Monthly Archives: February 2016

How To Jump Over A Tree

Jump Over A Tree

When I was a kid I was insanely curious.

As most kids are.

I broke a lot of stuff, just trying to figure out how it worked.

Being curious is a good trait to have.

But, you may say, “curiosity killed the cat!”

Sure, you can be TOO curious. Meaning you don’t know when to quit.

I ran into a morbid website the other day. Pictures of people just before they died.

How did they die?

By taking selfies.

In really messed up places.

It’s important to take risks. But if you take the WRONG risks, or too many risks, then you will end up dead sooner than you should be.

However, many people tend to take TOO FEW risks.

And that is the worst risk of all. Because if you are too risk averse, you’ll end up being USED by other people, or at least by circumstances.

Because if you NEVER take a risk, and ALWAYS play it safe, you’ll largely be dependent on others, or society, or the government, or the gods, or luck.

But the good news is that it’s pretty IMPOSSIBLE to take action, without a little bit of risk.

Nothing you do is certain. If anything WERE certain, that would mean you could predict the future.

And nobody can do that.

The trick (or skill if you prefer) is to always look for BALANCE.

The right amount of risk, balanced with the right amount of caution.

The right amount of curiosity, with the right amount of awareness.

It’s easy to get “stuck” in extreme view points.

But the magic is in the middle. Where the balance is.

Where you’re on the edge of your current level of skill. When you’re just straddling the outside edges of your comfort zone.

Not hiding in the middle, nor blasting away without a second thought. But slowly, carefully and courageously expanding it.

Once upon a time there was a kid, who wanted to become the best jumper in the world.

So he asked his local martial arts guru what to do. The guru planted a little sapling.

And said, “Every day, jump over this.” And left.

He came back ten years later, and that “kid” was now leaping over a huge oak tree.

All you’ve got to do is choose SOMETHING. Something small. Half risky, half safe. Half curiosity, half knowing.

And SLOWLY push out the limits of what you can do.

If you did that with your brain, imagine the life you could be building.

Instead of waiting around hoping for something to “happen,” like most people do.

Get Started:

Intelligence Accelerator

Peanut Butter Chocolate Love

The Danger Of Safety

When I was a kid one of my favorite commercials was for Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups.

If you’ve never eaten them, it’s chocolate with peanut butter inside.

The commercial has two people, a guy and a girl, walking down two sidewalks.

The girl is eating chocolate as she walks.

The guy is eating peanut butter. From the jar. As he’s walking down the street.

Seriously.

Then they both come around the corner, and crash into each other.

You got chocolate in my peanut butter!

You got peanut butter in my chocolate!

BOOM! A new candy was discovered.

Funny commercial, but many inventions and discoveries are created this way.

You’re trying something, you make a mistake, but then you learn something new that you NEVER would have thought of before.

Maybe you make a wrong turn, go into a strange neighborhood, go into a 7-11 to get a slurpee, and meet your dream lover.

All kinds of inventions, simple ones, that we take for granted, were invented by accident.

During the space race to the moon, all kinds of things were invented, because there was a NEED that wasn’t there before.

One of the drawbacks of having a conscious mind is that we think we need to plan and predict everything.

If we don’t know all the steps, we’re afraid to move forward.

Sure, it’s good to look before you leap, but you’ve still got to leap!

The saying isn’t “look before you take safe baby steps!”

Your brain is an incredible tool. Once you’re moving forward, UNSURE of what’s going on, that’s when your brain starts humming.

Like a chainsaw running at HIGH RPMs. That’s when your most efficient.

Not when you’re carefully moving forward and making ultra sure that everything works out according to plan.

Think of all the people that moved from the East Coast to the West Coast during the California gold rush.

Think they would have made the trip if they KNEW exactly what was going to happen?

The entire planet was populated by people who just kept moving forward, UNSURE of what they were going to find over the next hill.

Only that they’d figure it out when they got there.

Imagine if humans NEVER developed that ability!

We’d still be chasing after zebras for dinner!

Luckily, your brain is ALREADY pre-wired for you to be an explorer. An adventurer. A discoverer of new ideas and inventions.

Fire up your most valuable asset, and get out there!

Learn More:

Intelligence Accelerator

Admit Your Cluelessness

Accept Cluelessness

One movie I particularly like is, “Shooter,” with Mark Walhberg.

It is about an ex-sniper who is hired to reverse engineer what they say is an attempt on the president.

But it turns out to be some big conspiracy, with all kinds of cool plot twists.

There’s one scene that’s one my movie favorites.

The main character and his sidekick go and visit this old guy. He’s the archetype of the old wise character who’s been around, knows all about everybody’s dirty laundry, etc.

One line he says has ALWAYS stuck with me, after he goes on and on about how deep government conspiracies run.

“Just when you think you know, you’re wrong!”

Meaning we humans are good at convincing ourselves we know things. When we are really pretty clueless.

If you want to do an experiment, ask a bunch of people a difficult questions. One that HAS an answer, but one that most people don’t really know.

You’ll find that most people will have a hard time looking you dead in the eye and saying, “I really don’t know.”

What many people do is try to come up with an answer that “sounds” good. So we look like we know what we’re talking about.

But the secret is accepting that you DON’T know, or you COULD be wrong is the best thing ever.

Because it will OPEN your mind to NEW ideas, thoughts, models of the world, ways of looking at things.

One of the maxims from NLP is that whoever is most flexible will prevail.

If you have a flexible mindset, and can look at things in many different ways, you’ll generally be much more resourceful than people who need to be “right” all the time.

The natural way of learning (not sitting in school) is frustration, then curiosity, then exploration, then testing, then knowledge.

You are frustrated because you want something or you can’t do something. This leads to becoming curious about how you can get it. Then you start to take action, trying different things. Then you get feedback, and pretty soon you can get what you want.

Until this process starts all over again. The more you go through this, the more you’ll learn. The more you’ll learn, the more you’ll be able to get.

If you need to KNOW the TRUTH all the time, you’re stuck. Since you KNOW, there’s no reason to EXPLORE. To find out. To grow. To improve.

Knowledge in and of itself can be pretty boring.

Continuously searching for NEW knowledge is what life is all about.

Get Started:

Intelligence Accelerator

Whole Brain Myth

Do You Want To Use Your Whole Brain?

When I was in High School, I loved reading the Far Side.

It was still published every day, and it was before those books became popular.

If you aren’t familiar, it was usually one goofy picture with a small caption.

Like a scientist who invented a device to understand what dogs were really saying.

And it had a picture with a dog, saying, “Hey! Hey! Hey!…”

Or one where a guy standing in front of an elevator that just opened. And in the elevator was a mama bear, and her cub. Only the only spot the guy could walk into was between them.

There was another one of two scientists in this laboratory, looking at another scientist, who was writing all kinds of complicated equations on the board. One scientist says to the other,

“I wish I could be more like him, he uses 50% of his brain!”

Of course, the idea that we only use 10% of our brain is not really true.

Sure, we never use all it at the same time. But that’s like our body. Sometimes we’re walking. Sometimes we’re sitting. Sometimes we’re using only our fingers. But we don’t say “humans only use 10% of our bodies” because that’s clearly ridiculous.

In fact, if you want to get a REAL workout, try doing some four-count-burpies. This is an exercise that uses a LOT of your muscles, and chances are you won’t last more than a couple minutes.

But here’s the thing. You CAN strengthen different parts of your bodies. You CAN become a world class juggler for example, and still ONLY USE 10 percent of your body at any given time.

You CAN train to do 1000 pushups in a few months. But you’ll still ONLY be using 10% of your body at any given time.

But so will some super lazy potato chip eater. If they NEVER exercise, they are also using 10% of their body at any given time.

So the question isn’t really, “how can I use more of my brain?” The question is, “How can I identify the parts of my brain that I want to use better, and how can I exercise them so I WILL use them better?”

The first question is, what do you want to do?

Become more creative?

Improve your memory?

Be able to solve problems more quickly?

Boost your general IQ?

You can do all of these, simply by doing the appropriate exercises.

Just like Jack Lalanne became super famous by doing a kajillion pushups, you can become famous by becoming a super genius.

Just start training, and never stop.

Get Started:
Intelligence Accelerator

Change Your Filters

Disprove The Elites

Once upon a time there was a family moving to a new town.

They passed some guy sitting on the side of the road on the way in.

They asked him, “How are the people in this town?”

He replied, “How were they in the last town?”

To which they answered, “Pretty nice.”

And he said, “Well, in this town they’re pretty nice too.”

Another family came by an hour later.

Asked the same question, to which he responded with the same answer.

“How were they in the last town?”

But this new family said, “Mean, dishonest, and shifty.”

And the guy said, “Well, I’m afraid they’re the same in this town.”

Of course, the moral of the story is your perceptions shape your world more than the world shapes your perceptions.

Most people won’t believe it until they see it.

But the secret is to believe it first, and then take action to FIND IT.

It’s not like saying some magic words will change reality.

But changing your filters will change how you view the world, which will HELP YOU so long as you’re willing to get out there and interact with the world to find what you want.

Rarely will somebody plop it into your lap without any effort. Sure, it happens sometimes, but it’s not the best strategy.

Another way to describe this is a “self-fulfilling prophecy.” As you think, so shall you see.

One of the many, many ways this manifests is the idea of intelligence.

“Scientists” for years have been telling us that its “genetic.” So what do they do? They LOOK for genetic proof to verify their theories.

One of the reasons this “meme” continues to exist is that generally speaking, scientists are pretty smart.

So if they PROVE that their “intelligence” is genetic, it’s like they are genetically programmed to be some elite intellectual that can tell us “how it is.”

But what happens if you look for evidence that you can BUILD INTELLIGENCE just like you can build muscles?

If you’re looking for red cars, you’ll find red cars.

If you’re looking for evidence that intelligence can be increased, you’ll find that as well.

Not just intelligence, but creativity. Problem solving. Memory.

All of these are SKILLS. Not gifts only given to the few “elites.”

And just like any other skill, the more you practice, the better you’ll get.

(Just don’t tell the scientists).

Get Started:

Intelligence Accelerator

How To Read Situations

How To Read Situations

I watched this interesting movie the other night.

About this kid that wanted to be a chess superhero.

He idolized Bobby Fisher. It was based on a true story.

He had two teachers. One guy who was a pure academic. Pure theory. Rigorous.

Another teacher played speed chess in the park.

Now, both had their merits. But there was a telling scene.

They were watching the kid playing in some tournament, in the championship match.

They had to watch on closed circuit TV so they wouldn’t be able to give them any advice.

The “street” player knew he won before anybody else did.

Thirteen moves before he actually won.

Being a “street” player, he could “read” the board a lot easier.

Being able to read situations is a HUGE skill to have. One that most people DON’T have.

Most people hang around, something HUGE happens, and they stand their scratching their head.

“Wow. Didn’t see THAT coming!”

One of the biggest coups in modern history came when somebody was able to “read” a situation FASTER than everybody else.

The Battle of Waterloo.

One of the Rothchild’s knew the outcome before everybody else. And leveraged it to the hilt.

Buying all the debt of the Bank of England for PENNIES.

Regardless of whether you care to notice or not, there’s always TONS more going on that most people will EVER realize.

Just below the surface of every conversation. Every interaction.

If you take the time to get out of your head, and simply OBSERVE what’s going on around you, you’ll be able to see a TON of information.

Who’s mad at whom. Who’s interested in whom. Who’s going to go home with whom.

This works in a boardroom as well as in a bar.

Even watching history unfold.

Most people are WILLFULLY ignorant. Too worried to know what’s really going on.

But you don’t HAVE to be.

You can increase your skills of understanding. Of perception. Of awareness.

Be able to read situations like a book. See moves WAY ahead of time.

You’ll be able to fix your relationship before it blows up in your face. You’ll see a problem, and then a second later come up with five or ten different ways to solve it.

You’ll spend your time wondering, rather than worrying. Dreaming rather than fretting.

You’ll look out into your future and see a MASSIVE collection of opportunities, just waiting to happen.

REGARDLESS of what the economy is like.

This is a skill. One that few people have. And it will take time to develop.

Are you willing?

Learn More:

Intelligence Accelerator

How To Increase Your Brain Muscle

Build Your Brain Muscle

What do you see when you are walking down the street and you see guy with MASSIVE muscles?

One thing I like about science is it lets us predict things that USED to be left up to chance.

Imagine you were some hunter gatherer and you had no idea how to grow stuff.

You just knew that some plants grew over here, and others grew over there.

You didn’t know anything about seeds, or soil or water.

Then somebody decided to plant something and wait to see what would happen.

Probably took a while, which is why the agricultural revolution took so long to spread across the planet.

But once people started repeating the process, and doing it over and over, it became less mystical, and more scientific.

This seed in this dirt will yield this tree with this fruit.

Every. Single. Time.

I’m sure you’ve heard the saying any kind of science or technology that is sufficiently above a certain society will be treated like magic.

And those early cavemen probably thought that growing an apple tree was some kind of voodoo.

Of course, now we know EXACTLY how it works. What kind of dirt you need, how much and how often to water, etc.

Meanwhile, back at that bodybuilder.

His muscles are JUST LIKE that apple tree. It’s not that some guys are born with muscles and some aren’t.

It’s just that some MAKE THE DECISION to go the gym, eat the right foods, get the right amount of sleep.

If you did the SAME workout that muscle guy did, you’d get the same results. Not the EXACT same results, but within the constraints of your own genetic makeup, your muscles WOULD get bigger.

This is not magic, this is science.

Same when you see a guy juggling on YouTube. You don’t think, “Wow, he must have some really good juggling genetics to be able to do that!”

Most people simply assume he or she spent a LOT of practicing.

If you spent an HOUR a day practicing to juggle, in six months you could impress people at EVERY PARTY you went to.

Unfortunately, a lot of people think this about intelligence. About creativity. About problem solving skills.

Luckily, they are SKILLS just like any other skill.

You can build your brain JUST AS EASILY as you can build your muscles.

Of course, it’s not magic. But neither is losing weight, or building muscles, or growing apple trees.

You do the RIGHT THINGS in the RIGHT ORDER and you WILL get the same results.

Learn How:

Intelligence Accelerator

The Outside Is Not Always What Is On The Inside

Significantly Reduce Social Anxiety

The other day I was at this burger shop at the mall.

I was going to see a movie, and doing some journaling in the food court.

The picture of the burger looked really enticing.

But then when I got it, I was a little underwhelmed.

A lot of products are like this. Big and fancy on the box, not so much when we open them up.

Other products are the opposite. Like this one hole-in-the-wall, hidden behind some furniture store steakhouse where I used to live.

I didn’t even know it was there until somebody told me.

But the food was AWESOME.

When things BEAT our expectations, we feel like it’s the greatest thing in the world.

But when things fall BELOW our expectations, they are the opposite.

Even if the same thing can be AWESOME if we were expecting it to be crap. Or we’ll think it’s crap if we were expecting it to be awesome.

This is one the reason sales and marketing can be really hit or miss.

Since most of us carry around a vague set of ideas, wants and desires, those that come up with sales slogans are always guessing what’s going to work.

If you’ve ever been in involved in any marketing campaign, you know it’s ALWAYS risky.

Even when talking to somebody one on one, when you’re getting ready to “close” it starts to become nervous time.

Whether you’re asking for the date, asking for the sale, or simply getting ready to recommend a vacation destination for this year’s trip, it can be difficult.

Because we all fear rejection, AND we tend to imagine the worst case scenario on some level.

So when we throw OUR ideas out there, and HOPE they are accepted, it’s pretty nerve racking.

On the other hand, when we know a little bit about the person we are talking to, AND we structure our “proposal” in a way to BEST MATCH their “model of the world,” it won’t be nearly so hard.

That same idea of them having a bunch of vague dreams and desires can be used in our favor.

Just present your ideas so they can “fill in the blanks” with their own details, and YOUR idea will seem a lot more like THEIR idea.

Even talking to people that you’ll never see again will be a lot more fun and rewarding.

And they’ll remember you forever.

Get Started:

Covert Hypnosis

Beat The Numbers Game

How To Beat The Numbers Game

I’ve had a lot of sales jobs.

Some were pretty fun, most were pretty boring.

A lot of what my friend called “junk jobs.”

Meaning they have some kind of gimmick, and they go through hundreds of applicants a week.

They convince you it’s easy to make a killing, but the downside is they’ll ONLY pay based on commissions.

I’ve seen a lot of well thought out scams. Products that aren’t really products, but the guys who came up with these are doing pretty good.

They figure if they “hire” a hundred people a week, they might get a couple to do pretty well.

So from the pure “number theory” angle, they’re getting a couple of “natural salespeople” on a weekly basis.

This means they don’t have to spend any time of training, since they’re not really “training” they are “sorting.”

This “numbers theory” works from a lot of angles. If you’re selling door to door, or picking up girls at the mall, or sending out resumes. So long as you keep your “numbers” high enough on the front end, you’ll eventually get success on the back end.

This requires no skills. No development. Just taking the person you are, right here, right now, and spending a lot of time and effort to find the PERFECT match.

Send out enough resumes, and eventually you’ll find the PERFECT job. Perfect partner. Perfect house, apartment.

Problem comes with the “enough” gets way up into the thousands. Or the tens of thousands.

It also requires taking a good hard look at what you define by “perfect.”

And what you are willing to do to get it.

For example, let’s say you were offered the PERFECT job. But it required you move 3,000 miles away.

In reality, there is no such thing as “perfect.” It’s more like gradients between “really good” and “really lousy.”

So when people are playing the numbers game, they’re looking for something (job, partner, sales, etc.) that’s not perfect, but “good enough.”

It’s hard to admit this to yourself.

But you don’t HAVE to play the numbers game. Or ONLY the numbers game.

To be sure, if you want a decent romantic partner, you ARE going to have to talk to a few people.

But instead of seeing each person as a simple “good enough” or “not good enough,” you can see them (or it or whatever) as a LEARNING OPPORTUNITY.

Every job interviewer that DOESN’T hire you can STILL be fantastic way to improve yourself for the next one.

Every girl or guy that rejects you can be a GREAT WAY to improve your approach next time.

So instead of sorting through as many statistical “numbers” as possible. You can have an unlimited amount of experiences from which you can improve yourself.

How?

Every day, take something that DIDN’T go how you wanted it to.

Then reevaluate what you said. Look at some of the language patterns in Covert Hypnosis.

Then figure out how you COULD HAVE done better.

And then do THAT next time.

Do this, and every single “number” will be YOU increasing your skills.

Get Started:

Covert Hypnosis

Movie Stars

Sneaky Tools Of Manipulation

When I was a kid a read a lot of comic books.

And in the back then they had all kinds of goofy ads for goofy products.

Even though that most of them were clearly fake, part of me wondered.

This is, by the way, one of the reasons copywriters write these MASSIVE claims on their sales page.

So long as they get at least part of you thinking, “Hmm, probably fake, but what if it IS true?”

And then that creates curiosity, which is a powerful buying trigger. Then you buy it just to see, and when you find out it IS fake, you say “Well, I just wanted to see, at least I know…” which means you won’t likely get a refund.

Anyhow, some of the things were “fake” but part of me (especially as a kid) wanted to see, just to see.

(Sea Monkeys come to mind…)

But one of the things I KNEW was fake was “X-Ray Glasses.” Even as a kid, I knew if those really DID exist, they’d be illegal.

As cool as they would be to have.

(Of course, nowadays if you want to see through people’s clothes just go get a job at the TSA…)

But there is kind of a way to see what people are thinking.

In Covert Hypnosis, there are these things called “Linguistic presuppositions.” These when you take an “idea” and hide it within a sentence. To kind of “sneak it” past other person’s conscious mind.

These, of course, are used naturally. By everybody. But they are usually used defensively, and without any thought.

Most people use them to HIDE THINGS they don’t want other people to question.

It allows people to say things without really needing to be responsible for them.

Kind of like when people say, “I’m just going to throw this out there.” It’s kind of a “weak” way to introduce and idea, and take credit for it if everybody likes it, but be able to distance yourself from it if people don’t.

Once you start to study these patterns, you’ll see these EVERYWHERE.

Usually by politicians or news media. Who’d like to make inflammatory comments, but make it sound like they are coming from “somewhere else” so they don’t have to defend saying them.

But these “linguistic presuppositions” are tools. You can use them to covertly slam people and come off as a creepy manipulator.

Or you can use them to covertly uplift people, highlighting their best points, but in a way that doesn’t make them feel “on the spot.”

And come off as a genuine, charismatic person that people LIKE being around, and actively seek out.

To learn how, check this out:

Covert Hypnosis