Tag Archives: metaphor

Maximize Your DNA

Once I went on this backpacking trip with a couple buddies.

We went from one end of Scotland to the other, and went to a bunch of distilleries along the way.

Most of the time we stayed in pretty rural areas, but every once in a while we’d walk through a city.

We each had HUGE backpacks filled with all kinds of junk.

Once we were walking down the sidewalk of a relatively large city, and some guy hanging out said:

“There goes the snail, carrying his house on his back.”

Which I thought was pretty funny. Because when you carry so much junk around, you tend to walk pretty slow.

The funny thing about snails is they always tend to look for the same type of shells.

Scientists call this an “Extended Phenotype.” A phenotype is your physical appearance, compared to your genotype which is the makeup of your genes.

An extended phenotype is the idea that some creatures build up their “bodies” by transforming the world around them.

Beavers building damns, for example.

A lot of things we think of as “choice” are really genetically programmed into us.

At first, this sounds like bad news. Meaning if all we are is a collection of genes, our choice and free will don’t have much say in the matter.

The thing about us humans thought is ON TOP of our all genetically programmed instincts is MASSIVE FLEXIBILITY.

Think of it this way. Say you were walking down the street, and you saw a dollar (or whatever money they use in your country). You’d AUTOMATICALLY pick it up, right?

Now, how long do you think it would take to LEARN a new money, say if you were on vacation or something.

Meaning how long would it take before you had the same reaction upon seeing the DIFFERENT type of money?

Not long!

Another thing that you have PRE-PROGRAMMED into you (which almost nobody takes advantage of) is your goal seeking ability.

Every single action you take is to achieve an outcome. Even if you are flipping channels on TV, each time you push the button, you are HOPING to increase your level of pleasure. Humans are ALWAYS looking out into the future and trying to ACHIEVE a better state.

You CANNOT NOT do this.

But when it comes to CONSCIOUSLY choosing that better state, most people don’t know how.

They make wishes, they hope for magic, they wait until tomorrow, or whatever other excuse pops in their brains.

But when you make efforts to take your GENETICALLY PROGRAMMED goal seeking behavior, and layer some consciously chosen goals on top of it, THAT is what a fully engaged life feels like.

That’s when you start to fully realize your potential as a human.

Choose what you want, and get started:

Mind Persuasion Ebooks

Stop Being A Ping Pong Ball

I saw this interesting “magic” trick online the other day.

It showed four cards, and you had to choose one.

And then think about it and click the button.

The trick was the card you were focused on would be gone on the next screen.

And it was!

But the trick was that ALL FOUR cards were different.

Because they were all face cards, and a mix of suits, the only way you would not be fooled would be if you memorized ALL the cards.

But since the instructions said to pick ONE, most people don’t even notice the other cards.

So when four new face cards are shown, all mixed, and all different, it looks magical, because the others “look” the same.

Scientists tell us our brains run off largely cache-like memory. Meaning in order to save brain processing time and energy, we only “guess” what’s “out there” and come up with a memory based on what we “think” is there.

Clearly, this can be a HUGE disadvantage.

Especially when talking about the many deep nuances of communication.

You think you are being clear, but the other person completely misunderstands you. Later on, you “assume” they “knew” what you meant, but they “assume” you meant something else.

BOOM!

On the other hand, magic tricks, movies, optical illusions, even silly jokes wouldn’t work if our brains were super accurate like a Vulcan.

But it’s also so easy why we tend to believe stuff that CAN’T be true.

So many “ideas” out there are contradictory, most of them HAVE to be wrong!

The good news is that because “meaning” itself is so slippery, you can CHOOSE what you want things to mean.

This is a lot easier if you have a solid PLAN for your life.

You already have tons of preprogrammed desires. Sex, money, safety, shelter, companionship, a certain amount of social status and recognition.

But unless you take the time to SPEFICIFY what these mean to you, and HOW you are going to achieve them, it’s easier to get knocked around like a ping-pong ball in a typhoon.

Just doing this (choosing specific goals and how you’re going to achieve them) is a feat unto itself. It’s not easy, and it requires a lot of introspection.

Which is why most people don’t really take the time to do this.

Sure, everybody has WISHES. These are usually dependent on the wish-fairy showing up and giving you a magic bag of stuff.

You’ll be surprised that once you get going on the process of creating and manifesting your goals.

Because the process itself is what LIFE is all about.

Not to be a ping pong ball, but to be a person of PURPOSE.

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Mind Persuasion Ebooks

Don’t Fight The Caveman

When I was a kid there was a TV show called, “Wide World of Sports.”

One of the taglines was that it showed the “thrill of victory” and the “agony of defeat.”

When they showed the “agony of defeat” part, they showed some guy coming down a ski jump ramp and crashing horribly just as he got to the take off point.

Sports have been around for a long, long time.

All cultures from all times have some kind of sports in their ancient history.

Some suspect that as humans slowly made the transition from hunter-gatherers to farmers, they still had that “competitive spirit.”

To be sure, on the battlefield or on the playing field, winning is awesome, and losing sucks.

But that’s where it ends.

Or, rather, that’s where it SHOULD end.

The trouble with our instincts, especially the ones for competition, is we can really just “shut them off.”

This is easy to understand with something like hunger.

Feeling hungry sucks. Eating feels good. It’s VERY DIFFICULT to simply “not eat” when you’re hungry AND there’s plenty of food around.

This is kind of how it feels when you get into an argument over something really tiny, but you simply CAN NOT just let it go.

You HAVE to win at all costs.

That’s that ancient instinct rearing it’s ugly head.

We’ve got a lot of them.

We tend to follow authority figures, even when they’re clearly idiots.

We tend to follow the crowd, even when they’re running right off a cliff.

We tend to eat WAY more calories than we need, even though we keep buying bigger pants.

Caveman 1, Human 0 !

Of course, if you try and “battle” your instincts with sheer willpower, you’ll lose most of the time.

This is precisely why diets fail. You’re trying to battle your ancient drive to eat, which resides in your VERY POWERFUL reptilian cortex, with your conscious mind.

However, instead of CONTROLLING your instincts, consider learning to manage them.

Like not going shopping when you’re hungry.

Or being able to step back and see the “big picture” when you find yourself in a heated argument over which culture invented the bacon cheeseburger.

One thing that can help is having a CLEAR set of goals.

This makes it easy to step back and see if what you’re doing is to satisfy your inner caveman, or your rational human.

Rational humans choose and pursue goals, while cavemen and cavewomen follow their instincts.

There are a lot of ways to overcome those instincts.

Daily journaling can help.

Meditation can help.

Doing visualizations can help.

These can also help:

Mind Persuasion Ebooks

Look Silly For Maximum Success

Isaac Newton once made the remark that he could only do what he’d done because he was standing on the shoulders of giants.

Meaning his scientific discoveries were only as good as those that came before him.

And those that came before him were just as largely based on those that came before them.

The study of human advancement over the centuries is pretty amazing.

Sure, there are plenty of dark spots, but the long trend is generally upward.

Collectively, we seem to have this drive to keep advancing.

I saw a pretty cool video the other day of the first rocket that blasted off, flew around in the upper atmosphere, and then landed, but in the reverse of how took off.

Right back down on the launch pad. Like watching a lift-off in reverse.

For a long time, a few people have been trying to create a business of tourist space flight.

Yeah, it would only be for rich people, but it’s always that way at first.

Long, long time ago, travel by rail was only for rich people.

Now regular folks can fly all over the world.

It’s possible to live your own life like this, but it’s not guaranteed.

It’s all based on the habits you cultivate.

If you have some really big, really specific goals, way out there, and you make it a habit to do SOMETHING on a daily basis, you can build a pretty impressive life.

On the other hand, if you just hope you get there “somehow,” you might get lucky, but then again you might not.

Most people are terrified of risk. Which is why they are afraid to take action.

Many people want some kind of guarantee that what they are trying will eventually pan out.

Unless they are SURE, they don’t budge.

But in reality, they are ignoring the biggest risk of all.

And that is to get to the end of your life, look back, and say, “Wow, what happened?”

The great paradox is that the more consistently you take small risks, they less likely you’ll end up with nothing.

Meaning the most effective way to make sure the BIGGEST risk of all doesn’t happen is to take a bunch of small risks.

Imagine if you were on a golf course. And you could wait and take one HUGE swing, or you could take a lot of little swings.

But you were so embarrassed to look goofy taking a bunch of little swings, you waited until the last moment to take that one big swing.

If the ball goes in the hole, you’d look pretty good. But if your ball flies off into the lake, well, game over.

But if you take small shots, ten or fifteen yards apiece, you’d almost be guaranteed to get into the hole eventually.

Of course, in golf, the number of strokes is important.

But not in life.

In life, it’s the final result that counts.

And all the intermediary results in between.

Small actions daily build up.

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Mind Persuasion Ebooks

The Secret Pizza Crust Strategy

When I was in high school I worked at a pizza place.

It wasn’t a chain, there was only one.

And they made everything fresh. They had this big mixer in the back room they’d use to make the dough.

When we made the pizza crusts, we always started with a big round ball of dough that had been put in a specially controlled fridge so it would rise correctly.

We would first pound the dough, and then actually toss it into the air.

Not for show, but because it was the easiest.

If you took two people, one guy with a ball of dough and a big rolling pin, and another guy who would pound it and then spin it, the pounding spinning guy would win every time.

Not only that, but spinning it made for the perfect crust.

If you rolled it, the thickness would be uniform.

But if you tossed it, the thickest parts would be on the outside.

And as my boss explained to me, the secret of a good pizza was good crust. And that started with good dough.

He had this secret recipe for his dough.

I had to work there a year before they let me make the dough.

Not because it was complicated, but because he wanted to keep his recipe a secret.

He’d spent a lot of time and money trying to fine tune this super delicious dough recipe.

Now, pizzas are pretty simply. You can get them anywhere.

But a really GOOD pizza is hard to find. Almost so good that when you find one, you want to keep it secret.

But here’s the REAL SECRET of that guy’s dough.

Sure, the ingredients themselves, but HOW he found it.

He didn’t learn it in school.

He didn’t look it up on the internet.

He didn’t go to a pizza dough seminar.

He did a lot of trial and error, and a lot of slow, careful experimentation.

Now, that was a long time ago. But I still remember, to this day, how I felt when I was “let in on the secret” of how to make the dough.

It was simple, easy, the ingredients weren’t that mysterious.

Now, if I started my own pizza place, by copying him, would it have been the same?

How would I have advertised it?

A top secret recipe that I stole from my competition?

That probably wouldn’t work very well.

There’s only ONE of every big brand. Sometimes two, but that’s about it.

You can copy others, and hope you get “similar” results.

Or you can get to work on discovering your own secret.

One that NOBODY knows but you.

Will it be easy? No.

Will it take a while? Yes.

Are you guaranteed success? Unfortunately, no.

But the more you continue to SEARCH for and BUILD your secret, the more likely you’ll FIND IT.

Get Started:

Mind Persuasion Ebooks

Blast Away Your Inner Demons

When I was a kid I was very interested in science.

I was insanely curious about how stuff worked.

When I was in junior HS I had a subscription to Science magazine.

Total geek.

I always liked learning about things like atoms, molecules, and what I understood about quantum physics.

I was even on this book of the month club, and I read a bunch of science books.

I remember learning why the sky was blue.

Because the molecules in the upper atmosphere radiate at the same frequency as blue light.

So of all the light that comes through, blue light comes through the easiest.

Later on, I started studying hypnosis, metaphors and story telling.

Joseph Campbell explained the reasons that most of the myths have the same structure.

Of all the stories that were told over the eons of human history, that particular structure resonated the most effectively with humans.

Kind of like how blue light passed through the upper atmosphere the easiest.

One thing that surprises most people is that we have a lot of common fears and insecurities.

But since we never talk about them, we think we are the only ones that have them.

This is one major reason why there are so many different kinds of group therapies.

Just knowing that there are other people out there, just like you, who are having pretty much the SAME problems, is very comforting.

At our core, we all fear the same things.

Rejection, being kicked out of our social group, making mistakes in front of others.

This is why most people are terrified of public speaking or walking up to an attractive person.

Even the people that “seem” to do it naturally are feeling the same fears.

It’s not that they don’t have those same fears and insecurities, they’ve learned to act in spite of them.

To simply accept them as normal.

What you resist, they say, persists.

When you simply accept it, it is not so bad.

One of the common “themes” of myths is to “face” some demon.

This “demon,” of course, is a metaphor for those SAME fears we all share.

However, there are many ways to face them.

Raw courage and will power is one way.

Using mental practice, on a daily basis, is another.

Or both at the same time.

A little of one on a daily basis, out in the real world, and some daily practice on the inside, in your inner world.

And just like anything else, the more you practice, the easier it gets.

Pretty soon those common “fears” won’t be such a big deal anymore.

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Mind Persuasion Ebooks

Are You Trapped By Social Pressure?

When I was in Junior High School I played a lot of golf.

No, I wasn’t rich, but next to my school was a public course, and it only cost $5 to play nine holes.

I had a set of hand-me-down clubs, as did many of my friends.

One thing I always did was slice. That’s when the ball starts to fade to the right after you hit it.

For a while, I tried to correct my changing my grip.

Because it caused more problems, and I wasn’t patient being a JHS goof, I just compensated.

Meaning I would just aim left. My friends thought I was nuts, until they saw how consistent my error was.

I suppose that if I’d taken the time to build in the muscle memory of the new grip, I wouldn’t have fixed it.

But since I was never really concerned with my score, only that had I had fun, it didn’t seem to be worth it.

They say that learning from your mistakes is one of the most important skills you can have.

Sure, we all do it naturally when we’re really young. Things like walking and eating and riding a bicycle.

It’s kind of hard to just “compensate.” If you just decided to wear a lot of padding instead of trying to ride a bike without falling over, that would be pretty silly.

But a lot of us do that without really knowing.

We try something once, we can’t do it, or we do it with difficulty and frustration, and just decide that “I guess I can’t do that.”

Instead of just getting and trying again, and again and again until we get it right.

This is easy when everybody around us is walking or riding bikes or playing catch. We feel left out if we don’t suck it up and learn how.

But other things, where most people suck, it’s EASY to try ONCE and give up.

Public speaking, starting a business, walking up and talking to attractive strangers.

But the SAME strategy works. Try, fail, try again, fail, keep trying, WIN!

It’s the learning strategy that is built in your brain.

Only sometimes we’re “forced” by social pressure to keep trying (we want to walk since everybody else is walking).

But other times we’re “forced” by social pressure to try ONCE and give up.

But you don’t HAVE to ALWAYS obey social pressure.

You can actually CHOOSE to ignore it.

Sure, it’s not easy. It takes consistent mental effort.

You may say this is one of the META SKILLS that support a lot of other skills.

Like learning how to talk to strangers, learn to be covertly persuasive, get rid of emotional issues, etc.

The good news is there are a lot mental exercises that make it easy.

So you can pretty much learn to learn anything.

Learn How:

Mind Persuasion Ebooks

Are You Waiting For One Weird Trick?

I used to know this kid in Junior High School. His dream was to become a professional dancer.

He spent a lot of his time working on his moves. Later he invited me to one of his shows. He was in a dance troupe, and they were pretty impressive.

This wasn’t a normal kid. Most JHS kids don’t know what they want.

Not only did this guy have a clear idea, but he spent a lot of time practicing.

If you saw some guy walking down the street with massive arms, what would you think?

He’s got some kind of lucky genetics, and he was born with huge arms?

How about seeing some guy at a party, who can juggle sixteen things at once?

Would you assume that he’s some kind of latent gift that the rest of us don’t?

Probably not.

You’d probably assume, at least on some level, that he’s spent a lot of time practicing.

And most of the time we see somebody with a finely honed set of skills, we just assume they had a lot of practice.

But some of the most important skills, we don’t see them as practice.

We, for some reason, see them as things some people can do, while others can’t.

Like talking to strangers with confidence, or being able to give a persuasive speech.

In reality, anything that somebody else can do, you can do.

Sure, some things are easier for some people, but so what?

Yes, some people are “lucky” in that the things they are naturally good at can make them a lot of money.

You can still do the same things they can, it just will take some practice.

Sometimes a little, sometimes a lot.

Ideally, you’d find something you enjoy doing, so you’ll enjoy learning it. That way you won’t mind practicing for a few years before you get good enough to make a lot of money doing it.

But most people don’t like to hear this.

They’d rather take a magic pill or learn some ancient secret discovered in a cave in the Himalayas.

But consider this.

According to the laws of economics, something is worth a lot of money precisely BECAUSE so few people can do it.

Which means if you’re waiting for “one weird trick” to make it easy, it’s going to be the same “one weird trick” that everybody else knows.

And if everybody else can do it, it’s not going to be worth much, or be unique in any way.

The good news is that because most people are too lazy to learn, all you’ve got to do is spend some time learning.

So long as you are committed, you’ll get there.

And when you do, you’ll have a set of skills few people know about, let alone know how to practice.

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Mind Persuasion Ebooks

Are You Letting Others Choose Your Life?

I used to do a lot of backpacking.

Once me and a buddy decided to take the back route to Mt. Whitney.

Most people go in through the front, so it’s really crowded.

But the back way in is a lot less crowed, and therefore has a lot more wide open meadows and streams and lakes with a lot of fish.

The back way to the top is a five day hike. The front way is two, one if you start at dawn.

The first day was the worst. Fifteen miles. We wanted to push over the first pass, which was very difficult.

One stretch of about two or three miles was particularly grueling.

A long, uphill walk on very loose gravel.

It was so loose that simply walking forward, by pushing off with your feet you lost a little ground.

But once we got over that first pass, it was magnificent.

A HUGE valley with several small lakes. Plenty of fish. No other people.

On the other hand, I’ve been car camping quite a bit. Where you drive right up and park.

Sometimes people even sleep in the car. You can bring huge coolers filled with food straight from the grocery store.

It’s only sort of camping if you sleep outside. But nothing comes close to sleeping on the ground, under the stars, knowing there’s no other people around for fifty miles.

Everybody wants more out of life. But few people are willing to put in the work to get there.

Some people spent a great deal of time, money and effort looking for “shortcuts” that will circumvent the necessary work.

If they’d spend that SAME amount of time, money and effort on ONE GOAL, for at least a year, they would make amazing progress.

Most any goal you want (at least that’s worthwhile) WILL take time. It will take effort.

And you will have those long uphill climbs that seem like you’re putting in TONS of work and not making any progress.

That is when it’s easiest to quit. To question your motivations. That’s when the self doubt starts to creep in.

You may even find that the biggest obstacles between where you are and where you want to be are your own doubts and fears.

Does this mean if you remove your doubts and fears your goals will magically appear?

Nope.

But the required ACTION to get there will be much more fulfilling.

So much so that you’ll enjoy doing it. Even if others think you’re crazy.

If you don’t take efforts to create your life, somebody else will do it for you.

Most people are content to do that. It’s safer. Less scary. You won’t get in trouble.

But you won’t get much else, either.

What do YOU want?

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Mind Persuasion Ebooks

Who Are You Waiting For?

When I was a kid my friends and I saw this cool picture in a magazine.

It was of this woman who’d stacked up three golf balls on top of each other.

Now, the article was about something completely different, and the stacked up golf balls were only there to make it look interesting.

But for the next several days, that’s all my friends and I did.

Try and see how many golf balls we could stack up.

Most I ever got was three. My friend did four.

You need a very steady hand and as surface that won’t move.

I was also big into building card houses. Seeing how many stories we could get them.

Things like this are hard to build, and they collapse pretty easily.

Clearly, if you want to build something that will last, you need to make sure you’ve got a lot of things in place.

Solid ground. Sturdy construction equipment. A legitimate reason for doing it, since it’s going to take a while.

The most important thing, of course, is your life.

Yet most people spend zero time considering how to build it.

Imagine if you had a plot of land, and a pile of lumber. And you sat there waiting for somebody to come along and tell you what to do.

Or worse, you sat their waiting for somebody else to come and build your house for you!

Most people use this as their main strategy for building their lives, without even realizing it.

This used to work out fine, maybe fifty years or so ago. You just did what you were told, maybe figured out what you were good at, and showed up to work every day.

That was enough.

Not any more.

Now every single day can be seen as a balancing act. Unless you take your time to choose the building blocks wisely, who knows when it will come tumbling down.

Luckily, it’s not as difficult as it seems. But there is ONE crucial ingredient that most people don’t even want to talk about.

And THAT is self-responsibility. Sure, it’s not YOUR fault the world is messed up and everything is rigged.

But it is.

How YOU respond, though, is up to you. And ONLY you.

Since every single person has the same problem, namely, how to get their needs met in a world that is increasingly chaotic and rigged, few people are going to have spare time to lend you a hand.

So if you wait for somebody to come knocking on your door, take you by the hand and show you some secret step by step system that only a “few” people know about, you’ll be waiting a while.

But here’s the good news.

If you ARE willing to shoulder the responsibility for your life, you really can build it as big as you want.

Get Started:

Mind Persuasion Ebooks