Monthly Archives: February 2016

How To Program Successful Habits

How To Program Successful Behaviors

They say that our lives are the sum total of our behaviors.

And our behaviors are the result of the thoughts we think, most of the time.

One of thing that you find when you study successful people is that often times it was not on purpose.

But an accident.

The book about how Facebook was “invented” and all the drama that went on behind the scenes is called “The Accidental Billionaires.”

I did some studying about the character in “The Wolf of Wall Street.”

Turns out this guy was a natural salesman, and he was in the right place at the right time.

When he was doing all his “cold calling,” he had a lot of help.

It was when the stock market was soaring, and every night there was something on the news about how well the stock market was doing.

So the people he was calling were ALREADY worried about “missing out” on one of the greatest bull runs in history.

In fact, the guy was so driven to make money, he enrolled in dental school. But on the first day, his professor said, “you’ll never get rich being a dentist.” So he quit.

The reason most people are successful is that they just do what’s natural. For them, that’s good.

They just show up, do what they are driven to do, and they’ll get rich.

Some are “luckier” than others. For example, Zuckerberg, the facebook guy, probably wouldn’t have made so much if he’d been born in the thirties.

On the other hand, take a guy like Bill Gates. I saw his mugshot on this website that had “celebrities that were arrested.”

Gates was REALLY young. He almost looked like a kid. But he didn’t look worried. Because WAY BACK THEN he’d already made millions.

In fact, he started hustling when he was still a teenager. Just like the Wolf of Wall street guy.

They already had the THINKING that led to the DAILY HABITS that would make them rich.

So no matter what the markets did, or the economy did, they still figured out a way to get paid.

The good news is that changing your habitual thinking patterns, that lead to your habitual behavioral patterns is EASY.

It takes time, sure. But you don’t have to discover the secrets of alchemy or nuclear fusion.

You just need to PRACTICE the right thinking patterns. Until they become AUTOMATIC.

And when they become AUTOMATIC, your behaviors will naturally change.

They’ll change into a lifetime of behaviors that add up to MASSIVE success.

All it takes is a few minutes a day, and you’re on your way.

Get Started:

Subliminal Programming

The Best Tools For The Job

The Best Tools For Life

I’m a big fan of Clint Eastwood.

He’s made a lot of good movies, both as an actor and a director.

A fairly recent one was when he played some old guy that worked on cars.

And he developed a relationship with his neighbor, who he helped to become a “man.”

In one scene, the kid was looking in Clint’s garage.

And was AMAZED at the amount of tools he had.

One of the “becoming a man” things the “kid” had to do was to get his own tools.

The underlying theme was that “boys borrow tools, while men own tools.”

Of course, if you just go down to Home Depot and buy a bunch of tools so you can look cool, you’re missing the point.

The idea is not only owning tools, but tools that you use.

Use to build things.

Or fix things.

Movies, books and stories are great ways to convey eternal truths of the human condition.

I used to know this guy that worked in a machine shop.

This guy had an AWESOME set of tools. In this HUGE tool case. Bigger than most dressers.

He’d take his tools with him wherever he worked.

It was understood that if you had a machine shop, and you were hiring a well-trained machinist, he’d bring his own set of tools.

Same goes with skills.

When hiring managers want qualified people, they’d like the people to have a certain set of skills.

Rightly or wrongly, they don’t want spend lots of time and money training somebody, only to have them quiet a couple years later.

The bottom line is that the more responsibility you take acquiring whatever tools and skills you need, the better off you’ll be.

Most people don’t like to hear this.

They’d rather be told what to do. Trained how to do it. Be paid while it happens.

Those that are self-starters, that take at least SOME initiative, are generally going to do better.

Rightly or wrongly, that’s how it is.

Think about it from a hiring managers point of view. Who would you rather hire? Somebody that wants six months of on the job training, or somebody who’s ready to go, right then and there? Or somebody who will at least take an ACTIVE PART in the learning process?

The truth is that your life belongs to you. It’s your job to build it up, as much as you can, using whatever you can.

Nobody is going to do it for you.

Because everybody else is foremost worried about THEIR lives, not yours.

Luckily, there are plenty of tools that can help.

You can find them right here:

Subliminal Programming

How to Keep The Party Going

Turn On Your Natural Learner

I do a lot of walking early in the morning.

Especially when it’s still dark.

It’s a great time to think, and let my mind wander.

Especially when it’s clear and all the stars are out.

You see a lot of strange folks in the morning.

Some out walking their dogs. Some on bikes delivering newspapers. Some people staggering home from the bars.

(Where I live some of the bars stay open past 2 AM).

The bar people are usually pretty obvious. From a ways away. They know the night’s over, but they’re trying to keep the party going.

Walking slowly to the area of town where all the taxis are. Keeping up their “energy.” Not wanting to break up the group, usually a mix of guys and girls who, for some reason, haven’t managed to close one another. Or didn’t want to.

The dog people are also interesting. Some clearly look like they’d rather be sleeping.

Others look like they enjoy it. The dog is not a burden, it’s an excuse to get out of the house.

It’s not a chore, it’s a companion. It doesn’t limit them, by tying them down to a dependent animal, it frees them.

Many things can easily be thought of “good” or “bad” depending on what you do with them.

Or how you think about them.

Take our brains, for example.

They are pretty good at coming up with reasons why we SHOULDN’T do things.

In fact, talking ourselves out of good ideas is something that everybody is an expert at.

That voice in your head just keeps yammering, and won’t shut up.

However, that voice can be your best friend, or your biggest enemy.

Since it’s YOUR voice, you get to choose.

Now, if it’s been talking smack your whole life, it’s going to take a while to change it.

But just imagine if that voice was ALWAYS giving you POSITIVE advice. Always encouraging you. Always telling you that you could do anything you wanted.

How would your life look?

The thing about our brains is we think they are not programmable. That they are the way they are.

This is why many people, including scientists, believe things like “intelligence” is fixed. That you can’t change it.

Or something like “learning.” That once you get past childhood, it’s difficult to learn.

But this is missing out on a LOT of variables.

Like if you were an adult, and your ONLY job was to learn, and EVERYTHING ELSE was taken care of (just like it was when you were a kid) do you think you’d be able to learn?

Of course you could!

In fact, for most people, that would be a dream come true!

The truth is that YOU have a lot more skills that you think.

You just need to “learn” how to “use” your brain more effectively.

Get Started:

Intelligence Accelerator

Life Is A Consistent Process

How To Build A Fantastic Future

I read an interesting article the other day about “happiness.”

Seems it’s a pretty interesting topic, since it’s obviously something everybody wants.

So it’s pretty easy to get grant money, funding, etc., to do studies.

Unfortunately, it’s hard to study, because it’s hard to measure.

In fact, just asking the question, “What makes you feel happy?” Will require you to THINK about those things that make you happy.

And as I’m sure you know, happiness can be pretty fleeting. It generally doesn’t last, if the situation stays the same.

If you’re sore at the end of the day, the first few minutes you slip into a hot bath may make you feel incredibly happy.

You think of all you’ve accomplished, you relax knowing you’ve put in a good day’s work. You can look forward to a decent dinner and maybe your favorite TV show, or book or whatever.

But how long will that “feeling” last? If you sit in that tub long enough, the hot water will turn cold.

Because humans are always in some kind of PROCESS, rather than some static blob of chemicals, happiness may well be a process also.

Not a destination, but a side effect of forward momentum.

Most people feel pretty good when they are on the path of achieving something worthwhile.

Think of the last time you were preparing for a party. A part you would enjoy hosting or attending.

While you were preparing whatever it was (be it shopping for clothes or baking a cake) you probably felt pretty good.

You were CREATING something that was important to you, and LOOKING FORWARD into the future when something good was going to happen.

On the other hand, think of a time when you were just sitting there, doing nothing, with NOTHING to look forward to.

Quite a different experience!

It seems an easy conclusion that so long as you are in the process of changing something towards a better future, one that is largely in your control, happiness is a natural by product.

The good news is that ANYTHING will work. So long as you are taking some kind of action every single day, that isn’t just a pastime in and of itself, but something toward a goal YOU have chosen, you’ll be much more likely to be happy.

One thing can do is some mental exercises.

Since your brain, and the quality of your thoughts, is a PRIME INGREDIENT in anything you’ll be building in this life, working on your noggin seems to be a good choice.

Some daily practice will give you that feeling of forward momentum, enough so that when you look a year or two into your future, you’ll have a deep and real feeling that it WILL be awesome.

Get Started:

Intelligence Accelerator

Big Picture

Simple Steps – Huge Results

A lot of famous statements are taken out of context.

Like the famous one from Shakespeare where one of his character said, “kill all the lawyers.”

Many people use that today as prove that lawyers are evil, and always have been.

But the context of how it was used was the opposite. The character was talking about how to destroy a society.

Since civilized society is based on laws, if you kill all the lawyers, they’ll be nobody left who understand the law, and society will descend into chaos.

Another famous saying that is often misunderstood is PT Barnum’s, “There’s a sucker born every minute.”

Most people attribute this to people who are taking advantage of poor innocent people like pensioners and old ladies.

But the whole context of the statement is there’s a sucker born every minute, because each sucker is trying to further take advantage of others.

Meaning the easiest people to take advantage are those who are always trying to take advantage of others, or looking at some “shortcut” so they can get the good stuff without having to do the work that “honest people” need to do.

Get rich quick, lose fifty pounds in one week, make money in real estate with no money down, etc.

But there ARE some simple statements, easy to understand, that DO tell us eternal truths.

And these same statements and simple stories have been around for thousands of years.

Aesop’s fables are one such source.

Taking on the attitude of the turtle will generally help you, in the long run, more than the rabbit.

Sure, we all want to race ahead and get the good stuff before everybody else.

But while some people are busily chasing each and every shiny new object, or jumping on each and every fad, there’s also people like the turtle who are slowly and steadily going after some HUGE goals.

And getting a little bit closer every day.

If you set HUGE goals, WAY out there, and make thinking about them part of your daily life, you will have purpose.

You’ll never feel lost. You’ll always believe there’s SOMETHING you can do to get closer.

One thing you can do to make ANY goal easier to achieve is improve how you think.

Just like doing general physical exercises will help you in any sport.

Working on your brain will help you in ALL areas of life.

The sum total of your life is the result of your daily habits and behaviors.

Your daily habits and behaviors are based on the quality of your thinking.

Change how well you think, change everything.

Get Started:

Intelligence Accelerator

Learn To Say No

Freedom From Mental Prison

If you watch old Samurai movies, or old Chinese Kung Fu movies, you may notice that some of the dudes have interesting hair-do’s.

The tops of their heads are bald, but they’ve got these pony tails in back.

Turns out that one of the old emperors decreed that EVERYBODY has to cut their hair like that.

To show their allegiance or something.

All the men went, “Ok!”

But all the women said, “Um, no.”

I remember when I was a kid. In The U.S. they tried desperately to get everybody to start using the metric system.

But most people said, “Um, no.”

There’s a famous story that happened during WWI, between the Brits and the Germans.

It’s pretty complicated, involving theories of human altruism, “tit for tat” behavior, but the gist of it is pretty fascinating.

You had Brits on one side, Germans on the other. They had “learned” without speaking to each other to “pretend” to shoot at each other.

The Germans would blast some trees to the right of the Brits, and the Brits would reciprocate.

Everybody was happy, nobody was getting killed.

Basically the leaders of each country told the young men to go and kill each other.

And the young men figured out a way to say, “Um, no.”

Of course, once the dudes in charge found out, they put everybody on rotation, so they wouldn’t “learn” to “not kill” each other.

And shoot at each other like obedient soldiers!

Truth is that no matter who you are, where you are, what you’re doing, there’s always going to be some dude in charge who wants to tell you what to do.

And it’s up to YOU to accept it, and do it, or say, “Um, no.”

Of course, this can lead to serious trouble. It helps to understand WHY you are doing things, even if you’re being told to do them by other people.

Nobody wants “The Man” coming down on the for disobedience!

One way to not feel so “trapped” even when we HAVE TO do what we’re told, is to always have plenty of ways to look at things.

Plenty of people have died throughout history in POW camps. Most thought it was a horrible experience.

Others found a way to find freedom even there.

The more control you have over your mind, the more control you’ll have over your life.

If you control your mind, and your thoughts COMPLETELY, there’s not much others can do to rain on your parade.

Luckily, there’re plenty of practice exercises to help you strengthen your mind.

Giving you a MASSIVE advantage, one that only YOU know about.

Get Started:

Intelligence Accelerator

Know Where To Tighten

What Life Are You Building?

You’ve heard the joke about the plumber, right?

Guy calls a plumber about a leaky pipe in the basement.

Plumber comes, wanders around in the basement for an hour.

Just looking. Then finally he pulls out a wrench, and tightens in one spot.

The leak stops.

The bill was $100. The homeowner was shocked.

Why so much?

All you did was looking around for an hour, and then spend one second tightening something.

The plumber responds, “Five bucks for looking around, ninety five bucks for knowing where to tighten.”

Maybe you’re familiar with the straw that broke the camel’s back?

Now, is it really that ONE straw?

Meaning if the camel was happily walking down the street, with NO straw on it’s back, and that one super magical piece of straw landed on him, would it STILL break his back?

Of course not.

Every piece of straw was JUST as important.

Of course, there’s going to be ONE that puts it over the edge.

Like ONE snowflake is all it takes to start an avalanche, right?

Not really. You also need a crapload of snow piled up in the right configuration.

This is one of the problems with having a conscious mind.

We tend to miss out A LOT of what’s going on.

We see some waitress or waiter get “discovered” and become a famous actor overnight.

What we DON’T see is that same person has been visualizing, dreaming, and actually PRACTICING their whole adult lives.

So when an opportunity comes, they pounce on it.

They are READY.

If you don’t get this, you risk not doing ANY preparation, so when “opportunity” comes you get passed by.

And you wonder why OTHER people are lucky!

Part of “getting lucky” is making yourself READY for opportunities.

Figuring out what you want, and practicing.

At the VERY LEAST you should have three or four LIFE GOALS that you think about once or twice every day.

Hopefully spend some time journaling on.

And if you’re REALLY serious about getting them, you actually DO THINGS on a daily basis that will keep getting you closer.

Life is, after all, a journey.

Not a destination.

Journey’s take time.

Sometimes you get lost.

Sometimes you have to backtrack.

Sometimes you find wonderful things, people and experiences you’ve never heard of before.

But so long as you keep moving forward, you’ll keep getting closer.

You certainly WON’T get closer if you’re waiting for somebody else to tell you what to do, or “discover” you, or “make it easy” for you.

What you DO on a daily basis will slowly ADD UP to your life.

What kind of life are you building?

Your brain is your most precious asset. No matter how smart, insightful, creative you are, you can ALWAYS get better.

Which means you’ll ALWAYS increase your ability to prepare, find and capitalize on opportunities.

Learn More:

Intelligence Accelerator

Trial and Error Is Necessary

The Positive Feedback Life Loop

When I was a kid I loved science.

I even had a subscription to Science Digest when I was in junior high school.

I read all kinds of books on Quantum Physics.

Of course, they had all the math stripped out, and only had the easy to understand concepts.

When I got to college, and had to start studying REAL science, it was pretty difficult.

Once you put the math in, it gets less “entertaining” and more work.

But without the “work” it really IS only entertainment.

But once you “do” the “work,” and you start to understand how things REALLY work, then you can USE science, rather than merely appreciate it.

If nobody ever took the time, the MASSIVE amount of trial and error that goes into scientific research and discovery, we wouldn’t have much stuff. No medicine, worldwide instant communication, air travel, microwaveable cheeseburgers.

This happens on a global scale, and this happens on a personal scale.

The more you understand, the easier it is to interact with the world and get what you want.

Most people are too scared, too worried, and want to be told what to do.

Since there are a LOT of people waiting around to be told what to do, and few people who not only KNOW what to do, and are willing to tell others, most people end up not getting much.

However, the good news is that it’s really easy to get out there and start figuring it out.

In fact, built into your brain is a super learner. Now, most people misunderstand this to be a “super undertander. Meaning if you say the magic words or listen to the right mix of sounds you’ll suddenly be blessed with universal understanding.

Doesn’t really work that way.

If it did, we really wouldn’t need our bodies. We’d just be this big brained creatures that sit around all day and understand stuff.

Because you have BOTH a brain AND a body, you need to use them both.

Use your body to get out and interact with others. Enjoy the world through your senses.

Use your brain to keep getting better each and every time.

That’s what learning is. Action, review, understanding, more action.

But if you don’t take action, and you aren’t OPEN to the feedback, you won’t learn.

Once you kick off this feedback loop, and see how easy it is to get better and better, you’ll wonder why you didn’t get started much earlier.

If you want to learn TONS of easy exercises to accelerate the process, check this out:

Intelligence Accelerator

Think Outside The Box

Think Outside Your Head

I saw this funny video the other day.

The kind where you want to use as few brain cells as possible.

It was this dog, who had this box. The way he was holding the box, was all he could see was the inside of the box.

So he kept walking around in circles, bumping into things.

Because he was a dog, and not an astrophysicist, he didn’t think to put the box down, take a look around, and then choose another strategy.

There are lots of videos like that. Cats, dogs, all acting goofy.

But we humans, who often times fancy ourselves as superheroes of logic and scientific thinking, don’t often do much better.

Sure, we convince ourselves that we’re giving it our best shot, but most of the time, we’re like that poor dog.

Crashing into things, but we just back up a bit, and then crash into them again.

Naturally, it can be tough to tell if you’re really doing the same thing or not.

Because humans, we’re doing things a little bit more complicated than walking with a box in our mouths.

We’re interacting with other humans, or other complicated systems.

And as the saying goes, “you can’t step in the same river twice,” every time we interact with the system, even if we ARE blinding doing the same thing over and over, the SYSTEM is changing, so it actually is possible to get a different result.

In the short term, this is pretty good. Just back up, try again and keep going until you get it right.

But every time you succeed with this strategy, it actually reinforces the idea of doing the same thing over and over.

Short term, pretty good. Long term, not so good.

A lot of times it’s better to simply try something different. Sometimes a little different, sometimes a LOT different.

This can be frustrating. Because once you change something, you’ll feel a little uncomfortable.

And when you feel uncomfortable, you’ll be much more sensitive to things that “seem” like failure, but are really feedback.

Or you’ll more likely to “interpret” feedback AS failure, rather than feedback.

One way make this a LOT easier is to simply expand your thinking.

Learn to think in different ways, so you’ll see things differently.

Then taking different action will seem a lot easier.

Kind of like discovering a new route to work that’s quicker and easier.

You aren’t driving around blindly hoping to find a new way, you’re using your enhanced thinking skills to FIND a new way so you don’t have to stumble around.

The more you work on your mental skills, the easier it will be to “try on” different behavioral skills, you’ll be able to get a lot more cool stuff.

(Or meet more people or make more money or whatever you want.)

Learn How:
Intelligence Accelerator

Are You Stuck In A Rut?

Maximize Your Greatest Gift

It’s easy to get stuck in a rut.

Sure, it’s pretty safe, which is why they happen.

In fact, the “rut” itself is a metaphor for the grooves that build up in a road where carts go over the same path over and over.

If you are a big civilization, these are very, very helpful.

If you tried to take your cart through a bunch of bushes every day, you wouldn’t get very far.

Societies in general are built on the idea of trade and exchange.

Everybody builds, makes or grows whatever they can, meet in a central place to trade.

Around these central areas cities grow.

And two and from these cities are roads, many of which are made solely by many people going back and forth over them again and again.

Building those “ruts” which make pulling your cart easy.

But it also keeps you from going other places.

Off the “beaten path.”

Now, just doing things differently for the sake of doings different is pretty silly.

But if you have an inkling that maybe there’s something BETTER out there, then you HAVE to try something different.

If life were exactly the same, every single day, it would be REALLY boring.

Imagine if you watched the very same episodes of the very same TV shows every day.

Which brings up another point.

Most of us “outsource” our “doing things differently.”

We go to the same job, come home to the same house, eat the same food. Talk about the same things. The only thing different (for a LOT of people) is what’s on TV that night.

Since TV entertainment is meant to dull your senses, it’s not the best brain food.

What IS the best brain food?

Actually DOING things differently.

Go to the same restaurant, but order something different.

Take a different route to work. Cook something completely different for dinner.

Take up a new hobby.

ANYTHING.

If you make a habit of actually DOING something different a few times a week, you’ll develop incredible flexibility of mind.

You’ll think more outside the box, look at things differently (and much more resourcefully) and feel a lot less “stuck” in many situations.

There are plenty of EASY exercises you can do on a daily basis, without ever leaving your house, that will get the same effect.

When you start to go exploring inside your brain, you’ll discover the VASTNESS that most people take for granted, and therefore NEVER use.

What about you?

Are you willing to put in a few minutes a day to MAXIMIZE your greatest gift?

Get Started:

Intelligence Accelerator