Tag Archives: Beliefs

Beware Of False Prophets

The Danger Of Fake Validation

One time I went to this goofy seminar.

One of the exercises we did is a pretty popular one among goofy seminars.

They shut the lights out completely, and you aren’t allowed to talk.

You’re supposed to only use your sense of touch to “get to know” the other people.

Lots of people use it for different things.

As I learned it, it’s kind of a metaphor for how we live.

Not unlike Plato’s cave idea.

Where we don’t really see “reality.”

We only see a poor shadow.

A reflection.

The idea being that we are really just feeling around in the dark.

There are a lot of metaphors to describe the complexities of life.

But they all agree that life is pretty complicated.

At least modern life is.

Recently a few scientists have actually admitted that social media is bad for you.

It’s very much like junk food for your ego.

Fake approval, fake likes, fake friends, fake validation.

Just for a second, imagine the REAL version of all the fake attention you might get on social media.

Real people would walk up to you, look you in the eye, shake your hand, and say, “I like you.”

And they meant it.

Or imagine if a group of people came to your house.

Imagine they said:

“We really respect your ideas and the work you are doing. We’d like to be kept in the loop, if possible. We would very much like to follow you.”

Imagine how REAL social approval would feel, compared to how fake social approval feels.

Imagine getting ten thousand, or even a million “likes” for RE-POSTING some clever meme you found online.

Now imagine getting a standing ovation from a speech you just finished.

Imagine the looks on people’s faces when they really “get” your message.

The looks of REAL recognition and approval.

These are the REAL THINGS we crave.

For the longest time, they kept our society humming.

We ONLY got positive social recognition for things that actually HELPED OTHERS.

This is the danger of fake social recognition.

It’s junk food for your soul.

How long would you last if you only ate bowls of sugar?

This is the modern equivalent of feeding on a diet of social media.

Luckily, you can RE-CALIBRATE your social instincts.

So you only seek REAL validation for REAL benefit that you provide to others.

Learn How:

Ego Taming

Brains

How To Train Your Inner Self

Money and body fat are the same thing.

When bears gear up to hibernate, they store as much energy as they can.

Way back in the days when governments and bankers messed up our financial system, people kind of did the same thing.

The saying of “Go out and make your fortune” was create during that time.

Back then it was actually possible for a normal human to leave home at the age of 18 or so, work their ass for ten or twenty years, and have enough saved to live the rest of their lives in relative comfort.

Structurally speaking, a human saving up money is the same as a bear building up body fat.

Today, both are misunderstood.

Human body fat is a very necessary part of our biology.

Without the ability to turn consumed energy into stored energy, we never would have survived.

And without our ability to turn work into stored money-energy, our societies never would have gotten very large.

Today if we look in the mirror and see some body fat, we get angry at ourselves.

Sure, if you have a couple hundred extra pounds, you might want to live a little healthier.

But the process of turning consumed calories into fat is a life-enhancing process on a personal level.

This might sound a bit silly, but consider the message you are giving to your inner self when you get angry at your hips or your belly.

Even sillier, consider pinching a couple of inches of fat and thanking your body for always looking out for your interests.

Money is the same way.

We get angry at ourselves for NOT having enough money.

Or we get angry at the world, or at others.

Consider that your inner self is like a dumb caveman, only capable of following his or her instincts.

Getting angry at your fat or your lack of money could be similar to getting angry at a dog who hasn’t been trained.

How can you train your inner caveman?

If you know anything about training animals, positive reinforcement works MUCH BETTER than negative reinforcement.

If you thank and genuinely appreciate your body’s ability to turn consumed energy into fat (so you don’t die later on) it might be easier to go the other direction.

To convert some of that body fat back into energy (if you want).

Similarly, consider giving your inner caveman or woman some positive reinforcement when it comes to money.

Physically take out some money, hold it in your hand, and appreciate it.

What does the word “appreciate” mean?

To make larger.

When YOU appreciate money, you’ll be directing your inner self to “appreciate” money as well.

Learn How:

Wealth Tuning

Raining Cats and Dogs

Get Your Mental Black Belt

Once I got into a discussion with a friend of mine over the origin of the expression, “raining cats and dogs.”

We argued over what it meant, so we looked it up.

Turns out that nobody really knows. There are a few sort of plausible explanations.

My favorite was from back in the day when English people were pretty filthy.

They would just throw their garbage out onto the street, and wait for the rains to wash it away.

So when it rained particularly heavy, they would see all the garbage flowing down.

Often times, mixed in would be dead animals. Cats and dogs, specifically.

So people would joke that it was “raining cats and dogs.”

Now, whether or not this is the “correct” “meaning” for this particular expression doesn’t really matter.

The English language is FILLED with metaphors like this where EXPERTS have zero clue where they come from.

Sure, everybody’s got their own pet theory, but they are really just guesses.

Kick the bucket, buy the farm, sell somebody down the river, and on and on.

Stephen Pinker, a famous linguistic tells our that our brains don’t really need to know WHY they mean what they do. All we need to know is that both “kick the bucket” and “buy the farm” means to die.

So when somebody uses it, we understand what they mean. If enough people around us are using it, we’ll start to use it to, usually subconsciously.

Most of our beliefs are like that.

We picked them up without really questioning what they mean or how they got there.

Public speaking is scary, talking to pretty girls is horrifying, making money is difficult, losing weight is hard.

But since SOME people on Planet Earth live their lives in direct OPPPOSITIION of these beliefs, that CAN’T be objectively true.

Only true for US. And only true because we don’t question them.

The good thing about beliefs is you can CHANGE THEM.

Sure, it takes effort. One MUST go through the natural learning process.

Unconscious incompetence, conscious incompetence, conscious competence, and finally unconscious competence.

Imagine getting to the unconscious competence level of the following beliefs:

Money is good.

Making money is easy.

Talking to attractive people is fun.

Persuasion is easy.

Staying in shape is easy and natural.

What happens to your life then?

Few are willing to question their beliefs, let alone do the work to change them.

Just like few people willing to get a black belt in a martial art, or take the time to learn something complicated like Photoshop or a foreign language.

But all it takes is effort, and consistency.

What are you waiting for?

Get Started:

Emotional Freedom

Rear Window Theory

How To Obliterate Inhibitions

I used to watch a lot of “The Simpsons.”

There was one episode where Bart had a broken leg. He was stuck in his bedroom.

It was a riff on “Rear Window” by Hitchcock.

One scene, he had to race downstairs to save somebody from being murdered. But he had a cast.

So he had to limp. And every step he took, his cast got caught up on something.

Trash can. Electrical cord. Cat.

So each time he went slower and slower.

Most people are like that.

When you’re young, you’re a fearless genius with nothing but potential.

But as you move through life, you pick up all kinds of junk.

Most of them in them in the form of beliefs that just aren’t true.

Despite KNOWING they aren’t true, they still hold us back.

Sure, you KNOW there’s nothing rational to be worried about when you think about starting a conversation with strangers.

(Or asking somebody out or speaking more spontaneously or expressing your insight).

But it just “feels” like something is holding you back.

Or like there’s some kind of thick invisible sludge between where you are and where you want to be.

This is how beliefs work.

They make it HARD to take action, even though the action itself is simple.

Somewhere in your brain there’s an electrical signal KEEPING YOU from doing what you want.

Because a long time ago, you “learned” that it was dangerous.

However, in reality, it was only THAT SITUATION that was dangerous.

And it wasn’t dangerous, it was only perceived as dangerous.

By your young and inexperienced mind.

Because your brain is a super-genius generalizer, your young brain came to the decision that not only was that ORIGINAL situation dangerous, but ALL SIMILAR situations are dangerous as well.

Kind of like when you learn to drive one car, you can pretty much drive all cars.

But here’s the good news.

All you’ve got to do is go back in time, (mentally) and RE-WRITE that original event.

Just change how you perceived it.

That will have a cascading effect on ALL SIMILAR EVENTS.

So doing that “thing” will suddenly become easy and natural.

Whatever you want will become easy and natural.

Making money, talking to attractive people, expressing yourself with confidence and charisma.

Since all those beliefs exist only in your head, YOU are the one most capable of doing that.

There are many ways to do that.

Mental visualization drills, journaling exercises, hypnosis sessions.

All designed to go back into your past, and REMOVE your inhibitions at the root.

Giving YOU the freedom to live your life the way you want.

Get Started:

Emotional Freedom

Change Your Filters

Disprove The Elites

Once upon a time there was a family moving to a new town.

They passed some guy sitting on the side of the road on the way in.

They asked him, “How are the people in this town?”

He replied, “How were they in the last town?”

To which they answered, “Pretty nice.”

And he said, “Well, in this town they’re pretty nice too.”

Another family came by an hour later.

Asked the same question, to which he responded with the same answer.

“How were they in the last town?”

But this new family said, “Mean, dishonest, and shifty.”

And the guy said, “Well, I’m afraid they’re the same in this town.”

Of course, the moral of the story is your perceptions shape your world more than the world shapes your perceptions.

Most people won’t believe it until they see it.

But the secret is to believe it first, and then take action to FIND IT.

It’s not like saying some magic words will change reality.

But changing your filters will change how you view the world, which will HELP YOU so long as you’re willing to get out there and interact with the world to find what you want.

Rarely will somebody plop it into your lap without any effort. Sure, it happens sometimes, but it’s not the best strategy.

Another way to describe this is a “self-fulfilling prophecy.” As you think, so shall you see.

One of the many, many ways this manifests is the idea of intelligence.

“Scientists” for years have been telling us that its “genetic.” So what do they do? They LOOK for genetic proof to verify their theories.

One of the reasons this “meme” continues to exist is that generally speaking, scientists are pretty smart.

So if they PROVE that their “intelligence” is genetic, it’s like they are genetically programmed to be some elite intellectual that can tell us “how it is.”

But what happens if you look for evidence that you can BUILD INTELLIGENCE just like you can build muscles?

If you’re looking for red cars, you’ll find red cars.

If you’re looking for evidence that intelligence can be increased, you’ll find that as well.

Not just intelligence, but creativity. Problem solving. Memory.

All of these are SKILLS. Not gifts only given to the few “elites.”

And just like any other skill, the more you practice, the better you’ll get.

(Just don’t tell the scientists).

Get Started:

Intelligence Accelerator

Time Shifting Magic

When I was a kid, I was in boy scouts.

And every summer we went on a long backpacking trip.

About a week, carrying all of our stuff on our backs.

Usually we would park at trailhead. Then walk up a long set of switchbacks.

These are trails that criss-cross up a really steep set of mountains.

Then when you’re on the other side, it’s like a completely different world.

Because the only people that you see (which aren’t very many) are people that walked there.

It’s fun on the way up, looking down at the parking lot. Seeing our cars getting smaller and smaller.

Then when we come out on the other side, a week or so later, it’s a welcome site.

After sleeping in tents, eating freeze dried food and no showers, seeing a bunch of parked cars, even from a long ways off, is pretty refreshing.

See things from different perspectives is useful.

One way easy way to do this is see how we use language.

I’m sure you’ve heard the famous Einstein quote about insanity.

Doing the same thing and expecting a different result.

One way we “do” the same thing is talk about things the same way.

Like if you’ve got a “problem,” you use it as if it were a real “thing.”

I’ve “got” this “problem.”

I don’t know how to get rid of this “problem.”

I need to put “this” behind me.

What happens when you describe your “problem” in a different way?

This is slightly different than the useless “I don’t see problems, I see opportunities!” bumper sticker mindset that some people spout .

For an example, think of a problem you HAD a year or so ago, that is now resolved.

Now think of something useful you learned from that.

Something really useful, not, “I learned that people are idiots.”

Now, when you look at a “problem” in the future, instead of saying “how can I get rid of this,” or something similar, ask yourself, “When I DO solve this, I wonder what I’ll learn?”

That simple replacement, when you take out the “if” and put in the “when” is very powerful.

Just say these two sentences, out loud if you can, to see how they affect your emotions.

If I get rich I’ll be able to buy a nice house.

When I get rich I’ll be able to buy nice house.

The difference may be subtle, and you may need to really WORK to believe the second one, but when you do, a whole new future of opportunities will open up.

You’ll think of new ideas, dream new dreams, and start taking new action.

Instead of waiting, you’ll be doing.

That one simple shift, (when instead of if) is only ONE of the many language patterns in the Covert Hypnosis book.

You can use them on yourself, to “fix” your own problems.

You can use them with others, to help them with theirs.

You can use them pretty much anytime, anywhere with anybody.

Get Started:

Covert Hypnosis