Category Archives: How To Open

Don't Make This Guy Angry

When Will The Piper Come Knocking?

Economics is frequently referred to as the “dismal science.”

This makes sense when you look at all the other sciences.

Even if you don’t understand science, it’s extremely useful.

To kids and primitive cultures, science is like magic.

And not just magic, but the good kind of magic.

The kind of magic where you can take a clump of frozen stuff out of your freezer, pop it in the microwave, and a couple minutes later have a delicious burrito.

Or that allows you to walk down the stairs in one part of the city, scarcely take your eyes off your twitter feed, and walk up the stairs in a completely different part of the city.

Or even better, get onto a plane, fall asleep, and wake up on a different continent.

Only a hundred years ago, when somebody was traveling to another continent, goodbye’s were sad because you wouldn’t see or hear from the person in months or years.

Now, because of science, we can go to another continent, and face to face talk to our loved ones back home when we get there.

But why is economics “dismal?”

Because it forces us to ask a very important question.

One that few people ever ask.

One that politicians hope we NEVER ask.

What’s the question?

“At What Cost?”

Every single action we do has ramifications.

Most of the time, we can ignore them.

But as the story of the pied piper tells us, eventually we’ve got to pay.

The story of the pied piper of course is about a guy who got rid of all the rats in a city.

Then the people decided they didn’t want to pay him.

So he got rid of all the children, just like he did the rats.

Every action we take will need to be accounted for.

It’s very easy in the short term to ignore that.

The biggest risk is not taking any action at all.

It’s easy to put it off to tomorrow.

Humans are afraid of risk.

So we don’t take any.

But the biggest risk of all is avoiding risk altogether.

Because one day, you might need to be able to do something, or know how to do something, but you don’t, or can’t.

This isn’t a very comfortable thought.

But you don’t EVER have to do anything scary.

AND you can still watch all your favorite TV shows.

In fact, the BEST thing you could do is take very tiny actions, and make those actions a habit.

Until doing what NEEDS to be cone is comfortable and familiar.

Everybody’s situation is different.

But EVERYBODY has something in the back of their mind they know they SHOULD be doing, but aren’t.

All you need to do is find the tiniest, easiest way to get started.

And just do that one TINY thing every day.

Until that “seed” starts to grow on it’s own.

Get Started:

Seven Disciplines

Open Them Like A B-Day Present

Open Them Carefully

Avoid Putting Them On The Spot

​There’s all kinds of funny scenes in movies when two people are talking, but they both think they are talking about something different.

One of the key components of the Milton Model, the set of language patterns used in conversational hypnosis, is artful vagueness.

Meaning if I said something like, “He said that they were thinking about doing that, until she came up and said it was a bad idea, until they realized the true implications,” you really have ZERO clue what that means. Lots of unspecified pronouns and verbs.

But when you use these with a lot of skill, you can kind of “guess” what meaning the listener or reader will use when they fill in the blanks.

For example, consider this sentence:

“My brother and his cousin were talking about whether or not to study hypnosis or work on their language skills, and then he decided it was a good idea, so they did that.”

It’s still pretty confusing, but any meaning you come up with has to do with improving your communication skills.

Unfortunately, a lot of people use those vague words without being clear what they refer to, or without using them with any thought.

So you get two people talking about something and they both kind of have to guess what each other means.

One way to see this in action is to listen in on a conversation. Or be quiet for a few minutes when you’re in a group setting. Pay close attention to the specific words and sentences others use. 

You’ll find that most of the time, the stuff people talk about is VERY vague.

Now, what happens if you want to get more information?

Most people ask equally vague questions. Like, “What do you mean?” or “Tell me more.”

And if you’re talking about something, and somebody asks you a question like that, it’s easy to feel “on the spot,” as if everybody is suddenly looking at you to deliver some kind of genius idea.

Luckily, there is a pretty easy way to get people to speak more specifically about what they want.

And it WON’T make them feel “on the spot.” It will have the opposite effect. It will make them feel validated and noticed. Something we ALL crave. Not just for “being them” but for their specific ideas.

The set of questions is kind of the polar opposite of the Milton Model, which is based on vagueness.

When used carefully, not only will they open up like a birthday present, but they’ll NEVER forget you.

What’s more, is the more you ask them about their deepest desires, the more they’ll naturally associate their deepest desires with YOU.

What could you do with that?

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