Tag Archives: language

Scary Times Up Ahead

Destroy Fear Before It Exists

Way back in the day, Teddy Roosevelt had an interesting foreign policy.

“Speak softly, and carry a big stick.”

Which basically means be as nice as possible, but when somebody crosses a line, you respond as quickly and viciously as possible.

Imagine two different guys, trained as martial artists.

To one guy, it’s important everybody knows he’s a martial artist.

He always acts as tough as possible.

Then there’s another guy, who wants to project as kind a personality as he can.

Which guy do you think is more confident?

Clearly, the first guy has issues.

He is perhaps so worried about getting into a fight, in his mind, he probably feels like there are enemies around every corner.

While the second guy is so confident in his skills, he only worries if somebody is actually in his face and getting ready to punch him.

But even then he knows he can easily defend himself.

The more confident you are with your skills, the less you’ll think about using them.

This is where that stereotypical movie line comes from:

“You learn martial arts so you don’t have to get into fights.”

One of the strange paradoxes of human behavior is we tend to attract what we fear most.

People who are always worried about getting mugged walk around with closed off body language, walking while staring at the ground.

Project the EXACT body language muggers, pickpockets and purse snatchers look for.

The people least likely to fight back, give chase, or even call the cops.

Or the stereotypical guy who secretly think the world hates him.

So he walks around with a scowl on his face.

Which causes everybody to keep their distance.

His fears create his reality.

But when you plan for the worst, the opposite happens.

The more daily action you take to prepare for the worst, the more confident you’ll be able to handle it.

And the less likely it will actually happen, since you’ll be projecting more confident energy.

One of the biggest things that cause people anxiety is what to say when dealing with strangers.

Especially when it comes to asking for what we want.

We imagine all the potential responses, imagine our worst fears coming true, so we don’t ask.

Or if we do ask, we do through fearful and protective body language which virtually guarantees we get what we most fear.

But by practicing all the different ways to ask, and handle any objections, you’ll be asking with much different energy.

Very much like sales objections.

The more you practice handling them, the less likely they ever come up.

The more confident you are with your language skills, the less likely you’ll need them.

Start Practicing:

Weaponized Hypnosis

Don't Make This Guy Angry

When Will The Piper Come Knocking?

Economics is frequently referred to as the “dismal science.”

This makes sense when you look at all the other sciences.

Even if you don’t understand science, it’s extremely useful.

To kids and primitive cultures, science is like magic.

And not just magic, but the good kind of magic.

The kind of magic where you can take a clump of frozen stuff out of your freezer, pop it in the microwave, and a couple minutes later have a delicious burrito.

Or that allows you to walk down the stairs in one part of the city, scarcely take your eyes off your twitter feed, and walk up the stairs in a completely different part of the city.

Or even better, get onto a plane, fall asleep, and wake up on a different continent.

Only a hundred years ago, when somebody was traveling to another continent, goodbye’s were sad because you wouldn’t see or hear from the person in months or years.

Now, because of science, we can go to another continent, and face to face talk to our loved ones back home when we get there.

But why is economics “dismal?”

Because it forces us to ask a very important question.

One that few people ever ask.

One that politicians hope we NEVER ask.

What’s the question?

“At What Cost?”

Every single action we do has ramifications.

Most of the time, we can ignore them.

But as the story of the pied piper tells us, eventually we’ve got to pay.

The story of the pied piper of course is about a guy who got rid of all the rats in a city.

Then the people decided they didn’t want to pay him.

So he got rid of all the children, just like he did the rats.

Every action we take will need to be accounted for.

It’s very easy in the short term to ignore that.

The biggest risk is not taking any action at all.

It’s easy to put it off to tomorrow.

Humans are afraid of risk.

So we don’t take any.

But the biggest risk of all is avoiding risk altogether.

Because one day, you might need to be able to do something, or know how to do something, but you don’t, or can’t.

This isn’t a very comfortable thought.

But you don’t EVER have to do anything scary.

AND you can still watch all your favorite TV shows.

In fact, the BEST thing you could do is take very tiny actions, and make those actions a habit.

Until doing what NEEDS to be cone is comfortable and familiar.

Everybody’s situation is different.

But EVERYBODY has something in the back of their mind they know they SHOULD be doing, but aren’t.

All you need to do is find the tiniest, easiest way to get started.

And just do that one TINY thing every day.

Until that “seed” starts to grow on it’s own.

Get Started:

Seven Disciplines

How To Communicate Clearly

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

Which Would You Like?

Surgically Precise Language

I used to eat a lot of fast food.

I would usually get a big sack of something once a week, and eat it while watching my favorite TV show.

Often times, I would have a hard time deciding.

After all, with so many fast food places to choose from, all with their own unique specialty, it was hard.

Do I want burgers, or tacos? A big foot-long, or a deep dish?

I know, heavy stuff!

This, however, IS one of the iron-clad, inescapable rules of economics.

If you want THIS, you can’t have THAT.

Everything costs something. Time, money AND opportunity. These are appropriately called “opportunity costs.”

It’s also one of the main, deeply unconscious reasons a lot of guys have trouble committing. If you choose HER, you’re also deciding that EVERY OTHER GIRL on planet Earth is off limits.

It’s also why our brains get so confused.

See, a long, long time ago, we had a decision to make. Our brains could be really, really fast, or really, really accurate.

But NOT both.

And if we DID decide to evolve both (a super FAST and super ACCURATE) brain, we would have had to pay for it somehow. As it is now, our brains take up a LOT of calories.

If it were fast AND accurate, it would take up a lot more. Which means we’d have to eat more. Which means our bodies would be shaped a lot differently. Which means we might not have survived!

So here we are, with pretty FAST brains, that are also pretty inaccurate.

Most of the time, the thoughts we think, the words we use are NECESSARILY vague. We leave out a LOT of information.

If you asked me what I did last night, I would say something like, “I made something to eat, read a few blogs, and watched a movie.”

There is a LOT of information I’m leaving out. If I told you EVERYTHING in excruciating detail, not only would you be bored to tears, but it would take FOREVER!

Normally, this is “good enough.” People have some random ideas, spit them out with some random words, that are necessarily vague.

We sort of understand what each other is saying, at least “good enough” to get what we need.

But just stop and think, for a minute, if you cooked dinner the way you spoke.

You reached in the fridge, grabbed some stuff that looked “good enough,” threw them in some kind of cooking device, for “long enough,” and then ate it.

So long as the base ingredients were what your body needed, you would be OK.

But as I’m sure you know, you can do a lot better than just “good enough.”

Just like you can take the time to become a master chef, you can take the time to become a master communicator.

Instead of randomly choosing words and ideas, you can choose them with surgical precision so people will think whatever it is you are talking about is AWESOME.

So much they’ll be begging for you to continue, and will be much more likely to do whatever you ask them to.

Learn How:

Covert Hypnosis

Become A Verbal Ninja

How To Become A Verbal Ninja

One time I had this leaky faucet.

I looked online on how to fix it, and figured it easy enough.

So I went to my local hardware store, and bought what I thought I needed to fix it.

I ended up having to go back there three times, until I finally figured everything out.

Even though it took a lot longer than I thought, and I was pretty embarrassed every time I walked back into the hardware store, it felt pretty good when I finished.

A lot of people are afraid to try something because they might mess up. Or they won’t get it right the first time.

Good thing you didn’t feel that way when you were learning to walk!

Any hardware store you find yourself in, you’ll find a lot of tools.

Some are very general, and can be used for a lot of different things.

Some are very specific, and can only be used for one specific job.

Like a cement mixer, for example. There’s not a lot of stuff you can do with it except mix cement.

Other things, like hammers, or screwdrivers, can be used for pretty much anything.

These are tools that every person would benefit from having.

On the other hand, it wouldn’t be a good marketing strategy for a cement mixer company to try and convince everybody that they needed to have one.

There are things that people do that can be thought of as on the same spectrum.

Things that are very specific, and things that are very general.

Like doing pull-ups is a very specific form of exercise, and strengthens specific muscles.

Stretching, or Yoga, on the other hand, is pretty beneficial.

Many more people would benefit from doing a bit of yoga in the morning than would doing ten pull-ups.

One all purpose practice that would benefit most people is journaling.

You can journal to keep track of your progress on goals.

You can journal to write out and visualize different ways to behave in different situations.

You can journal your own history to uncover things that happened long ago that you may be able to understand now.

You can journal to write down any genius ideas you have during the day, that may turn into profitable income streams.

Or you can journal to practice language patterns.

This, by far, is the best way to drill them into your brain.

Kind of like boxers or martial artists train at the gym. Doing the same moves over and over and over and over.

So if they ever get into a fight, they’ll AUTOMATICALLY respond with the perfect punch.

When you practice language patterns by writing them out over and over and over, you’ll get the same result.

And since EVERY SINGLE TIME you talk to somebody is an opportunity to use them, you’ll naturally start becoming more persuasive, magnetic and influential. Without really knowing it.

All it takes is a few minutes of writing every day, and you’re on your way to becoming a verbal ninja.

Get Started:

Covert Hypnosis

What Do You Assume?

How To Make Others Feel Good Around You

Once I was walking around downtown. I saw this poster for a movie.

It had an actor who’s been in a lot of other movies I’ve watched and enjoyed.

So without knowing anything about the movie, I bought a ticket.

As I was sitting there in the theater, my big bucket of popcorn on my lap, the lights dimmed.

So excited. One of my favorite actors.

In a movie I knew nothing about.

Now, when I watch a movie, I always buy popcorn. But I don’t start eating until the movie actually starts.

Kind of a “delayed gratification” trick I play on myself.

So as the lights dimmed, I waited for the first scene to start shoveling popcorn in my mouth and…

…they started singing.

WTF?

Turned out it was a musical. Not my favorite type of movie.

Another time I was in Taiwan. There had just been a movie released called “Red Eye,” some thriller movie that took place aboard a plane.

I saw the title at my local theater. Same story. Bough the popcorn, waited for the lights to dim.

And….

…it was a Korean movie called “Red Eye.” Some sort of horror. No idea what it was about since it was in Korean with Taiwanese subtitles.

This is what happens when we make assumptions.

Most of the time they are true. But when we’re wrong, it can be funny, like in those movies, or you can upset people, or embarrass yourself.

But there ARE some assumptions that most people may disagree with that people will be GLAD to accept.

Within the Covert Hypnosis training course, there’re these things called “Linguistic Presuppositions.”

They are sentence structures that PRESUPPOSE things to be true, in order to make sense of and respond to the sentence.

When we use this naturally, it’s when we’re trying to unconsciously assert something that we really don’t want questioned.

Usually this is some kind of insult, or some form of “I’m right and you’re wrong” type of thing.

Like when you’re arguing with your friend, and you think they’re being dense, because they won’t accept your argument.

You don’t come right out and say, “Since you don’t accept my argument, you are being dense.” Because they could argue with that.

Instead, we tend to say things like, “Why are you being so dense?” Which is a question that PRESUPPOSES the density if your friend.

When you start to use these consciously, you can use them much more effectively. Not to make other people feel bad or stupid, but to make them feel really good.

You can start to “Presuppose” good things about them. Good things about their ideas. Good things about their future.

What effect will this have?

They’ll start to feel really good about themselves. But since you’re covertly hiding these “compliments” in the middle of a complex sentence structure, they won’t really know why.

All they’ll know is that around you, they feel pretty good.

Think you can use this to your benefit?

Get Started:

Covert Hypnosis

My Next Door Neighbor Has The Loudest Guitar In The World

Develop Linguistic Flexibility

When I was in high school, I loved geometry.

My friends either loved it, or hated it.

I liked the idea of solving problems via “proofs.”

You had this angle or shape or something.

And you had to “prove” that a certain angle was the same as another certain angle.

You had to go through a step by step process where you used some ideas that were simply assumed to be true.

Like if you take a line, and bisect it with another line, the two angles on either side of the bisecting line HAVE TO BE equal to 180 degrees. Or the sum of all angles within a triangle HAVE TO BE 180 degrees.

In NLP, they have a list of “presuppositions.” Things that are simply assumed to be true.

You can’t prove them, but you can’t disprove them.

Like having more resources is better than having less resources.

Or every single person is always doing the best they can, given their skills and their understanding of the situation, to get their needs met, as they see them.

Or the more flexible you are with how you achieve your outcome, the more likely you’ll achieve it.

One of my favorite presupposition is that nobody is “broken.”

It’s just a matter of increasing your understanding of what you want, increase your awareness of your situation, and increasing your skills.

If you accept those three things, which are ALL under your control, you can get anything.

Within the Covert Hypnosis training program, there’re these things called “Linguistic Presuppositions.”

These are grammatical structures that kind of force you to accept something as true in order to make sense of the sentence.

Like if I said, “My next door neighbor’s guitar is the loudest in the world,” you’d have to ASSUME certain things in order to formulate a response.

Like I have a next door neighbor. He or she has a guitar. It’s loud. Etc.

Or consider this sentence:

One reason the Covert Hypnosis training program is so popular is it allows you to become incredibly persuasive without seeming like a salesperson.

What are the assumptions?

It’s popular. It’s popular for many reasons.

It does a lot of things OTHER than training you how to become persuasive.

One of those other things is it is a FANTASTIC tool for self development.

How?

One of the ways to practice the patterns is to write them out.

When you write out the presuppositions, you can use any “assumptions” you want to be assumed true, as you drill them into your brain.

Things like, “you are persuasive.”

Or “making money is easy.”

Or “expressing myself in public is fun.”

Or “getting a good paying job is easy.”

And on and on.

What TRUTHS would you like to program into your brain?

Get Started:

Covert Hypnosis