Category Archives: Conversational Skills

Help Save The World

There’s a cool concept in economics called the “invisible hand.”

It’s not a reference to God or anything metaphysical. It’s a metaphor for the amazingly powerful intellect of the “hive mind.”

For example, when the space shuttle blew up in the late 80’s, there were three possible causes.

Three companies that made three different components.

It took NASA six months of full investigations to find out exactly what happened.

But the “hive mind” knew within a few hours.

The three companies (we’ll call them, A, B, and C) all went down immediately on the stock market right after the explosion.

But by the end of the day, A and B recovered. C never did.

Six months of experiments later, NASA did indeed prove that the product made by company C was the culprit.

Keep in mind this way back in the 1980’s. WAY before the Internet.

This works equally well in prices.

Nobody needs to know how or why the price of cheeseburgers is suddenly twice as high.

But if anybody’s on the fence, and thinking about opening up a cheeseburger shop, the rising price is a clear signal that people WANT cheeseburgers.

So people open up more shops to satisfy the need.

The “hive mind” demanded more cheeseburgers, and the “hive mind” provided cheeseburgers.

Inventions work the same way. Nobody can EVER predict what will be invented.

But when you’ve got millions of people all independently thinking of how to make stuff better, you’re BOUND to get some awesome creativity.

If there’s one main ingredient in all of these examples, inter-human connectivity and communication is essential.

People need to interact, to communicate, to share and pass along ideas.

Kind of like the old “telephone” game from elementary school. One kid starts with a message, and whispers it into the next kid’s ear. By the time it goes around the whole class, the message is completely different.

For simple messages, this is a goofy exercise.

But when it comes to ideas, it can be magical.

One idea passed through a million minds can transform into a life saving medicine, or a breakthrough in manufacturing, or a much faster way to travel.

Again, all requiring human communication.

The better you can interact with others, share your ideas, take their ideas and make them better, the more you’ll help change the world.

Click Here to learn more.

The Wonderful Path of Life

If you have zero expectations, you’ll never be disappointed.

However, you won’t accomplish much, either.

We humans have this weird idea that once we get that next “thing,” whatever it is, we’ll be satisfied.

This is one of the reasons that lottery winners and other folks who accidentally stumble upon riches are usually pretty unhappy.

Sure, once the money comes and all those money worries are gone, they have to go back to their regular lives, their regular friends (if they have any) and their regular health problems.

This can be an absolutely HORRIBLE realization.

If you THINK that all of your problems can be cured with a bunch of money, and then get the money, ONLY to find that you STILL have those same problems, then what do you do?

However, accepting the simple fact that life isn’t a “once and done” event, where you have one easy thing to do, and once you do it, you’re done.

Life is a series of bigger and more complicated “problems” to overcome.

Because every time you successfully overcome them, you’ve got more skills and resources.

Sure, there are some animals that just sit up in the trees and eat leaves, never having to worry about anything.

But that would be REALLY boring!

Another problem that is common is we have these HUGE dreams, but never get started.

We think about them a lot, but we never really get going in any appreciable way.

One of the things NECESSARY to achieve those dreams is unfortunately something that we FEAR the most.

And that is failure.

The path between where you are, and what you dream for your life is long, and filled with unexpected twists and turns.

Paradoxically, the BEST way to learn how to do something is FAIL a few times.

You don’t have to fail big, but the best way to learn is through feedback, both good and bad.

Because ALL feedback is useful. Do more of what works and do differently than what doesn’t work.

When you can wrap your mind around this concept, and fully embrace it, there will be NOTHING you can’t achieve.

Figure out what it is, take action, LEARN from every step, and NEVER STOP until you get there.

Whatever it is you want, PEOPLE will likely be a fundamental aspect of getting it.

Which means developing your people skills will go a long ways.

Click Here to learn how.

Cut Yourself Loose

When I was in high school, I loved science, but my math sucked.

Because I sucked at math, every time I thought about science I had a mix of positive appreciation and negative anxiety.

Then later in college, I went through the same scenario as I kept going through tougher and tougher physics courses.

But once I’d figured out the math, I could enjoy the science without any negative anxiety.

I would actually watch these beginning physics shows on TV. My roommates thought I was crazy, but for me it was pretty cool.

I’m sure you’ve heard the metaphor about the elephant.

When he was a kid, they kept him tied up. But when he was fully grown, they removed the rope.

But since he’d been conditioned to believe the limitations (the rope) was there, when they removed it he never went outside that small circle.

Even though the rope was gone, his belief that it was still there kept him trapped in that small circle.

When you were very young, you were very outgoing. Socially fearless. If something was wrong, you would scream your brains out.

If you were happy, you would laugh your brains out.

But then the adults starting putting those constraints on you. To keep you quiet. To keep you from causing problems.

This happens to all of us.

But here we are as adults, and those constraints aren’t there any more.

But just like the elephant, because we BELIEVE they are there, we act as if they ARE there.

The elephant my think about going outside his circle, he may WANT to go outside his circle, but his fear of the rope keeps him stuck.

Fortunately, we humans are a bit smarter than elephants. We can look back and understand that our situations when we were kids are MUCH DIFFERENT than they are now.

There is NO NEED to feel any social fear at all. No logical reason.

But just knowing this doesn’t help. Because our fears operate on a subconscious level.

And only by going down and rearranging them, and then coming back up, can we live life without any social fear or anxiety whatsoever.

Once you’re able to cut yourself loose from the false fears programmed into your brain when you were a toddler, life will be fun and exciting.

You’ll be able to act without fear, behave and communicate in any way you want, and create the life you desire.

Click Here to learn more.

How To Copy Movie Stars

A lot of our ideas come from the wrong places.

For example, we tend to confused real life and entertainment.

On one hand, movies, TV and books have to be “believable” (unless they are in the fantasy genre).

But on the other hand, they have to be interesting.

The BEST TV shows and movies do well on both counts. On the one hand, they are filled with normal people in normal situations.

Then something extra-ordinary happens to them, and they have to battle the monster (or whatever).

But one thing that is ALWAYS different is how people talk in the movies, vs. how people talk in real life.

In movies and TV, people are always super witty, always say the right thing, and are ALWAYS supremely confident (unless overcoming their lack of confidence is part of the story).

But in real life, most of us are, “um, well, like, um yea, so, uh, what?”

But you CAN use movie characters as a reference point, if you are specifically trying to IMPROVE in the areas of social confidence and “in-the-moment” speaking skills.

Based on the NLP technique of modeling.

First find somebody that behaves in a way that YOU would like to behave. Ideally, find it on YouTube so you can watch it over and over.

Then watch the clip while you are SUPER RELAXED. Release all tension and anxiety. Turn off all backgrounds sounds. Watch it a few times.

First, just as relaxed and open as possible. To absorb all of their micro-movements, behaviors and expressions.

Then watch it a few times, and imagine it’s YOU up there.

Then watch it a few times, but with your eyes closed, and imagine you see the scene FROM the characters eyes.

Try and actually move your lips along with whatever the character is saying.

Now, this does sound pretty goofy, so you probably shouldn’t tell your friends or family about this.

But it is a powerful and very safe way to increase your social skills, if you do this a few times a week.

And since there’s a kajillion different clips on YouTube to choose from, you can pretty much MODEL any situation you’d like to improve upon.

After all, social confidence, communication skills, interpersonal skills, these are things you can NEVER have enough of.

Click Here to learn how.

Customize Your Brain

When I was in high school I went to this party.

I’m not sure what the occasion was, but there was a mix of kids and adults.

I don’t even remember if it was a kid party with a bunch of grownups, or a grownup party with a bunch of kids.

Anyhow, I was in the garage, and I noticed the homeowner had a car covered up.

But it was a pretty small car.

After a few questions, the owner (of the home and the car) came out and took off the cover.

I don’t even remember what kind of car it was (I was never a “car guy”) only that was a little red convertible.

And he was spending his free time customizing it, down to the super cool looking dash board, with all kinds of gauges and dials.

One thing that struck me was how this guy lit up with enthusiasm when he was describing it. Something he was obviously passionate about.

Most people buy a car, and they’re good. They may put down some custom mats, or maybe even put something cool on the dash, but that’s about it with how much people “customize” their cars.

Most people use their brains the same way.

They figure they’ll use their “stock model” without doing any custom work to it.

Sure, they’ll go to school, like everybody else.

Fill it up with enough data to pass the next test, like everybody else.

Then get a job, like everybody else.

And show up on time, and do what they’re told, like everybody else.

That strategy works, until it doesn’t.

Then what?

What happens if you want to do something, and you look upside your brain for a strategy, and come back with nothing?

What happens if you (gasp!) have to try something you’ve NEVER done before, in an attempt to get your needs met, but your factory-setting brain says, “No way, dude!”

You could vacillate, like everybody else.

You could look for somebody to blame, like everybody else.

Or you could do something different.

You could get started TODAY learning how to customize your brain.

How to practice thinking, so the when the inevitable situation comes up, you won’t be stuck.

You’ll take action, leaving everybody in the dust.

How do you do that?

Here’s How:

Fearless

The Exchange Model of Communication

There’s a pretty interesting procedure in NLP called “Integration of Parts.”

Basically it’s a hallucination where you create a “dialogue” between two “parts.”

Like if “part of you” wants to get out and meet people, but another “part of you” wants to stay home and watch TV.

You bring them both out, and literally talk to them (and hear their responses) as if you were having a negotiation between two physical entities.

The idea is to keep “going up the logical level” of each of their “desires” (going out and staying in) until they both realize they want the same thing.

Then you can work on coming up with a better strategy to get that need met, rather than having inner conflict.

The reason it works is if you take any “criteria” for why we want to do something, and you’ll end up with a hard to describe “feeling” that can be equated pretty easily with any other hard to describe “feeling.”

Like you buy a car because you want to get to point A to point B. But you buy a certain car for certain reasons (safety, looking cool, feeling good, etc).

Good salespeople know to respectfully find these “higher order criteria” so that they more easily fulfill them.

If you want car that has a 350 cc engine and gets 22 MPG, that’s going to be harder to satisfy than a car that makes you “feel safe.”

When talking to people for personal reasons (e.g. not selling them anything). The same strategies apply.

You don’t exactly walk up to a stranger and ask them what they’re looking for in a new acquaintance.

But knowing those criteria are ALWAYS there will help a lot.

Whenever people are meeting each other socially, we all have pretty much the same criteria.

We want our ideas to be heard and respected. We want our wants, needs, and fears validated.

We don’t want to be told our ideas are silly or foolish.

We’d all rather talk about things we want, rather than we don’t want.

Looking at social interactions as negotiations is a bit strange.

But if you keep it on the down low, and always give them something before you expect something back, you’ll have a lot more success.

AND you’ll find that talking to people is a lot easier, when you’re using the “give first” mindset.

You’ll be remembered more, and you’ll be thought of in a much better light.

Doesn’t matter if you’re making friends, looking for lovers, finding new business contacts, or just passing the time.

See every conversation as some kind of “exchange,” and give before you get.

You can learn how, and a lot more here:

Interpersonal Resonance

Are You Memorizing Lines?

If you wanted to model somebody, there are two things you’d need to consider.

Their outer behavior, and their inner thinking.

Now, obviously a lot of things aren’t that dependent on inner behavior.

If you wanted to make some chicken nuggets, for example, you’d only need to copy the outer behavior.

You could find a decent YouTube video, watch what they do, and copy them.

So long as you do the right steps, you’ll get the right results.

On the other hand, there are other things that require a deep understanding of what’s going on the inside.

Many people who are interesting in improving their dating skills, for example, would love the idea of being able to memorize a bunch of lines and then just “spit them out” and get the same results.

But if you’ve ever watched a crappy movie, you know there’s a lot more than just memorizing lines.

Even take two actors, everything else the same, and you’ll get two DRAMATICALLY different results.

For example, imagine some guy famous for making comedies. The guy who played “Doc” in Back to the Future, for example, but trying to pull of a serious James Bond.

Sure, it might work, but it would be DRAMATICALLY DIFFERENT.

This is the fallacy of thinking you can just “memorize” what to say, and have the same effect.

Of course, when we’re talking about acting, it’s a ONE WAY communication.

Which means that actor expects us to sit there and be passive.

This is also another fallacy in thinking you can memorize lines and have them work on a potential client or romantic partner.

This is actually GOOD NEWS.

Why?

Because most books, courses and techniques involve some kind of “inner game” and “outer game.”

Inner beliefs, and outer behaviors.

But they completely IGNORE the other person.

When you take into account the UNIQUE ideas, perceptions, experiences and beliefs of the OTHER PERSON, your own “outer game” is much less important.

In fact, in reality you need VERY LITTLE outer game to UNWRAP their inner game.

And once they are seeing YOU through their own unique filters, desires and criteria, it’s much easier than most people realize.

Doesn’t matter WHAT your purpose of communicating is.

Business, personal, romance or just of for fun.

When you focus on THEIR inner game, everything else falls into place.

Learn More:

Interpersonal Resonance

Get Your Mental Black Belt

Once I got into a discussion with a friend of mine over the origin of the expression, “raining cats and dogs.”

We argued over what it meant, so we looked it up.

Turns out that nobody really knows. There are a few sort of plausible explanations.

My favorite was from back in the day when English people were pretty filthy.

They would just throw their garbage out onto the street, and wait for the rains to wash it away.

So when it rained particularly heavy, they would see all the garbage flowing down.

Often times, mixed in would be dead animals. Cats and dogs, specifically.

So people would joke that it was “raining cats and dogs.”

Now, whether or not this is the “correct” “meaning” for this particular expression doesn’t really matter.

The English language is FILLED with metaphors like this where EXPERTS have zero clue where they come from.

Sure, everybody’s got their own pet theory, but they are really just guesses.

Kick the bucket, buy the farm, sell somebody down the river, and on and on.

Stephen Pinker, a famous linguistic tells our that our brains don’t really need to know WHY they mean what they do. All we need to know is that both “kick the bucket” and “buy the farm” means to die.

So when somebody uses it, we understand what they mean. If enough people around us are using it, we’ll start to use it to, usually subconsciously.

Most of our beliefs are like that.

We picked them up without really questioning what they mean or how they got there.

Public speaking is scary, talking to pretty girls is horrifying, making money is difficult, losing weight is hard.

But since SOME people on Planet Earth live their lives in direct OPPPOSITIION of these beliefs, that CAN’T be objectively true.

Only true for US. And only true because we don’t question them.

The good thing about beliefs is you can CHANGE THEM.

Sure, it takes effort. One MUST go through the natural learning process.

Unconscious incompetence, conscious incompetence, conscious competence, and finally unconscious competence.

Imagine getting to the unconscious competence level of the following beliefs:

Money is good.

Making money is easy.

Talking to attractive people is fun.

Persuasion is easy.

Staying in shape is easy and natural.

What happens to your life then?

Few are willing to question their beliefs, let alone do the work to change them.

Just like few people willing to get a black belt in a martial art, or take the time to learn something complicated like Photoshop or a foreign language.

But all it takes is effort, and consistency.

What are you waiting for?

Get Started:

Emotional Freedom

How To Beat The Numbers Game

I’ve had a lot of sales jobs.

Some were pretty fun, most were pretty boring.

A lot of what my friend called “junk jobs.”

Meaning they have some kind of gimmick, and they go through hundreds of applicants a week.

They convince you it’s easy to make a killing, but the downside is they’ll ONLY pay based on commissions.

I’ve seen a lot of well thought out scams. Products that aren’t really products, but the guys who came up with these are doing pretty good.

They figure if they “hire” a hundred people a week, they might get a couple to do pretty well.

So from the pure “number theory” angle, they’re getting a couple of “natural salespeople” on a weekly basis.

This means they don’t have to spend any time of training, since they’re not really “training” they are “sorting.”

This “numbers theory” works from a lot of angles. If you’re selling door to door, or picking up girls at the mall, or sending out resumes. So long as you keep your “numbers” high enough on the front end, you’ll eventually get success on the back end.

This requires no skills. No development. Just taking the person you are, right here, right now, and spending a lot of time and effort to find the PERFECT match.

Send out enough resumes, and eventually you’ll find the PERFECT job. Perfect partner. Perfect house, apartment.

Problem comes with the “enough” gets way up into the thousands. Or the tens of thousands.

It also requires taking a good hard look at what you define by “perfect.”

And what you are willing to do to get it.

For example, let’s say you were offered the PERFECT job. But it required you move 3,000 miles away.

In reality, there is no such thing as “perfect.” It’s more like gradients between “really good” and “really lousy.”

So when people are playing the numbers game, they’re looking for something (job, partner, sales, etc.) that’s not perfect, but “good enough.”

It’s hard to admit this to yourself.

But you don’t HAVE to play the numbers game. Or ONLY the numbers game.

To be sure, if you want a decent romantic partner, you ARE going to have to talk to a few people.

But instead of seeing each person as a simple “good enough” or “not good enough,” you can see them (or it or whatever) as a LEARNING OPPORTUNITY.

Every job interviewer that DOESN’T hire you can STILL be fantastic way to improve yourself for the next one.

Every girl or guy that rejects you can be a GREAT WAY to improve your approach next time.

So instead of sorting through as many statistical “numbers” as possible. You can have an unlimited amount of experiences from which you can improve yourself.

How?

Every day, take something that DIDN’T go how you wanted it to.

Then reevaluate what you said. Look at some of the language patterns in Covert Hypnosis.

Then figure out how you COULD HAVE done better.

And then do THAT next time.

Do this, and every single “number” will be YOU increasing your skills.

Get Started:

Covert Hypnosis

Sneaky Tools Of Manipulation

When I was a kid a read a lot of comic books.

And in the back then they had all kinds of goofy ads for goofy products.

Even though that most of them were clearly fake, part of me wondered.

This is, by the way, one of the reasons copywriters write these MASSIVE claims on their sales page.

So long as they get at least part of you thinking, “Hmm, probably fake, but what if it IS true?”

And then that creates curiosity, which is a powerful buying trigger. Then you buy it just to see, and when you find out it IS fake, you say “Well, I just wanted to see, at least I know…” which means you won’t likely get a refund.

Anyhow, some of the things were “fake” but part of me (especially as a kid) wanted to see, just to see.

(Sea Monkeys come to mind…)

But one of the things I KNEW was fake was “X-Ray Glasses.” Even as a kid, I knew if those really DID exist, they’d be illegal.

As cool as they would be to have.

(Of course, nowadays if you want to see through people’s clothes just go get a job at the TSA…)

But there is kind of a way to see what people are thinking.

In Covert Hypnosis, there are these things called “Linguistic presuppositions.” These when you take an “idea” and hide it within a sentence. To kind of “sneak it” past other person’s conscious mind.

These, of course, are used naturally. By everybody. But they are usually used defensively, and without any thought.

Most people use them to HIDE THINGS they don’t want other people to question.

It allows people to say things without really needing to be responsible for them.

Kind of like when people say, “I’m just going to throw this out there.” It’s kind of a “weak” way to introduce and idea, and take credit for it if everybody likes it, but be able to distance yourself from it if people don’t.

Once you start to study these patterns, you’ll see these EVERYWHERE.

Usually by politicians or news media. Who’d like to make inflammatory comments, but make it sound like they are coming from “somewhere else” so they don’t have to defend saying them.

But these “linguistic presuppositions” are tools. You can use them to covertly slam people and come off as a creepy manipulator.

Or you can use them to covertly uplift people, highlighting their best points, but in a way that doesn’t make them feel “on the spot.”

And come off as a genuine, charismatic person that people LIKE being around, and actively seek out.

To learn how, check this out: