How To Model Others
Ever since the first caveman picked up a rock and threw it at a zebra, we’ve been copying each other, and improving on it ever since.
Somebody opens a cheeseburger restaurant and does well.
Somebody else opens up a bacon-cheeseburger restaurant and does better.
Then some crazy entrepreneur shows up and opens a bacon-cheeseburger-avocado restaurant and the town goes nuts!
No matter what you’d like to do, there’s probably plenty of people who are already doing it.
To take this reverse engineering skill to a completely new level, you can take certain aspects of what people are doing, and combine them into your own, unique super skill.
This is what happened when societies reached a “tipping point.” There were so many ideas swirling around that they finally started to take on a mind of their own, and innovation and technology took off.
But this skill is very powerful on a personal level. For example, let’s say you see somebody giving a speech about the importance of flossing after every meal. Now, you might think the content is boring, but they could be a really charismatic speaker. You could copy their delivery method, and come up with your own content.
Or in the cheeseburger examples above, you could copy the structure, ordering system, even layout of the place, but sell pies instead.
One powerful way to do this is when you are around somebody who is behaving the way you’d like to behave.
And as you’re watching them, simply copy their movements and gestures, in your mind. Imagine you are mirroring them exactly. This is easy if you are seated and they are standing. Really easy if you’re watching somebody give a speech, even on TV.
Then you imagine that you’re watching yourself up there, talking about something different, but using their same delivery style.
Many people do this unconsciously when watching movies or TV. It gives us that catharsis the Greeks talked about so much way back when.
By taking it up to the conscious level, you’ll go beyond mere entertainment, and start to use movies as learning tools.
What’s even better is that no matter WHAT you want to learn, you can find somebody doing it on YouTube. Watch them, copy them in your mind, or in person if you’re alone, and then watch them while imagining it’s you instead of them.
This technique works not only in learning new skills, but changing your own history as well.
For example, what would happen if you could rewrite your own history so you’ve ALWAYS been a natural speaker, or you’ve ALWAYS believed making money was easy?
The possibilities are endless.