Tag Archives: fearless

Behold The Mighty Language

How The Ends Can Justify The Means

Ends and means are easy to confuse.

I never really quite understood the problem with “the ends justify the means.”

It’s something you talk about in high school.

It’s generally frowned up to accept that any ends is justified by any means.

But I was never one to go along with how we were “supposed” to think about things.

Our teacher would say, “suppose you have an end to get money. Does robbing a bank justify getting money? No, it does not, therefore, the end doesn’t always justify the means.”

I would always argue.

I would say that the “end” was poorly defined.

That having a well defined end is justified by any means.

In the above example, you just re-define your “end” as “legally getting money.”

Of course, I was never one for blindly obeying authority.

When you tell somebody that the ends doesn’t always justify the means, it also presupposes that there is some entity that is capable of which “means” are acceptable, and which are unacceptable.

Even in my high school days, I was arguing against authority any way I could.

My idea then, and my idea now is that if you create a well enough defined end, which precludes any immoral, unethical or otherwise negative behavior, then any means you use is perfectly fine.

And perfectly justified.

In fact, you might say our entire lives are based around satisfying our never ending “ends” with as simple and effective “means” as possible.

But people who like having any authority will sneak that authority in any way they can.

And unless you know how to linguistically stand your ground, it’s very easy to get taken advantage of.

Humans are goal setting machines.

We cannot NOT set goals.

Most of the time, these are unconscious and automatic.

Getting up to use the toilet.

Getting something to eat.

Talking to friends.

But that inner structure is always there. And it happens hundreds of times a day.

You feel a desire, and you satisfy that desire.

This is why people LOVE taking advantage of others.

They can very carefully and covertly take over your natural goal setting ability.

So you’re not getting outcomes for YOU, you’re getting them for them.

Usually this is fine.

This is the conscious and unconscious “tit for tat” that makes relationships work.

They become a problem when one person is benefiting at the expense of somebody else.

You don’t need to get defensive.

You don’t even need to be assertive.

Just learn how to ask some very simple questions.

Questions that will force them to rethink their strategy.

Very powerful.

Very subtle.

Very effective.

Learn How:

Weaponized Hypnosis

All People Obey

Stanford Prison Experiment

One of the more infamous psychological experiments is the Stanford Experiment.

It was done back in the seventies, and the results were horrifying.

So much so that a few movies have been made about it.

It all started with a professor who wanted to see how people “get into” assigned roles.

He recruited several students from Stanford (hence the study name).

They were going to pretend to be in a prison.

They were going to be randomly assigned roles.

Some prisoners, some guards.

He wanted to see how much (or little) they “got into” their roles.

But they got into it so much, they had to stop the experiment before they’d planned.

Guards become evil.

Prisoners started to have nervous breakdowns.

Only a few days before, they were all students.

They got SO MUCH into their roles, they actually lost themselves.

The “guards” started to get close to torture.

Most of the time, we don’t realize how much “authority” has an effect on us.

Even when both “pretend guards” and “pretend prisoners” KNEW that their authority was fake, it still worked.

So much that a lot of the “prisoners” had to undergo counseling after the experiment was finished.

Of course, this experiment was set up in a horrific way to begin with.

Authority inside of a prison, where there is no escape.

Authority in and of itself is neutral.

If you assume the authority of a prison guard, you’re going to act like a prison guard.

But you can assume any authority you want.

An authority on excitement, for example.

Or an authority on the best clubs in town.

But you don’t need a huge experimental set up.

You can do it linguistically.

Hypnotically.

And YOU don’t need to “be” the authority.

You only need to reference one.

Which is incredibly easy.

And when you attach an authority to any of your ideas (or to you, if you like) they will seem much more compelling.

Just be careful not to abuse it.

Because it is VERY easy to.

Learn More:

Seven Laws

Feel Cheated?

Do You Feel Cheated By Life?

I had this friend once that would come up with the craziest ideas.

These were business ideas, that he actually thought would make us money.

But they were based on some really nonsensical assumptions.

Kind of like in the movies, when criminals are planning a heist, and their biggest “escape plan” is, “Who’s going to know?”

Of course, once they plan a crime from that standpoint, they overlook tons of variables.

One of the common mistakes we make as people is to ASSUME that simply because we WANT something, we SHOULD get it.

Even if we feel like this just a little bit, it feels like we’ve been cheated if we DON’T get it.

This happens all the time with guys and dating.

They flirt with a girl from across the room. Then walk over, and start talking to her, and she goes cold.

They feel cheated. As if they DESERVED to get her number.

They don’t consider that she perceived him DIFFERENTLY before and after she talked to him.

Her opinion of him CHANGED once they started talking. She updated her idea of him with new information.

But from the guy’s standpoint, he feels like she purposely tricked him.

This is also very common in sales. Somebody is thinking about buying a product. They salesperson starts to ASSUME he or she is going to make a commission.

But then the customer changes their mind. Just like all humans ALWAYS do ALL THE TIME.

But the salesperson feels “cheated.”

Now, it is absolutely necessary to make assumptions. We humans NEVER will have enough information to accurately predict the future.

So we will always have to guess. If we’ve got any kind of experience, we can use that experience to predict, or make assumptions about what will happen.

Of course, if we OVERLY assume good things, and we don’t get it, we can feel cheated.

But if we OVERLY assume bad things, we get scared and we won’t take action.

The “trick” or SKILL is to develop a strong, ever-present sense of “let’s see what happens.”

We do this naturally when we play sports. ESPECIALLY if we suck.

If you’re shooting free throws, for example, you don’t feel like you’re going to die, or never be a success, or end up homeless if you miss a free throw.

You shoot, see what happens (get feedback) and try again.

If you keep shooting (practicing) you’ll eventually get better.

Pretty soon, you’ll KNOW that you shoot at a certain percentage.

How can you treat ALL ACTION like this?

Practice.

Practice keeping the “let’s see what happens” mindset whenever doing ANYTHING.

ESPECIALLY things that are moving you closer to your biggest goals in life.

There are MANY ways to do this.

Visualization exercises, journaling exercies, and reframes.

You can learn them here:

Fearless

Customize Your Brain

Customize Your Brain

When I was in high school I went to this party.

I’m not sure what the occasion was, but there was a mix of kids and adults.

I don’t even remember if it was a kid party with a bunch of grownups, or a grownup party with a bunch of kids.

Anyhow, I was in the garage, and I noticed the homeowner had a car covered up.

But it was a pretty small car.

After a few questions, the owner (of the home and the car) came out and took off the cover.

I don’t even remember what kind of car it was (I was never a “car guy”) only that was a little red convertible.

And he was spending his free time customizing it, down to the super cool looking dash board, with all kinds of gauges and dials.

One thing that struck me was how this guy lit up with enthusiasm when he was describing it. Something he was obviously passionate about.

Most people buy a car, and they’re good. They may put down some custom mats, or maybe even put something cool on the dash, but that’s about it with how much people “customize” their cars.

Most people use their brains the same way.

They figure they’ll use their “stock model” without doing any custom work to it.

Sure, they’ll go to school, like everybody else.

Fill it up with enough data to pass the next test, like everybody else.

Then get a job, like everybody else.

And show up on time, and do what they’re told, like everybody else.

That strategy works, until it doesn’t.

Then what?

What happens if you want to do something, and you look upside your brain for a strategy, and come back with nothing?

What happens if you (gasp!) have to try something you’ve NEVER done before, in an attempt to get your needs met, but your factory-setting brain says, “No way, dude!”

You could vacillate, like everybody else.

You could look for somebody to blame, like everybody else.

Or you could do something different.

You could get started TODAY learning how to customize your brain.

How to practice thinking, so the when the inevitable situation comes up, you won’t be stuck.

You’ll take action, leaving everybody in the dust.

How do you do that?

Here’s How:

Fearless

Escape From Negative Loops

Flip The Switch On Negative Cycles

There’s plenty of circles in the world.

Or cycles if you prefer.

Earth around the sun, moon around the Earth. Tides up and down.

Our lives also have cycles. Good days, bad days.

But sometimes we can get “stuck” in a self-fulfilling cycle.

Or the opposite, which is AWESOME.

The bad one is called a “vicious circle.” The good one is called a “virtuous circle.”

Like when you’re “on,” you get FANTASTIC results.

Which spurs you to try new things. Which gets you even MORE on, so you try even BETTER things.

This is that wonderful momentum where just taking action, REGARDLESS of the result, is an end in and of itself.

Since you’ve started to associate any ACTION with the mostly POSITIVE results you’re getting, you start to FEEL GOOD simply by taking action.

Which, of course, makes it much more likely that action will yield even more positive results.

The opposite, is pretty much opposite in every way.

You fall flat on your face every time (or at least it feels that way).

So even taking action starts to SUCK. Which means you’re scared WHILE taking action, which makes it almost guaranteed you’ll FAIL (or not get what you think).

Go to any message board regarding ANY type of self improvement, and you’ll see TWO TYPES OF PEOPLE.

People that are in a VICIOUS CIRCLE and think the world sucks.

And those who are in a VIRTUOUS CIRCLE, and think the world is AWESOME.

(These two types fight quite often, btw.)

Two types of people in the SAME WORLD having a completely different experience.

The WORST thing about being in a vicious circle is it SEEMS like you continuously PROVE that the world sucks.

But remember this: What The Thinker Thinks, The Prover Proves.

You think the world is the way it is, THEN you go out and PROVE that it’s like that.

But since there are SO MANY variables out there, you can pretty much prove anything.

Like certain congressman are really reptiles.

Or demons come and rape you every night.

Or whatever.

So, HOW do you break out of that vicious circle, and start to get the VIRTUOUS CIRCLE going?

Use the same rule. What the thinker thinks, the prover proves.

Now it takes time, it’s like spinning in one direction.

You’ve got to SLOW DOWN first, and then SLOWLY start to spin in the other direction.

First you need to REFRAME events as they happen, from bad to good.

Then you need to START VERY SLOW taking action, and EXPECTING SUCCESS.

Then REFRAME whatever happens as good FEEDBACK that will help you next time.

Do plenty of journaling, and plenty of mental exercises.

It takes time, but it is WELL worth it.

Learn How Here:

Fearless

Obliterate False Fears

How To Deprogram Yourself

I read an interesting history book a while back.

It’s premise was that all of human history could be described as a timid, lazy people.

All of the major historical events were driven primarily by two goals.

One to make things less scary, and two to make them easier.

Scared and lazy people making things easier and less scary.

Now, this is just one way of looking at things. One thing about NLP is you learn that “meaning” is pretty flexible.

Sure, if you’re measuring how many grams something is in a laboratory, there’s not much room for coming up with different meanings.

But any time you have anything related to the human experience, or even a biological experience (trees growing, etc.) meaning really IS flexible.

Which is good news when we’re talking about things that scare us.

I’m sure you’ve heard the popular “self-help” description of FEAR:

False Enemies Appearing Real.

Sounds cool, sounds like you know what’s up, but just coming up with smart sounding sayings like that doesn’t really help much when you’ve got to stand up in front of people and give an impromptu speech.

You can tell yourself that your fears are false until you’re blue in the face, but when you stand up, everybody gets quiet and looks at you, it’s kind of hard to logic your way out of being petrified.

So, how exactly do make that “truism” real?

How do we actually FEEL that our fears are false, rather than pretending we’re all that?

Practice, that’s how.

One of the things about being human is we are all born WAY before we are fully developed.

Meaning the first years of our lives, our brains are a sponge.

Unfortunately, we tend to soak up both TRUE things about the world around us, and FALSE things.

Since our brains were designed for a much different time, being “safe” rather than “sorry” makes our young brains a lot less discriminating.

So we learn that a lot of things are scary, even when they’re not.

Problem is that here we are as adults, with those learned experienced programmed into us like they are instincts.

So they those “false” fears FEEL just as real as the REAL fears.

Luckily, we can slowly dismantle the false ones, and keep the real ones.

By focused visualization, mental exercises, journaling and other “tricks.”

It’s not magic, and it does take time.

But imagine what you’ll be able to do when you’re ONLY afraid of things you SHOULD be afraid of? Like escaped tigers and jumping out of airplanes.

Learn How:

Fearless