Monthly Archives: February 2015

Get Ready For Game Day

There's Only One Way To Get Better

Practice Makes Perfect

If you want to develop rock solid confidence with girls, this is for you.

Now, to start off you need to understand this is NOT a magic switch.

Talking confidently to girls, ANY girl, is a skill. And just like any skill, it takes practice. And no matter who you are, the more practice you put in, the better you’ll get.

But you still need to practice.

Now, even guys that are pretty good NEVER practice. Imagine being on a sports team and ONLY playing when you had a regular season game. That would be a really lame way to organize your team. If you were the manager you’d be fired pretty quick.

Obviously, teams that practiced more would perform the better. 

When it comes to girls, not only do most guys NEVER practice, but each and every time they talk to a girl, it’s not even a regular season game. It’s the bottom of the ninth in the world series, and they’re down by three runs.

So, the first realization is to make time for practice. When you are practicing, you are NOT picking up. You are not EVER going to meet these girls again, even if they throw themselves at you.

Practice is practice. Game time is game time.

How do you practice?

It all depends on what level you’re comfortable with. Whatever that is, that’s a good place to start.

Say you’re good at saying “Hi” to cute girls, but after that you collapse into a puddle of terror.

So your “practice” is to go and say “hi” to ten or twenty girls, every day for a week or so.

Choose ONE DAY out of the week to be “game day.” These are girls you’re allowed to number close and call and date if you can.

Otherwise, they’re only practice.

Now, this next part is crucial. The other component of actual, in-the-field physical practice is mental practice.

Every single night (preferably before sleep so your subconscious can process it), mentally review whatever practice you did that day.

Only re-engineer the memory so it’s slightly better than what actually happened. But only slightly.

And ONLY re-engineer YOUR PART, don’t re-engineer any responses you get. So if you said a timid “hi,” change your memory so you said very congruent “Hey!” with a nice smile.

This is pretty easy, and the more you do this, the better you’ll get. No two ways about it.

It will only take a few minutes per day, and a few minutes per night.

If you did this for six months solid, your game would improve by leaps and bounds, and talking to real girls, on GAME DAYS would be much, much easier, and much, much more successful than it is now.

The only question is, are you willing to practice?

Get Started:

mindpersuasion.com

Why Hidden Risk Is Dangerous 

Not All Risks Are Obvious

Risk Is Not Always What It Seems

There’s a crucial scene in the Matrix, where Neo is presented two choices.

One, a red pill, and another, a blue pill.

The red pill will remove the scales from his eyes, so he sees things the way they really are.

The blue pill is so he goes back to sleep, blissfully unaware of the evil around him.

The red pill / blue pill dichotomy was “borrowed” from Lewis Carroll (Alice in Wonderland) who no doubt “borrowed” it from many stories from before, in various forms.

When they say that “ignorance is bliss,” what to do they mean?

By taking the “blue pill,” and staying safely unaware of what’s going on, you don’t have to worry about too much.

Now, this is fine if you happen to be in safe place, with enough resources to survive, and enjoy some free time once in a while.

Showing up to work on time, doing what you’re told, in order to collect a paycheck that’s just enough to cover monthly expenses.

To be certain, the blue pill life ain’t exciting, it’s not glamorous, but it’s safe.

Right?

This is the great paradox of risk.

We “think” we’re “playing it safe,” but we’re really not.

Sure, in the short term, it might feel safer to do what the boss says without much question, not rock the boat too much, not mess up a good thing.

But in the long term, playing it “safe” might be the riskiest thing you’ll ever do.

Why?

If something happens, and somebody “pulls the plug” on your comfy lifestyle, what then?

Being able to stay safely on auto pilot without rocking the boat isn’t a very marketable skill.

It’s not something you can proudly show off after a lifetime of “achievement.”

The good news is you can start to take control, even if  you don’t think you need to.

Meaning if you just spent a little bit of time working on some translatable skills, things that you could take with you ANYWHERE, you’d be much better off.

I’m talking about the deep “meta skills” that most people tend to lack.

Public speaking ability, decent social skills, persuasive skills, and having the confidence that you can learn anything, to get anything.

Most people have a couple of skills.

Even better would be to have several skills

But even better would be to have the deeper confidence that you could LEARN any skill.

That way, no matter WHAT happened, you’d be able to step back a couple paces, take a look at the situation, and figure out what to do.

And not merely survive, but THRIVE.

Are You Searching For A TV Wife?

You Know Stuff On TV is Fake, Right?

Back To Reality

One of the most common features of humans is we always long for the “good old days.”

Meaning that no matter when any particular society shows up in history, there’s always a large percentage of folks (from ALL levels of society) that moan about how hard it is, compared to those glorious days of yore, when gold rained from the skies.

Well, hindsight, as they say, is 20-20. (Don’t worry, I know I’m mangling metaphors!)

Meaning whenever humans recall the past, we recall it not as it really was, but only the good parts.

Some believe this has an evolutionary component. Since humans are naturally wired to learn from experience, we tend to remember the good stuff, the stuff that worked, rather than the crappy stuff.

It’s also a handy way to complain without sounding like we’re complaining.

After all, if it’s the times that are keeping you down, rather than your skills, then it’s not really your fault, is it?

Unfortunately, this is an ego-protecting con.

The good old days were NEVER as good as we imagine they were.

Guys complain about them all the time. Back in the good old days, women were loyal, and all you had to do was get yourself a nice wife, and you were set.

That’s the way it worked on those 50’s TV shows, right?

Well, from statistics, divorces were a lot lower back then. But what does that mean?

Does that mean married couples were super happy, and it was one gigantic love fest?

Not really.

Think of it this way. If  you had a pretty good job, that started at 7 AM, you’d show up on time. Especially if there was a zero tolerance policy on being late. You’d have NO PROBLEM jumping out of bed at 6 AM every morning, AND going to sleep pretty early every night.

But what if you had a bunch of money that didn’t require you to get up at any particular time? Would you leap out of bed every morning at 6? 

No way.

That’s what happens when we live with constraints and incentives.

It’s easy to keep our noses clean. But when those constraints and incentives are gone, so do our good habits.

So, it not that women today are any different than the mythical women of yore, there’re just a lot less restrictions. Women aren’t FORCED to stay in a crappy marriage like they were 60 years ago.

But here’s the thing.

Back then, since women (and men) were stuck, men didn’t have to have ANY kind of game, whatsoever.

And most men today have crappy game as well.

Only because it’s so “normal” to have many sexual partners, and getting laid is pretty easy, most men convince themselves their game is tight just because they can get laid.

But nowadays, if you want a loyal woman, you’ve got to create REAL attraction.

And here’s something else.

Back in the “good old days” you may have had a lower divorce rate, but guys living with girls who secretly despised them wasn’t the love-fest it’s made out to be on TV.

Back then, if you wanted a “TV wife” you had to have some pretty good game, just like today.

So guys complaining today about the lack of quality women are the same guys that were TRAPPED in horrible marriages back in the “good old days.”

Just as it was back then, it is today.

If you want a woman to be loyal, have your back, and support you in your life, you’ve got to generate some DEEP LEVEL attraction.

And THAT only comes with some top notch game.

Game most guys don’t have.

Get Some:

mindpersuasion.com

Choose Your Life’s Mission

Where Are You Headed?

The Road To Uncertainty

I remember when I was a kid, I would love going on vacations.

Most of the time, it was just us driving somewhere for a few hours, staying in a motel, and then driving back later in a couple days.

There was usually some kind of activity near the motel, but nothing that I can remember now.

I just remember the excitement of being in the car, and going somewhere new.

I also remember the HUGE difference between taking classes at a local community college, as an adult, compared to when I was studying University.

When it was at Uni, it sucked. Boring, if I failed I’d be in big trouble, etc.

But as an adult, I LOVED taking classes. I was studying what I wanted to, not to get some piece of paper. 

I was learning just because I wanted to LEARN something.

I took a few language classes, tons of self improvement stuff, public speaking, even Tai Chi.

Whenever we humans do ANYTHING, the reasons we’re doing it will have a HUGE impact on how we feel about it.

Being a kid, the vacations were always outside of my control, but it was still fun. I never chose where we went, but I always enjoyed going somewhere new.

Being an adult, and taking all those classes, I felt the same way. I chose where I was going, and enjoyed the journey.

What’s the common thread?

It seems that being excited about the unknown is a crucial factor. On it’s own, it CAN be enough.

Also, going somewhere or doing something when you KNOW what the outcome is going to be, can also get your juices flowing.

But what happens when you combine these two?

What happens if you not only EMBRACE the unknown, but also have total control in where you’re going?

Sounds paradoxical, right?

But when you choose your outcome, and leave the PATH up in the air, something to discover along the way, then you’ve discovered some REAL magic.

Not only do you KNOW you are going somewhere good (or doing something good or learning something good or creating something good), but when  you’re completely OPEN to HOW you’ll get there, that’s when life takes on a whole new meaning.

Every step you take will get you wonderful feedback that will get you closer.

Your Ultimate Journey of Life.

What path are you on?

Are you dreams BIG enough?

Are the compelling enough to pull you forward, no matter what?

When you’ve got a huge dream, AND you know, deep in your bones, that you can handle anything that life throws at you, you’ve got it made.

Only If You Want A Quality Relationship

The Myth Of The Quality Woman

Is The Market Terrible?

Where you can find a “quality woman”?

I hate to break it do you, but they don’t exist. No, I don’t mean like that. I don’t mean in the bitter, “poor me” sense that you’ll find bleeding all over the “manosphere” (whatever THAT means.)

I mean that you simply can’t put labels like “quality” on people without having a specific set of parameters.

One thing that Maltz taught in Psycho-Cybernetics is to NEVER compare yourself to others.

Take the next random dude you meet on the street, for example.  You’re going to be better at a bunch of stuff than he is. He’s going to be better at a bunch of stuff that you. At least today. Tomorrow? Maybe a different story completely.

Does this mean it’s hopeless finding what you might subjectively describe as a “quality woman?” Not at all. But first, you’ve got to ditch that label, because it’s pretty meaningless.

Reminds me of this movie called “Punching The Clown.” There was this guy who was a singer/comedian. He had this weird style of playing his guitar while spitting out ridiculous jokes, that “sort of” sounded like a song.

One day, a big Hollywood Exec came to see him in a studio.

“Show me your FUNNIEST gag!” The exec said. So the guy starts singing one of his deadpan, slow boiling type humor.

The exec interrupts him. “No, no. Show me one that’s FUNNY right off the bat!”

This went on for a while, until the exec gave up.

Of course, the meaning of the scene is that “funny” is not some objective thing like a law of mathematics. Even something that’s funny to one person may not be funny to somebody else.

So stop looking for some kind of magical “quality woman” to jump out of the shadows and magically solve all your girl problems.

Change the word “quality” for “a girl that satisfies most of my criteria, and for whom I satisfy most of hers.”

Now, this leaves most guys at a loss, because they don’t really HAVE any criteria, other than she’s got to be hot and not throw a drink in his face when he talks to her.

So the first step is to actually determine your own criteria. What do you want in a woman? Naturally, the more women you interact with, the more you’ll find tune your criteria.

And guess what? You’ll find plenty of women that satisfy YOUR criteria, but you don’t satisfy THEIRS.

Most guys don’t like to hear this.

Most guys think all they need to do is shave, shower, put on some expensive cologne and the “quality women” are supposed to beat a path to their door.

Doesn’t work like that.

Is it easy? Not in the least. 

Will you get rejected a lot? Absolutely. 

Will it take time? Yes. 

Will it happen like in the movies? Probably not.

But it is possible. Just not easy. But finding a woman that matches your criteria, and for whom you match hers, is something that you should aspire to as one of your life goals. (If building a relationship is indeed one of your plans in life).

Not something that just “happens” when you’re out with your buddies.

Now, let’s be honest. A lot of guys aren’t willing to put in the work. That’s fine. They’d rather spend their entire lives without a woman, or short term relationships, which for many guys is perfectly fine. 

Ultimately it’s up to you.

What do you want?

What will it take to get it?

Are you willing to put in the effort?

mindpersuasion.com

Do You Have Portable Skills?

Which Skills Should You Carry With You?

The Best Skill Of All

When I was a kid I got a Swiss Army Knife for Christmas.

All kinds of tools, knives, scissors, saw, magnifying glass. I was in boy scouts, so it came in pretty handy.

Later on, as an adult, when I was into backpacking, I got all kinds of cool gear.

Since backpacking requires you actually walk a long, long ways (usually 20+ miles over a couple days) with everything on your back, you’ve got to be pretty efficient.

So a lot of the equipment is built to not only be very light and portable, but also to serve many purposes.

Especially the food. Freeze dried. Easy to cook. (Not so tasty!)

Compared to “car camping,” where you drive your car right up to the campsite, and then just unload all the junk from the trunk. You can get away with a LOT more (and a lot more enjoyable) stuff.

Huge coolers filled with beer. Lawn chairs. Plenty of wood for a fire. Big thick juicy steaks to BBQ.

The skills you carry with you will have a huge impact on how well you do in life.

The more translatable they are, the easier you’ll be able to switch from job to job, or situation to situation, and still come out on top.

One of the biggest “presuppositions” in NLP is that the more flexibility you have, the better you’ll do.

While that freeze dried food isn’t something you’d consider “delicious” it allows you to get to places that very, very few people have ever seen.

Gorgeous valleys way up above the tree line. Huge meadows filled with beautiful flowers, and NO people. Only animals.

Car camping, on the other hand, only allows you to go where everybody else goes.

Your skills are similar. If you’ve got the same skills that everybody else has got,  then you’ll only be able to go where everybody else goes.

On the other hand, if you’ve got some very portable skills, that you can take with you anywhere, and aren’t tied to a specific situation, you’ll do much, much better.

What skills are these?

Mental skills. Learning skills. Communication skills. People skills.

But there’s one “meta” skill that will let you learn all other skills.

Being able to look into the unknown future, and think to yourself, “Yep, I can do this,” and then get busy learning.

Most people cower in fear, and wait for somebody to hold their hand.

Most people wait for step by step instructions. For somebody else to “go first,” so they know it’s safe.

What about you?

Are you willing to boldly go where you’ve never gone before? So you can continue to learn new things, gain new skills, and reach even higher levels of success?

This will help:

Self Confidence Generator

Mind Tricks To Kill Fear

Is This What Talking To Girls Feels Like?

Control Your Thoughts – Control Everything

Imagine if you tried swimming using the following method.

You stood there on the side of the pool, shaking from fear. All your buddies were swimming, but you weren’t sure if you could do it.

Maybe you looked at a point off in the distance, and imagined how cool it would be to swim over there. Then you imagined the cold hand of death grabbing your ankle and pulling you down to the lonely bottom.

You grit your teeth, and jump in. Only you don’t try and swim. You just kind of float there. Then suddenly your instincts kick in, and you start dog paddling. Everybody’s laughing. You paddle back to where you came from, and climb out.

Absolutely humiliated.

This is very similar to what most guys do when they approach girls. Especially when they’re nervous while approaching.

Now, if you’re nervous and you approach anyway, congratulations. Most guys can’t do this.

But when you approach, there’s some things you can do to make it a lot easier, and some things to do that will make it a lot harder.

The thoughts you hold in your head WHILE approaching are crucial. If you don’t purposely hold positive thoughts, your caveman brain will take over.

This is like you dog paddling in the pool. Running on instincts.

But if you approach with some positive thoughts, and HOLD those thoughts, it will be a lot easier.

This would be like swimming the crawl, based on conscious thinking, rather than dog paddling, based on instinct.

Every action you take, there’s a battle going on in your mind. Your conscious, rational self, vs. your caveman instincts.

Your caveman instincts are usually only good if you’re in a caveman environment. Like there’s some sort of horrible, life threatening danger, and you’ve got to take care of business.

But when talking to cute girls, your caveman brain is NOT your friend.

Your conscious mind is.

What thoughts should you think?

Firstly, you’ll need to FORCE them in the forefront of your brain. Like you might need to consciously remember how to swim.

Any thoughts of any positive EXPERIENCES with women will do. Ideally, you should have a positive experience in the recent past, and one in the near future. Which will take place AFTER you talk to the girl you’re about to talk to.

Any positive experience will work. A girl that smiled at you. A cute girl you talked to at Starbucks (whether she was working there or not.)

ANY experience will do.

This works for many reasons.

You won’t see the girl you’re about to talk to as a life or death situation. 

Which means you’ll significantly tone down any neediness or desperation. She’ll pick up on this, and this will increase her likelihood of being attracted to you.

Now, this can be tough to do if you don’t have ANY positive experiences with women. But you can certainly go and get some.

Just hit up some shops or restaurants around town where cute girls work. DO NOT try and pick them up. Just be friendly with them. Go in once a week or so. Learn their names, and tell them yours.

Remember, these are NOT girls you are picking up or number closing or getting advice from or anything. Just some girls to have a friendly, BRIEF, chit-chat with while you drink your coffee or whatever.

THEN, when you see some girls you’d like to talk to, for real, think of those “practice girls” while you do so.

Do this long enough, and you’ll be building up a HUGE amount of positive experiences with women.

Just remember that this ISN’T automatic, at least not at first. The first couple dozen times you talk to real girls, in the real world, you’ll need to FORCE your brain to think of those positive experiences, WHILE APPROACHING and WHILE TALKING.

But if you keep it up, that feeling of “good experiences with women” WILL become automatic.

And you’ll have suddenly turned into a natural.

How To Tilt The Game In Your Favor

What Does Ben Franklin Know About Success?

Essential Daily Mental Practice

Most people are aware of the power of visualization.

Athletes have known about this for years. They visualize what they want, over and over, and it happens.

Andre Agassi, the tennis player, made a dramatic career comeback to win Wimbleton, when nobody else thought he could.

He said it was easy, because he’d already seen it a million times in his mind.

Even in University studies, it’s been scientifically proven that visualizing something is just as good as actually practicing it.

They took three groups of basketball players. One group didn’t practice, one group practiced in their mind, and one group practiced for real.

The group that did mind practice improved just as much as the group that did real practice.

No matter what you want to do, mentally practicing before hand will make it easier. 

Benjamin Franklin talked about this hundreds of years ago. He called it a “daily review.” To be sure, he wasn’t the guy who came up with it, as it’s likely been around for a long, long time.

Basically you just spent a few minutes at the end of the day, reviewing the events. The ones you’d like to “rewrite,” you do. In your mind. You practice the way you’d like to have done whatever it is you did.

The more you do this, the more quickly you’ll improve.

You can even take this to a meta level. Stepping it up a bit.

You can do this with ANY situation. Just take a few moments before you take action, and really visualize exactly HOW you’d like it to come out.

Not only will this make it much more likely, but it will significantly diminish any fear you may have.

Sadly, most people will never do this.

It’s much easier to stay stuck, and come up with an excuse why you didn’t take action.

Especially when we blame forces outside of ourselves. Nothing’s easier than pointing fingers.

It keeps us safe, and we get to pretend that it’s not our fault.

Unfortunately, this will never get us very much good stuff.

Because as you well know, the only things REALLY worth something are things you’ve got to get on your own, rather than have them plopped safely in your lap.

Part of the process of becoming a fully functioning adult is giving up that magical thinking, and taking responsibility for your life.

Sure, it can be difficult. Sure you’ll need to step outside your comfort zone. Sure, you might get some results other than what you were hoping for.

But that’s where all the juice of life is. Taking action, and seeing what happens.

Naturally, you can use the visualization process to make it much easier. Instead of charging forward and hoping for some “good luck,” you can definitely tilt the game in your favor.

How?

How To Practice Approaching

To Approach Easily, Get Your Brain Out Of The Way

Retrain Your Thinker

Your brain is incredibly powerful. The vast computing power between your ears is not even close to being fully understood. Despite what Google and other companies say about AI, it’s a long, long ways off from what you can do.

Sure, they can build these pretty impressive “Turing Machines,” that pretend to be intelligent. And they certainly respond to situations “in the moment,” but they’ve got nothing on your squishy gray matter.

You can use your brain to plan, to look into the future, to balance all kinds of potential choice that you are considering now, and how they may wind up in the any time out in front of you.

You can check back into your vast collection of memories to gauge how a situation may turn out. To the extent you can override your instincts with your rational mind, you can create magic. Generate massive wealth. Build a life that will be remembered for generations.

On the other hand, when see a cute girl you’d like to talk to, your brain can be your worst enemy.

Why?

Because all those same miracles of computational magic that help you re-invent relativity will also talk you out of approaching her.

The same genius mind that you can use to creatively solve unlimited problems will come up with about a thousand different nightmare scenarios within a couple microseconds. This, of course, will make walking over there and talking to that girl seem as dangerous as jumping into the tiger cage at the zoo.

With about a thousand pounds of steaks duct taped all over you.

What’s the answer? Train yourself to take action, BEFORE your brain starts to overheat.

How do you do that?

Same way you practice every other skill. By practicing that skill.

Good news is that practicing taking action doesn’t mean you’ve got just grab your balls and talk to hot girls all the time. (Unless of course you want to.)

All you’ve got to do is train your brain to respond to any desire IMMEDIATELY with some kind of action.

This is not as simple as it sounds. Human are hard wired to think. To contemplate. To wonder.

Which means you’ll need to concentrate on not concentrating.

Give yourself at least 30 minutes a day, if you can. Go somewhere where there’s a lot of interesting things.

The mall, the supermarket, a club with a bunch of people. Your job during this training drill is to simply walk around, and notice all the things around you.

AS SOON AS you see something (person, object, painting, whatever) interesting, IMMEDIATELY walk toward it. Don’t hesitate. Don’t think. Don’t wonder if you might get in trouble. Don’t worry what other people will think. 

What you’re doing is training in a conditioned response into your brain. Desire is to be followed by action.

Once you do this for a while, you’re ready to practice with girls.

If you see ANY GIRL you think is cute, get up and walk towards her. At this point, you don’t have to talk to her, or interact with her. Just walk over there. Pass her on the way to the restroom. Look at something near where she’s standing at the grocery store.

Don’t linger and wait for her to open you or anything. Just train your mind. Desire is followed by action.

Do this enough, and pretty soon it will be easy to walk up and talk to girls as soon as you see a cute one.

How To Make Everything Easy

Develop Deep and Lasting Confidence

Non Situational Confidence

A lot of companies have these “team building” getaways.

Where they go do something outdoors, that’s pretty scary.

The theory is that when they work together, to overcome some kind of physical “danger,” it will strengthen their relationship, making them better workers.

I remember when I went skydiving the first time. (I’ve only been twice.) I was scared as hell driving out there, and right up to jumping out of the plane, but after that, it was pretty amazing.

Once the initial terror went away, it literally felt like flying. Then when I landed, I felt like I was on top of the world.

Like I could do anything.

However, that feeling was gone within an hour. Driving back home I felt the same after driving home from work, or driving home from the movies.

They say that you get the confidence after you do the thing.

While this is true, there’s a couple things they DON’T say about this.

One is the “confidence” that you get is generally attached to that particular thing.

Two is that “confidence” doesn’t usually last very long.

Another thing I noticed is that the people who go skydiving a lot, the kind of people who had their own gear, weren’t at all what I’d expected.

I figured since they’d conquered their fear, they would be ultra achievers who could do anything.

That wasn’t the case. Most of them were regular people, with regular jobs, who spent most of their extra income on their “hobby.”

(And interestingly enough, a lot of them smoked. A lot.)

Sure, it is possible to get confidence the “old fashioned way.” 

Just DO IT, like they say in the commercial, but that’s pretty tough. And it doesn’t last long. You’ve got to keep DOING IT or else you’ll slip back down to where you started.

Is there another way?

Why yes, there is!

Instead of relying on your cave man (or cave woman) programming to consider the possible outcome of what you’re thinking about doing, you can consciously build up the positive, while minimizing the negative.

The more you do this, the easier it will seem, and the more self confidence you’ll naturally have.

Now, this IS a skill, not a magic pill. It will take some practice.

But once you get into the habit of doing it, you’ll find there’s LOTS of things out there that aren’t NEARLY as terrifying as most people think.

What would YOU like to make easy?