Category Archives: Monkey Brain

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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

Re Train Your Monkey Brains

Re Train Your Monkey Brain

There was a magical shift in our thinking, long time ago.

According to an Economist.

When we think of doing something NOW, that’s called “present good.”

When we think of doing something in the FUTURE, that’s called “future good.”

The shift happened when early humans learned to IMAGINE a “future good” in the “present,” thereby turning into a “present good.”

For example, let’s say you would like to eat some ice cream, RIGHT NOW.

But you also have a goal of losing weight, six months from now.

Now, you COULD, eat the ice cream now, and say you’ll get started on the diet TOMORROW. (You’ve never done this, right?)

Or you COULD take some time to imagine that FUTURE GOOD (you’re future body) SO MUCH, that it becomes MORE DESIRABLE, as you imagine it in the present (making it a “present good”) than eating the ice cream.

This is what that Economist thought happened to people as they slowly changed from hunter-gatherers (let’s go find something we can eat NOW), into farmers (let’s do work TODAY so we’ll have a CRAPLOAD of easy food in six months).

This REALLY kicked into high gear when any particular society had done this for a few years.

Because of the work in the PAST, they had food TODAY. Enough to last until the food in six months was ready.

Now, who in their right mind, when getting food is easy as planting seeds and waiting, would run after some scary animal and try to kill it?

Needless to say, once EVERYBODY turned into farmers, that’s when societies took off. Governments, laws, massive irrigation systems, running water in or near EVERY HOUSE.

Obviously, that was just the start. That event (the thinking “trick” of DELAYED GRATIFICATION) led to EVERYTHING we have today.

And you can use that SAME thinking trick to train yourself how to take the daily action needed to be able to create ANYTHING.

Fantastic relationships, interesting careers, million dollar skills.

How do you do this?

Every time you think about doing something in the future, there’s a potential BAD outcome and a potential GOOD outcome.

Unfortunately our monkey brains automatically will think of the BAD outcome, and keep you from taking action.

But with proper practice, and some reasoned thought when thinking about taking action, you can take that potential GOOD outcome, and make it BIGGER (in your mind) than that potential BAD outcome.

There are MANY ways to do this.

And with practice, ANY ACTION you’d like to take (giving a powerfully persuasive speech, talking to a super sexy person, explaining to your boss why it’s in HIS or HER best interest to give you a raise), will FEEL GOOD rather than scary.

Learn More:

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