Category Archives: Relationships

Nature Or Nurture?

Peer Pressure

I just finished reading this fascinating book by Steven Pinker called “The Blank Slate.” In it he challenges the popular notion that people are blank slates when we are born, and are easily shaped by our environment, parent, religious upbringing and childhood. It’s a fairly controversial idea, as many people think that the idea of people coming into the world with some kind of pre set nature will lead to discrimination, or something like eugenics, (or worse, nazism) which was all the rage at the beginning of the last century.

He touched on several hot button topics in the book, ranging from politics to race to feminism. Most of his points were well argued, and he had plenty of data to back up his claims.

One hot button topic he spoke about at length was the influencing factors that contribute to an individual’s behavior. There’s always been the old “nurture vs. nature” debate. Are we the way we are because of our genes, or because of our environment? The answer, according to a growing number of social scientists is both, which makes sense. Our collection of behaviors as adults is due more or less to fifty percent genetics, and fifty percent environment. Of course some behaviors will be influenced much more than others than environment, so not every individual behavior is fifty-fifty. But taken collectively, our general behaviors, beliefs, ideas, and personalities all mashed into who we are (or who we think we are) is roughly fifty percent from our genes, and fifty percent from our environment.

But the shocking part (for some) is the particular environment that we are shaped from. When they say fifty percent of our behaviors are due to our environment, they are referring to our non-family environment. That means our behavior is determined much more by our peers than our parents. Who we are has nothing to do with how we were raised, by how we related to our friends and our peer groups growing up. What roles we played in the group, whether they were a positive influence, or a negative influence.

Study after study after study, involving twins raised together, twins raised apart, adopted kids raised in the same family, non twin siblings raised together, and raised apart bear this out.

This makes sense when you consider the social influence factors described by Cialdini in “Influence, Science and Practice.” Two of the biggest factors of influence are authority, and social proof. Authority is pretty much anybody who knows what they’re talking about, and is generally respected as such by those that he or she is talking to. Social proof is simply going along with the crowd. Of course, these two can powerfully work together, as authority of any one person can be greatly enhanced by social proof.

Anyone who studies covert language and hypnosis for sales or seduction knows one of the key skills to have is to gain rapport with your target before persuading them. By gaining rapport, you show that you are one of them. You are part of their social group. But gaining rapport is only the beginning. You’ve got to not only pace, but eventually you’ve got to start to lead if you want them buying your product. You’ve got to convince them that you are an authority in their world enough so they’ll feel comfortable buying your product, or doing whatever else it is you want them to do.

And if you’re a kid growing up, who do you have the most rapport with? Your parents? Your teachers? Or your friends? And who them, has the most authority in your world? You may fear punishment by your parents or teachers, or you may crave the rewards, both emotional and otherwise, from your parents and teachers, but he “leaders” in your peer group have the most juice when it comes to real authority. If you’re a parent, you how seemingly impossible to fight peer pressure. Often times a threat of severe punishment is the only way to persuade. And if you’re in sales, using a threat of punishment in order to persuade somebody usually doesn’t work so well.

In NLP, there are a lot of procedures to change behaviors based on re engineering your past. There’s even a procedure called “Perfect Parents.” It’s a popular notion that if you are “messed up” as an adult it’s due in large part to your parents not doing such a great job bringing you up. But what if the most influence your parents had on you was by giving you their genes? What if those that influenced you the most were the kids you hung out with while growing up?

All those procedures in NLP to change the way your parents brought you up may actually be barking up the wrong tree. It may be helpful to reengineer your historical peer group, or our place in your peer group next time you try on a different history to see how it affects you present.

When trying to learn a new skill, it can help to remember times in your past where you exhibited some aspect of that skill while you were with your friends, and there weren’t any adults around.

These ideas may turn out to be completely full of holes, but at least you’ll gain some flexibility when looking into your past to understand your behaviors and beliefs in the present. And as a general rule, the more flexible you are, the easier it will be to come up to a solution to any problem that may come up, and a way to conquer whatever obstacles you may be dealing with.

It’s a sad truth that many adults carry around a deep resentment for something their parents did to them, or didn’t do to them when they were kids. But it may turn out that whatever they did, or didn’t do, has no impact whatsoever on your life today. Anyone harboring any deep-seated resentment for their parents would do well to remember the words of Nelson Mandela:

“If you hold a grudge, it’s like drinking poison and hoping the other person dies.”

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Success with NLP

Success with NLP

Why You Should Never Stop Learning

How To Maximize Your Success In Anything You Want To Do

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Who is Chasing Whom?

The other day I was sitting in the lobby of a movie theater. I had messed up when I checked the times on the Internet, so when I got there I had about an hour to kill before the movie started. Because I had expected to get there just before the movie was about to start, and I had planned to come home directly afterwards, I didn’t bring a book or anything else to work on in the meantime.

Usually when I see movie, I usually plan it so that I miss the opening trailers. Depending on how many there are, they can take up to ten minutes. And I don’t know about you, but I love popcorn. Especially movie popcorn. And it if I go into the theater before the trailers even start, it takes an extraordinary amount of willpower to NOT eat the popcorn during the trailers.

This time however, I was very early. The theater had several tables set up in the lobby, supposedly for idiots like me who can’t read an Internet movie timetable correctly. So I decided to watch people, which is something I sometimes like to do. People are interesting because they can be like a moving, walking breathing mirror into your soul. Like those ink blot tests, where you look at a smudge of ink and say whether it looks like a butterfly or a blender full of screaming babies, based your level of psychological depravity.

People can work the same way. If you are having a bad day, and you got into a big fight with your girlfriend or boyfriend on the way to the “insufficient funds” flashing ATM, you’d likely not see too many happy, smiling carefree people. You’d likely only spot the people that match your mood. And if you did see happy people that seemed to be enjoying life, you’d like wonder what was wrong with them.

On the flip side, if you just finished an hour-long sexual marathon filled with several orgasms, and forgot about that ten thousand dollar bonus that was direct deposited into your account, you’d likely see a world filled with happiness and pleasure. Any smiling people you saw would likely make you even happier, as they were validating your current viewpoint. Those sourpusses you ran into would likely receive your sympathy and compassion.

So there I was, sitting there, watching people. I was in a fairly neutral mood, not extraordinary happy, nor manic-depressive, so I was able to watch people with kind of an objective curiosity.

One thing that struck me was how obvious it appeared to see how some couples were happy together, and some seemed to be going through the motions. Even watching how some people were holding hands was interesting. There was usually one partner that was more invested in the holding of the hands than the other partner. One partner was doing most of the holding, and the other partner was simply offering their hand to be held.

And the partner doing most of the holding seemed to be a bit apprehensive and uncertain, while the partner merely offering their hand looked a bit bored.

It reminded me of a scene in the latest M. Night Shyamalan move “Happening,” where a couple was sitting at a dinner table with a strange old lady. After a few moments of observation, she asked the couple who was chasing whom. When they looked at her questioningly, she explained that in all relationships, one person is always doing the chasing, and one person is doing the attracting.

It seemed clear from just watching how couples were holding hands who was chasing whom, and who was being chased. Sometimes people like to be chased, and do specific things to entice the chaser. Other times the person being chased gets bored, and wishes the chaser would go and chase somebody else.

And I don’t know about you, but I’ve been in both situations. I’ve chased, and I’ve been chased. Both have their benefits and drawbacks. Chasing is fantastic if you feel you have a good chance of catching your prey. Being chased is wonderful if you really want to be caught.

But chasing something or someone you know on some level that you can never catch is really depressing. And being chased relentlessly by someone you wish would go away is sometimes even worse.

Sometimes there is much fun to be had in just the chase, because once you catch your prey, you realize that chasing was more fun.

I did see a few couples that seemed to be equally into each other. I suppose they were chasing each other, and caught each other, and then decided to chase something together.

Choose Your Own Criteria

There is a new bookstore in my town I’m just dying to go to this weekend when I get a chance. It’s on the other side of town, so I’m going to have to make a day of it. It is four stories, and has an Internet café on the fourth floor. Internet café’s in Japan are really cool. Not only do you get the Internet, but also you get free drinks (non alcoholic), a nice comfortable leather chair, and a semi private space to do whatever you please. They even have huge racks of comic books that you can read if that is your thing. But one of the reason’s I’m particularly interested in this book store is they built it next door to a coffee shop, and I heard they knocked down the wall between the coffee shop and the bookstore, so customers can kind of go to two shops in one. It’s great when you find that some things just go together.

Like some people are just a perfect match for each other. I’m you know several couples that you just couldn’t picture except with each other, like they’ve known each other for many many lifetimes. And the funny thing is, is that they are both similar in many ways and different in many ways. Like God somehow picked them specifically to be with each other. Some people fit together like a simple jigsaw puzzle, but an old one that is kind of bent and faded. It’s easy to get the pieces to match, but they fall apart quickly, and it doesn’t take long to hook them up. Others are like those really complicated brain puzzles you find where it takes almost forever to see how they fit, but when they finally fit together, it suddenly becomes obvious. And they don’t want to separate, because they don’t want to go through the hassle of being put back together again.

Other puzzles are the trick ones that magicians use in their magic acts. They look like there is no way they could fit together, but with a magic flick of his wand, they suddenly become inseparable. These of course, are only built to look like they are connected, and even though everybody knows on some level that they aren’t really connected; they kind of play along and make believe they are connected. Nobody wants to be the guy that stands up and reveals how the trick is done. That can ruin it for everybody.

Then there are those once in a while situations that you come across. Like when you see a cat and a dog hanging out together. Maybe their owner had them since they were a puppy and a kitten, or maybe the dog is suffering some midlife crisis and he thinks he is a cat, but there they are. Natures sworn enemies have somehow decided that it doesn’t matter if they are supposed to be enemies, if they want to hang out together, they are going to hang out together. They don’t care what anybody says. They have found the secret of being able to create your own happiness without being dependent on the opinions of others. Who knows, maybe many animals, dogs and cats, lions and zebras, cobras and mongooses try and be friends with each other, only to find out how powerful peer pressure is, and fall back into the roles that their respective societies have chosen for them, and give up on being able to think for yourself, so you can define your own criteria for happiness.

Which is why I am looking forward to going to that bookstore. It is not a mainstream bookstore, and it is kind of on a small side street, so it won’t likely be very crowded. One thing I like to avoid is large crowds. There is nothing better than discovering some really cool like this, and sharing it with your friends.

The Thunderbolt Comes for YOU

Have you ever had an experience that you just had to tell somebody about? Like you just experienced something incredible, but you are by yourself, so you can’t wait to share this with somebody that you know would really appreciate this? Not just anybody, a close friend, somebody who you’ve shared many similar experiences and stories, maybe somebody you grew up with, or maybe somebody you just met recently that you just click, that when you think about this person you think that you are really close. When was that last time something like happened?

Well, it happened to me recently. It was incredible. I didn’t have my phone with me, and the only person I could think of to share it with lived in a different country, so I had to rush home to email them, and send them the pictures I’d taken of this incredible event. So I was rushing home, and then I bumped into another friend.

Now this suddenly turned into an awkward situation. Because the guy I bumped into wasn’t quite a close enough friend to share my experience with, but he was close enough to not just say “hi” quickly to and then go on my way. And he was close enough that he could tell I was excited about something, I could to tell that he could tell, you know? So we chatted for a while, and one thing led to another, and we were having lunch at this restaurant. It was one of those restaurants where you can tell them at the front it’s our birthday, and they’ll come over and sing this goofy happy birthday song, which they’ve kind of morphed into a singing pitch for their restaurant. I guess because the restaurant is on a busy pedestrian sidewalk, they are kind of hoping to make people feel really excited about the atmosphere and want to come inside to find out more. But after the birthday singing stopped, my friend started telling me about his dilemma.

A competitor from back was heavily recruiting him east. It would give him a huge pay raise, and lots of increased authority, and he would actually have several people reporting directly to him. It sounded like a no brainer, until he told me that he was in love. And you know how much love throws a monkey wrench into life. It’s almost as if Cupid waits around until your life is almost perfect, and then shoots one of those magic arrows right up your you know what, and suddenly everything is confusing. I believe Michael Corleone described it as a thunderbolt.

Its like money suddenly loses its value, the house you live in suddenly loses its value, your job, and your clothes suddenly lose their value. All you care about is this person who you feel these feelings for. Those wonderful feelings that swirl through your head and make all the colors around you brighter, and all the sounds more pleasant, and all the people suddenly having goofy smiles on their faces.

As my friend was explaining his dilemma, the obvious solution was to simply take his girl with him to his new job.

“It’s not that simple,” he said.
“Why not?” I asked.

He said that they were at “that stage.” You know what I’m talking about. That beginning stage where you know that you really like each other, but you don’t know exactly when and how and how much, your heads are both swirling in a cloud. You are kind of afraid to put a label on it, or limitations for fear that it might get scared and run away. So you just hope that it grows on its own, hope that it flourishes and becomes strong enough to swoop you both into the bliss of an unknown future.

I asked him when he was going to make his decisions. He just shook his head, smiled and said that he’d already made it.

Oh well, I thought. Good for him. I had to hurry up and get home and email my friend before I lost my excitement.

Cultivate and Express Creativity

I bumped into a friend of mine the other day a coffee shop downtown. It’s one of those laid back independent coffee shops that takes pride in their individuality. They have several nights of various forms of “community entertainment.” Usually some kind of musical performance by budding artists. It’s always interesting to go there, and see people who can really put themselves out there. Although there never really is a lot of people, I always admire the people who come and give their all for the few fans that do turn out.

My friend was telling me about her roommate. She had been working at a design company for the last several years. She’d started as an intern, and worked her way up to a junior designer position. She was kind of worried because her company, which was a small independent one, not unlike the coffee shop, was going to be bought out by a national chain. Now I’m not too aware of the goings on in the design business, so I didn’t want to appear foolish by asking my friend a bunch of naïve sounding questions.

I asked her why she got into the business in the first place, and she said that she had always liked to be creative. When asked if she’d still be able to express her creativity once the new company took over, she said that it was likely that she would. She described how important it was for her to express her creativity.

She went on to describe how creativity is one of the greatest achievements of humankind. When people lose their creativity, and begin to go through life doing the same thing day after day, they can become depressed. The secret is to find ways to express yourself in ways that honor your creative self. Find ways to think in new directions that can help you to stay energized as you move through an otherwise normal life. She told me how important it is to spend a few minutes each day doing something that can exercise your mind, even for only a few minutes. That is the secret to happiness. Exercising your mind in those ways that you know are right for you.

So we both decided that her roommate would likely keep her job, given her track record at the design company. And even then, we weren’t sure what was going to happen, as the impending buyout was nothing more than a rumor at that point. Another thing we decided was that living your life based on rumors and imaginations about the future never really got anybody anyplace.

And the particular band, actually it was two guys with acoustic guitars, was pretty good. They sang a few old covers and a couple of original songs. I think it’s great that there are still people that can create new things, and then go and belt them out in public for all to enjoy.

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The Magic of Conversation

I had a friend once who was telling about his brother in law. His brother in law was the kind of guy that didn’t really talk much, but you had this feeling that there was something really deep inside. Like when you were to look at this person, you were to get this feeling that there is something really special here. He never seemed to get upset. Anyways, he said that there was this problem he was having at work. He had noticed a problem on the production line where he worked, and it seemed that he was the only person to notice this. And he was kind of afraid to tell his boss, because she had a reputation for being kind of strict and by the book. He was really afraid to approach her, and start a conversation with her.

I had another friend that was a really good salesman. He worked for some really interesting modeling agency. His job was to go out and walk up to any girl he saw that he thought qualified as a model. He said at first that it was really nerve racking. He thought that he would receive a lot of rejection, approaching attractive women all. He had this imagination that they might misunderstand his motives, and not realize that he was offering them an opportunity rather than taking advantage of them. I loaned him a book of mine that I’d read on the subject.

Which is interesting when you think about it. Everywhere you go; there are all kinds of people walking around. All with different histories, backgrounds, and stories about what they see around them. Some of them can be really interesting, and some can even be fascination. It’s awe-inspiring when you look around you and when you see this person, you can imagine the treasure that is inside them. A friend and I were talking once about this subject. When the topic of being able to approach new people came up, he merely stated what he thought was the obvious. There is treasure! And when you think about it, how many ways can you imagine discovering treasure inside others, and sharing it with them? Imagine how you can make them feel incredibly happy. And the cool thing is they probably won’t even know what’s going on, so they’ll probably think this new happiness is coming from you.

After my friend read the book I loaned him, he was able to go out and approach many women every day. A large percentage said they weren’t interested, but even the ones that said “no thank you,” were polite to him, and thanked him, anyways. Even on days when he went out and didn’t get any contact information for his company to follow up on, he still was able to feel a boost to the ego, just for the experience.

So when he finally approached his boss to tell her about the problem on the production line, she was amazed at his perception. She was so happy, that he got a promotion, and at their semi-annual meeting, she gave him additional thanks in front of all his coworkers, because he’d saved the company so much money. Amazing things happen when you use your ability to communicate.

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Go First

One of the simplest ways to improve your relationships with other people is to go first. And when I say ‘go first,’ I mean in every aspect. Although it is the simplest, it is not the easiest, not by a long shot. But once you understand this concept, it can give you such incredibly wonderful results that you can’t help but to find a way to share this with others.

I remember the first time I went skydiving. I was terrified. I had decided to go with a couple of friends on a whim. It sounded cool at the time. One the ground. But the closer and closer we got, the more and more nervous I got. I was almost hoping to get into an accident on the way to the skydiving place so we wouldn’t be able to jump. I was actually debating with myself how much of an injury I’d accept to get out of skydiving. When we got suited up and prepped, it only got worse. We had to watch a video, and sign a piece of paper basically saying that if we died or were horribly maimed, it wasn’t the operations fault, and we couldn’t sue anybody. And going up in the plane only made it worse. The higher we got, the more sure I was that I would pass out from fear and hopefully wake up safely in the hospital.

It’s weird what happens when you just let go and jump. You can really appreciate the beauty of the sky, the beauty that is always above and around you.  The most surprising thing to me about the experience was how quickly that wall of fear that seemed so big simply disappeared, and yielded to absolute exhilaration. It was something I’d never experienced before, and likely will never experience again. When you start to realize what is on the other side of your fears, you will be amazed at how much you can achieve greater potential. You can see things for what they really are. You can feel things the way their were meant to be felt, not the fearful way that people often imagine things.

And after we landed, and packed our chutes, the buzz kind of wore off, but the memories never will. And we paid extra to get a cool video of us, because their was another guy that jumped with us. And it’s a really great experience when you can watch yourself do something wonderful.

Of course in everyday life, the payoff is sometimes not as immediate and breathtaking as skydiving, but when you lead, people are bound to follow. And the best way to test out a relationship is to share your feelings first, and see what happens. The biggest tragedy in life is to wait around for somebody to give you permission or tell you exactly what to do and how to do it. When you realize that your life only belongs to you, and you lead it the way you want, you’ll find that the people that follow you will be your strongest supporters.

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