Category Archives: Advice

Mutual Benefits Are Everywhere

Mechanics Of Relationships

One of our biggest human issues is an instinct mismatch.

The easiest to see is hunger.

Way back in the day, we had to hunt for food.

And hunting for food was dangerous.

So only those that were ALWAYS hungry were the most motivated to get out and hunt every day.

Or spend all day foraging.

Today, that never ending hunger instinct gets in the way.

Which is why most people (70%) are overweight.

Unfortunately, this is only ONE of the instincts that can get us into trouble.

There are plenty of others.

However, once you understand that hunger will never go away, you can learn to manage it.

It’s not easy by any means.

But through consistent effort, you CAN get into decent physical shape if that’s important to you.

Luckily, all of our other goals can be made much easier by managing all of our various instincts.

The first step is understanding what those instincts are.

Think of when you fell in love with somebody.

In the very beginning.

When you had “one-itis” for them.

You liked them, but you weren’t sure if they liked you.

In that situation, it’s very hard to NOT contact them.

But if you know anything about relationship building, contacting somebody TOO OFTEN in the early stages is the last thing you want to do.

Making yourself TOO available will kill attraction.

Fortunately, this desire to contact them is JUST LIKE our hunger instinct.

If we are OBEDIENT to our instincts, they won’t help us much.

Imagine if you ate all you could, whenever you were hungry.

If you learn about all your other instincts, and how to manage them, you can CREATE a wonderful relationship JUST LIKE you can create a healthy body.

Sure, it’s not easy and automatic.

But nothing worth doing is.

But just as sure as you can create a healthy body, you can create a healthy relationship.

All you need to do is understand the mechanics, the underlying instincts that you need to manage, and get busy.

Learn How:

Love Hypnosis

She Wants You

Mastering Greed, Fear and Love

I love reading about and learning about the stock market.

Not just because it’s a way to make money (and also a way to lose everything).

But because it’s based on human psychology.

Sure, there are all kinds of technical and fundamental indicators.

GDP growth or not, job growth or not.

Technical indicators, MACD, slow and fast moving averages, etc.

Some of the indicators like the VIX (which measures volatility) is EXTREMELY complicated.

You need a couple semesters of calculus just to understand how the VIX is calculated.

But hidden inside all those indicators and equations is the human brain.

All of it is so we talking monkeys can have an idea of what to do.

And despite HOW we make our choices (buy, sell or hold) they are HUMAN choices.

Subjective choices.

I suppose of Spock decided to trade stocks for a living, he’d do pretty well.

But we humans cannot escape our emotions.

Experienced stock traders say that even after the BEST trade, they STILL have regrets.

I should have held on a little longer.

I should have bought more in the beginning.

I could have made MORE money.

Greed and fear are ALWAYS present.

Traders can’t get rid of them any more than we can get rid of hunger.

Jesse Livermore, a famous trader from back in the 1920’s, wrote a book about the stock market.

One that is JUST as valid today as back then, nearly 100 years ago.

Why?

Because human emotions haven’t changed.

Even back then, Livermore remarked that the psychology behind the stock market is as “old as the hills.”

Humans want the same things today as we did 1000 years ago.

More money, less work, better relationships, better sex, more love, more affection, less frustration.

Despite the MASSIVE complexity of daily live, the human condition is the same as it ever was.

Which means if you understand the human condition, it doesn’t matter what else you know or don’t know.

Because you’ll have a huge advantage.

Learn More:

Love Hypnosis

Alchemy Of Love

Scientific Emotions

There’s a pretty cool video on YouTube on chord progressions.

It shows a ton of different pop songs that all have the same chords.

This is one of those things you’d never notice unless you learned enough about music.

Then after you notice it, it’s hard to not notice it.

Same with story structure.

Most modern movies and books have the same basic structure.

The “Hero’s Journey.”

Usually starts out with the hero as an orphan of some kind.

Then he or she is more or less forced to go on some kind of journey.

Could be a metaphorical journey, or a real one.

Along the way they meet friends, learn skills and eventually have to fight the bad guy.

Or overcome their internal demons.

But even if you study music, or story structure, we can still enjoy movies and music.

Sometimes even more so.

In order to become a world class chef, you’d have to know what tastes good and what doesn’t.

While they are making pizza and burger robots, they’ll never make a robot that can invent new dishes and tastes.

Because a robot will never have the purely emotional experience of tasting something for the first time.

In order to “test” a new recipe, a robot would HAVE to have some kind of pre-programmed ranges or parameters.

Human senses, on the other hand, have an infinite amount of range.

An infinite amount of capability to somehow “transfer” between purely chemical combinations, and emotional descriptions of flavor.

Robots will likely be able to create things with absolute precision.

But they’ll never be able to enjoy things from a human experience.

Only we humans get to do that.

But just like chefs can produce delicious dishes and musicians can produce emotionally moving pieces, we can both create and enjoy a wide range of emotions.

All it takes is being able to shift outside, as the creator, and then shift inside, as the enjoyer.

Learn How:

Love Hypnosis

They're Everywhere

What If Angels Were Watching You?

Once upon a time Jesus decided to come back to visit Earth.

So he strolls up to the Vatican and is standing in the courtyard, kind of looking around.

One of the Cardinals sees him, and runs to tell the Pope.

“Father!” he cries, rushing inside in a panic.

“Yes, my son, what is it?” The Pope asks.

“Jesus! He has returned!”

“What do you mean?” The puzzled pope asks.

“He’s outside! In the courtyard! What shall we do?” the cardinal desperately asks. The pope thinks about it, then looks up.

“Tell everybody to look busy!”

Yuckity yuck….

Everybody has the experience of sitting around when you’re supposed to be working.

And the boss shows up, and you suddenly pretend you were just finishing something, or were just about to do something REALLY important.

This is normal behavior, and it happens all the time.

But when it’s unhelpful is when we are tricking OURSELVES that we are busy.

Sometimes we do this to avoid doing unpleasant things.

Maybe you’d planned on doing your taxes, but suddenly your daughter needs help with her homework, and you’re than willing to help all day if that’s what she needs.

Sometimes we do things that we THINK is “progress,” but it’s really just busy work.

Perhaps you’ve been wanting to write a novel.

But instead of sitting down and actually writing, you’re doing “research.”

You may even tell people you’re a writer, but you are still in the “planning stages.”

Of course, planning is absolutely necessary.

But things like that are VERY EASY to stretch out.

Sometimes for YEARS.

Which means it’s very EASY to trick ourselves we are “on purpose,” that we’re living an extraordinary life.

But all too often, the things we do are really the same things we’ve always done.

We just somehow redefine them.

So instead of wasting time online, we’re doing “research.”

Or instead of dreaming about what it would be like to actually finish a degree, we’re “investigating online classes.”

Or instead of window shopping on Amazon, we’re “choosing the right equipment for our exercise plan.”

Redefining events is a very good skill.

Like all of our mental skills, we can use them to get ahead, for example reframing a “failure” as valuable experience that can help you do better next time.

Or we can use them to stay in our comfort zone, when we pretend we’re researching the best running shoes, but we’re really just browsing Amazon while watching TV.

How do you know the difference?

Figure out a way to keep score.

Objective score, that is observable from your behavior, not your thinking.

Imagine angels are watching you, and they can only see your behavior, not your thoughts.

And the more your behavior moves you forward, the more they’ll help you.

This metaphor can help you move forward, instead of just pretending.

Learn More:

Seven Disciplines

Anchor On Your Desires

Why Now Always Beats Later

There are two reasons we human do anything.

Either to move toward pleasure, or to move away from pain.

Anything you want or don’t want can be broken down into those components.

However, it’s usually not so simple.

Take the ubiquitous goal of weight loss.

Most people would LOVE to be skinnier.

Otherwise the “lose weight” section on Amazon wouldn’t have zillions of best sellers.

But this simple and common idea involves a TON of confusing “good things” and “bad things.”

Eating feels good.

But having to strain to button your pants doesn’t feel good.

So we want make it easier to put on our pants.

In order to achieve that “good” we need to reduce another “good,” namely the pleasure we get from eating.

Problem is that eating pleasure happens right NOW.

While the pleasure of loose fitting pants is WAY out into the future.

And we’re supposed to “live in the moment,” right?

So it’s “good thing” to eat ice cream, NOW.

But then later the next morning, when we have to lie on the floor to zip up our pants, we are still “living in the moment.”

Only that particular “living in the moment” of squirming around trying to zip up our pants is a different “living in the moment” than when we ate a quart of ice cream the night before.

How the heck are we supposed to know what to do?

Even when we DO know what to do, how the heck we do it?

I doubt you’d find anybody that thinks eating a quart of ice cream is more than a “guilty pleasure.”

Yet somehow, that ice cream magically gets from the grocery store to our freezer.

And despite our promises to ourselves in the grocery store, it’s hard to ONLY eat a small bowl.

In case you hadn’t noticed, another theme in all of these confusing ideas is the idea of TIME.

When we choose to eat or not eat the ice cream, we are comparing NOW vs. the FUTURE.

When we buy the ice cream in the store, we are comparing NOW vs. THE FUTURE.

For most people, NOW wins over the FUTURE every time.

But you can “go meta.”

Most people try to battle on a surface level.

They focus on the content of the NOW vs. the content of the FUTURE.

Buying the ice cream (and promising to only eat a little bit) or NOT buying the ice cream.

Every time we choose, it’s always a matter of pleasure NOW vs. pleasure in the FUTURE.

The good news is you can ignore the content.

Meaning you can slowly build up your FUTURE thinking muscle, so that starts to win over the NOW.

It’s easier than you think.

Learn How:

Seven Disciplines

What's That Buzzing Sound?

Waiting For Magic Corn

Imagine you were out driving around.

And in this hallucination (which will require a bit of suspended disbelief) you were thinking about a new career.

Let’s say you passed by a guy who was harvesting corn.

In this metaphor, you don’t really know much about anything.

In fact, you don’t really know where food comes from.

(other than on the shelf at the supermarket).

So you drive onto the farmer’s land, pull up, and get out.

“Where does all this corn come from?” you ask, absolutely flabbergasted.

“The ground,” the farmer says, smiling.

“But how?” You ask.

The farmer smiles. Let’s suppose, for the sake of this story, that he’s a church going farmer.

“Have patience, and Lord will provide,” he answers, not quite sure he understands the question.

“But it just comes up out of the ground like that?” You ask, still trying to wrap your mind around this mysterious concept.

Food coming straight out of the dirt? That’s crazy!

“Like, every day?” you ask. The farmer smiles and shakes his head.

“No, not every day. You must be patient, and the Lord will provide,” he answers.

You get back in your car and think about it.

If you could get food out of the ground, you could sell it!

When you buy corn at the store, it’s a dollar an ear.

And that farmer had HUNDREDS, maybe THOUSANDS of ears!

You’re going to be rich!

So you find some land.

And you sit in the middle.

“OK, Lord,” you say, looking up to the sky.

“I’m ready for my corn!”

And you wait patiently for it to spring forth.

But you’re waiting a while.

The only thing that grows are weeds.

You think maybe you didn’t ask correctly. Or maybe you weren’t thinking correctly.

So you ask again, only with more enthusiasm.

“Lord, I promise. I’m really ready to receive this time,” you say.

After another few weeks pass by, the weeds are over your head.

How in the heck did that farmer get corn out of the ground, when you only got weeds?

The farmer, however, misunderstood you. He just assumed you know about farming, and planting seeds, and taking care of the soil.

But all you saw was the end result.

Not the daily consistent behaviors that were REQUIRED to get the result.

And in just sitting there, staring at the sky and asking for magic corn, you looked kind of silly.

Hopefully you’re seeing some parallels in this metaphor and how people go about getting (or trying to get) good things.

Most people focus on the outcome, rather than the required daily behaviors.

But the required daily behaviors to get anything are pretty simple.

So simple you could get started today.

Whatever seeds you plant, they will grow.

Learn How:

Seven Disciplines

Jigsaws Of Time

Three Operator Mindset

Long time ago, I got a job selling cars.

I was running out of money, and jobs were hard to come by.

Plenty of places like retail sales, especially if you don’t need a license, will more or less hire anybody.

They hire people based on the number theory.

The same kind of statistics some guys use when approaching girls.

If you chat up ten girls a day, you’ll eventually run into a few you click with.

And among those you click with, you’ll eventually find a pretty good one.

It is a very common sales strategy, referred to as the funnel.

A bunch of prospects go into the top, and a few sales come out the bottom.

Sales places hire people this way.

They hire about twenty new salespeople a month.

Every month.

They figure even if 19 of them eventually quit, they’ll end up with a team of skilled sellers.

On the other side of the equation is that once these skilled sellers realize that they are, indeed, skilled sellers, they go somewhere else.

If you are good at selling things, a car lot is the LAST place you want to be.

Stand up all day, usually outside. Really long hours.

But one thing that surprised me the most is the transition people make.

They come in terrified of the salespeople.

Most customers give of a dangerous kind of body language.

The kind that says, “Don’t you DARE come near me!”

This is why so many people quit.

But once you get past that “defense zone,” they open up pretty easily.

Talk about what they want, show them what you’ve got, and one out of ten or so will end up buying something.

What always got me was their internal transition.

From when they walked onto the lot, to the time they bought something.

They went from looking like they wanted to kill me, to acting like I was their best friend.

Since they’d overcome all their internal objections, all they had was pure desire.

Everybody loves buying stuff.

When we want it and can afford it, it’s a pretty good feeling.

Even if you’re buying lunch, that feeling when the waitress sets down your plate is a pretty good one.

One way to look at sales, (and all persuasion) is by imagining three operators.

There’s you, and the part of your target who wants to get something, and the part of your target who’s afraid to get that same thing.

Most people look at persuasion and sales as “one on one” battle.

But EVERYBODY is conflicted when buying something.

Even when ordering food in a restaurant, most of us have to think about it.

So when persuading, (or selling or seducing) think about the three operator mindset.

You, the part of them that wants what you want, and the part of them that isn’t so sure.

Three things will happen.

One is it will now be two against one.

Two is you can use plenty of sneaky patterns to HELP the good guys win.

Three is when you DO help the good guys when, there will only be two of you left.

You and your grateful friend.

Learn How:

Seven Laws

Who Is The You Inside?

Open Your Heart

Open Your Heart

​I was watching this movie the other night.

One of the characters had been injured, and another one was trying to save him.

The guy trying to save him kept saying, “Stay with me!”

There’re plenty of easy to memorize and easy to say “truisms” about life.

Most of the time, though, they merely sound good.

Especially when they are given as “advice.”

Don’t let them get to you.

Keep your chin up.

Avoid eating certain foods.

The problem is that while these sound good, and nobody would really argue against them, it’s unclear exactly HOW we are supposed to do those things.

Like if you’re at school, getting bullied every day, and your teacher says, “Just ignore them,” HOW are we supposed to do that, exactly?

That’s what’s missing from a LOT of “advice.”

This is where NLP, and many of the processes therein, can come in handy.

There ARE specific strategies to “forget” certain things, or to “avoid” certain things.

They’re not magic, and they take some mental effort, but they work.

Take the advice, “open up your heart.” Now, they don’t really mean get a knife and start hacking through your sternum.

But it does mean to relax your chest area. To be less constricted. To be more “open” to your feelings.

To be more accepting of your feelings. So when you feel  them, you can appreciate them, and respond in kind.

Rather than pretending you don’t feel anything.

One way to do this is to simply close your eyes, and visualize your heart area. See it as a big, open source of energy, both sending and receiving. Every time you breathe in and out, feel the energy going in and out of your heart.

Modern medicine has come a long ways, but many cardiologists realize the power that something as simple as meditation has on your stress levels, which are the underlying cause of most illnesses.

Simply be focusing inwardly once or twice a day, you’ll find that you become more “open” to interpersonal connections, which will further your emotional, spiritual and physical health.

What’s the best way to go about doing this?

Any way that works!

Learn More: