Category Archives: Fear

The Mystery and Myth of Intention

Do You Set It And Forget It?

Everybody knows about “intention,” right?

It’s one of those things you need to do to get whatever you want.

Set an intention, as they say, and all your dreams will come true.

Some even treat this mysterious thing as some kind of magic gumball machine. You “think” of an “intention,” set it, and forget it.

Like all you need to do is put your intention “out there” and some kind of universal wish-fulfillment center will deliver it right into your hands.

As you can guess, when many people “set an intention” all they’re really doing is putting voice to a wish.

Here’s the thing. Setting an intention is hard wired into every human. It would be IMPOSSIBLE to take any action, even going to the toilet in the middle of the night, if you weren’t able to “set an intention.”

Before your body gets up and starts moving, it needs to know where it’s going, and what it wants. Which means the whole time your stumbling to the bathroom in the dark in the middle of the night, your brain is measuring your current “state” and comparing that to your “intention.”

How You Hold It Is Crucial

So saying that you need to “set an intention” to achieve anything is pretty self-evident. It’s like saying in order to breathe, you need to take air in and out of your lungs. No kidding.

What’s NOT so clear is specifically HOW to set an intention. And even more importantly, how to HOLD an intention.

You may have an intention that’s strong enough to get started, but you suddenly lose all willpower when you run into trouble.

Everybody and their sister has an intention to lose weight. Some even get started. But very few follow through.

Plenty of guys have intentions of going over there and talking to that pretty girl. But what happens when she has the intention of getting rid of you as quickly as possible?

Just like Newton’s Second Law of Mechanics, some intentions are met with an equal and opposite intention.

You may have an intention of knocking on some strangers door to sell them a vacuum cleaner, but they’ve got an even stronger intention of watching their favorite TV show. And they’ve got home field advantage.

Obviously, having an intention is not enough. If you want to get anywhere in life, you’ve got to set a clear intention. You’ve got to set a strong intention. And you’ve got to HOLD your intention no matter what.

Learn How:

Frame Control

How To Accelerate Your Success Tipping Point

Push Past The Point Of No Return

What’s the difference between people that succeed and people that don’t?

Chances are, you aren’t going to like this.

Sure, things like luck, connections, genetics, all have a part. Sometimes a big part.

There’s always a famous actor that was “discovered” while unloading furniture, or somebody who was born with a silver spoon in their mouths.

But that’s only the first step. The truth is that even people that have connections, great genes and are incredibly lucky will ONLY succeed if they know what to do, and aren’t afraid to do it when opportunity comes knocking.

And more often than not, they’ve figured out that the best way to find an opportunity is to CREATE IT.

The bottom line is you’ll never really be a hundred percent sure that what you’re doing is the right thing.

And unless you are fully ready to embrace “failure” you will never succeed.

Like I said, this is harsh. Most people hate to hear things like this.

A lot of people out there imagine they’ve “put in the work” and now they are ready to sit back and reap the benefits.

Unfortunately, it rarely works like this.

If you want to continue to get benefits, whatever they may be, you’re going to have to continue to get out there and get busy.

Now, I have no idea what that means to you, but I suspect that YOU do.

If you want an ideal relationships, you’re going to have to go out and introduce yourself to people in a friendly way, if only for practice.

If you want a huge income from part time work, you’re going to have to try a lot of different things before you hit that “sweet spot.”

But the flip side of this coin is that once you get a tiny bit of positive feedback, you’ll be hooked.

For life.

Learn To Enjoy Risk

Pretty soon you’ll embrace uncertainty and “risk” because instead of seeing potential failure around every corner, you’ll start to see potential success.

And this is REALLY when things kick it into high gear.

Before long, what used to seem like “scary effort” now seems to be “enjoyable action.”

From a third party, it may look like you’re doing the same thing.

But to you, everything will seem different. Easier. More natural. You will have opened that all important “flow” where everything is possible.

One of the things you’ll learn from the Mental Alchemy course is how to set your mind right, so that wonderful tipping point will come a lot quicker.

A combination of mental exercises, guided meditations, and some powerful affirmations will set you on the right track.

Get Started:

http://mindpersuasion.com/loa/

How To Charge Forward Toward Your Dreams

Are You Afraid Of Big Goals?

Most people shy away from things like “goal setting.”

There’s a lot of reasons for this. For the longest time I was TERRIFIED of setting goals.

I mean, what happens if you set a huge goal (like the gurus preach) and then it doesn’t come true?

The part of me who believes in conspiracies suspects “some” gurus preach setting big goals because they KNOW most people won’t achieve them. Which means they’ll keep buying the guru’s products.

On the other hand, if you DON’T set big goals, the only thing you’ll ever achieve worth anything is by accident.

I’m pretty sure that relying on dumb luck is not the best strategy! (At least it never worked for me in Vegas!)

So, what’s the secret? How do you avoid the guru trap while still creating a life worth living?

One way is to set a huge goal out there, and then set smaller goals that you’re pretty sure you’ll NEED to accomplish to get there. Certain milestones related to certain skills.

Things like giving ten speeches at Toastmasters, or being able to play a certain piece on a musical instrument from memory, in front of several friends and family members.

Things that will help you KNOW you’re on the right path.

Conscious Or Subconscious – They’re There

The truth is that humans are goal setters whether we know it or not. Every action we take has some kind of intended outcome. However if you never take time to chose your outcomes wisely, your subconscious is going to be choosing short term outcomes based ONLY on your instincts.

Safety, comfort, social recognition, sexual expression, etc. (Maslow’s stuff).

The trick is to make sure your conscious goals are DRIVEN by your subconscious instincts.

That way your inner caveman (or cave woman) is going to be on your side, instead of fighting you.

So yes. Choose a big goal. Choose a huge goal. One WAY out in the future. Then figure out what smaller goals will get you there.

And start making them happen.

You’ll find what happens next is like nothing you’ve ever experienced.

Learn More:

http://mindpersuasion.com/loa/

The LOA Scam

Con Artists Are Everywhere

I saw this interesting sales video the other day for another “Law of Attraction” course.

As someone who loves NLP, persuasion, instinctive triggers, I LOVE reverse engineering those things, just to see what they’re structure is.

This particular sales vid followed the same pattern:

Promise (Good feeling)
+
Take Away (Bad feeling if you don’t buy the product)
+
Benefits of the product

This is a classic strategy as old as the hills. Hit the customer with negatives and positives, and associate the positives with the product, and the negatives with NOT buying the product.

As most of us have TONS of negatives and positives inside our heads, this is pretty easy.

But what I found interesting was how little information there was about the product, other that it sounded WAY too good to be true.

Things like “quit your job within a month, and buy houses and cars with cash,” etc.

Pure snake oil nonsense.

Interestingly enough, if you push the benefits of your product to EXTREME LEVELS (lose weight while you eat ice cream, make money while watching soap operas, get girls to beg you for sex by wearing a certain cologne) people will buy it.

Why?

What If I Miss Out?

Because most of us are TERRIFIED of missing out on something. It’s a very deep trigger that we’ve had for millions of years.

So when people decide to buy the “instant cash while drinking whiskey on the beach” training courses, they do so not because they actually think it will work.

They do so because the sales message has triggered the “What if this DOES work and I miss out on it?”

In reality, so long as the sales message BOOSTS this fear (of missing out) GREATER than the cost of the product, people will buy it.

Trust me, I know. I’ve bought many idiotic products for that very same reason!

And then I told myself the same lie that we always tell ourselves:

“Well, at least I tried.”

Now, it took me a LONG TIME to realize that this was a LIE. Spending money on something you KNOW probably won’t work isn’t really trying. In fact, it’s to cover up what REAL TRYING is.

Real Trying (as opposed to buying snake oil) involves getting out there, and doing things just to see what happens.

Nobody’s going to hold your hand and show you the step by step path to riches, or weight loss, or finding the partner of your dreams.

That takes effort. That takes time. And yes, that takes risk.

But risk doesn’t have to be bad. In fact, it can be pretty fun. Especially when you train your mind into LOVING doing things, just to see what will happen.

Learn how:

http://mindpersuasion.com/loa/

How To Obliterate The Fear Of Failure

Go Higher

In NLP, there’re these things called “meta programs.”

These are filters through which we see the world.

Now, we all have millions of filters that change on a day to day or even moment to moment basis. Like if you’re really hungry, your subconscious will pick up anything that looks like it might be food.

Or if it’s been a while since you’ve been in a satisfying relationship, your subconscious will pick up people who look like they might be candidates.

Or maybe you just bought a red car, and you see red cars everywhere. Or maybe you just became or are trying to become pregnant, and you see pregnant ladies everywhere.

Deep Structure

Meta Programs operate on a much deeper, and much more “permanent” level. They can be changed, but only with conscious effort. Seeing red cars or pregnant ladies, on the other hand, happens on its own.

One Meta Program is how we are motivated. Either by somebody outside of us, or by ourselves.

Like when you know, really know, you did a good job at something, which feels better, somebody telling you that you did a good job, or when you tell yourself you did a good job?

This is also contextual. Meaning that depending on what we’re doing, that approval can seem better coming from the outside or the inside.

Seeking Approval

If the reason we’re doing something came from the outside (somebody telling us to do something) then hearing outside approval is usually better.

If the reason we’re doing something came from the inside (we decided to do something) then inside approval is usually better.

Nowhere is this truer than in the frame of “learning” anything.

If somebody tells you to “learn” something, like your boss or a teacher, you usually depend on their “approval” to know if you’ve done a good job or not.

But if you want to learn something for your own reasons, that approval best comes from within.

The best part is when you realize this on a conscious AND unconscious level.

Understand Why

When you are learning something for your own reasons, and YOU are the only one allowed to say if you’ve failed or not, you CAN make significantly more progress.

This means you can learn anything, for any reason, and NEVER feel as if you’ve “failed.”

Just like Edison when he went through 9,999 different filaments for his light bulb before he found the right one.

He NEVER failed once. He just of a whole lot of methods that didn’t work. Which meant it was simply a signal from his environment to keep searching for something that DID work.

You can do the same.

Learn More:

Intelligence Accelerator

How To Shop For Her Emotions

Feelings Are Everything

No matter how you get a girl interested in you, you’ve got to get her emotions fired up.

You can either plan to do this, or hope to do this.

Most guys hope. Meaning they do things that they hope will inspire the “right” combination of emotions in her, which she’ll “hopefully” interpret as “attraction.”

Flowers?

If you’re super old school, you may go on a “date,” and buy her dinner, give her flowers, shower her with compliments. These are all designed to trigger those emotions in her, that she’ll interpret subconsciously attraction.

One way you will SURELY fail is if you think she’s going to make some CONSCIOUS decision, based on what you’ve done.

Like if you show up with flowers, and you expect her to suddenly “like you” as if she could choose to like you.

Yum!

This would be the same as having a three year old kid, and spending an hour cooking him or her a broccoli and cabbage pie. You think that BECAUSE you put in the effort, that your kid should suddenly think that broccoli and cabbage pie is delicious.

Trust me, the only reason they’ll eat it is to stop you from screaming at them.

Girls (and guys) are NO different. Attraction ISN’T a choice, but even though most guys KNOW this, they act like it’s not true.

Feeling Come From The Subconscious

But the harsh, bottom line truth is if she’s NOT feeling you, she’s NOT feeling you.

Nobody is going to eat broccoli because you CONVINCED THEM to like it. They are ONLY going to eat it if they already like it.

Back on point.

If you want to create attraction, you can only do so by creating the right combination of emotions.

Not only that, but you’ve got to create them on the sly. Most of the time, this happens by accident. A girl just “feels” a guy, and a guy just “feels” a girl.

But you CAN engineer these emotions.

How?

Just move her through several positive emotions (happiness, excitement, discovery, surprise) and a couple of negative ones (fear, shock, anxiety) over the course of twenty or thirty minutes.

Keep It On The Down Low

Just DON’T EVER tell her you’re doing this.

Now, it can be hard to keep track of all these emotions, but they are plenty of mental tricks that can help.

You can literally see an imaginary checklist behind her if you train your mind right.

Then as you’re talking to her, and you see her move through those emotions, you simply check one off your list, and move on to the next.

Just like going shopping.

Learn More:

Intelligence Accelerator

Do You Have A Beautiful Excuse That Keeps You Safe?

#108162105 / gettyimages.com

It’s Not My Fault!

When it comes to self improvement and self development, there’s three general areas.

Much like Goldilocks, two are too this or too that, but one is just right.

On the one side, you’ve got these ideas that there’s some kind of magic.

A magic set of words, a magic sound, a magic kind of idea. Once you “get it” then everything will be easy. No effort or risk required. Not even a lot of thinking. Just say the magic affirmation once or twice, and gold will show up in your pocket.

It Will Never Work!

On the other side of the spectrum, are the skeptics. Before they even move a muscle, they need verifiable proof that it’s going to work.

They don’t like to hold any uncomfortable thoughts in their mind, let alone take any action. So at the first sign of trouble, they spit out that comfortable, “Yea, but is there any evidence? Is there any proof?”

Both sides are really the same. Just two different self deceptions to stay safe.

See, the ONLY WAY to get the really good stuff in life is to take action. And all action requires risk.

No Crystal Balls

Nobody ever knows the future, not even five minutes into the future. That means that EVERY SINGLE ACTION you take will have a bit of uncertainty.

Hiding in your mind waiting for the perfect incantation, or waiting for verifiable proof to be published in all the scientific journals is just to protect the ego.

If you take action, and it doesn’t work out, it’s VERY PAINFUL to the ego.

After all, what will people say? What will people think? What about our reputation?

Go Big Or Go Home

The harsh truth about life is you’ll never get anywhere playing it safe. You’ll never get anywhere without putting it on the line from time to time.

You’ll never get anywhere unless you spend some time thinking, learning, acting, and accepting the feedback. Some feedback will be great. Other feedback will be horrible. Both are invaluable.

Most people are too terrified to understand this.

Your life is a work in progress. It’s up to YOU and YOU ONLY how it comes out. Nobody is going to give it to you.

Unlock your genius and accelerate your progress:

Intelligence Accelerator

Simple Step By Step Destruction of Approach Anxiety

Can You Easily Approach Her?

See that girl over there, the hot one? The one’s that’s been giving you those subtle IOI’s?

What’s the first thing that pops into your mind when you think about walking over and talking to her?

If you’re a normal guy, you’ve got a mixture of fear, anxiety, positive expectation, and lust.

Fill In The Blanks

Those are all healthy and safe emotions and feelings. Since you haven’t talked to her yet, and don’t know ANYTHING about her, all you can feel at this point is physical attraction, which IS a mild form of lust.

But since you don’t know what’s going to happen, you imagine a potential negative outcome. She may laugh, tell her friends what a goof you are, throw her drink in your face, kick you in the nuts, who knows.

Your brain is hard wired to feel fear in uncertain situations. We may have had ancestors way back when who DIDN’T automatically feel fear, but they all got eaten by tigers.

Fear Is Helpful – Sometimes

Those that AUTOMATICALLY felt fear, and ran away EVEN WHEN IT WAS SAFE, lived to fight another day.

Of course, if ALL you feel is fear, you wouldn’t even be thinking of approaching in the first place.

It would be like being at the zoo, and SERIOUSLY considering jumping into a cage of lions and having a chat about world politics or something. The thought of approaching a lion or a tiger doesn’t even cross your mind.

So when you’re standing there, with competing feelings of lust AND fear, that is totally normal.

Beware Of Fearless Gurus

Guys who say they’re afraid of approaching are lying. They may not feel fear on a conscious level, but it’s there.

The trick is that by approaching right away, WITHOUT thinking, you don’t give fear a chance to bubble up in your brain.

The biggest destroyer of FEAR is action.

Luckily, you can practice this WITHOUT actually talking to her, if you’re not ready. Just get in the habit of taking SOME KIND OF ACTION the moment you feel attraction. Walk over to the other side of the room. Walk past her to the restroom. Do ANYTHING other than sit there and wonder what’s going to happen.

Build Different Neural Pathways

What you’ll be doing is building in a DIFFERENT response to attraction than one you may currently have. Most guys feel attraction, wonder what to say, feel a bunch of mixed emotions, then either NOT approach, or approach with a huge ball of anxiety right behind them.

But when you start approaching, or taking ANY action, AS SOON AS that attraction shows up, you’ll soon nip fear in the bud. And pretty soon each approach will be closer and closer to the real thing.

The truth is that your brain is an amazing device. Learning how to operate it will help you get a lot more of what you want in life.

Learn More:

Intelligence Accelerator

Free Mind Tools:

Your HUGE Upside Potential

Flip Fear Around

Most people, when coming up against risk and possible failure, ask themselves the question, “What if it doesn’t work?”

Meaning they focus on the potential negative outcome. Which of course increases the chance of it happening. This is similar to the thinking in NLP to “not use a negative.”

If you tell a kid to NOT do something, they’ll do it. Since “not” is an abstract concept, if somebody tells you to NOT cross the street against the red light, you’ll HAVE to imagine yourself crossing the street against the red light.

The Can’t Process A Negative Myth

Of course, like any other quick and easy saying, this doesn’t always hold true. If I told you NOT to jump into the piranha tank at the zoo, you’d have to picture yourself jumping in, getting eaten, and then come back to me with a, “Yea, no kidding, genius!”

So in a sense, when we’re trying something when the outcome is uncertain, we’re kind of telling ourselves, on an unconscious level, to NOT fail. Then of course, we imagine failing. Which is the same as asking ourselves, “What if it doesn’t work?”

But as somebody famously said, the quality of your life is based on the qualify of the questions you ask yourself.

Flip Your Questions Around

Once you train yourself to ask yourself, “What if it DOES work?” Then instead of feeling fear and anxiety in face of those uncertain situations, you’ll be thinking of all the cool stuff that will happen when you do succeed.

While you may not succeed in that particular instance, you WILL succeed eventually, if you KEEP taking action, and you KEEP asking yourself those positive questions.

Right Questions Yield More Answers

The thing about asking yourself those positive questions is you’ll get a LOT more answers. If you fail, there’s only a few things that will happen.

(For those of you into trading, it’s kind of like the difference between shorting a stock and going long. If you short, you can only make so much. But if you go long, you can hang on for YEARS and make a fortune.)

But if you succeed, the sky’s the limit. There’s literally no telling what will happen once you succeed.

One success leads to another, which leads to another, which leads to more creative ideas and creative action.

Magic Generating Creativity

This is what happens when you open up the TRUE creative genius in your mind. Not just higher intelligence, or a better memory, or passing all your tests with flying colors (AND a good night’s sleep) but the massive creativity that WILL make life magic.

Learn More:

Intelligence Accelerator

Free Mind Tools:

Blast Away Social Anxiety

Most of us are shy when we ask for something.

At the very least, we’re a bit nervous before interrupting somebody and getting them to do what we want.

Even if it’s their job, like a waiter or waitress in a restaurant, or a teacher in a classroom, a lot of us are a bit timid when breaking somebody’s training of thought and asserting our wishes in there.

After all, they could say no.

Truth is that we’ve all been programmed to one degree or another to be a little “nervous” when asking for something. Since if “they” (whoever they are) say “no,” we’re pretty much done.

On a deep level, it feels like we are giving them complete control over our lives, just for a little bit.

They have, for a brief instant, the power of approval or disapproval. Approval feels fantastic, disapproval feels terrible, and it’s completely OUT of our hands.

All mammals are hard wired to absolutely HATE situations where they don’t have power and choice. All kinds of studies on rats and other simple creatures show this over and over.

Is there away out of this trap?

There most certainly is. Most of us just “pop the question” without any regards to the other persons wants and needs.

Now, if you already know the person, as a friend or partner or spouse, there’s not much risk.

But if you don’t know them, that anxiety can creep up.

However, when you first find out what THEY want, and then frame your request or suggestion in terms of what THEY want, rather than what you want, something pretty cool will happen.

They won’t see you as “imposing” on them. They’ll see you as “helping them.”

When they satisfy your request, whatever it is, instead of seeing it as “accommodating” you, they’ll see it as a win-win outcome where you’re BOTH getting your needs met.

More like an even trade, rather than one person giving somebody else something.

And when you can get people to feel that, you’re doing pretty good.

Pretty soon all that anxiety vanishes, and you start to REALLY feel your power.

Relationships, interactions, even basic communication all becomes a lot easier.