Category Archives: Confidence

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

Vibe With The Crowd

Embrace The Collective Unconscious

There’s a famous movie called, “The Hustler,” with Paul Newman.

It was later remade, and called “The Color of Money,” with Tom Cruise.

It was about a pool shark.

In the original, there was a very cool scene where the hero was having a picnic with his girl.

He was complaining about his life.

About how he hadn’t accomplished much.

How he always had to scrape for money, and never really could hold on it.

He was comparing himself to all the rich guys he played against.

How they had much better lives, families, relationships.

But then he described what it was like to play pool.

How all the worries and stressed evaporated.

He described with Zen-like beauty.

How the pool cue became part of his arm, and the balls were an extension of his thoughts.

His girlfriend noticed, and sat up.

She told him that because of that experience, that he was a “winner,” not a loser like he thought of himself.

That he had a great gift, one that men had sought for ages.

The magical state of “flow,” where there is zero resistance between thoughts, actions, and outcomes.

Sports psychologists study this their entire careers.

Athletes chase this experience like heroin addicts chase the dragon.

This state is accessible to anybody.

It’s not what you DO, but what you don’t do.

When you can shut off that inner critic, get out of your own way, and jump into the never ending flow of life.

The infinite unfolding of history.

It’s very easy to trip over our own feet.

To stand on the sidelines and try to “think” our way through.

But if you are willing to “let go” just for a little bit, you’ll enjoy the ride of your life.

This is our natural state.

Before we surrounded ourselves with electronics and fake social signals and TV shows filled with imaginary characters that are all competing for our attention.

Consider leaving your home for a few hours.

No device, nothing electronic.

Not even music.

And just walk among a crowd.

Notice the energy.

Defocus your eyes and your brain, and tap back into the collective unconscious.

Open your mind and feel the crowd as one.

This is who you REALLY are.

Learn More:

Ego Taming

Keep Going Baby

Fine Tuned Mental Calibration

Everybody knows about goals.

It’s one of those things that we all know we should have.

But few people take the time to create them.

There’s plenty of studies that show those with goals tend to do better than those without.

A famous study of Harvard graduates detailed this.

They tracked a graduating class for a few decades.

The people who had written goals did much better than those who didn’t.

On one level, it makes perfect sense.

To be successful without goals means you have to get lucky.

Meaning you just kind of stumble forward, not really knowing what you are doing.

Funny thing is, that many people who are successful did just this.

They just kept moving forward.

They had a vague idea of what they were doing.

Maybe a certain kind of business idea.

Or musical or athletic talent.

They just followed their instincts, and they were driven forward by their rewards.

When athletes win a game, it feels good.

This good feeling motivates them to get better, so they can get more of that good feeling.

Similarly, those who enjoy massive business success followed the same strategy.

They create an invention, and make a little bit of money.

Making that money gives them a good feeling, which motivates.

They keep doing whatever they did, so they can keep inventing stuff and making money.

In reality, it’s impossible to NOT have goals.

It’s just that very few people take the process and move it up to the conscious level.

Most business, scientific, and artistic success stories all follow the same strategy.

They have a certain set of skills.

They express their skills and in return get a positive emotional feeling.

They realize (consciously or unconsciously) that improving their skills will get them more of that positive emotional feeling.

For them, the money they get is important, but only as a byproduct.

For them, the money is EVIDENCE that what they are doing is valuable to people.

It’s one thing to come up with a goofy invention in your garage.

It’s something else completely to get people eagerly handing over their money so you will build one for them.

In this situation, the money is EVIDENCE that your skills are valuable to the world.

That the world appreciates your time and effort and thinking.

This is exactly why we have so much stuff now, when only a few hundred years ago there was only the very basics.

To maximize your participation, it’s a matter of calibrating your mind.

Of finding that proper alignment between your skills, the needs of the world, and the stream of income that connects the two.

Learn More:

Wealth Tuning

One For The Road

Be The Man With No Name

We all love super hero movies.

Even if they aren’t in costumes or call themselves “heroes” we love the idea of good guys and bad guys.

A decade or so ago, Clint Eastwood was receiving some kind of lifetime achievement award.

So they had a lot of celebrities giving speeches and making jokes.

I remember Jim Carrey’s speech.

He said when he was a kid, he loved the “spaghetti westerns.”

Mostly about a bad ass cowboy with no name.

The reason, Carrey explained, that we love the common “hero with no name” archetype is because it makes it easier for us to imagine that WE are the hero.

Some hero’s need to go through intense character arcs, others not so much.

But the idea of “good” and “evil” is very ancient.

Lots of philosophies and religions try to describe it, explain it, but so far, none have done so with much success.

That evil exists is about all they can agree on.

And like plenty of the characters in those movies, there are many ways to deal with evil.

The reason we LOVE seeing the hero destroy the bad guy is that we would love to, but most of us just run in the other direction.

When normal people DO step in and stop bad things from happening, EVERYBODY is quick to call them a hero.

Everybody loves the guy or girl who can stick up for those who can’t defend themselves.

Does this mean you need to practice in your dojo for an hour a day and carry a Glock 19 everywhere?

That’s certainly an option, but it’s not the only option.

And it would only work in certain situations.

Where you need to defend yourself physically.

Unfortunately, plenty of “evil” attacks don’t come in physical from.

They come very subtly.

Hidden between the surface structure words.

When they are directed at you, it hurts, but you don’t know why.

It’s like they are punching in the face with an invisible hand.

You can, however, practice in the dojo of your mind.

And develop extremely wicked linguistic self defense skills.

You can avoid the punches.

You can block the punches.

Or you can punch back.

With as much mental devastation as you like.

Learn More:

Weaponized Hypnosis

Beware

Don’t Be A One Trick Pony

Some skills are transferable, while others aren’t.

Michael Jordan showed this when he tried to play baseball.

Arguably one of the greatest basketball players of all time, he absolutely sucked at baseball.

Barely could hold his own in AA minor leagues.

No doubt he was a gifted athlete.

But his gifts were only good in one very specialized area.

Exercise in general is a good metaphor for life skills.

Bodybuilders, for example, work out to create a FORM.

Where athletes, on the other hand, work out to create FUNCTION.

In many areas, form follows function, and function follows form.

If you’re happy, you’ll smile.

If you are sad and FORCE yourself to walk around with a goofy grin on your face, you will put yourself in a good mood.

The smile (form) creates the function (happiness).

And the happiness (function) creates the form (smile).

But athletes that work out for function reasons (like baseball and football players) don’t always have good FORM (not form of play, but form of appearance).

Some lineman for example, are not exactly svelte.

On the other hand, a world class bodybuilder that has 0.2% body fat and looks like a Greek sculpture, probably couldn’t play any sport to save his life.

One famous athlete that had both form AND function was Bruce Lee.

A world class fighter, but also a very impressive form.

In some cases, form and function are very tightly related.

Generally speaking, anything like martial arts where you train your body to be used in a WIDE VARIETY of ways is going to increase the connection between form and function.

Linemen, on the other hand, only need short bursts of explosive strength.

Skilled martial artists need speed, strength, agility, stamina and flexibility.

It’s very hard to create all that function without creating impressive form.

Language is the same way.

When you develop your language to be used defensively, you’re guaranteed to get tons of secondary benefits.

Benefits that can help you make money and build relationships.

After all, skills are skills.

And the more areas in which you can practice using them, the more flexible your skills will be.

Most martial artist never intend on getting into a street fight.

But they aren’t afraid of them either.

You can use your words the same way.

To win hearts and clients, or to destroy minds.

Giving you a MASSIVE range of confidence.

Learn More:

Weaponized Hypnosis

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

Merging Brains

Whose Thoughts Do You Think?

Our brains are like sponges when we are born.

The reason is that humans need a lot of time outside the womb before we are fully developed.

So when we are born, we are only “half baked.”

Most people know this, at least intuitively.

Few people remember much from early childhood.

And the idea that whatever we are taught in early childhood is believed pretty strongly throughout our lives.

Few people change religions or political parties as they age.

However, when it comes time to learn as adults, we believe that it’s harder as an adult than as a kid.

We have this idea that kids can soak up stuff pretty quickly, but adults have a harder time.

This is a very dangerous thought, for a couple of reasons.

The common recognition of the danger of this thought is that if you think it’s hard to learn as an adult, you won’t make the effort.

And that you have this massive learning capacity that you aren’t utilizing.

This is absolutely true, but there is another facet of this erroneous belief that is FAR MORE dangerous.

We assume that as children, we “soak up” ideas easily and effortlessly.

And as adults, we lose that ability.

But what if we really don’t?

What if we STILL soak up ideas and beliefs just as easily and unconsciously?

This is a scary thought.

Because we are bombarded all day by ideas and messages.

Many of which are VERY DANGEROUS.

For example, a lot of the ads that blast our brains come at night when we’re watching TV.

When we are LEAST RESISTANT.

Who pays for seventy percent of TV ads?

Drug companies.

Do you want THEM putting ideas in your head?

Consider that your brain is just as open as it is today, as it was when you were a kid.

Think of all the ideas and messages and random things people are saying all around you.

When you are alone, and you’re having a random stream of thoughts, WHOSE thoughts are those?

Even if they are yours, it’s hard to get around the idea that they are HEAVILY influenced by messages.

Many of which (TV ads and political slogans) that were carefully crafted to GET PAST your conscious resistance.

How do you avoid thinking thoughts others have put in your mind?

The only way to get rid of ONE thought is to REPLACE it with another.

And the best way to hold that new thought is make sure it is pointing somewhere specific.

Something YOU would like in YOUR life based on YOUR decisions.

Focus on THAT target, and make sure to keep moving toward it.

Take data, and ensure you are getting closer.

This will give you objective evidence that those thoughts are yours.

AND it will give you an easy way to RESIST those other ideas.

Just as the simple question.

Do they help you get closer to your goal, or not?

So long as your goal is yours, your life and your thoughts will be yours as well.

Get Started:

Seven Disciplines

Only She Knows What's Really Up

Are They Stealing Your Future?

There’s a somewhat common scene in comedies.

Often it’s when one guy is trying to poison another guy.

The guy suspects he’s being poisoned, and switches glasses.

But then he wonders if the other guy knew he would do that, and put the poison in his own glass.

So the guy switches back.

But then he wonders if the other guy anticipated THAT as well, and switches them back again.

There are other ways of presenting this slapstick style comedy.

Out-anticipating the other guy who is also trying to out-out-anticipate the first guy.

I know you know, but do you know that I know you know I know?

Despite how goofy this over-used routine is, most people rarely plan ahead.

And unfortunately, the powers that be like it that way.

Politicians and advertisers don’t like it when we are capable of thinking into the future and making rational choices.

Often times short term choices will add up to long term detriments.

But if we carefully plan our short term choices, so they add up to long term benefits, we can live longer, happier, more resourceful lives.

However, if we choose wisely, instead of impulsively, idiot politicians won’t get our votes and manipulative advertisers won’t get our money.

Here’s an interesting mind experiment to do next time you are shopping.

Imagine two ways of buying stuff.

One way is you’re carrying around your life savings in cash.

And not just cash, but silver. Like in the old westerns.

And every time you decided to buy something, you could physically feel your life savings get a little bit lighter.

The second way is the way we commonly buy stuff.

Even when paying with cash, it doesn’t feel like it.

Everything’s direct deposited and debited.

But if you actually felt your savings decrease by spending silver, you might think twice before deciding to buy something.

Of course, it feels good to buy stuff.

Especially when the cost is minimized. Swiping a plastic card and then getting a real thing, especially when a cute sales clerk smiles and says, “Thanks!” is a good feeling.

But whatever choices you DO make, they add up.

The billion dollar question is WHO are they adding up for?

Your benefit, or somebody else’s?

Fortunately, making tiny shifts in your daily behaviors WILL add up to a MASSIVE future.

Paradoxically, to create a big future with healthy happy relationships, you don’t need to do extraordinary things.

Just do very simple, very small things.

Do them every day.

And slowly take back your future.

Get Started:

Seven Disciplines