Category Archives: Learning

Compartmentalized Efficiency

Some people like to keep everything in their life compartmentalized.

Other people allow for plenty of spillover.

For example, if you absolutely HATE the idea of taking any work home with you, then you have a rock solid boundary between your work and home life.

On the other hand, you might prefer doing stuff at home, rather than work, because home is more productive.

Then there are folks who work from home, so home and work is the same.

The same table upon which they build their empire is the same table they make a pizza on a couple hours later.

Hobbies, work, social life, dating life, neighborhood groups, all are areas that can either overlap, or be separate.

Some people are so careful about compartmentalization that they don’t like the ice cream to touch the cake or the peas the carrots.

But as humans, we also have a drive to be efficient.

If you had to take a bunch of glasses from your living room into the kitchen, you’d naturally pick up as many as you could carry.

It would be silly to make a separate trip for each glass.

The more efficient you can be, the more time and energy you can save.

Of course, everybody has their own “set point,” or balance between how much compartmentalization they have, and how much efficiency.

One way to approach this is how you view your hobbies.

If they are PURELY “pastimes” then their only purpose is to make the time go by quicker.

On the other hand, they could be VERY PRODUCTIVE.

And if you can ENJOY these hobbies as much as they benefit your skills, then you’ve found an easy path to continual improvement.

If you don’t already do so, consider the hobby of “lifelong learning.”

Meaning try to some find something that would be interesting to learn, interesting enough so you would enjoy doing it, and would also improve your skills in some area.

Fortunately, there are TONS of online learning systems, courses, videos etc.

Which allows you to be able to learn pretty much anything.

And if you also “learn how to learn” this will rapidly accelerate your progress.

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The Best Loop of All

Feedback loops can be pretty cool.

They can also suck.

If you’re in a “good” feedback loop, life seems awesome.

Whatever you do works, which boosts your confidence, which makes it easier to take risks, which work (because you’re confident and operating more efficiently), which boost your confidence, etc.

On the other hand, it can be horrible to be trapped in a negative loop.

Whatever you try doesn’t work, which KILLS your confidence, which makes you less likely to succeed next time, which makes your confidence drop even lower.

How do you move from a negative loop to a positive loop?

Take a break, clear your head, do something different.

Even professional athletes need to be taken out of the game from time to time to kill a slump.

The best feedback loops happen when every success makes MORE success MORE likely.

This tend to stay intact for a while.

But they can also take the longest to get going.

An exercise program is an example.

If you haven’t exercised in a while, getting started can be tough.

But if you stick to it, you’ll reach a “tipping point” where the IMMEDIATE benefit (rather than the expected long term benefit) is greater than the amount of willpower you need.

This is when you get to the point where you can’t NOT exercise.

It’s become part of who you are.

You can think of your brain the same way.

If you’re stuck in a “lazy” rut, where all you do with your gray matter is pass the time (TV, video games, social media, etc) then it be tough to break out of.

But when you reach a “mental” tipping point where learning things, reading non-fiction, etc., give you MORE pleasure than what you USED to do (TV, video games, etc) then you’ve found the BEST positive loop there is.

If you’re getting in shape, there’s really only so much you can do.

If you were a runner, for example, once you got down to 4-5 minute miles that would be it.

But with your brain, the are NO limits.

Which means if you become somebody who has a HOBBY or even a PASTTIME of learning, you’ll NEVER run out of interesting things to do.
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Are You Shuffling Life Away?

A long time ago, Mother Nature had to make a decision.

When it comes to animals, we all have our own “selling points.”

Zebras have stripes. Tigers have teeth, skunks have stripes and a horrible stench.

We humans have our big brains.

Which gave Mother Nature a bit of an issue way back in the day.

Our brains were getting so big, it was getting kind of hard to be born.

If you compare all the other mammals, and how long they spend as “kids” vs. “adults,” we humans take a LONG TIME to “grow up.”

That’s because in order to be born “fully formed” our hips would have to have gotten really wide. Too wide to walk on two legs.

That was Mother Nature’s dilemma.

Either be born more fully formed, but not be able to walk upright, or keep our two legged advantage, and be born significantly LESS than fully formed.

And that’s what happens.

We are born with a pretty “empty” hard drive.

Sure we have a lot of “instinctive” programs, like getting hungry, being afraid of certain things, getting sexually attracted to certain people.

But we also have TONS of learning ability.

Something that ALL OF US are UNDER utilizing.

This is the one thing that we can NEVER maximize.

You’ll NEVER get to a point where you know EVERYTHING.

You can spend your entire life (or even two or three lifetimes if that were possible) and you would even scratch the surface of what there was to know.

Add skills and abilities into the mix, and you could spend your ENTIRE LIFE on self development, and NEVER learn out of new stuff to learn and figure out or even create.

Yet, most people figure once school is done, then it’s “same old same old,” every day, until you die.

(The “Soft Parade” as Jim Morrison described).

Slowly shuffling towards the end of our lives.

It doesn’t have to be that way.

Just spend a few minutes a day learning something new.

Pretty soon you won’t be able to stop.

THAT is when life becomes exciting.

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How to Always Beat Expectations

I remember when I saw the movie, “Stargate,” for the first time.

I read a review when it came out, before I saw it.

The review said it sucked, so when I went to see it, I expected a crappy movie.

But it turned out to be a cult favorite with tons of spin offs.

Now, it certainly wasn’t a GREAT movie. But it was better than I expected.

When a company reports it’s quarterly or yearly earnings, it’s the same situation.

The stock price goes up or down not on the ABSOLUTE earnings (or more technically, earnings per share or EPS) but whether or not the EPS is BETTER or WORSE than expectations.

A company that reports EPS of $.10 when everybody only expected $.05 will generally shoot through the roof.

Where a company that reports $1.25 when everybody was expecting $1.50, the stock will tank.

Even in the stereotypical story of a young, in experienced person with HUGE dreams, an older, more experienced person will tell them it’s simply not possible.

The conversation usually goes something like this:

“Why are you trying to crush my dreams?”

“I’m not. I just don’t want you to get hurt. To try and fail. I’m protecting you.”

Clearly, our expectations about the reality around us are absolutely crucial.

If you walk down the street expecting to find bags of money, you’ll be disappointed.

But if you’re just expecting to have a nice stroll on a sunny day, and you find a dollar bill, it will feel pretty cool.

One of the ways we mess ourselves up is if we have very VAGUE expectations.

Like “I hope something good happens,” or even worse, “I hope nothing BAD happens.”

Then no matter WHAT happens, it’s not good enough.

But what happens if you have vague expectations that ALWAYS come true?

Like, “I’m about to learn something interesting.”

So you go and do something, not really sure what’s going to happen, but sure that it will be useful information.

How do you do this?

You need to practice.

You have to have EXPERIENCE learnings from every interaction.

This is why DAILY JOURNALING is crucial.

Write down what you did, write down what happened, write down what you learned. Then write down how you can maybe use this information.

It’s also very helpful, and much more powerful, if you have some BIG life goals you’re pursuing.

Money, relationships, career, health, family, living conditions, etc.

So you can see EVERY SINGLE INTERACTION with reality as getting more information that you can use to help you get closer.

Then every action you take will be less scary, less worrisome, less anxious.

And it will FEEL more like a step in the right direction, no matter what happens.

This is one the things you’ll learn in the FEARLESS Ebook.

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Can You Set and Forget Your Life?

A little of something is good, but a lot can be disastrous.

Once when I was a kid I’d make cinnamon toast. Butter, sugar, cinnamon, and put it in a toaster over.

Only I thought I’d try and experiment, and put TONS of cinnamon.

I figured a little was good, a lot would be better, right?

Nope.

Past a certain threshold (in this case the cinnamon to sugar ratio) you go from sweet with a hint of flavor to a bunch of gross buttery goo.

Salt on popcorn, crushed red peppers on pizza, vermouth in a martini, all are similar.

You want JUST the right amount. Not enough or too much. Neither work.

AND everybody has their own unique “levels” they like.

If you made your friends eat pizza with YOUR amount of crushed red peppers, for example, they may never want to eat pizza with you again!

With food, this is pretty easy. Try some, taste it, and you only need a couple tries to dial in your own perfect levels.

But some things are a LOT more complicated.

Take obstacles, for example. If you try something, and have ZERO resistance, it’s a good feeling, but it can also be pretty boring.

If you had a sales job, for example, and EVERYBODY bought from you, it would be great at first. But pretty soon it would be pretty boring. Like sitting at a counter and waiting for people to give you their order, like at a fast food place.

But if you have TOO MUCH resistance, you’ll give up. Not many salespeople will last long if they ALWAYS get rejected, and NEVER get a sale.

You want a balance, enough resistance to keep you own your toes, and paying enough attention to keep improving. But not so much you don’t get a good result every so often.

And like Tabasco sauce on pizza, everybody’s got their own “level.”

But here’s the thing. Unlike hot sauce on pizza, where your “ratios” will be pretty consistent, in life issues, they will always be changing.

Take a beginning sales person. When they start out, they’ll have little confidence. In order to keep going, they need a LOT of positive feedback. But the more experience they get, the more confident they’ll feel, they’ll be able to withstand MORE rejection over time.

Which of course, will push them to INCREASE their skills, thereby LOWERING their rejection.

Not only is those “levels” always changing, but they are always in flux.

If you can embrace this concept, and realize you’ll ALWAYS be fine-tuning your own unique “levels” you can look forward to a life that is CONSISTENTLY getting better.

This isn’t easy, as it’s not “set and forget.”

But it WILL make life much more REWARDING.

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Claim The World As Yours

I used to have this weird freezer.

It was at the perfect temperature for a cool effect.

If I put an opened bottle of water in there, it wouldn’t freeze.

But as soon as I took it out, and twisted off the cop, it would freeze in about a second.

It was right at the “phase transition” temperature of liquid to solid.

All it needed was a little air, and movement, and instant ice.

Phase transitions happen a lot. Not just in matter (gas to liquid, liquid to solid, etc.) but in different levels of complexity.

For example, when you move from the stage of “conscious competence” to “unconscious competence.”

When something you’ve been studying or practicing for a long time drops down into your subconscious.

On a conscious level, it feels like magic.

This was the secret of both “Karate Kid” movies.

He trained a boringly repetitive skill until it became automatic.

If you’ve ever learned an instrument, it’s a pretty good feeling.

You’ve been practicing, with a LOT of frustration, and then you finally “get it.”

You can play the piece “by heart” without needing to think.

The trouble with most things we would like to accomplish in life is they require a certain degree of skill.

And those skills take practice.

They aren’t instant.

Only in our world of “instant gratification” things are often taught AS IF we really CAN learn them instantly.

Especially in the world of “self development.” There are TONS of books that give you certain “ideas” or different “frames” or “models.” But unless you PRACTICE those ideas or frames or models, it’s really not that different than reading a book on how to play the piano, without ever really practicing.

This is good news. Because all it takes is a few minutes of daily practice.

You won’t become a super-genius overnight, (at whatever skill you’d like) but it WILL happen, so long as you are persistent.

Unfortunately, most people are NOT persistent. They try once, maybe twice, and then give up.

World class athletes and musicians KNOW that the TRUE SECRET of mastering ANYTHING is daily practice.

Not when it’s convenient, or when you feel like it.

But every single day.

Whatever skills you’d like, to create WHATEVER you’d like ARE within your grasp.

So long as you are willing to do what it takes.

Ten, twenty minutes a day, and the world is yours.

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Stop Being A Ping Pong Ball

I saw this interesting “magic” trick online the other day.

It showed four cards, and you had to choose one.

And then think about it and click the button.

The trick was the card you were focused on would be gone on the next screen.

And it was!

But the trick was that ALL FOUR cards were different.

Because they were all face cards, and a mix of suits, the only way you would not be fooled would be if you memorized ALL the cards.

But since the instructions said to pick ONE, most people don’t even notice the other cards.

So when four new face cards are shown, all mixed, and all different, it looks magical, because the others “look” the same.

Scientists tell us our brains run off largely cache-like memory. Meaning in order to save brain processing time and energy, we only “guess” what’s “out there” and come up with a memory based on what we “think” is there.

Clearly, this can be a HUGE disadvantage.

Especially when talking about the many deep nuances of communication.

You think you are being clear, but the other person completely misunderstands you. Later on, you “assume” they “knew” what you meant, but they “assume” you meant something else.

BOOM!

On the other hand, magic tricks, movies, optical illusions, even silly jokes wouldn’t work if our brains were super accurate like a Vulcan.

But it’s also so easy why we tend to believe stuff that CAN’T be true.

So many “ideas” out there are contradictory, most of them HAVE to be wrong!

The good news is that because “meaning” itself is so slippery, you can CHOOSE what you want things to mean.

This is a lot easier if you have a solid PLAN for your life.

You already have tons of preprogrammed desires. Sex, money, safety, shelter, companionship, a certain amount of social status and recognition.

But unless you take the time to SPEFICIFY what these mean to you, and HOW you are going to achieve them, it’s easier to get knocked around like a ping-pong ball in a typhoon.

Just doing this (choosing specific goals and how you’re going to achieve them) is a feat unto itself. It’s not easy, and it requires a lot of introspection.

Which is why most people don’t really take the time to do this.

Sure, everybody has WISHES. These are usually dependent on the wish-fairy showing up and giving you a magic bag of stuff.

You’ll be surprised that once you get going on the process of creating and manifesting your goals.

Because the process itself is what LIFE is all about.

Not to be a ping pong ball, but to be a person of PURPOSE.

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Achieve Mastery In Anything

A have a friend who is an engineer for a company that makes industrial equipment.

Recently he took a trip to South Korea, as a big company there was one of his clients.

Before they let him in the facility, they made him surrender all his pens, phones, and papers.

They were extremely worried about trade secrets, and didn’t want him copying anything.

One of the unknown drivers of the industrial revolution was copyright infringement.

Everybody was copying the crap out of everybody else.

Even entire books were pirated and sold for a nickel.

All kinds of industrial espionage was taking place.

Ever since the first caveman decided it might be easier to throw a rock at a zebra instead of wrestle it to the ground and beat it to death, humans have been copying each other.

This is the heart of progress. Somebody gets an idea and turns it into a business.

Somebody else improves on it. And on and on.

Pretty soon we go from running to riding bicycles to riding on trains to flying in planes.

The process of modeling is the heart of NLP.

The whole set of language patterns was modeled from the some of the greatest therapists.

And then later the modeling process itself became part of the process.

When you were a kid, and you wanted to learn how to walk, you didn’t invent the process on your own.

You copied everybody around you until you could reproduce what they did.

Unconsciously, this is natural. Automatic.

When we get older, and we want to consciously learn things, it’s a bit more involved.

If you wanted to copy somebody playing the piano, you’d have to do more than sit and move your fingers around.

You’d have to copy their understanding of music. What all the notes mean.

One thing that is very helpful in any learning endeavor is to measure your progress.

Try something, see what happens, then step back and take a look.

A great way to do this is journaling. Write down the things you did, what you learned, and what you can do next to do even better next time.

It helps if you have some kind of reference material to help.

A set of ideas of principles to go by. You study them, then go out into the world and apply them.

Then later at home, write down what happened. Then study them some more, think of a different way to apply them based on your experience, and go out and try them again.

And keep repeating the process.

Do this every day, and pretty soon you’ll be an expert.

Of whatever it is you want to do.

Making money. Persuasion. Sales. Relationships. Anything.

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How To Master Your Emotions

I’m a big fan of science fiction shows.

Especially well-written, futuristic ones.

There’s usually a character that is some kind of android, or advanced human, or Vulcan-like person.

Pure logic, zero emotions.

This sets up plenty of interesting scenes where some human is explaining emotions to the robot.

It’s like we admire those who are free from emotions, but at the same time we enjoy seeing somebody explain human emotions.

To be sure, they are the BEST and the WORST part about being human.

When you’re hitting on all cylinders, and you feel like the whole world has your back, nothing feels better.

On the other hand, when nothing works and everybody looks at you like you’ve just crawled out of a dumpster, nothing feels worse.

From a society perspective, our emotions are “glue” that keep us operating smoothly.

Guilt, fear, pleasure, desire. They ostensibly push us towards things that are good for us, and push us away from things that are bad for us.

It doesn’t help that the our emotions were created for a world FAR simpler than the one we’re living in.

This gives rise to situations that on the surface look fine, but underneath we feel like we are on an emotional roller coaster.

Most people know intellectually what to do to get ahead, for example. It’s the DOING that’s difficult.

Sure, if you talk to enough people, you’ll find the ideal business partner, or girlfriend or boyfriend.

It’s the TALKING that’s the tough part.

So we respond by telling ourselves all kinds of stories to make us feel better.

Usually on a subconscious level, so we aren’t really aware of what’s happening.

Then we’re no longer interacting with the REAL word, but one that’s partially based on our on interpretation.

But like anything else, being able to handle your emotions is a SKILL.

The more you practice, the better you’ll get.

Luckily, there are a LOT of ways to do this.

One is to just simply DO IT enough and desensitize yourself.

This takes massive courage, commitment, and time.

Luckily, there are TONS of mental exercises that can help.

Not only to build up your emotions BEFORE going into sketchy situations, but to help you respond much more resourcefully to unknown events.

There’s nothing worse than walking down the street, in a good mood, and then BAM!

Something happens and everything’s suddenly crap.

You can learn to BULLET PROOF yourself from those situations, no matter WHAT they are.

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Turn On Your Natural Learner

I do a lot of walking early in the morning.

Especially when it’s still dark.

It’s a great time to think, and let my mind wander.

Especially when it’s clear and all the stars are out.

You see a lot of strange folks in the morning.

Some out walking their dogs. Some on bikes delivering newspapers. Some people staggering home from the bars.

(Where I live some of the bars stay open past 2 AM).

The bar people are usually pretty obvious. From a ways away. They know the night’s over, but they’re trying to keep the party going.

Walking slowly to the area of town where all the taxis are. Keeping up their “energy.” Not wanting to break up the group, usually a mix of guys and girls who, for some reason, haven’t managed to close one another. Or didn’t want to.

The dog people are also interesting. Some clearly look like they’d rather be sleeping.

Others look like they enjoy it. The dog is not a burden, it’s an excuse to get out of the house.

It’s not a chore, it’s a companion. It doesn’t limit them, by tying them down to a dependent animal, it frees them.

Many things can easily be thought of “good” or “bad” depending on what you do with them.

Or how you think about them.

Take our brains, for example.

They are pretty good at coming up with reasons why we SHOULDN’T do things.

In fact, talking ourselves out of good ideas is something that everybody is an expert at.

That voice in your head just keeps yammering, and won’t shut up.

However, that voice can be your best friend, or your biggest enemy.

Since it’s YOUR voice, you get to choose.

Now, if it’s been talking smack your whole life, it’s going to take a while to change it.

But just imagine if that voice was ALWAYS giving you POSITIVE advice. Always encouraging you. Always telling you that you could do anything you wanted.

How would your life look?

The thing about our brains is we think they are not programmable. That they are the way they are.

This is why many people, including scientists, believe things like “intelligence” is fixed. That you can’t change it.

Or something like “learning.” That once you get past childhood, it’s difficult to learn.

But this is missing out on a LOT of variables.

Like if you were an adult, and your ONLY job was to learn, and EVERYTHING ELSE was taken care of (just like it was when you were a kid) do you think you’d be able to learn?

Of course you could!

In fact, for most people, that would be a dream come true!

The truth is that YOU have a lot more skills that you think.

You just need to “learn” how to “use” your brain more effectively.

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