Story Collector

Be A Collector Of Stories

Story Collector

When I was a kid we would organize these scavenger hunts in the neighborhood.

Somebody would organize a list of weird things. Then we’d break into teams and go around the neighborhood and knocked on doors.

Whoever collected all the stuff (yellow clothespin, etc.) would win.

Then later when I was in Boy Scouts, we had a similar game, but it was more like low level “hazing” for new kids.

We’d go to these huge jamborees with hundreds of different troops.

And we’d send kids around looking for things that didn’t exist.

Like left handed smoke shifter, or a bacon stretcher.

Everybody was in on it, and pretty soon the new kids would figure out they’d been had. Most of them would keep going around, because it was pretty fun.

But me and my buddy would purposely go around to all the different troops and ask for the craziest stuff we could think of.

Just to see if they could keep a straight face while telling us another troop (the one that happened to be furthest away) had it.

It was also a good way to stay away from your own troop, because you hung around your own troop, the adults would eventually give you something to do.

Talking to people can be incredibly rewarding.

Even if you don’t have any intention other than passing the time.

Because most people are pretty interesting.

And the more people you talk to, the more stories you’ll pick up.

Sure, a lot of people won’t offer much, but a few will.

You can think of other people’s stories like “resources.”

So when you DO find yourself talking to somebody that you would like to persuade or influence, telling stories is a great way to do it.

Or if all you want to do is develop deep rapport, perhaps to start a relationship, stories can be a good way to do that.

They tell a story, and you relate a story that happened to a friend of yours.

Each story you collect can be a resource to further deepen your relationships with people you’ll later meet.

Think about that next time you see a huge crowd of people roaming about.

Think of how many stories they might have.

Then go and collect them.

Click Here to Learn More.

Social Confidence

Why People Will Love Talking To You

Social Confidence

The Meta Model from NLP is a very powerful but little used tool.

As it’s taught, it’s pretty terrible.

It makes people turn into conversation killers.

Our language is FILLED with vagueness.

And this is nearly always a good thing.

So when you start using the meta model, it can seem really abrasive.

If you are on the receiving end of a meta model barrage it feels like you’re under interrogation.

Because the Meta Model is all about extracting specific information.

Like if somebody says they saw a movie and it was “OK,” then they probably don’t feel like spending twenty minutes defending their position.

Why was it just OK?

What specific part was just OK?

Most people don’t like to go into specific details, especially if it feels like an interrogation.

There are, however, two places where the meta model is pretty useful.

One is when you’re having a deep conversation with a close friend or partner and you’re talking about heavy emotional issues.

You can use the meta model to find out EXACTLY what they mean, so you can understand precisely what they’re experiencing.

Even then it can come across as extremely confrontational if you’re not careful.

Another way to use the meta model is when talking about people’s desires.

Especially in an imaginary, “perfect” future.

Once they understand you’re just playing around, and you’re talking about something they want AND you are careful not to judge in any way, it can be pretty powerful.

Get them talking about their ideal vacation. Get them to describe it to you as specifically as possible.

Actually refer to it as if it’s an object out there between the two of you.

This will get them feeling REALLY good.

And they’ll associate that good feeling with you, since they’re talking to you about it.

This is also a pretty good conversation topic if you’re worried about running out of stuff to say.

Because once they realize you’re not judging them in any way, they’ll just keep on talking.

Another cool thing is that after the conversation is over, they’ll remember you for a LONG TIME.

This can make it pretty easy to make friends anywhere you go, and give you pretty powerful conversational skills.

Click Here to learn more.

Social Confidence

How To Radiate Friendly Energy

Social Confidence

Nowadays, everything anybody famous does is always recorded.

However, most of those people KNOW they are being recorded and they act accordingly.

On top of that we have tons of “reality TV” showing people how they REALLY are.

Of course, it’s not REALLY how people are. They take a whole week of conversations, interactive behaviors and situations and edit them down to the BEST of the week.

So even those “reality TV stars” are more or less “packaged and sold.”

A long, long time ago, Nixon and his buddies got in trouble. Nixon secretly recorded everybody that came into his office.

And when the newspapers published the transcripts of what went on in those “secret” meetings between leaders of the free world, people were flabbergasted.

Not because of the CONTENT of their conversations, but the STRUCTURE.

Or the lack thereof.

Even when the leaders of the free world get together to have a powwow, if they think nobody’s listening, they speak like idiots.

“Uh, what about that thing?”

“Yeah, the, what, how do we, uh, that other stuff…”

Etc.

Unfortunately since most of us spend TONS of time watching FAKE PEOPLE behave as FAKELY as they can, when we act “normal” we don’t look so good in comparison.

But this is actually GOOD news.

Why?

Because if you ever need to make an impression on somebody, it’s pretty easy, since the competition ain’t all that.

But you DO need to do a LITTLE bit of practice.

But not much.

Luckily, there’s tons of opportunities to brush up on your social skills.

Chatting up people in line, for example, is a great way to practice.

Everybody’s bored, and wanting to pass the time (so long as they don’t have their eyes glued to their phones watching porn or something).

An EASY way to “break the ice” just for practice is to throw out a “pacing statement.”

These are verifiably TRUE statements about the environment.

It’s sunny today.

This line is slow.

That lady has a lot of pineapples in her cart.

The idea is to get the person you say these to to automatically agree. Say a couple of them, and you’ve effectively merged your frame with their frame.

Just this skill in and of itself is pretty useful, and will make you STAND OUT when people meet you.

Once because you will have practiced how to easily start conversations with anybody.

Two because you will radiate a different energy than most people.

One that says you’re friendly and easy to talk to.

Two things that will help people remember you from all the other people out there.

Click Here to learn more.

Social Confidence

How To Enjoy People

Social Confidence

If you’ve ever started an exercise program after a long period of inactivity, you’ve probably experienced the common phases.

The first phase is when you still have the motivation (usually from looking at yourself naked in the mirror) and can PUSH yourself through your internal resistance.

After a while of this, the next phase is when it’s habit. Your motivation has likely waned a bit, but if you’ve been doing it every day, you feel kind of guilty for NOT doing it.

The next phase is when it gets good. It’s when you enjoy doing it. Maybe not getting out of bed early, but once you get going, (whatever is you’re doing, jogging outside or riding an exercise bike in the garage), it’s a reward in and of itself.

Those who are lifelong runners wouldn’t DREAM of not going for their daily job.

Same for those who meditate on a daily basis. It might be boring and cumbersome to get started, but pretty soon it’s something you’d NEVER want to stop doing.

This is when any kind of “practice” becomes an end in itself.

Practicing social skills also follows this same pattern. Unfortunately, most people don’t see social skills as something to “practice.”

We tend to see it as something we’re either good at, or something we just suck at.

But if you look at it as a practice, and TREAT it like a practice, it will BECOME a practice.

And if you put in the effort, you’ll get to the point where you LOOK FORWARD to practicing your social skills.

Luckily, there’s a lot of ways to “cheat” your way to the level of “enjoying the practice.”

Because of most of the works is operating on those old beliefs that have been holding you back.

There are plenty of ways to go out in public, NOT talk to a single soul, but FEEL like you’ve created tons of conversations.

This will give you ALL of the benefits, without any of the risk.

And as I’m sure you know, no matter WHAT your “purpose” is in life, it will be much EASIER, and much more REWARDING, if you jack up your social skills as high as you possible can.

Which you’ll soon discover has no upper limit.

Click Here to learn how.

Social Confidence

Simple Steps To Change Your Entire World

Social Confidence

When we humans look out into the world, we’re only seeing a very small fraction of what is really out there.

There is so much data hitting our senses (sight, smell, touch, sounds, etc) there’s NO WAY we can process it all.

So part of us (the pre-conscious processor) has to figure out what’s important and what’s not.

Without doing any self-programming, we’ll be stuck with our factory settings.

We notice things that are good (food, safety, money, sex, etc.) and things that are bad (tigers, loud noises, etc).

But beyond that, what our pre-conscious processor decides to show us is also based on our skills.

For example, if you saw something falling out of the corner of your eye, you would respond based on your current understanding of your own level of skill, in this case, your strength.

If you NEVER exercised, and couldn’t do ten pushups to save your life, you’d probably get out of the way before you even knew what was happening.

But if you were fairly athletic, in good shape, comfortable with your strength and speed, you would respond completely different.

Maybe look around and make sure everybody else was safe.

In neither of the above two cases would you stop and think what to do.

You would just respond to changes in your surroundings, AUTOMATICALLY, based on consciously built in skills.

You would also consider different leisure activities, based on your level of physical fitness.

If you were in good shape, you might be interested in a new park or field that was built in your neighborhood.

On the other hand, if you were in lousy shape, your focus would on completely different things.

Social skills will impact you the same way.

With a high level of social skills, you’ll perceive the world around you completely differently than somebody with low social skills.

And when something just “happens,” you’ll respond differently as well.

What’s really cool is that because a higher level of social skills changes your micro-behaviors (facial expressions, body language, etc) you will be PERCIEVED totally differently by others as well.

Luckily, building up your social skills is pretty easy.

So long as you take your time, and do a little bit each day, you’ll soon see the world change around you.

Click Here to learn more.

Self Confidence

Back Pocket Skills

Self Confidence

You can get better at pretty much anything with practice.

The ideal situation is where you enjoy practicing, so getting better is fun.

Like musicians. They like to play, and they like to practice.

Compared to when I was a kid and I HAD to practice the violin.

Unfortunately, when it comes to a lot of things, we don’t seem to see them as “practice and get better” frame.

We see them through the, “some people are good and some people aren’t” frame.

Especially when it comes to anything regarding our brains.

Intelligence, learning ability, these are commonly thought to be “set in stone” but in reality they are very fluid.

Another thing that is very fluid (able to get better with practice) are social skills.

Most of us see somebody who is naturally outgoing and think, “Wow, I could never be that way.”

Which is OK if you really don’t like mingling with strangers. These days it can be pretty easy to hang out at home and STILL make a pretty good living.

However, for those who WANT to improve their social skills, it can seem pretty difficult.

Because most of the ideas of doing things like this require you to “feel the fear and do it anyway,” or “push through your anxiety,” until it becomes less of an issue.

While that DOES work, it requires a TON of motivation.

Luckily there IS another way. To increase your comfort zone from the inside out. So you can continue to feel comfortable while doing new behaviors.

After all, something like being exceptionally confident and outgoing can help out in a lot of ways.

Job interviews, capitalizing on opportunities, or just having fun in social situations.

Even if you ONLY want to be socially outgoing when you need to, it’s much better to HAVE the ability, just in case.

Click Here to learn how.

Social Confidence

Give Away Yourself For Easy Conversational Power

I’ve been the best man a couple of times at weddings.

Both times, after giving the toast, it was a blast.

First, you’re wearing a tuxedo. Second, if you’ve given a halfway decent toast, everybody knows you.

Also, you feel like you have an “obligation” to mingle.

Which means you can “operate” pretty effectively. Work the crowd. Start conversations with attractive strangers.

Since it’s expected, and you’re part of the wedding party, there is ZERO CHANCE of getting rejected.

Now, here’s an interesting idea on human nature.

People will treat us EXACTLY like we treat ourselves.

If we think we suck, people will treat us AS IF we suck.

It’s as if we humans have this sixth sense. We see somebody approaching, and we’re sure what to do.

So we look for evidence to help us. If the person is smiling, confident and relaxed, and acting like they truly LIKE THEMSELVES, we are much more likely to like them.

On the other hand, if they are nervous, closed off and look like they’re scared of something, we will get scared as well.

Imagine how easy it would be to talk to people if you’re job was to give away hundred dollar bills.

Imagine if you had to approach however many people you wanted to and said your name.

If they said their name, you’d give them a hundred bucks and walk away. But if they didn’t, you wouldn’t give them anything, and walk away.

Pretty easy job, right?

Just doing this job for a few days would make you LOVE people.

Now suppose that you VALUED YOURSELF at more than a hundred bucks.

That you TRULY BELIEVED that somebody interacting with you was worth MORE than a hundred dollars.

And not only that, but THEY believed it ONLY BECAUSE you believed it.

How enjoyable would life be?

Pretty enjoyable! You would LOVE to meet new people.

And people would LOVE to meet you.

The truth is that “meaning” is pretty flexible.

And with consistent practice, you can “build up” how much you VALUE yourself.

So every time you do start a conversation with a stranger, you sincerely believe you are PROVIDING value to them.

This is easy to do with practice.

So start practicing. Click here to learn how.

Maximum Social Confidence

How To Crush Anxiety

Maximum Social Confidence

If you’ve ever been to any kind of NLP seminar, there’s a lot of pair work.

The instructor will explain a few things, maybe call somebody up to the front, and then demonstrate.

Then he or she will have people get into pairs.

This is usually pretty awkward and slow at the beginning. Especially if there a few hundred people.

But if the seminar is more than a couple days, then it gets easier and easier.

Pretty soon, when the instructor says, “OK, partner up,” and it gets really loud really quick.

Most people take a while to “warm up” to other people.

One of the things about our brains is we tend to generalize.

Meaning that once you figure out how to do something, you can “generalize” that behavior to other similar things.

Tying your shoes, riding a bike, shopping in a supermarket, you learn to do these for ONE thing (shoes, bike, store, etc) you can do that will ALL things (all shoes, all bikes, all stores, etc).

But why not with people?

Interacting with people is in a special class. Because we come with a lot of baggage.

Not only from our childhoods, but from our ancient history.

For the longest part of human history, we rarely interacted with strangers.

That is a pretty recent development.

Luckily, with a little NLP magic, we can “go meta.” Meaning we can train ourselves to thinking of meeting people just like tying our shoes.

Once you have the experience of “getting comfortable with strangers” which you’ve already done countless times in your life, you can switch your brain around.

So the next time you see a stranger, instead of feeling anxiety, you can feel relaxed confidence.

Instead of “wondering” if they’ll “accept or reject” you, you’ll feel the familiar sense of “meeting and getting to know people.”

Of course, our brains don’t naturally “go meta,” it’s something we have to learn to do.

But since you’ve learned lots of other things (I KNOW you’ve learned how to read, for example) you can learn to “go meta” as well.

Which will make meeting NEW people feel familiar.

Luckily, if you want to increase your social confidence, it’s as easy as doing some simple daily exercises.

Just like you would believably be able to do a hundred pushups if you gave yourself enough time, you can develop a ton of social confidence in the same way.

Click Here to learn how.

The Staggering Tale Of The Armadillo’s Evolution

Trust Your Instincts

Once there was this little armadillo. He had separated from his tribe, and was starting to get a bit worried. He wasn’t old enough to be out by himself after dark, but he was old enough to start feeling a little frustrated and anxious whenever his parents started to boss him around. So while he was getting a bit concerned, part of him kind of secretly relished the idea of facing the elements on his own for the night. He was an armadillo, after all, and I’m sure you know what that means.

Many people aren’t aware that armadillos tend to be loners, and not hang out in packs. They don’t hunt in packs, as they prefer to scavenge alone for various ground dwelling animals, like squirrels and small rabbits. Occasionally an armadillo will survive on only insects, but it much prefers the meaty taste of a ground squirrel, or even a house. (Although mice are the hardest to catch. They seem to have a sixth sense that keeps him just out of reach of the armadillo).

It wasn’t always like that. Back during the heyday of the armadillos’ evolutionary period, it had several different iterations of itself. For a while it was even capable of short flights, up to a hundred meters on occasion. But Mother Nature soon corrected herself, as the flying armadillo didn’t really have any advantage, from a hunter-gatherer standpoint. It was more of a passing fad than anything else.

But our hero of this particular tale was heading due east, away from the setting sun. This had been programmed into the animal’s instincts by Mother Nature herself, as it just made it easier to forage for food. They started out with the sun at their backs, and scavenged around until the sun hit its apex. When the sun was in front of them, they merely turned and headed back the other direction.

This, incidentally, why armadillos only live in areas near the equator. There used to be quite a large armadillo population in the north, but due to the angle of the rising and setting sun, they never quite headed back at the end of the day to the same spot. So for a while, armadillos seemed to migrate in huge arcs across the northern plains, but that was merely due to the structure of their environment. If you happened to build yourself a time machine, as well as a human armadillo communication device, you would likely find that the armadillos didn’t really have any idea what was going on. They just knew that when they went home every single night, somebody had moved their house. So every night they would have to build a new one, only to find the same thing happen the next day.

(Altough, one would tend to wonder why you should build such a device if you had the technology to do so. You may be better of curing cancer or something, rather than going into the past and interviewing armadillos)

So it makes perfect sense as to why this particular species of northern armadillo didn’t survive.

Back to our story.

So as this young armadillo was following his ever-lengthening shadow, he started seeing thing moving about him that he’d never seen before. These small creatures that looked like mice, but they could fly. And they flew in a strange pattern. They didn’t fly in straight lines like insects; they kind of fluttered about as if they couldn’t see where they were going.

He figured if they couldn’t see where they were going, it would be pretty easy to eat them. So he crept a couple of low flying ones that were close by, and just as he stretched out his mouth, they shrieked this really high-pitched screech, and fluttered out of the way.

Try as he might, and despite getting very close to these strange creatures, he couldn’t sink his jaws into them. It was maidenly frustrating.

Then he heard the voice from behind him:

“Young hunter. You will need to determine more stealth to catch your prey. Despite their seeming ineptness, those creatures are equipped with a guidance system much different than yours. If you want to catch them, you must enter their world. You must learn to see in the dark, and respond to sound, and not sight.”

He turned around, and saw just the faint shadow of whatever creature had spoken to him slither off into the darkness.

He turned, and watched all these delicious fluttering entities that so far had proved to be just out of his reach.

Darkness.

The armadillo closed his eyes, and began to listen for the creatures. He heard cacophony he’d never imagined before. The fluttering of their wings, the insects under his feet, the breeze through the cacti. Suddenly, instinctively, he leapt into the air, and sunk his deeply into a fluttering creature of the night.

It was delicious.

The lost armadillo of the day, whose ancestors had followed the sun in circles across the northern plains, was now a hunter of the night.

Beware The Dangers of Safety

Unexpected Chains Of Events

The other day I had one of those nights where things end up much different than you planned. I figured it be a night when you start off thinking you are going to go out, grab a bite to eat, maybe watch a few play of the game on TV at your local sports bar over a beer or two and call it a night. Sometimes, despite not having any plans on a Saturday, it still feels good to hit the sack early on Friday.

But, thirteen hours after my night had started, things didn’t look like they were going to slow up any bit. In fact, they seemed like they were just getting started.

I used to work with this guy that kept a religious schedule when it came to sleeping. He would wake up early during the weekday, and he was a subscriber to the idea of never sleeping in, even one minute later than normal, on the weekends. He thought that would completely ruin his sleep pattern, and make it much more difficult to “catch up” if he cheated.

I suppose that makes sense, but all that willpower you can seemingly muster every morning when the alarm goes off just isn’t there on a Saturday. I mean what’s wrong with hitting the snooze a few times?

Keeping a strict, routine, predictable schedule is important to a lot of people. I know folks who have gone to the same restaurant for years and only order on or two things. To them ordering even a different dessert is a stretch. There is plenty of marketing data that clearly indicates, as we get older, they are much less flexible in their thinking. For companies that rely on brand loyalty, that is a good thing.

But for new companies, or companies that are trying to launch a new product that is targeted toward an older market, this can be quite a tough sell. The trick is to make it seem like by choosing the new product, they will be holding fast to their old beliefs and habits.

This isn’t as hard as it seems at first, as it all gets back to your ability to leverage criteria. Many people have a criterion of familiarity. All you need to do is convince them of all the things about this new product that they are already familiar with, and it will make the decision to switch products, or start using a new product that much easier.

There has been a lot of research done that whatever it is that we value in any particular thing is not only largely subjective, but internally generated as well. The actual object, obviously, is not internally generated, but the feelings and ideas and beliefs we have about the object are. Recent studies have shown brain scans which suggest that up to 40% of ALL of our perceptions of the world are internally generated. That is we perceive something with one or more of our senses, and our brains only detect enough of whatever it is to fire off an internal memory of that particular object. Then the internal memory is referenced as much as possible. Just like a huge memory cache, in order to save on neural processing speed.

We take our brains for granted, but twenty percent of our energy goes to keeping our brains active. That’s a lot of energy, so it makes sense to have some kind of built in system to maximize its efficiency.

So if you’d like to convince somebody that something that they’ve never seen before is actually quite familiar to them, you just need to figure out what their criteria are for that particular thing. It’s just matter of developing enough rapport to be able to elicit sufficient information regarding that internal representation, of whatever it is, and then showing them that the new object fits that representation just as well, or even better, than the old one.

When I used to sell cars, I was amazed at how well some of the salespeople would “switch” customers from the car they thought they wanted, to one that was available. And it wasn’t any kind of strong-arm persuasion tactic. I sat in, as a trainee, on some of these conversations between salesperson and customer. It was almost as if the salesperson was simply helping the customer come to the conclusion that the other car (the one they were “switched” to) was actually a much better choice for them. And they always allowed the customer to believe that it was all their decision, and the salesperson was just there to help them fill out the paperwork.

Personally, though, no matter how much I intellectually know that waking up at the same time every day makes much more sense, I still have developed sufficient willpower to go to sleep at the same time on a Friday night, let alone wake up at the same time on Saturday. Maybe I just need to persuade myself that waking up early on Saturday fulfills the same criteria as staying up late on Friday, so I can get some better sleep on the weekends.

But by the time Saturday afternoon rolled around, and I realized that I was going on more than twenty four hours without any sleep, the fact we were all at the amusement park with those foreign exchange students let met to pretty much give up on anything turning out normal that weekend. My two drinks and make it an early night had gone down in serious flames, and I had given in to the energy of the moment. And what happened after that was what really made me realize something needed to be done.

But that is for another story.

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Success with NLP

Success with NLP