Author Archives: mindpersuasion

Make People Happy To Be Around You

Express Yourself!

Why are little kids so cute?

One reason is they are totally innocent. When they express themselves, they have no ulterior motive, like many adults.

They also don’t have a lot of fears, like many adults. We grown-ups tend to get an impulse to say something, but then we imagine all kinds of horrible things that might happen, so we back pedal a bit, in our minds.

Then we say something that’s less than 100% congruent.

Kids, on the other hand, are pure congruence. They’re not like, “Part of me wants to run over and see what that red shiny thing is, but another part is still kind of tired out from this morning.”

They see something they want, and go after it.

I used to know this guy in college. Always smiling, always making people laugh. Always making some lighthearted joke about any particular situation. Never putting anybody else down, except when it was perfectly clear it was a good-natured joke.

Always with over the top facial expressions and gestures.

And ALWAYS surrounded by girls.

This guy was the total opposite of the typical “player” type you see on TV or in the movies.

This was a guy you just enjoyed being around. If there was a party, and you knew this guy was going to be there, you wanted to go.

This is what happens when you carry that child like congruence into adulthood.

You have that congruence, but also the responsibility of being an adult.

You don’t censor yourself because you’re afraid how people will respond, you only censor yourself because you honestly don’t like saying mean things about other people.

But the funny thing is once you spend just a little bit of time expressing yourself like this, all those negatives ideas in your mind about others tends to vanish.

Since whenever you show up, people are always so happy to see you, you suddenly think of everybody in at their best.

It’s like you project this bubble out around that everybody is happy to be in.

Of course, this isn’t magic. You still need to think and act and plan ahead, and be careful how you use your energy and resources.

But it sure makes life a lot more fun.

If you’d like to be more charismatic, check this out:

Charisma Generator

Blast Open Your Light

Obstacles Are Necessary

Few things are ever a straight line.

I used to go backpacking with a buddy of mine.

When you’re backpacking, you are a few days away from any kind of civilization, on foot at least.

This makes for some REALLY nice undisturbed scenery. But sometimes you’ve got to hike over some HUGE mountains to get there.

For every three or four miles through a gorgeous meadow with all kinds of flowers, lazy rivers, etc, you’ve got hoof it up some pretty steep hills.

The worst are switchbacks. The hill is too steep to walk straight up, so you’ve got to go on these really LONG back and forth trails that slowly go up to the top.

Usually to a pass, which is in between two high mountain peaks.

Some of these look REALLY intimidating from a couple miles out.

I remember one in particular. We were walking on a relatively flat surface, but it was clear that we’d be going up soon.

Couple miles ahead of us was this HUGE mountain range. And I couldn’t see ANY way over it.

But the closer we’d got, the more I started to see a brief outline of a very thin trail criss-crossing up the face.

And sure enough, when we started going up, it wasn’t that bad.

Now, had I not had any experiencing hiking up switchbacks, I could have easily looked at that seemingly insurmountable mountain range and thought, “No. Way.”

And turned around.

Luckily, PLENTY of people had gone before. Not only was their a trail (obviously) but we had a guidebook that explained exactly what to expect.

If we were some kind of settlers or immigrants, we may have given up.

A lot of things can seem IMPOSSIBLE when we first look at them. Especially when we’ve never done anything like it before.

Most of the time there’s no trail, and we don’t any guidebook telling us what to expect.

Well, that’s not really true.

The secret of all human development, creativity and inventions is the same, from a structural standpoint.

Keep trying things until you find out what works. Then do more of that.

So long as you go slow, and measure ALL your feedback, you simply CAN NOT fail.

(Unlike when you’re hiking, and making a mistake can send you off a cliff!)

The truth is that ALL HUMANS come pre-programmed to move forward into uncertainty.

Even something as simple a reaching for a light switch in the dark. You have a clear goal, and you take action.

Sure, you don’t hit the switch the first time, but you keep fumbling around until you do.

Now, it may seem like a stretch, but if you can turn on a light in the dark, you can do anything.

Really.

Get Started:

Mind Persuasion

How To Ignore Those Pesky Doubts

How Did I Get Here?

It’s easy to get confused.

I mean, really, really, what-the-heck-is-going-on confused.

Unless you have very clear goals of what you want, it’s very easy to run around in circles.

Sometimes you may be running in circles so long you forgot why you even started.

All of us have some very vague, yet incredibly strong desires.

Food, money, companionship, safety, social acceptance and recognition.

Which means it’s pretty easy to go chasing something because we THINK it’s going to get us one of those things, but we haven’t really thought it through.

And we get halfway through (whatever it is) and we start to rewrite our original intention.

Maybe we sort of thought we were going to get one thing, but we ended up getting an experience instead.

So we tell ourselves things like, “Well, at least I know better.”

It’s both incredibly simple and potentially very difficult to get what we want out of life.

It’s simple in that all you’ve got to is clearly define what it is you want, and take some kind of action.

If you get closer, do more of what you just did. If you didn’t get closer, or you got something else, do something different.

This requires we first set a very clear, and very solid goal of what we want. Without this, it’s VERY easy to get sidetracked.

Imagine what would have happened to some of the great inventors of all time if all they wanted was to make something “cool” that would get them some money and social recognition.

The only reason they kept going forward, despite all the obstacles that the world threw up in their path, was that they had a very clear idea of what they wanted.

Not only that, but they also had a VERY STRONG belief that it would happen. Not a hope, not a wish, not a “one of these days” kind of vague idea that most of us have.

That’s really the only difference between greatness and mediocrity.

Maybe most of us are too afraid to set goals. After all, what if we fail? What if people find out what we want and tell us we’re fools for trying?

Well, guess what? All those men and women throughout history that invented great products, medicine, methods of travel, all the things today we take for granted, they had those doubts too.

But they simply ignored them. They focused on their dreams, rather their fears. They turned their dreams into goals and plans they KNEW they’d achieve.

What about your dreams?

If you are bold enough to turn your dreams into a plan, you WILL achieve it.

These tools will help:

Mind Persuasion

Have You Come Full Circle Yet?

Go Out There To Come In Here

Long time ago I used to work in this Research and Development lab.

We used a lot of very specific vendors for a life of very specific materials.

One day, we had this “problem” with one of these materials that we used almost every day.

Since it was a “biological” there could be any number of reasons. So I called the vendor, and asked him if he knew why this particular biological was behaving in a strange way.

He said he didn’t know, but some of his other customers had also complained about the same thing.

He told me not to worry, as he had his best expert working on the problem.

About an hour later, this “expert” called me to ask my opinion on why this particular biological would be behaving in this particularly strange way.

Apparently, he didn’t know I’d called the vendor, who called him, who then called me to find the answer the question that I’d originally asked.

Now, this is a funny story, but it happens quite a bit.

Not necessarily in a lab or work setting, but going on some long journey only to find out you’ve come back to the starting point.

Many movies and stories have this as their central theme.

One underlying “meaning” of this is that you’ve always had within you what you were looking for all along.

The solution isn’t “out there,” the solution is “in here.”

But many of these solutions can’t be found “in here” unless we make a point to go and look for them first, “out there.”

It’s as if we can’t see what’s inside us unless we force ourselves to go out into the world and face what we THINK are our demons.

But they’re really just a projection of what we have “in here.”

We all come into this world literally LOADED with genius.

But then through the process of growing up, that genius is dulled, covered up, shrunken, and hidden away.

For most of our lives, we don’t know we still have it.

But it’s there.

And our real power comes from understanding why it was hidden, and more specifically WHO hid it.

Maybe our higher selves knew what they were doing when WE hid our power. Maybe they knew that life would be too boring if we weren’t forced to go “out there” looking for it, only to discover that it’s been “in here” all along.

Are you ready to discover yours?

Here’s One Way:

Emotional Freedom

How To Objectively View Yourself

See The Big Picture

Once I was sitting in this coffee shop in Japan.

There were three girls at the table next to me, putting together some kind of collage for a friend of theirs.

A bunch of pictures of some girl (Japanese) and some guy (non-Japanese).

So they wanted to write something cute at the bottom of the picture, in English.

They had settled on the saying “Love Is Blind.”

Now, I wanted to point out that wasn’t the ideal statement to convey to a clearly happy couple.

I wanted to explain that this is normally used to describe somebody who doesn’t quite see what they’re getting into, from an objective standpoint.

Meaning that love makes us overlook the other person’s shortcomings, sometimes when we shouldn’t.

I’m sure you’ve had a friend that was in a relationship with somebody, and you and everybody else knew it wasn’t going to end well. But they thought it was absolutely PERFECT.

And then when it went up in flames, you had to use super human willpower to keep from saying, “I told you so!”

The truth about human nature is that it’s nearly impossible to see what we are doing, right now, from an objective. third party standpoint.

Another time I was watching this race on TV. A middle distance foot race. One guy took a HUGE early lead.

Since I didn’t know anything about the runners, I figured he was going to win. But then the announcer said, almost disparagingly, “He’ll never be able to keep THAT up!”

Which, of course, he didn’t. He finished near the back of the pack.

Sure, we can see our mistakes clearly in hindsight. We can look back and see that we should have said this, rather than that. We should have done that, rather than this.

If only we could ever learn from our mistakes!

Luckily, we can. Most of our behaviors are based on how we INTERPRET situations, not the situations themselves.

We behave certain ways because doing certain things are simply more comfortable than other certain things.

But there IS a way to go back and change your history, so back here in the present, most everything will be more comfortable. This, that AND the other thing!

Which means we’ll have a lot more flexibility, a lot more choice, and a lot better results.

Learn How:

Emotional Freedom

Are You Missing Opportunities?

Balance Risk and Reward

There was this big, outdoor mall where I used to live.

Me and my girlfriend would go there quite a bit, and they had this big climbing wall.

Vertical, with lots of fake rocks to grab on to. They had you in a big harness, and a rope that looped up through the top, and back down to a guy on the bottom.

As you climbed up, he’d pull in the rope.

If you’ve never been climbing, it’s a good feeling to feel that the rope is tight. It is a constant reminder that if you slip, you won’t slip very fall, since somebody’s got your back.

But sometimes, that rope can get in the way. In the world of rock climbing, there’s two basic signals, both communicated through tugs on the rope.

One tug means “slack.”

Meaning you don’t want the rope too tight, as it constricts your movement.

Two tugs means “up rope.”

Meaning you want the rope to be tighter, as you are coming up to a difficult part.

But on this mall wall, with most of the people never having climbed before, they almost ALWAYS want the rope to be tight.

This keeps them safe, but it restricts their movement.

Life has always been a balance between safety and risk. Ever since the dawn of time, people have had to decide which path to choose, pretty much with every choice.

In some societies that still live a very primitive lifestyle, the hunters go after big game, rather than small game.

At first, the scientists studying them didn’t understand why. If they went after smaller game, it would be safer, and more successful. They would average more meat per hunting trip.

Then they saw what happened when they brought home the big kill.

Instant hero. Guys worshipped them, women loved them.

It seems when there’s a big potential reward, people are much more likely to take risks.

However, if you’re always playing it too safe, you’ll never sense there are a LOT more rewards out there, just waiting.

What’s more, most “risks” aren’t really risks at all, since the downsides only involved social safety, which is ALWAYS in flux.

Which means not only are most people NOT SEEING the rewards that are there, they ARE SEEING risks which aren’t there.

If you flip things around, you’ll see a lot more rewards, and a lot less risks.

Get rid of some of those emotional blind spots, and you’ll see.

Learn How:

Emotional Freedom

Who Keeps Hitting The Brakes?

Sabotage Doesn't Mean What You Think It Means

The Roots Of Self Sabotage

When I was in high school we had to take driver training.

We first had to practice in these pretend cars in the classroom, and then we practiced out on the street.

When we went out on the street, we had an instructor and three students.

We would take turns driving, and the instructor, in the passenger seat, would have his own brake pedal.

He usually used it when I was driving, especially around corners. I remember once or twice I saw him grab the armrest in anxiety.

Often times we humans tend to think we are self-sabotaging ourselves.

We want to do something, we get started, and everything’s going fine.

But then we do something totally idiotic, and ruin everything.

“Why do I always mess up a good thing?”

You may ask yourself this from time to time.

But consider this:

That part of you that’s “messing up a good thing,” doesn’t really think they are messing up a good thing.

They are like that driving instructor. Putting on the brakes because he or she thinks you are going too fast.

Who told them to do that?

Well, you did!

Now, you probably don’t remember it. It probably happened subconsciously when you were very young.

But in reality, that part of you that you may refer to as “self-sabotage” isn’t messing you up.

That part of you is doing its best to keep you safe.

See, what happens is we are kids, then we grow up.

As we grow up, our conscious minds change and adapt. We learn new things, want new things, and get new things.

But sometimes we fire off some old triggers we don’t know are there.

Those old triggers that think we’re still living in the world we lived in when we were very young.

So, calling this “self-sabotage” isn’t really an accurate label.

It’s more like having two captains of your ship that have different ideas of where you’re going.

The adult, conscious part of you wants to head out to deeper waters and look for treasure.

The younger, subconscious part of you wants to stay close to shore where it’s safe.

Sure, from an adult standpoint, your subconscious is messing you up.

But guess what?

From a subconscious standpoint, YOU are the one messing up!

You want to go out in the water where it’s dangerous! Where there are monsters! Where you might sink!

It’s like driving a ship with two engines!

The good news is you can go back and calmly explain to your subconscious that it’s OK to head out into deeper waters.

That it’s OK to not be able to see the shore.

That there is TREASURE out there!

Once you’re headed in the same direction, it will be smooth sailing.

Get Started:

Emotional Freedom

Change The DNA Of Your Beliefs

Mental Time Travel

DNA is a pretty amazing invention.

Whether it was created by God, evolution, aliens, whoever built it know what They were doing.

It’s basically this really, really long ladder that’s twisted around.

When it duplicates, the ladder splits in half, right down the middle.

The way it works nearly perfectly is each half of each rung can ONLY hook up with the part that’s specific to it.

So each half of the ladder floats around, and attracts the perfect opposite half of each individual rung. Then you’ve got two identical DNA pieces.

And of course, each DNA contains the basic recipe for each individual human.

If DNA didn’t reproduce EXACTLY (or pretty close to exactly) we’d all end up as lumps of organic matter instead of people.

THAT would suck!

Beliefs kind of work the same way.

They are formed based on our early family life, or whatever adults you’re around.

Once they are formed, we’ve got these beliefs, or “filters” through which we see the world.

Then when we “detach” from our family (like the DNA split down the middle) we go out into the world. Much like half of the DNA (called RNA, btw) goes out cell.

Generally speaking, when we leave the “nucleus” of our early family life (just like DNA leaves the nucleus of the cell) we find matches for our beliefs, or our filters.

This is why we tend to attract the same people and situations.

They remind us, and make us feel comfortable, on a deep level, because they are very similar to our early family life.

This is fantastic if your early family life was uplifting, resourceful and helpful.

But it kinda sucks if it wasn’t.

Luckily, our beliefs are MUCH MORE flexible than DNA.

DNA is a molecule. It MUST obey the laws of molecular biology.

Our beliefs, on the other hand, are based not only biology, but our own interpretation of how our early lives were. Or rather the EVENTS in our early life.

All you’ve got to do is go back in time (in your imagination, of course) and CHANGE the meaning you gave to those events.

Do this, and you can live ANY life you want!

For example, what if your parents (or whatever adults raised you) taught you from an early age that making money was easy, finding perfect relationships was easy, speaking in public was easy?

How much BETTER would life be?

The good news is that it’s NEVER TOO LATE to have a happy childhood!

Get Started:

Emotional Freedom

After I Sitted Down I Petted The Dog

You Were Perfect

There’s this cool theory in transformational grammar called “X-bar theory.”

This is what Chomsky was famous for, back in the day.

Basically he theorized that all humans have a very generic “language organ” in our brain.

All languages on Earth can fit onto this vague, “language tree.” When babies are between the ages of zero and about two or three, their little brains are kind of figuring out the specifics for the language around them.

Once they’ve got all the dials set, so to speak, then it’s just a matter of plugging in “data” or vocabulary on top of this pre-made language structure.

That’s why kids suddenly EXPLODE with language once they got it figured out.

One of the “rules” is that when you make a verb from a noun, it’s always a regular verb, so the past tense has the “-ed” after it.

They’ve done tons of experiments in kids, where they basically make up verbs, and get the kids to say the “past tense” version. Since the verbs are completely made up, the know they’re using some kind of internal rule, rather than some memorized rule.

This is why little kids ALWAYS make mistakes with irregular past tense verbs. Like they’ll say they “petted” the dog instead of “pet” the dog. They’ll say they “sitted” down instead of “sat down.”

Now it’s cute, but it does present a problem. As an adult, we see kids making what we think is a mistake. But they’re just going by their pre-programmed brain structure.

So when adults correct them, they really have no idea why. They assume they’ve made some kind of mistake, even though they were following the ancient programming of Mother Nature. Doing what’s natural.

How can THAT be a mistake?

While this is a VERY small and insignificant example, it’s one of many.

Kids do things they presume to be normal and natural, and adults show up and tell them they’re wrong.

Sometimes kindly, sometimes not so kindly.

Is it the adults fault? Not at all.

It’s just a natural “mis-match” between natural, childhood behavior, and the way adults think children SHOULD behave.

If you’re lucky, you don’t have many of these “mis-matches” in your history.

Even so, their effects tend to linger. Fear of speaking in public, fear of starting conversations with interesting strangers. Fear of getting out there and being creative to make some money.

None of those things used to be scary.

Luckily, you can go back in time, and re-live some of those early “imprinting” events with your adult viewpoint.

Re-write the meaning of those events, and take away the sting.

Learn How:

Emotional Freedom

Whacking Moles and Killing Monsters

Chop Off All Heads At Once

There’s a game called “whack-a-mole” that’s used in plenty of metaphors.

The game has a flat surface with a bunch of holes, and this mole keeps popping out.

You “whack” him, and as soon as he gets smashed down into his hole, another mole pops up out of another hole.

It’s one of those mindless carnival games you play when you want to smash something and impress your friends.

It’s a useful metaphor because it accurately describes a lot of life situations, especially ones where problems keep coming up.

As soon as you solve one, another one pops up.

It would seem this “problem” of never-ending problems is pretty old. Ancient mythical creatures had many heads. If you chopped one off, it would simply grow another one.

In those stories, in order to kill the beast, you had to chop of all the heads at once, at the base.

A lot of our problems are really not the “main” problem.

Kind of like an old married couple fighting over the toothpaste cap, or the toilet seat.

Sure, that’s the “content” of the argument, but that’s not what it’s really about.

Sometimes we think we’re solving our problems, when we’re merely just whacking moles or chopping off one head at time.

This can be even more confusing when similar problems keep showing up. They’re different enough that we “think” they are separate issues, but deeper down, we suspect something else is going on.

Like if you keep dating the same type of person, keep running into the same money problems, or keep sitting next to the same type of goof on the bus.

Unless you deal with the deeper issues, you’re really just whacking moles.

How do you deal with the deeper issue?

The first step is to find out what it is. This takes some introspection, and it can take a lot of courage, but it’s well worth it.

All humans go through what may be called an “imprinting” stage as we grow up. We learn about the world based on our parents, and all the other adults.

Later on, we tend to “reproduce” that same environment around us, even if we don’t realize it.

Kids that grow up in abusive households, for example, tend to “reproduce” that abusive environment without knowing why or how.

It can certainly feel like we are doomed to repeat history, but luckily that’s not the case.

The good news is you can do some digging, and cut off those problems at the root.

Killing that monster once and for all, so he’ll leave you alone.

Learn How:

Emotional Freedom