Tag Archives: Hypnosis

Social Confidence

The Hidden Ingredient To Standing Out

When you go on a job interview, (or any kind of interview) what kinds of questions do they ask?

Lots of books have been written on the subject.

People spend lots of time role-playing and coming up with the best way to answer the more difficult questions.

But sometimes they throw you a curve ball.

They aren’t really interested in the answer itself, it’s how you behave when something unexpected happens.

The more money any job pays, the more these situations will come up.

Anybody can follow a simple, step by step process.

In fact, a lot of those jobs will be gone in the next couple decades.

Replaced by robots who ONLY know how to follow EXACT step by step instructions.

Since most high paying jobs involve a LOT of “thinking on your feet” they want to see how you actually “think on your feet.”

They ask silly questions like, “If you were an inch high and stuck inside of a blender, how would you get out?”

Knowing how to answer that relies on the SAME TRAIT that people find in “leaders.”

Knowing what to do when something unexpected happens.

When something goes wrong, and it even SEEMS dangerous, most people panic.

They look around, desperate to find somebody of “authority.”

Somebody who’s NOT panicking like them.

Somebody who’s calmly figuring out what’s what.

This quality will help you get VERY FAR.

Because the amount of UNEXPECTED things that happen in life will FAR OUTNUMBER the stuff you can expect.

Even most people PURPOSELY avoid any situations where they might have to “think on their feet.”

However, as harsh and unfair as it sounds, if you purposely avoid situations where you might feel “uncertain” about what to do, you’re not going to have a lot of fun.

Nobody got rich playing it safe.

Nobody met the love of their life playing it safe.

None of the great heroes of literature and history made their mark while playing it safe.

Does this mean they were FEARLESS?

Absolutely not.

But that didn’t hold them back.

How can you GET that quality?

You can BUILD IT, just like any other skill.

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Maximum Social Confidence

Leverage The Secret of Economics

There’s a concept in economics called the “invisible hand.”

It was described first by Adam Smith a few hundred years ago.

It’s basically the idea that a mass of people, all operating independently can solve problems much more quickly and effectively than a central authority.

For example, let’s say there’s a city that has a bunch of hamburger shops. They all buy their bread from a few different bread factories.

And the bread factories buy their raw materials from a few different countries.

But for some reason, the price of wheat goes up. Which makes the bread more expensive, which makes the hamburgers more expensive.

One hamburger shop gets an idea to wrap their burgers in lettuce, (for example).

One guy with one idea. Then all the other shops copy him and pretty soon all burgers are cheap again, and everybody’s happy.

Meanwhile, the bread factories have found some other sources of wheat that are cheaper, and now the bread is cheap again.

End result is now the hamburger shops have two different types of burgers.

Those with bread and those wrapped in lettuce.

The bottom line of this goofy example is nobody really needs to know WHY the wheat suddenly got expensive. Everybody from the bread factories to the hamburger customers only knew that they had a problem, and EVERYBODY, on their own, in their own way, figured out how to solve it.

And when one guy figured it out, everybody knew as well.

Compare this to the central authority model, that says you need to study why the wheat is so expensive and come up with farming reforms and all that stuff.

That would take YEARS.

But in the above example, the solution took maybe a week, at most.

All because people interact, share information based on their own view of their own world around them.

Being alive right now is significant in that there are TONS of ways to connect with other people.

No matter WHAT kind of problem you have, no matter what kind of idea you have, you will more than likely find the solution within your own social circle.

Which means the BIGGER your social circle, the more effective you’ll be.

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Alien Invasion

Essential Skills For Alien Invasions

One of my hobbies is reading doom and gloom economic blogs.

This type of thing has been around since forever.

(not blogs, but doom and gloom ideas)

Go back in time, anywhere, and you’ll find a certain percentage of people thinking that the end is near.

Even in the song, “Roadhouse Blues,” Jim Morrison tells us, “the future’s uncertain and the end is always near…

One thing that modern blogs (of the doom and gloom type) talk about is how to withstand the coming economic collapse. (Or zombie apocalypse or whatever).

And that is to maximize your “human capital” value.

For example, if the world financial system were to collapse (maybe due to an alien invasion or something) all you would have would be what you physically had, AND what you could work with others to produce.

Which would mean you would need a high degree of social confidence.

Even world class entrepreneurs, who have built many businesses from scratch, when asked if they had to start over, what skills would they keep, they ALWAYS answer, “people skills.”

Being able to talk to another human, especially somebody you don’t know that well, and convince them of the validity of your idea is a pretty good skill to have, alien invasion or not.

Even if you think and hope that the economy will keep humming (or limping) along indefinitely, your ability to interact with other people will help you succeed no matter WHAT kind of business you’re in.

Luckily, it’s one of the EASIEST skills to learn, since we humans are VERY social creatures.

And it’s not really a matter of LEARNING what to do, it’s just a matter of UNLEARNING things that aren’t working.

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Social Confidence

Vampire Bats and Heaven

Social Confidence

Isaac Newton was a smart dude.

He came up with a lot of laws of physics, and he also invented calculus.

One of his easy to understand laws are the three rules of motion.

A body at rest tends to stay at rest.

A body in motion tends to stay in motion.

For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.

This last one seems to be true on many levels.

Who knows, many the basic laws of physics are true on EVERY level.

But back to the “action <---> reaction” law.

How can that play in out human nature?

One way is the metaphorical description of heaven and hell.

In hell, everybody has unlimited food, but really, really, long spoons.

They can scoop the food out, but they can’t eat it.

And nobody trusts anybody, and there all scared of each other (it IS hell after all) so they’re always hungry.

Heaven is the opposite.

But the same.

Meaning it’s the same setup, unlimited food and long spoons.

But not only does everybody trust each other, but they are ALL willing to “go first.”

Meaning they KNOW that if they first feed somebody else, it’s only a matter of time before somebody feeds them.

Everybody works together, they’re all fed, and everybody’s happy.

Is this true in nature?

It absolutely is.

Vampire bats (yes, really) do the same thing.

Every night they go out looking for blood (literally).

Some find some, some don’t.

The ones that don’t get fed by their buddies.

They keep a weird “point system.”

Everybody knows who’s been fed, and whose been feeding.

And they ALWAYS pay each other back.

Scientists have been studying them for years.

Now, the animals they steal the blood from probably don’t think they’re a shining example of friendliness.

But in the bat community, they practice the “help others first” strategy, and it keeps their vampire bat community tight.

They know they got each other’s back.

Of course, this works in people as well.

No matter HOW you behave, Newton’s law will prove itself.

If you are shy and worried, people will treat you that way.

Meaning THEY will be shy and worried when they think of interacting with you.

But if you go first, they will reciprocate.

In fact, this “persuasion law” of reciprocation has been proven again and again.

It’s like we CAN’T reciprocate.

Which brings us to the Golden Rule.

Do unto others as you’d like done unto you.

Be friendly, kind and build up their good points.

And they’ll do the same for you.

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Social Confidence

How To Make An Awesome Impression On People

Social Confidence

We humans tend to make a lot of decisions based on unconscious triggers.

Much more than we’d like to admit.

As an animal, we are self-organizing, hierarchical, pack animals.

Meaning we always either try to be an authority, or defer to an authority.

They put a bunch of people in a room, and soon one guy is the “leader.”

We make a lot of purchasing decisions the same way.

If some guy with TONS of authority is selling something, we don’t usually question the quality of what he’s selling.

This only works with some products, though.

If a famous person was promoting a new burger chain, and the burgers tasted like moldy dirt, we’d only eat their once.

But the HARDER it is to check the quality of something, the MORE we defer to these “triggers” when making decisions.

Take an exercise and diet program for example. The only real way to test if it works or not is to try it out for a couple months.

But since there are so many out there, it’s not logistically possible to try them all.

We’d be dead before we finished!

So we tend to rely on things like Authority, Social Proof, and other triggers.

Most of the time, when something is hard to judge on it’s own merit, we almost always use some kind of shortcut to help us out.

For example, when we meet somebody, we really don’t want to spend a couple weeks getting to know them to see what kind of person they are.

So we look for triggers to help us.

Who they’re with, the clothes they wear, and most importantly, how they carry themselves.

Short of any obvious triggers like Authority (are they famous?) or Social Proof (do they have a huge entourage?), we have to judge them based on the subtle and subconscious behavior.

Which is an outward representation of how they judge themselves.

Meaning if they like and respect themselves, it will come across how they walk and talk.

Which means we’ll like and respect them.

In a sense, it’s kind of like those elections in third grade, where everybody voted for themselves for president.

YOU can instruct other how to feel about YOU.

All you’ve got to do is feel about YOU how you’d like other people to feel about YOU.

Click Here to Learn How

Maximize Your Power

How To Play Both Sides

Maximize Your Power

Once I had to hire somebody for a lab I worked for.

I was co-interviewing with my boss, and we were having trouble filling the position.

One of the applicants looked really good on paper but he came across rather stiff.

He even described himself as a “lone-wolf” kind of guy.

And since working in the lab required talking to a lot of different departments and being proactive, we decided to give this guy a pass.

Sometimes it’s cool to be a “lone wolf.”

I’ve done a lot of backpacking, and generally it’s better to have fewer people than more.

The more people you have, the longer it takes to make a decision.

But with only a couple of guys, you tend to spend less time talking and more time walking.

Whenever you have an objective that doesn’t necessarily involve a lot of people, like fixing your sink or cleaning out your garage, being a lone wolf is generally best.

Get in there, get it done, and then get out.

If you had six of your buddies over while you tried to fix your sink, it’d NEVER get done.

Some people are terrible about playing the “lone wolf.”

Whenever they decide something important, they need to talk to as many people as possible and get all kinds of different opinions.

Clearly, it’s limiting to be either a lone wolf all the time, or a social butterfly all the time.

It’s very effective to be able to shift into either mindset depending on the task at hand.

But some people are much better shifting into one than the other.

If you can only do one, you’re limiting yourself.

But if you can do both, you can be pretty marketable.

You can tell any interviewer, for example, that you can get along with all sorts of people and work well within groups, but you also know when to turn on the tunnel vision and get things done.

Not only can you switch sides when needed, but that will come across in your energy.

You can radiate both intense focus as well as socially powerful energy.

Making you stand out from everybody no matter where you go.

Click Here to Learn How.

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.

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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

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.