Author Archives: mindpersuasion

Brain Bombs Blasting Beautifully

Embrace The Rabbit Hole

The idea of a rabbit hole comes from Alice in Wonderland.

She went down, following an actual rabbit, and had a pretty messed up adventure.

So when somebody describes something as a “rabbit hole” or “going down the rabbit hole” they mean getting involved with something that keeps getting more and more confusing.

It’s generally associated with conspiracy theories, or some kind of “hidden truth” that is continually revealed.

Recently, (last decade or so) the “Red Pill” has been used to describe understanding the “complexity” of this “Rabbit Hole.”

(Interesting that both metaphors originated from the same source)

But the thing about “rabbit holes” and “red pills” is that don’t HAVE to be associated with any kind of “evil conspiracy.”

It certainly FEELS GOOD to think you “understand” the way things really are.

But consider this.

Reality itself is something we can NEVER understand.

Not even partially.

The more PURE science you study, the more you’ll realize that we humans don’t know much.

The limit of human understand has been described as the shoreline of an island.

The bigger our understanding gets, the more we realize that there is a MASSIVE ocean out there MUCH BIGGER than our “shoreline” can EVER get.

Which makes the idea of a “red pill” rather silly.

Since it’s IMPOSSIBLE to understand the way things REALLY are.

Ever.

The truth is that NOBODY understands the way things really are.

If we did, we’d never have to GUESS whether or not to carry an umbrella with us when we lave.

If we did, investing would be SIMPLE.

And sports would be BORING since we could predict the outcome.

In fact, sports wouldn’t even EXIST.

What would be the point?

Luckily, there will ALWAYS be a degree of uncertainty.

And luckily, the RABBIT HOLE will ALWAYS be there for us.

No matter how far we are willing to go, the rabbit hole will accommodate us.

It’s up to YOU which direction you want YOUR rabbit hole to go.

Down into confusion, goofy mirrors and red queens running on treadmills?

Or up into continued exploration and understanding, where your knowledge, skills and appreciation of LIFE can continue to EXPAND?

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Keep Your Focus

Compartmentalized Efficiency

Some people like to keep everything in their life compartmentalized.

Other people allow for plenty of spillover.

For example, if you absolutely HATE the idea of taking any work home with you, then you have a rock solid boundary between your work and home life.

On the other hand, you might prefer doing stuff at home, rather than work, because home is more productive.

Then there are folks who work from home, so home and work is the same.

The same table upon which they build their empire is the same table they make a pizza on a couple hours later.

Hobbies, work, social life, dating life, neighborhood groups, all are areas that can either overlap, or be separate.

Some people are so careful about compartmentalization that they don’t like the ice cream to touch the cake or the peas the carrots.

But as humans, we also have a drive to be efficient.

If you had to take a bunch of glasses from your living room into the kitchen, you’d naturally pick up as many as you could carry.

It would be silly to make a separate trip for each glass.

The more efficient you can be, the more time and energy you can save.

Of course, everybody has their own “set point,” or balance between how much compartmentalization they have, and how much efficiency.

One way to approach this is how you view your hobbies.

If they are PURELY “pastimes” then their only purpose is to make the time go by quicker.

On the other hand, they could be VERY PRODUCTIVE.

And if you can ENJOY these hobbies as much as they benefit your skills, then you’ve found an easy path to continual improvement.

If you don’t already do so, consider the hobby of “lifelong learning.”

Meaning try to some find something that would be interesting to learn, interesting enough so you would enjoy doing it, and would also improve your skills in some area.

Fortunately, there are TONS of online learning systems, courses, videos etc.

Which allows you to be able to learn pretty much anything.

And if you also “learn how to learn” this will rapidly accelerate your progress.

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Look Into The Future

Discover Your Inner Vastness

In mathematics, there are two kinds of progressions.

Linear and geometric.

Linear (or arithmetic) progressions are series of numbers that increase in the same interval.

If you graphed them, they would go up in a straight line.

On the other hand, geometric progressions increase in the same proportion.

They go up a lot quicker.

The MORE they go up, the MORE they go up.

Your muscles can be thought of as arithmetically increasing in size and strength, up to a certain limit.

Meaning if you started doing pushups, the amount of pushups that you could do each day would go up in more or less a straight line.

Maybe you’d do ten, then twenty, then thirty, etc.

And once you got to an upper limit (maybe a couple hundred or even a thousand if you were a professional pushup athlete) the increases would level off.

Your brain, on the other hand, or rather the information IN your brain, can go up without any limits.

Sure, there ARE limits, but they are not based on the configuration of your brain.

You’ve only got so much time in the day, you need to do other things, (sleep, eat, take showers, etc), AND your life (at least this one) has a finite number of days.

But even if you were rich, you could afford a massive and continuously updating library of information (as well as professional tutors) your brain would NEVER get full.

This means no matter HOW MUCH you learn through the course of your life, you will always UNDER-UTILIZE your brain.

Most people don’t learn ANYTHING after school, except how to use the latest app, or the bare minimum to do at work and still get paid.

This is like having the world’s most powerful super computer ALL TO YOURSELF and using it to watch cat videos on YouTube.

Just like doing more pushups will help you do more pushups, learning will help you learn.

Especially when you step back and learn HOW to learn more effectively.

Even if you’re totally happy with your life, and see learning new things as a HOBBY, it will make life FEEL much more rewarding.

Because once you REALLY understand just how VAST your mind is, you will ALWAYS feel like you’re on the edge of a great discovery.

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Circular Loops of Passion

The Best Loop of All

Feedback loops can be pretty cool.

They can also suck.

If you’re in a “good” feedback loop, life seems awesome.

Whatever you do works, which boosts your confidence, which makes it easier to take risks, which work (because you’re confident and operating more efficiently), which boost your confidence, etc.

On the other hand, it can be horrible to be trapped in a negative loop.

Whatever you try doesn’t work, which KILLS your confidence, which makes you less likely to succeed next time, which makes your confidence drop even lower.

How do you move from a negative loop to a positive loop?

Take a break, clear your head, do something different.

Even professional athletes need to be taken out of the game from time to time to kill a slump.

The best feedback loops happen when every success makes MORE success MORE likely.

This tend to stay intact for a while.

But they can also take the longest to get going.

An exercise program is an example.

If you haven’t exercised in a while, getting started can be tough.

But if you stick to it, you’ll reach a “tipping point” where the IMMEDIATE benefit (rather than the expected long term benefit) is greater than the amount of willpower you need.

This is when you get to the point where you can’t NOT exercise.

It’s become part of who you are.

You can think of your brain the same way.

If you’re stuck in a “lazy” rut, where all you do with your gray matter is pass the time (TV, video games, social media, etc) then it be tough to break out of.

But when you reach a “mental” tipping point where learning things, reading non-fiction, etc., give you MORE pleasure than what you USED to do (TV, video games, etc) then you’ve found the BEST positive loop there is.

If you’re getting in shape, there’s really only so much you can do.

If you were a runner, for example, once you got down to 4-5 minute miles that would be it.

But with your brain, the are NO limits.

Which means if you become somebody who has a HOBBY or even a PASTTIME of learning, you’ll NEVER run out of interesting things to do.
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Get Her Dreaming Of You

Make Music For Her Feelings

If everybody can do something, that something is not worth a lot.

The economics of supply and demand is pretty simple.

If there is a HUGE supply, then the cost is going to be cheap.

Meaning if your only skill is unpacking boxes and putting stuff on shelves, you won’t be worth much to any employer.

Sad, but harshly true.

The world of dating works the same way.

Think of all the girls you know.

Chances are you can easily arrange them into a hierarchy.

The ones at the top are in the most demand.

It’s the same with us guys. When girls think of us, WE are also arranged in a hierarchy.

The guys at the top are in the most demand.

For girls, being at the top means being genetically blessed with beauty.

What about guys?

Fortunately, for us it’s a lot less about looks.

It’s about how she FEELS when she interacts with us.

For guys, it’s still about FEELINGS, but those feelings are what we feel when we LOOK at her.

But for girls, they need to interact with us for a while.

This means it’s largely based on how we TALK to her.

The things we can do to her with our words.

And not just the words, but how we say them.

Most guys don’t have much of a clue.

They try a few things, and hope for the best.

That would be like picking up a violin and randomly playing strings, and hoping music comes out.

Usually it doesn’t work.

But if you have some music, and some instructions on how to play, you can make some pretty sweet sounds.

And since most guys are too lazy to learn, you’ll be the only one making beautiful music while every other goof sounds like a dying cat.

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Boom

Is Your Compass Broken?

When I was in Boy Scouts, we had to do a lot of merit badges.

One of the cool ones was compass reading.

Me and a buddy did it when we were camping in the desert.

For part of the exercise, we had to follow a long set of instructions, each of which involved going a certain distance in a certain direction.

It had been set up before, and if we followed the instructions correctly, we would get to the right point eventually.

After five or six turns, and walking carefully, we eventually found the “prize” and got our badge.

Many things that seem mysterious can be explained by science.

The disappearance of Amelia Earhart may be one of these.

A seasoned flier, (first woman to fly across the pacific) one day she just vanished.

One theory is that if her directional compass was only off by a small percent, that would mean missing a crucial refueling point.

Maybe believe she ran out of gas and crashed into the ocean.

An unfortunate example of what happens if you go off course just a little bit.

Most people, though, don’t really have a course.

Imagine if you got on a plane, and all the pilot did was look out the window and hope he recognized certain mountains to find his way.

This may work if you were flying small planes of familiar territory, but if you were flying across the ocean, it would be very foolish.

Sadly, most people live their lives like this.

Not only do they NOT have direction, but they don’t really have a system in place to measure their progress.

It would be like me and my buddy trying to get our merit badge by walking in random directions for random lengths and hoping we’d get something at the end.

Even during the gold rush, people knew they had to keep going west, toward the rising sun.

What about you?

Do you know which direction your life is going?

Do you have a feedback system in place, to measure your progress, and to tell if you are off course or on course?

Even if you don’t, all you’ve got to do is get started.

As you make forward progress, you’ll learn valuable information that will let you know.

And you’ll also learn what skills you might need to keep going forward a lot faster.

The more skills you pick up along the way, the more directions you’ll find that will help you become successful.

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Brain Boy

How To Go Infinitely Meta

Being able to go meta is a good skill to have.

This is the main reason why couples go to counseling.

It’s not because the counselor has gone to an ultra-classified school where the true secrets of relationship success were revealed.

And by visiting these esteemed counselors, they find out the inside scoop on how to REALLY make a relationship work.

The reason people go to counselors is to have an independent (as much as that’s possible) third party keep things objective.

The counselor serves as the “meta” view of the relationship.

Sometimes, though, this is troubling. What if this “meta” view is biased?

A recent study showed that when people go to a medical doctor (who is supposed to know what’s what) and then get a second opinion, EIGHTY PERCENT of the time, the second opinion of the second doctor was different than the first.

But the ability to “go meta” in any way is helpful. If we had enough resources, we could get lots of “meta opinions” and then take an average of something.

Luckily, unless you have a strange lump and you can’t “go meta” on yourself, you CAN go meta in a lot of other situations.

This is a skill that you can practice.

For example, if you are talking to somebody, when it’s there turn to talk, try and see yourself from an objective third person position, while they are talking to you.

Many people do this without really thinking about it.

If you are the type to write yourself a “to do” list every morning, it’s kind of the same thing.

One view of yourself is the writer of the list. Then later in the day, you the, “fulfiller of the list,” is in a slightly different viewpoint.

(Of course, if you’re at the supermarket and you can’t read your writing, you can’t really call yourself to ask what you meant…)

One way being meta is very helpful is how you pick up data, information and skills.

You can approach the data, skills or information as the “learner.”

Or you can step back and see yourself as the “learner” while the “meta you” is learning how to learn.

This takes being your own coach to an entirely different level.

Most people don’t even think of terms of “learning how to learn.”

It’s one of those things we just “do.” Like walking and talking.

But as you well know, there’s spitting out a bunch of gibberish, and then there’s skillful communication, where you eloquently put together strings of words that can move people’s emotions on deep levels.

If you can do that by “learning how to talk” imagine what you can do when you learn how to learn.

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Super Learning

Are You Shuffling Life Away?

A long time ago, Mother Nature had to make a decision.

When it comes to animals, we all have our own “selling points.”

Zebras have stripes. Tigers have teeth, skunks have stripes and a horrible stench.

We humans have our big brains.

Which gave Mother Nature a bit of an issue way back in the day.

Our brains were getting so big, it was getting kind of hard to be born.

If you compare all the other mammals, and how long they spend as “kids” vs. “adults,” we humans take a LONG TIME to “grow up.”

That’s because in order to be born “fully formed” our hips would have to have gotten really wide. Too wide to walk on two legs.

That was Mother Nature’s dilemma.

Either be born more fully formed, but not be able to walk upright, or keep our two legged advantage, and be born significantly LESS than fully formed.

And that’s what happens.

We are born with a pretty “empty” hard drive.

Sure we have a lot of “instinctive” programs, like getting hungry, being afraid of certain things, getting sexually attracted to certain people.

But we also have TONS of learning ability.

Something that ALL OF US are UNDER utilizing.

This is the one thing that we can NEVER maximize.

You’ll NEVER get to a point where you know EVERYTHING.

You can spend your entire life (or even two or three lifetimes if that were possible) and you would even scratch the surface of what there was to know.

Add skills and abilities into the mix, and you could spend your ENTIRE LIFE on self development, and NEVER learn out of new stuff to learn and figure out or even create.

Yet, most people figure once school is done, then it’s “same old same old,” every day, until you die.

(The “Soft Parade” as Jim Morrison described).

Slowly shuffling towards the end of our lives.

It doesn’t have to be that way.

Just spend a few minutes a day learning something new.

Pretty soon you won’t be able to stop.

THAT is when life becomes exciting.

Get Started:

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Castles In Their Mind

Thought Extraction Technique

Once I was at a movie theater, I went there on the spur of the moment.

I had no idea what any of the movies were about, so I asked the guy selling tickets.

He gave me a quick rundown, and made a suggestion.

I took it and was satisfied.

Asked-for advice, when given genuinely, is usually very helpful.

On the other hand, few of us like unasked for advice.

The reason has to do with the presuppositions that go along with the advice.

The main presupposition is that the person giving the advice knows more about the situation than the person receiving the advice.

Imagine you were standing in front of a movie theater, trying to decide which movie to see.

Only you had plenty of information on all the different movies.

You were just debating which of them you wanted to see the most.

Then some voice comes out of nowhere and says, “Don’t see X, it sucks.”

Now, depending on WHO said that, and what they looked like, how the behaved, etc, you might take their advice, you might not.

But YOU would still want to choose whether to take their advice or not.

Which means now you’re choice is MORE complicated, especially if the person giving the advice is not your “type.”

Whenever two people talk, it’s like there’s a battle of ideas. A contest of thoughts.

The ideas in your head, and the ideas in their head.

Asking for their ideas and comparing them to your ideas is one thing.

But having them try and FORCE their ideas into your brain (which is essentially what we do when we give unasked for advice) is not so friendly.

Doing the opposite, however, is a LOT of fun.

Instead of putting YOUR ideas into their mind, take THEIR ideas and expand them.

Most people have vague desires, wants, wishes, etc.

But instead of trying to match your specific advice to their vague desires, do the opposite.

Take their vague desires, pull them out of their head, and make them bigger, brighter, more specific.

IF you use ONLY their words and ideas (to make their ideas bigger and more specific) it will have a pretty cool effect.

They’ll feel REALLY GOOD, and they’ll associate those really good feelings with you.

You can use this with pretty much ANYBODY.

Friends, bosses, children, clients. Even people you’ve just met.

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Unlimited Desire

The Bikini Girl Strategy

Plenty of products come with “add-ons.”

Things they try to sell you after you agree to buy something.

A lot of times, these “add-ons” are the main source of profit.

They even take a loss on the first item.

Like this one time I bought a kitchen gadget from a TV commercial.

It was something like a hundred bucks.

And judging by how it worked, and how it was built, it was probably pretty close to it’s real cost.

But I ended up buying nearly $300 worth of “extras.”

Stuff that was cheap and stuff that I NEVER ended up using.

But at the time, it sounded like the logical thing to do.

In for a penny, in for a pound, right?

The lady on the phone was really slick. I placed the order, and the way she phrased the questions made buying something for $50 (that I didn’t even know existed a minute ago) seem so natural.

Why are we like this?

It’s kind of the same reason they stick gorgeous bikini girls next to cars.

It’s not that you think she comes with the car, or even that you’ll get girls if you buy the car.

It’s that the desire for the girl is subconsciously attached to the car.

So when you’ve already decided to buy something, your DESIRE to buy is easily leveraged.

Like they can reach into your brain, take that desire to buy and attach it to anything.

This is the thing about human desires.

We have an unlimited amount.

But most of the time nobody wants to hear about them.

Most people are busy telling us what we SHOULD want, and WHY we should want them.

Even if we get in a couple of words about what we DO want, they may say, “Yeah, yeah, that’s cool, but check THIS out!”

So when you sit back, and just ASK them about what they WANT, you can attach their desires to pretty much anything.

And if you don’t have anything in particular you want to attach their desires to?

They’ll attach them (subconsciously) to YOU!

They’ve got to go somewhere, right?

Learn How:

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