Category Archives: Personality

Are You An Innie or an Outie?

How To Reinvent Yourself

When I was a kid I loved Halloween. We’d spend weeks coming up with the perfect costume.

Then later, in college, it was the same thing. Only instead of wanting to impress the adults, we wanted to impress each other.

It’s been a while since I dressed up, I think last time was at this kids party. So I wanted to “scare” them without really “scaring” them.

All three of these situations, I wanted to “impress” people by my outward appearance.

Many people have discovered that you pick up and move to a different city, or even country, it’s pretty easy to “reinvent” yourself. You’ll have a chance to start fresh.

Anybody that has gone through any substance abuse recovery program of any sort knows that it’s not a good idea to hang out with the old crowd. It’s easy to slip back into your old way of doing things.

In NLP they have this idea of “Meta Programs.” These semi-permanent filters in our brains that affect how we perceive the world and our place in it.

One of these is how we reference “success” or “failure.”

On one hand, there are people who ONLY reference their internal compass. If they’re doing the right thing, it doesn’t matter what everybody else says.

On the other hand, there are people who ONLY reference those outside of them. They can’t decide to save their lives, and NEED some kind of group or other person to tell them what to do.

Clearly, most people are a mix, and we tend to change our mix slightly based on who we’re around, or if we’re around anybody.

Now, it’s not the purpose of NLP to say which is “better” or “worse.” That’s a PURELY subjective judgment, and nobody’s opinion is any more “valid” than anybody else’s.

You can, however, say what is more RESOURCEFUL.

The idea being that the more options you’ve got, the more choices you’ll have, and the easier it will be for you to achieve whatever it is you want to achieve.

If you’ve ever been to anything like a real estate or Network Marketing seminar, it’s really heavy on the EXTERNAL motivation. You get all jacked up while you’re there, but when you’re back at home a week later, you don’t really feel any different.

This is what happens when you are dependent on forces outside of yourself for validation and motivation.

On the other hand, if you’ve got an internal guidance system, a very STRONG set of beliefs about yourself, and your own motivation, you’ll succeed no matter WHERE you are.

Learn More:

Subliminal Programming

Are You Running Numbers?

Find Out What They Want First

A long, long time ago, I used to work at Disneyland.

No, I wasn’t dressed up as a character. My job was to walk around and ask people various questions. Where they were from. How long they were staying. Which rides they liked the best, etc.

I worked for the “guest research” department. Our job was to collect demographic data to support the marketing department.

At first, it was pretty nerve wracking. We had to walk up and start conversations with people all day long. On an average day, we’d interact with 500-1000 people. A lot of people quit after a week.

But after a while, it became pretty fun. After all, you get to meet people from all over the world who are on vacation, and usually in a pretty good mood.

There’s a lot of ways you can use statistics. Marketing, sales, baseball, economics. If it weren’t for statistics, we humans would be pretty clueless. They wouldn’t even know how much to charge for insurance.

Sometimes when we think in terms of meeting people, for friends, romance, or even in sales, we tend to think in terms of “numbers.”

If you call enough people, you’ll get enough sales. If you ask enough people for their phone number, and go on enough dates, you’ll meet Mr. or Mrs. Right.

Problem is sorting through all those people can be pretty intimidating. Sure, you intellectually know that if you “number close” the next 500 attractive people you see, your BOUND to find your “soul mate” in there somewhere! (Or at least somebody close enough!)

However, the whole “numbers game” theory can be a little misleading.

Sure, no matter WHAT you do, you will NEVER be able to convince everybody. Despite what WAY over-hyped marketing may claim, there ARE going to be people who simply aren’t interested.

However, with just a few simple tweaks in how you communicate, you can SIGNIFICANTLY increase your odds.

What if you KNEW that you really only need to talk to TEN people before finding your soul mate?

What if you KNEW that instead of calling a hundred people for every sale, you only needed to call ten?

Would that make it easier? You bet it would!

How do you do this? The first step is to remove all your inner conflicts. Even if you have the best sales pitch written by Dale Carnegie himself, it won’t work if you’re so nervous you’re shaking when you deliver it. (Same goes with meeting guys and girls for relationships.)

The second step is to FIRST find out what THEY want, so you can speak in “their language.” You’ll find this will SIGNIFICANTLY improve your chances. With ANYBODY you speak with.

Do that, and ALL communication will be much, much easier.

Learn More:

Interpersonal Resonance

True Meaning Beneath The Surface

Who Are You?

We use way more metaphors than we realize.

Step up to the plate, take the bull by the horns, measure twice cut once.

Even within common sentences like “fall in love,” or “work through problems” are metaphors.

The nouns “love” and “problems” don’t really exist. Sure, they exist in our minds, but you can’t pick them up and throw them out the window. They are metaphors to describe very complicated underlying phenomena.

But when we use them in sentences, our monkey brains have to use them AS IF they were regular objects.

If you know anything about NLP, you know the famous saying, “The Map Is Not The Territory.” (Which, by the way, was invented by a guy who had nothing to do with NLP…).

What does this mean? Metaphors are only an approximation. NOT the real thing.

Sometimes we start to think that the metaphor IS the thing, rather than a handy description of something that we can NEVER truly understand.

What’s the biggest metaphor of all?

You.

Your sense of self. The idea of you. Always changing. Every few years, all the molecules, cells, etc. will be replaced. Every breath is an exchange of matter. Inorganic matter that somehow sustains life.

The YOU who is reading this sentence now is a different YOU that started reading this sentence.

Every moment you are updating your memories, rearranging your thoughts, and even shifting slightly in your posture based on millions of subconscious programs all running at once.

There’s a saying in the dating community that “Women aren’t meant to be understood, only appreciated.”

Maybe this applies to YOU as well.

Sometimes it’s necessary to understand why you do things. What made you say that thing to that person, or why you want to do something but are too nervous. Once you can figure that out, you can go back in your mind and tweak your personal history a bit. Give yourself more freedom and choice. Less fear and more courage.

Other times, though, it’s better to stop wondering. Stop asking. Stop trying to figure yourself out.

Just relax, sink deep into your thoughts, and appreciate yourself. Appreciate your energy. A connection to the source. From far back to the moment of creation, far out into the future.

That endless stream of energy in which you are now relaxing.

Take some time every day, to sit with yourself just a few minutes. Close your eyes. Feel your feelings. Feel your energy. And appreciate yourself.

Just as you are.

And when you’re ready to get even better, check these out:

Mind Persuasion