Category Archives: Creativity

How To Spot The Cheaters

Once a friend of mine asked me to go with her and her sister to buy a car.

They didn’t want to get taken advantage of by a stereotypical car salesman.

Most people don’t like salespeople for this reason.

Especially ones that get paid primarily by commission.

The idea of getting paid pure commission is pretty terrifying for most people.

This is why there is so much turnover in sales.

There is a low entry for of a lot those jobs, since some places hire anybody.

They don’t have to worry about training or anything.

The companies themselves are leveraging the law of numbers.

They figure they’ll hire 100 people a month.

Due to Pareto (the 80-20 rule), 20% will make most of the sales.

The rest will generally quit after a couple of weeks.

The idea of a guaranteed salary, on the other hand, is VERY compelling.

But in a sense, all people “live” by pure commission.

Meaning the quality of the lives we live are based on how we interact with others.

To get “good” results, you need to interact with others in a “good” way.

Most of the time, there’s plenty of overlap.

A win-win type of outcome.

Both people are benefiting.

A “non-zero-sum-game.”

Zero sum games, on the other hand, are interactions where one person benefits at the expense of the other person.

Many argue that it’s a dog eat dog world.

And the name of the game is get whatever you can, and don’t get caught.

If you walked onto a car lot, you would expect to be “sold.”

But most of us don’t want to be sold or taken advantage of when we don’t expect.

Which makes us very vulnerable.

Especially to those who are always on the lookout for any advantage they can get.

To them, all’s fair in love and war.

And the best strategy with that mindset is to not advertise.

To come in under the radar.

Like the proverbial wolf in sheep’s clothing.

Luckily, if you do some linguistic drills, you’ll learn to spot those types a mile a way.

Even better, they’ll know that you know.

So they’ll keep their distance.

Learn How:

Weaponized Hypnosis

How Ideas Make Love

I read an interesting book recently about the history of prosperity.

How societies went from a bunch of people who chased down zebras for dinner to the kinds of things we have now.

Now, a lot of things were necessary for this massive and continuous improvement.

But a couple of things stuck out.

One is we humans LOVE to copy each other.

One of the often overlooked aspect of the Industrial Revolution, for example, is the massive amount of copying that was going on.

Businessmen would visit factories, come with some excuse to get a tour, and then quickly memorize how everything was set up. When they got back home they’d write down as much as they could remember.

This is essentially how ALL progress is made.

Business compete by more or less copying and improving on each other.

A second thing that stuck out was what author called “ideas having sex.”

Meaning people would come up with interesting ideas, theories, and different ways of looking at the world.

Then those ideas would get into other people’s heads, and THOSE people would put their own unique spin on things.

And after a bunch of iterations, the “ideas” would kind of take on a life of their own.

Changing and evolving and pretty soon, a entire new concept would pop up. Medicine, philosophy, science, art, etc.

What’s cool is YOU can use both of these ideas in your daily life.

One is to ALWAYS spend some time each day in “observer-learner” mode. Where you watch people, not to pass the time or laugh about how goofy they are, but to get ideas.

This can either be in real life, or on TV or YouTube. Just watch people doing things and see if you might get some ideas.

The second phase comes is when you do daily journaling. This is when your “ideas” can mix with your observations to create new ideas, discoveries and insights.

“I saw a person doing X today, and I might try that to do Y, and if I did that, I might get Z, which would be pretty cool because then I’d be able to do XX…”

If you keep doing this on a regular basis, pretty soon you’ll come up with some genius ideas that when acted upon, maybe literally CHANGE your life.

This is just ONE of the many techniques you’ll learn in all of the Mind Persuasion Kindle books.

Helping you to dig into your brain to find YOUR genius.

Get Started:
Mind Persuasion Ebooks

Simple Steps – Huge Results

A lot of famous statements are taken out of context.

Like the famous one from Shakespeare where one of his character said, “kill all the lawyers.”

Many people use that today as prove that lawyers are evil, and always have been.

But the context of how it was used was the opposite. The character was talking about how to destroy a society.

Since civilized society is based on laws, if you kill all the lawyers, they’ll be nobody left who understand the law, and society will descend into chaos.

Another famous saying that is often misunderstood is PT Barnum’s, “There’s a sucker born every minute.”

Most people attribute this to people who are taking advantage of poor innocent people like pensioners and old ladies.

But the whole context of the statement is there’s a sucker born every minute, because each sucker is trying to further take advantage of others.

Meaning the easiest people to take advantage are those who are always trying to take advantage of others, or looking at some “shortcut” so they can get the good stuff without having to do the work that “honest people” need to do.

Get rich quick, lose fifty pounds in one week, make money in real estate with no money down, etc.

But there ARE some simple statements, easy to understand, that DO tell us eternal truths.

And these same statements and simple stories have been around for thousands of years.

Aesop’s fables are one such source.

Taking on the attitude of the turtle will generally help you, in the long run, more than the rabbit.

Sure, we all want to race ahead and get the good stuff before everybody else.

But while some people are busily chasing each and every shiny new object, or jumping on each and every fad, there’s also people like the turtle who are slowly and steadily going after some HUGE goals.

And getting a little bit closer every day.

If you set HUGE goals, WAY out there, and make thinking about them part of your daily life, you will have purpose.

You’ll never feel lost. You’ll always believe there’s SOMETHING you can do to get closer.

One thing you can do to make ANY goal easier to achieve is improve how you think.

Just like doing general physical exercises will help you in any sport.

Working on your brain will help you in ALL areas of life.

The sum total of your life is the result of your daily habits and behaviors.

Your daily habits and behaviors are based on the quality of your thinking.

Change how well you think, change everything.

Get Started:

Intelligence Accelerator

What Life Are You Building?

You’ve heard the joke about the plumber, right?

Guy calls a plumber about a leaky pipe in the basement.

Plumber comes, wanders around in the basement for an hour.

Just looking. Then finally he pulls out a wrench, and tightens in one spot.

The leak stops.

The bill was $100. The homeowner was shocked.

Why so much?

All you did was looking around for an hour, and then spend one second tightening something.

The plumber responds, “Five bucks for looking around, ninety five bucks for knowing where to tighten.”

Maybe you’re familiar with the straw that broke the camel’s back?

Now, is it really that ONE straw?

Meaning if the camel was happily walking down the street, with NO straw on it’s back, and that one super magical piece of straw landed on him, would it STILL break his back?

Of course not.

Every piece of straw was JUST as important.

Of course, there’s going to be ONE that puts it over the edge.

Like ONE snowflake is all it takes to start an avalanche, right?

Not really. You also need a crapload of snow piled up in the right configuration.

This is one of the problems with having a conscious mind.

We tend to miss out A LOT of what’s going on.

We see some waitress or waiter get “discovered” and become a famous actor overnight.

What we DON’T see is that same person has been visualizing, dreaming, and actually PRACTICING their whole adult lives.

So when an opportunity comes, they pounce on it.

They are READY.

If you don’t get this, you risk not doing ANY preparation, so when “opportunity” comes you get passed by.

And you wonder why OTHER people are lucky!

Part of “getting lucky” is making yourself READY for opportunities.

Figuring out what you want, and practicing.

At the VERY LEAST you should have three or four LIFE GOALS that you think about once or twice every day.

Hopefully spend some time journaling on.

And if you’re REALLY serious about getting them, you actually DO THINGS on a daily basis that will keep getting you closer.

Life is, after all, a journey.

Not a destination.

Journey’s take time.

Sometimes you get lost.

Sometimes you have to backtrack.

Sometimes you find wonderful things, people and experiences you’ve never heard of before.

But so long as you keep moving forward, you’ll keep getting closer.

You certainly WON’T get closer if you’re waiting for somebody else to tell you what to do, or “discover” you, or “make it easy” for you.

What you DO on a daily basis will slowly ADD UP to your life.

What kind of life are you building?

Your brain is your most precious asset. No matter how smart, insightful, creative you are, you can ALWAYS get better.

Which means you’ll ALWAYS increase your ability to prepare, find and capitalize on opportunities.

Learn More:

Intelligence Accelerator

Think Outside Your Head

I saw this funny video the other day.

The kind where you want to use as few brain cells as possible.

It was this dog, who had this box. The way he was holding the box, was all he could see was the inside of the box.

So he kept walking around in circles, bumping into things.

Because he was a dog, and not an astrophysicist, he didn’t think to put the box down, take a look around, and then choose another strategy.

There are lots of videos like that. Cats, dogs, all acting goofy.

But we humans, who often times fancy ourselves as superheroes of logic and scientific thinking, don’t often do much better.

Sure, we convince ourselves that we’re giving it our best shot, but most of the time, we’re like that poor dog.

Crashing into things, but we just back up a bit, and then crash into them again.

Naturally, it can be tough to tell if you’re really doing the same thing or not.

Because humans, we’re doing things a little bit more complicated than walking with a box in our mouths.

We’re interacting with other humans, or other complicated systems.

And as the saying goes, “you can’t step in the same river twice,” every time we interact with the system, even if we ARE blinding doing the same thing over and over, the SYSTEM is changing, so it actually is possible to get a different result.

In the short term, this is pretty good. Just back up, try again and keep going until you get it right.

But every time you succeed with this strategy, it actually reinforces the idea of doing the same thing over and over.

Short term, pretty good. Long term, not so good.

A lot of times it’s better to simply try something different. Sometimes a little different, sometimes a LOT different.

This can be frustrating. Because once you change something, you’ll feel a little uncomfortable.

And when you feel uncomfortable, you’ll be much more sensitive to things that “seem” like failure, but are really feedback.

Or you’ll more likely to “interpret” feedback AS failure, rather than feedback.

One way make this a LOT easier is to simply expand your thinking.

Learn to think in different ways, so you’ll see things differently.

Then taking different action will seem a lot easier.

Kind of like discovering a new route to work that’s quicker and easier.

You aren’t driving around blindly hoping to find a new way, you’re using your enhanced thinking skills to FIND a new way so you don’t have to stumble around.

The more you work on your mental skills, the easier it will be to “try on” different behavioral skills, you’ll be able to get a lot more cool stuff.

(Or meet more people or make more money or whatever you want.)

Learn How:
Intelligence Accelerator

The Danger Of Safety

When I was a kid one of my favorite commercials was for Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups.

If you’ve never eaten them, it’s chocolate with peanut butter inside.

The commercial has two people, a guy and a girl, walking down two sidewalks.

The girl is eating chocolate as she walks.

The guy is eating peanut butter. From the jar. As he’s walking down the street.

Seriously.

Then they both come around the corner, and crash into each other.

You got chocolate in my peanut butter!

You got peanut butter in my chocolate!

BOOM! A new candy was discovered.

Funny commercial, but many inventions and discoveries are created this way.

You’re trying something, you make a mistake, but then you learn something new that you NEVER would have thought of before.

Maybe you make a wrong turn, go into a strange neighborhood, go into a 7-11 to get a slurpee, and meet your dream lover.

All kinds of inventions, simple ones, that we take for granted, were invented by accident.

During the space race to the moon, all kinds of things were invented, because there was a NEED that wasn’t there before.

One of the drawbacks of having a conscious mind is that we think we need to plan and predict everything.

If we don’t know all the steps, we’re afraid to move forward.

Sure, it’s good to look before you leap, but you’ve still got to leap!

The saying isn’t “look before you take safe baby steps!”

Your brain is an incredible tool. Once you’re moving forward, UNSURE of what’s going on, that’s when your brain starts humming.

Like a chainsaw running at HIGH RPMs. That’s when your most efficient.

Not when you’re carefully moving forward and making ultra sure that everything works out according to plan.

Think of all the people that moved from the East Coast to the West Coast during the California gold rush.

Think they would have made the trip if they KNEW exactly what was going to happen?

The entire planet was populated by people who just kept moving forward, UNSURE of what they were going to find over the next hill.

Only that they’d figure it out when they got there.

Imagine if humans NEVER developed that ability!

We’d still be chasing after zebras for dinner!

Luckily, your brain is ALREADY pre-wired for you to be an explorer. An adventurer. A discoverer of new ideas and inventions.

Fire up your most valuable asset, and get out there!

Learn More:

Intelligence Accelerator

How To Resonate With Others

Upgrade Your Brain

The English language is packed with metaphors.

Language itself is an interesting concept.

Evolution moves pretty slowly. It’s not like one day there were a bunch of monkeys standing around throwing bananas at each other, and out popped some human elegantly spinning tales of wonder.

Chimps have basic language and signs.

Another interesting thing is that we all have three brains. Our reptile brain, or mammal brain and our neo-cortex (new brain).

Unfortunately, when Mother Nature (or whoever) decides to upgrade our brains, it’s not like getting a software upgrade. They don’t remove old components and replace them with new components.

Brain upgrades get put on top of old software. So we’ve still got all that primitive junk under a very thin layer of new brain.

How does this affect language?

Well, every time we use a noun, we HAVE to use it as if it’s a REAL OBJECT, even if it isn’t.

Like when we say, “In a meeting.” There’s really no such thing as a meeting. Sure, there’s a meeting room, a table, a bunch of chairs, and the people. But the “meeting” itself is really just a shared hallucination. A description of what’s going on.

Technically is called a “nominalization.” A noun (meeting) made from a verb (to meet).

But when we use “meeting,” we HAVE to use it AS IF it were a real thing.

What kind of thing?

Well, we say “in” a meeting, so we think of it like a container.

Like “in” love. Or “in” our cars.

So if we say “in” our cars, why do we say “on” the plane, or “on” the bus, or “on” the train?

Aren’t those containers as well? Not how we think of them. We think of them as vehicles. And our old brains imagine a vehicle to be something you ride “on.” Like “on” the horse.

Metaphors can be helpful, but they can also make us imagine life is much simpler than it really is.

Like the “law of attraction” for example. All you have to do is “radiate” something on some “frequency” and you’ll attract that same “stuff.”

Sounds great, but also sounds pretty vague.

How EXACTLY do you “resonate?”

Sure, it works with magnets. But magnets are very, very simple. Made up of simple components.

YOU are incredibly complex. Filled with thing scientists don’t dare question, as they are WAY beyond human understanding.

The good news is you don’t need to know exactly HOW it works.

All you need to do is figure out what you want, and keep checking if you’re getting closer or not.

AND when you ask questions in the right way, it will DRAMATICALLY accelerate the process.

Learn How:

Interpersonal Resonance

Thoughts Into Things

Magic Imagination

When I was a kid I got a Swiss Army Knife for a birthday.

At the time, I thought it was the coolest thing. Couple knives, magnifying glass, a saw, some tweezers, and a toothpick.

I was in boys scouts at the time, and most of that stuff came in pretty handy.

Later on, I bought a couple of these “fifty in one” electronic kits. It had this big circuit board, and you could wire all the components together in a bunch of different configurations to make a bunch of different stuff.

Lie detectors, pH meters, even a strobe light.

The core message of Think and Grow Rich are “thoughts are things.”

Everything that’s around you right now, was once a thought. Now it is a thing. Sounds pretty cool, but it’s also pretty normal.

I mean, if you were to imagine a peanut butter sandwich, and then get up and make a peanut butter sandwich, so what?

Sure, in the short term, it’s a pretty mundane facet of human nature.

But when you think of a BIG thing, that’s when it starts to get interesting.

Especially if you aren’t really sure WHAT that thing is, only an idea of the kind of outcome you want.

Sort of like shopping for a new shirt or a pair of shoes. You don’t have a specific idea in mind, but you’ll know it when you see it.

Only when you’re building stuff, you’ll know it when you create it. And most often, all along the way you’ll create all kinds of other things. You’ll also create a lot of new relationships.

I’m sure you’ve heard of the “holographic theory” of the universe. Everything is a mirror of something bigger, and something smaller.

Now whether or not this is a metaphor isn’t really so important. Because creating your life is a lot like making a peanut butter sandwich. Or making something to eat when you aren’t sure.

You get started, see what kind of ingredients and tools you’ve got, and get to work. On a broader scale, getting something to eat is part of staying fed and healthy. And every time you make something to eat, you get more information in your brain on how to do that, and the results you’ll get.

No matter what you want, it’s out there. Maybe it exists, maybe it hasn’t been created yet. Maybe YOU are the only one thinking of that right now.

There are two crucial elements in between those thoughts in your head, and those things out in reality that they’ll become.

People, and tools.

Get some:

Mind Persuasion

Choose, Start, Never Stop

Transform Your World

Long time ago I ran an R and D lab for a big medical company.

We designed surgical devices.

Often times we’d have to come up with something out of thin air to run a particular experiment.

My buddy who worked in the machine shop was my go-to-guy for this.

I’d explain kind of what I needed, and he’d take a chunk of metal and use his mad skills and mad tools to turn that chunk of metal into a perfect piece of precision.

Sometimes I wouldn’t even be able to describe what I needed it to do. I’d just show him a rough sketch, he’d come to the lab and take a look, and understand.

An hour or two later, he’d have a precisely engineered device, made from a raw hunk of metal.

This is what makes us human. We look at something, and imagine something much better. Those with skills take things from their environment, and transform them.

Dirt into huge fields of food production that can feed millions.

Raw metal from the earth into complicated electronic circuitry that allows people around the globe to chat in real time.

Inside your brain are those same structures. Those same neural connections that allow for you to imagine a better future, and then create it.

Everything you have now is directly related to your thoughts you had before.

The quality of your thinking today will have a direct impact on your life tomorrow.

What do you think of?

What do you dream of?

More importantly, what are your strategies for making those dreams come true? Because they aren’t going to happen on their own.

It takes work, effort, risk, failure, and your inherent resilience to never give up.

Because your choice to give up or keep pushing forward is the ONLY difference between achieving your life’s vision or watching others achieve theirs.

What’s it going to be?

If you haven’t chosen the life you want, choose.

If you’ve chosen and have started to make it happen, start.

These will help:

Mind Persuasion

Release Resistance To Creation

Dissolve Internal Blocks

If you’re ever having a difficult discussion with a significant other, here’s a trick that will help.

When speaking, face each other sitting down, feet flat on the floor, legs uncrossed, and palms face down on your legs.

This keeps the subconscious lines of communication open.

If you want to see who’s “in sync” and who isn’t, take a look at couples next time you’re at a restaurant or coffee shop. People with open and matching body language are usually pretty into each other.

Regardless of what of hypnosis or meditation you practice, or would like to practice, being relaxed is a crucial component.

Simply slowing your breathing will lower your heart rate and blood pressure. Do this long enough and your brainwaves will slowly drift down from beta into alpha. If you are really advanced, you can get your brainwaves down into theta without the assistance of any binaural sounds.

One of the most overlooked aspect of manifesting is physical health. If you’ve got a lot of stress, you won’t manifest much.

Stress weakens your immune system, tenses your muscles, and closes off your vision. This is made more difficult by wanting something on one level, but being scared of getting it on another level. This inner conflict will create tension, which will actually push away that which you desire.

Doing some daily breathing exercises, yoga, stretching, or anything consciously aimed at reducing stress will make everything easier.

If you practice releasing stress with breathing, for example, you’ll be able to do it anywhere.

Instead of letting it bottle up all day, you can let it pass right through.

No matter what you’re building in your life, building your own body, through directed exercise, is a powerful motivator.

It sends a strong message to your subconscious that you’re serious. It lowers your stress, increasing your immune system and giving you all kinds of other health benefits.

It will leave your muscles more relaxed during the day, giving you more freedom to see all those opportunities around you.

Doesn’t matter WHAT you do, just do something. Even leaning over and grabbing your toes for a couple minutes right after your alarm clock goes off.

When you treat your body with respect, wonderful things start to happen.

Get Started:

Fitness Accelerator