Tag Archives: Communication

Calmly Speak Your Desires

Most people wish they were more assertive.

In fact, most people misunderstand being assertive.

They often confuse it with being aggressive, or being belligerent.

And as I’m sure you know, all of us have shades of both passiveness and aggressiveness.

However, what really IS assertive behavior?

Well, it’s being able to “assert” something.

And what does THAT mean?

Simply stating what’s on your mind, or asking for what you want.

But it ALSO means allowing the OTHER PERSON to be assertive as well.

Say you see an interesting person. You’d like their phone number.

An example of assertive behavior would simply be to walk up, express that you think they are interesting, and ask for their phone number so you can get in touch with them later on. To know more about them. Because they are interesting.

Now, imagine doing that. Imagine walking up and saying that.

“Hi, I just noticed you standing there, and I thought you looked pretty interesting. I’m pretty busy right now, but how about if you give me your phone number, so I can call you later and we can meet up and hang out?”

Or something similar.

Of course, most people wouldn’t THINK of doing this. That is TERRIFYING!

But on another level, you probably realize that if you DID do this, and could say it with complete calmness and confidence, you’d get a lot of good results.

So how can you get to this level of calmness and confidence?

(And in case your wondering, you can substitute sales, or talking to your boss, or discussing difficult things with your partner, etc.)

The GOOD NEWS is that “assertiveness” is a transferable skill.

Like your chest muscles. If you work your chest muscles, ANYTHING physical you do, that involves your chest muscles will be easier.

Assertiveness works the same way.

To get better, all you’ve got to do is practice.

Any time you have an idea, an opinion, a desire, simply state it. Don’t force it on others. Don’t be belligerent with it, just state it as a FACT.

It’s raining out.

Today is cloudy.

I ate a cheeseburger last night.

I grew up in a one story house.

I’d like your phone number.

I didn’t like that movie.

I think that mustard and pizza go great together.

Don’t EXPECT agreement, but don’t EXPECT disagreement.

After all, you’re saying something that is ABSOLUTELY TRUE. For You.

Always look for opportunities to “strengthen” your assertiveness muscle.

Keep score. Write how many times you did it per day.

Try and keep a slightly increasing daily average.

And watch how easy it gets.

Learn More:

Mind Persuasion Ebooks

Do You Practice Procrastinating?

They say that knowledge is power.

That’s sometimes true, but sometimes not.

A lot of knowledge is useless unless you know how to apply it.

Like if you watched some guy on YouTube doing a demo of how to play a certain song on the piano.

You might be able to watch enough to know the chords, keys, etc.

But you wouldn’t be able to play it to save your life.

That’s the difference between “knowledge” and “working knowledge.”

One sounds kind of cool at parties if you want to talk yourself up.

But the second is fantastic for actually creating things that you can enjoy.

Many people fall prey to the “shiny new object” disorder when it comes to self development.

They read book after book, and wonder why they are never spinning their wheels.

Imagine if you went to a friend’s house and they had tons of books on martial arts.

And you asked them how often they practiced.

And they said, “Practice? I only read about it…”

You’d think they were pretty silly.

Yet that’s how most people approach self development. They read all the books, but rarely do the exercises more than once or twice.

But just like anything else, the more you practice, they better you’ll get.

At anything.

If you want to practice procrastination, all you would have to do is do it at least once a day.

And pretty soon you’d be a world champ!

Once a patient came to Milton Erickson, and said she had a problem controlling her weight.

Dr. Erickson said he didn’t believe her. And to prove he was right, he wanted her to go out and gain ten pounds, which she did pretty easily.

This set the belief that she did indeed control her weight perfectly fine. Which made it easier for her to change her habits to move it in the direction she wanted.

Bottom line is you’ll get better at whatever you practice.

If you practice doing nothing then you’ll be a world champ.

If you practice communicating with elegance you’ll be a world champ.

If you practice sales, persuasion, seduction, whatever, you’ll be a world champ.

If you practice dealing with your inner demons, so you can express yourself openly, confidently and charismatically, wherever you are and whoever you’re talking, you’ll get pretty good at that.

This guide will show you how. It’s FILLED with exercises that will turn you into a persuasion ninja.

Get Started:

Interpersonal Resonance

Master The Variables Of Communication

Way back when I was in school, I studied physics.

And most of the classes, even the upper division advanced stuff, was dumbed down.

Meaning they would only talk about simple systems.

More than a few variables, and the math gets way too complicated.

Even today, when they have MASSIVE computing power, they still can’t predict the weather with much accuracy.

Sure, it’s going to rain. It’s going to be sunny. There’s a huge storm coming.

But beyond those general statements (which most sailors from hundreds of years ago could tell you) they can’t get much more specific.

And that’s only a FEW variables. Heat, humidity, wind speed, precipitation.

Now consider somebody who wants to know a few “lines” to memorize to say to other people in order to get some kind of result.

A date, a sale, a phone number.

Just two people who’ve known each other for YEARS have WAY MORE variables than any INORGANIC weather system.

Think about that.

That’s why it makes little sense to memorize any kind of language pattern to use with another human.

And why it’s much more important to learn basic TECHNIQUES.

Kind of like boxing. Not the greatest metaphor, since communication isn’t a fight, it’s a search for mutual understanding and mutual benefit. But it helps to understand.

You NEVER KNOW which particular punches you’ll throw in which particular order.

So you do a couple of very important things.

One is you practice ALL KIND OF MOVES. Jabs, roundhouses, uppercuts, etc.

AND you practice READING YOUR OPPONENT. So you know when and what kind of punch to throw.

When it comes to communicating, it’s pretty similar.

But most people completely IGNORE the idea of the OTHER PERSON.

But when you simply pay attention to the other person, and understand what they want, presenting YOUR IDEAS in those terms (what they want) is much more effective.

In fact, it’s SO EFFECTIVE, that if you spend most of your time getting to know them, what they’re interested, etc., everything else will simply fall into place.

Of course, this isn’t as easy as baking a cake. Everybody’s different. Everybody responds differently. And between YOUR IDEAS and THEIR IDEAS there’s a lot of junk.

Specifically, everything that makes up YOUR inner game, and everything that makes up THEIR inner game.

Simply understanding these exist will put you miles ahead of everybody else.

Making it much easier to create WONDERFUL interactions with pretty much anybody.

Anywhere, anytime.

Get Started:

Interpersonal Resonance

Are You Waiting To Get Lucky?

I saw this movie the other night about King Arthur.

This is one common story in Western Culture.

In this particular story, Sir Lancelot had to run this huge obstacle course.

It was for some carnival they were setting up.

In order to get through it, he needed strength, flexibility, balance and a lot of luck.

Kind of a “foreshadowing” event of what he’d need to navigate the deeper politics of the movie.

Most successful people, if they’re truly honest, will admit that “luck” plays a HUGE role in how they did what they did.

Of course, “luck” is one of those things that we all think we know, but it’s pretty hard to agree on the definition.

Certainly if you’re NOT lucky, that makes a ready excuse for not being successful.

And even if you ARE successful, part of you may think it will be snatched away, so if you attribute at least part of it to “luck” then you won’t feel so bad in the “rags” part of your “rags to riches to rags” story.

But if you REALLY want to reverse engineer success, a fantastic book is “The Millionaire Next Door.”

Sure, these guys got “lucky,” at least sometimes. But part of being lucky means to always be on the lookout for opportunities, and always being ready to take advantage of them.

And most of those guys in that book realized that success is a long, consistent effort more than anything else.

If you want to do ANYTHING very, very well, then you better be willing to put in the consistent practice.

Instead of asking yourself, “what can I do to be successful,” a better question should be, “what kinds of things should I do on a daily basis to slowly BUILD my success?”

Of course, few people think of success this way.

They tend to think in terms of winning the lottery, or “meeting” the right person.

But if all you did were a few mental exercises every day, ten minutes per day, you’d soon have skills most people don’t know exist.

The heart of nearly all success is the ability to communicate effectively.

Not just to communicate YOUR ideas, but to carefully elicit the ideas of others.

Because when you get YOUR ideas working along with the ideas of others, THAT’S when you start to build MASSIVE success.

Get Started:

Interpersonal Resonance

How To Become Irresistibly Attractive

I was at this seminar a long time ago where we did this weird exercise.

The instructor had us look around the room, and choose two people, based only on first impressions BEFORE we had a conversation with anybody.

We did it twice.

Once to choose two people we would want to have our backs.

A second time to choose two people we didn’t want ANYTHING to do with.

Both times, we were to raise our hands when we were finished.

It was a VERY difficult exercise!

Most people had no problems choosing people they wanted to have their backs.

And at the same time, it felt good thinking that maybe somebody else was choosing us.

The second time around was much harder. Most people couldn’t do it.

The reason was to elevate to conscious thinking what we do subconsciously, all the time.

A LOT of that isn’t stuff we like to think about. So we pretend it doesn’t exist.

But it’s there. It’s human nature. It’s a survival instinct.

You can either ignore it, and hope it isn’t important.

Or accept it. And work it in your advantage.

How?

One is to be as congruent as possible.

One thing that spends out a “weird” or “creepy” vibe is if you are incongruent.

Like if somebody is sitting next to you on the train, and they are sort of trying to start a conversation with you, but they’re super nervous. Part of them wants to, part of them doesn’t. They are incongruent.

If YOU are the one that’s incongruent, THAT’S the vibe you’re sending out.

But if you understand this, you can fix it. Become more congruent.

What happens when you become more congruent?

You’ll become naturally attractive. Charismatic. Magnetic.

Know which “class” of people are SUPER congruent? That don’t have any lying in them? That aren’t half in and half out?

KIDS!

That’s why they are so frikking adorable. When they’re happy, they let everybody know.

When they’re sad or angry, they don’t hide it.

They sit right there in the middle of a busy mall on a Saturday afternoon and ball their eyes out!

They don’t care who sees them!

Same when they’re happy. And you KNOW when you see a happy kid running around, few things are cuter.

Once upon a time, YOU were that kid.

YOU were that ultra charismatic person.

Imagine if you could be THAT charismatic, but as an adult!

What could you do?

Who would you talk to?

What kind of life would you lead?

You can. All of that.

Learn How:

Emotional Freedom

Are You A Secret Agent Dog Catcher?

I took this acting class once.

I heard it was a good idea for a lot of reasons.

Kind of like going to Toastmasters.

You build self-confidence, develop communication skills, and meet some pretty interesting people.

We did a lot of goofy exercises. A lot more than I’d anticipated.

One was where we each had this slip of paper with a made up profession.

Not normal ones, but out of the ordinary ones.

Dog catcher, coffee taster, toy tester, etc.

Anyway, we had to walk around pretending we were at a cocktail party.

We had to talk about our jobs, but only without saying anything that would give a clue of we do.

The purpose was to convey meaning without giving any specifics. Kind of how like actors are supposed to convey complex emotions while saying simple sentences.

It was fun, but it was also frustrating.

Like you wanted to say, “I drive around all day and catch people’s pets,” but you weren’t allowed.

It was much more difficult than most people realized.

Unfortunately, a lot of us live our lives like that.

There’s certain things we want to say, we need to say, but we just can’t say them.

We hope somebody “guesses” what we really mean.

What’s worse, when they don’t correctly “guess” what we mean, we get angry.

As if they are supposed to be psychic or something.

Of course, this has a lot to do with the difficult and LONG process of transforming from childhood thinking to adult thinking.

Children are just given what they need.

Adults have to verbalize what they need, often times more than once, and often times to a lot of people.

This can be tough. Especially when your “inner child” is expecting to be handed stuff “just because.”

If life were only as simple as walking up the counter and telling the staff what kind of sandwich you want!

Luckily, it can be.

You can learn to speak more effectively, more confidently, and more assertively.

You don’t need to overcompensate with aggression or overwhelming dominance.

And one of the amazing things you’ll realize is that no matter WHAT you want, when you just casually express it like it’s no big deal, everybody else will think it’s no big deal as well.

This requires you do some digging.

Into your emotions. To find out WHY some things are difficult to express.

This necessarily involves going back into your personal history and viewing things a little differently.

When you view those childhood incidents with your adult mind, it’s a lot easier to leave childhood thinking behind for good.

Learn How:

Emotional Freedom