boss example. You hand in your report, and he dismisses it as not being good enough. It would be nice to always be given warm fuzzy pats on the back for our efforts, but at work we only get paid for the results. (And truth be told, this is true of most relationships as well.) So instead of getting upset that you didn’t get any props for you hard work, think of it objectively.

Boss asked for report, employee turns in report, report is insufficient. What would be the best course of action? Find out exactly in what areas the report is insufficient, and exactly what would be required to remedy that. And remember that next time your boss asks for a report, be sure to find out exactly, as specifically as possible, what is the intention for the report, what information needs to be in it, what he is actually going to use the report for, how is he going to use it, etc. This can help misunderstandings.

For the guy on the street, well, he’s just on the street. If you see somebody and are getting a funny feeling, stop and ask yourself, “Do I know him? Does he know me?” If the answers are both “no,” then any communication between the two of you is based on a completely random set of circumstances of which you never fully understand. That way you can place no meaning on any interaction at all, and quickly be on your way.

One powerful trick to ask yourself if it’s too late, and you are already angry or hurt at something somebody does, is to ask yourself “Why did I choose to feel hurt, (or angry, or whatever.)” That will give you immense power over your situation.

And if you are interested in reading more about this woman that was on the talk show, her name is Byron Katie, and she’s the author of a book called “The Work,” and lots of other stuff. You can check out here website at:

http://www.thework.com

There’s all kinds of free information, and videos to watch, and worksheets to download to help you get more control and take back ownership of your emotions.

Have fun.

Share this:

The other day I was sitting in this coffee shop downtown. It is on a pretty busy street, and despite being deep into autumn, the weather was sunny and kind of warm. So I decided to sit outside and watch people walk by. I also had a book with me that I had bought recently, so I was switching between reading a few pages and then watching folks walk by. It was one of those lazy, relaxing days where you don’t have anywhere to go, and you aren’t in any hurry of getting there.

I saw this guy come walking down the street that looked a bit odd. Something about him, but I wasn’t sure what. Maybe it was his gait, or the way he allowed his eyes to linger on those he passed slightly longer than socially appropriate. Nobody else seemed to notice him. As he got close, I became more and more interested in seeing exactly what he was all about. Perhaps he’d try and lock eyes with me. It’s always interesting when that happens.

I’ve read many different reports and theories on why it is so difficult for people to maintain eye contact. There is a myth that here in the East, it’s not socially appropriate, but I haven’t noticed any differences that in the West. People seem to hold eye contact here just as much as other places I’ve been.

One theory that makes the most sense is one that explains our natural reluctance to hold eye contact is evolutionary in nature. When Jane Goodall set off to study the great apes, she learned very quickly not to hold eye contact with them. And if you ever visit the zoo, and want to have some fun, pick a monkey, chimp or ape and hold eye contact with him or her and see what happens.

On a primal level, it seems that holding eye contact is a direct threat or challenge to another’s authority. That seems to be very much the case here. In sales books they teach you never to be the first to break eye contact during negotiations, and if you absolutely must, look away sideways rather than down. Breaking eye contact by looking down is an obvious sign of submission.

I’ve also read in many seduction guides aimed at men that when making eye contact with females, if she looks down and away, then that’s a good sign. If she looks away sideways then it’s a sign that she isn’t that interested or impressed by you. Of course, it goes without saying that if you are a guy, and are flirting with a girl, you should never be the first to break eye contact, at least in the first stages of flirting. Later on, after rapport has been established, you can play all kinds of eye contact games.

I remember once I was relatively long train ride, maybe twenty minutes or so. There was a particularly attractive woman sitting directly across from me. The first thing I noticed was her big fat wedding band, but that didn’t stop her and I from playing some pretty entertaining eye contact flirtation games during the train ride. I would look up, and she would be looking at me. We would hold eye contact just a hair longer than normal, one of us would smile, and look down and away. A couple minutes later our eyes would catch again, and the same thing would happen. A brief, barely perceptible smile, and a slow break in eye contact.
I never spoke with her, and I think that would have ruined the interaction, but that sure is a better way to pass the time than burying your head in a newspaper or a cell phone.

If you are guy, here’s an experiment you can try, that will give you some really electrifying results. It’s kind of tough to do this but it’s really fun. Go to a strip club (yea, a strip club) and sit in front, where you have to tip the dancer for every song. (I didn’t say this was free!). Instead of staring at what most guys stare at (if you know what I mean,) look only into her eyes, for as long as possible. Have a relaxed, open, safe look on your face, and absolutely refuse to be the first to break eye contact. Because she is a professional, she likely won’t be too shy, so you’ll end up holding eye contact with a fairly attractive (possibly naked, depending on where you live) woman for a long period of time. The emotions that this will evoke are astounding.

It’s been said that when a man and a woman hold eye contact for more than thirty seconds, they are either fighting or making love, so this can have some really interesting results. If anything, it will give you a huge boost in self-confidence.

I used to know this guy that was absolutely terrified of making eye contact with cute girls, until he tried the above method a few times. It helped his self-esteem and self-confidence immensely.

If you are female, and would like to get the same result, just find a place where you would have a captive male whose eyes you could gaze into for an extended period of time. Be careful you don’t send the wrong message. Most guys can quickly fall in love with a girl that holds eye contact long enough. Believe it or not, that’s all it takes for most guys. Some extended, direct, friendly (not desperate or needy) attention.

So when this guy finally came rambling towards me, he swept his gaze across the people around until his eyes met mine. He stopped dead in his tracks, as if he was shocked, then I saw some recognition spread across his face. I didn’t recognize him at all, so I was curious what he saw in me. He lifted his finger and pointed at me, and said:

“The days of treachery are coming to a abrupt and final ending. The times of reluctance must give way to the times of engagement. Those that avoid will be avoided, and those that connect will be connected. The choice has been, and always will be yours.”

He then lowered his hand, and shuffled along as if nothing happened. That was quite an interesting experience. A few people around me looked me for some kind of explanation, but I just shrugged my shoulders and went back to my book.

Share this:

If you ask most girls, you’ll find that most guys are afraid of commitment. If you ask most guys, you’ll find that we are a misunderstood bunch, and that commitment to us means something entirely different than it does to girls. We are committed to our careers, our friends, our dreams and our goals. Maybe when girls get together and complain about their guy’s failure to commit, perhaps they need to reexamine what they are expecting their guy to commit to.

They did a study a while back. When I say “they,” I’m referring to a group of social psychologists. They went up and down neighborhood streets, and asked if people would mind putting a small sign either in their front window, or on their lawn. The sign was a fairly generic sign, like “be careful of children,” or “please don’t litter in neighborhood,” or something along those lines. They did this to random households, not to every household. That is, one each street, they only choose a small percentage of houses to make the request.

They found that about 30-40 percent accepted the small sign. Keep in mind they asked houses at random. Then about three weeks later, they came through the same neighborhoods again. Now they asked to put up bigger, more controversial signs. Based on earlier data, 30 or 40 percent would agree to a small, generic sign. They suspected a smaller percentage would accept a bigger, more controversial sign, like “vote for Joe Blow,” or whatever.

What they found was interesting. In households that weren’t asked to put up the small signs, there were only a tiny percentage of people that agreed to put up big sign. Something around three percent. But on the houses that had already agreed to put a small sign, over 70 percent agreed to put up a bigger sign.

It appeared that once they got people to commit to a small amount, asking for a much larger amount was much easier than they suspected. This same phenomenon has been shown again and again in various different areas.
For example, studies show that during jury trials, often they will conduct a quick “straw vote” before beginning deliberations. Sometimes everybody says guilty or not guilty out loud, that is publicly committing to one position or another. Other times they anonymously write “G” or “NG” on a slip of paper.

On average, the trials where people publicly commit to one position or the other last over twice as long. It seems that once people make a public commitment, it is much harder to change their minds.

It is also a well-taught fact about setting goals, specifically quitting a bad habit like smoking, or losing weight, you’ll have much more success if you tell somebody, or make your position public.

Some psychologists feel this is one of many “shortcuts” the brain has evolved over time to save computing time. If we choose something, we tend to stick with it. Our brain doesn’t to reinvent the wheel with every decision.

What about you? What brand of shoe do you wear? Have you always worn that brand, or do you switch every time? What about cars? What make of car do you drive? Do you buy a different model every time?

How about when you go on vacations? Do you always stay in the same hotels, or do you change it up every now and then?

While it can be helpful, and time saving to make the same choices again and again, it can also cause problems. Have you ever gotten into an argument, and argued much longer than you should have, simply because you didn’t want to budge from your position, rather than changing your mind based on new information?

The whole “in for a penny, in for a pound” mindset shows up in many different areas of life. It served us well when we were hunter/gatherers, foraging for food. It helped keep us safe and out of harms way. But is it so unreasonable to reevaluate your position every now and then? Is it wrong to change your mind halfway through a project or discussion in light of new information?

It can help to realize what is important, and why. If you are arguing with somebody simply for the sake of arguing, maybe it could help to step back and take an objective look at things. And maybe wonder why it’s so important to be right all the time. But if you are truly seeking information, it can help to try and see the other person’s point of view.

At any rate, it helps to be aware of our minds tendency to use shorthand thinking. Many times it does help us, and make life easier, but it often times it doesn’t

The trick is to know the difference.

Share this:

The other day I was talking to my neighbor. She was telling me about all the stress her kids are giving her. Not bad stress, just normal mom stress. Her youngest just entered junior high school, and her oldest is a junior in high school. I don’t remember what age the middle one is, but she is somewhere in between.
They are all girls, and they are all very pretty. They get a lot of attention from the boys at school.

My neighbor is of the opinion that girls should be able to make it in the world on their own without having to rely on their looks. Here in Japan that is still kind of a not so popular idea. Many girls today are still taught from a very early age that if you were pretty and feminine you can expect to get a decent husband. Being a housewife is still a dream for many girls here.

Which is exactly why my neighbor is concerned. Her daughters are all pretty smart, they consistently do very well on standardized tests, which are pretty much the norm here. If you can’t do well on tests, it’s hard to succeed here.

Getting into a university here is much harder than the west. But once you are in, it’s fairly easy. College life here is fairly relaxed. Most people focus on getting into a good university starting around junior high school, or even sooner. Many top high schools here have strict entrance examinations. Many people consider public schools here to be substandard. If you can’t get into a good private high school, then you are going to have a second rate career, and a second rate life.

There are many who think that children getting into a good high school or university, especially one of the top universities, is nothing more than a status symbol for the parents. Many of my friends have noted that parents whose children are in good universities are very quick to point this out to their friends (whose kids are in “lesser” universities.) Of course, not everyone is like that.

Progress is bit slow here in that regard, but there still is progress. When my neighbor was in high school, most girls aspired to go to “finishing schools” for lack of a better term.

These were schools that girls from upper class families went to learn proper etiquette, and traditional Japanese customs like flower arranging and the proper wearing of a kimono. All in the hopes of attracting a potential wealthy husband.

It has been said that Japan lags behind the west by twenty years or so when it comes to things like human rights and equal opportunities. It seems that more and more couples here are facing the harsh reality that in order to raise a family, both parents have to work.

There was a “golden” time in the United States after World War II where families could easily survive on one income. That was when they made TV shows like “Leave it to Beaver,” “Father Knows Best,” “Happy Days,” and all those other shows from the fifties where dad went to work and mom was a happy homemaker. Most economists agree, and are backed by a lot of data, that that was just a temporary set of conditions that made it easy to survive on one income. Most of the time before that, and most of the time since, and likely for any foreseeable future, it’s going to take two incomes to support a family.

Not to say that situation might never happen again, but it’s better to realize that good times that are based only on a coincidental confluence of events never last. The best times are the ones you create yourself, based on a thorough understanding of the environment in which you live, and you skills to maximize that environment.

I heard an interesting quote the other day that the difference between rich people and poor people is that while poor people look for problems and excuses, rich people are always on the lookout for opportunities.

Poor people are always worried about the economy, while rich people are only concerned with their own economy that they can control. While its nice to live during times of low inflation, low interest rates, double digit yearly stock market returns, it’s never a good idea to depend on them.

Those that tend to be rich figure out a way to make things work for them regardless of the general economic conditions.

Which is why I think my neighbors daughters will be ok. Whenever I’ve spoken with them, they seem to be able to be flexible in their thinking, and focus always on their ultimate objectives, regardless of the meager expectations that society puts on them. They seem to have pretty good expectations of themselves, which no doubt, will carry them a long way.

Share this:

Have you ever been really curious about something, I mean like really insatiably curious? Like maybe when you were a kid, and it was a couple days before Christmas, and you saw a big box under the tree, and you couldn’t help but to wonder what exactly was inside this?

Or maybe your birthday was coming up, and you could tell the people around you were behaving kind of strange, like they were planning something really big, but were trying their hardest to pretend that everything was normal?

Curiosity is a huge driver for discovery and self-growth. Of course sometimes it can be dangerous, which is why the expression “curiosity killed the cat” somehow made its way into our collective unconscious.

But is curiosity really that bad? Curiosity was the spark that caused Edison to try and try again until he found a filament that worked in the light bulb. Curiosity is what sparked the Wright brothers to keep at it until they reached success.

When we are kids, we are insatiably curious, about every single thing. We want to touch, feel, look at taste everything around us. Whenever I see kid on the train, they are always looking around at all the people, out the window at the passing scenery with a look of complete astonishment and wonder.

The adults, on the other hand, almost always have their heads down, as if they are terrified of making contact with another human. They usually have their heads buried in a book, or staring intently at their cell phones, as if they are anxiously waiting for the results of the World Series or something.

Why does that curiosity stifling expression about the cat make it’s way into our consciousness? Why, or how, do we learn that it’s dangerous to want to explore and find out about new things?
If you have kids, you know the reason. At first it’s cute when a little kids running around checking things out. But if you are a normal adult, and aren’t financially well off enough to sit and play with your kid all day, you’ve got other things to do. And like any normal adult, you love your kid and would be horrified if he or she came into any sort of harm.

So the natural response then, is to chastise and admonish kids whenever they start to behave in a way that may prove to be dangerous, or messy, or cause problems.

Don’t touch that!

Put that down!

Don’t put that in your mouth!

Clean that up!

While this may be making our lives more convenient as adults, it is killing our kid’s creativity. Buckminster Fuller once said that every single person is born a genius, but 99.99% of us are de-geniused by the time we grow up.

The point here is not to let your kids run amuck and create all kinds of damage that you, as the adult, will have to fix. There likely isn’t any better way, unless you are super rich, and have no hobbies, or any other interests other than following your kid around all day and fostering their creative genius.

No, the point here is for you reading this to reach inside and find that insatiable curiosity that you gave up on long ago as too dangerous, too embarrassing, or to scary to express, for fear of incurring the wrath of the adults around you.

You are the adult now, and you can choose to listen to those who may criticize you, or you can choose to ignore them. You can reach inside to that little kid that still lives deep in your unconscious and let them know it’s safe to pick things up and examine them. It’s safe to look at things in different ways; it’s safe to explore your world.

New and better ideas, even those that work are not always accepted at first. Some are outright rejected, and can take time before they build momentum. Many a creative genius gives up all too soon simply because the rewards aren’t immediate and immense.

Sure, for every ten new ideas you come up with, 9 of them might suck. But that one out of ten will make it all worthwhile. Progress is not made by people sitting around waiting for others to figure stuff out. Progress is made by those willing to take risks and to try new things.

When most people get the wisp of a new, creative idea in their heads, it is quickly silenced by fears of “what if it doesn’t work,” or “what if I fail?” or even “that’s stupid.”

The secret is to train yourself to think like President John F. Kennedy, and not ask yourself “what if it doesn’t work,” but instead to courageously ask yourself

“What if it does work?”

And let your creative genius run wild with the possibilities.

Share this:

There has been an ongoing debate for a while among people that study human development and potential, and believe it or not, linguists. There is one camp that believes that when humans are born, we are completely blank, and don’t know anything about anything. It would be the equivalent of buying a brand new computer with no operating system, not software, nothing.

Similar to the computers of many years ago. They didn’t even know how to start. So every time you had to start up your computer, you actually had to insert a punch card that was configured to give the program the start up parameters.

There are those that feel humans are completely and utterly blank when we come into the world, and that all we are is a result of our environment.

From a purely physical standpoint, that seems a bit ridiculous. As a general rule, and maybe you’ve noticed this, but children of Asian parents usually grow up with Asian features (e.g. black hair, brown eyes). Same with people from other parts of the world. Of course you could likely explain that different climates in different parts of the world gave rise to different physical features over hundreds of thousand so years of evolution, but you could hardly say that this process is repeated for each generation.

So at the very least, it appears that we come pre programmed for at least some kinds of things, such as certain physical traits, which are based both on our ethnicity and our parents. Tall parents usually produce tall kids, etc.

On the other extreme is those that argue that we come in with pretty much everything all configured, and life is nothing more than a discovery of that configuration. People will usually point out cases of twins who although separated at birth, grew up into mysteriously similar lives. Same lives, same names of their wives, same habits, down to the brand of cigarettes.

Of course, these cases are few and far between, they are anything but the norm. Those that study statistics will tell you that you can prove any theory, no matter how hair brained, by choosing certain data to represent your case. Nostradamus, and the appearance of the twin towers on a folded twenty-dollar bill to name a couple.

But along those two endpoints of the spectrum, we have to lie someplace in the middle. We do seem to come pre programmed with some kinds of pre-determined characteristics.

Despite how this seems to suggest that we are doomed by fate, there is a ray of hope in something called meta programs. These are a shorthand collection of decisions the brain groups together to conserve valuable processing time. The reason I say ray of hope is because although in many people these usually go undiscovered and therefore unchanged, once you find out your own metaprograms you can change them to improve your results. Here are a couple important ones. As you read, ask yourself which “endpoint” resonates most with you, and just be aware of it as you go through your daily life, to determine if it serves you, or if you want to change.

The first one is motivation. Are you motivated more by fear of pain, or the promise of reward? Many people are motivated by the fear of pain, and take action in the right direction. But as soon as they make progress, the fear of pain diminishes, as does their motivation. This is one of the main reasons it’s so hard to stick to a diet once you start it.

In order to overcome this, focus on the end results, and make it really big and compelling.

Another one is sorting. Do you see similarities in things, or differences? If you see differences more so than similarities, the world can seem to be a dangerous and confusing place. The human brain is more comfortable with similarity. If you want to try to something new, and only see how it’s different than what you are used to, it might be hard to get started. However, if you train your self to find similarities it will make doing new things easier.

For example, starting a new job can be a frightening experience, if you are always comparing how different it is to your old job. But if you consciously look for similarities instead, it will be much easier to adjust.

Another important one is verification. When you choose something, how do you know it’s the right choice? The two options here are internal and external. If you seek external verification for all your choices, you will always be following somebody else’s lead. What diet to go on, what to order at a restaurant, what movie to rent at the video shop, all these decisions will require you get somebody else’s opinion first.

On the flip side, if you only need to rely on yourself, then you’ll have much more freedom to choose. This can be the toughest one to change because it is very easy to rely on the opinions of others. If you find yourself asking others opinions often, try choosing by yourself, and be happy with your choice. Take small steps, and as your confidence continues to increase, it will become easier.

When you start to examine your own meta programs and how the help you achieve what you want in life, it opens up a huge realm of possibility. Just by noticing how you choose things, you will be far ahead of most other people.

To summarize here are the three main ones:

Pain or Pleasure – Which motivates you the most?

Same of Different – What do you see the most?

Internal or External – Do you always need others opinions, or is yours enough?

After you get skilled with these, there are about twenty other ones I’ll be writing about later on to help you make success automatic for you.

Share this:

One of the best ways to improve your communication skills with other people is to create a solid set of underlying objectives. Most people float through life with only a vague desire to avoid as much pain and discomfort as possible, and this comes across in their communication. They come across protective of their egos and hesitant to speak their true feelings for fear of rejection and ridicule.

Of course this can be a hard thing to overcome. We have been trained since we were children that it is dangerous to speak our minds. At first, everybody loved us. Every single thing we did was cute and adorable. But then once we hit two or three, we became sometimes cute, and sometimes a nuisance. And the times we were a nuisance, we were told through several different and subconscious channels of communication.

It’s not wonder then that public speaking is the biggest fear in America today. We have been so programmed to be uncertain of any response to our expression that we more often than not live under the illusion that it is safer to just be quiet and as expressionless as possible.

However, the great paradox of communication is that while we crave somebody that will give us inspiration and direction, the best solution is to simply be that person to others. Most people are sitting around waiting for somebody else to go first and lead the way. Most people don’t consider the idea that it is just as easy and natural to lead, as it is to follow.

One of the ways to do this is to simply choose a few things that you’d like to create in life. The more you focus on these, the more they will start to present themselves through your various interactions with people.

The sad fact is that most people don’t have any goals in life to speak of, other than the ones that were given to them by society. Get a decent job, get a family, put in an honest days work every day. Be a good model citizen and don’t cause any problems.

If that is what you truly want, then I’m all for it. Those that are the happiest in their jobs and relationships have actually taken the time to ensure it really is their choice to live that particular life. However, it is becoming more and more apparent that more and more people seem to be drifting along through life half asleep, hoping the general expectations laid down by the collective society will be enough to give them happiness. Often times it is not.

One way to get started is to sit down and think about the things in your life that really like, and the things you don’t like. Make a plan to increase the amount of things you like, and decrease the things you don’t like. Most people, obviously, have a pretty good idea of what they like and what they don’t like. Very few have taken the time to formulate a plan to get more of the good stuff, and less of the bad stuff.

Most people drift through life hoping that more good stuff will magically appear, and the bad stuff will be taken away by some benevolent god or government.

When you develop a solid plan, and start to focus on achieving it, your daily interactions with people will magically transform. You will be seen as somebody who has a clear objective in life. Somebody that knows what they want. Somebody to be respected.

This has a strange, perhaps metaphysical way of coming through in your daily conversations. Perhaps due to the large amount of communication that takes place below conscious awareness, people can pick up on the fact that you are on a mission of your own choosing rather than shuffling to the collective beat of society.

How do you get there? Pick a few major goals you’d like to achieve in a years time. Get really specific. Every day, focus on one of your goals. Spend a few minutes imagining it and making it truly compelling. Focus on each day with something, anything you can do to get you closer. Spend a few minutes every night mentally reviewing your day and highlighting any efforts you made in the direction of your goal.

Man is a nomadic creature, designed through evolution, or God, or Mother Nature, to be a seeker, not a follower. Man was designed to find a point far, far off in the distance, and to relentlessly pursue it. We were not designed, nor do we come close to our potential, by keeping our head down and obediently shuffling along.

Find that point off in the distance, whatever it is. Make it real. Visualize it. Pursue it. Achieve it.

And let nothing, no man, no woman, no institution of society stop you.

Share this:

There used to be this guy that I worked with. He was kind of a quiet, serious type of guy. He was always focused on his job, which was good. He was an electronics technician. This was at a company that manufactured these big machines that were then sold to various manufacturers of various large commercial and retail products.

This guy’s job was to trouble shoot new designs. The engineers would come up with a new design for a machine, and build several prototypes. Then they would give them to this guy, who would run them through a whole range of different operating conditions, and then give them back to the design engineers with his report.

At first, they would give him specific things to look for, but they realized that he could do a far better job on his own. So after about year, they just gave him the machine, and pretty much let him play with it for a couple weeks. In his report he would list the drawbacks, the benefits and what he would like to see from an end user’s standpoint.

The interesting thing was that the design engineers would use him for a large part of their research and development efforts, as his input was extremely valuable. It was also a good experience for him; having only a two-year degree he was giving input at the level usually reserved for upper management and senior level engineers. They would usually give him a product several different times during the stage of development, and with his input, they eventually created a device that was unmatched in that particular industry.

I was reading this self-development book the other day. It was talking about how some people choose their goals. Most people have a vague wish, take a couple steps, and get discouraged when everything doesn’t turn out exactly the way they want it. Which is kind of funny because since most people don’t really know exactly how they want things, it’s kind of hard to know when you get there.

But this book was saying that people should design their goals, and then think of themselves as a guided missile. What many people don’t know about guided missiles is the incredible amount of feed back from the environment they use to keep reprogramming themselves. They literally make hundreds of thousands of calculations along the way to their target, and are always adjusting their trajectory. If guided missiles were like people, they’d give as soon as they left the launch pad.

I was reading this book recently about how people tend to give meaning to events based on their opinions of themselves, and of their expectations of the outcome of the event. Two different people will do exactly the same thing, but they each will have a completely different interpretation of what went down. And based upon their interpretation, what they do next will be completely different.

So after a while, if one person is always looking at results, and adjusting their behavior to get better results, then they will usually get what they are looking for.

But somebody else, who instead of getting instant gratification sees only failure, will usually give up. They might try a bunch of different things, only to think that they fail all the time. This will destroy their self-esteem and their belief in their ability to get what they want out of life.

The first person will see a world filled with opportunities, while the second person will see a world filled with problems and limitations. And although the second person likely won’t ever admit it, it’s all based on how they choose to think of events that happen. The secret, according this book, was that all you have to do is change your interpretation of events, and you can pretty much do anything, with a long enough time line.

The other thing this book mentioned was to think more in the future instead of immediate gratification. If you are always looking for immediate pleasure, you usually won’t get anything that lasts very long. Kind of like planting seeds. Some plants grow very quick, but don’t produce much. Some take a while to grow, but when they finally reach maturity, they produce fruit year after year, without much effort on your part.

And my friend finally started his own consulting business, helping companies to design all different kinds of machines. Last I heard he just got a huge contract with a major automobile manufacturer. He has about twenty people working for him that he collected along the way. Word on the street is that his net worth is well into the millions. Not bad for a two year degree technician.

Share this:

Before we start, let me say that I’m not using seduction in any underhanded or manipulative sense. Whenever you are interacting with another person in hopes of eliciting any kind of romantic or sexual interest in them for you, you are trying to seduce them.

Women try (usually extremely successfully) to seduce men through their expert use of clothes, feminine behavior, conversation skills, and the attention they give to a man. Men try (many times unsuccessfully) to seduce women through buying dinners, taking them on expensive dates, and sometimes through dishonest promotion of themselves.

This doesn’t have to be so incredibly difficult and frustrating. People have been on this planet for hundreds of thousands of years, and at last count there are over six billion of us. Of all the things we are supposed to be doing, making more people seems to be high on our list of priorities. So it’s not like dating, seduction, and creating sexual relationships are any secret voodoo that breaks any moral code of society.

So how do we do it without destroying our ego in the process? First a couple of inner game tricks, and then a couple of outer game tricks.

Inner game is whatever goes on in your mind before you even talk to your love interest. The things you say to yourself, the things you believe about yourself, and what your capabilities are, everything in your history and the interpretation you give to those events.

The first thing to do is get rid of any guilt in wanting love and sex. You are human. You have needs. And the main needs or desires of humans are food and sex. Without those two main drives our planet would soon be populated by penguins and grasshoppers, and all the other animals. We’d be gone. So step one is to embrace your sexual desire. It’s normal, it’s natural, it’s expected.

Step two is to realize that everybody else has that same desire. But just like your desire for food, you are gonna like some things, and not like others. If you go to a buffet and scoop up a plate full of pizza instead of fried chicken, does the fried chicken get its feelings hurt?

By realizing that everybody has their own unique set of desires, likes and dislikes, it’s easier to understand the dating game for what it is: A huge numbers game. If you look at it as a numbers game, and have fun meeting as many people as possible in search for someone you click with, you’ll have much better results.

The problems come up with people have these deep fears that when they get rejected, it is because the other person has some kind of super human x-ran psychic vision. They look into your heart and soul, and can instantly judge you and everything about you. When you get rejected, they have quickly evaluated your whole existence. As a consequence most people are operating with about a 50 percent intention of finding someone, and a fifty percent intention of protecting their ego. This makes normal conversation difficult, as everyone is trying to protect themselves as much as possible from getting hurt.

The paradox is that when you really let it all hang out and be your true self, you will become more attractive than ever. One of the reasons people love babies so much is that they express themselves without giving a damn about how people will react to them. Think about the most attractive and charismatic people you’ve ever met, were they quite and reserved, or outgoing and gregarious?

So lets review your inner game. Step one is to realize that everybody wants some. (Just like that Van Halen song.) Step two is to realize that not everybody will like everybody. The goal is to find out if you are each others type, not to try and persuade each other that you are each others type. Big difference.

Ok, outer game time.

This is your behaviors, social skills and social intelligence. It helps to realize that these skills should always be thought of as works in process. You will never get to a point where you are socially eloquent enough, or can read another person or even a room well enough. Lifelong learning.

Step one is to meet people and give them a chance to get to know you. Take charge of the conversation, and give them a chance to find out about you. Go slow, and escalate only when they are ready.

Escalation is when you slowly move the relationship to the next level. Anywhere you are, you should always be testing, very carefully, to see if the other person is ready to kick it up a notch. Slower is better, but not too slow.

Escalation can be anything. If you are talking to an attractive person in line at the supermarket, ask for their phone number. If they hesitate, at all, that means they aren’t ready. No problem. Move on. Allow them to keep their comfort level and their own criteria intact. Don’t try and push them beyond their comfort level.

Or you’ve been talking to somebody in a bar for an hour. You might suggest going to a smaller venue, which is within walking distance.

Or maybe you’ve been messaging back and forth online, you might suggest and voice chat on Skype.

Or maybe you’ve passed by the same person every day at school. The next step would be to make eye contact and smile, or even say hi.

The thing to remember is whomever it is, think of the next step to move your potential relationship forward. Slow, and easy to accept for the other person. And keep moving slowly forward. Let them get used to the idea of you. Most people don’t like change. Unless you are a drop dead rich supermodel, people are likely to be put off if you come on too strong. When you give them time to get used to the idea of you, you will have a lot more chance of success.

Ok that was only one step, but here’s the review. Meet as many people as possible, and always look for opportunities to escalate, to see if they are as into you as you are into them.

So how do you know when you’ve found the right one? You have no more desire to go and meet other people. And they are escalating you as much as you are escalating them, if you catch my drift.

Now go and have fun.

Share this:

A reporter asked him how it felt to fail ten thousand times, to which he replied:

“I never failed once, I merely found out ten thousand things that didn’t work.”

Now I’m not sure if that conversation ever took place, usually when you see some kind of quote like that, which was supposedly made many moons ago, there is a strong possibility it has been embellished over the years.

Nonetheless, it is a magnificent attitude to have. Of course it is an extremely difficult one. I’m sure that if you marched into your bosses office and demanded a raise, you wouldn’t likely feel elated about discovering yet another way that wouldn’t get you any more money.

People generally have three responses to “failure,” and two of them are not so helpful. I’d like to share with you one trick that can help at least make some progress toward Edison’s positive attitude.

The first response, of course, is to accept failure, and stop trying. You ask your boss for a raise; he says not, you label yourself as a failure. This is likely the worst response (and unfortunately the easiest) because it pretty much shuts down any possibilities for future endeavors.

This is the main reason so many people are afraid of public speaking. When we are born, we naturally scream our lungs out whenever we want attention. As we grow older, we “learn’ that many times, screaming will bring bad results, in the form of angry parents or teachers, or people simply ignoring, or even worse, laughing at our requests.

Because we “fail” so many times in getting our needs met, we develop a deep anxiety about expressing ourselves. When we reach adulthood, it’s no wonder that most of us list public speaking as far and away the number one fear, even higher than death. Our response to failure is to learn to be afraid of trying.

The second response to failure is to blame others. A guy asks several girls out, and gets rejected. After a while, some guys develop a deeply held and sometimes unconscious anger towards women in general. They’re all whores, bitches; they manipulate men to get what they want, etc etc.

Or if you start a business and don’t do so well. It’s easy to blame the customers, the economy, your competitors, and your employees.

This response is equally bad as the first. In the first, you label yourself as incapable of success. In the second, you label your environment, your reality, as an environment in which success is impossible. Both of these responses make it difficult to keep plugging away like Mr. Edison.

So what’s the best response? How do we cultivate the perseverance (or “perspiration” which, I believe, Edison said comprises 99 percent of invention, next to one percent inspiration)?

By asking ourselves the right questions:

What can I do next time to get a better response?
What can I try differently next time to get a better reaction?
How can I present myself differently next time to improve my chances?

The magic about this is you don’t really have to come up with an answer. If you get into the habit of simply asking yourselves these questions whenever something doesn’t go your way, you brain will start to look for answers when you are busy doing other things. And believe it or not, next time you are in a similar situation, you’ll somehow get a different “idea” of what to do. This is a result of the powerful processing capacity of your unconscious mind. When you ask a question, it gets to work on finding an answer.

Many people ask themselves questions like “Why do I suck so bad?” And the brain will happily answer it for them. But when you ask yourselves open-ended questions that point you toward more resourceful behavior, your brain will just as readily answer them for you.

Of course, like any new habit, it’s best to start small, and allow yourself the time to build up your new behavior. Start slow, and build up your soon to be automatic habit.

Like if you overslept, instead of saying “Why am I so lazy,” ask yourself, “How can I wake up automatically?” If you always hit your golf ball into the lake, ask yourself “What can I do to keep it on the fairway?” If you take a test and don’t do so good, ask yourself, “how can I remember this stuff easier?”

The secret is to ask the question, and trust in your unconscious to provide and answer of some sort. It may take some time at first, but an answer will come.

When you make these questions automatic, you will be amazed how many ideas that seemingly come from nowhere. When you start to act on these ideas, your successes will be automatic as well.

Share this:

But when you are doing things that are much more personal, and much more subjective, it can be hard to tell if you are making any progress. This is largely due to how the brain processes, stores and uses information. This is also the reason that when people successfully apply things like the “Law Of Attraction,” it seems like the world has magically fulfilled their wishes.

No matter what changes you’ve made, small or large, they will seem normal.

Let me explain.

Lets say you are terribly afraid of elevators. Every time you approach an elevator, your palms get cold and clammy, your heart starts to palpitate, you imagine plunging painfully to your death, and then decide to take stairs. All this is happening inside your brain, due to your own particular history and how you’ve decided to code your experience. This is all normal for you.

Then you go and see a hypnotist, or watch some guy on Oprah who helps people overcome irrational fears, and are vicariously cured. Or maybe you even see some seemingly disconnected event that helps you to unconsciously reframe whatever past experience gave you your fear. Whatever the reason, suddenly you are not afraid of elevators any more.

Now the first time you approach an elevator, you might notice a difference. But more than likely, what has changed is your idea of what is “normal.” All of a sudden it will just feel “normal” to get on an elevator without any feelings of fear or anxiety. You will obviously remember taking the stairs before, but you won’t likely remember the actual fear, since it’s gone.

To get an idea of what this is like, try and remember first learning how to read. Try to remember the feeling of looking at a bunch of squiggly lines on a piece of paper, or on the board at school, and having no idea what they mean. Or try to remember riding bike for the first time, and not being able to keep your balance.

While you may remember the actual event, sitting in a chair at school, or riding your bike for the first time, you’ll likely have a difficult time remembering the feelings of confusion, difficulty, or anxiety that often comes with learning.

As you become more skilled, your brain simply readjusts what is “normal.” It continually updates your definition.

The upshot of this is that you have an unlimited capacity for learning and improving skills in virtually all areas of your life. The drawbacks to this is that in many life skills, (social skills, public speaking skills, writing and persuasion skills) you may be improving drastically, by leaps and bounds, but it doesn’t feel like it because you are always “normal.” This can lead to frustration if you aren’t seeing specific results, like when you improve your T shot, or free throw percentage.

The best way to keep your motivation high is to figure out some way to measure your progress. This can be done by soliciting the advice of people that can be objective.

For an example of public speaking, Toastmasters is really good for this. They have a system where after every speech; you are critiqued objectively by a sometimes-complete stranger. So you can be sure that any feedback you get is useful and helpful in drastically improving your public speaking skills in a relatively short amount of time.

Feedback is perhaps the most valuable thing when you are improving anything. One of the traps of feedback is that many people avoid it, due to a fear of being judged, or rejected, or having their deepest, most secret fears laid bare. Many people feel that if the feedback they receive isn’t one hundred percent positive, then it means they are a failure. This attitude only keeps you stuck in your present level of skill.

But in reality, feedback is simply feedback. It only has meaning that you give it. And when you consistently use feedback to help you improve, you’ll be light years ahead of most people on the planet.

Share this:

This short article is basically about how to ask anybody without having to fear any rejection. It requires that you somewhat know the person, and know a little bit about their interests. This means you have spoken with them at least on one previous occasion, either one on one, or in a group, under any context where you were able to exchange any personal information.

If you only know the person’s name, and haven’t ever spoken to them, this method will still work, but you’ll have a greater chance of success if you know at least a little bit about their interests.

Ready? Ok, lets go.

It’s actually pretty simple. Remember, this guide is to help you ask them out; everybody has their own likes and dislikes. There is a chance they will decline your offer. The secret is to realize that by asking out as many people as possible, you will greatly enhance your chances of finding that one special somebody to fulfill all your emotional needs and sexual fantasies.

Let’s say you’ve spoken to them once before in a group conversation, and you have discovered that they like dogs. What you need to do is find some kind of safe, semi-public activity that involves dogs. Look in your local newspaper and find a dog show, or one of those events where people get together and have their dogs run through obstacle courses. Find out when they are having it, lets say next Saturday at 2 PM.

Next time you see the person of interest, here’s how you ask them out.

“Hey, how’s it going? Say, I thought about you last week.”
“Oh really?”
“Yea. I read where there’s going to be a dog obstacle course contest this weekend at such and such park. It sounds pretty cool. I’m going to go check it out.”
(Pause)
“Would you like to come?”

And then let them answer. Simple as that. It’s important to actually go to the even with or without them, and imply that through your question. They are just coming along for the ride. If you ask them out on a first date, and you make it seem like they will be the center of attention, they might feel too much pressure and decline your offer.

But when you make it sound like something that you are going to do anyways, and they are only coming along for the ride, then they will feel a lot less pressure, and say yes. Especially if it’s during the afternoon, in a public place like a park.

You can do this with any kind of interest they have. Just figure out a semi-public place to do something semi-related to something they are interested in. The most important part is to frame the outing as something you are doing anyways. Even if they say no, you’re not really getting rejected, because you are going anyways.

Then while you are at the park, watching dogs, or whatever, you can talk some more, find out other things they like. You can even suggest going to get a cup of coffee or a drink after the dog show, and who knows what will happen?

Of course, you can also use this method with somebody you barely know, but you are running a risk of asking them to do something they have zero interest in, or worse. If you ask the checker at your local supermarket to go with you to a dog show, and she happened to have been mauled as a child by her neighbor’s pit bull, she probably will say no.

But even still, you won’t get the one getting rejected, your plan will. It’s still a lot easier than asking somebody you barely know out to dinner. They will usually only say yes if they find you attractive right off the bat, and they have enough self confidence and self esteem to hang out with somebody they barely know for an hour or so. That can be pretty nerve wracking.

The big secret about dating is that it is a completely natural thing. Most guys will like most girls, and most girls will like most guys. Once you get past the initial nervousness, pressure, anxiety of the whole first date, you can relax and get to know one another.

And that is when the magic happens.

Sign up to the mailing list so you can get other free tips and inside info.

Share this: