Category Archives: Appreciation

All Things Start With Thoughts

How To Practice Thinking

Most people don’t believe something unless they see it.

Or if they don’t see evidence of something, it doesn’t make sense.

Imagine, for example, you knew a guy that built his own business.

You knew him since he was very young.

You knew him through all his trial and error failures and successes.

You saw him start slow, build slow, and slowly increase his income.

Maybe now (in this metaphorical story) he’s a millionaire.

You know how hard he worked.

But other people see him, and they don’t see all the trouble he went through.

This is a common instinct.

We see people with money, (or signs of money) and unless we have firsthand information of how they got that money, we suspect they’re cheating somehow.

This is natural, normal and instinctive.

Because when it comes to money, our instincts tell us we’re supposed to “share the wealth.”

This is how ancient tribes survived.

Another “I don’t believe it till I see it” myth that pops up is how we interpret skills.

We see somebody doing something like playing an instrument or a sport, and we just assume it must have taken a lot of practice.

But other things, specifically thinking skills, we assume that “smart people” are just smart.

That what happens inside our brains isn’t trainable, like music or sports.

Partly because nobody ever told us we could do that.

You go to school, they don’t tell you HOW to think.

They only tell you WHAT to think.

And because the stuff that tell us to think is so boring, we don’t think it very well.

So we wrongly conclude that we CAN’T think very well.

Which is absolutely false.

The real secret about thinking is that HOW you think is JUST as important as WHAT you think.

And if you were to start practicing HOW to think, thinking about ANYTHING would be easy.

Maybe there’s a reason nobody tells us this stuff.

Maybe it’s a way so the guys in charge can stay in charge.

Screw that noise!

Learn How To Think:

NLP Mind Magic

Wonderful Thoughts

Engineer Your Thought Structure

If you only had four things in your fridge, what could you cook?

Of course, it would depend on the four things.

Bacon, eggs, bread, butter.

That would be easy.

But after a while it would get pretty boring.

Suppose you only had four DVD’s.

Maybe even phrase it as the famous “island question.”

If you were stuck on an island, which four DVD’s would you bring?

Any way you slice it, whatever “category” you put those four things in, the answer would always be very limited.

Four spices.

Four people.

Four cities to live in and travel to.

Four kinds of food. (That would at least give you some variety).

However, all of us are ONLY made up of four basic “things.”

Cytosine, guanine, adenine and thymine.

Huh?

These are the four nucleotides.

Only these four make up EVERYTHING about you.

The difference is precisely HOW they are arranged.

Put them in one order, and you’re dead before you’ve got a chance.

Put them in another order, and you have super human skills of X-men proportions.

Nobody knows WHEN or IF we’ll be able understand what order matches what trait.

Or even if there’s more going on than we can measure.

After all, take two similar people and they can create VASTLY different things.

These DNA nucleotides create the structure of your brain.

But who or what creates the thoughts that you think?

Most people are content to think thoughts that others think.

It’s safe.

It’s easy.

It’s not complicated.

Some people think different thoughts, but they still do the same things.

The precious few who make a huge difference are those who THINK differently as well as ACT differently.

Because without actions, thoughts are just a hobby.

But how do you KNOW what to think?

How do you know HOW to think?

That’s the secret.

There ARE no rules.

You can make them up as you go along.

Keep trying different “thoughts” in different orders, until you hit on a winning combination that will forever change your life, and the world around you.

Get Started:

NLP Mind Magic

Thor Be With You

Praying To The God Of Thunder?

Sunflowers are pretty cool.

They turn where they face during the day, to maximize their sunlight.

Whenever something does anything that resembles anything that us humans do, we anthropomorphize that.

We describe it as if they have the same intentions we humans do.

You might have even explained the sunflower phenomenon to a child.

You could say something like, “Well, these flowers have evolved and automatic strategy which maximizes it’s exposure to sunlight.”

But a kid would say, “um, what?”

Instead we say things like, “They like facing the sun. The sun feels good.”

And the little kid would turn toward the sun, close their eyes, feel the warmth and understand.

Much of our human mythology is made up from anthropomorphized natural phenomenon.

Stars, thunder, oceans.

Watch any TV show or movie about Vikings and thunder is Thor, who is upset for some reason.

We humans tend to do that a lot.

We watch stuff happen, and then make up a story about why it’s happening.

This happens on a much deeper level than most people realize.

Some studies show that as little as 5% of all human behavior is a RESULT of conscious thinking.

Most of the time, we are reacting, and then making up a story AFTER the fact.

Which kind of makes sense, from an evolutionary standpoint.

It wasn’t that long ago that we were very primitive primates incapable of speech.

So it makes sense in our “young age” we are still getting the hang of this “conscious mind” thing.

If you watch those Viking shows, and see those guys praying to Thor or all the other gods, it can look pretty silly.

I mean, the thunder is easily explained by science.

And to us, it seems like those “primitive” people are praying to a god that doesn’t exist.

But often times, we do the same thing.

We PRETEND we are totally in charge, when we may be just watching.

This is kind of scary to think about.

But can you decide not to be hungry?

Can you decide NOT to be afraid?

Can you talk yourself into feeling alert when you are sleepy?

We can run into problems when we OVERESTIMATE the power of our conscious minds.

If we consider that our conscious minds may be (at least some of the time) after-the-fact storytelling devices, are we that different from Vikings praying to Thor, the god of thunder?

Perhaps we may do better to learn to TRUST our unconscious, instead of trying to be control freaks.

Learn More:

Ego Taming

Do You Understand History?

Ancient Secrets Of History

It’s a pretty common idea that the winners write the history books.

This isn’t to say there is a bunch of secret history that’s being kept from us.

Or even that events didn’t happen.

But how those events are remembered isn’t always clear.

One of the benefits of being in charge of a society is you get to frame these events however you want them.

And generally speaking, those in charge tend to put that kind of spin on events.

Meaning that events were more because of the people in charge.

That’s kind of a human thing.

We try to “take credit” for stuff when we were really just there when it happened.

It’s not really different from when something unexpected happens, and then we say, “I knew that was to happen!”

We didn’t really KNOW that was going to happen.

If we did it wouldn’t have been unexpected.

So when good things happen, those in charge try to take all the credit they can.

Especially if they need to be elected.

They need all the evidence they can.

This happens in the short term, AND in the long term.

Read any book about the history of money, and they will all describe money as coming FROM governments.

But in reality, the IDEA of money is very instinctive.

All humans have an instinctive idea for “commodity money.”

When you have something you want to trade.

You can trade that for what you want, OR you can trade it for something you KNOW you can trade for what you want.

Little kids do this all the time.

When trading game cards, for example.

They instinctively trade for cards because they know those cards are in great demand.

Not because they want them.

Because they have “trade value.”

Nobody needs to teach them this.

This is precisely what “money” or “currency” is.

Something that everybody agrees is worth something.

Sure, when governments started minting coins, it made it easier.

Mainly because the stamp on the coin let everybody know it was real, and not make.

But governments didn’t INVENT the process.

They just make it easier.

(And also consider that since governments controlled all the guys with weapons, they controlled all the gold and silver mines..)

The idea of trading for something that is worth something to somebody else is a deeply human trait.

It’s the human instinct that is the cornerstone of all societies.

All creation, all inventions, and everything that exists.

You don’t need to learn how, you need to re-discover how.

By erasing all those false ideas about money.

Learn More:

Wealth Tuning

Far Away Dreams

Have You Been To Charm School?

No matter who you are, you have to learn skills as you go through life.

That’s one of the many differences between humans and all the other life forms on this planet.

Humans come with tons of instincts.

But we also come with tons of learning capability.

Even way back in the day when we were hunter-gathers, we had to continuously learn.

Since we were nomads, nothing was ever the same.

Different environment, different source of food, different climate, different things to be worried about.

Now, with our massively complex society, continuous learning and updating your skills is pretty much a given.

Like the Red Queen in “Alice in Wonderland,” you have to keep running just to stay in place.

When it comes to learning, there are two kinds of skills.

Skills that start off in the “unconscious incompetence” area, or the skills that start off in the “unconscious competence” area.

Most people only ever consider the first collection of skills.

The ones we don’t know we suck at, or unconscious incompetence.

Some new technology is invented, so we need to learn it.

Before it was invented, nobody knew anything about it, so we didn’t know that we didn’t know.

Then we know that we don’t know (conscious incompetence), and then we know that we sort of know (conscious competence).

A few people take it to the level of unconscious competence.

Meaning they are skilled, and do so without thinking.

For most of us, this comes in doing simple things like riding bikes or tying our shoes.

But there is a whole other realm of learning.

Of taking something we are born knowing how to do.

These are the things that start off as unconscious competence.

Walking, talking, interacting with people.

These are the things we tend to think we’re either “good” at or “not good” at.

And if we see somebody who is “good” at one of these skills, we shrug our shoulders as if there’s nothing we can do.

This, however, is false.

You can take any instinctive skill (unconscious competence) and raise it to the conscious competence level.

Back in the old days, girls would do this.

They would go to “charm school” to learn how to take their unconscious behavior (walking, talking etc.) and refine it.

Of course, in today’s society we’re told to just “be yourself.”

Which is perfectly fine.

If you are happy with what you are getting as your “authentic self,” that’s fantastic.

But your “authentic self” can be refined any way you like.

A particularly effective way is how you use your language.

Most people have half baked thoughts they try to describe with haphazardly chosen words.

But you can learn to use your language with extreme precision.

And deadly force.

Learn How:

Weaponized Hypnosis

Dangerous Dudes Are Everywhere

Covert Sumo Defense Tactics

It’s very common for humans to look for shortcuts.

We are hard wired to look for anything that will maximize our return, and minimize our efforts.

Paradoxically, this is the driving force that has been behind our path as humans from the days of ancient hunter-gathers to modern life.

All the inventions, creations and ideas were based on one simple concept.

“There’s GOT to be an easier way of doing this!”

Businesses and customers are forever locked in the same battle.

Business want to minimize costs and maximize profits.

Customers want to minimize purchase price and maximize what we get for that purchase.

When businesses compete for our money, it’s a wonderful thing.

Fast food wars, for example, force all businesses to come up with the cheapest menu items.

If you’re the kind of person who likes to stumble through your local fast food joint on the way home from your local bar, this is a wonderful thing.

Get a sack of burgers for a few bucks.

Other kind of competition is not so nice.

Especially when not everybody knows there’s a competition.

Sure, when you’ve got a street lined with shops, everybody knows what’s up.

Cheapest price, best product, best customer service, cutest waitresses, etc.

It’s all part of the game.

But when you go into a meeting, and you’re thinking it’s just to share ideas, but your coworker has decides he or she is competing, and he or she is competing against you, that’s when it gets dirty.

From the boss’ point of view they might even like the competition.

It saves them from having to make a decision.

Even within social groups, friendships and romantic relationships, there can be some “beneath the surface” competition going on.

It’s almost like covert Sumo wrestling.

Two huge guys rush each other and try to push the other guy off balance.

When both guys know what’s, it’s called sport.

But when one person is doing this conversationally and covertly, it can feel pretty crappy.

There you are trying to have a regular conversation, and they’re slipping in deadly blows that push you off balance and make you feel weak.

Many people unfortunately don’t feel strong unless they make others feel weak.

If it’s a schoolyard bully, you can punch him in the face, or kick him in the nuts.

But if it’s emotional, and covert?

How the heck do you defend against it?

With this:

Weaponized Hypnosis

Know What You Want?

The Carne Asada Nachos Pattern

I love eating.

But since I ain’t no spring chicken, I can’t eat as much as I used to.

When I was in high school, I could eat anything and everything.

I ran cross country and I wrestled, so not only did I have the magical metabolism of youth, but I exercised quite a bit.

But today, I need to be careful about what I eat.

Usually.

Because you HAVE to have cheating days.

And I like to plan my cheating days.

Think about what to buy, what to cook, what to watch on TV when I enjoy my cheating days.

Planning pleasurable activities is something we humans love.

They say that the only two tragedies of life are achieving your goals, and not achieving your goals.

What the heck does this mean?

If neither one of those is true, (not achieving a goal or achieving it) it implies you are ON THE WAY to some goal.

And that is a pretty good place to be.

When you look forward to something.

Even if it’s something silly like a heaping plate of Carne Asada Nachos and your favorite episode of The Sopranos.

The idea of something GOOD in your future is wonderful.

Since we humans can NEVER predict the future, when we have something good coming, it’s mixed with uncertainty.

But it’s the BEST kind of uncertainty.

When you’re uncertain exactly HOW you’ll enjoy something.

Or exactly HOW that enjoyable thing will evolve.

Or exactly WHEN that enjoyable thing will happen.

This is why pretty much everybody agrees that the Road (the way to the enjoyable thing) is better than the Inn (the actual pleasurable thing).

This is what has inspired humankind since we climbed down out of the trees and realized there was more to life than bananas.

What’s even better is you can give somebody else the gift of looking forward to something fantastic.

By making YOURSELF that fantastic thing.

How you interact with them when you’re around, and how you give them the gift of missing you when you’re not.

By understanding the process, you can create the most wonderful feeling we humans can ever feel.

At will.

Learn How:

Love Hypnosis

What Works? What Doesn't?

Find The Shot Down Planes

Nobody likes to fail.

At least in modern society.

For example, let’s say you see a cute girl or guy across the room.

They are giving you some pretty good signals.

So you walk over and say, “Hi.”

Only it doesn’t go so well.

On the way over, you were hoping that it would go perfect.

On the way back, you wished you hadn’t gone in the first place.

(Sounds like a lot my trips to Vegas!)

The hope of getting a good result feels good.

The feeling of getting a bad result feels bad.

And since nobody likes bad feelings, we tend to not repeat that process very often.

However, this is very short term and very dangerous thinking.

You’ve likely heard of the missile metaphor.

That on it’s way to the target, it’s always re-adjusting its trajectory.

And if we set a strong enough goal, we’ll be like the missile.

We keep moving toward our target, and adjusting our trajectory.

The thing we don’t like so much is failure is an absolutely necessary component of this.

Every failure is SUPPOSED to make us think of a better way to do what we just did.

This is EXACTLY how our human goal-seeking mechanism works.

Success tells us what to do.

Failure tells us what not to do.

Both are equally important.

Once, way back in WWII, they were studying planes that hadn’t been shot down over Germany.

They brought in all kinds of mathematical experts to figure out why the planes that didn’t get shot down weren’t getting shot down.

The non-mathematical generals figured if they could replicate what worked, they would create more successful missions.

But a young scientist told them that was the wrong way to think about it.

He said the most important part was knowing HOW and WHY the planes that were shot down WERE shot down.

And since all of the planes that were shot down were in enemy territory, this made it kind of difficult.

Plenty of courses tell you (or allegedly tell you) of a step-by-step system to get some result.

Modeling is a certainly a method of replicating successful behavior.

It is certainly helpful.

But every human has a different experience.

So modeling, or replicating behavior, can only take you so far.

You still need to learn by trial and error.

Because error is gives you the necessary feedback to adjust course, and do better next time.

So, the million dollar question:

How the heck do you get yourself to do that, consistently, when failure sucks so bad?

The answer comes by understanding that trial and error learning is a SKILL.

And like any other skill, it’s best to start slow.

Take teeny tiny actions.

SLOWLY build up your tolerance for “failure.”

It’s just like anything else.

If you can only do one pushup today, it would be silly to try to do a hundred tomorrow.

But ANYBODY can start off with one pushup a day.

And when that becomes easy, increase to two.

Same with learning by trial and error.

Start slow, and gradually build up your trial and error learning skill.

Just like anybody can learn to do 100 pushups over time, you can learn to learn ANYTHING over time.

Get Started:

Seven Disciplines

Start Building Your Future Now

Let Your Imagination Lead You

Shifts in thinking can be very powerful.

They can also be so subtle that we don’t even notice.

One of our greatest assets as humans is our imagination.

Yet few of us ever use it to much potential.

Most of us use to dream about what we wish would happen.

Or even worse, we let others do our imaging for us.

Whenever we watch a TV show or movie, or even read a book, we’re letting somebody lead our imaginations.

This can be very effective.

In fact, it’s the whole reason people developed the ability to tell stories.

Way back in the day, stories helped us to deal with the daily uncertainties and real dangers of life.

Going out hunting every day was scary.

So having a bunch of stories in your brain of heroes killing monsters was helpful.

Today, not so much.

Most of our issues aren’t so life threatening.

But having a calibrated imagination is a huge asset.

When your imagining straddles the boundaries between dreams and possibilities.

You want them to be compelling enough to give you emotional pleasure when you think about them.

But they also need to be realistic enough so you actually change your behavior in an attempt to make them real.

Fantasizing about flying spaceships around and killing aliens is cool, but it doesn’t really motivate you.

Or it motivates to do what you need to do.

But if you only do what you need to do, you generally end up fulfilling the goals of somebody else.

People give you stuff to do, you do them so they’ll get off your back.

Imagining that you’re slaying dragons while doing those tasks is helpful.

But far from optimal.

Humans were meant to be explorers.

Of the planet, of our lives, and of our minds.

If you can fantasize about doing things for your own reasons, and those fantasies actually get you getting out there and trying things, you’re doing pretty good.

That balance of thinking and imagining and acting can take you much further than just following directions.

Which comes first?

Whichever works.

Because all three lead into each other.

But where the rubber meets the road, when thoughts turn into things, is your action.

Self chosen, dream driven action.

Get Started:

Seven Disciplines

The Eyeball Sees All

Reverse Polarity Stealing Pattern

Once upon a time there was a petrified forest.

A petrified forest is made up of really old plants that have fossilized.

Turned to stone.

Put a whole bunch of these old, fossilized plants together, and you’ve got a petrified forest.

There’s a national park in the United States.

You can go and check it out if you want.

Many people do.

But they had a problem.

A lot of the petrified wood was loose. Just laying around on the ground.

And people would look around, make sure nobody was looking, and pick up a piece.

Quite a lot of people did, in fact.

So the national park service had a problem.

Since the place was so big, they couldn’t really hire a bunch of petrified cops to make sure people don’t take anything.

That would be REALLY expensive.

So they decided to use a public education campaign.

They figured that if they let everybody know that people were stealing, the “stealers” would know that everybody else knew, and they wouldn’t steal.

So they put up signs (cheaper than hiring cops, right?) that said:

“Did you know that over ten percent of visitors of the petrified forest take home illegal souvenirs?”

The idea was people would be shocked, and voluntarily look out for the dastardly folks who were doing all the evil stealing.

Only it had the opposite effect.

As it turns out, PLENTY of people were thinking, “Hmm, I’d love to take a piece of this home, but I don’t want to get in trouble.”

Then they saw the sign, saying that ten percent of people steal souvenirs.

And that make it MORE likely they would steal something themselves.

It gave them SOCIAL PROOF.

The people would look around, not see anybody else stealing, and think, “If I steal this, I might be the only one, I’d better not.”

But they would still want to take a piece home.

Then they’d see the sign and think, “Wow, if ten percent of people are stealing, I may as well steal too!”

The geniuses who designed and put up the sign couldn’t understand why the signs INCREASED the amount of theft.

Until they hired a marketing genius (a real genius) who explained it to them.

All they had to do was to flip the numbers.

And do so in a general way.

“Most people want to steal but decide not to. What will you do?”

It made them feel like they were going to be in the evil minority if they picked up a piece.

This is what happens when you understand these ancient triggers that motivate us on deep levels.

You can speak the language of unconscious persuasion.

And get people to do whatever you want.

Learn How:

Seven Laws