Category Archives: Cause Effect

Bank Shot Or Kill Shot?

When I was much younger, I used to play a lot of racquetball.

I would stop by after work where they had a challenge court.

One with a glass back wall.

You’d write your name up on a board, and you’d play the winner.

Most I ever won was three in a row.

One guy I played frequently.

I was in my twenties, he was in his sixties.

And he always beat me.

Every. Single. Time.

I would run around like a jack rabbit on crack, trying for a kill shot whenever I could.

He would just hang out in the center of the court.

My shots were hard and powerful.

His shots were soft, and very, very well placed.

I would just swing as hard as I could and try to kill it.

He would just barely tap it.

By the time it got to his racquet, it still had plenty of my energy.

So he didn’t need to use all that much.

And it would be placed to perfectly, usually as a bank shot into the corner, so I’d have to chase it all over the place.

I was ALWAYS behind.

On points, mentally and emotionally.

He was always in control, and I was always chasing the ball.

Those games are a perfect metaphor for youth and mindless power, and age and experience.

Young people want things, and they want it now.

Older folks with a lot of experience know that some things take time.

Young people want to hit it hard and fast.

Older, more experienced folks know that bank shots can provide much better results.

It’s not what you do, it’s what happens as a result of what you do.

And these results (like bank shots in the corner) can unfold in some very interesting ways.

Luckily, you don’t need to be physically old to use this mind set.

You just need patience.

And an understanding that it’s not the direct result of your efforts, it’s the lingering secondary and tertiary results.

Like planting a seed, and waiting for it to grow.

If you plan a flower seed, you’ll some pretty flowers.

They’ll bloom, look good, and then whither and die.

On the other hand, if you plant the seeds for a fruit tree, you’ll have fruit for many, many decades.

You can get whatever you want.

With enough patience and the right seeds.

Learn More:

Love Hypnosis

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

Magic Cats

I saw an article in the news the other day about Diet Coke.

Somebody in Europe did a study and they found a “link” between people who drank diet coke (or other drinks sweetened with fake sugar) and those who had heart attacks.

The way it was presented though, made it sound like if you took a sip of diet coke you were immediately going to drop dead from a heart attack.

The thing about us humans is that there is usually TONS of variables going on at once.

And from a scientific standpoint, PROVING that A causes B is very, very difficult.

In fact, it’s nearly impossible.

So why are we so likely to believe one thing CAUSES something else when they are merely “linked”?

Some evolutionary psychologists believe it was a shortcut in thinking. Like most of our “triggers,” seeing all sorts of “cause-effect” relationships where none exist simply made it easier on the brain.

Now, this type of thinking didn’t do much damage back in the days when life was simple.

But now there is SO MUCH data flying every which way you can “link” some pretty interesting things.

Like certain marketing studies have found that “cat people” tend to like a certain brand of salsa.

Why?

Who knows.

But it certainly doesn’t mean if you EAT that particular salsa a bunch of cats would magically appear.

That would be just silly.

But strangely enough, a lot of us live our lives according to such silly notions.

That girl didn’t smile back at me MEANS that I suck.

The teacher didn’t call on me when I raised my hand MEANS I’m an idiot.

My first attempt didn’t make any money MEANS I’m destined to be homeless.

The truth is that reality is much, much more open to interpretation then we believe.

Which means (lol) that if you only take action consistently, and are open to all the feedback you get, you’ll get a lot more than most people.

Who are PARALYZED by the fear that all of those imaginary “cause-effect” relationships create in their brains.

She didn’t laugh at your joke doesn’t MEAN that she doesn’t like you. It could mean that she’s nervous. It could mean that she didn’t get it. It could mean that she didn’t hear you. It could mean a lot of things.

Unfortunately, one aspect of our brains is that we often and AUTOMATICALLY choose the WORST possible meaning.

Why?

Because those that did so in our ancient history were the most likely to survive.

Luckily, most things you are “afraid” of aren’t going to kill you.

Not even close.

So long as you LEAVE the meaning to anything open to interpretation, and RE-interpretation later, it can mean anything.

Which means you can do anything, get anything, be anything.

Get Started:

Fearless

How To Ditch Your Monkey Brain

Because

One of the most powerful words in persuasion is “because.”

They did this study once. They had a young woman try to cut in line in a copy machine. She first asked if she could cut in line. A large percentage of the time, people said “no.”

Then she tried to cut in line and gave a reason. She said “I need to cut in line because my car is in a tow away zone and I don’t have much time.” And guess what? Most people let her cut in line.

Then they tried something really good. She said, “I need to cut in line because I have some copies to make.”

And guess what? They still let her cut in line most of the time.

Because she used the magic word “because.”

It seems our brains are hard wired to see cause-effect relationships. And when something is presented to us in a cause-effect relationship, it’s VERY hard to disagree with.

They think it’s because long ago Mother Nature decided it was a lot quicker making these connections (cause-effect), even if they were sometimes incorrect, than have to figure things out every single time.

This also translates into “meaning.” If A causes B, then A also MEANS B in our monkey brains.

A tiger MEANS we’re about to get eaten.

Now, if you actually did a study where you wandered around the jungle, chances are that every time you saw a tiger, you wouldn’t get eaten.

But if you DON’T assume danger EVERY SINGLE TIME, all you need to do is get eaten once to NOT pass on those “figure it out every time” genes.

Consequently, we generally see two things happening together, and ASSUME it’s some kind of iron-clad, unbreakable law of the universe.

Like maybe once you applied for a bunch of jobs, and didn’t get hired. So you came to the conclusion that “getting a job is difficult.”

Or maybe you tried to talk to a pretty girl and she laughed, so you came to the conclusion that “every single pretty girl in the world will laugh at me.”

Or maybe when you were a kid watching cartoons you could hear your parents in the background arguing about money. So you came up with the idea that “money causes problems.”

Of course, NONE of these are true. Many people believe talking to pretty girls is fun and natural. Many people believe making money is easy and exciting. Many people believe that getting any job is as easy as ordering a pizza.

What do YOU want to believe?