Category Archives: Learning

How To Become A Social Jedi

Energy Manipulation

I have a friend who is a high level black belt in Aikido.

Aikido is not like other martial arts. I’m no expert by any means, but it’s my understanding that most martial arts are offensive and defensive. True fighting skills.

But Aikido is mostly defensive. It uses the opponents energy against him. Meaning somebody comes at you, you simply adjust and deflect. There’s not a lot of “attack” strategies.

Now, when most people study martial arts, it’s so they can avoid conflict. It boosts your confidence, and it helps to keep control of your anger whenever you get into tense situations.

Fight Or Flight?

If you don’t have any training, and you are in fear of your safety, your instinctive programming takes over, and you may say or do things without much conscious thought.

On the other hand, if you know deep in your bones that you can defend yourself, you’ll likely be in much more conscious control. Allowing for calm and relaxed dialogue which can keep fights from starting.

But as my friend tells me, Aikido is a much different level. He says that while Karate will keep you out of fights, Aikido will get you out of the bar an hour before the fight even starts.

Read Social Cues Like A Genius

You get this massive insight into social crowds and behavior, and instead of waiting until things are about to boil over, you simply exit when the temperature rises slightly.

Of course, this is only a secondary effect of practicing Aikido.

Clearly, having such levels of social intelligence can help you out in plenty of situations.

Being able to “feel” the energy of the room can give you a HUGE advantage.

Even in a one on one situations, feeling the energy of the person you’re talking to is like having X ray vision.

Not only to you know what their words really mean, but you’ll get a sense of what they’re really trying to say. What they’re really afraid, and what their deepest desires are.

If you can be the one to give that to them, while covertly respecting their fears, they’ll see you like they see no other.

Your Own Mental Dojo

And you don’t need to spend years inside the Aikido Dojo to get this level of social intelligence.

All you need is a few minutes a day of mental practice (the RIGHT mental practice) and you’ll see the world like few people do.

Learn More:

http://mindpersuasion.com/ia

The Never Ending Hill

Helter Skelter

I used to love riding my mountain bike up and down hills in my old neighborhood.

Believe it or not, I used to really enjoy going up hill. Getting into a rhythm, putting my bike in the lowest gear possible, and just slowly cranking up the hill.

A combination of breathing, sweating, working and an expectation of FLYING back down the hill once I got to the top was a pretty cool feeling.

The combination of endorphins, which comes with heavy exercise, and flying down a hill faster than it would be safe to stop in a hurry on a bicycle is a powerful mix.

Perfect Slope

There was one really big, long hill was ideal. It was steep, it was long, and there were NO traffic lights, until it flattened out considerably at the bottom. Meaning I could just let loose, and not worry about having to stop in a hurry. I would routinely get over 50 MPH on my mountain bike just coasting downhill.

Going up, though, I sometimes ran into problems. Especially if I was going up some hills in an area I’d never been before.

I would be going up this long hill that LOOKED like I was coming up to a top, but then when I’d gotten to the top, I was faced with another long hill.

Now, when I KNOW how long the hill is, I can mentally prepare. But when I THINK the end is near, and it’s really not, that becomes a problem.

Powers of Self Deception

That’s when I learned to “trick” myself. Instead of thinking the top was near, I just saw it as a point to reevaluate where I was. If it WAS a top, great, I’d ride down and have some fun. If it WASN’T a top, I’d rest, look back at how far I’d come, drink some water, and then keep on moving up.

The same thing happens with self improvement. We can delude ourselves into thinking that ALL WE NEED is one more product, one more seminar, one more “thing” and our lives will be set.

But the truth is that our lives are on a continuous path that NEVER peaks. We just keep getting better and better.

Once I stopped imagining that I was almost done, and just figured I’d accept whatever was ahead, I had a LOT more energy.

You’re Never Done

See, if you THINK you’re almost done, but you’re really not, it’s pretty tough to keep going.

But when you see every step, every process, every discovery, every experience as something as BOTH an end, AND a means, you’ll have TONS more energy to just keep on going.

The more you learn, the more you get. The more you get, the more you’ll want to learn. A fantastic cycle of continuous improvement that you can carry with you your entire life.

Here’s another POWERFUL tool you can use:

Intelligence Accelerator

The Most Powerful Con Job Of All

Sucker Born Every Minute

Most people are easy to con.

This is an unfortunate aspect of human nature. In fact, according to most evolutionary scientists, one of the BIGGEST problems facing human society (ever since human society was invented) was how easy it was to con others, and to be conned ourselves.

See, in a small band of hunters and gatherers, everybody knew everybody. So if somebody screwed you over, EVERYBODY would know about it. Because of this, everybody was honest and up front.

But as soon as we started living in societies of over 1000 people or so, we suddenly had a problem.

What To Do?

Some guy is standing in front of us, telling some story, but we aren’t sure if we believe him. If we DO believe him, and he’s telling us the truth, we can benefit. But if he’s lying, we are going to get screwed.

Quite a dilemma!

Scientists tell us that we humans developed the ability to “sniff out the con” as quickly as con artists got better and better at it.

One powerful method that con artists (with the help of the ever present Mother Nature) was self deception.

See, if you believe the story yourself, it’s MUCH easier to get others to believe it.

Of course, this presents problems all on its own. Having super powers of self deception is pretty good, as it helps you moving forward looking for better and better stuff.

But it can also make you vulnerable. It can also make it VERY DIFFICULT to overcome your own shortcomings, which is necessary for real and lasting success.

Easy To Point The Finger

Believing it’s somebody else’s fault is the often the biggest con of all. Most people go to great lengths to “keep” their victim status. So long as they can blame somebody else, they don’t feel bad for failing.

But if you REALLY want to achieve MASSIVE success, in any field, you’ve got to ditch the victim thinking. You’ve got to own your life, own your actions, and own your choices.

This can be the hardest thing you’ll EVER do. And it is not one simple switch you flip in your blame. It requires effort to get there, and it requires effort to stay there.

Own your choices. Own your decisions. Own your outcomes.

Own your life.

Gain the skills now to jettison your success to the next level:

Intelligence Accelerator

How To Make Knowledge

Magic Brain Juice

They say that knowledge is power.

But you know as well as I do that knowledge by itself is as useless as an unread book in an unknown library.

As Mark Twain famously said, “What’s the difference between somebody who can’t read, and somebody who doesn’t read? Nothing.”

Meaning if you have knowledge and don’t use it, there’s no difference between you and somebody who doesn’t have any knowledge.

Don’t Be Scared!

I remember once I was in grade school. I was in love with my teacher. We were doing some kind of Sudoku puzzle, she had us “race” to see who could solve the puzzle first. I finished before anybody else, but I was too scared to stand up.

What if I was wrong? What if my teacher (my crush) rejected me in front of everybody. I had knowledge, but I was afraid to use it.

My buddy stood up, and received MASSIVE praise from my teacher. All I could think was, “That should have been me!”

Wisdom From Sages

As Led Zeppelin famously said, “Nobody’s Fault But Mine.”

It’s one to have knowledge. It’s something else entirely to actually put it to use.

But even then you’re at a disadvantage. Having knowledge and putting it to use is NOTHING compared to somebody who knows how to CREATE knowledge.

Sure, it’s one thing to read a recipe off the internet, make some cookies, and impress your friends.

It’s something else completely to whip up a new recipe from scratch, based ONLY on your imagination and experience.

The Stumble Upon Theory

When you get down to it, this is where ALL Knowledge comes from. Everything that we “know” is true, every bit of science, every law of chemistry, was once completely unknown.

Then once upon a time, some clueless but adventurous person said, “Hmm, what happens if I try this?”

And BAM!

Instant knowledge.

Most people don’t have any knowledge. They are content to live passively and let others do all the heavy thinking.

A few people have knowledge, and like to second guess, and armchair quarterback.

An even smaller group knows a thing or two, and consistently puts that stuff to use.

Boldly Go Where No One Has Gone Before

But a very tiny minority are the REAL HEROES. They create knowledge. They take risks, see what happens, and reformulate their beliefs and ideas based on their experience.

Their lives are an ever present journey forward into the unknown, where everybody else on Earth simply follows them.

If you want to be a creator, a explorer of ideas, not just a follower, check this out:

Intelligence Accelerator

One Skill To Rule Them All

Amazing Skills At Your Fingertips

To be successful, there’s plenty of skills that deserve to be in your tool kit.

Being persuasive, able to speak to people so that your ideas sound easy and natural.

Being flexible, always having a plan B, C and D in case things so south (which should be expected).

Having a solid set of goals, chosen by you, so you always know where you’re going, no matter what happens.

Says G.I. Joe

These are understood as necessary by most people. Now, most of us realize they’ve got work to do in all of these areas, but understanding their importance in our lives is half the battle.

There’s one skill that is as crucial if not more crucial, than the above. And because the very nature of this skills is not sexy or flashy and doesn’t lend itself to any lengthy late night discussions, it tends to get overlooked.

I’m sure that you know about Napoleon Hill and his “Burning Desire.”

This kind of refers to this skill, without talking about it directly.

So, what is this magical mind tool that will make everything run smoother?

Lower Your Time Preference

Being able to delay gratification. I know, it’s not sexy, it doesn’t sound “magic” and it certainly isn’t easy. But if you can’t delay your gratification, you aren’t going to get more than what you’ve got.

It sounds like something simple, like not eating desert so you can hopefully lose a few pounds. Or getting up early so you can get in an extra hour of writing or whatever.

But it is much, much more powerful.

Push It Out Into The Future

Being able to take your burning desire, out there in the future, and feel it now, in the present, is the most magical thing you can do.

It will spur you to action that you wouldn’t otherwise take. It will literally change your behavior on a fundamental level, so that it shows up in ALL AREAS of your life.

Instead of being some wishy washy goof who is easily swayed by every other idea and popular meme that comes on TV, you’ll be seen as a “Man With A Plan.” (Or a Woman With A Plan).

There will be SOMETHING about you that people notice. Something that says, “This person is a leader, not a follower. This person know’s what’s what.”

Most people are constantly looking around for support, help, validation, somebody to blame.

It’s Always In The Future

But when you set your sights on the distant future, and live TODAY so that future gets closer and closer, you’ll feel as if you’ve entered into a new era of life.

This is one of the many side effects of increasing your intelligence. The smarter you are, the easier it will be to ignore the day to day noise, and focus on where you are, where you want to be, and how to get here.

Ready?

Get Started:

Intelligence Accelerator

How Long Have You Been Traveling For?

Are We There Yet?

If you’ve ever gone on a long road trip, you know the question, “Are we there yet?” always pops up.

Depending on where you’re gong, the trip there can either be fun, horrible, or just plain boring.

When my buddies and I used to drive to Vegas, the trip there (3-4 hours by car) was always the best part. The trip home, on the other hand, was usually different.

It’s easy to get into the thinking trap of needing just “one more thing,” no matter what you’re doing.

Just One More Thing

If you’ve decided to lose weight before you get back into the dating market, you may keep telling yourself, “just one more pound, and THEN I’ll get out there.”

If you want a raise from your boss, you may be waiting “just one more day, and THEN I’ll ask him.”

If you feel like something’s missing from your life, you may convince yourself that buying one more “thing” is all you need. This could be a new car, a new pair of shoes, or even a new home.

Am I Getting Close?

We always seem to have this nagging feeling in the back of our minds that we’re “not quite there yet.”

No matter where we’re going, or what we’re trying to accomplish, there always seems to be something that while just out of reach, once we get that “something” everything will magically “click” into place and our lives will suddenly start to be easy, happy, and rewarding.

But consider this.

You’ll ALWAYS Be Almost There

That “almost there” feeling is a CONSTANT part of who we are, REGARDLESS of what we get, or how much we have or don’t have.

An interesting study was done on a whole range of people, of all income levels. No matter HOW MUCH money they were making (10K a year or 10 Mil a year) they ALL felt that if they “JUST” made 10% more, everything would be fine.

Sound familiar?

Does that mean we are cursed? Does that mean we are doomed to keep chasing things that keep running away from us, and are always staying out of reach.

Not at all.

Because that “thing” we are chasing isn’t always the same “thing.” Since we always have that “feeling” of just needing that one more “thing,” as soon as we get whatever we’re after, our brains will MAKE US focus on the NEXT thing.

This means that we will ALWAYS be just shy of being totally satisfied. Which is a GOOD thing. Because that feeling of satisfaction is very fleeting. It doesn’t last long. Without something to pursue, life is boring, pointless, and without meaning.

Embrace The Incompleteness

On the other hand, when you FULLY EMBRACE this part of you, the part that will ALWAYS want something more, you’ll always be getting better.

More money, more health, better relationships, and a smarter brain.

Embrace your humanness. Embrace your purpose.

Get Started:

Intelligence Accelerator

Are You Terrified Of Success?

Fear Of Failure Isn’t What’s Holding You Back

There’s two killers of any creative thought or productive action.

One is magical thinking. This is we somehow believe that we can get any kind of result or outcome without putting in any kind of effort or taking any kind of risk.

This is popular among folks who practice any kind of “Law of Attraction” type manifesting. If you sit in your room meditating, and wonder why stacks of money never magically show up, consider this.

Other People Are Key

Everything in the world comes from other people. Even raw materials like fruits and vegetables need to be grown, harvest and delivered. So when anybody is practicing any kind of “manifesting” what they’re really doing is HOPING that somebody, somewhere will somehow decide, spontaneously, to show up and just give them stuff without ever asking for anything in return.

Just imagine if EVERYBODY did that! We’d be back to the stone age!

On the flip side of the coin of magical thinking is “skeptical thinking.” These are the people who are so terrified of taking action and making a potential mistake that they need absolute and irrefutable PROOF before moving an INCH outside their comfort zone.

But EVERYTHING in the world that was created, was done so by taking UNCERTAIN action.

Proof Will Never Come

If you’re expecting to told EXACTLY what to do, and have a near certainty of a guaranteed result, you’d better look forward to working on an assembly line the rest of your life.

Now, I know that self-proclaimed “skeptics” like to stroke their chins and pretend they are really intelligent, and they see things nobody else sees, but they’re just scared.

Scared to try something and see what happens. Scared to look “foolish” in front of their friends.

Uncertainty Is Necessary

The secret to ANY creation, whether you’re making a cheese sandwich or building vast empire, is you’ve GOT to have a mix of action and openness.

Action because nothing’s going to happen otherwise.

Uncertainty because unless you’ve got some kind of crystal ball which can predict the future, nobody knows what’s going to happen an hour from now.

It’s easy to stay safely on both sides. It’s easy to believe in magic, and it’s easy to demand proof.

But there’s no fun in that! Only safety surrounded by pretend enlightenment.

If you want to charge your brain, and fire up your natural learner so you can operate on the world and create real results, check this out:

Learn More:

Intelligence Accelerator

How To Teach an Old Dog New Tricks

Wisdom From Childhood

I had this girlfriend in high school whose favorite expressions was, “Learn something new every day!”

She used it as kind of a goofy, half true, half joking statement.

Like when we’d get lost, and then find out way, or find some different hole in the wall club to visit downtown.

All Sayings Hold Truth

The thing about “sayings” like that is they resonate with us on many levels, or else so many of us wouldn’t use them so often.

Learning is one of those things that when it happens subconsciously, we don’t pay it any attention, and just go on our merry way.

Only when we fit the beautiful and complicated process through our limited conscious minds do we run into trouble.

Learning Machine

The truth is that all of us do, in fact, “learn something new every day.”

But most of the time, it’s just our natural process of subconsciously picking up and using new information, ideas, technology, without even realizing it.

They say that kids learn quickly, but adults learn slowly. Another statement, “you can’t teach an old dog new tricks,” is often used to justify this.

Now, it CAN be harder to learn as an adult, but is that because our brains are somehow different, or we’ve somehow “lost’ our learning ability, or has something else changed?

Alternative View

Consider this. When we were kids, are ONLY responsibility was to learn.

Even before schools were invented, it’s always been this way. Humans are unique in that we spend a LOT more time as kids than other mammals. Other animals go from childhood to adulthood relatively quickly, as a percentage of their lifespan.

Humans, on the other hand, spend a HUGE chunk of our lives as kids.

And as kids, our MAIN goal is to learn. Not to work, not to take care of our families, not to do anything except follow adults around and learn.

Now, imagine if you could do that as an adult. Imagine everything else was taken care of. Rent, food, even cooking. All you had to do was follow people around and learn as much as you could.

Think you could learn pretty quickly? I’m pretty sure you could.

Learn How To Learn

But here’s the thing. As an adult, you don’t need to learn the old way. There are plenty of quicker, easier and more effective ways of learning. Which means you CAN learn as quickly as a child, without making it a full time job.

Allowing YOU to get pretty much anything you want.

Learn More:

Intelligence Accelerator

What Is Your Most Precious Asset?

Did You Get Lucky?

I had a pretty good job after I graduated from college, many, many moons ago.

But then my job was being moved halfway across the world, and I wasn’t invited.

But because of some deal, I was given $10K to “learn” another career. Something to do with NAFTA.

I was both pleased and terrified. Pleased because I thought it was pretty cool I could study something and have the government pay for it. But pretty terrified because I hadn’t really “learned” anything in a long time.

I was pretty much doing the same stuff over and over again at work, even if it was for a high tech R and D lab.

So before I dove in to my new field, I decided I wanted to learn how learn. And I found some pretty cool stuff.

Learn How To Learn

Stuff like being able to learn the basics of new language in just a few months.

Stuff like how to re-wire your brain so you can see things in a different, much more resourceful way.

Stuff like how you can actually INCREASE your intelligence slowly, and permanently over time. All this time I’d thought it was set in stone.

There Is No Limit

Flash forward a few years, and I’d developed a MASSIVE appetite for new information. Instead of wasting time in front of the TV I found myself reading all kinds of non-fiction books, at least 2-3 a month, on all kinds of subjects that either terrified or bored me in school.

Self Generated Is Best

And the more I learned, the more I wanted to learn. The perspective I have now is a billion times different that when I was “forced” to change my way of thinking.

The truth about your brain is incredible. Most people don’t even come close to scratching the surface of what they are capable of.

You’ve Got Money Hidden In Your Brain

And in today’s economic climate, your brain, and how well you use it, WILL be your most precious asset in the years to come.

If you get started how, you’ll be able to handle ANYTHING the world throws your way.

And end up better off in the process.

Learn More:

Intelligence Accelerator

Are You Fully Awake Yet?

What Are You After?

Many people feel as if there is one more “thing” they need to accomplish.

Like there’s something just of reach, and as soon as we “get it,” everything in life will suddenly “click” and fall into place.

Doesn’t matter if this is a relationship, a 10% raise, another child, or just five more pounds, it seems that we’re always in a state of “almost there.”

Just one more thing, one more achievement, and we’ll FINALLY be done.

Well, here’s a secret most people don’t want to hear.

We’re NEVER done.

We Are Nomad

Humans are hard wired, on a very deep and ancient level, to ALWAYS feel as if we need just a little bit more.

It doesn’t matter how much you’ve already achieved, you will ALLWAYS want just a little bit more.

This is completely normal, natural and expected.

Now, you may think the ideal life is NOT having any desires, and being completely happy with what you have. But that is pretty boring. I mean REALLY boring.

If you’ve ever achieved a really, really big goal that you’ve been going after for a while, you know this.

When you finally achieve it, it feels pretty good.

OK, Now What?

But then the excitement starts to fade. Then you might feel that inevitable “let down” feeling. That energy and motivation that kept pushing and pulling you forward is now gone, and there’s nothing to fill the gap.

Pretty soon the let down turns to boredom, and if you’re like any other normal human, you soon set your sights on something BIGGER.

Only when you fully commit to going after THAT, do you feel alive again.

Back On Track!

This is what it means to “live on purpose.” This is what it means to be “awake.” This is what it means to live consciously, instead of sleepwalking through life.

The PURSUIT of goals is where it’s at, NOT in the achieving them.

Learning, growing, pursuing.

Live on purpose. Set your mind on fire. Fully utilize your skills.