Category Archives: Choice

Are You Committed?

Dumpster Diving

Once there were these two crows. They were just hanging out, minding their own business, waiting for some free food. They had recently noticed that a new set of vending machines had opened up next to the entrance to a mall, and next to the vending machines was a set of trashcans. The crows had noticed that this was a potential good source of free food, as the trashcans next to the vending machines aren’t emptied nearly as often as other trashcans.

Of course, the crows had no idea of the trash-emptying schedule, they just knew that those colorful boxes sometimes were a good place to hang out and find some decent scraps of food. So when they saw a couple of these new shiny boxes, they figured they’d better hang out and get some good stuff. Usually when crows find a source of food, the first crow to get there generally has dibs. He or she can lose their place in line, should another crow come in and challenge their dominance. If the food is plentiful, like a giant cornfield, they usually don’t worry about things like that.

But when it’s a couple of vending machines in the middle of an otherwise barren (from a crows persepctive) parking lot, then it’s important to get there and establish yourself.

Of course, this strategy can backfire. Once a couple of crows thought they were being clever, and stuck out a claim next do a single vending machine next to a bowling ally, only to discover (after about a weeks worth of closely guarding their new source) that it was only a drinking vending machine, and didn’t produce anything to eat whatsoever. So there’s a fine line between waiting to see if there really is going to be some food, and showing up too late only to find somebody has already made a claim.

Commitment is an interesting thing, even from a human perspective. Everybody wants to get the best they can, but when you make a commitment to anything, a job, a person, a route to work, you are effectively cutting of all other options. If you choose too hastily, you will probably won’t make the best choice. If you take too long to decide, then you might miss out on a lot of good choices.

If you’ve ever played any kind of contact, or semi contact sport, like hockey, basketball, football, a great skill to have is to be able to fake out your opponent, getting them to commit to a particular course of action, and then change course yourself, effectively evading them. On the flip side, being able to read your pursuer, and not be taken in by their sleights a great skill to have as well.

Much has been written from a military strategy standpoint, all the way back to Sun Tzu’s “The Art Of War” detailing many strategies of how to get your enemy to commit to a particular course of action, (chosen of course by you) so you can more easily strike and destroy them.

A classic example is the Allied invasion of Normandy. Several “fake” landing craft were sent out, in order to fool the Nazis into thinking the invasion was happening someplace, else, so they would incorrectly commit their resources, effectively leaving them open to where the actual invasion was going to take place. It was a successful plot that was instrumental (not the only one by a long shot) in the defeat of the Nazis.

Committing to a decision can sometimes have unintended effects, especially when making personal choices about how we choose to live our lives. Many times, people commit to something, thinking they will get a certain result, but when the results don’t show up, people can tend to “change” their original intent, so as not to “waste” their efforts. Even when it is obvious that aren’t going to succeed in a particular endeavor (according to your original intention) many of us plod along anyways, not willing to admit that we’ve wasted all that time and effort.

In “The Peter Principle,” Laurence J. Peter asks why people continue to put effort into something that is obviously unsuccessful. Most people will give the argument “I’ve been doing this for ten years, I’m not about to quit now.” Peter asks “why continue to do something when you have ample evidence that it doesn’t work?”

Of course, this is tough to do. As pointed out by Cialdini in “Influence, Science and Practice,” commitment and consistency is a powerful motivating force in human decision-making. We tend to do things the way we’ve always done them, so long as they haven’t killed us. This tendency has been shown time and time again in various social experiments and studies. It can be extremely tough to change course after doing the same thing day in and day out year after year.

One alternative is to take a step up on the logical ladder. You can still stay committed to the underlying intent without being committed to the actions that you initially thought you would get you to that underlying intent.

Somebody may choose to change diets, if one particular diet isn’t working out, provided that they are still committed and focused on losing weight. In NLP, it’s taught that it’s usually a good idea to have less investment in any particular method, while having a solid understanding of your underlying goals. More flexibility is always preferred when deciding how you want to achieve whatever it is you want to achieve. If whatever you thought was going to get you there isn’t working out, you can always change strategies midway, while keeping your focus on your original goals. That way you’ll never fall into the “I’ve been doing this for X years, I’m not about to change now,” trap.

So the crows decided that they’d wait three days, and if they didn’t see any good food being thrown in the garbage, they’d go someplace else. They had enlisted the help of a couple buddies, so there were six of them in all. They figured two of them would stand guard at any given time, to establish their claim. The other two would go to other food sources in the meantime.

What the crows discovered was a virtual food goldmine, although it was completely unexpected. The vending machines happened to be set up just around the corner from the big dumpsters that all the restaurants in the mall were supposed to throw their food out into. When the crows noticed how much food was being thrown out, their small group swelled in numbers immediately, and they never went hungry again.

External or Internal Motivation – Which Is Better?

Which Path Do You Take?

Once there was this pumpkin. He was a normal pumpkin, and went to a normal pumpkin school, like the rest of the kids in his neighborhood. His parents had tried to get him into one of those special schools for gifted pumpkins, but he didn’t think he passed the final entrance examination. They didn’t feel bad, neither did the pumpkin, as almost every pumpkin tries to get into one of those special schools, but very few make it. So his parents as well as he were in good company. Many parents teach their kids early on that the trying and failing is ok, so long as they try. That way, when the vast majority of the kids don’t get into the pumpkin school, they can feel proud of themselves for putting forth valiant effort.

The way the schools are set up, in case you aren’t familiar with them is that they are government run schools, and are completely paid for. There is a whole section of the pumpkin government devoted to the enrichment of its citizens. To that end they’ve created a panel of experts that teach the most cutting edge subjects. The school is a state of the art facility where most scientific and technological advances are made.

Many kids secretly don’t want to get into the advanced placement school. That would mean leaving their friends and family, as the school is located near the central government. Once they finish the school, they are required to spend no less than 5 years teaching at the school and further developing the curriculum. For a young pumpkin just entering into adolescence, this is an awfully large commitment.

Of course, the kids enjoy bragging about their scores, and comparing them to one another. Because they are completely meaningless if they aren’t accepted into the special school, the teasing and posturing of the young pumpkins is accepted as a normal part of every day school life.

Most pumpkins finish their primary education without moving on to higher levels. The pumpkin economy is sufficient to provide many well paying jobs to blue-collar pumpkin workers. Because these jobs are so plentiful, most pumpkins can easily find a way to make a living very near where they grew up.

It’s not uncommon to find neighborhoods with two and sometimes three generations of families spread throughout. Which is why the pumpkin of this particular story was overwhelmingly upset when he learned he was accepted, just barely, into the special pumpkin school. That meant ten years away from his friends and family. Five for the school itself, and five for the teaching commitment that came with it.

Of course, he knew very well that after finishing his teaching commitment, he was pretty much set for life. While many pumpkins stayed and taught at the special school after their commitment was fulfilled, it was by no means expected or even depended on. Virtually all the pumpkins that fulfilled their teaching requirements found extremely lucrative jobs in the technological fields, some even sitting on boards of directors of several large international conglomerations.

However, that didn’t appeal to our young pumpkin hero at all. He didn’t want a prestigious job in ten years. He didn’t want to start teaching at a prestigious university in five. He didn’t want to study there next fall. He wanted to stay right where he was.

He was in love.

They had begun hanging out together at lunchtime last spring. They had started sitting together at lunch, the way kids do. As time went on, they started sitting closer together, some days even exchanging a few words. Then one day, for some reason that neither of the cared about, when they showed up to their normal lunch table, it was only the two of them.

Of course they were both very nervous. But once they started talking, their nervousness was quickly replaced by the excitement of discovering new feelings and emotions that you never knew existed. Soon they started meeting when they knew it would only be just the two of them, if for only a few minutes. Sometimes they would talk about their math homework; sometimes they wouldn’t talk at all.

But now this young pumpkin had a decision to make. His acceptance letter, as a matter of law, would be reported to his school administrator. It is quite an honor for any school to have one of its students accepted to the government school of higher learning. Of course, attendance wasn’t compulsory, but no pumpkin had ever turned down such an opportunity. To attend a school, at no charge, with a virtual guarantee of economic success in only a few years. To do so would be unthinkable.

But that was just what the young pumpkin intended. The feelings he experienced when he was with his new girlfriend were far more wonderful than any ideas of economic success on the other end of a long, boring, ten-year separation from his friends and family.

But how in the world would he tell them?

One day he was moping about down at the park, when one of the elder pumpkins spotted him.

“What’s wrong?”

The young pumpkin explained everything, feeling a strange sense of relief at unloading his problems to a complete stranger. This was the first he’d told anyone of his predicament.

“That is a tough one.” Said the elder.

He paused, and the young pumpkin waited. After a deep breath, the elder turned to him and started.

“Many folks would tell you that young love is fleeting, that it doesn’t last. That you should focus on long term success, rather than short term feelings. That it is an honor and a privilege to be accepted to that school. That you have a duty to your family, to your school, to society to fulfill your destiny, as they’d say. To fulfill your talents. To use your creative gift to give to others what they may not be able to get for themselves.”

This is exactly what the young pumpkin was afraid of, and precisely what he didn’t want to hear.

The elder continued.

“Many will tell you tales of opportunities missed, of dreams that went unfulfilled. And they will tell you that if you do not take this opportunity, you will regret it for the rest of your life.”

The young pumpkin, although depressed beyond measure, was ready to accept his fate. His young mind was no match for such rhetoric from such an old and learned pumpkin.

“But here is one thing they will most assuredly not tell you. Their motives are selfish. They care not for you, but only for their own memories of their own lost opportunities. They see you on the cusp of success, and recall all of their failures. All of the times they could become great, but failed. In you they see their only chance of redemption, if only vicariously.”

The young pumpkin wasn’t sure he understood.

“It is a self perpetuating myth. An idea that isn’t true. They made a choice, and it didn’t turn out very well. So they see you, and by urging you to make the same choice and follow the same, expected path, they are hoping you will heal their wounds. Society is filled with people like that. Telling you what is right. Telling you what should be done. People seek comfort in the conformity of others. It helps them to believe that even if the choices they made didn’t bring them the happiness they expected, they are the common choices, and therefore the right choices.”

“Here is wisdom, young pumpkin. Many will tell you to make your choice based on what you want, and not what others want. But they forget to mention that that can only be done when you accept full responsibility for the outcome of your choice. And never expect others to undo what you’ve done. Ever. Ask yourself one question:

Can I live with it?”

The young pumpkin thought. Thought about ten years of doing things other people wanted him to, followed by who knows how many years doing who knows what. Could he live with that?

Then he thought of his friends, his family, his girlfriend, and the life he would likely lead should he turn down the opportunity of a lifetime.

The decision became lucidly clear. He smiled, and walked home.

How To Love Mistakes And Failures

Are You Afraid Of Trying?

There was this prominent business leader giving an interview on a famous talk show. He had built several large companies, and had enjoyed massive amounts of success with them. It wasn’t always this way. We often make a mistake of perception when we see successful people. We assume that they were always successful, or they have some kind of secret edge that the rest of us don’t’ have. Maybe they were lucky enough to attend a prestigious university, or just enjoyed a string of lucky breaks.

But here’s some news that a lot of us don’t like to hear. A poll was done with successful, independent business owners. And when I say successful, I mean they were making enough money to live a good life, without any financial worries or difficulties. Wondering if they have enough money to buy something is not usually a concern for these people. The poll was to determine exactly how long it took for them to be successful. One question that was asked to help determine this was how many businesses they’d started before they started making serious money. The average answer was over ten.

All these successful people had, in some form or another, started at least ten businesses that ultimately failed before they finally found their niche.

Ten.

The reason I say most of us don’t like to hear this is because most of us are completely terrified, some even to the point of inaction, of the very thought of failure. Trying and failing, for some of us, is our worst nightmare. We imagine some horrible memory from our childhood, often vague and distant, but painful nonetheless. We imagine ourselves a little bit into the future, trying something new, and then suddenly imagining all the horrible things that will happen if we aren’t successful. Then the fear and anxiety kicks in, and we come up with a million reasons, or rather excuses, why we don’t want to try. Most of these excuses are self-delusional. See if you recognize some of the more popular ones:

I don’t have time.
I don’t have enough money.
People from my background (whatever you think that is) can’t do that.
I’m man.
I’m a woman.
I’m (insert your ethnicity here).
As soon as I (insert your lame excuse here) I’ll do that.
I’m going to get started next week.
As soon as I get a raise at work.
As soon as I get a boyfriend/girlfriend/husband/wife/partner.
As soon as I pay off my credit cards.

The bottom line is all these are just excuses to cover the real reason we are afraid of trying. A mistaken belief that we formed before we even learned to speak. Since the first time we cried, and our moms didn’t come and immediately pick us up, we had to come up a reason to fill the cause/effect mechanism in our brains. This belief was created, and ratified thousands of times during the most formative years of our childhood.

I’m not good enough.

The good news is that this is only true if you believe it. If you don’t believe it, and throw it out like the garbage that it is and insert a more empowering belief in its place, that will be just as true.

Then you’ll learn one of the most elusive, deceptive and at the same time most powerful secrets of human development and potential.

Mistakes and failures are the best things you can do to be successful, in anything you try. Instead of seeing “mistakes,” or “failures,” as proof of your erroneously believed inadequacy, you’ll see them for what they truly are.

Feedback from the environment in which you are operating. If you have a clear and solid goal of where you want to go, these mistakes and failures will be the things that keep you on track, and guide you toward you target like a heat seeking missile.

This famous businessperson in the interview was asked as simple question:

“How can I double my success rate?”

The answer was quick, straightforward and simple:

“Double your failure rate.”

The most successful people, in any field, understand this. Every action they take offers feedback. They look at every feedback as a golden opportunity to analyze their actions, compare them to the results that the actions created, and then to go back and modify their actions to get better results the next time around.

When you make this process a habit, success is inevitable. No matter what you are after, with this mindset, you will achieve it. It may take time, and you may not get there in the way that you thought, but you’ll get there.

And for bonus points, you can learn to enjoy the path. For those that have learned to enjoy the journey, as well as the destination, are the happiest people in the world.

They Are Everywhere – And They Know Who You Are

Where Are They Hiding?

I had a friend once that never learned how to ride a bicycle until he was in high school. He never explained why, but I suspect his parents were a bit on the goofy side. They were in this strange religious, or maybe even cult, I’m not sure. Now that I think of it, it probably wasn’t a cult, because he said that he sometimes went to some of the meetings, and sometimes didn’t, and there wasn’t ever any pressure one-way or the other. So I guess it wasn’t cult.

But they did have these really weird views, and they seemed to change from time to time. For a while his parents were on this kick where they bought all these water ion machines. I’m not exactly sure what they did, but they were supposed to somehow “resonate” the water with the earth’s natural magnetic field in order to harmonize with its naturally occurring resources. I’m not even sure if I know what that means.

Another time he told me they literally ate dirt. Not that they would go into their backyard with a spoon and get down on their hands and knees and dig in like on that TV show, but they take dirt, and put it through some sort of high tech ionic sifter that somehow took the vital ingredients that the FDA is covertly removing from our food. Supposedly there is a grand conspiracy going on how the FDA (a secret arm of the covert clandestine operations group) is secretly getting humans ready for the great population decrease.

There is some secret committee comprised of different leaders from various government agencies that was assembled shortly after World War II. These members have been watching the Earth’s population grow, while keeping an eye on our precious resources. Back in the sixties they were faced with a decision. Either get everyone to cooperate and share the resources, or simply get rid of over half the people on Earth.

They tried various projects that were funneled through different third party organizations in the seventies to get people to conserver resources, and go green, and all that, but it didn’t catch. So they began to come up with a plan to get ready to basically slaughter half the people one earth.

Apparently the swine flu vaccine is merely the first wave in this attempt. They are seeing how obedient people will be to take a vaccine. Then in a few years, they will slowly come up with new illnesses, and new vaccines, that people will naturally and eagerly get in line to receive. Then they will introduce various elements into the food and water supply. These elements will combine with antigens developed over years by these “false” vaccines, and create a massive and deadly worldwide epidemic that will basically eliminate two thirds of the world population.

Only those that receive the “real” vaccine, those that are chosen by the government based on their class and social standing will be spared.

Of course, all this information comes from the parents of a guy who didn’t learn how to ride a bike until he was in high school, so the information is highly suspect. I doubt it would even make it as an X-files episode, as it is filled with too many holes and inconsistencies.

It always amazes me the incredibly far-fetched stories that the human mind can easily believe. I was listening to a radio show once and the host described something he called the “Elvis Factor.” This is based on the idea that ten percent of American’s believe that Elvis Presley is alive and well someplace.

But it also means that ten percent of people will believe the weirdest things. Alien abductions, secret chemicals in the water designed to de-testosterone men, even subliminal sexual messages in Disney cartoons. Of course, these all may very well be true.

They also may be false flags to get people used to them, so when the real deception comes, nobody will know.

Or it could all be a huge waste of time to even worry about these things. I suppose discussing secret alien-government conspiracies makes for interesting reading on the Internet when there’s nothing on TV, but when you take all of these theories and look at them objectively, somebody’s got to be full of crap.

The moral of the story is, as always, check the crap that’s in your head. If it is entertaining, and helps you deal with the anxieties and stresses of daily life, then by all means, suit up with your tinfoil hat. But if it gets in the way of getting what you want out of life, dump those ideas and get some new ones. Here’s some to get you started:

  • There is a huge galactic conspiracy for you to get lots of sex
  • There is a secret consortium of businesses designed to make it easy for you to make money, you just have to discover the secret.
  • There is a clandestine group of Aliens from planet Xchylon that are in cahoots to watch you and make sure you don’t make any goofy mistakes, like joining an MLM

I’m sure you can think of others. That is all for now.

You Have More Choice Than You Think

This one or That one?

The other day I was walking down the street, minding my own business. I had forgotten my iPod, so I was just lazily listening to the everyday sounds drifting around as I slowly made my way towards wherever it was that I was going to end up. I wanted to take the train downtown, but since it was Saturday, they only run every hour. I had just missed the last one, so I had an hour to kill.

Eventually, I knew I was going to end up back at the strain station, but between now (which was really then) and then I had an hour to kill, and a couple of internally accepted restrictions.

A word about restrictions. OK, maybe a couple words about restrictions. Basically there are two kinds of restrictions. Internally imposed, and externally imposed. Most of the restrictions are internally imposed. Now, before you click off to another blog describing something easier to stomach, allow me to explain myself.

If somebody points a gun at your head, and says “you’re money or your life,” (Henny Young man jokes notwithstanding) you’d likely see this as an externally imposed restriction. Not entirely. You still have the choice to give the other person your money (which in this day and age may not buy you much), or go simply give him the finger (which would most certainly not lead to a happy ending).

Yea, but that’s stupid. Who would choose death over life? What good is a choice if one of the choices is so incomparably stupid that it doesn’t even count as a choice?

Well, believe it or not, this is an extreme case of a decision, or choice that we make on a daily basis. Most of the time we make our decisions unconsciously, and mostly in line with decisions we’ve made before. We like what’s comfortable, so what we chose yesterday, is most likely what we chose today.

Think of the structure of the gunpoint choice. Choice number one is to remain hold on to your possessions at all cost, hold on to your ego of giving into a mad man, and accept the consequences. Because the consequences are so immediate, and so obvious, it is hard to not feel their weight. So most people would choose (hopefully you’ll never have to make this choice) choice number two, which is go give up your possessions, swallow your pride in hopes of holding that which has suddenly become more important, in the moment at least, than either of them.

Your life.

But what if the choice isn’t so cut and dried? What if the negative implications of a choice aren’t so obvious, and aren’t so immediate? Everybody knows that smoking causes lung cancer, which in turn causes death, but still millions of people still make the choice to smoke a cigarette several times a day.

Why?

The short-term benefits outweigh the potential long-term detriments. For the smoker, the pleasure they get is more than the pain they will experience in the present when considering the long-term downsides.

Now, most people who don’t smoke can’t imagine how anybody could come to this conclusion. It is obvious that smoking causes lung cancer. It is obvious that smoking causes poor health. It is obvious that smoking causes bad breath. So why in the world would anybody choose to smoke?

What about other choices, like to eat ice cream instead of a bowl of oatmeal? Surely we are aware that ice cream is not as healthy as oatmeal, right? Here is where it gets interesting. The way we trick ourselves around this is by saying that “it’s only just this once.” Surely we aren’t planning one eating a bowl of ice cream every single night, right? By telling ourselves that “it’s only this once,” we allow ourselves to significantly minimize any negative feelings we might experience in the moment when considering any long-term downsides.

How many times have you heard a smoker say the say thing?

I’ll quit tomorrow.
This is my last one.
This is the last pack I’m ever going to buy.
After next week I’ll never smoke again.

What about the flip side. We can that by tricking ourselves, we can minimize any future negative consequences of our actions, and making the present moment more enjoyable, regardless of any objective evidence to the contrary.

What about doing something that we know will benefit us in the future, but we don’t do it because it causes negative emotions in the present?

Did you exercise today? Why not? Surely you are aware of the long-term benefits of exercise right? Well, the same mental trickery works here as well. Either in the form of excuses, (to minimize the present negative emotions) and in from of promises about the future.

I’m too busy today.
I have too much to do.
I have a bad hip/shoulder/leg.

I’ll start after the holidays.
I’m going to start next week.

The human brain is a fantastic machine that can use many forms of lightening speed shell games to hide reality from us. We minimize the potential negative outcome to better feel good now. We minimize the future benefits to better feel good now. When we have a gun pointed at our heads, when there is only NOW, all the mental trickery collapse into single choice.

Life, or death.

So what do you choose, life or death? When you decide to smoke, or yell at your husband, or eat a bowl of ice cream, or go to or avoid the gym, how are you tricking yourself? What are you doing to convince yourself that the future won’t be so bad if you keep doing what your doing? How can you convince yourself that you’ll start doing whatever it is you know you should be doing today, tomorrow?

Your life, all of it, is the cumulative result of all the choices you’ve made. If you are completely happy with your life, or completely disgusted, it’s all on you. People that are generally successful and happy realize this, and make changes along the way to improve their lot. Those that are generally unhappy refuse to accept this, and try their whole lives to find blame in somebody else, somebody outside themselves.

Kind of a heavy post to make, but one thing that you will always have and you should always use, is your choice. You can choose. No matter if you have a gun to your head, or a choice between the gym and the TV, you can choose.

So back to my story. My self-imposed restriction was that I wasn’t allowed to buy anything. Because then I’d have to carry it around with me all day after I made my way back to the station. And since it was only ten in the morning, that was too long to be carrying something that I bought on whim.

Unless I see something really cool, then all bets are off.

How To Take Ownership Of Your Emotions

Who’s In Charge Of Your Brain?

I was listening to this lady on a talk show the other day. Apparently she is well known best selling author of several books. I was doing other stuff, so I wasn’t really watching, more like listening in the background. Every time they said something interesting, I would pause momentarily to check this out, as this sounded like something that might be of immediate benefit.

She was talking about setting goals, and other stuff. She had written a book that, at least in my opinion, puts a kind of a new spin on an old idea. That old idea being that while you aren’t in control of much of reality, you are, whether you realize it or not, in complete control of how you respond to your reality.

The one thing she mentioned that grabbed my attention and made me focus on this was that you should claim ownership of all your emotions, and emotional responses. The biggest thing we say to ourselves is “he makes me so … whatever.” As soon as you imagine that somebody else has some kind of magical power over your emotions, you lose. Your emotions suddenly become out of your control and at the whim of every passing stranger you see.

See some guy that reminds you of somebody that broke your heart in high school?

BAM!

You just voluntarily gave up control over your emotions to some stranger on the street. Somebody says something in a tone of voice that reminds you of the way your second grade teacher used to embarrass you in front of the rest of the class?

WHAM!

You just served up your hot button of emotional pain to somebody that wasn’t even thinking about you all that much when they were speaking.

You hand in a report you worked on all week to your boss, and he makes some comment that indicates he is not as appreciative of your efforts as you’d like him to be, causing you to feel resentment, anger, and dangerously close to giving him an attitude that may negatively influence your next review?

SMACK!

You just grabbed the metaphorical loaded gun he was holding out of his hands and shot yourself in the foot with it.

So how do you assume ownership of your emotions? Just like any other response, you need to practice. It helps if you think of things like this not in touch-feely terms that are usually vague and not much help, but more like a sport.

If you’ve never played catch before, you would likely need to practice before you can play catch with somebody, listen to your mp3 player, and watch girls walk by all at the same time. You need to consciously focus on the ball as it is coming at you, and focus on moving your glove to just the right angle, and closing it at just the right time, with the precise amount of force.

It might be a little clumsy at first, but the more you practice, the more automatic it gets.

The same goes with responding to the world. The first step is to simply practice stopping and thinking how to respond in certain situations. Instead of standing there waiting for your emotions to kick in, you can make a choice to quickly observe the situation objectively, and think of the best response. Any emotional response comes only after you brain realizes you don’t have one already prepared, and it looks for the nearest one that may work. Usually this doesn’t work out so well.

Just by getting into the habit of stopping everything, and choosing the best response before you emotions come up, you will generate enormous choice and emotional freedom.

For the boss example. You hand in your report, and he dismisses it as not being good enough. It would be nice to always be given warm fuzzy pats on the back for our efforts, but at work we only get paid for the results. (And truth be told, this is true of most relationships as well.) So instead of getting upset that you didn’t get any props for you hard work, think of it objectively.

Boss asked for report, employee turns in report, report is insufficient. What would be the best course of action? Find out exactly in what areas the report is insufficient, and exactly what would be required to remedy that. And remember that next time your boss asks for a report, be sure to find out exactly, as specifically as possible, what is the intention for the report, what information needs to be in it, what he is actually going to use the report for, how is he going to use it, etc. This can help misunderstandings.

For the guy on the street, well, he’s just on the street. If you see somebody and are getting a funny feeling, stop and ask yourself, “Do I know him? Does he know me?” If the answers are both “no,” then any communication between the two of you is based on a completely random set of circumstances of which you never fully understand. That way you can place no meaning on any interaction at all, and quickly be on your way.

One powerful trick to ask yourself if it’s too late, and you are already angry or hurt at something somebody does, is to ask yourself “Why did I choose to feel hurt, (or angry, or whatever.)” That will give you immense power over your situation.

And if you are interested in reading more about this woman that was on the talk show, her name is Byron Katie, and she’s the author of a book called “The Work,” and lots of other stuff. You can check out here website at:

http://www.thework.com

There’s all kinds of free information, and videos to watch, and worksheets to download to help you get more control and take back ownership of your emotions.

Have fun.

The Paradox Of Choice

Which Do You Choose?

Which would you rather have, a big juicy hamburger, or a cracker with some peanut butter slapped on top? How about a nice two-week relaxing vacation on the beaches of Hawaii versus a free coupon worth on rental from your local video store? Or how about a date with Megan Fox compared to that homeless woman you saw the other day?

These may seem like obviously easy choices. But what about these:

You are standing next to the train tracks. There is a split right where you are standing. There is a train coming. As it stands, the strain is going to veer left. You have access to a switch that can make the train veer right if you flip the switch.
You notice there is a stranded bus filled with school kids on the tracks to the left. If the train continues on its course, it will hit the bus and kill the kids. But to the right, there is one fat guy working on the tracks. If you throw the switch to change tracks, the train will avoid the kids, but it will kill he fat guy.

What do you do?

If you do nothing, a busload of kids will die. If you throw the switch, you will save the kids, but you will be directly responsible for killing some fat guy.

Or how about this:

There is a boatload of kids drifting down a river, about to plunge off a waterfall. You are standing on a bridge. There is the same fat guy walking across the bridge. If you run up and push the fat guy off the bridge, he will hit the boat and diverge it from the waterfall, and save the kids.

What do you do?

Many people polled in various studies would pull the switch in the first scenario, as they see it as an act of saving the kids. But few people would actually run up and push the fat guy off the bridge.

Why?

They (those they people again) did a study where they took some students and had them stick their hands in a bucket of water, and then guess the temperature. Then they had the same students stick their same hands in the same water, but at the same time, they had them stick their other hands in another bucket of water, that was either really hot or really cold. When the other bucket was really hot, they underestimated the temperature of the test bucket. When the water was really cold, they overestimated the temperature of the test bucket.

Or how about this. It is not uncommon for real estate agents to show a potential client a really crappy house in a really crappy neighborhood that is within their stated price range. Then they show them another much better house, in a much better neighborhood that is priced slightly higher than their stated price range.

They’ve found that this works really well to convince them to increase their price limits. By showing them the first house (which is owned and maintained by the real estate company) they effectively make the second house look like a bargain.

Restaurants have also found this trick works really well when selling wine. If they have a bottle (or several bottles) they are trying to unload at, say, fifty dollars a bottle, the wine won’t sell very well if it is the most expensive bottle they have. But they’ve found by adding another bottle, priced at seventy five to a hundred dollars, they increase sales of the fifty dollar bottle significantly. It looks better in comparison.

Our brains don’t’ like to choose in a vacuum. We need to have something to compare our choices to. If the choice is only to buy a bottle of wine or not, we usually will choose not. But if it’s an expensive bottle or a cheaper bottle, we’ll choose the cheaper bottle.

This is a known psychological trick that has been used in sales for many years. We like to feel like we have a choice, like we are smart enough to evaluate those choices and make the best decision that we can. But our short hand thinking process can easily be hijacked by marketers who want to sell us something that we really don’t need.

There is one simple rule to avoid being duped. Simply know going in, before being presented with choices, what is important to you, what price you are willing to spend, and what options you want. And compare everything you see only to your list of options and your acceptable price.

Of course, if you are a marketer, and you are trying to sell something, say online, it would help dramatically to include something similar that is priced significantly higher. That way people will think the real item you have for sale is a bargain and they will be much more likely to buy it.

For example, if you run a product review page, and you are selling item “X” for fifty bucks, try and find a similar item, with only slightly better features, for two hundred bucks. Item “X” will seem like steal in comparison.

Another trick that has been proven very useful in this regard is to include only a little bit of information about the first, more expensive item, and then very detailed information about item “X.” That way, item “X” will not only seem cheaper by comparison, but your potential buyers will feel much more informed, and feel they are making a wise buying decision.

Happy marketing, and don’t push any fat guys off any bridges.

Change Your Filters – Change Your Life

Filters are a very important and necessary part of life. Filters are used in a variety of ways, in a variety of situations. They can be extremely beneficial to sort out what you don’t want, but they can also keep out things that you do want.

Some examples are coffee filters, low bypass filters (used on stereo components, oscilloscopes and computer based audio software), and those pans that old timers used during the gold rush to filter the sludge from the river bed from the gold nuggets they were hoping to find.

Other filters are the filters that are in your brain. When you go to the store for example, if you happen to be a vegetarian, you filter out all of the meat products and focus only on those derived from plants. Or if you like to drink alcohol, and had a particularly painful experience with, say, tequila, then you’ll likely not spend too much time lingering in the tequila section of your local supermarket.

Some filters are completely out of our conscious awareness. One way to do a quick check of the filters that are operating in your head is to simply do a quick inventory of your life. What things do you have? What things are you experiencing on a daily basis? Whatever you have going in your life is a result of your filters. The people, jobs, living conditions, cars, everything you have is a result of a filter of some sort.

The interesting thing is that filters are operating completely below conscious awareness. And they were likely picked up, or learned below conscious awareness as well. Usually from parents, or teachers, we tend to pick up our major beliefs in life without even questioning them.

So how do you go about changing your filters? Practice filtering on a conscious basis. Just like any skill, when you elevate it to the conscious level, you can change it, and drop it back down to the subconscious level where you won’t have to think about it.

Take your golf swing for example, or any other sports related skill. Unless you have taken lessons, or focused on a specific component of it, you likely learned through trial and error. You kept changing your method without much thought, until you got a result that was acceptable to you.

But what happens when you take lessons from a pro? He or she will show you exactly what you are doing wrong, and exactly what to do to correct it. Then you must practice, focusing only on what you are supposed to be doing. This is slow and frustrating at first, but the more you practice, the more it becomes natural. Becoming natural is when your new behavior is slipping back down into unconscious behavior.

Filters work the same way. When you focus specifically on something that you are filtering, you can slowly change the things you filter automatically. Next time you go to a fast food restaurant, watch the people in front of you. They will likely not have any clue what they want to eat until they get to the front of the line. Even then they will usually take some time making a decision. They only know that they are hungry. They have put off sorting through their environment for what they want until the last possible moment.

Next time you go to the supermarket (if you don’t usually do this already) make a mental list in your head of exactly what you want. Get only what you chose, and nothing else. When you are shopping, pretend you are the terminator (from the first movie) where they show him sorting through looking for Sarah Connor. Pretend you are scanning the supermarket to get what you want as efficiently as possible. Don’t waste any time looking over things you are not going to buy.

Believe it or not, this is exactly what your subconscious is doing all the time. Sorting through your environment just like the terminator. When you are not able to make a decision, it is because you haven’t identified what is important to you.

When you make a clear and solid choice exactly what you want before you enter into any situation, you are practicing selecting conscious filters. Another way to practice filtering is go outside for a walk, and see how many red things you can mentally collect.

Most people never take the time to examine their filters and see if they are working for them. They have such vague filters that they end up in relationships that don’t serve them, jobs they don’t like, and life situations that are less than spectacular. By practicing your filtering on a conscious level, you will become more and more skilled.

And the more you practice, the more detailed you can get in your filtering. You’ll be amazed how well this works. Instead of filtering for red things, you’ll be filtering for jobs that pay you good money to do exactly what you want, or life partners that can satisfy you sexually and emotionally in ways you never thought possible. You’ll never again have to “end up” with anything. You can actually choose your life.

How to Avoid Being Manipulated

I was reading this interesting book the other day on the train. It was a really good book, one that I’ve read several times. It’s one of those non-fiction books that is so packed with fascinating information and new ideas that every time you read this you can find something interesting and worthwhile.

The book is The Red Queen, by Matt Ridley. It addresses the issue of the evolution of sex. Why sex? Why are there two sexes, instead of reproduction without the need for two genders? How and why did humans evolve such a big brain compared to all the other mammals? What is so special about us?

The more questions Ridley asks and answers with evidence and theories, the more questions are seemingly brought up.

One interesting paradigm that grabbed my attention was the idea of verbal communication. One of the arguments behind humans huge brains (compared to the rest of the animals) is the evolution of language. What then, was the driving force behind language? What is the purpose of language?

Most people will automatically say to communicate. Ok, so why communicate? Why did those who were able to communicate with words better off than those than weren’t? Monkeys and other apes are still doing fine without the need for exchanging thousands of words on a daily basis.

One reason that was suggested is that the reason for language is to not to simply convey information, but to persuade. Children cry because they want their mothers to perform a certain action. You tell your husband the garage door is open because you want him to perform a certain action. Kids come home from school and shout, “I’m hungry!” because they want their moms to perform a certain action.

Politicians give long and eloquent speeches about health care because they want people, (and other politicians) to perform a certain action.

TV is filled with programs designed to keep you sitting in front of the TV long enough to watch the advertisements, which in turn will do their best in thirty seconds to convince you to perform a certain action (BUY NOW! OPERATORS ARE STANDING BY!)

When you consider that the all of the language that comes out of your mouth, and all of the language that goes into your ears is designed to persuade, then it makes sense that you should learn certain techniques.

Techniques to persuade others, in an ethical, win-win manner, and techniques to guard against the inevitable persuasive messages you hear on a daily basis.

One way to guard against persuasion is to ask yourself “How will I benefit?” and listen for the answers. Be careful, because one powerful way that persuasion works is to convince you that you have a need, when you really don’t.

If, when you ask yourself “What’s in it for me,” the answer is to fulfill a need that was only recently generated, watch out. Somebody is pulling your strings.

The best defense is a good offense. Be clear on what you want, and when you plop down in front of the TV, be clear of your intentions. Passive entertainment is fine, so long as you don’t open your mind to easy manipulation by advertising Jedi knights.

If you have a list of solid goals, both short term and long term, this can be very powerful in resisting temptation. Just ask yourself, when presented with an opportunity, “Will this help me get closer to my goal of…” and listen for the answer. If it does, then by all means, buy that product. But if it doesn’t then be careful.

The unfortunate truth is that most people simply do not have a list of solid goals, so when they hear those persuasive messages, all they have to go on is basic human needs: Food, sex, companionship, feeling appreciated, moving away from pain and toward safety.

These triggers are all too easy to manipulate when you don’t have a solid idea of how you will fulfill them.

When you make a solid decision to figure out a list of powerful goals that you’d like to achieve in life, it will be much harder for you to be persuaded by unethical marketers. Keep that in mind next time you switch on the TV.

Seventy Five or a Hole in One

When I was a kid I had this kit that I bought from Radio Shack. It was a 75 in 1 do it yourself electronic kit. It had a large circuit board, and it had a booklet that showed you how to hook up seventy five different simple electronic circuits from strobe lights, to radio receivers, to lie detectors. It was pretty cool, and most kids had them. They were really popular. The cool thing about them was the way they were designed. You would think that having seventy-five different electronic circuits would have a lot of complex components, but it was actually fairly simple. There was quite a bit of overlap between the circuits, so the whole kit could easily fit inside a small box, much smaller than you’d imagine.

I remember a friend of mine bought a specific golf club once. He had played golf for several years, and for the longest time only had this set of clubs that he’d bought a long time ago, back when he was in high school. For the longest time he never used any other club except for these. Then one day he was invited to play in a tournament at a course that he normally couldn’t afford. His boss knew somebody and he got picked at the last minute. He showed up, with his old inexpensive set of clubs. He was ok at first, but somewhere along the line he got into trouble

On the back nine, he found himself in a particular unique hazard. It was a partial pond, but also a partial heavy grass. He looked into his bag, but he didn’t have a particular club for that shot. After a few moments delay, he finally settled on an eight iron. Not the best club for this, but it worked. For some reason, even though the shot was a good shot, and everybody complimented him on his resourcefulness, he felt a little ashamed of having to pull out an old eight iron into that situation. He’d noticed that all the others around him had all kinds of specific clubs for each particular hazard.

Of course as soon as the tournament was over, he went out and shopped and shopped until he found a club that was designed for that particular hazard in mind. He promptly put it in his bag, where it stayed.

I had this professor in college, a professor of philosophy. Dr. Mclurg at San Diego State, probably one of the most influential professors I’ve ever had. He had a particularly engaging way of arguing. He’d grab your attention, pull it in, and you couldn’t help but to see things from several different perspectives at once. Whenever the class finished, I always felt as if my mind had been irreversibly expanded, and I could never go back to my previous way of thinking. One of the striking things about him was that he almost always wore the same shirt. It was a normal, regular button down shirt, but he seemed to always wear the same one. It was if he had decided that the particular thing you are using, despite whether it’s an article of clothing, or an electronic component, as long as it works, it doesn’t really matter what other people think about that. It’s not like the shirt that you wear is going to affect your philosophical arguing points.

Probably the coolest thing I ever did with my seventy five in one electronic kit was to take the strobe light, which was only set up for the amps and current for a small 1.5 volt bulb, and run the light in my bedroom through the circuit. It created a really cool powerful strobe light. And it actually lasted a few minutes before the whole circuit board caught on fire due to overheating. Probably the best thing about that was, by the time I’d saved up my allowance to buy a replacement kit, the newest version was a 150 in 1 kit. Me and my friends really had a blast with that one, and I managed to not burn down my house in the process.

Last time I saw my friend, I asked him if he’d ever used that club, and of course he said he didn’t. He kept it as a reminder to always make sure he was using things for the right reason, and not because he thought he was supposed to according to what other people supposedly thought.