Tag Archives: Hypnosis

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

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

Whose Thoughts Do You Think?

Our brains are like sponges when we are born.

The reason is that humans need a lot of time outside the womb before we are fully developed.

So when we are born, we are only “half baked.”

Most people know this, at least intuitively.

Few people remember much from early childhood.

And the idea that whatever we are taught in early childhood is believed pretty strongly throughout our lives.

Few people change religions or political parties as they age.

However, when it comes time to learn as adults, we believe that it’s harder as an adult than as a kid.

We have this idea that kids can soak up stuff pretty quickly, but adults have a harder time.

This is a very dangerous thought, for a couple of reasons.

The common recognition of the danger of this thought is that if you think it’s hard to learn as an adult, you won’t make the effort.

And that you have this massive learning capacity that you aren’t utilizing.

This is absolutely true, but there is another facet of this erroneous belief that is FAR MORE dangerous.

We assume that as children, we “soak up” ideas easily and effortlessly.

And as adults, we lose that ability.

But what if we really don’t?

What if we STILL soak up ideas and beliefs just as easily and unconsciously?

This is a scary thought.

Because we are bombarded all day by ideas and messages.

Many of which are VERY DANGEROUS.

For example, a lot of the ads that blast our brains come at night when we’re watching TV.

When we are LEAST RESISTANT.

Who pays for seventy percent of TV ads?

Drug companies.

Do you want THEM putting ideas in your head?

Consider that your brain is just as open as it is today, as it was when you were a kid.

Think of all the ideas and messages and random things people are saying all around you.

When you are alone, and you’re having a random stream of thoughts, WHOSE thoughts are those?

Even if they are yours, it’s hard to get around the idea that they are HEAVILY influenced by messages.

Many of which (TV ads and political slogans) that were carefully crafted to GET PAST your conscious resistance.

How do you avoid thinking thoughts others have put in your mind?

The only way to get rid of ONE thought is to REPLACE it with another.

And the best way to hold that new thought is make sure it is pointing somewhere specific.

Something YOU would like in YOUR life based on YOUR decisions.

Focus on THAT target, and make sure to keep moving toward it.

Take data, and ensure you are getting closer.

This will give you objective evidence that those thoughts are yours.

AND it will give you an easy way to RESIST those other ideas.

Just as the simple question.

Do they help you get closer to your goal, or not?

So long as your goal is yours, your life and your thoughts will be yours as well.

Get Started:

Seven Disciplines

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

Are They Stealing Your Future?

There’s a somewhat common scene in comedies.

Often it’s when one guy is trying to poison another guy.

The guy suspects he’s being poisoned, and switches glasses.

But then he wonders if the other guy knew he would do that, and put the poison in his own glass.

So the guy switches back.

But then he wonders if the other guy anticipated THAT as well, and switches them back again.

There are other ways of presenting this slapstick style comedy.

Out-anticipating the other guy who is also trying to out-out-anticipate the first guy.

I know you know, but do you know that I know you know I know?

Despite how goofy this over-used routine is, most people rarely plan ahead.

And unfortunately, the powers that be like it that way.

Politicians and advertisers don’t like it when we are capable of thinking into the future and making rational choices.

Often times short term choices will add up to long term detriments.

But if we carefully plan our short term choices, so they add up to long term benefits, we can live longer, happier, more resourceful lives.

However, if we choose wisely, instead of impulsively, idiot politicians won’t get our votes and manipulative advertisers won’t get our money.

Here’s an interesting mind experiment to do next time you are shopping.

Imagine two ways of buying stuff.

One way is you’re carrying around your life savings in cash.

And not just cash, but silver. Like in the old westerns.

And every time you decided to buy something, you could physically feel your life savings get a little bit lighter.

The second way is the way we commonly buy stuff.

Even when paying with cash, it doesn’t feel like it.

Everything’s direct deposited and debited.

But if you actually felt your savings decrease by spending silver, you might think twice before deciding to buy something.

Of course, it feels good to buy stuff.

Especially when the cost is minimized. Swiping a plastic card and then getting a real thing, especially when a cute sales clerk smiles and says, “Thanks!” is a good feeling.

But whatever choices you DO make, they add up.

The billion dollar question is WHO are they adding up for?

Your benefit, or somebody else’s?

Fortunately, making tiny shifts in your daily behaviors WILL add up to a MASSIVE future.

Paradoxically, to create a big future with healthy happy relationships, you don’t need to do extraordinary things.

Just do very simple, very small things.

Do them every day.

And slowly take back your future.

Get Started:

Seven Disciplines

The Collapse Of The Averages

If you study stock charts, there are a kajillion indicators.

Meaning there are a bunch of ways that try and predict what the stock will do next.

The two simplest are moving averages.

One a fifty day, one a two hundred day.

The fifty day is “short term” while the two hundred is “long term.”

If the fifty day crossed the two hundred day on the way down, that’s a bad sign.

It means the stock is not only going down, but it’s picking up momentum as it’s going down.

On the other hand, if the fifty day crosses the two hundred day on the way up, that’s considered a good sign.

Not only is it going up, but it’s picking up momentum as it’s going up.

If you look at any stock chart over the past couple years, and look at the two different moving averages (50 day and 200 day) it looks like a decent signal.

Buy when they cross on the way up, and sell as they cross on the way down.

This is just one of MANY such indicators.

Pick two, a short term and a long term, and when they cross it’s time to buy or sell, depending on HOW they cross.

Implied in all of these indicators is the idea of reversion to the mean.

They are ALL based on past performance.

And these calculations based on past performance will hopefully predict future performance.

But they are all based on the idea that when a price of a stock moves too far way from where it’s been, it’s going to move back.

Reversion to the mean.

It’s been said that humans are scared, lazy people.

And everything we do is designed to make life easier (cause we’re lazy) and safer (cause we’re scared).

But sometimes we can go too far.

We can make life TOO easy and TOO safe.

And we lose our natural abilities.

To think, be creative, and take action when we need to.

Only a couple hundred years ago (which is a nanosecond compared to how long we’ve been around) getting food was a chore.

You had to do a lot of work to get something to eat.

Now you can push a couple buttons on your device, all while watching TV, and have something delivered.

They only “work” you’ve got to do is get up and answer the door.

While this is pretty cool, it’s also pretty dangerous.

Being too safe for too long, and having things too easy for too long can take away our edge.

Which can make it very hard to think creatively, so you can live a life far above average.

Luckily, shifting your mind back to your naturally creative self isn’t difficult.

The sooner you start, the better off you’ll be.

Get Started:

Seven Disciplines

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

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

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

How She Got Money From Her Parents

When I was a kid I loved reading Mad Magazine.

Once they got into trouble because they had a very realistic looking $3 bill.

And supposedly, some kids were using them in change machines.

There was one bit I remember reading as a kid.

It’s pretty popular, I’ve heard it in a lot of places.

It was a letter written from a student at college to her parents.

She went on for a few paragraphs about how her life had completely changed.

She’d dropped out of college.

Gotten a bunch of tattoos and piercings.

(This was back in the day when that was still pretty “out there.”)

She was living with her new boyfriend who had just gotten out of prison.

She was also pregnant.

And she was pretty sure it was his.

But then the letter ended with the following:

“Just kidding. School is fine, my GPA is still 4.0, but I need a couple hundred dollars. Could you send it?”

The idea being that the parents would be so relieved that their little angle wasn’t tatted up and pregnant by an ex-con, that they’d gladly send her the cash.

Whereas, if she started out saying, “Dear dad, can I have some money?” she wouldn’t have gotten the same result.

This clearly shows that when we frame our suggestion or recommendation, we can have a much better chance of getting it accepted.

Instead of just blurting out what we want, if we think a bit, and put it in the proper context, it will be much more likely to be accepted.

What context?

Think in terms of cost and benefits.

Everything we do has costs and benefits.

Everything we think about doing has costs and benefits.

So when we present our ideas to others, they are going to IMMEDIATELY and usually unconsciously think of our ideas terms of costs and benefits.

The idea is to make your suggestion have a much better cost-benefit ratio (many benefits per cost) compared to the alternative.

Just choose something similar to your suggestion, but make sure it is MUCH costlier (in terms of time, money, or inconvenience) and only has a little bit more benefits.

Compared to THAT, your choice will be the most logical.

Luckily, there are plenty of ways to do this.

And the more you practice, the better you’ll get.

And this law, (Comparison and Contrast) is only ONE of the seven.

Learn Them ALL:

Seven Laws

Mind Persuasion Archives

Reframing Common Ideas

Tag Archives: Hypnosis

Trapped On Demon Planet?

Let Your Imagination Lead You

Whose Thoughts Do You Think?

Daily Empire Building

Are They Stealing Your Future?

The Collapse Of The Averages

Speak To Their Deeper Structure

How To Speak Magic Spells

How To Leverage Their Ego

How She Got Money From Her Parents