Category Archives: Charisma

Infinity

What Business Are You In?

One of the biggest ideas in self development is the idea of a “secret.”

The concept that if we learn “one weird trick” we’ll be able to finally realize our dreams.

Guys that want to do better with girls want to know the one “secret pattern.”

People that want to lose weight want to learn the “one strange diet trick.”

One common story is what happens to lottery winners after they strike it rich.

Especially if they are the blue collar, paycheck-to-paycheck type.

Humans NEED to be motivated by two things.

Moving away from pain, and moving toward pleasure.

Everybody’s got their own unique mix, but without BOTH of these, it’s hard to feel “on purpose.”

And when lottery winners have all of their financial PAIN taken away, it feels great.

At first.

But once that new level of “happiness” feels “normal” they start to get into trouble.

A person without any real motivation AND a lot of money is a BAD combination.

This is why invariably, people who suddenly get a lot of money are almost always ruined.

Humans need incentives, both inside and outside.

Most people that get up at the crack of dawn don’t do so because they like it.

They do so because they feel they MUST.

Either because they’ve conditioned themselves that way, or they have an EXTERNAL set of incentives.

Their job or family requirements demand it, for example.

Most people that made their fortune didn’t have their sights set on money.

Or even the “thing” they were building.

They liked the deeper process.

Of being driven.

To get more, do more, be more, create more, build more.

Walter White, the fictional meth cook, famously said he wasn’t in the meth business, he was in the EMPIRE business.

A sudden bucket of money will DESTROY your drive to build your own empire.

How do you write a classic novel?

So far, nobody knows.

The process seems to be wait a hundred years, and see what books are still being read and enjoyed by various generations.

Consider the “secret” to your life the same.

You won’t really know until you’ve built it.

Then you can look back over your long and successful life and think:

“Oh yeah, now I get it…”

Life, empires, fortunes are not secrets to be “discovered” or “taught” or “revealed” on a mountain top.

They are the sum total of your thoughts, actions, and behaviors.

Once you’re on the right path, you’ll know.

You’ll feel driven, you’ll feel the need to keep moving forward no matter what.

And money will be a useful byproduct.

Learn More:

Wealth Tuning

Brains

How To Train Your Inner Self

Money and body fat are the same thing.

When bears gear up to hibernate, they store as much energy as they can.

Way back in the days when governments and bankers messed up our financial system, people kind of did the same thing.

The saying of “Go out and make your fortune” was create during that time.

Back then it was actually possible for a normal human to leave home at the age of 18 or so, work their ass for ten or twenty years, and have enough saved to live the rest of their lives in relative comfort.

Structurally speaking, a human saving up money is the same as a bear building up body fat.

Today, both are misunderstood.

Human body fat is a very necessary part of our biology.

Without the ability to turn consumed energy into stored energy, we never would have survived.

And without our ability to turn work into stored money-energy, our societies never would have gotten very large.

Today if we look in the mirror and see some body fat, we get angry at ourselves.

Sure, if you have a couple hundred extra pounds, you might want to live a little healthier.

But the process of turning consumed calories into fat is a life-enhancing process on a personal level.

This might sound a bit silly, but consider the message you are giving to your inner self when you get angry at your hips or your belly.

Even sillier, consider pinching a couple of inches of fat and thanking your body for always looking out for your interests.

Money is the same way.

We get angry at ourselves for NOT having enough money.

Or we get angry at the world, or at others.

Consider that your inner self is like a dumb caveman, only capable of following his or her instincts.

Getting angry at your fat or your lack of money could be similar to getting angry at a dog who hasn’t been trained.

How can you train your inner caveman?

If you know anything about training animals, positive reinforcement works MUCH BETTER than negative reinforcement.

If you thank and genuinely appreciate your body’s ability to turn consumed energy into fat (so you don’t die later on) it might be easier to go the other direction.

To convert some of that body fat back into energy (if you want).

Similarly, consider giving your inner caveman or woman some positive reinforcement when it comes to money.

Physically take out some money, hold it in your hand, and appreciate it.

What does the word “appreciate” mean?

To make larger.

When YOU appreciate money, you’ll be directing your inner self to “appreciate” money as well.

Learn How:

Wealth Tuning

Build Whatever You Want

The Human Ant Hill

Imagine the life of a highly gifted athlete.

Usually at a very young age, he or she knows they are different.

In PE class, they excel when the other kids struggle.

As soon as they get involved in team sports, their coaches realize how lucky they are.

By the time they’re in high school, they’d got big name colleges coming to their homes and promising them everything.

And if they make it to the pros, they live the life of kings.

All kinds of money, everything taken care of for them.

So long as they don’t make any stupid mistakes, they’re life is set.

These people NEVER have to worry about much.

They just show up here on Earth, do what comes naturally, and get all kinds of admiration and recognition and money.

Generally speaking, this is the same structure of people who build fortunes.

They just do what comes naturally, and it works out.

Sure, they struggle for years, sometimes decades.

But they have a collection of qualities where they KNOW they are doing what they are “supposed” to be doing.

What do they have that most people don’t?

It might not be based on what they HAVE, but what they DON’T have.

Once upon a time, there was nothing on Earth but a bunch of dirt.

And some cave people and some animals.

Now we’ve got all kinds of stuff.

AND all kinds of money.

If you were an alien studying humans, you’d conclude that we humans are pretty good at a few things.

One of them is making more humans.

Another is making more stuff.

If we study an anthill, you might conclude that we are similar.

Humans are busily running around all day.

Ants are busily running (or whatever ants do) around all day.

But ants are genetically programmed. They don’t have much of a choice.

Upon closer inspection, these aliens would see that humans have a bit more going on.

Human do stuff, and get paid.

Then they take that money, and do whatever they want.

Spend it, save it, invest it, give it to the poor.

People have been doing this since the dawn of civilization.

Do what they can, to make as much as they could.

The MORE people did this, the MORE stuff was invented.

Those metaphorical aliens might conclude that ants are genetically programmed to build anthills.

But humans are genetically programmed to make money.

All you’ve got to do is re-calibrate your brain, and get in the game.

Learn How:

Wealth Tuning

The Magic Of Your Mind

Metaphysical Body Fat

I read a really interesting book about Africa a few months ago.

It was a long history, starting over 5000 years ago.

When the first Europeans arrived, they started to trade.

But they did it in a strange way.

The Africans would leave a bunch of stuff on the beach.

Stuff they were willing to give.

The Europeans would row up and leave a bunch of stuff in exchange, and then row back to their ships.

And wait a day or two.

If the Africans accepted their offer, it would be gone.

That would be a signal for the Europeans to take their stuff.

But if the Africans didn’t take the Europeans offer, then either the Europeans would offer more, or the Africans would offer less.

This is something humans have been doing since the dawn of time.

Back in the ancient days of hunter-gathers, when two tribes met, they either traded or fought.

Trading seems to be a deep instinct in all humans.

Kids on the playground do it without thinking.

Trading baseball cards, marbles, cookies for chips.

Even bees and flowers do it.

Bees spread the pollen and for the reward they get “free” nectar.

One of the greatest inventions in human history is money.

If all you had was a sack of corn, you had to find somebody that wanted your corn.

But once money was invented, the amount of stuff SKYROCKETED.

The simple creating of money, a metaphysical, intermediary potential energy for stuff, allowed for technology to skyrocket.

Humans split from chimps six million years ago.

The first coins were minted 2500 years ago. A fraction of the time we’ve been around.

The amount of stuff subsequently created since the idea of money came into being is staggering.

The idea of money itself is instinctive.

All mammals have the capability of storing energy, in the amount of body fat.

Today that gets a bad rap, but having a layer of fat can provide a lot of needed energy when times are tough.

Money is an extension of a very instinctive and very basic idea.

So why does money get such a bad rap?

Plenty of reasons.

One is we all have this idea of “lack.”

Two is rich people want to be the only people that are rich.

Since the dawn of time, these elites have come up with all kinds of ideas that make it easy for THEM to stay rich, while everybody else stays poor.

But the concept of money (stored energy from previous work) has been around longer than money itself.

Longer than people itself.

Get Some:

Wealth Tuning

Behold The Mighty Language

How The Ends Can Justify The Means

Ends and means are easy to confuse.

I never really quite understood the problem with “the ends justify the means.”

It’s something you talk about in high school.

It’s generally frowned up to accept that any ends is justified by any means.

But I was never one to go along with how we were “supposed” to think about things.

Our teacher would say, “suppose you have an end to get money. Does robbing a bank justify getting money? No, it does not, therefore, the end doesn’t always justify the means.”

I would always argue.

I would say that the “end” was poorly defined.

That having a well defined end is justified by any means.

In the above example, you just re-define your “end” as “legally getting money.”

Of course, I was never one for blindly obeying authority.

When you tell somebody that the ends doesn’t always justify the means, it also presupposes that there is some entity that is capable of which “means” are acceptable, and which are unacceptable.

Even in my high school days, I was arguing against authority any way I could.

My idea then, and my idea now is that if you create a well enough defined end, which precludes any immoral, unethical or otherwise negative behavior, then any means you use is perfectly fine.

And perfectly justified.

In fact, you might say our entire lives are based around satisfying our never ending “ends” with as simple and effective “means” as possible.

But people who like having any authority will sneak that authority in any way they can.

And unless you know how to linguistically stand your ground, it’s very easy to get taken advantage of.

Humans are goal setting machines.

We cannot NOT set goals.

Most of the time, these are unconscious and automatic.

Getting up to use the toilet.

Getting something to eat.

Talking to friends.

But that inner structure is always there. And it happens hundreds of times a day.

You feel a desire, and you satisfy that desire.

This is why people LOVE taking advantage of others.

They can very carefully and covertly take over your natural goal setting ability.

So you’re not getting outcomes for YOU, you’re getting them for them.

Usually this is fine.

This is the conscious and unconscious “tit for tat” that makes relationships work.

They become a problem when one person is benefiting at the expense of somebody else.

You don’t need to get defensive.

You don’t even need to be assertive.

Just learn how to ask some very simple questions.

Questions that will force them to rethink their strategy.

Very powerful.

Very subtle.

Very effective.

Learn How:

Weaponized Hypnosis

They're Everywhere

Protect Your Most Precious Resource

When you get into trouble, you call the police.

When the police get into trouble, they call SWAT!

At least that’s how the TV show (from the 70’s) started.

They’ve made a few movies, about SWAT in particular.

But there are endless cop shows.

One of the best TV shows of all time (The Wire) is about cops.

Another one of the best TV shows of all time (The Sopranos) is about criminals.

Seems we are easily entertained by TV shows and movies about cops and robbers.

Or good guys and bad guys.

In fact, all movies and stories need both.

You CAN get away with a movie that only has good guys, and good things, and happy endings, but that’s like eating a bowl of sugar.

It might be a fun thing to do once in a great while, but it’s not something you do every day.

Even music is surrounded by the idea of tension and relief. Chord and discord.

We like those structures for two main reasons.

One, they resonate with us. Every day we have “good parts” and “bad parts.”

If we were to separate the people we deal with, or potentially deal with, we could easily separate them into “good guys” and “bad guys.”

The second reason is that most of the time, the good guys win.

And we like that feeling, even if we know it’s fake.

Because in real life, the good guys don’t always win.

In fact, even if you DID get into trouble, and you DID call the cops, they best they might do is give you paperwork to file with your insurance company.

One of the great promises of an organized society based on laws is that we are protected from the bad guys.

Yet bad guys are everywhere.

And when they come at you with their badness, how do you respond?

If it’s a physical attack, there are plenty of options.

Dial 911.

Run.

Stand your ground and fight.

But what if it’s a verbal attack?

A carefully crafted emotional attack?

In front of others?

These are the hardest to defend against.

At least, they are for most people.

But when you learn the skills of verbal self defense, you can stop them dead in their tracks.

Faster than a spin kick to the head of an attacker.

BAM!

Learn How:

Weaponized Hypnosis

Make Fantasies Come True In Their Mind

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

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

All People Obey

Stanford Prison Experiment

One of the more infamous psychological experiments is the Stanford Experiment.

It was done back in the seventies, and the results were horrifying.

So much so that a few movies have been made about it.

It all started with a professor who wanted to see how people “get into” assigned roles.

He recruited several students from Stanford (hence the study name).

They were going to pretend to be in a prison.

They were going to be randomly assigned roles.

Some prisoners, some guards.

He wanted to see how much (or little) they “got into” their roles.

But they got into it so much, they had to stop the experiment before they’d planned.

Guards become evil.

Prisoners started to have nervous breakdowns.

Only a few days before, they were all students.

They got SO MUCH into their roles, they actually lost themselves.

The “guards” started to get close to torture.

Most of the time, we don’t realize how much “authority” has an effect on us.

Even when both “pretend guards” and “pretend prisoners” KNEW that their authority was fake, it still worked.

So much that a lot of the “prisoners” had to undergo counseling after the experiment was finished.

Of course, this experiment was set up in a horrific way to begin with.

Authority inside of a prison, where there is no escape.

Authority in and of itself is neutral.

If you assume the authority of a prison guard, you’re going to act like a prison guard.

But you can assume any authority you want.

An authority on excitement, for example.

Or an authority on the best clubs in town.

But you don’t need a huge experimental set up.

You can do it linguistically.

Hypnotically.

And YOU don’t need to “be” the authority.

You only need to reference one.

Which is incredibly easy.

And when you attach an authority to any of your ideas (or to you, if you like) they will seem much more compelling.

Just be careful not to abuse it.

Because it is VERY easy to.

Learn More:

Seven Laws

Treachery Is Everywhere

The Ultimate Origin Story

Lately there have been a lot of comic book characters getting a lot of attention.

Both “Universes” (DC and Marvel) have their own big plans.

And many lesser known comic book characters have been popping up.

If they look back on Western Culture in a couple thousand years, they’ll see our comic book heroes the same way we view Greek Mythology.

They share essentially the same archetypes.

Even non-superhero movies share a similar archetype.

That of the “Hero’s Journey.”

Even movies that don’t have anything to do with heroes of any kind follow this main template.

Something “non-normal” happens to a “normal” guy or gal, they have to step up their game and take care of business.

Whether it’s a coming of age story of a junior high school girl or a farm boy going out into space to blow up the Death Star, the structure is the same.

Funny thing is that most people focus on the hero, or the his or her journey.

After all, that’s where all the action takes place.

That’s the reason for the story in the first place.

But the interesting thing is that in nearly every single hero’s journey, the hero is CALLED.

And most of the time, they don’t have a choice.

Even then, they are often called, they refuse the call, and then they are put into a position where they HAVE to take the journey.

In fact, this “call and refusal” is in most hero’s journey stories.

It’s an essential element.

Some say this is an echo of being born.

We were safely in the womb, and the birth contractions started.

As if we said, “NO F-ing way! I’m not going out there!”

But then we HAD to.

Boom.

Welcome to Earth.

The cool thing about being a grown up is you can play both sides.

You can still be “called” to go on journeys.

And you can call others.

At the same time, everybody wants to BE a hero, but we all NEED a hero to help us along.

You can be both.

Learn How:

Cult Leader