Monthly Archives: April 2016

How To Generate Momentum

When I was a kid me and a couple friends discovered the secret of making a snowman.

Growing up in an area without snow, we would go on these field trips in elementary school.

If you could find a gentle downward slope, and the right kind of sticky snow, you could get a pretty huge ball.

As soon as we “discovered” this “secret” we started coming up with wild imaginations.

Like making a ball as big as a city, that would roll down and wipe out civilization.

Of course, this metaphor is pretty common.

Not the wiping out the city part, the “snowball effect” part.

Where you put in a lot of effort at the beginning, and then the momentum of the system is enough to keep it going.

You can see it in a lot of places if you’re looking.

Crowd behavior, viral videos and social media posts.

They start slow, but they can multiply very quickly.

But it’s really cool when it happens to you, in a personal way.

Take exercise for example. Most people realize they should do more.

Long time ago, I started jogging. At first, it sucked.

Got tired quickly. Was sore. Shin splints.

I saw it purely as a means to an end. I wanted to shrink my gut. So I figured I’d have to put in work, to get the results.

But once I started getting into shape, something interesting happened.

Instead of seeing the jogging part as “work,” or a means to an end, it became an end in and of itself.

Because I was getting in pretty decent shape, my thoughts could actually wander while I was out jogging.

And for about twenty or thirty minutes every day, I was in a pretty cool state of mind.

That SAME activity turned from a means to an end, into a end to a greater end.

This is the crux of all snowball effects.

When the momentum of the “system” kicks in, and starts to become self-sustaining.

Because we are humans, and we always need to be moving, and eating, and sleeping, we can’t really switch ourselves into autopilot mode.

BUT when the tasks required to build a decent life for yourself (studying, practicing skills, journaling, talking to strangers, speaking in public, etc.) become ENDS instead of MEANS, that’s when the magic happens.

That’s when you start to feel alive. On purpose.

That’s when people will ask you, “man, what drives you?” And you won’t really know.

It will just FEEL right. Good. Natural.

It takes a while to get there, but when you do, there will be NO stopping you.

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How Do YOU Spend Your Day?

We humans have a lot of sayings.

Things that sound true. Things that make us go, “Yeah, that’s right!” When we hear them.

But sometimes we say them and feel them as an excuse to not DO them.

It’s like on one level, we know intuitively what needs to be done, but on another level we wish it were easier.

And for most folks, wishing is easier than doing.

Take the old saying, “Genius is one percent inspiration, and 99 percent perspiration.”

Nobody would disagree with this.

Especially when we have examples of old school inventors toiling in their lab for YEARS before finally coming up with something.

But when it comes to our own lives, we tend to look for shortcuts.

We even counteract that statement with examples where it’s no true. Guys and girls who somehow stumbled onto geniusness, and didn’t really do much except get luck.

However, if you were to go beyond the Hollywood stories, and look into these people’s lives, you’ll see that they indeed struggled for a long time.

Only they didn’t see it as a struggle.

Back in their mind, they KNEW that one day they’d succeed.

This is what they mean when they say you’ve got to “believe in yourself.”

It doesn’t mean believing that you’ll get lucky or win the lottery.

It means believing that those boring, daily tasks you do will pay off eventually.

Even when your friends and family are openly doubting you and talking smack behind your back.

THAT is the perspiration. The daily work that will eventually BUILD UP to your genius breakthrough.

Like the story of the straw that broke the camel’s back.

It wasn’t ONE STRAW that did it. It was every single straw laid on their before, and that one “lucky” straw that got all the credit.

That one “lucky” straw wouldn’t have done crap without the rest of the straws.

Your genius breakthrough or achievement won’t come if you don’t do the work leading up to it.

The daily journaling, the daily practice, the daily drills, the things that aren’t fun, but are necessary.

Are you willing?

Really willing?

If you are, you CAN build anything you want. It takes time. It takes persistence. It takes dedication, and it takes belief.

But just like mixing the right ingredients will give you a cake, every single time, so will the above.

Small daily efforts will add up.

What do YOU do every day?

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Can You Set and Forget Your Life?

A little of something is good, but a lot can be disastrous.

Once when I was a kid I’d make cinnamon toast. Butter, sugar, cinnamon, and put it in a toaster over.

Only I thought I’d try and experiment, and put TONS of cinnamon.

I figured a little was good, a lot would be better, right?

Nope.

Past a certain threshold (in this case the cinnamon to sugar ratio) you go from sweet with a hint of flavor to a bunch of gross buttery goo.

Salt on popcorn, crushed red peppers on pizza, vermouth in a martini, all are similar.

You want JUST the right amount. Not enough or too much. Neither work.

AND everybody has their own unique “levels” they like.

If you made your friends eat pizza with YOUR amount of crushed red peppers, for example, they may never want to eat pizza with you again!

With food, this is pretty easy. Try some, taste it, and you only need a couple tries to dial in your own perfect levels.

But some things are a LOT more complicated.

Take obstacles, for example. If you try something, and have ZERO resistance, it’s a good feeling, but it can also be pretty boring.

If you had a sales job, for example, and EVERYBODY bought from you, it would be great at first. But pretty soon it would be pretty boring. Like sitting at a counter and waiting for people to give you their order, like at a fast food place.

But if you have TOO MUCH resistance, you’ll give up. Not many salespeople will last long if they ALWAYS get rejected, and NEVER get a sale.

You want a balance, enough resistance to keep you own your toes, and paying enough attention to keep improving. But not so much you don’t get a good result every so often.

And like Tabasco sauce on pizza, everybody’s got their own “level.”

But here’s the thing. Unlike hot sauce on pizza, where your “ratios” will be pretty consistent, in life issues, they will always be changing.

Take a beginning sales person. When they start out, they’ll have little confidence. In order to keep going, they need a LOT of positive feedback. But the more experience they get, the more confident they’ll feel, they’ll be able to withstand MORE rejection over time.

Which of course, will push them to INCREASE their skills, thereby LOWERING their rejection.

Not only is those “levels” always changing, but they are always in flux.

If you can embrace this concept, and realize you’ll ALWAYS be fine-tuning your own unique “levels” you can look forward to a life that is CONSISTENTLY getting better.

This isn’t easy, as it’s not “set and forget.”

But it WILL make life much more REWARDING.

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How To Practice Thinking

No matter what you’d like to accomplish, you’ll need skills.

If you want to cook a turkey, you’ll need to understand how to operate an oven.

If you want to get a degree, there’s a lot of ideas and information you’ll need to become comfortable with.

Some skills are very specific, some are general.

Some are things that people don’t realize are skills, since we do them naturally.

Communication is an example.

Since most people know how to “talk” and how to have a conversation, it’s really not seen as a skill, more like an inherent ability.

We tend to think some people are “good” at it, while others aren’t so good.

If you met some guy or gal that was really “good” at talking to people and making them feel good about themselves, you’d just think they were “naturals.”

On the other hand, if you saw some guy on the corner playing the violin really proficiently, you’d assume that he simply spent a lot of time practicing.

Of course, ANYTHING that you do can be improved. Talking, walking, persuading, tell jokes.

But for some reason, we don’t associate “practice” with certain things.

One of these is “thinking.”

We just do it automatically. We don’t even “think” about “thinking” as something we can change. We assume it’s something that just “happens.”

But your thoughts are (or can be) under your control. It just takes practice.

After all, you “become” what you “think about” most of the time.

If you are always thinking about scary stuff, and the worst possible thing that can happen, you won’t likely be super outgoing and adventurous.

On the other hand, if are always wondering what cool things you’re about to discover, you may be more likely to try new things, which will get you a lot different results than the first person.

However, when most people try it “change” the way they think, they do it once, maybe twice.

And when it doesn’t “work” they just figure they can’t “do” that.

But what if you tried to juggle ONCE, and determined you just weren’t a juggler?

What if you sat down at the piano ONCE, and tried a song, and then determined you just can’t play the piano?

What if you decided to go jogging for the first time in your life, and could only make it half a kilometer before you got tired out, and concluded that you just weren’t a “jogger”?

Pretty silly, right?

But that’s what people do when they try and “change” their “thinking.”

They try it once, it doesn’t “work” and they figure it’s all nonsense.

But if you PRACTICE thinking “right thoughts” like you’d practice juggling, or playing the piano, or learning a new instrument, you’d slowly get better.

And in six months or so, your thoughts AND your life, would be completely different.

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Stop Waiting and Start Doing

When you were a little kid, you learned by copying.

And if you’ve ever had kids, or are ever around them, you know they tend to copy whatever you do.

Sometimes it’s cute, sometimes it’s embarrassing.

Even for most of human history, most “learning” came from copying.

If you wanted to learn a trade, for example, you had to find somebody that would let you be their apprentice.

Slowly learn the trade, all the ins and outs, and how to do “it” as well as them.

This forms the basis of NLP modeling.

You find somebody that does what you want to do, and then “model” them, which is basically copy them.

Only you have to copy EVERYTHING.

Their beliefs, attitudes, history, EVERYTHING.

Naturally, the more complicated the skills required, the more difficult it is to copy them.

One thing that you will NEVER get rid of is the NEED to make mistakes.

Because no matter WHO you are modeling, they can’t have achieved any level of success without a SIGNIFICANT amount of trial and error. Or as they say in NLP, “Trial and Feedback.”

Unfortunately, many people like to be told EXACTLY what to do in hopes it will relieve them from making ANY mistakes.

“I’m ready for success! I’m open to receive! Just TELL ME what to do and I’ll do it!”

But they discover the “secret” is to simply keep trying until they get it right, they don’t like this idea so much.

Sure, modeling can help. It can accelerate the process. But being willing to accept any “result” no matter how “good” or “bad” is required for any kind of real success.

Which may be the reason why most people are always looking for the next “big secret.”

They’d rather wait they’re ENTIRE LIVES for somebody to tell them what to do than simply make a move and see what happens.

Sure, this can be terrifying. But also incredibly liberating. As you’ve likely realized from time to time, most of our deepest fears NEVER materialize.

So when you do “wing it” just to “see what happens,” it’s rarely even close to what you feared the most.

And every single time you try something, and accept whatever happens as valuable feedback, you WILL learn something.

Sure, often times you’ll learn what NOT to do, but you’ll also get experience.

And a deep KNOWING that trying and “failing” isn’t so bad.

It can be kind of fun.

So long as you have a clear idea of where you’d like to be EVENTUALLY, and the persistency to keep going no matter what, you’ll not only get there, but have a lot of fun in the meantime.

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Who’s Running Your Show?

There’s a lot of patterns from hypnosis that have made their way into sales.

One of them is the “double bind.”

Milton Erickson, the guy who invented covert hypnosis, and upon which a lot of NLP was based, was famous for this “famous” one.

Somebody would come into his office to be hypnotized.

But since hypnosis requires that you give over control of your mind to some guy you’ve just met, a lot of people are understandably nervous.

So Erickson would say, “Would you rather go into trance in the blue chair or the green chair?

Meaning either choice would end up with him going into a trance.

Salespeople use this a lot. If somebody calls you to make an appointment, they may say, “Which is better for you, Thursday afternoon or Friday evening?” Meaning either choice leads to an appointment, which is what they want.

Sometimes this is called a “false choice.”

You’ll see this crop up in normal life all the time.

One is how humans behave.

We have TONS of instincts that drive our behavior. Take eating for example. No matter what, we have to eat.

But we can choose what we eat, and how much we eat.

Even if you DON’T choose, you’re kind of letting your inner caveman choose for you.

And he or she doesn’t necessarily make the best decisions.

Because your inner caveman can’t really see too far into the future. They can only see what’s right here, right now.

Only conscious practice can you MANAGE all of your instincts, to consciously CREATE a life, rather than going on autopilot.

Even autopilot behavior can be “managed,” but first it must be “created.”

For example, if you ONLY filled your fridge with healthy food, you would no longer need to consciously choose what you ate. You’d just eat whenever you felt like it, but since took the time to PLAN how you’d fulfill your instincts, you’d be better off.

This is just one example, of course.

Think of what you could do if you could successfully manage ALL of your instincts?

One thing everybody has inside them is an “imagination and comparison” machine that is ALWAYS ON.

Meaning that “part” of you is always measuring your current state, and then trying to imagine a better state.

This is why you are always shifting. Always moving. Always have that deep desire.

If you don’t choose HOW you will fulfill your desire, you’re caveman will. Or somebody else will by manipulating that inner caveman.

Back to the double bind.

Are you going to choose, or are you going to let somebody else choose?

Are you going to build your life or let somebody else manipulate you into helping THEM build THEIRS?

Your inner caveman can be your best friend, or your worst enemy.

Which will you choose?

Learn More:
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The Crucial Skill To Master

Scientists, namely physicists, have long been looking for a “grand unification theory.”

One simple, powerful and elegant way to describe all the basic forces of nature.

Governments spend all kinds of cash building supercolliders in hopes of smashing matter into tinier and tinier bits to help explain the nature of “stuff.”

If you can remember any algebra or math, a lot of time is spent on “simplifying” complex expressions into easy to understand ones.

If your test answer was “11/22” you might get less credit than if you put down “1/2” for example.

Our brains went through the same process, and many argue they are still going through that process.

Of becoming more efficient, quicker and able to not waste so much time thinking about stuff.

It’s easier to remember a couple of concepts than a whole bunch of specific details.

If there is ONE simple idea that is an underlying concept in ALL areas of self-development, it is being able to delay gratification.

Some scientists even tell us that our ability to forego current pleasures in order to get more pleasure in the future is one thing that helped us settle down into societies.

Hunter-gathers put in effort today, to get food today.

On the other hand, those that have “discovered” agriculture learn that if you put in a bunch of work THIS MONTH, you’ll get TONS of food a few months from now.

If you think of corn as “wealth” or even “money” the ancient farmers basically discovered how to use “money” to make “money.”

But if you gave a handful to corn to a hunter-gatherer, they would only see food, not a potential to take THAT wealth, and turn it into MORE wealth.

This is IMPOSSIBLE if you aren’t able to delay gratification.

But once you get going, that momentum just keeps getting bigger and bigger, and your yearly success grows greater and greater.

One way to “trick” yourself into being able to do this (or do it better), is take some time and compare a couple of ideas.

The idea of enjoying something NOW, vs. how much you’ll enjoy something in the future MORE if you PUT OFF your NOW enjoyment.

Like take something you’d like to eat, but shouldn’t. First imagine the pleasure you’d get from eating it NOW, then imagine a much bigger pleasure (six pack, loose clothes, compliments, etc.) that you’d get in the future if you DIDN’T eat it.

Take the time to BUILD UP that “future pleasure” until it is more compelling than the “now pleasure.”

This will take time, as it is a skill, rather than a “weird trick.”

And the more you practice, the better you’ll get.

The pretty cool thing about the SKILL of delayed gratification, is it WILL start to show up in other areas of your life.

Making it easier to build a HUGE future for yourself.

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Claim The World As Yours

I used to have this weird freezer.

It was at the perfect temperature for a cool effect.

If I put an opened bottle of water in there, it wouldn’t freeze.

But as soon as I took it out, and twisted off the cop, it would freeze in about a second.

It was right at the “phase transition” temperature of liquid to solid.

All it needed was a little air, and movement, and instant ice.

Phase transitions happen a lot. Not just in matter (gas to liquid, liquid to solid, etc.) but in different levels of complexity.

For example, when you move from the stage of “conscious competence” to “unconscious competence.”

When something you’ve been studying or practicing for a long time drops down into your subconscious.

On a conscious level, it feels like magic.

This was the secret of both “Karate Kid” movies.

He trained a boringly repetitive skill until it became automatic.

If you’ve ever learned an instrument, it’s a pretty good feeling.

You’ve been practicing, with a LOT of frustration, and then you finally “get it.”

You can play the piece “by heart” without needing to think.

The trouble with most things we would like to accomplish in life is they require a certain degree of skill.

And those skills take practice.

They aren’t instant.

Only in our world of “instant gratification” things are often taught AS IF we really CAN learn them instantly.

Especially in the world of “self development.” There are TONS of books that give you certain “ideas” or different “frames” or “models.” But unless you PRACTICE those ideas or frames or models, it’s really not that different than reading a book on how to play the piano, without ever really practicing.

This is good news. Because all it takes is a few minutes of daily practice.

You won’t become a super-genius overnight, (at whatever skill you’d like) but it WILL happen, so long as you are persistent.

Unfortunately, most people are NOT persistent. They try once, maybe twice, and then give up.

World class athletes and musicians KNOW that the TRUE SECRET of mastering ANYTHING is daily practice.

Not when it’s convenient, or when you feel like it.

But every single day.

Whatever skills you’d like, to create WHATEVER you’d like ARE within your grasp.

So long as you are willing to do what it takes.

Ten, twenty minutes a day, and the world is yours.

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Maximize Your DNA

Once I went on this backpacking trip with a couple buddies.

We went from one end of Scotland to the other, and went to a bunch of distilleries along the way.

Most of the time we stayed in pretty rural areas, but every once in a while we’d walk through a city.

We each had HUGE backpacks filled with all kinds of junk.

Once we were walking down the sidewalk of a relatively large city, and some guy hanging out said:

“There goes the snail, carrying his house on his back.”

Which I thought was pretty funny. Because when you carry so much junk around, you tend to walk pretty slow.

The funny thing about snails is they always tend to look for the same type of shells.

Scientists call this an “Extended Phenotype.” A phenotype is your physical appearance, compared to your genotype which is the makeup of your genes.

An extended phenotype is the idea that some creatures build up their “bodies” by transforming the world around them.

Beavers building damns, for example.

A lot of things we think of as “choice” are really genetically programmed into us.

At first, this sounds like bad news. Meaning if all we are is a collection of genes, our choice and free will don’t have much say in the matter.

The thing about us humans thought is ON TOP of our all genetically programmed instincts is MASSIVE FLEXIBILITY.

Think of it this way. Say you were walking down the street, and you saw a dollar (or whatever money they use in your country). You’d AUTOMATICALLY pick it up, right?

Now, how long do you think it would take to LEARN a new money, say if you were on vacation or something.

Meaning how long would it take before you had the same reaction upon seeing the DIFFERENT type of money?

Not long!

Another thing that you have PRE-PROGRAMMED into you (which almost nobody takes advantage of) is your goal seeking ability.

Every single action you take is to achieve an outcome. Even if you are flipping channels on TV, each time you push the button, you are HOPING to increase your level of pleasure. Humans are ALWAYS looking out into the future and trying to ACHIEVE a better state.

You CANNOT NOT do this.

But when it comes to CONSCIOUSLY choosing that better state, most people don’t know how.

They make wishes, they hope for magic, they wait until tomorrow, or whatever other excuse pops in their brains.

But when you make efforts to take your GENETICALLY PROGRAMMED goal seeking behavior, and layer some consciously chosen goals on top of it, THAT is what a fully engaged life feels like.

That’s when you start to fully realize your potential as a human.

Choose what you want, and get started:

Mind Persuasion Ebooks

Stop Being A Ping Pong Ball

I saw this interesting “magic” trick online the other day.

It showed four cards, and you had to choose one.

And then think about it and click the button.

The trick was the card you were focused on would be gone on the next screen.

And it was!

But the trick was that ALL FOUR cards were different.

Because they were all face cards, and a mix of suits, the only way you would not be fooled would be if you memorized ALL the cards.

But since the instructions said to pick ONE, most people don’t even notice the other cards.

So when four new face cards are shown, all mixed, and all different, it looks magical, because the others “look” the same.

Scientists tell us our brains run off largely cache-like memory. Meaning in order to save brain processing time and energy, we only “guess” what’s “out there” and come up with a memory based on what we “think” is there.

Clearly, this can be a HUGE disadvantage.

Especially when talking about the many deep nuances of communication.

You think you are being clear, but the other person completely misunderstands you. Later on, you “assume” they “knew” what you meant, but they “assume” you meant something else.

BOOM!

On the other hand, magic tricks, movies, optical illusions, even silly jokes wouldn’t work if our brains were super accurate like a Vulcan.

But it’s also so easy why we tend to believe stuff that CAN’T be true.

So many “ideas” out there are contradictory, most of them HAVE to be wrong!

The good news is that because “meaning” itself is so slippery, you can CHOOSE what you want things to mean.

This is a lot easier if you have a solid PLAN for your life.

You already have tons of preprogrammed desires. Sex, money, safety, shelter, companionship, a certain amount of social status and recognition.

But unless you take the time to SPEFICIFY what these mean to you, and HOW you are going to achieve them, it’s easier to get knocked around like a ping-pong ball in a typhoon.

Just doing this (choosing specific goals and how you’re going to achieve them) is a feat unto itself. It’s not easy, and it requires a lot of introspection.

Which is why most people don’t really take the time to do this.

Sure, everybody has WISHES. These are usually dependent on the wish-fairy showing up and giving you a magic bag of stuff.

You’ll be surprised that once you get going on the process of creating and manifesting your goals.

Because the process itself is what LIFE is all about.

Not to be a ping pong ball, but to be a person of PURPOSE.

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