Tag Archives: learning

Yeah Baby!

Why Junk Food Tastes Good

If you were a highly skilled chemist, where would you work?

Assuming you weren’t going to break bad like Walter White.

I had a friend once in that situation, being a skilled chemist and looking for work, and he took a job at a major cosmetics company.

Another place where chemists work is in food companies.

The kind that are responsible for food that is nearly addictive.

That is specifically designed to trick our taste buds.

If you’ve ever tried to eat healthy, you know how hard it is.

It takes a LONG TIME to “acquire” a taste for healthy food.

Or “re-acquire” since that’s the stuff we are SUPPOSED to eat.

Even fruit is a Frankenstein creation.

If you took a time machine back a couple thousand years, you’d find “natural” fruit that was nowhere near as big and sugary as modern fruit.

In some respects, it’s GOOD that we can trick our instincts.

That’s precisely why we enjoy movies so much.

We get to feel “non-normal” emotions (fear of death, love, loss, etc.) without having to actually deal with the consequences those emotions would normally produce.

In other areas, our instincts, especially our social instincts, are purposely being jacked all over the place.

Look in any crowded area, and check how many people are STARING at their devices.

Chances are they aren’t reading an in depth article about the economic and social implications of modern life.

Chances are they ARE getting their “fast food hit” from social media.

That “likes” and attention that feel good for about a second, but really only want them crave more.

Very much like those advanced chemists to carefully synthesize supermarket food to make us want more with each and every bite.

Luckily, training (or rather re-training) your social instincts is much easier than re-training your hunger.

Because social health food FEELS much better than social junk food.

And once you re-calibrate your social instincts, you’ll feel much better as well.

Learn How:

Ego Taming

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

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

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

She Is Waiting For You

Fast Food Rush

One of the best feelings is forward momentum.

Another good feeling is being in control.

Not control-freak control, but a feeling of control over your life.

Of being at cause, instead of having to always respond.

When I was in high school I worked a lot of retail.

Mostly food.

It was fun, in that there were plenty of kids my own age.

And when there was a rush (lunchtime or dinner) it was pretty cool.

It was super busy, the time went by pretty quickly.

And it felt good to get through the rush.

One of the reasons it was so cool was it was temporary.

It would maybe last an hour or two.

The orders would come quick and relentlessly.

We’d be running around trying to keep up.

It was the kind of challenge that feels good.

The right combination of external pressure, internal focus, teamwork, and a genuine appreciation from management once we were done.

Underlying all of this was the sense it was out of our control.

Meaning once the crowd came, we were utterly dependent on forces outside of us.

“Reality” would demand a response from us, and we had to keep up.

Doing this once per shift for a couple hours is pretty cool.

But living your life like this is horrible.

Always feeling that you are “on call” to whatever is outside and more powerful than you.

And if you don’t perform “correctly” you’re going to get into trouble.

This is the kind of thing that makes one feel trapped and hopeless.

This is why people always figure out ways to carve out private time to work on private things.

It’s another reason why people practice partial arts.

Even if they NEVER intend to use them outside of the training room, it FEELS like they are building up the skills to fight back.

Even if it’s just a mental knowing of a certain level of skill, it makes one feel MUCH LESS like they are always an effect, rather than a cause.

Just knowing you have a certain level of skills will help you feel much more like a cause in more places.

And that feeling will inform your body language and non-verbal communication.

Which will invite a completely different response from others.

And if you ever DO need to use these defensive skills?

They’ll know what hit them.

Learn More:

Weaponized Hypnosis

Mutual Benefits Are Everywhere

Mechanics Of Relationships

One of our biggest human issues is an instinct mismatch.

The easiest to see is hunger.

Way back in the day, we had to hunt for food.

And hunting for food was dangerous.

So only those that were ALWAYS hungry were the most motivated to get out and hunt every day.

Or spend all day foraging.

Today, that never ending hunger instinct gets in the way.

Which is why most people (70%) are overweight.

Unfortunately, this is only ONE of the instincts that can get us into trouble.

There are plenty of others.

However, once you understand that hunger will never go away, you can learn to manage it.

It’s not easy by any means.

But through consistent effort, you CAN get into decent physical shape if that’s important to you.

Luckily, all of our other goals can be made much easier by managing all of our various instincts.

The first step is understanding what those instincts are.

Think of when you fell in love with somebody.

In the very beginning.

When you had “one-itis” for them.

You liked them, but you weren’t sure if they liked you.

In that situation, it’s very hard to NOT contact them.

But if you know anything about relationship building, contacting somebody TOO OFTEN in the early stages is the last thing you want to do.

Making yourself TOO available will kill attraction.

Fortunately, this desire to contact them is JUST LIKE our hunger instinct.

If we are OBEDIENT to our instincts, they won’t help us much.

Imagine if you ate all you could, whenever you were hungry.

If you learn about all your other instincts, and how to manage them, you can CREATE a wonderful relationship JUST LIKE you can create a healthy body.

Sure, it’s not easy and automatic.

But nothing worth doing is.

But just as sure as you can create a healthy body, you can create a healthy relationship.

All you need to do is understand the mechanics, the underlying instincts that you need to manage, and get busy.

Learn How:

Love Hypnosis

She Wants You

Mastering Greed, Fear and Love

I love reading about and learning about the stock market.

Not just because it’s a way to make money (and also a way to lose everything).

But because it’s based on human psychology.

Sure, there are all kinds of technical and fundamental indicators.

GDP growth or not, job growth or not.

Technical indicators, MACD, slow and fast moving averages, etc.

Some of the indicators like the VIX (which measures volatility) is EXTREMELY complicated.

You need a couple semesters of calculus just to understand how the VIX is calculated.

But hidden inside all those indicators and equations is the human brain.

All of it is so we talking monkeys can have an idea of what to do.

And despite HOW we make our choices (buy, sell or hold) they are HUMAN choices.

Subjective choices.

I suppose of Spock decided to trade stocks for a living, he’d do pretty well.

But we humans cannot escape our emotions.

Experienced stock traders say that even after the BEST trade, they STILL have regrets.

I should have held on a little longer.

I should have bought more in the beginning.

I could have made MORE money.

Greed and fear are ALWAYS present.

Traders can’t get rid of them any more than we can get rid of hunger.

Jesse Livermore, a famous trader from back in the 1920’s, wrote a book about the stock market.

One that is JUST as valid today as back then, nearly 100 years ago.

Why?

Because human emotions haven’t changed.

Even back then, Livermore remarked that the psychology behind the stock market is as “old as the hills.”

Humans want the same things today as we did 1000 years ago.

More money, less work, better relationships, better sex, more love, more affection, less frustration.

Despite the MASSIVE complexity of daily live, the human condition is the same as it ever was.

Which means if you understand the human condition, it doesn’t matter what else you know or don’t know.

Because you’ll have a huge advantage.

Learn More:

Love Hypnosis

Alchemy Of Love

Scientific Emotions

There’s a pretty cool video on YouTube on chord progressions.

It shows a ton of different pop songs that all have the same chords.

This is one of those things you’d never notice unless you learned enough about music.

Then after you notice it, it’s hard to not notice it.

Same with story structure.

Most modern movies and books have the same basic structure.

The “Hero’s Journey.”

Usually starts out with the hero as an orphan of some kind.

Then he or she is more or less forced to go on some kind of journey.

Could be a metaphorical journey, or a real one.

Along the way they meet friends, learn skills and eventually have to fight the bad guy.

Or overcome their internal demons.

But even if you study music, or story structure, we can still enjoy movies and music.

Sometimes even more so.

In order to become a world class chef, you’d have to know what tastes good and what doesn’t.

While they are making pizza and burger robots, they’ll never make a robot that can invent new dishes and tastes.

Because a robot will never have the purely emotional experience of tasting something for the first time.

In order to “test” a new recipe, a robot would HAVE to have some kind of pre-programmed ranges or parameters.

Human senses, on the other hand, have an infinite amount of range.

An infinite amount of capability to somehow “transfer” between purely chemical combinations, and emotional descriptions of flavor.

Robots will likely be able to create things with absolute precision.

But they’ll never be able to enjoy things from a human experience.

Only we humans get to do that.

But just like chefs can produce delicious dishes and musicians can produce emotionally moving pieces, we can both create and enjoy a wide range of emotions.

All it takes is being able to shift outside, as the creator, and then shift inside, as the enjoyer.

Learn How:

Love Hypnosis

They're Everywhere

What If Angels Were Watching You?

Once upon a time Jesus decided to come back to visit Earth.

So he strolls up to the Vatican and is standing in the courtyard, kind of looking around.

One of the Cardinals sees him, and runs to tell the Pope.

“Father!” he cries, rushing inside in a panic.

“Yes, my son, what is it?” The Pope asks.

“Jesus! He has returned!”

“What do you mean?” The puzzled pope asks.

“He’s outside! In the courtyard! What shall we do?” the cardinal desperately asks. The pope thinks about it, then looks up.

“Tell everybody to look busy!”

Yuckity yuck….

Everybody has the experience of sitting around when you’re supposed to be working.

And the boss shows up, and you suddenly pretend you were just finishing something, or were just about to do something REALLY important.

This is normal behavior, and it happens all the time.

But when it’s unhelpful is when we are tricking OURSELVES that we are busy.

Sometimes we do this to avoid doing unpleasant things.

Maybe you’d planned on doing your taxes, but suddenly your daughter needs help with her homework, and you’re than willing to help all day if that’s what she needs.

Sometimes we do things that we THINK is “progress,” but it’s really just busy work.

Perhaps you’ve been wanting to write a novel.

But instead of sitting down and actually writing, you’re doing “research.”

You may even tell people you’re a writer, but you are still in the “planning stages.”

Of course, planning is absolutely necessary.

But things like that are VERY EASY to stretch out.

Sometimes for YEARS.

Which means it’s very EASY to trick ourselves we are “on purpose,” that we’re living an extraordinary life.

But all too often, the things we do are really the same things we’ve always done.

We just somehow redefine them.

So instead of wasting time online, we’re doing “research.”

Or instead of dreaming about what it would be like to actually finish a degree, we’re “investigating online classes.”

Or instead of window shopping on Amazon, we’re “choosing the right equipment for our exercise plan.”

Redefining events is a very good skill.

Like all of our mental skills, we can use them to get ahead, for example reframing a “failure” as valuable experience that can help you do better next time.

Or we can use them to stay in our comfort zone, when we pretend we’re researching the best running shoes, but we’re really just browsing Amazon while watching TV.

How do you know the difference?

Figure out a way to keep score.

Objective score, that is observable from your behavior, not your thinking.

Imagine angels are watching you, and they can only see your behavior, not your thoughts.

And the more your behavior moves you forward, the more they’ll help you.

This metaphor can help you move forward, instead of just pretending.

Learn More:

Seven Disciplines

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