Monthly Archives: November 2009

How To Explode Your Creativity

Re Discover Your Inner Genius

Have you ever been really curious about something, I mean like really insatiably curious? Like maybe when you were a kid, and it was a couple days before Christmas, and you saw a big box under the tree, and you couldn’t help but to wonder what exactly was inside this?

Or maybe your birthday was coming up, and you could tell the people around you were behaving kind of strange, like they were planning something really big, but were trying their hardest to pretend that everything was normal?

Curiosity is a huge driver for discovery and self-growth. Of course sometimes it can be dangerous, which is why the expression “curiosity killed the cat” somehow made its way into our collective unconscious.

But is curiosity really that bad? Curiosity was the spark that caused Edison to try and try again until he found a filament that worked in the light bulb. Curiosity is what sparked the Wright brothers to keep at it until they reached success.

When we are kids, we are insatiably curious, about every single thing. We want to touch, feel, look at taste everything around us. Whenever I see kid on the train, they are always looking around at all the people, out the window at the passing scenery with a look of complete astonishment and wonder.

The adults, on the other hand, almost always have their heads down, as if they are terrified of making contact with another human. They usually have their heads buried in a book, or staring intently at their cell phones, as if they are anxiously waiting for the results of the World Series or something.

Why does that curiosity stifling expression about the cat make it’s way into our consciousness? Why, or how, do we learn that it’s dangerous to want to explore and find out about new things?
If you have kids, you know the reason. At first it’s cute when a little kids running around checking things out. But if you are a normal adult, and aren’t financially well off enough to sit and play with your kid all day, you’ve got other things to do. And like any normal adult, you love your kid and would be horrified if he or she came into any sort of harm.

So the natural response then, is to chastise and admonish kids whenever they start to behave in a way that may prove to be dangerous, or messy, or cause problems.

Don’t touch that!

Put that down!

Don’t put that in your mouth!

Clean that up!

While this may be making our lives more convenient as adults, it is killing our kid’s creativity. Buckminster Fuller once said that every single person is born a genius, but 99.99% of us are de-geniused by the time we grow up.

The point here is not to let your kids run amuck and create all kinds of damage that you, as the adult, will have to fix. There likely isn’t any better way, unless you are super rich, and have no hobbies, or any other interests other than following your kid around all day and fostering their creative genius.

No, the point here is for you reading this to reach inside and find that insatiable curiosity that you gave up on long ago as too dangerous, too embarrassing, or to scary to express, for fear of incurring the wrath of the adults around you.

You are the adult now, and you can choose to listen to those who may criticize you, or you can choose to ignore them. You can reach inside to that little kid that still lives deep in your unconscious and let them know it’s safe to pick things up and examine them. It’s safe to look at things in different ways; it’s safe to explore your world.

New and better ideas, even those that work are not always accepted at first. Some are outright rejected, and can take time before they build momentum. Many a creative genius gives up all too soon simply because the rewards aren’t immediate and immense.

Sure, for every ten new ideas you come up with, 9 of them might suck. But that one out of ten will make it all worthwhile. Progress is not made by people sitting around waiting for others to figure stuff out. Progress is made by those willing to take risks and to try new things.

When most people get the wisp of a new, creative idea in their heads, it is quickly silenced by fears of “what if it doesn’t work,” or “what if I fail?” or even “that’s stupid.”

The secret is to train yourself to think like President John F. Kennedy, and not ask yourself “what if it doesn’t work,” but instead to courageously ask yourself

“What if it does work?”

And let your creative genius run wild with the possibilities.

How To Use Life’s Problems To Your Advantage

How To Powerfully Blast Through Any Obstacle With Ease

The other day a friend of mine and me were talking about how different people deal with adversary. His girlfriend is currently going through a crisis at her work, and the people that are employed there are having some difficulties.

Because of the economy, it is quite obvious to everyone that business is slowing down, and although the owner hasn’t come out and said anything, changes are coming, and they aren’t likely going to be pleasant. It is a small operation, and they don’t have a lot of reserves to fall back on. Lately it has become evident, at least through the company grapevine, that making payroll every month is getting more and more difficult for the owner.

Now my friend’s girlfriend has a side business that she has been secretly cultivating for a few months, and she is almost at the point where the income from her side business is the same as her salary. So she has the luxury of being an observer without running around trying to protect her livelihood in any way possible. And she has noticed some startling, or perhaps not so startling things about her coworkers.

She said they basically fall into two different categories. The first category are the people that have faith in their abilities and skills to find employment elsewhere if need be. Then there are those that seem to be getting more and more terrified as the days go by. These people have been working for this small company for a long time, and don’t know how they will survive if the company has to start letting people go, and they are one of the people.

An interesting paradox is that the people that seem to be most relaxed and confident in their skills seem to be doing the most to try and help the company stay afloat. They are the ones putting in extra hours, trying to come up with creative solutions to generate more business and income. The ones that seem to have the least amount to lose if the company goes under seem to be the ones that are trying their best to keep it going.

The second group, on the other hand, is doing the opposite. They seem to have the most to lose if the company goes down. And paradoxically, their behavior more on pure self-preservation rather than trying to help out the company. They seem to be more worried about positioning themselves so they aren’t the ones that get laid off. And she says they are doing so in really underhanded, and less than professional ways. Backstabbing, gossiping, spreading rumors that are not true, banding together to smear the reputation of others. Their behavior seems to be making the problem worse.

I remember reading a book about human behavior many years ago. There are things called paradoxical problems that pop up frequently in the human experience. As we move through life, we encounter all kinds of problems, in various forms and levels of severity. How we deal with the problems that come up can define our lives and how much pleasure we can experience. Usually we come up with familiar problems that we’ve overcome before, so they can be a valuable learning opportunity to foster growth and the development of useful skills.

Other times, however, we encounter problems, and for whatever reason, our best response to the problem, one that we think we help, actually makes the problem worse. And the more we try and solve the problem, the worse it gets directly as a result of our actions. And of course we respond with more of the same, which makes the problem even bigger.

Of course, we rarely realize the problem is getting bigger because of our actions. We usually blame some other, seemingly external cause. Our situation, the behavior of other people, some general state of society, likes the economy or whatever. These paradoxical problems will persist until we “step out” of ourselves and view our behavior and the problem as if we are completely on the outside looking in.

The method described in this book explained how to do this. You need to figure out your objective, take some action, then step back and judge your actions from a third party perspective and see if they effected the situation in the direction that you wanted. Then adjust accordingly, until the problem is overcome.

The reason this can seem difficult is many times our response to situations are unconscious, and we really aren’t aware of what we are doing. For example, if you wanted to lose weight, and you decided to try a new diet. Through sheer will power you kept on the diet for a couple weeks, but then gave up.

After giving up, you felt dejected and depressed, and you turned to the one thing that usually gives you comfort. Food. This of course makes the problem worse. You’d likely keep it up until you decided to diet again, and of course the same thing happens.

The solution is to decide upon a clear objective. Losing weight is kind of vague; it will help to be more specific. How about losing while enjoying the benefits of good food? That might be easier. So next time you try a diet, you’d step back periodically and ask yourself if you are meeting all the criteria of your objective. Are you losing weight? Are you enjoying the food you eat? If both answers are yes, then you’d likely continue your diet, and you wouldn’t fall of the wagon, and get dejected.

If you were losing weight, but weren’t enjoying the food, then you’d simply adjust to a different diet plan, until you found one that satisfied both requirements.

By doing this, you’ll learn a valuable lesson about yourself. You are much more resourceful than you think, and you can overcome any obstacle you come up against, providing you look at it with the right mindset.

Nurture Vs. Nature – Why It Doesn’t Matter

How To Program Yourself For Automatic Success

There has been an ongoing debate for a while among people that study human development and potential, and believe it or not, linguists. There is one camp that believes that when humans are born, we are completely blank, and don’t know anything about anything. It would be the equivalent of buying a brand new computer with no operating system, not software, nothing.

Similar to the computers of many years ago. They didn’t even know how to start. So every time you had to start up your computer, you actually had to insert a punch card that was configured to give the program the start up parameters.

There are those that feel humans are completely and utterly blank when we come into the world, and that all we are is a result of our environment.

From a purely physical standpoint, that seems a bit ridiculous. As a general rule, and maybe you’ve noticed this, but children of Asian parents usually grow up with Asian features (e.g. black hair, brown eyes). Same with people from other parts of the world. Of course you could likely explain that different climates in different parts of the world gave rise to different physical features over hundreds of thousand so years of evolution, but you could hardly say that this process is repeated for each generation.

So at the very least, it appears that we come pre programmed for at least some kinds of things, such as certain physical traits, which are based both on our ethnicity and our parents. Tall parents usually produce tall kids, etc.

On the other extreme is those that argue that we come in with pretty much everything all configured, and life is nothing more than a discovery of that configuration. People will usually point out cases of twins who although separated at birth, grew up into mysteriously similar lives. Same lives, same names of their wives, same habits, down to the brand of cigarettes.

Of course, these cases are few and far between, they are anything but the norm. Those that study statistics will tell you that you can prove any theory, no matter how hair brained, by choosing certain data to represent your case. Nostradamus, and the appearance of the twin towers on a folded twenty-dollar bill to name a couple.

But along those two endpoints of the spectrum, we have to lie someplace in the middle. We do seem to come pre programmed with some kinds of pre-determined characteristics.

Despite how this seems to suggest that we are doomed by fate, there is a ray of hope in something called meta programs. These are a shorthand collection of decisions the brain groups together to conserve valuable processing time. The reason I say ray of hope is because although in many people these usually go undiscovered and therefore unchanged, once you find out your own metaprograms you can change them to improve your results. Here are a couple important ones. As you read, ask yourself which “endpoint” resonates most with you, and just be aware of it as you go through your daily life, to determine if it serves you, or if you want to change.

The first one is motivation. Are you motivated more by fear of pain, or the promise of reward? Many people are motivated by the fear of pain, and take action in the right direction. But as soon as they make progress, the fear of pain diminishes, as does their motivation. This is one of the main reasons it’s so hard to stick to a diet once you start it.

In order to overcome this, focus on the end results, and make it really big and compelling.

Another one is sorting. Do you see similarities in things, or differences? If you see differences more so than similarities, the world can seem to be a dangerous and confusing place. The human brain is more comfortable with similarity. If you want to try to something new, and only see how it’s different than what you are used to, it might be hard to get started. However, if you train your self to find similarities it will make doing new things easier.

For example, starting a new job can be a frightening experience, if you are always comparing how different it is to your old job. But if you consciously look for similarities instead, it will be much easier to adjust.

Another important one is verification. When you choose something, how do you know it’s the right choice? The two options here are internal and external. If you seek external verification for all your choices, you will always be following somebody else’s lead. What diet to go on, what to order at a restaurant, what movie to rent at the video shop, all these decisions will require you get somebody else’s opinion first.

On the flip side, if you only need to rely on yourself, then you’ll have much more freedom to choose. This can be the toughest one to change because it is very easy to rely on the opinions of others. If you find yourself asking others opinions often, try choosing by yourself, and be happy with your choice. Take small steps, and as your confidence continues to increase, it will become easier.

When you start to examine your own meta programs and how the help you achieve what you want in life, it opens up a huge realm of possibility. Just by noticing how you choose things, you will be far ahead of most other people.

To summarize here are the three main ones:

Pain or Pleasure – Which motivates you the most?

Same of Different – What do you see the most?

Internal or External – Do you always need others opinions, or is yours enough?

After you get skilled with these, there are about twenty other ones I’ll be writing about later on to help you make success automatic for you.

Are You A Leader Of Your Life? Or A Passive Follower?

How To Become a Relentless Heat Seeking Missile

One of the best ways to improve your communication skills with other people is to create a solid set of underlying objectives. Most people float through life with only a vague desire to avoid as much pain and discomfort as possible, and this comes across in their communication. They come across protective of their egos and hesitant to speak their true feelings for fear of rejection and ridicule.

Of course this can be a hard thing to overcome. We have been trained since we were children that it is dangerous to speak our minds. At first, everybody loved us. Every single thing we did was cute and adorable. But then once we hit two or three, we became sometimes cute, and sometimes a nuisance. And the times we were a nuisance, we were told through several different and subconscious channels of communication.

It’s not wonder then that public speaking is the biggest fear in America today. We have been so programmed to be uncertain of any response to our expression that we more often than not live under the illusion that it is safer to just be quiet and as expressionless as possible.

However, the great paradox of communication is that while we crave somebody that will give us inspiration and direction, the best solution is to simply be that person to others. Most people are sitting around waiting for somebody else to go first and lead the way. Most people don’t consider the idea that it is just as easy and natural to lead, as it is to follow.

One of the ways to do this is to simply choose a few things that you’d like to create in life. The more you focus on these, the more they will start to present themselves through your various interactions with people.

The sad fact is that most people don’t have any goals in life to speak of, other than the ones that were given to them by society. Get a decent job, get a family, put in an honest days work every day. Be a good model citizen and don’t cause any problems.

If that is what you truly want, then I’m all for it. Those that are the happiest in their jobs and relationships have actually taken the time to ensure it really is their choice to live that particular life. However, it is becoming more and more apparent that more and more people seem to be drifting along through life half asleep, hoping the general expectations laid down by the collective society will be enough to give them happiness. Often times it is not.

One way to get started is to sit down and think about the things in your life that really like, and the things you don’t like. Make a plan to increase the amount of things you like, and decrease the things you don’t like. Most people, obviously, have a pretty good idea of what they like and what they don’t like. Very few have taken the time to formulate a plan to get more of the good stuff, and less of the bad stuff.

Most people drift through life hoping that more good stuff will magically appear, and the bad stuff will be taken away by some benevolent god or government.

When you develop a solid plan, and start to focus on achieving it, your daily interactions with people will magically transform. You will be seen as somebody who has a clear objective in life. Somebody that knows what they want. Somebody to be respected.

This has a strange, perhaps metaphysical way of coming through in your daily conversations. Perhaps due to the large amount of communication that takes place below conscious awareness, people can pick up on the fact that you are on a mission of your own choosing rather than shuffling to the collective beat of society.

How do you get there? Pick a few major goals you’d like to achieve in a years time. Get really specific. Every day, focus on one of your goals. Spend a few minutes imagining it and making it truly compelling. Focus on each day with something, anything you can do to get you closer. Spend a few minutes every night mentally reviewing your day and highlighting any efforts you made in the direction of your goal.

Man is a nomadic creature, designed through evolution, or God, or Mother Nature, to be a seeker, not a follower. Man was designed to find a point far, far off in the distance, and to relentlessly pursue it. We were not designed, nor do we come close to our potential, by keeping our head down and obediently shuffling along.

Find that point off in the distance, whatever it is. Make it real. Visualize it. Pursue it. Achieve it.

And let nothing, no man, no woman, no institution of society stop you.

You Are Surrounded By Beauty

What Treasure Do You Hold?

The other day I was sitting in a bookstore talking to one of he girls that works behind the counter in the coffee shop section. It seems that many bookstores these days have a full-blown coffee shop inside. Which makes sense, because what goes better than hanging out in a bookstore and reading books?

One of the cool things I like about bookstores is how many completely ideas different people have about certain things. Even if we confine ourselves to the measurable physical universe, there is still an endless supply of things known and unknown to talk about. Even things we can see, touch taste and feel we have really no idea of the underlying structure and substance.

Many quantum physicists have dramatically questioned the nature of reality after discovering the incredibly illogical subatomic world. Many have gone on to write philosophical books on the subject.

Even you wander into the religion section, you are in for a wealth of different ideas, beliefs and opinions regarding who we are, how we got here, and where we are going.

There are some really interesting books that lie on the border between religion, philosophy, and metaphysics. I never cease to be amazed at the sheer variety of thought that is available in bookstores. And those are just people that sat down and wrote a book and convinced somebody to publish it and sell it in a bookstore.

Imagine all the incredibly diverse thoughts in people’s heads that are just walking around and waiting to get out. Many times we make the mistake and assume that because someone may not be so eloquent with words that their thoughts are therefore inferior, but that is never the case.

One of the most prevalent theories of human existence is that every single human shares the same DNA. Not that we all have the same parents, but the structure of all human DNA is the same. It’s not like some people have more chromosomes than others.

So it stands to reason that everybody’s brain has the capacity for thinking up new and wonderful ideas. Speaking skills may not be their Forte. Even the great Moses called up his brother Aaron to do his public speaking for him. Can you imagine if you tried that at work?

“Uh, yea boss, I’ll give the presentation at next years shareholder meeting. But I pretty much suck at public speaking; in fact, they kicked me out of toastmasters. So I’m gonna have my brother come in and give the speech for me, ok?”

So as I as talking to this girl that worked behind the coffee counter, she started telling me her story. She is originally from Laos, and her family escaped to Thailand during the seventies. She said she remembers being shot at as they crossed the river from Laos into Thailand. Then in Thailand they had to live in this “reeducation camps” for a while before they figured out a way to get to the United States.

She was very young when all this happened, so she doesn’t remember much other than what her older brothers and her parents told her. She was six when it happened. Imagine getting shot at trying to escape the country of your birth at six years. I don’t know if I even learned to tie my shoes when I was six.

I couldn’t help but be amazed at the incredible amount of stories and ideas and experiences that everybody is carrying around with them. And most of them will be more than happy to share with you. All you need to do is ask.

Do You Worship The Sun And The Moon?

The Secret of Personality

Once I was reading a book about different personality types. It was pretty interesting. Of course, there are several personality quizzes online that you can take the claim to give you an adequate read on your personality.

I don’t know how accurate they are, or how accurate they claim to be. There are a lot of different schools of thought on personality, where it originates from and what are some of the factors that influence them.

One major factor that many people believe in is astrology. Depending on what year or month you were born in (depending in you believe in Asian or Western astrology) it has an impact on your personality, your characteristics, and even the kind of life you will have. One thing that I think is particularly interesting is that both Asian and western astrology is based on 12. In the west, there are twelve signs that roughly correspond to twelve months. In the east the twelve signs are for twelve different years.

One reason that some believe that the number twelve is important in astrology, and other belief systems that were developed before any kind of scientific method of objective observation of the universe is the cycle of the moon.

In one year, the moon cycles roughly twelve times. That is, a full moon appears about every twenty-eight days or so, or about once a month. Of course, there is the rare occasion, because the cycle of the moon is a little quicker than the length of the month that the moon catches up. And there are two full moons in one month. (Incidentally, this is where the expression “once in a blue moon” comes from. A blue moon is the second full moon in any given month.)

So here we have two belief systems, both centered on the number twelve, which in turn is based on the number of full moons that primitive men and women saw in a year’s time.
Its kind of hard to imagine nowadays, but life back then must have been incredibly confusing, and complicated. And much, much more precarious.
Today, if we need food, we just go and buy some. If we are sick, we go and see a doctor. If we have an accident, we call and ambulance, and somebody comes and picks us up takes us to the hospital.

But life back then was nowhere near as safe and comfortable as life today. The elements could easily kill you. If you messed up and didn’t plant our crops correctly, or at the wrong time, you and your whole family would die. If you were out hunting, and you slipped and broke ankle, you’d be likely left for dead, and the animals would soon come and eat you.

So it’s only natural that people developed this huge feeling of reverence for their natural environment. And not knowing anything about space travel or celestial mechanics, the sun and the moon were seen as all-powerful gods to be feared and respected.

So it made sense, back then at least, to base your life around the cycle of the sun and the moon. But does it make sense today?

I was talking to a friend of mine last week that went and saw a psychic. Not just one of those dudes who sits around on a street corner and reads your palms, a famous, several times televised, multi bestselling book writing psychic. This guy would do all kinds of mind reading, and communing with the spirits.

I asked if he was told any insights about his own life, and he said he was too shy to raise his hand and get a reading. He did say the guy was pretty amazing, and that he accurately read a bunch of people’s lives, telling them what they had experienced and what they should do in the future. He said a few things about people that had “crossed over” as he said, but nothing really specific.
Of course, I have another friend who says that is nothing but what she calls “cold reading.” Apparently this is the art of being artfully vague, and saying things that most anybody could agree with. Things like “you have had some tough times in your past, and often times you wonder if those times are completely behind you or not.” That could be true for pretty much anybody.

I guess people are always looking for some kind of guidance, or validation that everything is going to be ok. Or that if things to wrong, there is some bigger plan. Otherwise people might be inclined to just give up if they thought that they didn’t really have much of a choice, and everything was left up to fate. Or worse, we have zero choice in the matter and we are all part of some continuous expansion of universal randomness.

I’m not sure exactly where I fall along the line of mystical-astrological-psychic phenomenon, but some of that stuff sure is interesting, to say the least.

Maybe I need to be more open-minded.

Why You Should Never Stop Learning

How To Maximize Your Success In Anything You Want To Do

I was having lunch with a friend the other day. He was this guy I used to play soccer with. I was never really any good at soccer, so I only played because my friends played. I don’t think I ever would have played had it not been for them. I just sucked too much.

It’s kind of weird when you find yourself in this kind of a situation. You are doing something for reasons that don’t seem like the ones other people would guess by looking at the situation. Like if you really like this girl for example, and she wants to watch a romance movie. You’d likely go with her, not because you wanted to see the movie, but simply because you enjoy being with her.

Or maybe its Friday night and you’d planned on hanging out and catching up on some Lost episodes that you’d TiVo’d, but the your buddies call you up. They are going to some club, and convince you to tag along. You don’t really want to go to that club, but hanging out with your friends is usually a fun experience wherever you go, so you decide to watch Lost some other time.

That’s what it was like when I played soccer. As soon as my friends quit, I quit as well. Well not quite. I decided to play one more game after they had quit. It was not a fun experience. The only thing left was me and my cruddy soccer skills. That was the longest game of my life.

So as we were talking about various things, my friend tells me about this seminar he just went to on dating. It was mainly for guys (although they claimed that this particular technique could be applied to girls also) and how to pick up and score with girls. When I say score, I don’t mean like playing soccer. I mean score as in having sex.

Now for those of you that think this is some underhanded seminar in manipulation and how to lie to girls to get them into bed, hold your horses. My friend just isn’t that kind of guy. I think perhaps you need to understand something about marketing.

In order to convince people to sign up and pay for three-day seminar, you need to make it sound really compelling. A three-day seminar is a huge commitment, both on your schedule and your wallet. So of course they need to make it sound like you’re going to get some superhuman skills of seduction and persuasion.
Like you’re going to learn some secret Jedi skills to beam your thoughts at girls and make them squirm in lust for you.

Of course, we all know the differences between the marketing of a product and the actual product. Some are completely different, and some marketing material is pretty close to the actual product. I guess it depends on the mindset of the person that is selling the product or seminar.

But my friend never seemed like the type of guy that would go to a seminar on how to learn Jedi mind tricks to covertly seduce girls out of their panties and into your bedroom. He always seemed to be pretty self confident, and relaxed and easy going. And I’ve never seen him hesitate at all to approach and talk to a pretty girl, so I was a little bit curious as to why he decided to go to that seminar.

He told me that the secret is always learning, and to be able to learn from as many sources as possible. He said some people only feel comfortable, or only can learn from one or two sources. He said those people are stuck, because they are only limited by the insights and model of the world of their particular guru.

And even, you’d have to study under a guru for a long time to get as proficient as your guru. Not because whatever your guru is teaching is so incredibly hard to comprehend, but because there is a lot more to it than most people imagine.

Your guru, whoever he is, is able to do what he can do largely based on his own personal experience, beliefs, habits, frames of reality that he holds, and a host of other unconscious filters that he wouldn’t even begin to be able to describe.

The actual content of what is he or she is teaching is likely not that complicated, but it’s setting your internal filters and belief systems to that of your guru is what takes so long. This is the point that most people miss, and have a hard time with.

It can take a long time to shed old beliefs and pick up new ones, especially if you aren’t aware that this process is always going on. When a guru teaches some breakthrough technique, and only ten or twenty percent of his followers can reproduce that technique, that doesn’t mean the technique itself is flawed, by that most people simply don’t have the internal frames and filters and beliefs required to implement the technique.

My soccer-playing friend told me that by always studying from as many different gurus as possible is a great way to continuously improve yourself. You may only pick up one technique from one guru that resonates with you in a way that you can go out and do it yourself. When you figure that out, you can simply go and collect as many worthwhile techniques from as many guru’s as possible, and continuously build up your set of tools in your toolbox and conquer life.

I asked him about the idea that jumping from guru to guru is a waste of time. There is a strong belief that you have to choose one guru until you master the system completely. If you jump from guru to guru, you’ll never master anything. You’ll be a jack of all trades, and master of none.

He said that is complete nonsense. He said that is a myth propagated by gurus to keep people coming back for life, even if they rarely find success. He said this is a great meme, as it gives people a reason to keep spending their money on guru’s products without ever seeing results. They have this belief that if they switch gurus; they’ll be starting at square on again.

My soccer-playing friend said it’s best to check out a guru, see what you can learn from him or her in a reasonable amount of time, and then switch to the next guru. Every time you’ll learn something new and pretty soon you’ll be master of your own world, and not copying some guru.

So I asked him what the Jedi mind secret to attracting women was. He told me it was to simply give a girl honest appreciation for whatever it is you appreciate about her. And to combine two powerful things. One is to be as open and honest as possible with your appreciation for her, whatever it may be. And the other is to be completely detached from the outcome. That is let her feel your appreciation, as much as she is ready to experience, without expecting anything back in return. And the more she feels your appreciation, the more likely she will automatically reply in kind, which of course, will quickly lead to sex. Because when you put a guy and girl together that feel open enough to show their appreciation for each other, sex is a natural outcome. There are six billion examples of that on Earth, at last count.

How To Increase Your Resilience For Guaranteed Success

How To Become A Guided Missile Towards Success

There used to be this guy that I worked with. He was kind of a quiet, serious type of guy. He was always focused on his job, which was good. He was an electronics technician. This was at a company that manufactured these big machines that were then sold to various manufacturers of various large commercial and retail products.

This guy’s job was to trouble shoot new designs. The engineers would come up with a new design for a machine, and build several prototypes. Then they would give them to this guy, who would run them through a whole range of different operating conditions, and then give them back to the design engineers with his report.

At first, they would give him specific things to look for, but they realized that he could do a far better job on his own. So after about year, they just gave him the machine, and pretty much let him play with it for a couple weeks. In his report he would list the drawbacks, the benefits and what he would like to see from an end user’s standpoint.

The interesting thing was that the design engineers would use him for a large part of their research and development efforts, as his input was extremely valuable. It was also a good experience for him; having only a two-year degree he was giving input at the level usually reserved for upper management and senior level engineers. They would usually give him a product several different times during the stage of development, and with his input, they eventually created a device that was unmatched in that particular industry.

I was reading this self-development book the other day. It was talking about how some people choose their goals. Most people have a vague wish, take a couple steps, and get discouraged when everything doesn’t turn out exactly the way they want it. Which is kind of funny because since most people don’t really know exactly how they want things, it’s kind of hard to know when you get there.

But this book was saying that people should design their goals, and then think of themselves as a guided missile. What many people don’t know about guided missiles is the incredible amount of feed back from the environment they use to keep reprogramming themselves. They literally make hundreds of thousands of calculations along the way to their target, and are always adjusting their trajectory. If guided missiles were like people, they’d give as soon as they left the launch pad.

I was reading this book recently about how people tend to give meaning to events based on their opinions of themselves, and of their expectations of the outcome of the event. Two different people will do exactly the same thing, but they each will have a completely different interpretation of what went down. And based upon their interpretation, what they do next will be completely different.

So after a while, if one person is always looking at results, and adjusting their behavior to get better results, then they will usually get what they are looking for.

But somebody else, who instead of getting instant gratification sees only failure, will usually give up. They might try a bunch of different things, only to think that they fail all the time. This will destroy their self-esteem and their belief in their ability to get what they want out of life.

The first person will see a world filled with opportunities, while the second person will see a world filled with problems and limitations. And although the second person likely won’t ever admit it, it’s all based on how they choose to think of events that happen. The secret, according this book, was that all you have to do is change your interpretation of events, and you can pretty much do anything, with a long enough time line.

The other thing this book mentioned was to think more in the future instead of immediate gratification. If you are always looking for immediate pleasure, you usually won’t get anything that lasts very long. Kind of like planting seeds. Some plants grow very quick, but don’t produce much. Some take a while to grow, but when they finally reach maturity, they produce fruit year after year, without much effort on your part.

And my friend finally started his own consulting business, helping companies to design all different kinds of machines. Last I heard he just got a huge contract with a major automobile manufacturer. He has about twenty people working for him that he collected along the way. Word on the street is that his net worth is well into the millions. Not bad for a two year degree technician.

Rapport Building Secrets That Will Skyrocket Your Persuasion And Seduction Skills

How To Master Body Language To Maximize Your Covert Persuasion With Seemingly Psychic Abilities

Several people have emailed me asking to write more about creating rapport. So today I’ll delve a little bit deeper into exactly how to create rapport, and exactly what to do with it. Many people have a misconception about rapport. The word seems to be thrown around in certain circles, mostly sales and seduction.

You can usually tell by the way it’s being used that most people aren’t really sure exactly what it is, how to get it, and how to test to make sure you have it. Another cool thing, (at least for guys) is that once you learn how to see it in other people, you can pretty much read a room fairly quickly, just by scanning everybody’s body language. You can tell who is into whom, who is fighting, who is wishing whom would leave them alone, etc. Most women, of course, are naturals at this. With practice, men can get just as good.

Let’s first talk about what rapport is. Rapport is a deep, usually unconscious feeling that you feel connected to somebody. You feel safe and comfortable. You don’t have your defenses up. For example, if you went to a Mets game, and you were the only one in the stands with a Yankees jacket on. You would likely feel very left out. But if while waiting in the hot dog line, you saw another person wearing a Yankee’s jacket, you would suddenly feel connected to them. You share something with them that you don’t share with all the other people around. And this would be regardless if they were a different gender, age bracket or ethnicity.

Another example. Lets say you are on a flight from Chicago to Nigeria. And you are sitting on a plane full of Nigerians. You start talking to the person next to you, and after a few minutes of conversation you realize that not only does she collect stamps, but also she collects stamps that were produced by previous Soviet Bloc countries (if they indeed exist.) You both know all the ins and outs of that particular niche hobby, and you have a long and wonderful conversation regarding methods and your respective collections, etc.

Both of the examples above are deep and powerful rapport. If either of people asked to borrow five dollars to buy a drink, you’d be much more willing if they were a total stranger you only exchanged a couple words with. There is one problem with both of the above. One, it was completely random, and happened by chance. Two, it is purely contextual. Meaning that so long as you are talking about stamps, or the Yankees, you’re allright. As soon as you deviate from those two topics, you’ll likely lose rapport rather quickly.

That is how most sales people, and most people trying to create “rapport” with would be boyfriends/girfriends go about doing it. They start a conversation, and hope to find similar interests, backgrounds, hobbies, etc. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. This is what people usually mean when they say they are “trying to build rapport.” They are talking to the person and hopefully creating that feeling of trust and connection.

But there is a much more easier way. A much more powerful way, that cuts through any surface small talk filled conversation you might be having. And because it is not dependent on the conversation, you can still create strong rapport even if you are talking about something you both vehemently disagree on.

How do you do this? You simply match everything you can about the other person. No, I don’t mean go out and buy an outfit just like theirs. That would take too long, and they might suspect you are up to something.

You match their body language, and other non-verbal behavior, and everything you can about their speech. If they speak slowly, you speak slowly. If they smile when they speak, you smile when you speak. If they cross their legs, you cross your legs.

Many people are afraid they are going to get caught doing this. But this hardly ever happens. If they scratch their nose, and you stare at their nose intently, and then stare at your hand, and then bring it slowly to your nose, they’ll know something is up. Usually, however, they will have no idea. They’ll only know that they feel a strange connection to you.

Try this with a friend. Sit facing each other. Try to be as open as possible (e.g. no crossed legs or arms). And match each other’s body language as much as possible. Then talk about something you disagree on. Focus on keeping the match between your body language.

Then switch. Mismatch body language as much as possible. Then talk about something you both agree on.

What you’ll discover is that when talking about something you disagree on, your matching language has more of an effect than the subject you’re talking about. And likewise when you are purposely mismatching. Even though you are talking about something you both like or agree with, you’ll have this funny feeling that something is amiss.

So how do you test to make sure you really have strong rapport? Simple. After you’ve spent five or ten minutes on normal, everyday conversation, and you’ve slowly matched their body language, start to lead a little bit. This means that you move first, and see if they follow. Like lean back in your chair, or cross and uncross your legs, any small movement. Most often they will follow, without even knowing.

Once you get to this stage, you can use a number of any other persuasive techniques to get their agreement. If you are talking to a girl in a bar, you can ask for her phone number. If you were a salesperson with a client, now would be a good time to suggest moving to the next stage in the sales process.

Knowing this gives you great insight whenever you see a room full of people. Next time you are at Starbucks or a similar public place where people are sitting around in groups, take a look around. Who is in rapport with whom? Who is out of rapport with whom?

If you want to use this to help meet somebody, here’s a neat trick. Get close to them, wherever you are. Party, bar, friends house, Starbucks, wherever. And just get into rapport with them before you go and introduce yourself.

People have much more powerful peripheral vision and brain computational capacity than most of us realize. At all times, people are scanning the area around us and checking every single person to determine if they are friend or foe. We may be advanced, but we still carry baggage from our evolutionary days.

If you are nervous, and scared, and you go and approach somebody, they will know it before you even open your mouth. However, if you take the time to develop rapport with them before you talk to them, they will feel this as well. Their guard will be down, and they’ll be more likely to engage in friendly conversation without getting nervous or anxious about being approached by a complete stranger.

Despite how powerful the above methods are, this is just scratching the surface o how to develop powerful, unconscious rapport with people. Try these, and see how they work out. Have fun.

Sales And Seduction Tips From Milton Erickson

What The Creator of Conversational Hypnosis Can Teach us About Sales And Seduction

Every time you open your mouth, you have an intention. Whether this intention is conscious or not, planned or not, automatic or not, realized by you or not, this intention is there. Perhaps if somebody asks you the time, your intention is to behave in a socially appropriate manner without drawing undue attention to yourself.

If a homeless person walks up to you and asks for change, your intention is likely to end the uncomfortable conversation as quickly and painlessly as possible. For some this means to ignore him. For some it means giving him a dollar. For some it means an automatic physical altercation. As politically incorrect as it sounds, unless you set out specifically to volunteer in a soup kitchen or a homeless shelter, most people feel uncomfortable (for many, many different reasons) when approached by a homeless person asking for change.

If you are a guy, and you approach an attractive girl in a bar, your intention is likely to get her to like you, and perhaps more.

Most of these intentions are extremely vague, and largely unconscious. Very rarely do we stop and plan an outcome when somebody stops us on the street to ask us for directions or the time. Even though our response is automatic, we are trying to achieve an outcome of maintaining safety. Our automatic responses are largely based on protection, or defense.

Even the guy approaching the girl in the bar, although he has a somewhat conscious intention of getting her to like him, he is still likely operating from a frame of protection at the same time. He would love to be able to walk up to her, be as open and expressive as possible, make her laugh, show her his stunning personality and conversation skills. However, most of us guys are terrified of the public shame that the rejection of our advances would bring. So we hedge our bets, so to speak. We engage, but protect at the same time. This can prove extremely difficult.

The same goes with salespeople. Rejection can be awfully painful, even for the most seasoned veterans. Many times they approach the prospect with the same mindset of the guy approaching the girl in the bar. They’d love to proclaim how wonderful their product is, and clearly suggest that the prospect buy the product, but many are afraid to do so. One main weakness of almost anybody who has even been in sales is an inability to simply ask for the sale.

Most sales people beat around the bush, hoping the prospect will come to the conclusion on their own to buy the product. This rarely works. As most prospects usually need a nudge in the right direction.

However, there is another way. Actually a couple of other ways. Well, actually, lots of other ways, but I will only talk briefly about two of them. These were all “invented” by Milton Erickson, the father of conversational hypnosis. He came up with all kinds of powerfully persuasive conversation tools to help people overcome large life issues in a relatively short amount of time.

These two are very powerful ones that you can go out and use today, in a bar, with a girl, or with a prospect, or with your friends.

One is an indirect way of asking for the sale. This requires you be pretty good at reading body language, and facial expressions. The way you do this is to use what’s called an embedded question. Whenever you present a question to somebody, they will answer it, either verbally or not. But when you embed it in a sentence, then they don’t feel the pressure to answer it openly. But their body language and facial expression will give them away. Here’s how:

Say you are selling cars. You’ve been on the test drive, and your back in the office with the customer. They are still there, and they’ve been paying attention to you so far. You haven’t started talking about actual finances yet. You are still discussing whether or not they liked the car. You can say:

“Well, I don’t know whether or not you want to buy this car today, but before we talk about any kind of financial issues, let me talk to you about the extended warranty.”

Watch closely as you say the “buy the car today” part. If they seem like they are about to have a heart attack, you should probably hold off on asking them to sign a contract. If they seem to show any positive response at all, you’re in pretty good shape.

Same goes with the girl in the bar. You could say:

“I know we’ve been only talking for twenty minutes, and I don’t know if you feel comfortable giving your phone number to a guy you just met, but I think it’s important to be open when meeting new people. You never know when you are going to find somebody that could turn into a lifelong friend.”

Again, pay attention to how she responds when you say, “giving your phone number.” If she briefly lights up like a Christmas tree, she’s been dying for you to ask, and she’s into you. Proceed, and get her number. If she steps back and puts her hand protectively over her throat, you should politely excuse yourself.

That’s the “embedded question” method, and can be very powerful in testing how you are doing.

The other way is a bit more aggressive, and can be used by itself, or after you’ve successfully tested for a close. This trick is called the double bind. It involves giving them the illusion of a choice, when in actuality, both choices are the same thing.

For example, with the car example, you could say (as you pull out the contract):

“So were you going to use your current car as a trade in, or did you just want to make a down payment?” Either way they answer, it presupposes they are going to buy the car. This is, of course tough to do on a big-ticket item like a car. It can work better with smaller issues. You can use this for every part of the sales process, when you want to escalate to the next level.

“So did you want to test drive a blue one, or a red one?”
“So were you going to finance through us, or your own bank?”
“Would you rather test drive before or after we talk about financing?”

This works really well with phone sales when setting up appointments:

“I am going to be in your neighborhood next week, would Tuesday at 4:00 PM be OK, or is Thursday at 6:30 better?”

And you can also use it on the girl whose number you got:

“Say this is George from the other night, we talked at Flankies. I enjoyed our conversation, and I’d like to see you again, for a cup of coffee. Which is easier for you, Tuesday evening at 8:00, or Thursday at 9:30?”

You can use both of these together for a powerful increase in your closing percentage. Test their “buying temperature” with the embedded question, and then “close” them with the double bind. You’ll be amazed at your results.