Category Archives: Learning

Is Your Life In A Repeating Loop?

Try Something New

It’s easy to fall into a rut.

Get up at the same time every day, do the same things, watch the same TV shows, eat the same foods.

Some people get into a comfortable rhythm and never get out.

Now, if that’s all you want from life, that’s fine.

Some people are perfectly happy to stay safe, comfortable.

After all, if you’ve put in the work, and you’ve made your money, and have a healthy relationship with your family, that’s a pretty good place to be.

In fact, that’s where most of us would like to end up.

The great paradox of life, though, is to get to that place of relaxed comfort, we’ve got to go through a lot of situations that are the opposite.

Meaning before you get that awesome job that pays you what you’re worth for doing what you’re best at, you’ve got to live through a lot of crap.

To get to that great relationship, you’ve got to sort through a lot of nutjobs.

In fact, you may say that’s the whole purpose of life.

The journey where you find yourself, maximize your skills, and discover your true self.

To be sure, it ain’t easy. And it certainly ain’t quick.

A lot of people give up halfway, thinking they’ve made it when they’re really just “good enough.”

Are you ready to settle for “good enough” or do you want more?

Do you want to just “get by” or do you want to get a lot?

Do you want to just survive, or absolutely thrive?

Only you know the REAL answer to these questions, and only when you’re being brutally honest with yourself.

As it turns out, one of the easiest things we humans can do is deceive ourselves.

This is easy to see in others, but only the rare few can see it in themselves.

But those that do, and those who are not only honest with themselves generally do much, much better than those that don’t.

What about you? Are you willing to dream big, and then get busy?

Or are you willing to settle?

Nobody can answer that question for you.

But if you’re willing to move forward, this can help:

Self Confidence Generator

How To Change Limiting Filters

Scientific Mind Control

I’ve always loved science, ever since I was a kid.

I used to beg my mom to buy me these “kits” from Radio Shack where you could wire a whole bunch of simple circuits together.

Once I ran my regular room light through the circuit to turn my room into a strobe light discotheque.

Of course, my dad thought I was going to burn the house down.

They say that science can seem like magic if it’s sufficiently advanced. But to a kid it’s just a cool trick.

Like pouring vinegar into baking soda, and watching it foam up all over the place. Nowadays you can do that with Mentos and Diet Coke.

When I was in college me and some buddies would find some pool acid (from the dormitory pool supply room) and mix it with some aluminum foil in a big 2 liter plastic bottle.

The aluminum foil would mix with the acid, cause heat and gas, melting the plastic and expanding the bottle until BOOM!

Since we were young and dumb, we didn’t realize how dangerous that was.

One of the coolest discoveries I made (or rather was taught) was about polarized lenses.

When light comes from the sun, it’s bouncing in all different directions. The part of the light that is parallel to the ground, or any level surface can bounce off, and cause glare.

So polarized sunglasses take out the horizontal element of light, so you don’t get any glare.

The cool part is when you take to lenses that are polarized, and rotate them against one another.

Once you’ve got them at 90 degree angles, they’ll cut off ALL light.

You can see it getting darker and darker as you rotate them.

By simply changing some simple filters, you can’t see all the stuff that light allows us to see.

Of course, our brains come the same way.

Now, sun glasses are specifically made that way for a specific purpose.

But the filters in our brains, that keep us from seeing what’s right in front of us, were likely put there, but others, or ourselves, without us really knowing what was going on.

Most of us pick up quite a few filters by the time we’re seven or eight years old, and unless you consciously change them, you’re pretty much stuck with them.

Of course, if your filters are helpful, and help you to see things that enrich and empower you, that’s great.

On the other hand, if your filters are keeping you from seeing the truth about yourself and your rightful place in the world, unless you take the time to change them, things will stay the same.

Luckily, changing them is pretty easy. First you’ve got to find them, them simply replace them with more helpful ones.

If you’re interested in learning how, check this out:

Belief Change

Are You Stuck With A White Elephant?

White Elephant - Get Rid Of Limiting Beliefs

How To Drop Limiting Beliefs

When I was a kid I used to love playing hot potato.

It’s kind of a variation of musical chairs.

You take any object, and pass it around in a circle. If you drop it, you lose and you’re out.

If you’re holding it when the music stops, you’re out.

And just like musical chairs, it keeps going until one person’s left.

When I was younger, I got a particular gift for Xmas that I didn’t particularly want.

So I kept it in it’s box, wrapped it up again, and gave it to somebody else the following year.

People even organize Xmas parties like this. Everybody brings a “white elephant” gift.

Then people choose at random, and can “take away” any particular gift a certain number of times.

Invariably, somebody brings a gift that’s not really a “white elephant.” It’s something good, that people want to keep.

This is what makes the whole game fun. Sometimes you end up with something good, but most of the time you go home with something that you’re embarrassed to be seen with.

(Like a video tape set of “Polka Dancing Classics.”)

In life, we accept a lot of things that we don’t want. But instead of getting rid of them, we keep them.

We don’t want to be rude, or we’re too shy to say, “no thanks,” or some other reason we tell ourselves.

Sometimes we accept things from others that we don’t even realize.

Like most of our limiting beliefs.

Most everybody believes making money is hard. Not because they’ve gone out and done extensive testing, but because adults told them so.

The Jesuits were famous for saying “give me a child and by the time he’s seven, he’ll be a soldier for Christ.”

What this means is that kids will not only believe anything, but they’ll keep those ideas in their heads their entire lives.

Normally, this is OK. This is normal. This helped us survive many, many years ago.

But when ideas are passed on NOT because they are true, but ONLY because they were passed on, then that becomes a problem.

Most of us have plenty of these limiting beliefs. Most people don’t even question them. They just accept them.

Things like, “making money is hard,” or “speaking in public is scary,” or, “If I talk to strangers I’ll get rejected,” or the WORST of all:

“I’m not good enough.”

Like I said, most people don’t even know these exist, let alone know how to blast them away with the powerful light of truth.

How about you?

If you’re ready to not only uncover your limiting beliefs, but blast them to smithereens, check this out:

Belief Change

Secrets Of Massive Social Power

Are You Really The Captain Of Your Ship?

Leverage Your Instincts – Don’t Fight Them

I read this amazing book several years ago.

It was called “Chimpanzee Politics,” and it was about this group of chimps in this huge compound somewhere in Europe. These scientists studied them for a couple years, recording their every move and social interaction.

They behaved very, very much like humans, hence the title.

The leader, or the alpha male, got most of the sex, and most of the food.

And when you consider that chimps and humans split off from a common ancestor over two million years ago, meaning that we’ve had that same programming in us for AT LEAST that long, it’s pretty mind boggling.

How long have our conscious minds been around? Scientists figure that language is a key. And they figure that language, besides grunts and hand signals, popped up maybe 30,000 years ago.

Which means our deeper instincts, that get us to organize into these “tribal hierarchies” have been the driving force of our existence for the majority of the time.

Even today, underneath the very recent, and very thin layer of our conscious brains (the neo-cortex) is that incredibly powerful subconscious, our collection of vast instincts.

Who do you think wins when the subconscious battles the conscious?

Try making the conscious decision to hold your breath for five minutes and see what happens!

Or try going on a diet of nothing but boiled chicken breasts for a month and see what happens!

Whether we like it or not, our subconscious minds are VERY powerful, and usually in control.

I know it sounds cool to use metaphors like “our conscious minds are the captain of the ship, and our subconscious is the engine room,” but it really isn’t like that.

Otherwise dieting would be easy. Talking to strangers would be easy. Standing up in front of people and giving speeches would be easy.

Any time we try and do something and feel a flood of conflicting emotions, it’s because our feeble conscious minds are saying, “But I want to do this!” while our subconscious minds are saying, “Um…no.”

Sometimes we recognize this, sometimes we don’t.

Most of the time we don’t go along with our subconscious instincts. We fight them, wish they didn’t exist, or think we are somehow “self-sabotaging” ourselves.

The secret is to not overpower your subconscious, or even control your subconscious. That would be like trying to swim against the tide.

Our caveman brains have taken us far. Why not act in congruence with them? Why not choose goals that are congruent with our deep instincts? Why not get the tide on our side?

One way to do that is to leverage the powers of social authority.

This is one of those thing that’s incredibly powerful, that we don’t usually notice.

When you can claim your rightful place at the top of the social food chain, everything will fall into place.

Just like our distant cousins, the chimps, whoever’s at the top gets most of the stuff.

It’s GOT to be somebody.

Why not you?

Learn how:

Frame Control

Your Inherently Programmed Recipe For Greatness

How To Build Any Life You Want

Being able to reverse engineer something is a great talent.

Companies, restaurants, writers, artists, even governments do this all the time.

In fact, copying others and improving on what they are doing is the cornerstone of human advancement.

Ever since the first caveman saw another caveman throw a rock, and thought to himself, “Hmm, great idea, but I think I could do it better…” humans were off to the races.

Of course, some things are easier to copy or “reverse engineer” than others. Some of them are more conscious and some are unconscious.

When you were a kid, before you could walk, learning was simply of watching the adults and trying until you could reproduce what they were doing. Talking was the same. And to an extent, so was writing.

However, if you were an engineer for an electronics company, and they wanted you to reverse engineer your competition’s smart phone, it would be completely conscious.

We can also reverse engineer behavior, but it can be tricky. Often times we copy the external behavior, when it’s the internal state we should be focused on.

For example, if you wanted to copy a world class pianist, it would be foolish to only focus on the clothes they wore, or their posture or even facial expressions as they sat down at the piano.

You’d need to get inside their brain and copy their beliefs, and more importantly, their experiences and memories of practice, which likely is a large factor in their confidence.

Because playing the piano is not a natural human trait, it requires years and years of practice.

But other things, that sometimes seem difficult, ARE natural human traits, and therefore DON’T require years and years of practice.

Anything involving human interaction, communication and persuasion is hard wired into our brains.

Often times all you need is a strong inner state, and you can learn the rest by trial and error, just like you did when you learned to walk.

Because of your strong confidence and self belief, you’ll naturally interact with others in a way that will help you get exactly what you not.

Not only that, but it will seem to others like it was THEIR idea to give it to you.

This is what happens when you demonstrate that strong inner frame. That frame where you tell yourself (just like when you were a kid), “I can do this,” no matter what.

How do you get this frame?

By doing a set of mental activities (much like mental exercise) and switching how you view yourself, and the world.

To learn how, click this:

Frame Control

How Do You See The World?

Stop Playing The Victim Card

It’s easy to feel like a victim.

In fact, it’s so easy that everybody does it.

Only when we do it ourselves, we don’t feel like we’re playing the victim card.

It’s one of those things that’s really easy to spot in others, but very hard to see in ourselves.

Kind of like being in a dysfunctional relationship vs. having a friend in a dysfunctional relationship.

From the outside in, it’s pretty obvious to see that it’s not going to end well.

But from the inside out, it feels like we just need to fix that one “thing” and everything will be swell.

Here’s a quick self-check to see if you’re playing the victim card:

Think of something you want, right now, but have some trouble getting.

Got it?

Now, why don’t you have it?

If you come up with ANY reason OTHER than your own behaviors, you’re playing the victim card.

Harsh, I know. Especially when it REALLY IS something “out there” that’s holding you back.

But even when that’s true, pointing the finger will NEVER do you any good.

None of the superstars of history, the great artists, inventors, creators, builders ever got where they did by pointing their fingers long enough and hard enough.

They all accepted where they were, what they had, and did something with it.

Clearly, some people have a head start. Some a HUGE one. Great genes, a great bank account, a nice house from which to operate and learn about the world as they grow up.

But so what?

Plenty of people started with absolutely NOTHING. No money, no family, not even native English skills, and they built fortunes. Empires. Huge, multi-generational businesses.

Well, that’s not really true. They DID have something.

Vision. Belief. Resilience.

That’s all you really need.

When you look out into the world, what do you see? A harsh environment that will slap you down and prove your limitations?

Or a huge collection of untapped opportunities upon which to operate?

It all starts on the inside.

When you play the victim card, you might get some help, but that’s only to get you to be quiet and go away.

But when you play the HERO card, when you establish your true place on this Earth, the opposite will happen.

People will WANT to help you. To follow you. To just be around you.

Are you ready?

Learn how:

Frame Control

The Sweet Spot Of Mind Magic

Align Conscious and Unconscious

Some people love to “wing it.”

Others, not so much. Some of us need to be consciously aware of every step, measure twice, cut once, and be sure have a good idea of what we’re going to get.

Naturally, there’s a place for both.

When I was a kid, I used to “try” to cook using the “wing it” method. I’d throw a bunch of stuff in a bowl, mix it up, and then fry it. It usually came out pretty terrible.

Imagine if you were having a dinner party and you’d never cooked anything in your life, and you’d figured you’d just grab stuff out of the fridge and throw it together based on your mood!

On the other hand, some things simply lend themselves to just letting go and “winging it.”

If you were on a first date, for example, imagine if you pulled out a check list of questions to ask, and wrote down the answers!

Generally speaking, any time there’s spontaneous human to human contact or interaction, there’s going to be a LARGE amount of winging it.

Knowing When To Need Blueprints Is Essential

Step by Step Strategies

And when there’s you operating on the physical world to build something, taking a bunch of stuff and putting it together to make something bigger, more complicated, and more valuable (like making dinner from scratch, for example) you need some kind of specific step by step strategy.

Of course, there’s a HUGE amount of overlap.

The true MAGIC in life comes when you’re “winging” something that USED TO BE step by step difficult.

Musicians, athletes, performers, all do this. Once upon a time, they had to learn every single note on the piano. It was frustrating, boring, and difficult. But they got to a level where they could translate vague emotional feelings DIRECTLY into beautiful music, ON THE SPOT, and generate those same vague emotional feelings in others.

The secret of life is to learn to wing it AND use step by step procedure to keep pushing forward. Keep increasing your skills. Keep creating better and more valuable things for you and others to enjoy.

When you’re in the ZONE of life, when you are operating at full capacity, buoyed by the ever present feedback loop.

THAT is when magic happens.

Make YOURS happen:

Mind Persuasion

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/

How To Guarantee Success In Any Area

Is It Really So Easy?

What’s the secret to life?

It’s pretty simple, at least from a strategic standpoint.

First, choose something that you want.

Next, try something to get it.

After that, measure your results.

If you got closer, do more of whatever you did.

If you didn’t get closer, do something different.

So, if this is so easy, then why do many of us struggle?

Like many things, this is MUCH easier said than done.

First of all most people have NO CLUE what they want. Just some kind of vague idea, like “happiness,” or “romance” or “income.”

Second, most people are paralyzed by fear. Except most of us are too scared to admit we’re afraid. We say things like “paralysis by analysis” or “taking it all in” or “steep learning curve.” But if you only just TOOK ACTION, and then saw what happened, you’d be light years ahead of everybody else.

Thirdly, it’s very hard for humans to objectively measure feedback. If we get positive feedback, we think we’re the bomb, and the universe loves us. We brag to our friends, and think we’re on easy street.

If we get negative feedback, we blame everybody else, and we think the universe hates us.

We tie BOTH positive AND negative feedback into our ego. We think they say something about our value, or our nature.

But in reality, it’s just information.

Make Life Profitable

Think of it from a pure business standpoint. Any business takes some kind of raw material, and transforms it into something else. It can be information, shoes, food, whatever.

If you get paid MORE than what it cost you to make it, that’s a profit. That is a SIGNAL, nothing else. A SIGNAL that says DO MORE.

If you lose money, that’s a loss. That’s a SIGNAL, nothing else. It just means DO SOMETHING DIFFERENT.

If it costs you ten dollars and an hour to buy some lemons and make lemonade, which you end up selling for $20, then you just keep doing it again and again.

But if you spend ten bucks on some onions and tried and sell some onion juice, you’d stop after a couple hours, realizing that this isn’t the best business model.

Life is the EXACT same way.

So long as you have a clear idea of what you want, and you are committed to trying things and OBJECTIVELY measuring the results, you simply CAN NOT FAIL.

This Will Help:

mindpersuasion.com/loa/

Why We Hate Textbooks

Learning Doesn’t Have To Be Boring

The other day I was on Amazon looking for a good novel to read.

I read all kinds of different books, and lately I’ve been in a mood for popular fiction, so I was sorting through various bestsellers.

Turns out that you can choose all books by a certain author and sort them by ranking. So you don’t need to sort through all the reviews.

This got me thinking about textbook process, and how schools choose the textbooks they use. I decided to look up some language learning books, just for kicks. I figured learning a language is something that happens both inside and outside traditional school, so it would be a good comparison.

A Hidden Industry Of Cons?

I chose a few languages, and did some sorting. And guess what? The ONLY category where textbook type books were the top of the list was price. They were the most expensive, but they WEREN’T the most popular,and they WEREN’T the highest ranked.

Now, I don’t want to get into the whole argument about textbook companies and how they get chosen to be the ones who write the books we ALL are pretty much FORCED to learn from, but it’s pretty clear that there’s LOTS of better ways to learn.

I mean, if somebody decided to learn a second language, there’s NO WAY they would choose a textbook that is being made and sold to elementary or high schools.

They would choose a book that’s designed to help people learn, rather than make a ton of cash for the textbook companies.

It’s Not Supposed To Be Fun

If you remember school as a boring, unhelpful, and time wasting experience, it’s NOT your fault.

The system wasn’t designed to help kids. It wasn’t designed to give them the best possible learning environment.

So, what IS the best possible learning environment? Firstly, you’ve got to learn something you WANT to learn.

Second, you’ve got to be in a relaxed, comfortable environment where you can go at your own pace.

And third, you’ve got to learn in way that you were DESIGNED to.

In reality, all of us are programmed to be lifelong learners. There’s literally no limit to the stuff you can do in your life, once you shrug off that false notion that learning happens ONLY in school.

Unleash your natural learner, and start to get what you REALLY deserve.

THIS will show you how:

http://mindpersuasion.com/ia