Category Archives: Emotions

After I Sitted Down I Petted The Dog

I Petted The Dog

You Were Perfect

There’s this cool theory in transformational grammar called “X-bar theory.”

This is what Chomsky was famous for, back in the day.

Basically he theorized that all humans have a very generic “language organ” in our brain.

All languages on Earth can fit onto this vague, “language tree.” When babies are between the ages of zero and about two or three, their little brains are kind of figuring out the specifics for the language around them.

Once they’ve got all the dials set, so to speak, then it’s just a matter of plugging in “data” or vocabulary on top of this pre-made language structure.

That’s why kids suddenly EXPLODE with language once they got it figured out.

One of the “rules” is that when you make a verb from a noun, it’s always a regular verb, so the past tense has the “-ed” after it.

They’ve done tons of experiments in kids, where they basically make up verbs, and get the kids to say the “past tense” version. Since the verbs are completely made up, the know they’re using some kind of internal rule, rather than some memorized rule.

This is why little kids ALWAYS make mistakes with irregular past tense verbs. Like they’ll say they “petted” the dog instead of “pet” the dog. They’ll say they “sitted” down instead of “sat down.”

Now it’s cute, but it does present a problem. As an adult, we see kids making what we think is a mistake. But they’re just going by their pre-programmed brain structure.

So when adults correct them, they really have no idea why. They assume they’ve made some kind of mistake, even though they were following the ancient programming of Mother Nature. Doing what’s natural.

How can THAT be a mistake?

While this is a VERY small and insignificant example, it’s one of many.

Kids do things they presume to be normal and natural, and adults show up and tell them they’re wrong.

Sometimes kindly, sometimes not so kindly.

Is it the adults fault? Not at all.

It’s just a natural “mis-match” between natural, childhood behavior, and the way adults think children SHOULD behave.

If you’re lucky, you don’t have many of these “mis-matches” in your history.

Even so, their effects tend to linger. Fear of speaking in public, fear of starting conversations with interesting strangers. Fear of getting out there and being creative to make some money.

None of those things used to be scary.

Luckily, you can go back in time, and re-live some of those early “imprinting” events with your adult viewpoint.

Re-write the meaning of those events, and take away the sting.

Learn How:

Emotional Freedom

Whacking Moles and Killing Monsters

Chop Off Its Head!

Chop Off All Heads At Once

There’s a game called “whack-a-mole” that’s used in plenty of metaphors.

The game has a flat surface with a bunch of holes, and this mole keeps popping out.

You “whack” him, and as soon as he gets smashed down into his hole, another mole pops up out of another hole.

It’s one of those mindless carnival games you play when you want to smash something and impress your friends.

It’s a useful metaphor because it accurately describes a lot of life situations, especially ones where problems keep coming up.

As soon as you solve one, another one pops up.

It would seem this “problem” of never-ending problems is pretty old. Ancient mythical creatures had many heads. If you chopped one off, it would simply grow another one.

In those stories, in order to kill the beast, you had to chop of all the heads at once, at the base.

A lot of our problems are really not the “main” problem.

Kind of like an old married couple fighting over the toothpaste cap, or the toilet seat.

Sure, that’s the “content” of the argument, but that’s not what it’s really about.

Sometimes we think we’re solving our problems, when we’re merely just whacking moles or chopping off one head at time.

This can be even more confusing when similar problems keep showing up. They’re different enough that we “think” they are separate issues, but deeper down, we suspect something else is going on.

Like if you keep dating the same type of person, keep running into the same money problems, or keep sitting next to the same type of goof on the bus.

Unless you deal with the deeper issues, you’re really just whacking moles.

How do you deal with the deeper issue?

The first step is to find out what it is. This takes some introspection, and it can take a lot of courage, but it’s well worth it.

All humans go through what may be called an “imprinting” stage as we grow up. We learn about the world based on our parents, and all the other adults.

Later on, we tend to “reproduce” that same environment around us, even if we don’t realize it.

Kids that grow up in abusive households, for example, tend to “reproduce” that abusive environment without knowing why or how.

It can certainly feel like we are doomed to repeat history, but luckily that’s not the case.

The good news is you can do some digging, and cut off those problems at the root.

Killing that monster once and for all, so he’ll leave you alone.

Learn How:

Emotional Freedom

Awaken Your Natural Learner

Your Brain Is The Same As It Was

Your Brain Is The Same

I remember a long while ago my company was merging with another company.

A lot of us were getting the boot, so we were pretty worried.

The good news was that we got to take any “approved” training to make it easier to find a new job.

I thought that was kind of cool, but I was also kind of worried.

I’d been working in the same lab for the last ten years, and my knowledge was VERY specialized.

I was afraid of stepping into a classroom and learning something new.

After all, I’d heard all those stories about how the older you get, the harder it is to learn, etc.

But what I found was totally the opposite.

At least it can be.

When you think about it, it makes total sense. It’s not like our brain structure, biology and chemistry suddenly changes as we get older. It’s the same brain in your head now that was in there however many years ago you were born. Just a bit bigger, and just a LOT more stuff in there.

Which turns out, is the problem.

When we go through school, we learn a lot of stuff. But we also learn that learning is hard. Difficult. Frustrating. Scary even.

I don’t know about you, but I had some pretty scary teachers in elementary school!

The truth is that you ARE a natural learner. You were when you were born, you are now, and you will be right up until you take your very last breath.

All you’ve got to do is ditch all those “unhelpful” things you learned going through the meat grinder they call an educational system.

Things like “failure is bad,” or “if you don’t get it right the first time, you’re wrong,” or “if you mess up everybody’s going to think less of you.”

All that is total crap. You used to know it. You used to not care if you messed up, or did the wrong thing, or called attention to yourself.

In fact, you thought it was pretty fun.

And you can discover that it still can be pretty fun.

Just learn how to get rid of all that useless junk.

Get Started:

Emotional Freedom

Break The Rules And Have Fun

Can You Do Better?

Can You Do Better?

I love haggling for prices.

Especially when there’s an expectation to haggle.

Now, most of the time, there’s a price tag and people just pay the asking price.

But you’d be surprised how much wiggle room there is.

Many places the sales person simply doesn’t have the authority to haggle, and they might feel put on the spot. 

But just to have some fun, try this out.

Next time you’re shopping for something, and there’s a salesperson standing nearby, look at the price tag, look at them, and ask, “Can you do any better?”

Chances are they’ll look confused.

This works really great if you’re in smaller shops that are staffed by the proprietor themselves.

Although there are some places this will clearly backfire. Like standing in line at your favorite fast food place at lunchtime.

But for the vast majority of things, nothing’s REALLY set in stone.

Which means if you simply ask, you may be surprised what you can get.

But if you never ask, you’ll never get.

Of course, you can give yourself a lot better chance if you ask “correctly.” If you just walked up to people on the street and asked them for money, you wouldn’t likely be successful.

But if you get to know the person, just a little bit, to find out what they wanted, it you might make your “request” a lot more “acceptable.”

Like before asking the department store salesperson if they can “do any better,” you might ask if they work on commission. Or how sales have been. Or any other benefit TO THEM for making a sale. 

Now, the point is not to get out there be a super ninja haggler, and always be asking everybody what they can give you.

But it is kind of fun to see almost every single relationship as something “to be determined” compared to something listed on a price tag, or somebody’s expectations.

Truth is most people are pretty bored. They see themselves, and everybody else fulfilling some “role” of what they are supposed to say and do.

So when you come up and “change the rules,” they’ll see you as somebody that’s more interesting than everybody else. Somebody who doesn’t necessarily need to play by the rules.

Once you start seeing your reality around you as a work in progress, one you can fully participate in and mold as you move through it, life can be a LOT more fun.

Of course, this requires you leave behind some of those old fear of “looking silly” or “calling attention to yourself.”

But that’s pretty easy to do.

See for yourself:

Emotional Freedom

Float Like A Butterfly

Float Like A Butterfly

Lighten Your Load

Many people crave a step by step method of doing something.

Just tell me how to make money and I’ll do it.

Just tell me what to say to him/her to make them like me and I’ll do it.

Just tell me what to say in an interview and I’ll do it.

Just tell me how to lose weight and I’ll do it.

The problem with this thinking is twofold. One is that humans are incredibly complex. WAY more than anybody even realizes.

Meaning that even if you were to go back in time, and follow Bill Gates around since he was a little kid, you still might not be able to reproduce his behaviors and results.

Unless you WERE him, and could see the world the way he did, and respond to opportunities that way he did, you wouldn’t get the same results.

Everybody is different. Everybody has their own unique set of skills, learning styles, and desires.

For example, many rich people only got rich because they were always DESPERATELY afraid of being poor.

I don’t know about you, but imagining some scary poverty monster chasing me my whole life doesn’t sound like a lot of fun!

Another reason is that hoping to be told “what to do” is not such a great idea is because it’s not really the best question.

The truth about you is that you came into this world ALREADY preprogrammed to LEARN ANYTHING you need to learn.

Which means you don’t need to do more stuff in order to get whatever you want, you’ve got to do less stuff.

What stuff?

Stuff like listening to and believing those self doubts every time you’ve got a good idea.

Stuff like actually believing those memories where somebody told you you COULDN’T do something.

Stuff like that silly idea the failure is bad, or giving the wrong answer means you’re stupid, or asking “stupid” questions means you’re not as smart as everybody else.

I saw a goofy commercial once where a guy pulled into a service station, and wanted to know why he was getting such poor gas mileage. The attendant looked in his trunk and saw about 300 pounds of exercise weights. 

“There’s your problem!” He said.

Eject all that junk you’ve been lugging around all this time, and you’ll feel fantastic.

Learn How:

Emotional Freedom

Do You Talk Yourself Out Of Success?

Shut Down Those Inner Voices

Deal With Those Inner Voices

There is a battle raging inside your mind.

Most people don’t know this, but you do.

Few notice this, but you know it’s there.

A battle of ideas, intentions, desires.

Part of you wants to move forward, but then a split second later, too quick for most to notice, another part steps in with the doubts. The worries. The “what ifs.”

When I went bungee jumping, the guy at the top said don’t hesitate. Don’t look down. Just look straight ahead, count to three and lean forward. If you look down, you’ll talk yourself out of it.

This is a clear example of what happens that everybody understands. But when you want to speak up in a crowd, say something in a meeting, or approach an interesting stranger, it happens too quickly for most to notice.

What’s worse, that second voice is the most persuasive voice you’ll ever hear. Not only does that voice convince you it’s not a good idea to do what you wanted to do, but it’s actually BETTER if you don’t.

And if you’ve got a super advanced Jedi ninja in your brain, you may even find yourself patting yourself on your back for your “advanced insight” that keeps you from doing what you wanted to do anyway!

How did we get this way?

Once upon a time, we would move forward with nothing but enthusiasm and excitement. Then we learned that sometimes it was not such a great idea. Adults yelled at us. Teachers scowled at us. Those with “moral authority” shook their fingers at us.

So that secondary voice isn’t REALLY trying to hurt us, it’s trying to protect us.

But like those 100 year old Japanese soldiers still living in the jungle, they don’t know the war’s over.

They believe it’s still raging.

Which means yelling at them, cursing at them, thinking they are somehow proof of your “brokenness” isn’t the best way to approach them.

Kindly let them know they’ve done their job well. They did a fantastic job keeping you safe when you were a kid and surrounded by well meaning but not always effective adults.

Tell them to stand down. You’re an adult now. You can deal with whatever comes up.

Let them know you’ll check in from time to time, maybe for advice, maybe just have a few laughs over the old times (like when you got yelled at by your teacher in front of the class).

But other than that, it’s all you.

Set yourself free.

Learn How:

Emotional Freedom

How To Obliterate Inhibitions

Everything Is Perfect

All Is Perfect

Many things are very inefficient.

On the other hand, everything is always perfectly efficient.

From nature’s point of view, everything’s perfect. Always has been, always will be.

The laws of science always behave exactly the way they are supposed to.

It’s only when the human brain, intention, and limited understanding come into play do things seem to be out of whack.

Take riding a bicycle for example. You put in a certain amount of energy to get from point A to point B.

A lot of that energy is heat, both in your body and in the bike. 

Or consider driving a car. You put gas in, and drive somewhere. The gas produces exhaust, which means that there’s an inefficient use of fuel. A perfectly efficient use of fuel would leave zero exhaust.

Same goes with your body. Fuel in, and exhaust out. On a personal level, it seems to be a lot of wasted energy.

But then again, from a very broad perspective, it’s perfectly the way it should be.

Only when we want something we can’t get, or we don’t understand the system does something seem to be “not working.”

Take something simple like shooting baskets. You shoot and you miss. Even if you completely miss the rim, the laws of physics are still working beautifully.

But what happened? Your brain wanted it to go in, but your body didn’t cooperate. Or did it?

Maybe part of your brain was wanting it to go in, and part of your brain was worried what everybody would think if you missed.

Kind of like having one of those two-person bikes when both people aren’t pedaling in sync.

When you were born, you were perfectly in sync with your intention and your intuition. When you wanted something, you let everybody know. When you were curious about something, you went over and grabbed it. When you were sad, you didn’t pretend you weren’t.

Then you went through a process of becoming an adult. Sadly, many folks don’t make it through this “training period.”

Many people never regain their innocence, curiosity, tendency to express their emotions clearly and confidently.

Think about an adult you know, that can still do that. Open, fearless, not afraid of risks.

Most people would describe somebody like that as incredibly charismatic.

It’s really just a combination of an adult mind (and all the implied responsibilities), with a childlike attitude. When you combine those two, there’s NOTHING that can stop you.

All you’ve got to do is ditch all those “learned inhibitions” that come with a typical growing up process.

That outgoing, creative and curious charismatic YOU is still there.

Ready to let yourself out?

Get Started:

Emotional Freedom

How To Obliterate All Rejection

Become The Sorter

Become The Sorter

I’ve had plenty of sales jobs in my time.

Always lured in by the promise of big money.

And then confronted with the cold hard reality of constant rejection.

Really successful outfits knew that because they had such high turnover, they ALWAYS had to be hiring.

Meaning that part of their daily operations were hiring and training new people. Baked into the cake was the idea that most of their sales would be made by new salespeople only a week or two out in the field.

Many didn’t last longer than that.

Like I said, just a few rejections can quickly kill any dreams of big money.

The guys that seemed to do the best had super human charisma and were always high energy.

Kind of inefficient if you ask me.

Then later I learned all about NLP, proper criteria elicitation, and how it’s MUCH better than simply spitting out the same “features and benefits” pitch over and over and over.

The people that are in sales the longest know that no matter WHAT kind of technique you use, it’s all a numbers game.

Call enough people, and you’ll get some sales. Get enough sales, and you’ll make some good money.

Now, for most people, this requires getting rejected so many times that it simply doesn’t matter any more.

While this does work, it’s not a fun strategy.

The very few people who tend to make serious bank from the beginning never see it as rejection in the first place.

If somebody says they don’t want to buy, they salesperson doesn’t take it personally.

Once I had a phone number with the last two digits missing. So I basically had to call up to 99 different phone numbers to find the person I was looking for (who happened to represent a HUGE commission).

I didn’t see each wrong number as a “rejection” since there was no way to magically make the wrong number a right number.

It was more a matter of pure sorting.

When you look at sales, or anything you want in life, with the mind of a sorter, there’s NO rejection.

Since you’re not trying to get “accepted” by anybody. You’re just looking for somebody who matches what you’re looking for.

When you get down to it, EVERYTHING in life can be put into this broad model.

Figure out what you want, and sort through everything out in the world until you get it.

You used to be able to do this without ANY problem.

Back when you were a little kid. Back before you learned what “failure” even meant.

The good news is you can get back that mindset of the sorter. The fearless explorer. That golden child within that loves the journey as much as the destination.

Learn How:

Emotional Freedom

How Do You Decide?

Two Skills For Ultimate Success

Two Crucial Life Skills

Most people like being told what to do.

Not all the time, of course. But whenever there’s any kind of doubt, question or uncertainty, one common response is to look around for some kind of authority.

When I visited my friend in the hospital after she had her first kid, her and her husband, both professionals, looked completely at a loss.

She looked and me and said, “I have idea what I’m supposed to do!”

If you’ve got kids of your own, you know the feeling.

This is both the best part AND the worst part about being a fully functioning adult.

One is that nobody tells you what to do, so you can do whatever you want.

But since there’s nobody telling you what to do, if you mess up, it’s all you.

This can be pretty terrifying, leaving a lot of us stuck in indecision.

Sometimes even the simplest decisions can take forever, if we’re the only ones deciding.

For many situations, having one “decision maker” is pretty efficient. I was at this small seminar once, and the instructor decided we’d order some pizzas for lunch. Just deciding what kind to get, that would satisfy everybody, took over thirty minutes!

It’s definitely a balance. A very delicate one. You’ve got to be bold enough to make the decisions that really count, and know when to step back and let somebody else do the deciding when it’s not that important, at least to you.

Those that tend to do best have two very important qualities. One is they make a decision and stick to it. They don’t waffle around and wait for everybody’s input in hopes of avoiding the dreaded failure.

They quickly weigh their options, and decide.

As the ancient Samurais said, “Every decision must be made within seven breaths.”

The second crucial skill is to fully accept the responsibility of your decisions. No blaming, no guilt, no self-punishment.

With these two skills alone, you can get very, very far in life. Because every single decision you make will give you more experience and knowledge, that will make the rest even better.

Even if you’re starting from zero, with only a vague idea of where you’re going, and how you want to get there.

Choose, take action, measure results, own them, and choose again.

Is it really that simple?

Once you get rid of all those emotional blind spots and obstacles (that EVERYBODY has), yes. It is.

Get Started:

Emotional Freedom

Own Your Life – Own Your World

Become A Leader

Have You Got This?

One of the greatest things you can say to yourself, (and mean it) is, “I got this.”

Maybe you’re sitting with your friends and something happens, and nobody knows what to do.

Then you say, “I got this,” and take care of business.

Sometimes it means you’re the one paying. Sometimes it means you’re the one speaking up for the group. Sometimes it means you’re the one that’s going to figure out what to do.

They’ve done plenty of studies about how humans interact with each other in groups. They put a bunch of strangers together, and there’s ALWAYS a person who emerges as the leader.

Whether you’re stuck on an island, or stuck in an elevator. Pretty soon, somebody is going to be the leader.

Usually this doesn’t happen like on TV. There’s no fighting, or wrestling for dominance. There’s just one guy or girl who’s got that, “I got this” vibe a little stronger than the rest.

Maybe you’ve been in that situation?

Something happens. You’re with people you don’t really know. You look around and pretty quickly assume that everybody else is waiting for somebody to tell them what to do. So you step up and say, “I got this.”

What’s funny is they take ten separate groups, and take all the “leaders” and put them together, and lo and behold, one of THEM becomes the new leader. They also take the lowest ranking “followers” and put them together, and lo and behold, one of them becomes the new leader.

The more you can say “I got this,” the more you’ll be chosen as the natural leader in more situations.

No matter WHAT you do in life, this can ONLY help you.

More money, more choices, more respect, less trouble, etc.

How do you get this ultra self-confident level of natural authority and power?

Tap into your true nature.

See, all humans come into the world with a magnificent set of skills and abilities. But most of us get them hammered out of us for all kinds of reasons. By the time we reach young adulthood, all of our genius, creativity, boldness and fearlessness has been forcefully replaced by timidity, anxiety, a need to be told what to do, and fear.

To reclaim your power, all you’ve got to do is peel back that layer of crap that’s been layered on top.

To reveal your true nature within.

Then you can show the world who you REALLY are.

Get Started:

Emotional Freedom