Category Archives: Conversation Skills

How Often Do You Hallucinate?

One thing that humans have that no other animal has is our large brains.

Sure, all animals have brains, but none have a big brain.

Big compared to our body size.

It’s so big, that we humans are born WAY LESS than fully formed.

Compared to all the other animals, we spend a much higher percentage of our lives in childhood.

Even nowadays, with modern technology, having and raising a kid is a HUGE decision.

Just imagine what it was like back in the caveman days.

Raising kids took just as much time and resources, but it was way more dangerous.

This means our big brains have to have a HUGE benefit.

Just from a calorie standpoint, our brains burn a lot of calories per weight, compared to the rest of our bodies.

But from a hunter-gatherer standpoint, have such resource intensive kids meant that overall, our brains are worth a LOT.

What could the reason be?

Some say tool making.

Some say language.

Some say our brain is the human version of a peacock’s tail.

A tool that signifies sexual health.

Some say it helps us to plan and strategize.

But one skill that covers all these things (tools, language, spitting game, telling stories, planning and strategizing, etc.) is the ability to hallucinate.

Meaning the one “meta skill” our brain does is think about complicated ideas and concepts that DON’T EXIST.

You can get a group of people together to talk about abstract ideas that won’t exist for years.

When they plan buildings, when they come up with movie plots, when we get together to worship or pray.

This all requires being able to think of things that we cannot experience directly.

One could say that how well you can hallucinate will determine how successful you’ll be.

Everything requires some kind of hallucination.

Abstract thinking and planning.

Now, we normally don’t call it “hallucinating,” that’s what crazy people do, right?

But what else would you call planning your career?

Imagining abstract things in the future that haven’t happened yet.

To plan several futures (which what we do with EVERY decision) we HAVE TO hallucinate.

We have to compare various hallucinations to see which one is best.

So if you want to practice the meta-human-skill, practice hallucinating.

How do you do that?

Like This:

NLP Mind Magic

How To Build Secret Shortcuts

Water is relentless.

The Grand Canyon was built by a relentless flow of water.

In the movies, where they are going through the jungle, they have guys hacking away the vegetation with machetes.

This is a quick way to show that they are going where no person has gone before.

Back in the old days of China, they government made sure that all roads were built according to very detailed specifications.

The same with people the made wagons.

The axles had to be built to match the width of the roads, to ensure travel would be effective.

Hunters and trackers know how to spot trails of animals like deer.

If you’ve ever been hiking in a national park, they keep the trails maintained so there is minimal impact on the environment.

Because the trails are maintained, people know where to walk, and where not to walk.

A “duck” is a stack of rocks.

Where the trail is going over somewhere (like rocks or boulders) where the only way to keep people on the trail is to put up these ducks.

So nobody gets lost.

Your brain is filled with neural connections.

Some are well traveled.

In electronic terms, these “well traveled” neural connections have very little resistance.

Like a thick wire.

It is these well traveled paths, these neural connections that make up the thoughts you think every day.

Most people never do anything other than thinking the same thoughts.

Or they try thinking differently once or twice, find that it’s too hard, and then go back to the old way of thinking.

Whenever you think new thoughts, or purposely build new memories, it’s like those guys hacking their way through the jungle with a machete.

It’s slow going and difficult.

It’s much easier to walk on a wide flat road.

But if you walk on the wide flat road (which is metaphorically thinking the same familiar thoughts) you’ll only go where others go.

If you are persistent, and continue hacking your way through to new locations, you can build up some pretty creative ideas.

The more you practice thinking in new and creative ways, the more of those neural paths (trails) you’ll build in your brain.

Do it long enough, and you’ll have a much more resourceful way of thinking.

While everybody else is too scared to leave the main road (in their minds) you will have created your own extensive network of secret paths.

Most people are always looking for a shortcut.

But you can BUILD one inside your brain.

Learn How:

NLP Mind Magic

Avoid The Nutjob Stereotype

The other night I watched a cool horror movie.

About a guy who kidnapped a girl, put her in a cage.

Then he found out the girl was a secret serial killer.

She out-framed him, and from within the cage, talked him into killing somebody.

In the end, she was out, he was in the cage.

Part of the supporting evidence of her being crazy was her journal.

He’d snuck into her apartment and found it.

And in her journal were a bunch of crazy, serial-killer ramblings.

This seems to be a common movie theme.

A way to show the viewer the mind of the crazy dude.

In “Seven,” for example, they found the guy’s journals and they were all filled with crazy ideas about how he’d like to slaughter people.

Perhaps the most famous inner mind ramblings, shown through the writings of the crazy guy was in “The Shining.”

During the whole movie the character was writing his novel.

Then his wife found it, and it had all been one sentence, over and over and over.

“All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.”

This was the big “reveal” when she realized her husband was a nutcase.

Unfortunately, this is a pretty lazy writing technique.

“How can we show the guy’s crazy? I know, we’ll have a character find his journal and it will be filled with crazy ideas!”

But more unfortunately, it kind of gets the idea out there that only “crazy” people write in journals.

In reality, the opposite is true.

By taking the time to write down your thoughts, you make them real.

Any ideas, creative inspirations, even raw data from conversations, is valuable to write down.

ESPECIALLY if you are doing any self improvement work.

Journaling is a fantastic way to develop momentum.

For example, if you are expanding social confidence, it’s a great way to “keep score.”

Write down how many people you made eye contact with, how many you smiled at.

If you don’t write it down, it’s easy to lose your successes in the shuffle of everything else going on in your mind.

But by setting a clear target, taking data, and writing down any ideas to help further progress, you’ll virtually GUARANTEE your forward momentum.

What kinds of things can you improve?

What kinds of things do you want to improve?

Learn More:

NLP Mind Magic

How To Rearrange Your Thoughts

In mathematics, order of operations is essential.

There’s a couple of “math memes” floating around that are based on this.

When you first look at it, it seems simple.

But most everybody gets it wrong.

Because when you have addition, multiplication, and division all in one math problem, it’s important to do them in the right order.

Otherwise you’ll get the wrong answer.

This idea can be found in many places.

For example, if you’re baking a cake, and you do the things in the wrong order, you’ll get a completely different result.

For example, imagine you didn’t try mixing the ingredients until AFTER you cooked them.

If you play around with Photoshop (or any built in photo editing software), then the filters work the same way.

You put three or four filters on a picture in different orders, you’ll get different outcomes.

If you want to learn something, it’s always a good idea to start with the basics.

The foundations.

IF you build a house and forget the foundation, you’ll get into deep trouble.

Once when I was in boy scouts, it was my job to make the pancakes.

Because I put the water in FIRST, and then the powder, I couldn’t fix the mistake of having too much water.

It’s a lot easier if you put the powder in first, and then the water.

The thoughts we think also follow this common “order of operations” rule.

If you take the same thoughts, but put them in a different order, you’ll have much different results.

For example, sometimes people try things, and then think, “Wow, that was easy,” AFTER they do the thing.

But what if you could learn to think that BEFORE you do the thing?

It’s not as simple and switching the order of photo filters, but with practice, you’ll learn that ANYTHING can be easy.

Just figure out how you’d like to think about it, put those thoughts in the right order, and away you go.

Learn More:

NLP Mind Magic

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

Is It Really Sink Or Swim?

Way back in the day, Europeans set out to explore the world.

The idea was pretty simple.

If they went somewhere, found treasure, and brought it back, everybody got rich.

(Of course, how they “obtained” this treasure is another story completely.)

But it presented an interesting economic problem.

If they came back successful, everybody got paid.

But if they never came back, somebody would lose a lot.

The natural, economic response to this were the very first insurance companies.

Lloyd’s of London was one of them.

They idea is that this group of rich guys would “underwrite” a whole bunch of different endeavors.

They would get a percent of the profits of the successful ones, and accept the losses of the unsuccessful ones.

From an individual sailor’s perspective, it must have been pretty exciting.

AND very terrifying.

Success meant riches.

And many of these guys were poor, and getting a job on a ship was their only option.

Many had families.

And failure meant death.

Back in those days, some people took on risk with their lives.

Others took on risk with their fortunes.

Those that were the most successful became very wealthy.

Those that weren’t are likely somewhere at the bottom of the ocean.

Today, we think of risk in a completely different way.

For most of us, risk is mostly imaginary.

It mostly comes in how we express ourselves socially.

The “failure” we fear won’t get us killed.

And most of the time won’t bankrupt us.

Sometimes, even the opposite.

If you are a bit too timid in a job interview, it may COST you money.

Whereas the people that are the most socially fearless, and seemingly take the most risk, get the most rewards.

Way back in the day, if you took too much risk, you’d end up dead.

Today, the only risks are emotional.

It’s almost backwards.

The more you risk, the more you get.

At least in theory.

But reality is a bit different.

If you operate PAST your point of comfort, the fear (even if they are imaginary) will inhibit your behavior.

It’s like our social fears are like a kind of thermostat, that regulate our behavior.

It would make sense that if we could find a way to RE-SET our “risk settings” we could be more socially outgoing, and get more rewards.

Some say that we need to “fake it till we make it.”

Others say to “feel the fear and do it anyway.”

Those are both terrible strategies.

There is a much easier way.

To safely and mentally re-adjust your “risk” settings.

So you can slowly do more, without ever feeling any anxiety.

Learn How:

Ego Taming

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

How Much Brain Do You Need?

Some studies indicate that as little as 5% of our actions are the RESULT of our conscious thinking.

By using positronic emissions, they can measure the different areas of the brain.

See which areas light up when we do things.

And in most cases, the conscious part of our brain is the LAST to find out what’s happening.

Curiously, they think the main purpose of our conscious brain is to create a story about why we do things.

We act mostly emotionally and reactively.

But then we make up a story of why we’re doing what we’re doing.

It’s hard to accept, but every time they do this experiment, they get the same results.

So what about that five percent?

That five percent when we actually CHOOSE what we do?

Perhaps that five percent is supposed to be used to we can CHOOSE how we practice.

So that when we “react” to the stimuli around us, we can behave better.

On one level, it makes sense.

Most everything we do is driven by instincts.

We can’t choose what food we like.

We can’t choose when we are hungry or sleepy.

We can’t choose who causes us to feel sexual desire.

But maybe we can.

Maybe we can’t choose in the moment, but we can use that 5% to slowly change how we respond.

Kind of like training for martial arts.

You train enough, and you have a whole new set of responses.

All of them are JUST as fast as instincts.

But they are much more powerful and effective instincts.

You can train your thinking and speaking just as easily as you can train your physical responses.

Perhaps that five percent is really all we need to “watch over” our instinctive minds, to make sure the responses are what we want.

If not, we can use that five percent to re-calibrate our automatic responses.

And then get back to enjoying life.

After all, if you want to change how you behave in the moment, you need to change how you practice.

Professional athletes, musicians, speakers and artists know this.

Why not give it a try?

Learn How:

Ego Taming

James Bond And The Russians

I used to love reading Tom Clancy.

One of my favorites was “Hunt for Red October.”

In part because it reminded me of a Star Trek episode.

Where Captain Kirk and his crew were following the Romulans.

They had just discovered their “cloaking device.”

So it was a cool game of cat and mouse.

Very much like the fictional Red October.

They’d developed a super-secret engine that didn’t give them any sound.

So it was hard for the Americans to track them.

Just like the Romulans.

One of the coolest parts was when the Russians (Whose captain was the original James Bond) had to try and “hide” through a bunch of undersea canyons.

These canyons were deep in the ocean, and because they knew they were being tracked, they couldn’t use any techniques to figure out where the canyon walls were.

So they had a big map, and a stopwatch.

They were completely going blind.

They knew the precise layout of these undersea canyons.

They knew their speed, and they knew the time.

So without being able to actually measure where they were, they had to use basic math to CALCULATE where they were.

One miscalculation and they’d crash into the canyon walls.

This is a fantastic metaphor for our conscious and unconscious minds.

Normally, our unconscious keeps us on track.

It literally MAKES us do stuff that keep us alive.

If we had to CALCULATE (like they were doing in the movie) how much we should eat, how long we should sleep, WHEN we should feel afraid, etc., it would be impossible.

Much like in the movie, whenever we use our conscious minds to control stuff, it takes a lot of effort and focus.

And unlike the Russians (and James Bond) we usually screw it up.

This is what they mean when they say, “get out of your own way.”

One of the problems is that our instincts are calibrated for an old way of living.

A way we don’t live any more.

Pretty much EVERYTHING is different.

But our instincts, our internal guidance system, doesn’t know.

Which is why we keep “crashing.”

Of course, in modern times, “crashing” means feeling fear when we really shouldn’t.

It’s like we’re driving in wide open areas, but our instincts are screaming that we are about to crash into canyon walls that don’t exist.

As a result, we move through life VERY SLOWLY and carefully.

But if you can RE-CALIBRATE those instincts, you can jam as fast as you can.

No stopwatch and map required.

Learn How:

Ego Taming

Things You Can’t Not Do

It’s a common idea in NLP that you can’t “not” communicate.

Meaning you are always sending out signals.

Your mood is reflected in your posture, facial expressions, body language, etc.

If you’re trying to sell a product to somebody (or impress a girl) they don’t have to say a single word, yet you’d know whether you’re on the right track or not.

If they just glared at you with their arms crossed, you’d know you were getting nowhere.

On the other hand, if they had a smile on their face, and nodded appropriately (and their pupils were dilated) you’d know you were golden.

But there are a lot of there things we humans can’t “not” do.

One of them is exchange.

Every breath in is to exchange oxygen for carbon dioxide and vice versa.

Every time you shift in your seat you are trading you present state for a slighter better future state.

And every action COSTS some energy.

As biological entities, we are driven to always CONSUME energy, and always SPEND energy.

In that sense, we’re just like a young couple buying their first home.

We want to get the best return for the least effort.

Another thing that is ALWAYS happening is we have an unlimited amount of internal desires.

We’ve always got one or two at the top of the list.

Sometimes it’s a simple as finding a toilet.

Other times it’s as important as convincing the guy in front of us to hire us instead of any of other goofs outside the office.

When the magic happens is when humans interact.

When somebody else has something that satisfies OUR desire.

And we happen to have something that satisfies THEIR desire.

This can be two kids trading cookies on the playground.

Or it could be two future business partners sharing overlapping ideas and dreams of a future billion dollar company.

This concept has been going on as long as there have been people.

It is unstoppable.

It is uncontainable.

It is who we are.

The more you get in game, the more money you’ll make.

All you need to do is maximize your nature.

That which is ALREADY inside you.

Learn How:

Wealth Tuning

Mind Persuasion Archives

Reframing Common Ideas

Category Archives: Conversation Skills

How Often Do You Hallucinate?

How To Build Secret Shortcuts

Avoid The Nutjob Stereotype

How To Rearrange Your Thoughts

Engineer Your Thought Structure

Is It Really Sink Or Swim?

Embrace The Collective Unconscious

How Much Brain Do You Need?

James Bond And The Russians

Things You Can’t Not Do