Category Archives: Congruence

Hallucinate Your Way Rich

Think Your Way Out Of Trouble

A long time ago, they used to think that negative numbers were evil.

This was back when math was still in its infancy.

Since the idea of a “negative thing” (how can you have negative six apples?) didn’t seem to exist, the idea was considered heretical.

Slowly but surely (and luckily) people started to accept the idea of negative numbers.

Same kind of thing happened when they invented “imaginary” numbers.

But ask any mathematician, and they’ll tell you that “imaginary” is not really accurate.

But the name stuck, and here we are.

These “imaginary” numbers are necessary to calculate anything that has to do with sinusoidal fluctuations (like electronic circuits).

One of the famous scenes from the Bible is when Jesus threw out the “money changers.”

Why were they called money “changers”?

Isn’t that like going down to the bank and exchanging dollars for Euros?

Why would those people be bad?

The reason is that way back in the day, lending money at interest was considered a sin.

So the clever money lenders changed their names to money changers.

They would lend money in one currency, and collect in another.

And they collected their “interest” in the form of a “currency exchange fee.”

This is how they got around the ban against charging interest.

This isn’t to say money lenders today (or back then) are good or bad.

But if you are clever enough, and you can think abstractly enough, you can work your way around any limitation.

If you can’t think very cleverly, abstractly, or laterally, when you come up against an obstacle, you’re stuck.

You look around for somebody to tell you what to do.

This is the way most people run their lives.

But if you can think differently, think abstractly, think creatively, any problem is really just another opportunity in disguise.

To all the other simple thinking folks, it’s just a problem.

But to you, it’s an opportunity.

Seeing the world this way requires practice.

Consistent mental practice.

It’s not based on any magic switch in your brain.

If you are, however, willing to put in the few minutes per day of mental practice, you’ll soon see a world FILLED with opportunities that others only recognize as obstacles.

Learn How:

NLP Mind Magic

Trippy Trees

Which Metaphor Do You Prefer?

An old Chinese proverb says that if you wait by the river long enough, you’ll see the bodies of your enemies floating by.

Meaning with enough patience, you can conquer all enemies.

On the other hand, Keynes, a famous economist, said that on a long enough timeline, we’re all dead.

Meaning if you need to wait longer than a normal life span for something to happen, you might never see it.

Waiting patiently is fine if you are the Grand Canyon.

It’s been there forever, and it will be there forever.

From the Grand Canyon’s perspective, the time in which us silly humans came to look at it is really only a small blip over the course of its life.

Of course, this is just a metaphor, as canyons don’t really have a perspective.

They just sit there while the relentless trickle of water consistently wears down billions of tons of rock.

Patience is important to humans, but only under the right context.

Often times we pretend we are “waiting” when in reality we are just too afraid to act.

We even give ourselves things we are waiting FOR.

I’ll wait until I lose a few pounds until I start dating again.

I’ll wait until my next raise before I start to learn about investing.

I’ll wait until summer before I start my exercise program.

Of course, most people are very patient with how well they convince themselves they are being patient.

The real secret is that making big changes is a BAD idea.

It’s much easier to make very, very TINY changes.

And do them consistently.

Just like a relentless trickle of water can build a huge canyon, with small daily exercise, you can build some MASSIVE changes.

Ideally, you can start with thinking exercises.

Since you can do them while just sitting there.

If you learn a few NLP procedures, and practice them daily, pretty soon you’ll have a much more RESOURCEFUL outlook.

You’ll slowly whittle down fears, and slowly build up confidence.

Just a little bit a day is all you need.

Learn More:

NLP Mind Magic

Dragons Are Everywhere

How To Jump Over A Tree

Once upon a time a young student went to see the local Kung Fu master.

“What would you like to learn?” asked the old guy.

“I want to be able to leap over a huge tree,” the young kid said, not sure what to expect.

“OK, follow me,” the old master said.

“Seriously?” the kid thought, following along.

The old master planted a seed in the middle of a field.

“Jump over this,” the master said.

“Seriously?” the kid asked. The master nodded, completely serious.

The kid jumped over the recently planted seed.

“Perfect,” said the master. “Come here and do the same, every day. I will check on you in a few years,” he said, totally serious, and walked away.

The kid dutifully obeyed. After fifteen years, he was leaping several meters in the air.

By the time the master returned, the kid was now a man, and was famous for his physical skills.

Not only was he leaping over the large tree, but he was teaching the local kids all about patience and dedication.

That with only a small amount of daily effort, you can build miraculous skills.

Or as Kid Rock says in one of his songs:

“Persistence pays and if that holds true, I’m gonna buy this F—— planet before the time I’m through!”

Most people spend their entire lives looking for ONE secret that will give them instant riches, instant fame, instant sex, instant health.

But if they spend that SAME effort on just a few daily activities, they would have created a masterpiece with their lives.

Instead, they keep searching for secrets that don’t exist.

All that effort, wasted.

How do you spend your days?

All you really need is to shift how you spend just a few minutes per day, and you will be remembered forever.

Get Started:

NLP Mind Magic

Explore The World

Awaken Your Inner Explorer

I used to do a lot of backpacking.

On one trip, a buddy of mine and I decided to cut across a huge valley.

There wasn’t any marked trail, so we had to wing it.

This was before most people had GPS enabled devices, so we had to learn how to triangulate.

Meaning take an old fashioned map, put it on the ground, and try to estimate which mountains around us were which mountains on the map.

Then we’d line up the map so it matched the mountains, and drew a line from each peak, on the map, toward the center.

Where they all crossed was our location.

The smaller of a triangle, in the center, the more accurate the location.

Usually this is a pretty good way to check where you are, if you know now.

But it does require an accurate map.

And accurate maps require things like planes and satellites.

Way back in the day, before they had those things, maps were much less accurate.

If you look at some maps from way back before humans started traveling around the globe, they were very vague.

Kind of like the maps in the beginning of fantasy adventure books.

Before agriculture and societies were invented, nobody knew where anything was.

Nomads just spread out across the earth, following the sun and the edge of the sea.

Probably the most BAMF’s of all time, when it comes to navigation, were the Polynesians who went across vast oceans.

All they had were stars, ocean currents, and paddles.

Nobody does that unless they have a very STRONG reason to.

To explore, discover, conquer.

You might say that’s the human spirit.

To keep learning, discovering and creating more.

Even if you never leave the city of your birth, you have that ancient drive.

To keep doing more of SOMETHING.

If you can put that ancient drive to good use, you can create a pretty good life.

Build a business, create works of art, find new scientific discoveries.

This does require that you get in the game and get your hands dirty.

No maps would have been made, no treasure discovered, no peaks climbed if those ancient explorers had played it safe.

Get in touch with that ancient nomad.

The explorer within you.

And get in the game and get some.

Learn More:

Ego Taming

Under The Bridge

Become A Treasure Hunter

One of the things we humans crave are secret short cuts.

Plenty of diets are based on “one weird trick.”

I have very old email address that gets tons of spam every day.

And all of them are more or less based on solving age old problems with one new secret idea.

But if you can imagine way back in the day, before humans populated Earth, they also had that desire.

Otherwise they wouldn’t have ended up populating the entire Earth.

Which might suggest that our common desire for that one weird trick is really a MOTIVATIONAL desire.

Something we are meant to always be pursuing.

In a world that is very dangerous, and we have to work HARD to get our needs met, and work HARD to avoid danger, that would be a useful desire.

To always believe that somewhere over the next set of hills is the secret to a happy life.

This provides the pull, and all our daily needs that require daily effort require the push.

Even hero’s journey movies have this desire.

That there HAS to be something OUT THERE better than THIS.

Dorothy, in the Wizard of Oz, sang about Somewhere Over The Rainbow.

That mythical place that is NOT HERE.

Unfortunately, we humans seemed to have kind of boxed ourselves in.

We have SO MUCH STUFF that is easy to get.

And there is VERY LITTLE real danger.

We still have that same desire.

But without the necessary NEGATIVE incentives to keep us going, we only WISH.

That desire doesn’t motivate us like it used to.

So much today is easy, and instant, and effortless.

We think that desire should be easy and effortless as well.

Hence all the “one weird trick” solutions to ALL our problems.

However, if you are brutally honest with yourself, you must admit that there isn’t any secret trick.

Because people keep getting LARGER.

Obesity continues to INCREASE.

If you see health as a proxy for our desires (sex, relationships, careers, finance, etc.) we seem to be going in the OPPOSITE direction.

The more we WISH for an easy solution, the further away we get.

Consider switching how you think about things.

See that desire as not a magnet, that allegedly pulls things to you.

But rather a motivation engine that inspires YOU to move toward THEM.

You are, after all, a nomad.

Nomads are the ones that left Africa thousands of years ago and spread out across the globe.

There is still treasure.

Your job is to find it.

Learn How:

Ego Taming

Get Out There And Play

Ditch The Map

I remember when I first went away to college.

It was only a couple hours away, and I lived in the dorms.

One of the things I did a lot in my senior year of high school was cycling.

Me and my buddy would go on these long rides a few days a week.

So when I got all unpacked, I was eager to explore my new world.

Way back in those days, we didn’t have GPS or anything.

So I had to look at an actual map, and then try and remember the names of streets.

Needless to say, I ended up getting pretty lost.

And I ended up going through some sketchy parts of town.

You can’t really tell that from a map.

When I finally found my way back (a few hours later), I decided on a different strategy.

I’d ditch the map, and just feel my way around.

I would start in small loops, and just keep slowly expanding the area that I would get familiar with.

About a month later, I had all kinds of cool rides.

That I discovered on my own, without needing any maps.

Loops that went up and down huge hills.

Long flat rides that went to the beach and back.

This is a good metaphor for how we behave, in the moment.

Looking at the map is like trying to consciously think everything out.

While just winging it and going by your gut is like acting without thinking too much.

Without getting in your own way.

One way seems easy at first, but it can end up being very limiting in the long run.

One way seems scary and difficult at first, but in the long run it is much, much better.

It’s very hard for us humans to do things that are unfamiliar.

Part of the reason we perceive a ton of risk when there’s none there.

Especially social risk.

Everybody is looking out into a crowd of strangers and thinking the same thing:

“I’d like to meet some nice people, but only if they go first.”

Luckily, there’s a way to recalibrate this thinking.

So you can feel just as comfortable around strangers as you do around lifelong friends.

Learn How:

Ego Taming

Yeah Baby!

Why Junk Food Tastes Good

If you were a highly skilled chemist, where would you work?

Assuming you weren’t going to break bad like Walter White.

I had a friend once in that situation, being a skilled chemist and looking for work, and he took a job at a major cosmetics company.

Another place where chemists work is in food companies.

The kind that are responsible for food that is nearly addictive.

That is specifically designed to trick our taste buds.

If you’ve ever tried to eat healthy, you know how hard it is.

It takes a LONG TIME to “acquire” a taste for healthy food.

Or “re-acquire” since that’s the stuff we are SUPPOSED to eat.

Even fruit is a Frankenstein creation.

If you took a time machine back a couple thousand years, you’d find “natural” fruit that was nowhere near as big and sugary as modern fruit.

In some respects, it’s GOOD that we can trick our instincts.

That’s precisely why we enjoy movies so much.

We get to feel “non-normal” emotions (fear of death, love, loss, etc.) without having to actually deal with the consequences those emotions would normally produce.

In other areas, our instincts, especially our social instincts, are purposely being jacked all over the place.

Look in any crowded area, and check how many people are STARING at their devices.

Chances are they aren’t reading an in depth article about the economic and social implications of modern life.

Chances are they ARE getting their “fast food hit” from social media.

That “likes” and attention that feel good for about a second, but really only want them crave more.

Very much like those advanced chemists to carefully synthesize supermarket food to make us want more with each and every bite.

Luckily, training (or rather re-training) your social instincts is much easier than re-training your hunger.

Because social health food FEELS much better than social junk food.

And once you re-calibrate your social instincts, you’ll feel much better as well.

Learn How:

Ego Taming

Volcano Of Money Ideas

Can You Change Brain Polarity?

I used to love watching the X-files.

One of the reasons was it always explained things in two ways.

One was through paranormal reasons.

Another was from the perspective of medical science.

Even though some of it was “TV science,” it was a good strategy.

The show was on for several years, and they kept the same angle going.

That one character (the doctor) could still be believably skeptical about all the aliens and other paranormal stuff.

While the other guy was convinced there were aliens everywhere.

Being able to see things from both sides is very useful.

I read an interesting article the other day about a hedge fund manager.

He made a ton of money before the crash of 2008.

But remarkably, he made money both ways.

Meaning he made money while housing prices went up, but then he realized the dangers, flipped his strategy, and made money as they crashed.

The article was focused on his “intellectual flexibility.”

Something that is very rare.

To see something from one perspective, but then switch to the opposite perspective.

This is very hard for us humans to do.

Once we get our mind set on something, we usually never change.

They say to the skeptic, no proof is enough.

But to the believer, no proof is necessary.

One of the toughest things to change our minds on is how we think about money.

One of the most strangely “comforting” ideas about money is that it is bad or evil.

Why is this comforting?

This is a very clever mind trick that we play on ourselves in far too many areas of life.

It’s our own humanized version of “turning a bug into a feature.”

It works like this.

We see something we want.

But getting it would be difficult, or scary.

So we “reframe” that which we want from “good” to “bad.”

Then instead of feeling “bad” about ourselves for not getting a “good” thing, we get to feel “good” about ourselves about not wanting to go after a “bad” thing.

Make no mistake, making money takes effort.

And most people don’t like to think about that.

So they readily accept the idea that money is “evil” so they don’t have to feel bad about not wanting to get it.

But that “effort” can be enjoyable effort, or unenjoyable effort.

For example, lifting up bricks for five dollars an hour would suck.

But lifting up bricks of gold you got to keep would most definitely NOT suck.

Same physical effort, but different perspective.

No matter what you do in life, you have to put in effort.

You have to move your body around, say things to people, listen to what they say in response.

If you “believe” money is bad or evil, those things will seem frustrating and scary.

But if you “believe” money is good and holy, those SAME behaviors will be fun and interesting.

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

Genius Ideas Baby

The Birdhouse Strategy

Humans feel best when we are on purpose.

When we’ve got a reason to get up.

When we are in the process of building or creating or moving towards something.

Going on roadtrips is fun for this reason.

Part of the fun of going on a trip is the time it takes to get there.

If we could transport ourselves, like on Star Trek, from our living room to a faraway beach, it wouldn’t be nearly the same.

Maybe because the time it takes to get to our vacation spot (wherever it is) helps us to slowly shift from everyday mindset into vacation mindset.

Sitting in a car or a plane for a few hours literally feels like we are “leaving behind” our normal selves, and moving toward our vacation selves.

Which puts a HUGE barrier to insulate our vacation experience.

But you don’t have to go on vacation to feel on purpose.

Just doing a project which takes a lot of work gives you the same feeling.

Slow growth toward a better future.

Even building a birdhouse (if you’re into birdhouses) is a pleasant experience.

Taking something in your mind, doing the daily tasks to slowly turn your idea into a physical thing.

And once you put it in your backyard, (and see the birds using it) you can remember the process of turning thought into thing.

For a birdhouse or a road trip, it’s easy to measure your progress.

If you’re doing something and you don’t have a way to measure your progress, it’s easy to pretend you’re improving but you’re really not.

One of the “meta” ways to measure your progress is how much money you make.

On one level, this sounds very selfish and almost evil.

But on another level, it makes perfect sense.

So long as you aren’t a bank robber, the money you GET represents the value you’ve PROVIDED to others.

To be sure, there are a LOT of ways you can provide value to others without expecting to get paid.

But if you look at the money you make as directly related to how much you provide to others, it’s a fantastic way to keep score.

It’s very easy to focus on.

Do whatever it takes to EARN more money, and use that as your gauge.

For many people, however, this is VERY frustrating.

It shouldn’t be.

It should feel just like going on vacation or building a birdhouse.

Some people are lucky, and they are born with this mindset.

For them, making money is natural, fun and easy.

And it can be for you as well.

Learn How:
Wealth Tuning