Tag Archives: frame control

Develop Mental Super Powers

Autopilot Magic

A common sales technique is any kind of “auto pilot” system.

Make money on autopilot

Lose weight on autopilot.

Drive traffic to your blog on autopilot.

Why do we like the word “autopilot” so much?

It implies that “we” don’t have to do anything.

We just flip a switch, sit back and let some other “system” external to ourselves do all the work.

Is anything “autopilot” possible?

Absolutely.

We humans are on autopilot most of the time.

Every day we think the same thoughts, eat the same food, and hang out with the same people.

Because WE are on autopilot, we like that we can achieve success by using ANOTHER kind of autopilot.

So we, while running on auto pilot, don’t have to do anything different.

Just reach over, flip a switch on another autopilot system, and then get back to whatever we were doing on autopilot.

Of course, the data says something different.

Despite all these autopilot systems, most of us aren’t getting any better.

Most people are just as broke and overweight as they always were.

Even worse.

Are we doomed?

Not at all.

But if you think that some other “autopilot system” is going to save you, then you’re in for a shock.

But you CAN slowly adjust your OWN autopilot system.

Suppose for example, you decided to wake up ten minutes earlier every day.

For the first few days, it would seem a little strange, but pretty soon it would be normal.

Just suppose, that you even made sure it was easy, and woke up five minutes earlier every day for a week.

Five minutes earlier than today, same time, every day, for a week.

Then every week you adjusted the time, another five minutes.

Every twelve weeks, or three months, you’d be up an hour earlier.

If you did this for six months, you’d be getting up TWO HOURS earlier than you get up now.

Since you’d be doing it very slowly, you’d probably start going to sleep earlier.

Since mornings are generally much more productive than evenings, you would be doing a LOT MORE simply by shifting those hours from the non-productive evenings to the VERY PRODUCTIVE mornings.

What could you do with an extra two hours a day?

Write a novel?

Start a business?

Learn something cool?

All this is possible by shifting slowly, five minutes a day.

Taking yourself only SLIGHTLY off autopilot, until your NEW autopilot is a BETER autopilot.

If you think in terms of slowly shifting YOUR OWN autopilot, instead of looking for another “magic” autopilot, you will be capable of much more.

Learn More:

NLP Mind Magic

Hallucinate Your Way Rich

Think Your Way Out Of Trouble

A long time ago, they used to think that negative numbers were evil.

This was back when math was still in its infancy.

Since the idea of a “negative thing” (how can you have negative six apples?) didn’t seem to exist, the idea was considered heretical.

Slowly but surely (and luckily) people started to accept the idea of negative numbers.

Same kind of thing happened when they invented “imaginary” numbers.

But ask any mathematician, and they’ll tell you that “imaginary” is not really accurate.

But the name stuck, and here we are.

These “imaginary” numbers are necessary to calculate anything that has to do with sinusoidal fluctuations (like electronic circuits).

One of the famous scenes from the Bible is when Jesus threw out the “money changers.”

Why were they called money “changers”?

Isn’t that like going down to the bank and exchanging dollars for Euros?

Why would those people be bad?

The reason is that way back in the day, lending money at interest was considered a sin.

So the clever money lenders changed their names to money changers.

They would lend money in one currency, and collect in another.

And they collected their “interest” in the form of a “currency exchange fee.”

This is how they got around the ban against charging interest.

This isn’t to say money lenders today (or back then) are good or bad.

But if you are clever enough, and you can think abstractly enough, you can work your way around any limitation.

If you can’t think very cleverly, abstractly, or laterally, when you come up against an obstacle, you’re stuck.

You look around for somebody to tell you what to do.

This is the way most people run their lives.

But if you can think differently, think abstractly, think creatively, any problem is really just another opportunity in disguise.

To all the other simple thinking folks, it’s just a problem.

But to you, it’s an opportunity.

Seeing the world this way requires practice.

Consistent mental practice.

It’s not based on any magic switch in your brain.

If you are, however, willing to put in the few minutes per day of mental practice, you’ll soon see a world FILLED with opportunities that others only recognize as obstacles.

Learn How:

NLP Mind Magic

Dragons Are Everywhere

How To Jump Over A Tree

Once upon a time a young student went to see the local Kung Fu master.

“What would you like to learn?” asked the old guy.

“I want to be able to leap over a huge tree,” the young kid said, not sure what to expect.

“OK, follow me,” the old master said.

“Seriously?” the kid thought, following along.

The old master planted a seed in the middle of a field.

“Jump over this,” the master said.

“Seriously?” the kid asked. The master nodded, completely serious.

The kid jumped over the recently planted seed.

“Perfect,” said the master. “Come here and do the same, every day. I will check on you in a few years,” he said, totally serious, and walked away.

The kid dutifully obeyed. After fifteen years, he was leaping several meters in the air.

By the time the master returned, the kid was now a man, and was famous for his physical skills.

Not only was he leaping over the large tree, but he was teaching the local kids all about patience and dedication.

That with only a small amount of daily effort, you can build miraculous skills.

Or as Kid Rock says in one of his songs:

“Persistence pays and if that holds true, I’m gonna buy this F—— planet before the time I’m through!”

Most people spend their entire lives looking for ONE secret that will give them instant riches, instant fame, instant sex, instant health.

But if they spend that SAME effort on just a few daily activities, they would have created a masterpiece with their lives.

Instead, they keep searching for secrets that don’t exist.

All that effort, wasted.

How do you spend your days?

All you really need is to shift how you spend just a few minutes per day, and you will be remembered forever.

Get Started:

NLP Mind Magic

Explore The World

Awaken Your Inner Explorer

I used to do a lot of backpacking.

On one trip, a buddy of mine and I decided to cut across a huge valley.

There wasn’t any marked trail, so we had to wing it.

This was before most people had GPS enabled devices, so we had to learn how to triangulate.

Meaning take an old fashioned map, put it on the ground, and try to estimate which mountains around us were which mountains on the map.

Then we’d line up the map so it matched the mountains, and drew a line from each peak, on the map, toward the center.

Where they all crossed was our location.

The smaller of a triangle, in the center, the more accurate the location.

Usually this is a pretty good way to check where you are, if you know now.

But it does require an accurate map.

And accurate maps require things like planes and satellites.

Way back in the day, before they had those things, maps were much less accurate.

If you look at some maps from way back before humans started traveling around the globe, they were very vague.

Kind of like the maps in the beginning of fantasy adventure books.

Before agriculture and societies were invented, nobody knew where anything was.

Nomads just spread out across the earth, following the sun and the edge of the sea.

Probably the most BAMF’s of all time, when it comes to navigation, were the Polynesians who went across vast oceans.

All they had were stars, ocean currents, and paddles.

Nobody does that unless they have a very STRONG reason to.

To explore, discover, conquer.

You might say that’s the human spirit.

To keep learning, discovering and creating more.

Even if you never leave the city of your birth, you have that ancient drive.

To keep doing more of SOMETHING.

If you can put that ancient drive to good use, you can create a pretty good life.

Build a business, create works of art, find new scientific discoveries.

This does require that you get in the game and get your hands dirty.

No maps would have been made, no treasure discovered, no peaks climbed if those ancient explorers had played it safe.

Get in touch with that ancient nomad.

The explorer within you.

And get in the game and get some.

Learn More:

Ego Taming

She Wants To Push Pull You

Chased By Marines

Thomas Jefferson is a guy whose name can cause some reaction.

Some people love him, some people hate him.

Whatever you feel about him, try and put that aside.

One of my favorite quotes of his has absolutely nothing to do with politics or economics or anything normally associated with him.

The quote?

“The sun hasn’t caught me in bed for fifty years.”

Despite how you may feel about the dude, you gotta respect somebody who gets up BEFORE the crack of dawn as a matter of course.

This isn’t easy by any stretch.

One of the most difficult things to do for us modern humans is respond to our own incentives.

For example, suppose you joined the marines, and were shipped off to boot camp.

If you KNEW that waking up even one minute late would mean you and your friends running all day, waking up would be easy.

Anybody could wake up in those situations.

Or if you went away to some weight loss camp, where there was literally NO FOOD to snack on, anybody could lose weight in those situations.

These are situations that have EXTERNAL incentives.

Responding to those are AUTOMATIC.

One time I ran a 10K.

I was pretty out of shape. My goal was to run it in less than an hour, which is pretty slow.

But I was very lucky.

Because about a hundred meters behind me, for the entire race, was a group of marines.

And they were doing their marine “chant” the ENTIRE race.

It was very easy to imagine they were CHASING me, and I had to stay ahead of them.

This EXTERNAL incentive helped me achieve my goal.

The thing is though, that ANYBODY can pretty much do ANYTHING if the external incentives are strong enough.

What’s really powerful is if you can set and respond to your own internal incentives.

Getting up at the crack of dawn when nobody but you is going to know.

Sticking to your diet when nobody but you is going to know.

Hitting your financial goals when nobody but you is going to know.

Because if you CAN create and OBEY your own internal incentives, you can do ANYTHING.

Any.

Thing.

Luckily, you DO have an internal guidance system.

One that you may have forgotten about.

Or worse, one that you may even think is your enemy.

In its current state, it can certainly seem like an enemy.

But if you can understand why, you can recalibrate it.

And turn it into your most loyal friend.

A friend whose support will help you create and obey any internal incentive you want.

To get anything you want.

Learn How:

Ego Taming

Genius Ideas Baby

The Birdhouse Strategy

Humans feel best when we are on purpose.

When we’ve got a reason to get up.

When we are in the process of building or creating or moving towards something.

Going on roadtrips is fun for this reason.

Part of the fun of going on a trip is the time it takes to get there.

If we could transport ourselves, like on Star Trek, from our living room to a faraway beach, it wouldn’t be nearly the same.

Maybe because the time it takes to get to our vacation spot (wherever it is) helps us to slowly shift from everyday mindset into vacation mindset.

Sitting in a car or a plane for a few hours literally feels like we are “leaving behind” our normal selves, and moving toward our vacation selves.

Which puts a HUGE barrier to insulate our vacation experience.

But you don’t have to go on vacation to feel on purpose.

Just doing a project which takes a lot of work gives you the same feeling.

Slow growth toward a better future.

Even building a birdhouse (if you’re into birdhouses) is a pleasant experience.

Taking something in your mind, doing the daily tasks to slowly turn your idea into a physical thing.

And once you put it in your backyard, (and see the birds using it) you can remember the process of turning thought into thing.

For a birdhouse or a road trip, it’s easy to measure your progress.

If you’re doing something and you don’t have a way to measure your progress, it’s easy to pretend you’re improving but you’re really not.

One of the “meta” ways to measure your progress is how much money you make.

On one level, this sounds very selfish and almost evil.

But on another level, it makes perfect sense.

So long as you aren’t a bank robber, the money you GET represents the value you’ve PROVIDED to others.

To be sure, there are a LOT of ways you can provide value to others without expecting to get paid.

But if you look at the money you make as directly related to how much you provide to others, it’s a fantastic way to keep score.

It’s very easy to focus on.

Do whatever it takes to EARN more money, and use that as your gauge.

For many people, however, this is VERY frustrating.

It shouldn’t be.

It should feel just like going on vacation or building a birdhouse.

Some people are lucky, and they are born with this mindset.

For them, making money is natural, fun and easy.

And it can be for you as well.

Learn How:
Wealth Tuning

The Magic Of Your Mind

Metaphysical Body Fat

I read a really interesting book about Africa a few months ago.

It was a long history, starting over 5000 years ago.

When the first Europeans arrived, they started to trade.

But they did it in a strange way.

The Africans would leave a bunch of stuff on the beach.

Stuff they were willing to give.

The Europeans would row up and leave a bunch of stuff in exchange, and then row back to their ships.

And wait a day or two.

If the Africans accepted their offer, it would be gone.

That would be a signal for the Europeans to take their stuff.

But if the Africans didn’t take the Europeans offer, then either the Europeans would offer more, or the Africans would offer less.

This is something humans have been doing since the dawn of time.

Back in the ancient days of hunter-gathers, when two tribes met, they either traded or fought.

Trading seems to be a deep instinct in all humans.

Kids on the playground do it without thinking.

Trading baseball cards, marbles, cookies for chips.

Even bees and flowers do it.

Bees spread the pollen and for the reward they get “free” nectar.

One of the greatest inventions in human history is money.

If all you had was a sack of corn, you had to find somebody that wanted your corn.

But once money was invented, the amount of stuff SKYROCKETED.

The simple creating of money, a metaphysical, intermediary potential energy for stuff, allowed for technology to skyrocket.

Humans split from chimps six million years ago.

The first coins were minted 2500 years ago. A fraction of the time we’ve been around.

The amount of stuff subsequently created since the idea of money came into being is staggering.

The idea of money itself is instinctive.

All mammals have the capability of storing energy, in the amount of body fat.

Today that gets a bad rap, but having a layer of fat can provide a lot of needed energy when times are tough.

Money is an extension of a very instinctive and very basic idea.

So why does money get such a bad rap?

Plenty of reasons.

One is we all have this idea of “lack.”

Two is rich people want to be the only people that are rich.

Since the dawn of time, these elites have come up with all kinds of ideas that make it easy for THEM to stay rich, while everybody else stays poor.

But the concept of money (stored energy from previous work) has been around longer than money itself.

Longer than people itself.

Get Some:

Wealth Tuning

Who's Doing Your Thinking?

Whose Thoughts Are You Thinking?

Once I went to a bar with a friend.

As soon as I walked in, I noticed that the walls were covered with Corona flags.

We sat at our table, I ordered my drink, and he studied the menu.

After a little bit of thought, he ordered a Corona.

He acted like he’d decided on Corona ONLY after reading the menu.

I laughed, and he asked why.

I pointed out all the Corona signs and he looked stunned.

When I was a kid I saw this stage show at an amusement park.

The trick was that I was supposed to whisper something to a dog, and the dog would go and retrieve it.

I did, and the dog retrieved it.

Since I was a kid, I really thought the dog could understand me.

But my brother explained that the trainer had carefully slipped that idea into my mind, so I thought it was mine.

Every show, the dog would always get the same thing.

And every time, the kid thought it was HIS choice that he told the dog.

Just like my Corona ordering friend, the thought had been carefully implanted in there.

Had my brother not explained the trick to me, or had I not shown my friend all the Corona signs, we would have thought it really WAS our thought.

So here’s the uncomfortable question:

How do you know your thoughts are really yours?

Grocery stores are laid out to alter our buying choices.

TV ads are carefully designed to alter our thinking choices.

And since most people think the same thoughts every day, what does it mean if those same thoughts (that people think every day) are really put there by others?

Whose thoughts are we REALLY thinking all day long?

Our lives are built from our behaviors.

Our behaviors are a result of our thinking.

But if our thinking is secretly controlled by others, WHOSE lives are we living?

On a big scale, this sounds terrifying.

But on a much smaller scale, it’s not so bad.

If you’ve got a massive garden that is overrun by weeds, it’s not a very happy thought.

But if you just took out ONE weed per day, and replaced with a seed for a flower, pretty soon you’d transform your garden.

Your thoughts, and the behaviors that create, are the same way.

Even if ALL of your thoughts are really somebody else’s, you can start small.

And slowly replace them with YOUR thoughts that will build the life that YOU want.

Not anybody else.

Learn How:

Seven Disciplines

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

Dream Big Baby

Interest Rates and Fantasies

Some of the laws of economics are pretty simple to understand.

It can get VERY complicated, but it doesn’t have to.

And on a personal level, economics is inseparable from basic human behavior.

The crux of interest rates, a pretty complex subject, has to do with how humans think about desires and time.

We’d rather have something NOW than later, all else equal.

Because we want it more NOW than later, something “later” has to be worth MORE if we were to not get it now.

In terms of dollars and cents, we’d like to have a hundred bucks today, OR if we had to wait a week, we might accept a hundred a ten bucks.

This is the reason why we have things like interest rates.

Why when you borrow money, you have to give back more than what you got.

Theoretically, the person loaning you the money wants to keep his money.

And the only way he’ll loan it to you is you give him back slightly MORE in the future.

In a sense, the difference is the “cost” of money.

Like you have to pay ten bucks to rent somebody’s money for a year.

Of course, when you involve central banks and debt based money, it gets pretty complicated.

But the idea of thinking about things in the FUTURE is very compelling.

Things that we don’t have, but we want.

Unfortunately, we rarely get an opportunity to talk about those things.

Even if you were hanging out with your friends, and started talking about your ideal future, they wouldn’t support you a hundred percent.

Even family members tend to get a bit sketchy when talking about ideal futures.

Most people have a very vague idea of their ideal future.

But at the same time they have a ton of anxiety.

This is why few people ever set real goals.

The idea of achieving a goal is pretty cool.

But the idea of trying and failing is pretty real, so people tend to not think about it.

Which is why if YOU started to talk about your ideal future, they would start to feel uneasy.

A lot of times, this is where all their judgement comes from.

When they start telling you WHY you shouldn’t dream big like that.

But here’s the thing.

You can flip the switch.

Meaning don’t talk about YOUR ideal future, talk about theirs.

Carefully elicit it, and get them talking about the absolute BEST thing they hope will happen.

Most people don’t even think in such specific terms about their own future.

Let alone be asked about it by somebody else.

Why do this?

Because after that simple conversation with you, they will see YOU as different from every other human on Earth.

And when they think of you, they’ll subconsciously associate their biggest dreams and fantasies.

Think that would be useful?

Learn More:

Secret Agent Persuasion