Category Archives: Fears

Mind Mismatch

Eliminate Mind Mismatches

The other night I watched that Facebook movie on Netflix.

They had those guys that were on the rowing teams.

Most sports are a combination of skills, strengths, endurance, strategy and teamwork.

But in that kind of competition, teamwork can make or break you.

You can be weaker physically, but if you are “in sync” much more than everybody else, you’ll win.

When I was in high school I had this girlfriend. After the initial excitement wore off, our dates were pretty similar.

“Where do you want to go?”

“I dunno, where do you want to go?”

And we’d end up driving around in circles. Not really circles, but we wouldn’t ever do anything interesting, since we never had much of a plan.

One of the secrets of a good relationship is compatibility. Sure, there’s got to be physical and emotional attraction, but if you aren’t mostly compatible, it’s not going to work.

One thing that can mess up us humans is the idea of a “mismatch.”

We can be mismatched in our jobs, wrong skills at the wrong company. In a relationship. In a major in college. Even choosing a movie to watch. You get about ten minutes in and think, “Hmm. This isn’t for me.”

One of the most common mismatches is our instincts.

They were designed to help us during hunter gatherer times, but they mess us up now.

Like eating.

Back then, it made sense to eat everything in sight whenever you could.

Not so much now.

Back then, everybody was egalitarian. Meaning they all shared the wealth, which in those days was food.

But now, you see some ultra rich person in front of you at the supermarket, on some level it FEELS like they’re “cheating” because they are not sharing with you.

But unless you know HOW they got all their money, you can’t really judge them.

Assuming “cause-effect” relationships were none exist is also a holdover.

Back then, even if you were wrong nine times out of ten, but that one time out of ten kept you alive, assuming cause effect relationships where none existed (loud noises equals danger, for example) kept you alive.

The ancient dudes who wanted to investigate everything in meticulous detail eventually got eaten.

However, there are WAY more variables today than back then.

Not only that, but it’s WAY less dangerous.

So those “cause-effect” relationships we assume are true are FALSE probably 99.99% of the time.

And when they ARE true, we wont’ die. Not even close. Maybe feel some social discomfort.

But our ancient brains haven’t been updated.

Or at least not very much.

The good news is with some consistent and creative imagination, journaling, and VERY SMALL risks on a daily basis, you can retrain your brain to see the world much more accurately, and much more in your favor.

So taking those actions to get you what you want (money, companionship, sex, fame, social status, income, wealth, whatever) will be natural and easy.

Learn How:

Fearless

No! Shut Them All Down!

The C-3PO Response

Sometimes we humans get so worried about stuff we overcompensate.

I think of it as the “C-3PO” response.

From the scene in the original Star Wars.

Luke and the gang were stuck in the trash compactor. He finally radios 3PO and says “shut down all garbage compactors on the detention level!”

To which 3PO in his melodramatic worrier style says (while flailing his arms), “No! Shut them ALL down!”

This is kind of how our monkey brains work whenever we find ourselves in a fight of flight situation.

This is when our brains think that FEAR means “Forget Everything And Run!”

Like you see an interesting person across the room. You could smile at them. You could subtly nod at them.

You could walk by them and measure their body language as you do so. You could walk up and introduce yourself.

You could walk over and use some cheesy line (if you’re trying to create a romantic spark). In reality, there are TONS of things you could do that would move you closer to your ideal relationship with that person, for whatever reason.

But what does your C-3PO monkey brain say? “No! Don’t Do ANYTHING!”

Because once upon a time, way back in the hunter-gatherer times, the plan of “better safe than sorry” was correct more often than not.

Because walking over to check out an interesting looking bush could LITERALLY get you killed.

So the 3PO defense was actually pretty useful back then.

Now? Not so much.

Kind of like it was useful back then to eat everything in sight, whenever you had an opportunity.

Do that today and you soon won’t be able to fit through your front door!

The 3PO defense is one of the weird problems with being a modern human with a monkey brain.

Even from a purely physical standpoint, the “Neo Cortex” (literally New Brain) is just a thin layer over the thick mammalian brain, which is itself over the reptilian brain.

So we’ve got this thin, relatively new layer of brain competing with millions of years of evolution.

Which is why our FEELINGS and EMOTIONS can so easily trump logic.

I mean, what’s the WORST thing that can happen, realistically speaking, when you walk over and talk to that interesting person (or whatever else you’d like to be able to do)?

They politely (or even not politely say) they’re not interested.

But based on our emotional response, it’s as if we think they’re going to deliver a roundhouse kick to the head, before they strip us naked and throw us to the wolves!

So, how can you adjust your EMOTIONAL responses so they are in line with what will REASONABLY happen?

By doing the exercises in here:

Fearless

How To Rewire Your Fears

Re Wire Your Fears

I’ll never forget the first time I went skydiving.

It was about an hour drive to the jump place. All the way out I was secretly hoping we’d get into a car crash so we wouldn’t have to go.

The first split second I jumped out of the plane, I was pretty out-of-my-head terrified.

But the next sixty seconds (free fall) was one of the most incredible things I’ve ever experienced.

They say that’s one way to get over your fears.

“Feel it and do it anyway.”

And they are right. Truth is that most of our fears are false. So if we just FORCE ourselves through that, we’ll notice the fear is not there. The experience can be exhilarating, or it could be boring.

But who the heck wants to FORCE themselves through their fear?

Sure it works, but just because it works doesn’t mean it’s a good idea.

Yeah, on the other side of your fears are your greatest resources. Your greatest strengths.

There’s that old story that the gods who created us hid our greatest powers behind our fears, since that’s the last place we’d look.

(I guess the gods didn’t want the competition.)

But still, who the heck wants to make a daily habit out of getting into a brawl with your inner demons?

We’re hard wired to NOT do stuff like that unless we feel our lives are dependent on it.

(or we’re afraid of wimping out in front of our buddies).

Is there another way?

There sure is.

See, our fears are based on FALSE assumptions. A lot of them. We imagine doing something, and then our lighting bast brain imagines the WORST possible outcome. Then delivers a horrible feeling to keep us from doing what we want to do.

This keeps up from realizing that WORST possible outcome (that we didn’t even know about since it happens below conscious awareness).

The trick is to RE-WIRE your brain, so that when you think of doing something, instead of your lighting fast reptile brain automatically going to the WORST possible outcome, it either goes to the BEST one, (giving you a really POSITIVE feeling) or a more likely, neutral outcome.

Think of it like a circuit. One wire splitting into two wires. At the end of each wire is a possible outcome. One good, one bad.

But since our brain’s PRIME DIRECTIVE is to keep us safe, the “wire” leading to the WORST outcome is a lot thicker. So our brain impulse more easily travels down THAT wire to the WORST outcome.

But by taking the time to BUILD UP the BEST possible outcome, so that wire is AS THICK as the “fear” wire, you’ll have a more realistic imagined outcome. Meaning BOTH WIRES will be “checked” by your brain impulse, and you’ll have a more neutral feeling.

There are plenty of ways to do this.

You’ll find them all here:

Fearless

Massive Social Status

Stop Getting Sucker Punched

One of the biggest causes of human suffering is an instinct mismatch.

Take hunger for example.

In a hunter-gatherer environment, if you didn’t the tendency to eat as much as you could whenever there was food, you didn’t have much of a chance of surviving.

Since food was limited. When you had some, you had to get as many calories in you (and ON YOU in terms of energy storage) as possible.

But nowadays, that’s a very dangerous strategy. For obvious reasons.

A lot of our instincts were GREAT for primitive times, not so much today.

A couple of these are authority and social proof.

Countless nations have gone nuts because they had a crazy leader (authority) that everybody rallied behind (social proof).

Even today, it’s VERY HARD to admit that we ourselves are influenced by these.

We LIKE to think we are rational, consciously driven, awake, etc.

But next time you’re considering doing something, ask yourself these questions:

Would you still do it if NOBODY else was doing it?

Would you still do it if there were ZERO authority figures behind it?

This is hard. Most of us don’t like to think of ourselves as pack animals.

But as I’m sure you know, many of the greatest inventors, scientists, researchers and explorers of all time didn’t wait around for social or authority approval.

Often times they did so despite not having ANY of that.

Another thing that can in the way of living a fulfilled life is emotional blind spots.

Things that suddenly pop up out of nowhere, and feel like a sucker punch.

Consciously, you have no idea why these things bother you.

They SUBCONSCIOUSLY remind you of some pretty scary things that happened as a kid.

When you were young, inexperienced, and were TOTALLY DEPENDENT on those around you.

The only problem is your lightning fast brain makes such fast associations, that something that is even SIMILAR today to something that happened long ago is going to FEEL just as scary.

Often times without having a rational explanation why.

Kind of like when you KNOW you just ate an hour ago, but you can’t help opening another box of cookies.

The way to “handle” your instincts is to manage them.

The way to “handle” those emotional blind spots is to RE-PROGRAM them.

This is much, much easier. You won’t have to manage them, since they’ll disappear.

Not like your HUNGER will ALWAYS be there.

Those emotional blind spots can be ERASED.

For Good.

Learn How:

Emotional Freedom

Ditch Your Hidden Fears

Clear Your Head

Delete Brain Spam

Most people have a few hidden secrets.

None of them are true, but they are things about ourselves are hope that nobody finds out.

This is why a friendly conversation can sometimes turn adversarial, when one or both parties feels like the other person is getting close to that “secret” part of us.

This can sometimes come across as feeling on some level that we are “faking it” or that we are somehow an imposter and people knew the truth they’d kick us out.

This is one of the main reasons behind self-sabotage. Whenever you start becoming successful, you start to feel like you’re “playing above your skill level.” Maybe you start making some money, start losing weight, or start doing social things you didn’t do before.

But part of you is terrified of being found out. Of people looking at you and saying something like, “What are YOU doing here? You don’t belong!”

This is common, no matter who you are, or what you’ve accomplished.

Paradoxically, for many ultra-successful people, the more successful they become, the worse this fear gets. It’s as if they are always running away from an invisible demon always right behind them. 

Of course, this is just a mental construct. Everybody has a hard time understanding themselves, let alone being able to look into your soul with x-ray vision.

Which is why when you accept others, you will be like a super hero.

When you radiate an aura that says, “I like you, and I accept you JUST the way you are,” people will be drawn to you like bees to honey.

Of course, in order to first accept others, you’ve got to completely accept yourself.

Some daily quiet time inside your mind is PERFECT for this. Just sit and accept yourself. Appreciate yourself. All of yourself. The good parts AND the “bad” parts.

When you get pretty good at this, you can do this little exercise when you’re out among others. As you appreciate yourself, appreciate others as well. 

This simple exercise can open up a whole new world of possibilities, one you may have never seen before.

Learn More:

Charisma Generator