Monthly Archives: December 2008

How do YOU know?

“No, dude, you’re wrong. I promise.”
“Um, I think we should maybe…”
“I’m telling you, I know what I’m talking about.”
“Do you? Are you sure?”
“Of course I’m sure, you know I’m a crappy poker player. I never bluff.”
“Yea, but that just means you’ve convinced yourself that you’re right. You haven’t convinced me.”
“Whatever. I know I’m right.”
“How do you know?”
“What the bananas does that mean? How do I know?”
“Just that. How exactly do you know?”
“I just know.”
“You just know? How exactly do you know? If I didn’t know anything about the situation, nothing at all, how exactly would you be able to describe to me in detail, so that I would, without question, agree that you are correct, and this other guy over here, which is actually me, is wrong?”
“Dude, what?”
“How exactly do you know that you are right? Please explain.”
“Well, I don’t know, know, but I know. You know?”
“Actually, I don’t. Can you do any better?”
“Dude, are you messing with my head?”
“Are you messing with your head?”
“Huh? Ok, now you’re just being silly.”
“Does me being silly change the fact that you’ve convinced yourself that you know something so much that you can’t describe it to an imaginary person, standing right over here?”
“No. I don’t think I know it, I just, wait, what?”
“Are you starting to doubt yourself? Or are you just now finding out that there was doubt there all along, and you are just now realizing it? Or perhaps that the doubt was never there, and you are merely having questions regarding your own knowing?”
“Ok, I’m gonna go watch TV or something, you are giving me a headache.”
“So do you concede? That you aren’t really sure?”
“Sure about what?”
“You mean you don’t know?”
“Dude, I don’t… I mean… I just… Ok. Fine. You win.”
“I didn’t realize we were fighting.”
“Ok, Ok, please. Just stop. You’re right. Of course. Now I can see it. Thank you.”
“My pleasure.”

Please come back often to read tips and insights and other explorations into the structure of thought for your personal improvement and entertainment. And please share this site with your friends, as many others have done.

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Develop Powerful Listening Skills

Have you ever been talking to somebody and had a feeling that they just ‘got you?’ Like somehow you felt like this person really understood you, like this person was really concerned for your best interests? Like somehow this person was able to see who you really are? That made you feel pretty good, right? Of course it did. That was because this person, either on purpose or because they were simply a natural, was practicing great listening skills. How would you like to be that person, and make others feel really good whenever they are around you? Well, listening is easy if you know how to do it. Which you are about to. Ready?

Step One.  The most important part is to listen not only with your ears, but with your eyes, your mouth and your whole face. You want the other person to be able to see you respond to them as they speak. Professional speakers will gladly tell you how important feedback is.

Step Two. Make sure to face the speaker with an open posture, and to maintain good eye contact. You want to be looking into their eyes about eighty percent of the time. This lets them know that you find them interesting.

Step Three. As they are speaking, form a picture in your mind of what they are saying. This can help you to naturally get involved in the conversation.

Step Four.  If you find that they are voicing an opinion that you happen to disagree with, instead of thinking of arguments against it, try to find common ground, or at least try to see things from their point of view.

Step Five. Ask good questions. If you’ve read my article on open ended questions, you already know how to do this. If you haven’t, I recommend that you check it out. It can make the conversation flow and you can be the star of the party.

These quick techniques will not only immediately boost your charisma, but they will also give you great social confidence, because everyone loves somebody like you that knows how to listen.

Please be sure to check back often, as I will be updating this site frequently. And please feel free to share this with others, because everybody can benefit when you increase your skills, right?

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Tap into the Ancient Power of the Chakras for Immediate Benefit

How would you like to know a secret strategy used by the ancients to easily and effortlessly manifest your desires at will? Imagine what you could accomplish if you could learn a simple daily meditative practice that will give you an edge as you move through life with grace and skill.  Imagine being able to tap into an abundant wellspring of charisma, social poise, and powerful communication abilities. Is that something where you can realize the benefit? Is this something you might be able to find useful? Although it will require a scarce few minutes of your time every day, it will help to learn a bit of background first. Ready?

What I’m talking about is the power of your chakras. Chakra means ‘wheel’ in ancient Sanskrit. They are are tiny vortexes of energy throughout your body that once harnessed, can give you tremendous power. In this article, I will present a basic overview of the chakras. In subsequent writings, I will explain each one in detail, and give you a specific meditative practice that you can easily customize to your own life and desires.

Everybody has seven chakras, and each has a specific function. When a specific chakra is healthy or ‘open,’ you will experience ease and abundance in that particular area of life. Following is a brief overview of each.

The first, or Root Chakra, is located at the base of the spine. This chakra is associated with physical safety. Food, shelter, and physical health.  The associated color is red. When this chakra is open, you will feel completely safe on a physical and material level.

Next is the Spleen Chakra,and is located beneath your naval. This chakra is associated with sexual expression, reproduction, and rejuvenation. The associated color is orange. When this chakra is open, you will easily be able to express and accept yourself as a sexual person.

Third is the Solar Plexus Chakra, and is located at the solar plexus. This chakra is associated with creativity. The associated color is orange. When this chakra is open you will easily be able to think of new ideas and be able to resourcefully solve problems in creative ways.

Fourth is the Heart Chakra, and is located in the middle of your chest. This chakra is assoicated with compassion and empathy. The associated color is green. When this chakra is open, you will naturally be able to emphathize with others and to understand others’ points of view.

Fifth is the Throat Chakra, and is located in your throat. This chakra is associated with communication. The associated color is blue. When this chakra is open, you will be able to communicate powefully with others and be able to express yourself with authority.

Sixth is the Third Eye Chakra, and is located just between and above your eyes. This chakra is associated with intuition, and can be a powerful doorway to your higher self. The associated color is indigo. When this chakra is open you will develop keen intuition about yourself, others, and the future.

Seventh is the Crown Chakra, and is located at the top most point on your head. This chakra is associated with a host of good metaphysical stuff, including new beginnings, connection to the divine and the superconscious. The associated color is purple, or white. When this chakra is open, you can develop a deep sense of knowing, and sometimes be able to feel a deep connection with the infinite.

So now that you have a basic understanding of the chakra’s and their importance, you can naturally imagine what you can do when you begin to harness their power. Be sure to check back often, as I will be adding more articles on specific ways to open your chakras for greater benefit. And because you now have an understanding of this and how you can benefit, please share this with others so that they, like you, can also use it to improve their lives.

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Use Your Dreams to Beat Stress and Say Goodbye To Anxiety

This article is first in a series on dream interpretation.  If you haven’t yet, please consider reading the article on how to remember your dreams so you can easily maximize your benefits from this article.

The first, and most common type of dream is referred to as ‘Release’ dreams. These are dreams where you are drifting through them and there is absolutely no rhyme or reason to what is going on. These are the most important, and can be the most helpful kind of dream. As you go through the day, you worry about this, stress about that, and create all kinds of emotional worry that doesn’t really offer you much benefit. When you sleep, your brain scans through you recent memory and decides what’s important, and what isn’t. According to Nobel Prize winner Francis Crick, the reason these kind of dreams can seem so chaotic is due to the physical matrix structure of the brain. You might have a memory about your neighbors dog which happens to be physically right next door to a memory of something your third grade teacher said. Your brain will decide that both those memories might be taking up valuable space in your brain, so they might get fired off at the same time. As a result, you have a dream about being in third grade, and your neighbors dog is yelling at you for not understand long division.

Because these are the most common, they are naturally the most useful. Simply because your brain is telling you what not to worry about. If you brain has decided you don’t need to worry about something, why should you, right?

One good way to handle these dreams is to pay attention to the images that you remember upon awakening. What do they remind you of?  How do those things make you feel? And what do those things remind you of? It’s important to ask yourselves these questions when you are still in the groggy waking up state while you are still blinking the sleep out of your eyes. It might not be natural at first, but as you practice this, you will get better.  The key here is to accept whatever images come up in those first few moments. These are the things that your brain has decided are not important enough to worry about. So whatever images and feelings associated with those images come up, simply choose to release them.  And if you happen to think about them later in the day, just remind yourself that your brain already decided that you don’t need to worry about those things any more, because they have already been taken care of. You can choose to free up your thoughts to think about better things that will help you to get what you want out of life.

And when you decide to release your anxiety about things that are no longer important, you will notice that you will naturally decrease your stress. And when you do that you will start to notice less and less anxiety, which will lead to you not only to improve your physical health but to improve your mental health as well.

And all it will cost you is a few minutes of focused releasing every moring. You can do that, right?

Please be sure to check back often, because as most people are starting to realize, the more you improve yourself everyday, the happier you will become.  And one good way to do that is to share this with others.

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How to Find The Treasure of Your Dreams

There you are, drifting, floating, experience something so incredibly ecstatic you wonder how you didn’t discover this before. Everywhere your eyes drift you find something to enjoy gazing at. Every sound you hear allows your ears to create a feeling of pure love. Suddenly everything starts to fade. The images are pulled away, feelings of bliss and peace slowly turn and spin until there is nothing but awkward confusion, and there is something else, something just out of reach. What? Huh? Where…?

Aw, crap. You wake up. You were dreaming. It was a great dream. Why did you have to wake up? What was it about, anyways? Oh well. You roll over, and go back to sleep. Maybe in the morning you might be able to remember something about the dream, or perhaps only that you’d had one.  Perhaps you share with many others the trait of never being able to remember your dreams. “Do you have dreams?” Your friends may ask. “Uh, yea, but I never remember them.” You answer.

Well, if you don’t make the effort to remember your dreams, you are missing out on perhaps one of the greatest tools around for you to receive insights that can give you an edge not only in your relationships, but in your goals, your future, and even your direction towards the afterlife.

There are several theories as to why we dream, the meaning of dreams, what causes dreams.  It’s generally agreed upon that there are five types of dreams.  I’ll cover those in another article. For now, let’s discuss the importance of getting into the habit of being able to easily remember your dreams.

Despite all the varied theories as to the purpose of our dreams, there is plenty of evidence of them being helpful to people in the past. Robert Louis Stevensen is said to have been able to harness his dreams to come up with stories for his wonderful novels containing deep psychological and moral significance. Kekule, the German Chemist, was able to discover the chemical formula for Benzene during a dream of a snake eatings his tail. Even the invention of the modern sewing machine, by Elias Howe, was inspired by a dream of hostile natives throwing strangely shaped spears. 

So how can you tap into this power?  Firstly, as you realize that dreams contain powerful information, you will naturally be more inclined to recall them when you wake up. And the more you get into the habit of taking a few moments when you wake up to review the nights dreams, the more they will stand out in your mind.

Next is to create a dream journal. For now, you don’t need to worry about how to understand your dreams, the only important thing now is that you learn to remember them. The easiest way is to create a dream journal. Nothing complicated. Just whenever you wake up, jot down a few ideas from your dreams. Simple facts. The situation, people, what was happening. And make sure to thank yourself. That way you can more easily get into the habit of being able to remember key parts of your dreams.  This skill will naturally get better over time as you learn how rich and wonderful your dreams are. Once you can harness the ability to remember your dreams, the next step is to find out what they mean. More on that later. For now, just focus on spending a few minutes a day on something that can naturally turn into a lifelong and powerful resource.

Remember to check back for more articles, or link or share this site because I will be posting more about how to interpret your dreams. You will be amazed at how well being able to remember them will help you so much this can feel like you have a spiritual guide coming to you every day with a helpful message.

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Instant Powerful Luck

Have you ever had one of those days where everything just seemed to flow? Everything just happened exactly the right way at exactly the right moment? As if the gods of serendipity spun the wheel of chance  and it landed on YOU, giving you the grace of their attentions for a short while?

How surprised will you be to discover that there really are no gods of serendipity, that everything that happened that day, all those lucky circumstances, were in fact, created by YOU?  And how impressed will you be with yourself when you discover the simple and natural way to cultivate the powers already in your possession so much that others will want to hang around you in hopes of catching just a small sliver of your stray luck?

It’s easy, it’s fun, and it makes you feel really good.  Ready?

Step One.  Train your brain to look for opportunities. How can I use that? What can I learn from this experience, how can I make these learnings my own? Start slow. After every experience, as yourself, “What did I learn from that,” and more importantly, “How can I do better next time?”

Step Two. Have a forward pointing outlook. You want to learn from your past, not wallow in it. There is a reason your front windshield a car is about hundred times bigger than the rearview mirror. Looking back is for information only. For learnings. Looking forward is for choice. Where do you want to go?

Step Three. There is no failure. You can learn from everything. If you start to realize that you can learn from every interaction you will be training your brain to look forward to EVERYTHING with the knowledge that regardless of what happens, you can only get better and better.

Step Four: Ask self affirming questions. Not “why not,” but how? Not “why didn’t I,” but “what did I?” Not “why can’t I?” but “How can I?” One powerful way of doing this is to ask yourself questions like this as you fall asleep at night. “How can I improve myself tomorrow? How many ways can I find opportunities tomorrow?” Once you send your brain in the right direction, you’ll be amazed at how quickly you can achieve what you want. 

Step Five.  Help other people, without any expectation of a thanks or even an acknowledgement. You will increase you confidence, your charisma, and both of these are necessary to attract the good things in life.

So there you have it. The sooner you start to take small steps to easily and naturally take these principles as part of your life, the easier you will notice that you can almost without trying, take advantage of the opportunties that you will start to see growing around you as if by some mysterious force. But of course, you know the truth, now, don’t you?

Please come back often for more helpful articles, and tell your friends to come check out this site as well, because I will be updating it often.

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Five Easy Steps to Powerfully Abundant Confidence

How would you like to be able to walk right up to somebody HOT, somebody that you used to think was out of your league, and easily and spontaneously start up a witty conversation that will have your friends bursting with envy?

How would like to powerfully and authoritatively speak up in a group whose conversation has taken a wrong turn and needs your gentle yet firm correction?

How would YOU like to be the one that your friends push to the front of the group and say “You go talk to him, YOU’RE the confident one!”

Ah but there’s a slight problem, isn’t there? Or rather I should say, wasn’t there? Because you’ve read this far, you can slowly begin to understand that all those imaginary things that have been stubbornly standing between your desires and their natural and powerful expression can quietly fade off into the distance.

And I can show you how to tap into your power in five easy steps. Ready?

Step One:  Start slow. That’s right. Push yourself just a small bit. Push isn’t even the right word. Let your truth just peek out, only a little bit. Each time you step over the line, just a little beyond what used to be your limit, is clearly a strong and substantial victory. One millisecond of eye contact with somebody you think is attractive is plenty.

Step Two: Celebrate your accomplishments. This is crucial. After each victory, find a quiet place and remember it. Visualize it. Re-live it. Thank yourself. Really feel good for what you’ve done. Replay it a few times, telling yourself that you did a good job. The brain likes it when you talk to yourself nice like that. Because it starts to figure out ways to get more good feelings.

Step Three: Only give yourself permission to be able to decide what’s appropriate for you. Don’t accept other’s judgements, or what you might believe to be their judgements. Their opinions belong to them. Let them keep them. If they can give you good feedback that will help you grow and change, great. Otherwise, thanks, but no thanks.

Step Four: Accept that other people’s responses also belong to them. If they do something that you weren’t expecting, or you wish had been better, accept it.  Give the gift of allowing them to be and express themselves just you are starting to learn to master.

Step Five: Be kind to others before they even think to ask. Your confidence and ability to truly and deeply appreciate yourself will automatically skyrocket as you begin to see people as opportunites to create happiness wherever you go.

Once you start to practice these on a daily basis, your confidence, attitude, and postive energy will unquestionably increase. And one of the wonderful side effects of this is that you will notice people around you look at you and talk with you differently, and even total strangers will come up to you and try to think of ways to start a conversation with you.

 

Please feel free not only to come back often, but to link this site as well. And because sharing is the best way to show you care, you might want to tell others about this site.

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Easily Use the Law of Attraction to Create Massive Amounts of Abundance and Prosperity

Thoughts are things.
You are what you think about.
As you sow, so shall you reap.
As a he shall thinketh in his heart, so shall he be.

Sound familiar? Many people over the centuries have realized that the underlying truths of these statements, once harnessed, can powerfully provide not only material riches, but better relationships, increased happiness, and peaceful wisdom. Would you like to tap into these? Would you like to naturally and effortlessly use these principles to enhance your life and those of your friends and loved ones?

The Law of Attraction has been getting a lot of press lately. Perhaps you’ve seen “The Secret.” Perhaps you’ve seen a few Abraham Hicks videos. (If you haven’t I cannot recommend them enough.) If not, don’t worry, you still can quickly and easily tap into the source of power to achieve wonderous results.

Be careful. You won’t be able to make money appear in your wallet. You won’t blink your eyes like on “I Dream of Jeannie” and make a sudden stampede of elephants appear in your living room (although I admit that would be pretty cool.) However, if you focus on things you can control, you will be light years ahead of every other law of attraction practitioner who is mixing their realistic and unrealistic desires. Because you know these simple secrets, creating your new reality will be a snap. (Or a nose twitch, if you prefer.)

It works like this. The more you focus on your desires, the more you will program your brain to automatically seek out what you are looking for. It works from the reticular activating system of the brain. Have you ever bought a new car, lets say a red Honda, and then suddenly saw it everywhere? That was that reticular activating system at work. Here’s what happened. When you bought the car, you were suddenly able to feel really good about the car. You had thoughts of red ‘Honda=good.’ So your brain naturally responded. You sent it a message, ‘red Honda=good,’ and your brain automatically complied by bringing into your attention all the red Honda’s that were already there anyway, but you didn’t notice, because you weren’t thinking ‘red Honda=good.’

When you program your brain for something that you want, rather than what you already have, it’s exactly the same process, it just takes a bit longer. Let’s say you want a new job. So you program your brain with the exact conditions you’d like in your new job. Pretty soon your brain will be looking all over the place to find things that will satisfy the conditions that you specified. The cool thing about this, is that because your brain is so smart, it will find things you wouldn’t normally think would lead to a new job. And because it’s doing all this looking around for you while you aren’t paying much attention, these ideas come to you as intuition. So after you start to program your brain for things you want, make sure to pay attention to your intuition, because it will definately point you in the right direction.

And as you begin to transform your thoughts into what is possible, you will naturally start to realize that because you are powerful beyond measure, there is no limit to what you can achieve. It may seem to be slow at first, but stay with it. The more you notice and appreciate your inevitable small successes, the quicker you will gain momentum and confidence in your abilities to create your world exactly as you desire it.

Make sure to check back often, as I will be updating this site with articles to easily and quickly improve your life. And feel free to share or link this site with others, because what can be better than a world where everyone practices the principles of abundance?

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The Incredibly Gorgeous Hollywood Movie Star That Was

“So what do you want to try?”
“I don’t know, man, whatta you think?”
“How about….”
“Wait, I know, we could…”
We sort of knew what we wanted to do, but we weren’t exactly sure how to go aboug doing it. Across the room, in the bar where we had amazingly slipped past security, was the incredibly hot actress that we heard hung out here from time to time. How to approach her? Luckily, perhaps because she thought she was in a safe location, apart from dorky fans like us, she wasn’t surrounded by deadly bodygaurds. Should we approach? Should we attempt to sit closeby and impress her with our witty banter that she would hopefully overhear?

I remember once I was in the movies, waiting for it to start. It was one of those theaters where they have the trivia questions on the screen to keep you entertained. The couple behind us were speaking, and we couldn’t quite make out what they were saying, but we were pretty sure it sounded non-trivial. We heard a stray word here and there that wasn’t too garbled, you know, when it is easy to understand something, right? So we strained to hear, and the more I tried, the more I was able to decide that they were probably talking about something really important. But I wanted to be polite, and not appear overly rude.

Reminds me when I was a kid, and I had this old black and white TV. And I knew when the TV shows I liked were on, but my TV was so cheap that the reception didn’t come in very well. You know, when the TV is so messed up you have to make up your own story? And sometimes when you see the real thing, you kind of wish you didn’t, because deep down, you know that your story is better. Unfortunately, that doesn’t happen very often, and usually something happens that you miss, because you are focused so much on your own story, you forget to focus on what is happening. Because I’m sure you can understand where I”m coming from, you can probably remember how easy it is to do that now, right?

Potatoes. That’s what they were talking about. It seems they were old neighbors, and they used to share a potato plant that spanned both their backyards.  I guess what’s really important to some people, isn’t that important to others, and if all you have to go on is the tone of the conversation, it’s easy to fill in the blanks, with what you think is important. And the interesting thing about that is, the more you start to think of things in terms of what is important to you, the easier it is to find ways to get there.

So we started talking about our jobs, and how cool and dangerous they were, hoping the beautiful young starlet would notice us. It took us about 20 minutes before we got up the courage to glance over, only to realize that it wasn’t her. It didn’t even look like her. Funny how your mind can make up things that aren’t there, isn’t it?

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How To Powerfully Charge Your Conversation With Fantastic Questions

There you are. Party. Bar. Coffee shop. The person who’s talking to you is animated, excited, eyes wide, hands blurred in rapid enthusiastic gestures. Why is he so excited? Because of the topic? Partly. Because of the envirnment, maybe. The real reason?

YOU.

Not because you thought of some random question to ask a guy, but because you have easily learned one of the secret communication skills that few know about, and even fewer put into conscious practice. Powerfully engaging people who have been able to learn this skill realize how easily it can charge a conversation with that ‘high on life’ feeling. And one of the most fantastic things about this technique? Not only are you about to learn it, but because you are obviously clever enough, you will naturally put it into practice so that you can go out TODAY, and be the life of the party.

Are you ready to learn some easy fun questions to get to know someone? And don’t worry, you can use these on a first date, in a relationship dating situation, and even online dating will work. The simple technique is called ‘open ended follow up questioning.’ Although it sounds technical, it is easy to learn and put into practice.

First of all, what is an open ended question? It’s a question that requires a long answer, rather than a short one. Questions like:

Where are you from?

Where do you live?

Who’s your favorite movie star?

Are all ‘closed ended’ questions, becasue the answer is usually only one or two words, and doesn’t do much to keep the conversation going. What you need are questions that draw out longer answers that are likely to be filled with emotionally charged words.

For example, you are speaking with somebody, and they say “I like baseball.”  If you follow up with something like “who’s your favorite team,” or “who’s your favorite player,” that won’t do much.

Now, if you ask something like “Wow, that’s cool. What do you like about watching a game?” The answer is likely to be longer, and more interesting. For example, if the answer sounds something like “well, I really like hanging with my friends, eating peanuts, and talking about stuff while we watch the game,” then there is a whole bunch of stuff you can follow up on with more open ended questions. Pay attention to how the words are said as well, and follow up on the ones that seems to make him or her happy when they say it. Be sure to nod a lot and smile when they do.

Open ended questions usually begin with

What do you like about….

What is your favorite part about….

How do you like…

How do you feel when you…

So that’s it. Of course, when you practice this in real life, you’ll naturally get better and better. It was Dale Carnegie who discovered that when you use this technique, people will be powerfully drawn to you as they learn what a fantastic conversationalist you are. And the cool thing is, the more you put this into practice, the more you’ll realize how incredibly interesting people can be.

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