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See Through The Noise

See Through The Noise

Don’t Be Blindsided

There’s a concept in investing called a “Black Swan.”

It basically means a completely unforeseen event that sets of a chain reaction.

A chain reaction that sends markets plummeting, and the economy reeling.

It’s also used to describe things that set off revolutions, or great wars. Like the assassination that allegedly started WWI.

One small, seemingly unrelated event that sets of a huge chain reaction that literally changes the world.

Of course, looking back in retrospect (as hindsight is ALWAYS 20-20) it seems pretty obvious. We usually ask, “Why didn’t they know what was happening?”

For example, during the financial crisis of 2008, nobody really knew what was happening at the time. But a few years later, it was pretty clear. So much that everybody asks, “What were they thinking?”

This doesn’t only apply to negative things.

They happen EXACTLY the same way with positive things.

Looking from the outside in, it seems that one “lucky” event made somebody rich, or led them to meet the right person at the right time.

An those who are struggling tend to look at those “lucky” people and say, “How come that never happens to me?”

But if you look closely, you’ll see that “lucky” people are living on the same planet as the rest of us.

Moving through the same world we are moving through. Meeting the same people we are meeting. Living within the same 24 hours every day that we are living through.

It’s just that they see things a little differently. They see opportunity where others see noise. They see people as potential answers to their prayers, rather than people to simply obstacles to not bump into.

They look at the world with curiosity, wonder and positive expectation, instead of worry and fear.

They say that luck is merely preparation meeting opportunity.

But when you “prepare” your mind, opportunity is suddenly EVERYWHERE.

And it’s waiting to meet you.

As the famous saying goes, when you see a fork in the road, take it.

Most people want to be told which path is better.

Most people want to be reassured they are doing the right thing.

Most people want to see somebody else go first, so they know it’s safe.

But most people rarely get lucky.

How about you?

When you see that fork in the road (which happens MANY times per day), do you take it?

Or do you hesitate?

Fortune favors the brave.

Simply shift your mind, and you’ll see opportunities.

Can You Mold Reality With Your Mind?

Mold Reality With Your Mind

It’s Never Like You Think It Is

One of my biggest “aha” moments in my life came back when I studied physics.

It wasn’t really an “aha” moment, more like a “WTF?” moment.

When I started to understand how the nature of reality was NOT like most people understand.

Now, I’m not for a second going to tell you how it DOES work, I only know enough (which ain’t much lol!) about how it’s WAY more complicated that humans can understand.

Anyhow, when you pop a balloon, or squeeze the top of a can of whipped cream, why does all the stuff come out so fast?

Most people would say because of the pressure.

And why would pressure make stuff come out?

Most people would say because all the air molecules (or whipped cream molecules) are so crammed in there, bouncing around off each other, they CAN’T WAIT to get out.

So when you open a little hole, they push and shove all over each other to run for the exit.

At least that’s the way the “person on the street” would describe it.

Only that’s NOT what’s going on.

See, there are two types of statistics that describe the motion of a whole slew of particles.

And these two types are based on two assumptions.

One of these assumptions is that the particles interact with each other.

The other branch of particle statistics is that they DON’T interact with each other. Meaning each particle “thinks” it’s the only one around.

And guess which branch of statistics PERFECTLY describes how gas rushes out of a tight container, especially when under pressure?

That’s right. The one branch that is based on the assumption that EVERY SINGLE PARTICLE in that balloon or can of whipped cream THINKS IT’S THE ONLY ONE.

Let that sink in for a while.

So if all those particles thinks they are the only one, why do they ALL rush for the exit?

Because, as my physics professor explained, it’s simply not statistically probable that all those particles would be in there at the same time.

(Wait… What?)

Meaning that nature has some kind of secret tendency to REVERT back to what is statistically probable.

Now, who determines what is statistically probable? Was all of this stuff statistically probable before humans came along and started measuring it?

Another MASSIVE discovery in physics was that humans CHANGE the system simply be being involved. Simply by observing it. Now, this is a WHOLE different topic, that I’ll maybe write about later. (For those of you who know, it’s Heisenberg’s Principle of Uncertainty).

So is it possible simply by OBSERVING reality in a certain way, that we can actually ALTER reality?

Perhaps we can.

How To Hack Reality

How To Find Luck

Find Things Others Can’t

When I was a kid, we would go down to the corner ice cream shop and play video games.

They were the old kind. Very simple graphics, like Space Invaders, Asteroids, and Pac Man.

One kid had figured out some kind of “cheat.” Meaning if you moved your character around in a specific way, you would easily move from level to level without being eaten.

At first, we thought he was just “lucky,” but later we learned what was up.

I used to have this job where we would use company cars when visiting clients.

Often times, these clients would all be in the same office building, working for different departments in this large company.

We would leave at the same time, but one of my colleagues would ALWAYS get there about five minutes ahead of me.

I’d always thought he was “lucky” and got green lights while I got red lights. But he’d just figured out a faster way, through many side streets, where there were NO lights.

Often times being “lucky” just means knowing how to work the system the most efficiently to get what you want.

Once a scientist even did a study to find out the difference between “lucky” people and “unlucky” people.

He put them both through the exact same environment, but the “lucky” people did MUCH BETTER than the unlucky people.

So much that it was statistically significant. Meaning it wasn’t really “luck” that was making the “lucky people” so much better. It was something else.

He later determined it was how they view the world. They expect to see opportunities, so they do. When they see them, they aren’t afraid to take action.

They look at the world with an attitude of a child, wondering what cool thing is going to happen next.

It’s been said that what the thinker thinks, the prover proves. Meaning if you think you’re unlucky, you will be.

But if you believe you are lucky, you will be.

Now, some of this goes WAY BEYOND what rational human science can understand.

However, when you realize that your subconscious mind sees WAY MORE stuff than you’ll ever know, it kind of makes sense.

Imagine reaching into a box, filled with ping pong balls. There’s a hundred white balls, and one red ball.

Ten people reach in a grab a ball. If anybody is “lucky” they’ll put out the red ball and win a stack of cash.

Being “lucky” really means fine tuning your mind-body system, and opening up to the intuition of the subconscious, so luck just happens to you naturally.

As within, so without.

Are You Waiting For Proof?

Get In The Game

Get In The Game

The difference between subconscious and conscious perception is astounding.

Some studies indicate there’s about a 25,000:1 ratio.

Meaning for every one “thing” our conscious minds are aware of, there’s 25,000 “things” our subconscious is aware of.

The basic theory is like this. We are always being bombarded by massive amounts of information hitting our eyes, ears, skin, nose, and tongue.

But from all of that “noise” our subconscious has to figure out what’s important, and what’s not.

Think of the last time you saw something out of the corner of your eye, spun your head around and saw something good. Maybe an attractive person, maybe some money lying on the ground, maybe an interesting advertisement about something you’ve been thinking about.

Think about it this way. While your conscious mind is busy trying to keep those few things in mind, your subconscious is ALWAYS on the lookout. And when you “see” something out of the corner of your eye, it’s like your subconscious is saying, “DUDE! Over here!”

How does your subconscious know what’s important and what’s not? If you don’t do anything, it will rely on it’s factory programming. Money. Sexy people. Snakes. 

Or if you’ve been keen on anything lately, like you’ve been shopping for a new phone or something, you’ll start noticing phones every where.

But there’s a cool way to go “meta.”

This can take some practice, but it’s pretty powerful.

Normally, you see what you’ve been thinking about. Phones, red cars, cruise advertisements if you’ve been thinking about a vacation.

But when you go “meta” you’ll start noticing things that can LEAD TO what you’re after. 

Now, this is when it gets weird. You won’t see any clear conscious proof, but you’ll get a “feeling.” And if you follow that “feeling,” you’ll end up with what you want.

Some people naturally listen to those “feelings” when they get them. Most of us don’t. Most of us need to see proof, or see some step by step, easy to understand path from where we are to what we want.

But if you learn to trust your intuition, you’ll see many, many more opportunities to get what you want.

You can kick start this process by assuming that those “things that lead to other things” are out there.

Meaning you’ll follow your intuition with an ASSUMPTION that you’ll eventually find something good.

This will fire up your senses to be hypersensitive to many, many more potential opportunities than most people realize even exist.

To an outside observer, you’ll seem incredibly “lucky.” 

But you’ll know the difference.

The Most Powerful Part Of Your Brain

Sort The World For What You Want

The Sorter

I’ve always been fascinated by those people who work on assembly lines.

The people who watch the finished product go by, and make sure they all meet quality standards.

Whatever it is, cans of beans or chocolate covered cherries, they go zooming by, and they are somehow supposed to make a visual inspection of what’s OK and what’s not OK.

Clearly, not the most exciting job, but still important. If any company starts to be known for producing less than quality goods, their reputation and sales will plummet.

Certain companies are so worried about brand image that they make significant efforts to destroy all products with even the slightest defect. Otherwise, some worker might take it home, people might see it. A world famous brand, with some kind of flaw.

In all levels of production, from receiving the raw materials to the finished goods, sorting is crucial.

Without sorting you’d have junk mixed in with the good stuff.

On a personal level, sorting is also one of the most important skills to learn. The quicker you can do it, the better. 

It’s so important that part of your brain’s function is to sort. The FASTEST part of your brain is the sorter.

Think of it this way. Your conscious brain can perceive up to 40 bits per second, according to scientific research.

Your subconscious can perceive up to 1,000,000 bits per second, according to the same research.

Your SORTER (technically called your preconscious processor) has to sift through the MILLION bits of information hitting your senses every single second, and then decide what’s important, and what’s not.

How does it know?

If you don’t do ANYTHING, it will be stuff that’s hard wired into the system. Scary things, sexy things, anything that represents money. Anything that’s been on your mind lately.

Like if you’ve got a speech coming up, you may see or hear PLENTY of things that remind you of public speaking.

If you’re in love, you’ll see plenty of things that remind you of your crush.

Your sorter can also find opportunities as well. Things that will lead to the things you want.

Since your brain is hard wired to be more aware of danger than pleasure (since danger can end you), it’s naturally easier to notice scary stuff.

But if you learn to “train” your sorter to find opportunities, it will find them.

Instead of relying on ancient programming, you’ll start seeing things in a completely new way.

Your friends will all think you’ve just started getting lucky.

But YOU’LL understand what’s REALLY happening.

How To Create Rapport With Everybody

The Magic Bubble

The Magic Bubble

Here’s an interesting experiment to do next time you’re walking down the street.

You’ll need to be walking one way, with another person coming toward you, with relatively few other people on the street.

Situation one is to pick something out on the horizon, and focus on that. ONLY look at the other person, as you approach them, as a kind of blur in your peripheral vision. 

Situation two is to look at them, off and on, in the eyes as you walk toward them.

If you do this a few times, you’ll notice a pretty clear difference between the two situations.

In situation one, even though you’re not looking at the person, the both of you will automatically and subconsciously move out of each other’s way.

In situation two, when you keep making eye contact, it will be hard NOT to bump right into the other person. As you move, so will they, mirroring your movements.

This is one of the reasons why people can walk down the street staring at their phones and rarely crash into things. Sure, there’s a few funny vids with people falling into fountains and walking into glass doors, but these are FAR from the norm.

Humans have kind of a “sixth sense” both in avoiding others, AND in creating instant and deep rapport with one another.

That’s what’s happening when you make even the briefest eye contact. You suddenly fall into rapport, and if you know anything about rapport, you know it’s all about mirroring and matching. Which is EXACTLY why you always crash into each other. Even doing that uncomfortable but funny little “dance” the closer you get. Both moving the same way at the same time.

When you create rapport with somebody, you transform from two people trying to avoid each other to two people magnetic for each other.

It’s also pretty fun when you do this in a social setting, when everybody is pretty stationary. This is kind of an “out there” exercise, but it also works pretty well.

Next time you’re at a social gathering, whether it’s friends at a party or down at the local pub, try this out.

Sit or stand somewhere where you can get a good view of the room.

Then imagine that YOU and the CROWD are in deep rapport. 

Use whatever mental image you can conjure. For some, this means visualizing chords of light connecting everybody in a big energy lattice structure.

For others, they imagine a big bubble of positive energy emanating from you, and surrounding and protecting everybody else.

Do this long enough, and people will start to notice you.

In a GOOD way.

Do You Prefer Checkers Or Chess?

How To Think A Few Moves Ahead

Ditch The Caveman Brain

There’s an old joke whenever two politicians get together.

This is usually when one guy is thought to be “smart” while the other is thought to be “stupid.”

Of course, we all think our guy is smart, and the “other people’s guy” is stupid.

This can apply to any two politicians, from any point in time.

Anyhow, the way the joke goes is “guy A is playing chess, while guy B is playing checkers.”

Meaning one guy is only thinking in the short term, while the other guy is thinking many, many moves ahead.

Being able to plan far out into the future is a very good trait to have. This requires that you not think of ONLY what’s in it for you now, but what might happen tomorrow or a week or even a month from now.

The problem is our instincts are designed to look only a few moments into the future.

It’s been said that “being civilized” simply means planning on a more distant future, rather than relying on our instincts, which can only think of the future right in front of our faces.

This isn’t easy, it isn’t natural and it definitely takes practice.

This is thinking behind Benjamin Franklin’s famous statement, “Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.”

Our instincts our telling us to stay up late and sleep in. But if we can overcome our instincts with conscious planning, (sleeping and waking up early) we’ll be much more likely to make something of ourselves.

Here’s another way of looking at it.

If you’re only focused on the near term future, you have a kind of tunnel vision. But if you are focused FAR out into the future, you can see a lot more things. A lot more paths. A lot more opportunities. A lot more options that you might have otherwise missed.

But here’s the cool thing.

Part of you is ALWAYS looking WAY out in the future. That super genius part of you that operates BELOW your conscious  awareness. That part of you that is ALWAYS playing a VERY LONG RANGE game of chess, while our conscious minds are always playing checkers.

Unfortunately, that super genius part of us can ONLY speak to us in intuition. Feelings. A gut level hunch that tells us we should maybe choose option B when our short term checkers brain is telling us option A is best.

When you tune into this part of you, magic will happen.

There Is Treasure Everywhere

Dig For Treasure

Start Digging

There’s two ways to look at “luck.”

The “real” way, and the “magic” way.

Of course, these are two extremes and any event that can be considered “lucky” has elements of both.

One standard definition of “luck” is when preparation meets opportunity.

Which sounds pretty good, but it’s also pretty vague. For example, luck usually happens when you aren’t really expecting it. And if you aren’t expecting it, how exactly can you prepare?

One way is to develop some “meta” skills. Like learning the piano is a specific skill. But learning how to learn is a “meta” skill.

Walking over to a particular person is a specific skill, while being comfortable around people is a “meta” skill.

Doing a particular job for the first time is a specific skill, while feeling comfortable in unknown situations, knowing you’ll eventually figure it out is a “meta” skill.

What about opportunities?

It’s easy to get caught in the “short term” thinking trap. Like if you were hungry, and you were expecting to see a big flashing sign that said “Food Here!” that would certainly be an opportunity.

But if you were walking down a main street, and you came across a side street that “looked like” it “might” have a few interesting restaurants to try out, that would be an opportunity as well.

And if you recall some of the greatest experiences of your life, they probably weren’t delivered gift wrapped, with you only needing to stick your hands out to receive them.

They likely took action, a little bit of uncertainty, and whole bunch of things that happened in ways you NEVER could have predicted.

Most people, when they think about getting “lucky” they imagine winning the lottery, or “being discovered” by some Hollywood producer.

In reality, lucky people have a certain mindset. A certain attitude. They don’t wait around to be given stuff, they have the self confidence and an open mind to realize that things are meant to be DISCOVERED.

After all, if it wasn’t “hidden” it wouldn’t be treasure!

But with a slight shift in mind, and an willingness to go down those side streets that “might” have something interesting, something AMAZING will happen.

You’ll notice that there is TREASURE.

EVERYWHERE!

Social Charisma Super Hero

Picture

Structure Is Crucial

Many people believe they need to have some really interesting stories to talk about to be interesting.

Sounds kind of logical, but it’s not.

If you’ve ever seen a stand up comedian, they usually talk about pretty everyday stuff, right?

But it’s how they talk about it that’s funny.

If you want to become a powerfully mesmerizing speaker, either in one on one situations, or in front of groups, all you need is the stories you’ve got in your head right now.

To start, speak with bigger gestures. Congruent gestures. Don’t be afraid to show emotions on your face. It seems pretty scary at first, but when you really show a wide range of emotions that exaggerate the stories you’re telling,  you’ll turn a normal incident at a stop light into something people will remember for days or even weeks.

The second thing is to break the stories up. If you’re halfway through a story, suddenly switch into a similar story without really finishing the first one.

If you do these a few times, you’ll be creating “open loops.” The brain HATES unfinished business, so every time you “open a new loop” it will create a more desire and attention in your listener.

To make yourself even more persuasive and magnetic, take some time to think of the “emotional flavor” of all your stories. Sad, happy, exciting, surprising, discovery, etc.

Ultimately, these are the three things you’re aiming for:

1) Use a wide range of facial expressions and gestures

2) Create and leave many open loops

3) Take your listeners through several different emotions in a few minutes time

Now, this does take practice, but once you get the hang of it, it’s pretty fun. You’ll show up at a party or something, and start talking about random, everyday stuff, and people will think you are some social charisma super hero.

There’s another way to generate massive magnetism, and it’s pretty easy.

All you’ve got to do is simply pay attention to, and become interested in the person you are talking to.

After all, the most interesting thing to anybody are things about themselves. If you can get them talking about things they are interested in, and ask the right questions at the right time to get them even MORE fired up, this will also put you in the “social charisma super hero” category in their mind.

All it takes is getting out there, getting social, and having fun.

This Can Help:

Charisma Generator

Two Sides Of The Paradox Coin

How To Flip The Paradox Coin

How To Jack The System

There’s a lot of paradoxes in life.

For example, the easiest way to get a loan from the bank is to prove you don’t need the money.

The easiest way to attract a partner is to be completely happy on your own.

One way to lose weight is to increase your metabolism, which you can do by eating more food. Which will make you gain weight. 

Most of us have heard that we make our impressions of people within the first few seconds. After that, it’s hard to overcome that first impression.

On the other hand, most of us only feel comfortable with somebody after we’ve known them for a little bit, and the  more we hang out, the more we let our guard down and let them know who we REALLY are.

Which means almost always, somebody’s first impression (which is hard to change) comes when we are the most reserved and closed off.

There’s a lot of strategies to overcome this paradox. One is where you go out in public and do crazy things, like buy one grape at the supermarket, go into a burger joint and order a pizza, or walk around town with absolutely ridiculous clothing.

Do this long enough, and you’ll just stop worrying too much about what people think.

Then you can relax and be yourself right away, no matter who you meet.

Of course, not a lot of people are willing to go the supermarket and buy one grape!

Another way around this is to develop a deep appreciation for yourself. Take some time every day really settling into your own brain, accepting yourself just the way you are.

This also takes time and consistent effort. 

Whichever path you choose, consider making it a goal. Once you are able to feel comfortable around anybody, anywhere, any time, you will have an incredibly magnetic energy.

People will feel better just hanging around you.

Another thing you’ve likely heard is that communication is only 7% verbal. Meaning before you even open your mouth, your sending out MASSIVE amounts of information through facial expressions, body language, and your movements.

Which means once you feel comfortable in your own skin, people will feel it from across the room.

People will naturally gravitate toward you and want to talk to you and get to know you.

Just by showing up, you’ll magnetize an entire crowd.

Learn More:

Charisma Generator