This is fifth in a series of articles regarding presuppositions, and how to use them to effectively and covertly persuade others. By consciously choosing your intentions, and then structuring your message using various language patterns, such as presuppositions, you will find that your ability to persuade others will improve dramatically.

Today’s topic is relative clauses. A relative clause is a complex noun phrase, followed by the words “which,” “who,” or “that,” then followed by another statement. There are a couple of ways to use these as standalone patterns to convince your listener or reader of the validity of an idea or statement.

First, choose a group of people, or experts. Then assign them something they’ve done or understood as a subgroup, something related to your persuasive idea. Then appropriate that persuasive idea to the group you’ve chosen.

(group) who have (performance or revelation) know that (your intended message)

Sounds complicated, so lets look at some examples

Idea: Exercise is good for weight loss
Group of experts: Physicians
Thing they’ve done: Performed research on weight loss.

Here’s how it looks like conversationally:

Leading physicians who have studied weight loss methods extensively have come to realize that the best way to lose weight is through a simple exercise plan.

Here’s another one.

Idea: Dollar cost averaging is a good, safe way to invest
Experts: Financial Planners
Thing they’ve done: studied various ways to increase wealth

Result:

Leading financial planners who have really looked at several ways of increasing wealth have found that dollar cost averaging is a great, safe way for beginners to invest in the stock market.

Notice in the above two examples, it is very hard to disagree with the intended message (exercise is good for weight loss, and dollar cost averaging for stock market wealth).

Unless you construct a completely “out there” message, your listener will accept as true pretty much whatever you give him.

People that have researched various ways to happiness are unanimous that giving me a million dollars is the fastest way to life long bliss.

In this case, the action I’m trying to persuade you to do, give me a million dollars, is so far out there that the whole statement is seen as an attempt at humor, and none of it is taken seriously.

Otherwise, statements that are even somewhat believable, when put together correctly, will be taken as truth.

Here’s another way to use this pattern.

(group) who have (done your intention) have realized (generally accepted good thing).

Where “group” is any expert or authority on a subject related to your intention, and the “generally accepted good thing” is something that is universally desirable, like self-confidence, health, sex appeal, money, etc.

Some examples.

Group = people in general
Your Intention = exercise to lose weight
Good thing = attention from the opposite sex

People who have lost weight through exercise have noticed a profoundly increased level of attention from the opposite sex.

Group: people in general
Your intention: dollar cost averaging
Good thing: easy money

People who have started a consistent dollar cost averaging program have realized how easily their wealth builds up over a period of time.

Group: people in general
Your intention: reduce carbon footprint
Good thing: feel good about yourself

People who have made a serious effort to reduce their carbon footprint have discovered that it greatly improves their self-image, because they know it’s really important to take care of the environment.

That’s it for today. Check back later for more updates, because people that have taken the time to really study presuppositions have found that the more you study, the more you can see various applications for these that can not only improve your life, but the lives of all those around you.

And people that have improved the lives of those around them have come to really appreciate how wonderful personal relationships can become once you master these patterns.

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The other day I was talking to a friend of mine from high school about this problem that she’s been having with her next-door neighbor and her daughter. She thinks that because they are not as quiet as they used to be, then that means that something has happened, and she is taking it personally.

I remember reading something about that, when somebody has certain issues, and there is some kind of unfavorable change in the environment, people can sometimes take it personally, and assume it was something they did, or worse, assume it is another example of them always getting the short end of the stick.

Like once I had this friend, and we were waiting in line to get our food at this fast food place. She had number seventeen, and they called numbers fifteen, sixteen, and then eighteen. She looked discouragingly at her number and mumbled something about things like this always happening to her.

Of course, if you were to do an engineering analysis of the restaurant, the restaurant staff, and the time and resources required to produce each order, and then compared that to orders number fifteen through eighteen, you very well may draw the conclusion that order number seventeen was the most labor and resource intensive (e.g. double bacon cheeseburger, extra pickles with well done fries, no salt). It would then be completely logical (especially if you were waiting in line with Mr. Spock) to expect order number seventeen to take longer than the rest.

This extremely common situation is made worse by the idea that people have about what the world “should” be like. Restaurants “should” always give out the food in the order that it was ordered.

Then you open up a whole can of worms from the restaurants perspective. Should they always give out the order numbers sequentially, no matter how long each individual order takes? What about somebody like my friend who ordered a pretty specific order, and somebody right after her that ordered something simple, like a cheeseburger and fries combo? Do you hold up the line in order to make sure your orders are in order in order to not offend those orders behind her? Or do you try the best you can, and take a broader approach, and work as efficiently and quickly as you can in order to please as many customers as possible?

Sometimes when I’m at the supermarket, and there is a bunch of people waiting in line, and the next checker over opens up. Sometimes he or she will shout out “I can help whoever is next,” which of course leads to a brief period of social anarchy of biblical proportions, where the first will become last and the last will become first. Especially if the last isn’t shy about throwing some elbows in order to secure a first in line position in the newly opened check stand.

Then there are other, (usually older) more experienced checkers who make an effort to actually walk over to the next person in line, and single them out to be first in the next line. This usually results in a much more calm transition, as people are prone to accept the new checker’s authority on the situation, and follow suit. It’s not uncommon to see strangers checking with each other to see who is going to go over to the next checker, and who is going to stay in the current line.

I’ve never worked at a supermarket, and I don’t know if they have a policy for how to handle such a situation, but it just seems that for everybody involved, ensuring an orderly transition from one long line to two shorter ones is much better than eliciting some social anarchy.

I remember reading a study done a number of years ago regarding line psychology. People were presented with two options, at a hypothetical fast food restaurant. Option one is you walk into the place, and choose between four open registers. Whatever line you choose, you’ve got to stick with it no matter how slow it moves. (Of course, Murphy’s Law dictates that no matter which line you choose, it will be the slowest.)

Option two is one gigantic queue, where you line up like for an amusement park ride, or at the bank. Then whoever is next, can just say “next!” and since there is only one line, whoever is next, is next. This seems to be the most preferred by businesses, as it takes away the problem of dealing with line jumpers and how to handle the situation of a newly opened register.

But it is least favored among customers, as it completely takes away any choice they may have when they walk into the place. It gives the impression of being herded like cattle, something people don’t particularly enjoy on their lunch break. It also makes it seem that you will be waiting longer, despite numerous studies that show you actually will have less of a wait in a general queue than when you have to choose your own line.

Push may come to shove when you are forced to decide which is important, personal choice and freedom, or efficiency, even if the efficiency is customer oriented, as it gets them in and out quicker.

Often times, we prefer the illusion of choice even when, in the long run, having a choice means waiting longer, despite the length of the wait being the number one criterion for making the choice in the first place.

Quite a paradox, that.

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I was talking to a friend of mine yesterday, and I noticed something interesting about her speech. She had always spoken like that, but I hadn’t talked to her in quite a while. Last time we spoke was before I had become interested in language, having read several books on linguistics and other interesting tricks of language, most notably books by Pinker, Lakoff, and Grinder/Bandler.

The thing I noticed now, that I didn’t notice before was her heavy use of indirect speech. For example, I would say “A,” and she would then think “Because of A, then B,” with “B” being something that didn’t sound like such a good thing. But because she didn’t want to (either consciously or unconsciously) blurt right out “B!” She would always hide it behind layers of presuppositions and vague references.

For example, she would mention wanting more money at work, and I would suggest asking her boss for a raise. Instead of saying the obvious “If I ask for a raise, he’ll say no, and think less of me for asking.”

Which is a common enough fear, and generally the immediate reaction of most people when thinking about asking for a raise. But instead of blurting that right out, she’d say something like:

“I’m not sure if I have the presence of mind right now to think of what would happen if I were to do that.”

Which sounds innocent enough, until you unpack that seemingly simple statement and see what she’s really saying:

She is assuming that “presence of mind,” (whatever that is) is something that is difficult to identify, as she’s not sure if she has it or not.

Something called “presence of mind,” is required to understand the result of a request for more money.

“If I were to do that,” is stated as a second conditional. A first conditional is an “if..then” statement using the present tense, which presumes it is something that is likely to occur.

If it rains, I will get wet.
If I spend my money, I won’t have any.
If I drive too fast, I may get a ticket.

While the second conditional, with the past tense, is used for things that we don’t expect will happen, or are impossible.

If I asked my boss for a raise, he would say no.
If I saw a UFO, I would run.

So in response to a suggestion to ask for more money, she hides her “no, I’m too afraid” behind about three layers of linguistic protection.

If you’ve ever listened to a politician speak, you can tell right away that there speech is usually filled with layers and layers of vague ambiguity, so nobody can ever pin them down on what they said, if things go wrong, and if things go right, they can claim they had something to do with it.

It’s no wonder the joke, “how do you tell a politician is lying – when his lips are moving,” is so funny.

In one of the aforementioned books, Pinker was talking about how in societies where they have a history of class distinction, where upper class people could legally kill lower class people, (or other upper class people if they situation warranted it) they have developed a very polite level of speech, which can exist hundreds of years after the threat of violence.

If you were talking to some guy that was carrying weapons, and by offending him you risked getting your head slice off, you’d quickly learn to speak politely. It doesn’t take long for such a society to develop polite language. The American South is one such example. If you said the wrong thing to the wrong person, he would demand “Satisfaction,” and you’d have a gunfight at twenty paces on your hands.

Those that study linguistics on a much deeper evolutionary level suggest that all indirect speech has its roots in ancient fears of immediate reprisals. It doesn’t sound dangerous in the least to ask your boss for a raise, at least not from the standpoint of physical violence, but nevertheless, those feelings of fear cause us to hide our real feelings beneath several layers of “politeness” and vague ambiguity.

There is a fascinating book called “Mean Genes,” which illustrates all the ways that our automatic impulses that helped us immensely in our evolutionary past can be a real pain in the you-know-what in modern society. Stuffing our face until we can’t move when we are in the presence of food is one example that you can see everywhere you look in modern western society.

In the past, the several thousand year ago past, that impulse was beneficial. People would go several days without food, and when they finally got some, all other concerns were put on the back burner, and it was time to eat until the food was gone.

Not so helpful when you pass by three McDonalds, two Dunkin Donuts and a Bakery on the way to work every morning.

Of course, the great hope of modern humankind is to rise above our evolutionary based fears, and the ability to use our rational, conscious minds to think our ways around those pesky impulses to plan our future, instead of letting our impulses plan it for us.

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I was having this interesting conversation the other day with this girl that happened to be sitting at the table next to mine in this weird café/restaurant I went to for lunch. One of those things when you make some piece of small talk, not really expecting anything, and then the topics for follow up conversations seemingly pop out of thin air one after another, and you are never at a loss for something to say.

This rarely happens when you set out to have a conversation, like when you see somebody you are interested in, and try and start a conversation based on the usual stuff. It rarely feels natural, and it takes a while before both parties feel comfortable enough to start to be spontaneous, and get that “click” feeling you’re after.

Sometimes when people meet for the first time, on a date, or at a party, they later say that they just “clicked” when they met. The conversation flowed, and there was “just something about” the other person who made them think they were somehow unique or especially similar to them in some way. Many relationships start this way and last a lifetime.

I was reading this book once on personality. In it the author was saying how people are always in a state of becoming, and changing. Even on a basic, biological level, every single atom in your body is replaced on regular interval. Your beliefs are always being updated and upgraded, or at the very least re affirmed based on your experience and interactive feedback as you move through the world and interact with others. You’re always learning new things. So both on a biological and psychological level, you are never the same even one moment to the next. This book was saying that there really is no “you,” as you are always changing. You aren’t even the same person that started reading this post, nor am I the same person who started writing.

If you think of human beings as an ever-changing swirling mass of ideas and emotions and continuously biologically active systems, it’s really impossible or anybody (including yourself) to know the real “you,” because there is no real “you.” Just like back in high school algebra, where “X” represented some variable that could mean anything, that “X” is you. You are the ever-changing variable.

So how does one explain that feeling of “clicking” when you meet somebody at a party, or a first date goes particularly well? Some say you just happen to have lot of things, which are always temporary, in common. By virtue of being at the same party or bar, you’re likely to come from the roughly the same economic and social background. You obviously live in the same country and speak the same language. So right off the bat you have several things in common simply by occupying the same space and time as the other person.

Many people start off a relationship, either with a friend, boss, business partner, or future spouse by a chance meeting that wouldn’t have worked had one or two variables been different. If you met the same person while standing in line at the supermarket that you did that one night at your friends party, you may never have started a conversation, got his or her phone number and got married and had kids. The world is likely filled with walking and talking examples of results of chance encounters that were seemingly “meant to be.”

Imagine a coil of DNA. It has billions of different possible combinations of strands of sequential nucleotides. When it comes time to make a new protein, the particular section of the long DNA double helix unravels, and opens up. A particular strand containing a particular collection and sequence of bare nucleotides is exposed to the cell fluids, and attracts the corresponding base nucleotides that match up with it’s own. A new protein is formed, according to the particular section that was unraveled, and then the new protein floats off to do its work, while the DNA wraps itself up again.

Imagine you are the exposed DNA, wandering around looking for the corresponding elements that match up with your metaphorical exposed nucleotides. Those can be met in one person, many people, and one or more situations. Once they are met, your metaphorical DNA rolls itself back up and then another section opens up again, looking out in the world for it’s corresponding elements.

Of course, you may have several portions of your metaphorical “strand” open at any given time. Sometimes hundreds, or even thousands, based on the never ceasing computations and calculations of your powerful unconscious mind. Some of these strands only need to open up for a few hours or days, some for a few weeks, or even years.

Maybe that feeling of “clicking” with somebody or, that feeling when a situation just “feels right” is when we come across a person or a situation that perfectly matches up with the portions of our metaphorical strand that are open at that particular point in time.

Of course, you can maximize the amount of “clicking” and finding situations that “feel right” by releasing worries and stresses about the future, and any and all regrets or remorse about the past, and keeping a keen eye out for what is all around you, all the time. Most people are absolutely amazed when they find how many opportunities are just waiting to be tapped.

And we exchanged business cards after our rather lengthy conversation that went in too many directions to remember, we both shared an unspoken desire to not “push our luck” and try and force another meeting. If it happened it happened, if it didn’t it didn’t. In order to maximize those opportunities and situations, you have to know not only when to pounce and let them unfold naturally, but also when it’s time to move on. They’re like little kids. When they want to jump in your lap, it’s best to put your arms around them and enjoy the moment. But when they want to run off and explore something new, it’s best to simply let go, and let them have fun.

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Several people have emailed me asking to write more about creating rapport. So today I’ll delve a little bit deeper into exactly how to create rapport, and exactly what to do with it. Many people have a misconception about rapport. The word seems to be thrown around in certain circles, mostly sales and seduction.

You can usually tell by the way it’s being used that most people aren’t really sure exactly what it is, how to get it, and how to test to make sure you have it. Another cool thing, (at least for guys) is that once you learn how to see it in other people, you can pretty much read a room fairly quickly, just by scanning everybody’s body language. You can tell who is into whom, who is fighting, who is wishing whom would leave them alone, etc. Most women, of course, are naturals at this. With practice, men can get just as good.

Let’s first talk about what rapport is. Rapport is a deep, usually unconscious feeling that you feel connected to somebody. You feel safe and comfortable. You don’t have your defenses up. For example, if you went to a Mets game, and you were the only one in the stands with a Yankees jacket on. You would likely feel very left out. But if while waiting in the hot dog line, you saw another person wearing a Yankee’s jacket, you would suddenly feel connected to them. You share something with them that you don’t share with all the other people around. And this would be regardless if they were a different gender, age bracket or ethnicity.

Another example. Lets say you are on a flight from Chicago to Nigeria. And you are sitting on a plane full of Nigerians. You start talking to the person next to you, and after a few minutes of conversation you realize that not only does she collect stamps, but also she collects stamps that were produced by previous Soviet Bloc countries (if they indeed exist.) You both know all the ins and outs of that particular niche hobby, and you have a long and wonderful conversation regarding methods and your respective collections, etc.

Both of the examples above are deep and powerful rapport. If either of people asked to borrow five dollars to buy a drink, you’d be much more willing if they were a total stranger you only exchanged a couple words with. There is one problem with both of the above. One, it was completely random, and happened by chance. Two, it is purely contextual. Meaning that so long as you are talking about stamps, or the Yankees, you’re allright. As soon as you deviate from those two topics, you’ll likely lose rapport rather quickly.

That is how most sales people, and most people trying to create “rapport” with would be boyfriends/girfriends go about doing it. They start a conversation, and hope to find similar interests, backgrounds, hobbies, etc. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. This is what people usually mean when they say they are “trying to build rapport.” They are talking to the person and hopefully creating that feeling of trust and connection.

But there is a much more easier way. A much more powerful way, that cuts through any surface small talk filled conversation you might be having. And because it is not dependent on the conversation, you can still create strong rapport even if you are talking about something you both vehemently disagree on.

How do you do this? You simply match everything you can about the other person. No, I don’t mean go out and buy an outfit just like theirs. That would take too long, and they might suspect you are up to something.

You match their body language, and other non-verbal behavior, and everything you can about their speech. If they speak slowly, you speak slowly. If they smile when they speak, you smile when you speak. If they cross their legs, you cross your legs.

Many people are afraid they are going to get caught doing this. But this hardly ever happens. If they scratch their nose, and you stare at their nose intently, and then stare at your hand, and then bring it slowly to your nose, they’ll know something is up. Usually, however, they will have no idea. They’ll only know that they feel a strange connection to you.

Try this with a friend. Sit facing each other. Try to be as open as possible (e.g. no crossed legs or arms). And match each other’s body language as much as possible. Then talk about something you disagree on. Focus on keeping the match between your body language.

Then switch. Mismatch body language as much as possible. Then talk about something you both agree on.

What you’ll discover is that when talking about something you disagree on, your matching language has more of an effect than the subject you’re talking about. And likewise when you are purposely mismatching. Even though you are talking about something you both like or agree with, you’ll have this funny feeling that something is amiss.

So how do you test to make sure you really have strong rapport? Simple. After you’ve spent five or ten minutes on normal, everyday conversation, and you’ve slowly matched their body language, start to lead a little bit. This means that you move first, and see if they follow. Like lean back in your chair, or cross and uncross your legs, any small movement. Most often they will follow, without even knowing.

Once you get to this stage, you can use a number of any other persuasive techniques to get their agreement. If you are talking to a girl in a bar, you can ask for her phone number. If you were a salesperson with a client, now would be a good time to suggest moving to the next stage in the sales process.

Knowing this gives you great insight whenever you see a room full of people. Next time you are at Starbucks or a similar public place where people are sitting around in groups, take a look around. Who is in rapport with whom? Who is out of rapport with whom?

If you want to use this to help meet somebody, here’s a neat trick. Get close to them, wherever you are. Party, bar, friends house, Starbucks, wherever. And just get into rapport with them before you go and introduce yourself.

People have much more powerful peripheral vision and brain computational capacity than most of us realize. At all times, people are scanning the area around us and checking every single person to determine if they are friend or foe. We may be advanced, but we still carry baggage from our evolutionary days.

If you are nervous, and scared, and you go and approach somebody, they will know it before you even open your mouth. However, if you take the time to develop rapport with them before you talk to them, they will feel this as well. Their guard will be down, and they’ll be more likely to engage in friendly conversation without getting nervous or anxious about being approached by a complete stranger.

Despite how powerful the above methods are, this is just scratching the surface o how to develop powerful, unconscious rapport with people. Try these, and see how they work out. Have fun.

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Every time you open your mouth, you have an intention. Whether this intention is conscious or not, planned or not, automatic or not, realized by you or not, this intention is there. Perhaps if somebody asks you the time, your intention is to behave in a socially appropriate manner without drawing undue attention to yourself.

If a homeless person walks up to you and asks for change, your intention is likely to end the uncomfortable conversation as quickly and painlessly as possible. For some this means to ignore him. For some it means giving him a dollar. For some it means an automatic physical altercation. As politically incorrect as it sounds, unless you set out specifically to volunteer in a soup kitchen or a homeless shelter, most people feel uncomfortable (for many, many different reasons) when approached by a homeless person asking for change.

If you are a guy, and you approach an attractive girl in a bar, your intention is likely to get her to like you, and perhaps more.

Most of these intentions are extremely vague, and largely unconscious. Very rarely do we stop and plan an outcome when somebody stops us on the street to ask us for directions or the time. Even though our response is automatic, we are trying to achieve an outcome of maintaining safety. Our automatic responses are largely based on protection, or defense.

Even the guy approaching the girl in the bar, although he has a somewhat conscious intention of getting her to like him, he is still likely operating from a frame of protection at the same time. He would love to be able to walk up to her, be as open and expressive as possible, make her laugh, show her his stunning personality and conversation skills. However, most of us guys are terrified of the public shame that the rejection of our advances would bring. So we hedge our bets, so to speak. We engage, but protect at the same time. This can prove extremely difficult.

The same goes with salespeople. Rejection can be awfully painful, even for the most seasoned veterans. Many times they approach the prospect with the same mindset of the guy approaching the girl in the bar. They’d love to proclaim how wonderful their product is, and clearly suggest that the prospect buy the product, but many are afraid to do so. One main weakness of almost anybody who has even been in sales is an inability to simply ask for the sale.

Most sales people beat around the bush, hoping the prospect will come to the conclusion on their own to buy the product. This rarely works. As most prospects usually need a nudge in the right direction.

However, there is another way. Actually a couple of other ways. Well, actually, lots of other ways, but I will only talk briefly about two of them. These were all “invented” by Milton Erickson, the father of conversational hypnosis. He came up with all kinds of powerfully persuasive conversation tools to help people overcome large life issues in a relatively short amount of time.

These two are very powerful ones that you can go out and use today, in a bar, with a girl, or with a prospect, or with your friends.

One is an indirect way of asking for the sale. This requires you be pretty good at reading body language, and facial expressions. The way you do this is to use what’s called an embedded question. Whenever you present a question to somebody, they will answer it, either verbally or not. But when you embed it in a sentence, then they don’t feel the pressure to answer it openly. But their body language and facial expression will give them away. Here’s how:

Say you are selling cars. You’ve been on the test drive, and your back in the office with the customer. They are still there, and they’ve been paying attention to you so far. You haven’t started talking about actual finances yet. You are still discussing whether or not they liked the car. You can say:

“Well, I don’t know whether or not you want to buy this car today, but before we talk about any kind of financial issues, let me talk to you about the extended warranty.”

Watch closely as you say the “buy the car today” part. If they seem like they are about to have a heart attack, you should probably hold off on asking them to sign a contract. If they seem to show any positive response at all, you’re in pretty good shape.

Same goes with the girl in the bar. You could say:

“I know we’ve been only talking for twenty minutes, and I don’t know if you feel comfortable giving your phone number to a guy you just met, but I think it’s important to be open when meeting new people. You never know when you are going to find somebody that could turn into a lifelong friend.”

Again, pay attention to how she responds when you say, “giving your phone number.” If she briefly lights up like a Christmas tree, she’s been dying for you to ask, and she’s into you. Proceed, and get her number. If she steps back and puts her hand protectively over her throat, you should politely excuse yourself.

That’s the “embedded question” method, and can be very powerful in testing how you are doing.

The other way is a bit more aggressive, and can be used by itself, or after you’ve successfully tested for a close. This trick is called the double bind. It involves giving them the illusion of a choice, when in actuality, both choices are the same thing.

For example, with the car example, you could say (as you pull out the contract):

“So were you going to use your current car as a trade in, or did you just want to make a down payment?” Either way they answer, it presupposes they are going to buy the car. This is, of course tough to do on a big-ticket item like a car. It can work better with smaller issues. You can use this for every part of the sales process, when you want to escalate to the next level.

“So did you want to test drive a blue one, or a red one?”
“So were you going to finance through us, or your own bank?”
“Would you rather test drive before or after we talk about financing?”

This works really well with phone sales when setting up appointments:

“I am going to be in your neighborhood next week, would Tuesday at 4:00 PM be OK, or is Thursday at 6:30 better?”

And you can also use it on the girl whose number you got:

“Say this is George from the other night, we talked at Flankies. I enjoyed our conversation, and I’d like to see you again, for a cup of coffee. Which is easier for you, Tuesday evening at 8:00, or Thursday at 9:30?”

You can use both of these together for a powerful increase in your closing percentage. Test their “buying temperature” with the embedded question, and then “close” them with the double bind. You’ll be amazed at your results.

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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.

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The one I was eating recently was a normal variety wheat bread with some extra chunky peanut butter, nothing special. It was pretty good, and it got me thinking.

I watched this documentary once on how they made peanut butter. (It must have been a night when there was nothing else on TV.) I had always thought that there was some peanut butter continuum between raw peanuts, super chunk, chunky, and creamy peanut butter. I assumed they started with peanuts, and then ground them until they were at whatever level of chunkiness that were required.

But according to the documentary, all peanut butter is first made into creamy peanut butter. Then they add chunks later to make it chunky or super chunky. This completely turned my assumptions about the peanut butter industry upside down. It’s interesting when something that you are completely sure of being true is completely flipped around from the way things really are.

There was once an episode of I Love Lucy where the focus, or the crux of the episode was on a creamy peanut butter sandwich. Ricky had hired a maid to help Lucy out while he was off at work singing Babaloo. He thought he was doing her a great favor, when in reality he was creating an extremely uncomfortable situation.

The metaphorical focal point came of course when the maid made Lucy a peanut butter sandwich. She kept offering it to Lucy; sure that she would enjoy it. Lucy, was of course, too shy to turn her down, and dutifully did her best to eat the sandwich. The sandwich had way too much peanut butter on it, and caused quite a funny scene.

I don’t know if you’ve done a favor for somebody, and you thought you were really helping them when in actuality you were causing them all kinds of grief and frustration. Sometimes it helps to take people at their word they give us a simple “No Thanks.” If Ricky had simply asked Lucy if she wanted a maid, then the whole disaster would have been averted.

I’m sure you know how imposing somebody can be when you are forced to do something, under the guise of somebody else doing you a favor. Not only do you have to go along with what the other person wants you to do, but you have to pretend that you grateful for them. Doing this to others is a sure way to make yourself less popular. Be careful.

Of course, now that I know the secrets of peanut butter, I can fully enjoy my sandwiches. It has given me a whole new paradigm of peanut butter. I can even add my own peanuts to make my own super super super chunk.

The best peanut butter sandwich I ever came up with is peanut butter on toasted sourdough bread, with the outside of the bread buttered with regular butter. It makes for a messy sandwich, but boy is it tasty, especially if you eat it while the bread is still hot, and the peanut butter is slightly melted from the heat.

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So as I was riding this bus, I was reading through this guidebook. When I travel, I usually don’t like taking tours or planning my trip out extensively, like some people do. In fact, all the times’ I’ve traveled overseas, I’ve only booked the first one of two nights in advance over the internet, and after that I sort of make it up as I go along. It’s much more fun that way. So I usually read whatever travel books are available, get some information online of what I can see there. That way when I get there, I kind of have an idea of what is available, and based on my mood, and the weather, and whatever else happens, I can plan my trip accordingly. When I came to Japan for the first time, I was in one city (I honestly don’t remember which one) and I was deciding on what city to visit next, and I made my decision by taking a poll in the bar I happened to be drinking in at the time. That’s really a fun way to travel.

When you really look at some of the decisions you make, most people would be surprised at how many of them are really made by taking other peoples opinions into consideration. When people spend their valuable time and money on packaged tours, as is common in Japan and in other countries in Asia, they are pretty much letting somebody else make ALL their decision for them. Which is good in some ways, because it allows them to completely relax and just enjoy their trip without worrying about what’s coming next. It’s good when you can release anxiety like that.

So as I was flipping through what information I could find about my destination, I started chatting with the girl sitting next to me. As I turns out, she was from the town I was going to. Only instead of being excited to be going there, she was a little bit depressed. She was going back home after a long week of vacation in the city where I live. And like most people, as I’m sure you can imagine, she wasn’t looking forward to going back to the daily grind. Coming home after a vacation can be a depressing thing indeed.

It’s interesting when two people can look at the same thing and feel completely different interpretations of it. There’s that old story about two guys in prison, and one guy looked out the window and always look down at the ground, and was always depressed, while his cellmate would always look up at the starts and feel inspired and uplifted. The guy that looked up at the stars went on to win the Nobel Prize in Bio-Medical Economic Literature, while the guy that looked in the dirt all time turned out to be the guy that invented telemarketing. Or something like that.

But once I told her I was going on vacation, and asked her opinion on the fun things to do in her town, she got a little less sad, and a little more excited. Although she had to work the next day, so she wouldn’t be able to show me around personally, she seemed to find herself in a much better mood after telling me all the cool things about her city, that only a few moments ago she was dreading returning to. I guess putting things into a different perspective can really brighten your mood if you want it to.

And sometimes when you can do just that, you’ll be surprised to find that some of things around you will take on a whole new meaning when you allow yourself to see something that has always been there for the first time.

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My friend was telling me about a problem that she was having. She had recently taken up photography, and was really interested in taking many photos. She was really intrigued by a modern artist who takes photos mainly of people. She was greatly inspired by his work, and really wanted to increase her skill in that area. There was one problem though. She was told in one of her photography classes that it is in extremely poor taste, and in many cases illegal to take peoples photographs without their permission. For her this was a huge problem, because she is naturally shy and can’t really find it easy to see an interesting person and then just approach this person to ask if she can take their picture.

She had all these wild imaginations of bad things that might happen if she just approached strangers and asked to take their picture. She was having problems with this, so she decided to approach her professor and ask his advice.

What her professor told her really surprised her. He told her that all she needed to do was to get clear in her own mind first, why she wanted to take the other persons picture. Did the colors of their clothing match well with the background, was their a unique couple, where they sitting in nice environment, did they have a particular friendly expression that would create feelings of happiness when people saw the photo? The professor said that all she needed to do, was to ask her self these questions, then simply to go and introduce herself, explain that she was a photographer, describe why she wanted to take the persons picture, and then ask their permission. He told her that it would also help of she created some business card with her name and email, so in case they had any questions later on they could contact her. He also made sure to instruct her to ask for parents permission if she wanted to take pictures of kids playing in the park for obvious reasons.

She thought about this, and then tried it. She was amazed at the response she got. While a few people said they didn’t really want to have their picture taken, most people did. And many times when others saw her taking pictures of couples, or children on bicycles, they asked her if she was working for a magazine. And something really interesting happened. Because got into the habit of giving out her business cards, many people started contacting her for actually business purposes. When she first started, all she wanted to do was to take some pictures that would be nice to look at. Then she created a web site, and put up many of the pictures on the web site. Pretty soon she started getting many offers to take pictures for birthdays, retirement parties.

What started out as a hobby, turned into a lucrative business for her, all because she figured out exactly what she wanted, and just approached people and asked them if they wouldn’t mind participating.

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I remembered I took a summer school class in fourth grade in home economics. My friend convinced me it would be a good idea, because we basically would be able to cook simple things (like a fourth grader could) like grilled cheeses and stuff. I remember that my friend and me were the only two guys in the class. It was a pity that we hadn’t discovered yet how cool girls were. We did learn how easy it was to cook a grilled cheese, so we wouldn’t have to bother our moms again. Except to yell at us to clean up our grilled cheese mess.

So as I was walking past this school, I looked over and thought I recognized one of the girls that was practicing clarinet. It was one of those times where you see somebody, and you can’t really place them immediately. But the circumstances don’t allow for you to go over and ask them where you know them from, either because you are too shy or they are on a bus going in the opposite direction. That is what it was like this morning. And I’m pretty sure she felt the same thing, because she was looking at me like she knew me.

As I kept turning my head back toward the group of girls, she raised her hand, but only about halfway. Like she wanted to wave, but she either didn’t know if I would reciprocate, or if her friends would think she was strange for waving at some weird guy walking by on the other side of the street. When she waved, I smiled and mimicked playing the clarinet, to signal my approval. Her friends all giggled at the exchange.

As I walked away, I realized that people go through three stages in life. The first stage, as children, we are outgoing and expressive and don’t hold anything back. Then when we go through those uncomfortable years, we learn that sometimes expressing ourselves is dangerous, scary, and brings much more emotional pain that pleasure. So we learn to have to choose when it’s safe to express ourselves, and when we’d better just stay silent. Then by the time we turn into adults, we have pretty much given up on freely expressing ourselves. We reserve that only for times we are with close friends, or inebriated, or both.

When you realize that everybody feels the same way, it can make it easier to be the first one. That young girl this morning, flanked by her clarinet-wielding friends, was the first to make a move, and look what happened. It turned into a positive, happy exchange. When you start to understand that all exchanges require that somebody make the first move, you can realize the power that comes from being that person. When you go first, and give the other person the wonderful gift of feeling the safety of self-expression, you will notice wonderful things happen. Your confidence will soar, your self-esteem will rise, and you happiness will skyrocket.

Whether you realize it or not, that little kid that wants to scream in pleasure whenever he or she sees something cool still lives inside you. When you remember to forget all those times it seemed like expressing yourself was emotionally painful, you can experience the joy of being totally and completely human. You will be able to let that little kid out again. And there is no fear in that.

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The problem my friend was having was with an issue that had come up with stocking the shelves. He used to be an assistant manager at a grocery store, and was well aware of the strategies employed by large supermarkets to trick you into buying way more stuff that you’d originally intended. I’m sure you’ve had the experience of going to the supermarket to pick out one or two items, and then ending up with a basket of stuff that disqualified you from the nine items or less line. I don’t even want to start on what happens when you go grocery shopping when you’re hungry.

But my friend was worried about talking to her. He didn’t want to approach her, because she had spent a lot more time in a book-selling environment than she did. But he was sure that if he applied his expertise learned from the supermarket, he could easily increase her sales, her profit, and likely her happiness. All it required was arranging the books that would allow people the opportunity to browse through more of the store, then just grabbing the recent best seller and then making a beeline for the register. Her store had many treasures that people would love to find, if only they had the opportunity. My friend was absolutely certain of this.

It’s interesting when you think about it. Somebody from a grocery store applying marketing techniques to a bookstore. People buy food and buy books for completely different reasons. You’d never think that a strategy in one environment would translate well into another environment. Some people have the mistaken belief that if you learn a skill in one area, that it can’t apply to many other areas of your life. Others have realized that you can take something that works, and apply it in other places. One of the great things about being human is your inherent ability to find all kinds of resources that you already have and apply them in other areas of your life.

Which is finally what my friend did. He finally got up the courage to go and talk to her, and express his desires and convince her to let him help her. Because he was able to speak with confidence, and that he had her best interests in mind, she was able to accept his ideas. When I spoke with him last night, he said that they had spent the last two days rearranging the bookstore per his experience. And they were both much happier for it. He for being able to express himself and his ideas, and she for being able to discover a new way to increase her business.

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If you can turn off your automatic impulse buying response for a moment, you can learn a lot about persuasion from those infomercials. They grab your attention, lead you through a fantastically engineered sales presentation, and then make you think that you can’t afford not to buy what they are selling. Two of the techniques that they use fairly well are the principles of pacing and leading.

If you’ve read my article on rapport, then you know what I mean when I say pacing. Pacing is when you match the other persons reality as much as possible. You do and say things that they will agree with. You do this enough times that they slowly begin to turn off that “critical factor” that we all have in our brains that tell us be careful of things that we are not sure of. Once this “critical factor” is shut off, we will follow anybody,  anywhere. If you can pace somebody to the state where they have shut this off, you will be in a good position to begin to lead them.

When leading somebody, it is important to take them in small baby steps first. If you ask them to take a big step too soon, it will jar them back behind the protective guidance of their critical factor. If you’ve ever bought something from an infomercial, you’ve realized that the whole system is seamlessly set up to increase the amount of money you’ll spend. You start to watch the show. They are talking about how you hate to cook (uh huh). You have a long day at work, and when you come home you don’t want to slave away in the kitchen (uh huh). You wish there were a better way (uh huh). You’d like to spend only  few minutes to create a delicious meal for the whole family (uh huh).

Wouldn’t you know it? Here we have a brand new tool that can help you! (ok!) You can use this tool to slice (ok!), dice, (ok!) and puree (ok!)! And it’s not three hundred dollars, not even two hundred dollars, not even one hundred dollars. You can buy now (ok!) for the low low price of 39.95 (ok!).

Think about the actual product you are getting for your money. If you were sitting at home, and some guy knocked on your door, with the exact same product with the exact same price, you’d likely tell him no thanks. But watch a twenty minute infomercial, complete with studio audience and genius level engineered persuasion tactics, and you are rushing for your phone with your credit card in hand.

Same product and price, but two completely different methods of information delivery. Do you think it pays to be able to harness the power of persuasion? Do you think you owe it to yourself to learn this powerful technology?

Who would you rather be, the poor guy going door to door and getting rejected over and over, or the multi millionaire selling the same product on TV? Stay tuned for more articles on how to become a powerful persuader. Bookmark this page so you can come back and read articles under the “persuasion” category any time.

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Then when we are born we have that thump thump thump always going. The consistent steady beat that circulates our body with life itself. Night and day, the cycle of the seasons, and the moon and the tides are all reminders that we are in a rhythmic cycle within a rhythmic cycle within a rhythmic cycle. All the world’s religions use music or chanting of some sort to connect to the divine. Whales sing to each other. Even dolphins communicate in a sing song click click that scientists believe conveys meaning through it’s frequency, as does the caws of crows, and the singing of larks.

Brain waves themselves can be altered by music. Anthropologists believe this was the primary driving force behind the propensity for primitive tribes to gather in sacred places and play their drums in specific frequencies. These drum beats literally lowered the brain waves of the participants to levels that allowed for states of hypnogogic imagery and creativity.

Music can be created to deliver emotions of all ranges. Music can soothe your soul, lighten your heart, and bring tears to your eyes, all within minutes. Evolutionary biologists believe that singing in birds is primarily to attract mates. They also postulate that the factor behind the explosive growth of the human brain over the past million years was due to exactly that. Sexual competition within the species over the hundreds of millennia. Is it any wonder that rock stars are known for the flocks of groupies that literally throw themselves at them?

It’s one thing to write sweet words, it’s yet another to say them. But it’s on an entirely different level of evolutionary success to belt out a song with a thumping beat to back you up. Where I live, karaoke is very popular, but many people are too shy to sing in front of friends, or feel the need to lubricate themselves before they feel comfortable. Their missing out on one of the greatest ways to kill that imaginary shell that keeps you inside your imagination.

What if it turns out that it wasn’t the quality of the song that drove us to evolutionary leaps, but the courage to boldly stand up and sing without fear, without quarter and with unabashed confidence? What if it wasn’t the words at all, but the bass in our voice, and the flamboyant charisma that their sound created? Think about this next time you have the opportunity to sing. Don’t let it pass you by. Take it. Make it yours. Sing your truth.

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Conversations can be tricky sometimes. Like Forest Gump says, you really don’t know what’s inside unless you bite into it. Sometimes you’ll see a really mean looking person, and when you start to talk to them, they turn into the friendliest person you could ever meet. Other times, somebody seems to projecting an aura of friendliness and kindness, but once you start to talk to them, they look at you as if you’d just ran over their puppy. People can be extremely interesting.

I was reading this book, and it was saying that you really do have the power to find this interesting. It’s like a movie. Sometimes you don’t find this movie very compelling, other times you just have to keep your eyes focused on this. He said that the more you can choose to feel interested, the easier it gets. It was kind of a strange concept, purposely turning up your interest level so you can find something very intriguing that you wouldn’t normally do. I guess like everything else, it takes practice. He compared it to a situation when you meet a new boss that you will be working closely with. At first blush, he doesn’t seem like the kind of guy you’d want to spend more than five minutes or so in a bar, but since you are in a situation where you have to interact with this person, you somehow find a way to find interest in the same things he does. It’s almost as if by pretending, you actually generate strong interest. I know more than a few marriages where the wife will say at first she wasn’t interested, but this guy kind of grew on her. Persistence pays.

So I asked the woman where she was going this evening, and she said she was going to the airport to see her daughter who was away at university. The reason she looked so bored was that she just hates to travel. She said that she would much rather use those devices on star trek, where you just disappear one place, and then reappear in another place. That kicked off a great conversation about high tech electronic gadgets and where we’d be without them. Which just goes to show you, you never know until you bite right into it and see what’s inside.

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I went to the new aquarium downtown, and they have some interesting fish. They have these fish that eat small fish like things, then have these bigger fish that eat actual fish, then they have fish so big that they need to feed them chunks of meat. There was one fish tank that had several fish of different sizes. I don’t know if they were different ages, or something else, but I’m pretty sure they were the same species, because they all had the same blue and silver design on their sides. It was really interesting to watch them being fed. The guy would come in at the same time every day, and throw in a bunch of food, which I think he said were dried squid flakes or something. And the fish would scramble and crash into one another as they would fight for the food. The cool thing was, the smallest fish never seemed to give up. He always seemed to keep trying regardless of how many times he got bumped out of the way. It was like he knew that if he was able to keep trying, he would get what he was after.

He (or she, I’m not sure how to tell boy fish from girl fish) reminded me of a professor I had at university. He was a math professor, but he was very opinionated in matters other than math. He said the difference in life between winners and losers has nothing to do with intelligence or upbringing, or social skills or anything that you’d normally think of. He said that winners are the people that simply never give up. Losers always find a reason to stop trying, while winners always find a reason to keep trying. He kept mentioning this old Chinese proverb: “If you wait by the riverside long enough, you will see the bodies of your enemies floating by.” I’m not sure if I wanted to see the bodies of my enemies, but it was an interesting point. He kept telling us that winners know that failure is only one step closer to success, and in reality, there is no failure if you alwasy learn something. Interesting thought.

And it turns out that particular brand of fish is the kind where there are literally hundreds born in every litter (or whatever they call a bunch of baby fish) but only three or four survive. It’s natures way of making sure that only the fittest live long enough to make more fish. So that little fish, simply by staying alive and fighting for what he wanted, was proving to the world how worthy he thought he was.

Finally, a really nice receptionist asked me if I was looking for something in particular. The only reason it took her so long to ask me was the incredible scowl on my face. It turned out that somebody had misplaced that particular book, and had filed it downstairs in the engineering department. Had she not asked me, I would never have found it.

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I was reading this book on evolutionary psychology. Some of it was kind of out there. Because of course, despite the commonly held belief that evolution is a scientific fact, it is still largely an unproven theory that people mistakenly believe as fact simply because it is accepted as such. It’s amazing when you study the history of scientific belief.  There are wild things that people believed that seem foolish in retrospect, but when you consider that it really wasn’t too long ago that most scientists believed the world was flat, you can’t help but to take currently held ‘truths’ with a grain of salt.

The purpose of language, for example, is a hotly contested topic among evolutionary biologists. Some believe that the same forces that drove spoken language in humans are the of the same reason that chimps groom each other. Both are thought to server the purpose of a way to determine where people are with respect to the current social hierarchy. According to that theory, the purpose of language is for gossip, to determine who is doing what with who and for what reason. While that may not be the specific reason, it is no stretch to look around and see that idle gossip is strongly compelling to most people.

One of the questions I get emailed to me the most often from people who read this blog on a regular basis is where I get all my ideas from. Although I admit that some people claim that I make this up as I go along, if you read some of my earlier posts, you’ll find that I have been interested in human development and maximizing my own achievement for quite some time now. When you think about it, communicating is a lot more complicated that just idle gossip, even if the surface structure of the conversation only seems to be concerned with daily events and relationships. Your individual history, your beliefs about the world, and your outlook on your own future all play a huge, unconscious role in shaping the language that you use. When you decide let go and release any fears that you may have, you can really begin to communicate more congruently. And when you do that, you can’t help but to be breath of fresh air to all who you come in contact with. One of the ways to become fully human is to stop looking for somebody that has the answers, and simply be that person that can help others find their own answers within.

Of course, there are many other theories of the origins of language. God made us the way we are, complete with our language ability. Or God had hand in guiding our evolution, so he was there helping us out along the way. Or if you don’t believe in God, there are other, more scientifically believable theories. Ancient tribes needed to communicate with each other so they could collectively remember where the dangerous animals lived. They had to communicate in order to organize effective hunting parties. They had to communicate well to plan for the coming winter.

It’s amazing the different theories that they come up with over time. Which is really fascinating. The more they begin to develop ways and machines that can peak inside our brains to see exactly how they work, they will begin to come up with even more abstract and wonderful ideas. And coming up with abstract and wonderful ideas is a fantastic sign of our humanity, which is alwasy driven to learn new things. 

I’m not saying you should keep all this in mind next time your are talking about who is dating who, or who is thinking of breaking up with who. I think a better idea would just be to become aware that there is a level of complexity that is just below the surface of the everyday sentences and nouns and verbs that people throw at each other without much thought, and to let these ideas come up whenever you are ready to think about them.

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It’s like when I go to the movies. I am pretty easy to impress and entertain. Sometimes I read the reviews of movies I want to see, sometimes I don’t. An interesting thing that I’ve found was that when I read a particularly unflattering review of a movie, it allows me to enjoy this more, because I go in with less expectations. Like when you really expect to enjoy something, you sometimes can have an unconsciously higher standard that is harder for something to live up to.

I guess that is why on the stock market they always wait and see if earnings beat the markets expectations. Even ones that don’t make a lot of money, if they make more than the analysts have expected, then the stock will go up on that particular day. I remember a company I used to work for had a stock that performed tremendously well. The company had earnings in excess of one dollar per share, which is a lot. One particular day, when the earnings came out, they were only 99 cents a share instead of a dollar a share. Any company that earns 99 cents a share is a very financially stable company, so imagine the surprise when the stock went down almost 4 percent that day because it “didn’t meet the analysts expectations.”

It reminds me of a book I read on self improvement. If I remember correctly, it was a relationships book. And they key to having a happy relationship was having accurate expectations on what to get out of the relationship. Because when you are with somebody, and you find this person interesting, you have to make sure that you like this person because of real reasons, and not imaginary ones. Because when you start to expect reality to behave based on your imagination, and not an accurate assessment of what is out there, you can run into trouble. The book went on to say that one of the best ways to have a really good, solid relationship with somebody was to establish solid expectations based on communication, and your own observations of each other’s behavior in certain circumstances.

My friend, who is married with three kids told me about this. As soon as he learned to plan ahead for his family taking almost an hour sometimes to get ready to leave the house, he was able to make plans, carry out these plans, without having the added stress of expecting his family to meet unrealistic expectations. He said that in the beginning, when it was only him and his wife, he could kind of push for her to be ready earlier, but the more people they added to the family, the more impossible this got. So he naturally realized that the best way to reduce stress, when other people are involved, is to stand back, and watch their behavior, and plan your activities based on reality rather than fantasy.

Which I have gotten down to a science. I used to rush to the movies, buy my large popcorn and coke, then rush to the theater to sit down. It took me about three months of willpower to not eat all my popcorn before the trailers finished showing. Now I usually get to my seat just as the real movie is starting. I’ve learned to ignore the stated start times in the newspaper, and use my experience as a guide. I find that is much easier, because I’d rather enjoy my popcorn while watching the movie I came to see, rather than the movies I’ll most likely come to see in the future.

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She said my name, and could tell by my expression that I couldn’t remember exactly who she was. I think it is fascinating that women are much better at this kind of thing that men are. I played a game once with a group of people called ‘liars.’ People got into groups of three, and then decided amongst themselves which one would tell a true story, and which would tell a lie. There was always one liar and two truth tellers. The game was to keep asking questions until you could catch the liar in a lie. The women are almost always better at this than men.

I read an interesting book once that I think explained it. It said that this was a leftover trait of our hunter/gatherer past. Men would generally go out and look for things to kill (hunt) and women would stay home at the caves, and take care of the kids and collect fruit and stuff (gather.) And this book was saying that women were able to develop a skill that allowed them to really be able to read peoples emotions a lot better than men. I guess this is a lot easier when you can understand your own emotions. And since women are much better at this than men, they are better at being able to read facial expressions much better.

And as it turns out, my friend was reading the classic book “How to Win Friends and Influence People” by Dale Carnegie. She said that she was enrolled in a public speaking class through her company, and the book was required reading. She said that she decided to read this book a long time ago, and did, but since she forgot a lot of the important stuff, she made the decision to read this again. She told me that when you find something that is of value, it’s important to read this over and over to make sure you can squeeze every useful thing out of it.

And it turns out that is why I didn’t recognize her. She used to be a really shy person. When she walked, she never really was ever able to make eye contact with people, and usually had her shoulders slumped. You had to get to know her before she was comfortable in expressing herself. It was only then that you could discover what a great person she was. Now she is really enthusiastic about public speaking. She says that when you don’t express your true self to others, you really are doing yourself and others a disservice. Because when you can really feel comfortable to be able to express yourself without any fear or anxiety, people can have a chance to get to know you for who you really are. Which is likely a pretty cool person when you think of all the good stuff you’ve done in your life.

Come to think of it, she’s always been a pretty supportive person. And now she’s happy that she doesn’t have to wade through her shyness to let people discover her. Kind of cool when you think about it.

Unfortunately, she was getting off at the next stop, and I had a few stops to go. But it was good that I saw her. We’ll have to get together sometime in the future.

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So what’s the point? It’s been said that when you begin to realize you can never really create something completely new unlike anything that has ever existed, it’s kind of comforting. It takes the pressure of. You can easily relax, because you know that building on previous accomplishments can give you a leg up. Many scientists admit they only have gotten where they are by standing on the shoulders of giants that came before them.

And this brings to light an interesting point about human nature. It can be comforting when you realize that all people have similar needs and desires. When you understand that most people really want the same thing underneath, it can make it easy to discover common ground when dealing with others. That is pretty much the basis of all contract negotiation. Discussing what both parties want, and figuring out to satisfy everybody. And in the end, more often than not, you may realize your needs, which you might have thought were far apart, are actually a lot more similar than expected.

On the flip side, of course, is the simple fact that everybody is different. Everybody has their own unique views and experience. You take several people and have them look at an abstract painting, and they all come up with a different interpretation, based on their own history, experience, and emotions. This can make meeting and getting to know new people one of the most wonderful experiences available. The more you expand yourself to seek and experience new ideas, the broader our perspectives grow to encompass things we never dreamed possible.

I was in a strange city once, talking to a friend over the phone. He was giving me directions on how to meet him the next day for lunch. They were fairly complex instructions, involving navigating a strange subway system, going in and out of multiple exits. The fact that all the signs were written in Japanese (a language I didn’t speak at the time) didn’t help. He ended the conversation by saying something surprising. He told me that because there were several subway lines and exits and landmarks to recognize and navigate, it was likely that I’d become lost and confused. He said “And that’s really awesome, because you can realize the opportunity, AND the excuse to talk to and get to know many people along the way.” Before then, I’d never thought that getting lost could be considered an opportunity.

It’s our differences, and out unique perspectives on the same things that everybody shares that gives us such a wonderful opportunity to experience life in new and exciting ways, even if we do the same things and see the same people every day.

How many ways can you find ways to experience something or someone new, today?

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What happens when you begin to become curious about what would happen if those self defeating thoughts didn’t enter into your brain? What would happen if you could discover a way to feel different when you saw a cute girl? Instead of feeling nervous and anxious, what if you could automatically feel incredibly confident and powerful? Sound too far fetched? Read on, because it’s not.

Have you ever discovered something really incredible? Have you ever come across something that was really able to make an incredible impact on your life? For me it was when I learned some specific public speaking skills. Before, I got incredibly nervous when I even thought about standing up in front of people. Even people I knew. But when I learned how to control my anxiety, and even use the natural energy that you produce, I was able to learn how to feel incredibly confident when I was speaking in front of people. How about you? Have you ever discovered a skill or technique that made your life easier?

As you think about that, imagine how good it really feels to discover something new. To take a look at something, and when you see this, you can’t help but to think that this is something that can really help your life. This is something that can help you to become incredibly powerful.  And as you sit there, and continue to read this, I wonder if you can start to imagine how you took this knowledge, and were able to apply this to your life in incredible ways so you naturally became more successful. How many examples can you think of, in your own past?

One thing that separates children from adults is the ability to make a decision. To see something you like, and instead of waiting for permission, instead of waiting for somebody to tell you that it will be ok, you just make a decision and go after what you want. Imagine you’re at the grocery store. You want to buy something. You check your pockets to make sure that you have enough money. You think about what it is that you want to buy. You look around, and see it. That’s it. You decide then and there, that’s it. No hesitation. No wondering if it’s the right thing. No worrying about what people will think if you go over and grab whatever it was that you were just thinking of.

How would you like to feel that way when you walked into a bar, or a party? You look around, choose the girl you like, and make a decision right then, and right here. The same process. The same process that you used to buy something in the supermarket, without hesitation, you use then to choose what girl you want to talk to. You don’t worry about what people think, or what she’ll say, or what goofy line you want to use. You just look around, see something that you like, make your choice, and let the chips fall where they may. How would that be? Would you like that? What would life be like if you could do that all the time? Do you think that would make you more attractive to cute girls? You bet it would.

One product that I’ve used over and over, as it is filled with useful techniques to get you to that mindset, is the Alpha Male System. And because the Alpha Male System is so full of useful techniques, I’ve read it at least a dozen times, if not more. And not only will it give you exactly the right things to do and say, but it gives you incredibly powerful techniques to work on your ‘inner game’ as well, so doing and saying the right things become incredibly easy. Pickup experts and gurus alike agree that this is one of the finest products out there to improve your life in this area.

I’m not going to tell you to go and buy this now, because you are smart enough to make your own decision to buy. And you don’t have to buy it now, you can go have a look now and decide to buy it later if it’s more convenient. The important thing is to realize that as you continuously develop your skills with whatever materials you can get your hands on, you can’t help but to become the person you’ve always wanted to be. And the Alpha Male System is an easily affordable and natural step in the right direction.

You can have a look by clicking here.

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Not as far fetched as it sounds when you combine two simple but fascinating concepts. You’ll see why in a minute. But first I want to say thanks for all the positive responses I’ve received so far for other articles. It always feels good to get nice feedback.

The first concept involves a study that was done in a university class. The professor was doing an experiment to see if pair bonding in humans follows the rule that like generally attracts like. That is, high status people attract high status people, medium status people attract medium status people and so on. Keep in mind this is not any law of nature or anything set in stone. It was just a simple experiment to show a simple phenomenon.

What they did was give a bunch of students some Popsicle sticks (or something resembling Popsicle sticks) with a number written on them. The numbers ranged from one to thirty, as there were thirty members of the class. The goal was that they all had to pair up, but they each had to pair up with the highest number that they could. The trick was that nobody could see their own number. So the unfortunate folks that had low numbers kept going around trying to pair up with high numbers, and were rejected over and over again. The people that had high numbers suddenly found themselves surrounded by people begging for their attention. All they had to do was to pick the highest number of the group clamoring for their attention.

So then, here is concept number one: 

People tend to set their level of status, at least in part, based on how others treat them.

Now we move on to concept number two. The self fulfilling prophecy. Imagine you are going a party. You are in a bummed out mood, you don’t think anybody will talk to you. So you already have a belief that you are uninteresting. You don’t put on your favorite shirt, you don’t spend too much time getting dressed. When you walk into the party, since you’ve already determined that nobody wants to talk to you, you keep your eyes lowered, you mumble a lot. And guess what? Nobody wants to talk to you.

Have you ever experienced the opposite? You do something really well, and because you are in such a fantastic mood, people treat you like a king. Even people that have never met you before, and have no idea you’ve just done something really awesome.

So then, here is concept number two:

People will treat you, at least in part, based on the level of status you give yourself.

Now imagine if you have these two working against you. You think you are a terrible loser. You walk around, acting like a terrible loser. Because you are acing like a terrible loser, people treat you like a terrible loser. Which makes you feel even more like a terrible loser, which makes people…..  You get the idea.

Now imagine the opposite. Nobody knows you from Adam. But because you feel really good, you walk upright, straight posture, smile on your face, and people naturally treat you kindly and with respect. Which makes you feel better, so you act bolder, more outgoing, with more charisma. Which makes people even notice you even more, and so on and so on.

So if you notice yourself in situation number one, how do you bust out and move into situation number two? Give yourself and others the benefit of the doubt. Briefly turn your focus in on yourself, and cheer yourself up. Give yourself a pep talk. Say nice things to yourself. After a few minutes of this, go out into the world and give others the benefit of the doubt. You smile at somebody and they don’t smile back? No problem, they’re too busy. They’re worried about something. Feel kindness for them, and silently wish them luck. You sit down and somebody fidgets a little bit? That’s ok. That just means that you made them a little nervous because your charisma is naturally growing. Be kind to them.

The trick is once you start paying attention to other people, simply allow yourself to interpret their actions in a favorable light. Who really knows what’s going on in their mind. They more you look for and expect positive feedback from others, the more you’ll naturally be able to see it and appreciate it for what it is.

Proof that you are incredibly charismatic and irresistibly drawing the uncontrollable desire of all those around you.

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If you do hear those voices, or sense that they are there, don’t worry. Most people have them. How they got there is not really important. What’s important is how to get rid of them. Most of us go through carrying judgments of ourselves that didn’t even come from us. Maybe when you were six, your teacher said something, that she thought might’ve been helpful at the time, but turned out to be a limiting statement like “you can’t do that!” when you trying to do something that you weren’t supposed to. I remember once in kindergarten I was having a ball painting blue paint all over everything. How was I supposed to know you were supposed to keep it on the paper?

Other times an adult will say something out of anger, when they are not really angry at us, but it seems that way at the time. So we carry that judgment with us, almost without knowing.

These judgments and opinions that others have given us over the years build up and mix with our own opinions of ourselves. Even if we have great ideas and plans, it’s hard to achieve them if we have those old tapes playing over and over in our heads.

A great way to help yourself to easily achieve what you want in life is to choose to release others’ judgments of you, release those old voices. Choose to listen to yourself, and yourself only. Let the others go. They aren’t important any more. The more you work on releasing their influence, the easier it will be to achieve greater success in your life.

One of the things that I’ve found that works fantastically well for this is a product I’ve been using for at least ten years. It’s only about thirty dollars, and it’s amazing to listen to. It uses a kind of hypnosis called a dual voice induction. You can hear a different voice in each ear. Each one telling a beautifully crafted metaphor, which are specially designed to guide your brain into more resourceful thinking. The particular one I’m talking about is called the Self Esteem Supercharger. Even though I’ve listened to it hundreds of times, I’m still not completely sure what’s on it, because I zone out completely every time. It doesn’t use any subliminals or any other secret technology, so there are no hidden messages. It’s a completely relaxing experience that can free you to feel more resourceful and less dependent upon the opinions of others. The name of the company is called Learning Strategies. I’ve bought and used several different products from them, and I can confidently say that they are one of the best companies out there if you are interested in self improvement. And trust me, I’m a self development junkie.

In the future I’ll be posting more reviews of their products, as they are incredibly helpful in making it almost automatic for you achieve whatever you want in life.

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Turns out he and his wife had been planning on taking a vacation as soon as they could get their respective vacation times at their jobs to coincide. Their bigger plan is to take on last vacation together, kind of like a second honeymoon (even though they’ve only been married 2 years) before starting to build a family.  Seems that they take a pragmatic approach. Get married. Save money. Have kids.

“So what’s the problem?” I asked. “You guys sound like you’re really together! You guys are able to plan your life together, and make your plans that that you an easily achieve them. You are a lot better than most people. Most people shoot first, then maybe think about aiming in couple weeks. What gives?”

After my friend explained his problem to me, I understood. It seems that they both had their respective hearts set on a specific vacation place. And they both assumed that the other person had agreed to go to their place. And when they sat down to plan their fun, they realized that they weren’t on the same page. And since they both kind of viewed this as a ’last vacation together’ kind of thing, neither of them wanted to budge.

Which is interesting in and of itself. Most people can make plans, and then follow through. But we can run into problems when you don’t communicate well with others who will be involved in those plans. It’s like when other people don’t object, we assume that they will go along with us. I reminded my friend about this, as raising a kid requires that you be flexible and communicate well. I asked my friend that since they were both guilty of the same thing, if they could compromise.

“What do you mean, compromise?” My friend asked. “I want to go here, and she wants to go there. They are totally different. One person has to lose for the other to win.” Aha. I thought I saw the problem.

I was reminded of a business negotiation seminar I took. We would role play being different business situations, and practice these negotiation skills. For example, a Union Boss would want more health benefits, more vacation time, and higher pay. The Business Manager would want to save money wherever possible. The trick in being a negotiator, was to keep asking “What’s important about that?” Until you got a point where the Union Boss and the Business Manager could find a solution that would satisfy both of their respective deeper needs.  

For example, the Union Boss’s underlying concern was that the workers would realize that the company was serious about taking care of them, as the increases in health benefits and wages were really only symbolic. And the Business Manager was concerned with the long term growth of the company. As a ‘pretend’ negotiator, I explained to the Union Boss that the more stable the Business manager thought the future of the company was, the more willing he’d be to extend their long term contracts. And I explained to the Business Manager that by giving just a little bit of a raise, they would be much more willing to lock in that rate if it were for an extended contract period.

It was an interesting seminar that taught a lot about negotiating, and the importance of communication. Especially when you are able to find out what’s important to the people you care about, so when you make plans for the future, you can be sure to involve everyone.

I explained this to my friend, and we actually role played a few scenarios between him and his wife.  After a few practice rounds, he was convinced that they would be able to find a new place which would satisfy both their vacations needs for their second honeymoon. 

They invited me over to dinner a few days later. I tepidly asked them about their vacation, hoping I wasn’t precluding myself from any future dinners by starting world war three.

They both immediately broke into huge grins. Aha! I thought to myself. Maybe they would at least give me partial credit for solving their marital problems. Where would they go? Greece? Italy? Mexico? Maybe they’d let me house sit. They have a really nice, really HUGE flat screen HD TV.

“We canceled our vacation!”

Huh?

“We decided to put the money into an extra room. We’re building a nursery!”

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You can do this naturally and easily, because you have the learned the skill of persuasive oratory. You have learned to project your message so those that hear cannot help but to do what you say. In case you’ve forgotten this skill, here are a few pointers to help you remember:

Step One

Start with a powerful attention getter. Something that will yank thier minds away from their normal everyday thoughts and towards your incredibly moving message. Once I gave a speech to my local toastmasters group on fear, how to embrace fear and use fear to your advantage. My attention getter? I screamed at the top of my lungs as if I was terrified. Did it work? Absolutely!

Step Two

Pace your audience. Say things that they can’t help but agree with.

“Today’s economy is tough.”
(No matter how bad or good the economy is, people will agree with that statement.)

“You all want to get ahead in life.”
(Who doesn’t?)

“You’ve come here to improve yourself.”
 (Who hasn’t?)

Spend three or four mintues getting your audience comfortable with agreeing with what you are saying.

Step Three

Demonstrate that you know about what they need. Identify their pain. Show them that you understand what it is they want.

“You are having problems making ends meet.”
“You need to improve your skills so you can make more money.”
“You want to be able to increase your sales.”

You will need to tailor the above statements to meet the specific needs of the people you are speaking to. If you tell a book club they need to increase their life insurance, they might disagree with you. But if you tell a group of soon to be graduating college students they need to sharpen their resume building and interview skills, they’re more likely to agree with you. 

Step Four

Introduce the pain of non-action. Now, it might sound mean to purposely cause somebody pain, but if your purpose is to help them in the long run, and if you believe by doing what you say, it will benefit them, it’s ok.

“If you don’t get your resume as good as your competition, you won’t get the job you want.”
“If you don’t practice and sharpen your interview skills, the person sitting next to you will get hired instead of you.”

Step Five

A call to action. Review their needs, the pain of non action, and then give them a specific step to move in the direction that you want them to go. (Please note, if you tell them to go in a direction that will only benefit you and not them, then you should become friends with this guy.)  If you are truly giving advice that will help others, make sure you will benefit as well. Win win situations are the best.

The more you realize that simply because you have life experience that can benefit others, the more you will be able to not only help out people, but increase your skills and help yourself out as well.

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Now some people, when they read that, might think “oh, no, I could never do that,” or something along those lines. But that is only because they haven’t been able to discover the power that everyone possesses. They aren’t able to discover the wisdom that everyone can express to share with others.

The reason is not a matter of knowledge, or experience, or expertise. The main concern here is one of communication. If you can find a way to embrace and express your truth, then without question people will listen. And one powerful way to begin to do that is by opening the Fifth, or Throat Chakra.

The Throat Chakra is all about communication, expression, persuasion. The more open your Throat Chakra will be, the more naturally and easily you will persuade others to your point of view. And you know as well as anybody else that people throughout history have been able to use this power both for good and for evil. I’m not going to give examples of either, because I’m sure you can think of plenty.

Before you begin your meditation on the Throat Chakra, ask yourself the following questions. Remember, as I’ve said in my other articles about the Chakras, you don’t have to get clear answers, just ask the questions, and be open for any responses that come.

What is truth?
What is my truth?
What are my desires?
How do my desires coincide with those of others?
How do all of us want the same thing?
How do I want people to think, feel, respond when I speak my truth?

Take a deep breath, slow. In. Out. As you exhale, imagine a small blue ball of light appear at your throat. Allow it to grow in size, slowly, with each exhale. Imagine the infinite wisdom of the universe breath through you into slowly growing ball of blue light. Allow it to grow slowly, until it is completely surrounding you. Sit inside for seven deep slow, breaths. After seven breaths, slowly allow it to shrink back down into our throat. Still filled with the wisdom of the universe, channeled through you, resting in your throat center, waiting to power your expressions.

How does it feel, now, as you sit there, to have such power resting in your throat, awaiting for you to express your truth? How much can you help others, now, that you know you have such power? What can you give? What can you share?

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Law Number One:  The only failure is when you ignore the lesson.

If you focus too much on getting exactly the right result, you won’t notice the things that you can learn from any interaction to easily improve yourself.  Anything you can learn will be beneficial in some way. A great example is getting feedback from others. I gave a speech once to a Toastmasters group. I was nervous, and dropped my cue cards, and lost my place a couple of times. After the speech, you usually get feedback from a helpful experienced member. She told me my strong points, and some specific things to try to get better next time. Had I expected to give a perfect speech, I wouldn’t have been open to her kind suggestions.  This naturally leads to the next law:

Law Number Two: Detach from results.

This might be an easy to understand and often repeated concept, but sometimes it can be tough to put this into practice. The easiest way I’ve found is to go into every situation with an open mind. All you need to do is remember to focus on the process, and not the outcome. For example, if you want to start a conversation with an attractive member of the opposite sex, by focusing on the enjoyment of the conversation rather than the outcome, it allows you to be more relaxed.

Law Number Three: Allow yourself to want what you want.

Sounds simple, but how many of us want stuff, but are afraid to ask for it. We feel we need permission and somebody to give it to us without asking. It’s ok to want whatever you want. Did you think Bill Gates or Waren Buffet got where they are by waiting for their desires to be approved of by others? If you are unsure when asking for what you want, any strange reactions are not from the thing that you want, but from your behavior regarding that thing. When you proclaim proudly what you want with expectation, people will give it to you.

Law Number Four: Think big.

That’s right. You have a limited time on this chunk of rock orbiting around the big ball of fire. Don’t waste it on small things that you can get easily. Stretch yourself. Use your imagination. If you can think it, you can get it.

Law Number Five: Say good things to yourself.

We all have those voices in our heads, put there by well meaning parents and teachers. One of your jobs as an adult is to take charge of your own brain. Get rid of those old voices telling you to play it safe, and replace them with voices telling you how wonderful and powerful you are. Brian Tracy recommends that the first thing you do when you wake up every morning is to say “I like myself” over and over. If it sounds strange, do it anyways. Pretty soon, you’ll really believe it. And if you like you, other people will naturally follow your example.

All successful people, whether they know it or not, have applied these simple laws in one way or another to their lives. And the more you start to realize that they can improve your life, the sooner you will be able to do just that. And not only will you notice people around you treating you differently, you will also notice that because you are smart enough to understand these concepts, you will be able to powerfully make them work for you.

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There is an often talked about skill whose power is realized by few, and practiced by even fewer. If you take the time to not only read and understand this article, but to put these techniques into practice, you will be light years ahead of anyone else.

The skill I’m talking about is visualization. I’m sure you’ve heard of it. If you haven’t that’s ok. Visualization is when you practice something in your mind before you actually do it, so when it comes time to take care of business, you’ve already pre-built success into your neurology.

One of the frustrations when you do this is that few sources tell you exactly what to do, so it can be tough to learn to visualize properly.

In this article I will tell you the very basics, so you can start to practice right away. When you become proficient, you can check back often, because I will be writing other articles about additional skills, so that when you add them on top of your powerful visualization skills, you will be a potent force in the world.

There are two types of visualization. Associated and disassociated. Associated is when you visualize something as you normally see it. Through your own eyes. Disassociated is when you watch yourself performing a task, as if you were watching yourself on video tape. You will need to develop both of these skills, so that when you learn additional skills you can easily incorporate them together in such a way that  you will be absolutely amazed by how incredibly powerful you can use them to change your life.

Try it and see. Close your eyes, and see something you did recently in an associated perspective. Is it easy? Difficult? If you have trouble, don’t worry. The brain responds quickly when you practice with focus.

Try the other way. Close your eyes, and this time watch a recent memory, but this time watch yourself as if you are somehow floating off to the side.  If this seems a bit more difficult, you can relax because the more you practice, the easier it will get.

After you develop these two powerful skills, you will be amazed in how many different ways you can use them to train your brain for all kinds of new and wonderful automatic behaviors that you might not be able to imagine doing now.

And be sure to check back often because the more new skills you learn, the easier it will be create your life exactly the way you want it.

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