Tag Archives: Communication

She's Right Behind You

Trapped On Demon Planet?

What the thinker thinks the prover proves.

This is a fairly ubiquitous “law of attraction” saying.

Meaning that if you believe something, you’ll see it.

One on hand, it makes perfect sense.

If you believe people are friendly, you’ll act as if you live in a world of friendly people.

You’ll walk with confident body language and facial expressions.

Thinking you live in a world of friendly people, you’ll be happier more often, and more likely to smile at strangers.

And BECAUSE of your positive body language (which is because of your thinking) people smile at you.

In a “cause-effect” chain of events, it goes like this:

Positive Belief -> Positive Body Language – > Positive Behavior -> Positive Response

Your belief CAUSED what you believe to happen.

You believed it was true FIRST, and then it became true SECOND.

Similarly, if you believed you lived in a world filled with demons, that is what you would find.

Your beliefs would cause a certain behavior, which would radiate a certain “energy” which would elicit a certain response.

Where it gets kind of squirrely is when you cross the threshold from beliefs causing things that are easy to identify (smiling people) to beliefs causing things that are pretty vague.

If you believe in a friendly world, this will create smiling people.

And smiling people is pretty easy to interpret as “friendly world.”

But if you believe you’re living on “demon planet,” you won’t actually see demons.

You’ll people looking at you with guarded looks and closed off body language.

Guarded looks and closed off body language could mean a lot of things.

But few people would make the connection that “closed off body language and guarded looks” is equal to “demon planet.”

This is when your brain can shift from “beliefs that cause events” to “after the fact reframing.”

“After The Fact Reframing” is when something unexpected happens, and then you LATER redefine it to make sure your beliefs are still intact.

Problem is that few people walk around wondering, “Hmm, which state of mind am I in… Beliefs that create responses or after the fact reframing?”

It’s as if no matter WHAT you believe, we’ve got plenty of built in biases to make sure we find PROOF, regardless of how silly those beliefs seem.

How can we be sure?

Always take data.

Be able to measure to make sure.

If you are on a diet, for example, it’s kind of hard to see numbers on your bathroom scale getting higher each week, yet still believe you are LOSING weight.

If they ARE getting higher, you hopefully have other measurements to VERIFY that those higher numbers (your gross weight) is healthy.

Smaller waist, more pushups every morning, etc.

Whatever you think is true, imagine that you have to take real DATA, and then present that DATA to a disinterested third party.

So long as you keep your beliefs tethered to DATA based reality, you’ll know if you’re making REAL PROGRESS instead of PRETEND PROGRESS.

Learn More:

Seven Disciplines

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

Hit Your Targets

Daily Empire Building

Dreaming big feels good.

Even if you don’t really have a concrete idea of what you want.

This is why we love movies so much.

They’re sort of like our own lives, but they are an absolute best case scenario.

Even far fetched sci-fi movies have human elements that we can relate to.

We watch the characters handling things, and wish we could do the same.

Or we see them messing up, and we wish we could tell them what to do instead.

Wondering “What if?” is perhaps our best skill.

This is what creates inventions, medicine, better, faster and cheaper transportation.

At the same time, wondering, “what if” can be constraining.

That’s the flip side of dreaming big.

We tend to dream SO big, we don’t know how to get started.

We watch movies and read books and that kind of “satisfies” our urges.

Sure, it’s nice to dream about building a huge empire, but how the heck do you get started?

Every empire that was built was built by somebody.

And there was a time in that person’s life where they had no clue what to do.

When we see the result, we see the results of their successes.

We don’t see any of their failures.

Even a small local business that feeds a family.

From the outside, it looks like they must be some kind of geniuses.

But every success is built on failure.

It’s the only way humans learn.

Sure, we can learn academic stuff in books.

But learning HOW to do something HAS to come from trial and error.

The secret is to start as small as you possibly can.

Once you start, the process is on.

And the more it goes on, the better you’ll get.

Pretty soon, “empire building” is just part of your daily routine.

Get Started:

Seven Disciplines

The Deeper Issues

Speak To Their Deeper Structure

There’s an interesting movie that came out a few years ago.

About a bunch of aliens that decided to come to Earth.

Only when they got here, communication was an issue.

(You might wonder why they didn’t think of that before they made the trip).

This is generally something that’s never really focused on in movies.

Even movies about history.

They have a couple of different cultures meet, and they can communicate perfectly.

Most of the time, they just have everybody speak English and hope nobody notices.

Of course, in movies, books and other stories this is acceptable.

But in real life, communication is essential.

If you’ve ever been anywhere where you don’t speak the language, it can be pretty terrifying.

Especially if you’re alone and lost.

If somebody comes up and starts speaking English, it’s a HUGE relief.

However, most people just assume since everybody’s speaking English (or whatever your native tongue is), that’s that.

But that’s just the beginning.

Sure, if you’re with your buddies and you have a long history, you don’t need to say much.

But when you’re meeting somebody new, a potential client or love interest, you need to do a lot more than just speak English.

Everybody has their own unique way of experiencing the world.

If you don’t take the time to learn about THEIR model of the world, you’re leaving a lot up to chance.

Luckily, underneath all of our individual model’s of the world, lies a structure that is consistent from person to person.

Which means once you understand this deeper structure, and more importantly how to make sure your message resonates with this deeper structure, nearly everything you say will be accepted.

And if you’re REALLY advanced, and take the time to learn THEIR model of the world, then you can become even more effective.

More effective than 99% of communicators out there who spit out jumbled up collections of words and hope for the best.

Most people have conversations with strangers and then scarcely remember them.

But when you speak to their deeper structure, they will NEVER forget you.

Learn How:

Seven Laws

Magical Forest

How To Speak Magic Spells

History has a lot of cool examples illustrating the power of language.

One of the more famous is the love triangle between Marc Anthony, Cleopatra, and Caesar.

Cleopatra was allied with Anthony, against Caesar, back before Caesar took over Rome.

Caesar had them on the run, and chased them into Egypt.

It looked bad for the two, as Caesar was looking better and better.

While Marc Anthony’s soldiers weren’t a match for Caesar, Cleopatra didn’t accept defeat.

“I got this,” she told her people.

She had them sneak her into where Caesar was staying.

She slipped in, and in one of the most talked about conversations in the history of civilization, she convinced Caesar not kill her, and not destroy Egypt.

And she ended up having his kid.

At the time, she was only 21.

And it’s easy to discount this as a hot young princess talking her way into the brain of a 51 year old general.

But there’s much more to it to that.

For that reason, many believe Cleopatra had magical powers.

So much that plays, books and movies have been written about her, and about that fateful conversation that changed history.

But consider this idea.

A magic “spell” is a bunch of words said in the correct order, that have a profound impact on the receiver.

The same word, “spell” is used to describe how the right letters put in the right order, will have the same effect.

Powerful words like love, fortune, freedom, slavery, hate, can evoke powerful emotions.

But you jumble the letters around and they are meaningless.

Most people when they speak, don’t give ANY thought to the order of words.

But when you put your words in the right order, your “spell” will have as profound an effect.

Imagine that most people say, “vole and nuftore”

While thinking, “Love and fortune.”

People look at them and say, “Dude, what?”

But you say, “Love and fortune,” and they look at you and smile.

Take this to a sentence or paragraph level.

Most people jumble up words, so when they speak, it sounds like jumbled up nonsense.

But when you “spell” your words in the right order, you will have a magical effect on your listeners.

Able to move generals and change the course of history.

Learn How:

Seven Laws

Bang My Head

How To Leverage Their Ego

In business you’ve got to make some tough choices.

A common metaphor is that you get something done inexpensively, quickly and high quality.

The rub is that you can ONLY pick two.

Meaning if it’s fast and cheap it’s not going to be high quality.

If it’s high quality and cheap it’s going to take a long time.

From inside our heads, we often have to make the same choices.

One thing we humans LOVE to do is be “right.”

That’s even a common expression.

“I know, right?”

But when it comes to persuasion, the need to be right can get in our way.

In fact, the less we need to be right, the more we can get done.

Plenty of famous people have been attributed with this quote:

“Humans can accomplish anything so long as it doesn’t matter who gets the credit.”

We KNOW this, but at the same time it’s our Achilles heel.

It’s REALLY DIFFICULT to see somebody else take credit for your idea.

People spend kajillion dollars on lawsuits for this very reason.

But if you CAN turn off your need to “be right,” just for a minute, you can get other people to do pretty much anything.

As an extreme example, if somebody REALLY WANTS to give you a sack of money, is it REALLY that important that they think it was THEIR idea?

If can manage to shut of our own “need to be right” just for a couple seconds, we can leverage the OTHER PERSON’s “need to be right” in our favor.

How?

Most everything we do is influenced by one of the seven laws.

Authority, social proof, scarcity, etc.

At the same time, while we are obediently following those seven laws, (following the crowd, doing or thinking whatever the authority on TV or Facebook tells us), we actually believe it’s OUR idea.

Nobody will explain their behaviors and beliefs as being put in their minds by social proof and authority.

Nobody will say, “I really don’t have any idea why I’m doing what I’m doing, but that guy has on a lab coat, and everybody is doing it, and that’s good enough for me!”

BECAUSE we have this “need to be right” we NEED to believe it’s OUR idea.

Which means if you can shut off your “need to be right” for just a little bit, you can leverage those seven laws like CRAZY.

Because when you combine them with conversational hypnosis, you don’t need anything but your words and the ideas they create.

And then just stand back and watch them “be right,” only they are “being right” in exactly the way you wanted them to.

Learn How:

Seven Laws

The Eyeball Sees All

Reverse Polarity Stealing Pattern

Once upon a time there was a petrified forest.

A petrified forest is made up of really old plants that have fossilized.

Turned to stone.

Put a whole bunch of these old, fossilized plants together, and you’ve got a petrified forest.

There’s a national park in the United States.

You can go and check it out if you want.

Many people do.

But they had a problem.

A lot of the petrified wood was loose. Just laying around on the ground.

And people would look around, make sure nobody was looking, and pick up a piece.

Quite a lot of people did, in fact.

So the national park service had a problem.

Since the place was so big, they couldn’t really hire a bunch of petrified cops to make sure people don’t take anything.

That would be REALLY expensive.

So they decided to use a public education campaign.

They figured that if they let everybody know that people were stealing, the “stealers” would know that everybody else knew, and they wouldn’t steal.

So they put up signs (cheaper than hiring cops, right?) that said:

“Did you know that over ten percent of visitors of the petrified forest take home illegal souvenirs?”

The idea was people would be shocked, and voluntarily look out for the dastardly folks who were doing all the evil stealing.

Only it had the opposite effect.

As it turns out, PLENTY of people were thinking, “Hmm, I’d love to take a piece of this home, but I don’t want to get in trouble.”

Then they saw the sign, saying that ten percent of people steal souvenirs.

And that make it MORE likely they would steal something themselves.

It gave them SOCIAL PROOF.

The people would look around, not see anybody else stealing, and think, “If I steal this, I might be the only one, I’d better not.”

But they would still want to take a piece home.

Then they’d see the sign and think, “Wow, if ten percent of people are stealing, I may as well steal too!”

The geniuses who designed and put up the sign couldn’t understand why the signs INCREASED the amount of theft.

Until they hired a marketing genius (a real genius) who explained it to them.

All they had to do was to flip the numbers.

And do so in a general way.

“Most people want to steal but decide not to. What will you do?”

It made them feel like they were going to be in the evil minority if they picked up a piece.

This is what happens when you understand these ancient triggers that motivate us on deep levels.

You can speak the language of unconscious persuasion.

And get people to do whatever you want.

Learn How:

Seven Laws

Conquer The Wasteland Of Their Mind

Ditch The Purple Neon Jacket

Little kids are perfect learners.

So perfect in fact that they learn EVERYTHING.

Not just the good stuff.

If you’ve got kids, you know how hard it is to keep them from learning the stuff you DON’T want them to learn.

Stuff that you or your friends (or maybe their older sisters or brothers) do in “secret.”

“I don’t want him to pick up any bad habits” is a common worry among parents.

Being a kid is different than being an adult.

If you are a kid, you can pretty much try ANYTHING, without getting into too much trouble.

Personally, I carried that idea as far as I could.

When I was in high school, my “go to” line when I got into trouble was:

“I thought it was OK?”

But as we move into adulthood, we need to CHOOSE our actions with more foresight.

At least that’s the theory.

We can’t just act and hope for the best.

The sad thing is because we’ve all gone through the mind numbing educational system, we’ve forgotten how we learn naturally.

Which is to model.

Copy the behaviors we want to learn.

However, we DO do this without realizing it.

We STILL pick up behaviors from others, without really knowing.

And every time you learn something from a YouTube instructional video, you’re essentially modeling the person on YouTube.

(At least if you’re following along and not just watching.)

But most people VASTLY underutilize this natural learning skill.

Especially in social situations.

A simple way to model somebody in social situations is to find somebody that does something YOU want to be able to do.

And as you watch them, mentally imagine it’s YOU doing that thing.

You can also model historical figures.

That’s the cool thing about modeling.

Since we’re doing it thoughtfully, as adults, and not mindlessly and automatically, like kids, we can pick and choose the traits we want to copy.

Kind of like if you’d model somebody who has really POWERFUL social skills, but really HORRIBLE taste in clothing.

If he’s wearing a purple jacket with a flashing neon sign on the back, you DON’T have to copy that part.

Only the part you want.

And when it comes to copying certain social behaviors, there is a class of people that are FAR ABOVE everybody else.

If you can do what THEY DO, and apply it to “regular” life, you can CLEAN UP.

Learn More:

Cult Leader

Dig Below The Surface

Social Circle of Lovers

They say you can’t make a second first impression.

This is sort of true, but like a lot of these “truisms” there’s a lot more than a clever saying.

The idea is based on a couple of other very general ideas.

One is that most of our communication is unconscious.

Body language, voice tonality, facial expressions.

It’s pretty easy to scan a room and find out who’s confident and relaxed, and who is nervous and closed off.

The second is that people form an opinion within a few seconds.

The idea then, is because that opinion is formed early, AND it’s done based on unconscious communication, then the image we project will be pretty consistent.

Our unconscious communication is the sum total of our beliefs, ideas about ourselves and the world, etc.

And because our beliefs don’t usually change by very much, then our unconscious communication, the energy we are always projecting, won’t change much.

But one thing that CAN change is HOW we use our verbal communication.

Most people use an “outside-in” type of communication.

Whenever we talk to others, we try and take OUR ideas out of OUR heads, and then put them into THEIR heads.

This comes across as us telling stories or anecdotes.

But it’s especially true when we have an idea of how we want the other person to respond.

Which is almost ALWAYS the case.

Even if the conversation is initiated by somebody else, everything we say comes with a desired outcome.

Sometimes that outcome might be to answer their question as easily and politely as possible, so they will leave us alone.

But when we do the approaching, or the initiating, we usually have a very clear idea of what we want to happen as a result.

And so long as we use the “outside-in” communication style, that “you can’t make a second first impression” usually holds true.

But it won’t be true if you flip the switch.

And instead of using an “outside-in” style (trying to put your ideas into their mind) you use an “inside-out” style.

This is where you ask them simple questions, and get them talking about things they like.

Most people aren’t expecting that.

Most people are expecting an “outside-in” style.

And that comes with a lot of assumptions.

But because speaking to them in an “inside-out” style is way different than they expect, they’ll soon learn that their impression was VERY incorrect.

Simply because people LOVE to talk about the things they like.

But when you take it even further, and continue talking to them that gets them feeling REALLY good, then you will do something pretty cool.

You will leave SUCH an amazing impression on them, they’ll NEVER be able to forget you.

So if you don’t even have any intentions other than making them feel really good, you will slowly be filling your social circle (or business contacts) with people who think you are AWESOME.

Learn How:

Secret Agent Persuasion

Find Magic Everywhere

Build Relationships From Scratch

We are instinctively programmed to recognize a good leader.

And we are similarly turned off by false “eaders.”

A leader, of course, is somebody who LEADS.

Somebody who goes first.

Somebody we WANT to follow.

On the other hand, false leaders have figured out a way to FORCE us to follow them.

Throughout human history, there has been a mix of both.

This comes across conversationally as well.

Some people make us feel comfortable, open, safe.

Others either force us on the spot, or force us to listen to them blather on and on.

If you can make people feel comfortable, relaxed and open, they’ll tell you anything.

What they want, how they want it, and what they want to do with it.

This, of course, gives you a lot of leverage.

If you can creatively figure out a way to show them they can get what they want by helping you get what you want, you can create some pretty good relationships.

And if there’s one skill that will help in nearly every area of life, it’s the ability to create relationships.

Most people kind of drift around, HOPING relationships will just “happen.”

And by pure probability, you will get a few relationships that just kind of organically pop up.

But if you can consciously build the skill of creating relationships, you’ll have an advantage over nearly everybody else.

How, exactly, do you create relationships?

It’s much easier than folks realize.

Create rapport, and ask the right questions.

Hold back on the judgment, and learn to appreciate other people’s ideas.

If you can do this, people will LOVE you.

Whether you’re building romantic relationships, friendships or potential business partnerships, the strategy is the same.

Ask the right questions in the right order, and let them be the star.

Learn How:

Secret Agent Persuasion