We Are Less Rational Than We Think We humans fancy ourselves as highly evolved animals that have rational minds, advanced language, arts, society, culture and a host of other advanced technologies. We don’t like to think of ourselves as irrational creatures that are at the mercy of ancient evolutionary hot buttons. The truth about us, [...]
It’s Not Only About Persuasion, It’s About Powerful Communication This is another article on linguistic presuppositions, those powerful yet covert language patterns that you can use anywhere, anytime and persuade and influence others through simple, relaxed conversation. Today’s pattern is “Quantifiers.” These are simply words like “only, even, except, just.” They can be used to [...]
Lost Once I was on this backpacking trip with a friend of mine. We’d planned this trip out for a few weeks, and had been really looking forward to it. It wasn’t a loop trip, which meant that we had to find somebody to drop us off at the trailhead, so that when we came [...]
Where Am I? So what do you do when you suddenly find yourself lost? That’s what happened to me once. I heard from a friend of a friend about this magnificent party, and he’d heard from another friend some convoluted directions to get there. Both of us, and the friend, had only been living in [...]
Should I Stay Or Should I Go? The other day I was talking to a friend of mine over a cup of coffee. We had met while we were out shopping, not really met, more like bumped into each other. We both had a few minutes to spare, and there happened to be a coffee [...]
Imaginary Friends I was having lunch with an old friend of mine the other day. I hadn’t seen her since just after she had her baby. That was four years ago. I can’t believe how fast time flies when you’re doing the same routine day in and day out. If you don’t and look up [...]
Mrs. Big Hair Once I was at this party, and I was with a friend of mine, actually a date. I saw some guy that I’d met before; at least I think I’d met him before. We did that bit of recognition when you make eye contact with somebody that you know. An almost instantaneous [...]
The Master Key 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, [...]
How To Build a Mental Time Machine There was this really cool movie called “The Butterfly Effect,” that came out a few years ago. They made a sequel that was OK, but not nearly as powerful as the original. The reason it was called “The Butterfly Effect,” was because of part of something called “Chaos [...]
How To Find Your Untapped Resources If you are ever in situation where you feel out of control or at a loss on how respond to any particular situation, here’s a quick mental exercise that can give you a boost. When done in isolation, it can give you some perspective, and briefly shake off any [...]