Tag Archives: Seduction

Chase The Money

Chase Wealth and Women Will Chase You

On a fundamental level, women are supposed to follow men.

Well, “supposed to” is kind of a strong word.

But that’s how we are designed.

That’s how we humans operate most efficiently.

Men chase life, and women chase men.

Think of our ancient ancestors. Men were always out hunting.

And the animals they hunted didn’t just hang around in the same spot all day.

Most of the time, they migrated. So the men migrated.

And the women and children, who were utterly dependent on the men for their survival, had to follow them.

Because this lifestyle existed for so long, it’s built into our DNA.

Women feel most congruent when they are following a man.

But not just any beta goof.

They have to be following a DRIVEN MAN who is out chasing wealth.

Because THAT is what those animals were.

Wealth.

Meat for food. Skin for clothes. Bones for weapons and jewelry.

Sure, the women did their share. They gathered.

But there’s only so much use for roots and whatever else they could dig up.

So, think of your life.

How do YOU define wealth?

Are you chasing it?

Because that’s what your ancestors did. And they didn’t do it only when it was easy, or the weather was good.

They did it every single day.

And the ones that were BEST at chasing wealth?

Those were the guys that ALL the ladies wanted.

BE THAT GUY:

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Manifest Women

Get Girls To Like You

How do you get a girl to like you?

One of the most common questions since the dawn of time.

Unfortunately, it kind of misses the mark.

If you want to get a good answer, you need to ask the right question.

Imagine if you had a dinner party. You invited a bunch of people over.

You’d already cooked the food, but you were worried they weren’t going to like it.

So you called your friend who was a part time chef, and asked them:

“How do you get somebody to like what you’ve cooked?”

They would probably say, “they’ll either like or they won’t.”

Same thing with girls. If you’re ALREADY asking how to get A girl to like you, it’s too late.

Because she’s probably already made up her mind.

So, what’s a better question?

How do get GIRLS to like you.

Because girls are humans. And they are hard wired to like certain traits in guys.

Traits that guys exhibit whether they know it or not.

And usually traits that most girls don’t fully understand.

They just know that they like some guys, but not others.

How do you become the first category? The guys they naturally like?

First you have to understand what it is.

Then you have to practice it until it becomes second nature.

Then you’ll never need to worry about girls again.

Ever.

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The Secret Behind Human Intelligence

Captain, That Is Illogical

Here’s an interesting mind experiment. Ready? Here is the situation; you have four cards, with the following faces showing. D, 7, 3, F. You are told that each card has a number on one side, and a letter on the other. Now you are given a statement:

On every card that shows a “D” on one side, there is a “3” on the other side.

Here is the challenge: How many cards do you need to turn over, and which cards, to conclusively prove or disprove the following statement, and which cards do you turn over?

While you may find this easy (I didn’t I had to cheat and read the logic behind the explanation to get it,) most people don’t. In face, when this study was first concocted by a couple of professors at Stanford (where you’d think there’s be some smart people) only about one out of four got the answer right.

Now here’s the same question, presented another way:

You are a bouncer at a bar. The rules are that you can’t drink unless you are twenty-one. Now the cards are “drinking coke, drinking beer, 16 years old, 25 years old.” Or if you prefer, there are four people sitting at the bar. One is drinking beer (you don’t know how old they are) one is drinking coke (you don’t know how old they are) one is 25 (you don’t know what they are drinking) and one is sixteen (you don’t know what they are drinking).

From a logical standpoint, the problem is identical, yet when presented the second way, most people quickly realize that in order to figure out if anybody is breaking any laws, all you do is card the person drinking beer, and quickly check what the sixteen year old is drinking. In effect, turning over two cards to see what is on the other side.

As in the case above, you turn over the “D” to verify it if has a three on the other side, and you turn over the “7” to make sure it doesn’t have a “D” on the other side. If the D has a 3, and the 7 doesn’t have a D, then the statement is correct. If the D doesn’t have a three, and the 7 has a D, then the statement is incorrect.

The underlying problem is why, when the logic is identical, do so many people have a hard time (as I did) with the first question, and a much easier time (as I did) with the second question?

One answer could be that we aren’t as logically thinking as we’d like to believe. It may be that our brains aren’t designed to think in terms of Vulcan logic like Mr. Spock, but to think only in terms of social interactions, specifically to uncover social “cheats,” those that would break unwritten social contracts.

The thinking behind this idea goes like this. Humans lived in small groups for a couple hundred thousand years. That’s when we developed our “humanness” so to speak. One thing that evolutionary biologists think is one of the major driving forces behind the massive growth of the human brain during our history was social pressure from within the group. Our brains, our language, our thinking was all developed to outsmart each other within that small group of wandering nomads all those years ago.

Numerous studies of chimps and various apes have shown this to be a major portion for the need for their large brains as well. Most of them have plenty of food where they live, don’t need to organize sophisticated hunting parties, or come with complex methods of evading predators. Most of their thinking power, many believe, is so they can outsmart each other and rise as high in the social order as possible.

When humans developed language many, many years ago, we just took it a couple notches higher (to say the least) and developed all kinds of conscious and unconscious social skills. We learned to read facial expressions and body language, learned how to tell when somebody is cheating or lying, and be able to cheat and lie ourselves.

Many species have a specific feature, which is there solely for sexual competition within the species. The most often given example is the peacock’s tail. When peahens get together to choose their mate, they choose the male with the most flamboyant tail. Interestingly, the more flamboyant the tail, the dangerous it is for the peacock, as he is a much easier prey for predators, as well as having to lug that huge thing around should he have to run away.

In other species, they have other aspects. Bull seals have their size and strength, gorilla’s have their silver stripe of hair on their back, different birds have various ways to strut their stuff, from colored feathers to singing ability.

In humans, it is our brains, more specifically our verbal and social skills that became the driving force of sexual selection. Those that were the most eloquent, and the most persuasive, were the most prolific, and left the most offspring. Those offspring, having inherited slightly higher skills for eloquence and social prowess, in turn competed with each other. Continue that process for a few hundred thousand years, and you’ve got these big-brained humans walking around.

Us.

Something to think about yet next time you’re at a bar or club or other social gathering, and watching the vast throng trying to talk their genes into eternity.

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Success with NLP

Success with NLP

What Are Your Instincts?

Man – Know Thyself

Last week I went to a book signing at a local bookstore. Some guy was going to sign some books, and give some kind of lecture. I hadn’t planned on going, but a friend of mine dragged me along. I think there is a girl that works there that he would like to ask out, but he is too shy to go by himself. On the way there we ran into this group of kids that were having a semi organized race with their remote controlled formula one cars. Maybe that’s not the best way to describe them. They were cars that were designed to look like formula one cars. They were pretty loud for how small they were, and much faster that you’d expect.

I don’t know if they got special permission from the city, but they had designed a small course in a park. They had set up some markers to create the points on each side of the track. There were about fifteen kids in all. I didn’t see any adults, so I’m not sure if it was a sponsored event or some sort of school club.

So while we were hanging out and watching this race, this guy came up and stated talking to us. We had about an hour before the guy’s speech at the bookstore started, so we had plenty of time. Plus my friend promised me that if I went with him, he’d ask out that girl. So he was likely stalling for time.

The guy started talking to us about genetics and determination. It was quite a strange topic to just bust out of nowhere with. I thought for a minute that he was some homeless bum that walks around blurting out word salad to whoever will listen, but it turns out he is a university professor. Halfway through his impromptu dialogue, he stopped and apologized for coming in out of the blue with such a potential divisive topic. The nurture/nature debate never ends well. I suppose he could have been talking about which is the best manufacturer of shoe polish, and my friend would have eagerly listened. He was really getting nervous about asking out that girl.

It’s funny when that happens. The human brain has this powerful mechanism for self-protection and self-preservation that comes out in many forms. Whenever we perceive a threat, we will do anything to get away from it. If there is no getting away from it, we will ignore it at all costs.

I’m always reminded of biology class I took in college. We were studying various primates, and great apes in particular. There was some lady that came in to our class once that had actually gone to Africa and studied them up close. She said the trick in not getting beat to death by the silverback, the alpha male leader, was to never ever make eye contact. You can get very close to the group so long as you don’t make eye contact with the leader, or any of the other powerful members of the group.

People spend a lot of time pretending to be really interested in something, but in reality they are avoiding making eye contact with what they perceive as a threat. In the jungle of course, making eye contact with the silverback will get you a good thrashing. But in real life, staring your fears right in the face is usually the trick to making them vanish.

Which is lucky for this weird professor who was going on and on about the way the mind comes pre-wired for certain instincts. He was saying that people used to think that man was different from all the other animals, because animals have instincts, and we have to learn everything as we go along. That’s why they used to think that humans took so long to make it to adulthood compared to all other animals. That we were born like some computer with only a hard drive, and no software.

But in reality, we come with many more instincts that all the other animals, AND the ability to learn along the way. Making us extremely flexible and agile when it comes to surviving. Our instincts are just as strong as migrating birds who know exactly where to fly every winter, but ours are flexible, so we get to change the where they point. Of course, the draw back is that if you don’t consciously evaluate your instincts and where they are pointing, you’ll be covertly guided by all the messages and advertising we are surrounded with on a daily basis.

Of course this agility makes it very easy for us to come up with unique and interesting ways to avoid overcoming our fears and our problems, like pretending to be really interested to some blathering professor in the park, like my friend was doing.

I was finally able to pull him away from the “professor,” who apologized profusely when he checked his watch. I guess he had lost track of time as well.

Which was just as well, because by the time we got up to leave, the kids had finished their tournament. The kid that won was being congratulated by all the other kids as we got up to leave. I saw a school bus pull up, and some adults got off and pulled out some boxes, into which the kids put their cars. I guess it was a sponsored event after all.

And when we got to the bookstore, the guy that was signing the books was the guy that we just talked to in the park. I guess he had written several textbooks on evolutionary psychology, and this was his first book targeted at normal people. As it turns out, his dialogue with us in the park was practice for tonight’s, lecture. I guess he thought if he could get a bunch of random strangers to understand his theory, then he could explain it to some eggheads in a bookstore. He made sure to thank us for being his guinea pigs. His speech was actually pretty good.

And my friend finally asked that girl out. Sort of. He got her name, and phone number, and a vague commitment to “maybe do something together later, or something.” I guess that’s pretty much what we came here for.

Her phone number.

But this sure was a round about way to get here, wasn’t it?

How To Create A Huge Following Of Admirers

Be Excellent, Be Gone

The other day I was having this conversation with a neighbor of mine. This guy is pretty old, and was talking about well his kids were doing. He had three sons, and they all went to university, got decent jobs, and are now married with kids of their own. The guy seemed to be bragging about his kids, but I could detect a little bit of sadness. The guy’s wife died several years ago, and he lives alone. Hence his frequent chats with me and all the other neighbors. The guy is lonely. But he somehow knows when to cut a conversation short; he seems to have a sixth sense of doing this just before he starts to wear out his welcome.

But not a bad kind of lonely, like some old people. I had this neighbor once that was always eager to talk with you, but she gave off this really strong vibe of desperation. As soon as this lady started talking to, you had to figure out a way to make an escape. If it were up to her, she would talk to you for hours on end. Sometime she would knock on my door with a really weak excuse, when it was obvious that she was looking for somebody to talk to.

Reminds me of a story that people tell sometimes about Milton Erickson, who was a world famous hypnotherapist back in the fifties and sixties. There was a woman, in her sixties, who was old and lonely like the two people mentioned above. She went to Dr. Erickson for help, and he gave her some advice. It was a variation of the old “if you want to make a friend, be a friend,” advice.

Since was particularly fond of a type of flower, African Violets, and grew quite a bit of them, he had a pretty interesting idea. Her assignment was to read the Sunday newspapers, both the obituaries, and the announcements. If somebody that lived in her neighborhood passed away, she was to bring them a bouquet of African Violets as a condolence. She wasn’t supposed to hang around very long, or try to make friends. Just show up, give her condolence, offer the flowers, and leave.

Likewise, if she saw a good piece of news in the announcements, such as a wedding, or a graduation, or a new baby, she was to put together a bouquet, and bring it over as a gift of congratulations. Again, the assignment wasn’t the same. Show up, give her congratulations and the flowers, and split.

She was to do this every week, at least once. Keep in mind this was back in the fifties, when it wasn’t uncommon for neighbors to do this kind of thing. If you tried this today, somebody might call the cops or something, depending on the neighborhood.

At first she was incredibly nervous and worried that she would be rejected. She was afraid that people wouldn’t want her, or her gift. So the first couple of times it was very hard. But once she got over her nervousness, and realized that most people are generally very friendly, and will happily accept well wishes from strangers, so long as they don’t have any ulterior motives.

Pretty soon she was doing three, four, even five trips every weekend. As the weeks and months went by, she found her self very busy with her little operation that was actually getting quite big. It didn’t take her very long for her loneliness to disappear as she learned one of life’s most valuable lessons.

The best way to help yourself is to help others first.

Of course had Dr. Erickson told her this as some vague platitude, she would have agreed, and not changed much. But he broke it down for her into a simple task, so that she would discover this lesson for herself.

And years later, when she died, thousands of people crowed at her memorial service, and she got quite a write up in several newspapers:

African Violet Queen Mourned By Thousands

Not bad for a lonely old lady. Just goes to show what a simple effort to step outside of your comfort zone just a little bit can do. To see what you can offer to others.

It’s important to remember that she never hung around after she gave her bouquet of flowers, expecting immediate thanks or gratification. Erickson was explicit on this. Let the reciprocity slowly build throw the strange effects of karma.

For some reason, it reminds me of a movie called “The Tao Of Steve.” A movie that is particularly popular among those that would like to me master seducers of women. It was about this guy that was poor, overweight, and not all that attractive. But he was wildly successful with women. His motto was simple.

Be excellent, be gone.

Meaning never hang around waiting for people to say “thanks,” or tell you what a nice person you are. Do good things for others simply for the feeling you get for doing them. Then get the hell out of Dodge. If you are patient, your rewards will come. With much more magnitude and much more significance that you could ever imagine.

Why You Should Never Stop Learning

How To Maximize Your Success In Anything You Want To Do

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sales And Seduction Tips From Milton Erickson

What The Creator of Conversational Hypnosis Can Teach us About Sales And Seduction

Every time you open your mouth, you have an intention. Whether this intention is conscious or not, planned or not, automatic or not, realized by you or not, this intention is there. Perhaps if somebody asks you the time, your intention is to behave in a socially appropriate manner without drawing undue attention to yourself.

If a homeless person walks up to you and asks for change, your intention is likely to end the uncomfortable conversation as quickly and painlessly as possible. For some this means to ignore him. For some it means giving him a dollar. For some it means an automatic physical altercation. As politically incorrect as it sounds, unless you set out specifically to volunteer in a soup kitchen or a homeless shelter, most people feel uncomfortable (for many, many different reasons) when approached by a homeless person asking for change.

If you are a guy, and you approach an attractive girl in a bar, your intention is likely to get her to like you, and perhaps more.

Most of these intentions are extremely vague, and largely unconscious. Very rarely do we stop and plan an outcome when somebody stops us on the street to ask us for directions or the time. Even though our response is automatic, we are trying to achieve an outcome of maintaining safety. Our automatic responses are largely based on protection, or defense.

Even the guy approaching the girl in the bar, although he has a somewhat conscious intention of getting her to like him, he is still likely operating from a frame of protection at the same time. He would love to be able to walk up to her, be as open and expressive as possible, make her laugh, show her his stunning personality and conversation skills. However, most of us guys are terrified of the public shame that the rejection of our advances would bring. So we hedge our bets, so to speak. We engage, but protect at the same time. This can prove extremely difficult.

The same goes with salespeople. Rejection can be awfully painful, even for the most seasoned veterans. Many times they approach the prospect with the same mindset of the guy approaching the girl in the bar. They’d love to proclaim how wonderful their product is, and clearly suggest that the prospect buy the product, but many are afraid to do so. One main weakness of almost anybody who has even been in sales is an inability to simply ask for the sale.

Most sales people beat around the bush, hoping the prospect will come to the conclusion on their own to buy the product. This rarely works. As most prospects usually need a nudge in the right direction.

However, there is another way. Actually a couple of other ways. Well, actually, lots of other ways, but I will only talk briefly about two of them. These were all “invented” by Milton Erickson, the father of conversational hypnosis. He came up with all kinds of powerfully persuasive conversation tools to help people overcome large life issues in a relatively short amount of time.

These two are very powerful ones that you can go out and use today, in a bar, with a girl, or with a prospect, or with your friends.

One is an indirect way of asking for the sale. This requires you be pretty good at reading body language, and facial expressions. The way you do this is to use what’s called an embedded question. Whenever you present a question to somebody, they will answer it, either verbally or not. But when you embed it in a sentence, then they don’t feel the pressure to answer it openly. But their body language and facial expression will give them away. Here’s how:

Say you are selling cars. You’ve been on the test drive, and your back in the office with the customer. They are still there, and they’ve been paying attention to you so far. You haven’t started talking about actual finances yet. You are still discussing whether or not they liked the car. You can say:

“Well, I don’t know whether or not you want to buy this car today, but before we talk about any kind of financial issues, let me talk to you about the extended warranty.”

Watch closely as you say the “buy the car today” part. If they seem like they are about to have a heart attack, you should probably hold off on asking them to sign a contract. If they seem to show any positive response at all, you’re in pretty good shape.

Same goes with the girl in the bar. You could say:

“I know we’ve been only talking for twenty minutes, and I don’t know if you feel comfortable giving your phone number to a guy you just met, but I think it’s important to be open when meeting new people. You never know when you are going to find somebody that could turn into a lifelong friend.”

Again, pay attention to how she responds when you say, “giving your phone number.” If she briefly lights up like a Christmas tree, she’s been dying for you to ask, and she’s into you. Proceed, and get her number. If she steps back and puts her hand protectively over her throat, you should politely excuse yourself.

That’s the “embedded question” method, and can be very powerful in testing how you are doing.

The other way is a bit more aggressive, and can be used by itself, or after you’ve successfully tested for a close. This trick is called the double bind. It involves giving them the illusion of a choice, when in actuality, both choices are the same thing.

For example, with the car example, you could say (as you pull out the contract):

“So were you going to use your current car as a trade in, or did you just want to make a down payment?” Either way they answer, it presupposes they are going to buy the car. This is, of course tough to do on a big-ticket item like a car. It can work better with smaller issues. You can use this for every part of the sales process, when you want to escalate to the next level.

“So did you want to test drive a blue one, or a red one?”
“So were you going to finance through us, or your own bank?”
“Would you rather test drive before or after we talk about financing?”

This works really well with phone sales when setting up appointments:

“I am going to be in your neighborhood next week, would Tuesday at 4:00 PM be OK, or is Thursday at 6:30 better?”

And you can also use it on the girl whose number you got:

“Say this is George from the other night, we talked at Flankies. I enjoyed our conversation, and I’d like to see you again, for a cup of coffee. Which is easier for you, Tuesday evening at 8:00, or Thursday at 9:30?”

You can use both of these together for a powerful increase in your closing percentage. Test their “buying temperature” with the embedded question, and then “close” them with the double bind. You’ll be amazed at your results.

Social Proof and Authority – Powerfully Persuasive, Or Horribly Evil?

Two of the most powerful and effective means of persuasion are social proof and authority. Social proof and authority are responsible or some of the greatest marketing stories of all time and some of the most horrible acts of cruelty perpetrated by societies led by evil and charismatic leaders.

Due to hundreds of thousand of years of evolution, the human brain has developed several “short cuts” in thinking. If you were a caveman living a hundred thousand years ago, it wouldn’t have served you very well to sit back and contemplate all your options when your whole tribe was on the move. Those that had a compulsion to follow the crowd generally lived long enough to reproduce, and pass on this compulsion to their offspring. Rebels didn’t.

Despite our tendency to fancy ourselves as independent thinkers and individuals, we are very strongly influenced by group thinking. Fashion, movies, bestsellers, product endorsements all make it much easier for us to make decisions. Our modern thinking brains are the same brains that kept us alive and thriving on the plains of Africa for hundreds of thousands of years, and they still operate on the same principles, despite what modern science may try and lead us to believe.

The other factor, authority, is as equally as powerful, for the same reason. Most ancient tribes had a single leader, or small group of leaders. When they made a decision, you followed it, or you were banished or shunned by the tribe. Those that had the compulsion to follow orders from those that had demonstrable authority usually did better than the rebels.

The most famous experiment that demonstrated this was one you’ve likely heard of if you’ve studied psychology. Researchers set up an experiment where they would ask a test subject questions, and then have another test subject give him an electric shock if he got the answer wrong. (This test was performed several years ago. Today if any scientist even proposed such an experiment he would be shunned from the scientific community.) The inside scoop of the experiment was that the leader, dressed in a doctors white coat, and the person receiving the “shocks” were both in on the experiment. No actual shocks were given, and the receiver only pretended to be in pain.

The person giving the shocks, however, didn’t know this. The test was to determine just how far they’d go in listening to an “authority” figure. Much to the horror of the testers, the test subjects (the people giving what they thought were real electric shocks) went much further than anybody expected.

A huge percentage of the test subjects continued to give “shocks” despite the receiver begging them to stop. Only a small percentage refused to do so. At one point, the receiver even pretended to be having heart difficulties. Even so, shocks were still obediently delivered.

If the shocks had actually been real, and not pretend, the voltages would have been enough to kill the test subjects.

Let’s recap, just so you understand the significance. Normal, everyday people, just like you and me, were persuaded to give a potentially lethal electrical shock to a complete stranger, despite his pleadings against it, simply on the word of an authority figure.

The test designers were so horrified by the results, they made sure an experiment of this nature was never performed again.

When you combine social proof, described above, and authority, you get a persuasive message that is virtually impossible to resist. Cult leaders, dictators, and unscrupulous marketers have known this, and have used this.

Jim Jones persuaded people, mothers with their children, to kill themselves. Adolf Hitler persuaded a whole country to willingly murder six million Jews.

These two can be used together to persuade people powerfully. If you are a salesperson, or somebody that persuades others for a living, these two tools can be extremely useful, if used ethically.

When you persuade using these to influence factors in a win-win situation, you will be unstoppable. You can make more money, and attract more lovers than you ever thought possible.

However, be careful. Just the slightest bit of unethical behavior can quickly turn against you. If you use these two techniques to persuade or manipulate people against their best interests, you will soon find yourself as hated as Adolf Hitler.

Be careful.

Intuition and Congruence – Two Powerful Gifts From Evolution

I was reading this really interesting book the other day, The Red Queen, by Matt Ridley. A fascinating study of human sexuality through the lens of evolution. One of the various topics was the reasons behind the growth of the human brain. When compared to all other mammals, humans have the largest brain. The question is why? What was the driving force behind the massive growth of the human thinking machine?

Many arguments that are usually given can also be used for other primates, and their brains are nowhere near the size of ours. Most scientists believe it is a combination of many factors to say the least. One of the most prominent is sexual selection within a species.

Imagine a group of cave people, fifty girls, and fifty guys. For the guys, they want to have sex with as many girls as possible. (Obviously). For the girls, they need to be extremely selective with who they choose to have sex with, because the consequences could be disastrous if they choose the wrong guy. Their offspring will not only carry his DNA, but his cooperation will have a direct impact on that offspring to survive.

So how do they manage this? The men try their hardest to convince the women that they are upstanding men capable of providing for the family. One way to do this is to simply pretend to be. They only need to pretend long enough and good enough to get into her cave-panties for the couple minutes it will take to get his cave-men rocks off. Then off to the next cave girl.

So an arm’s race of sorts developed over time. In men, the ability to deceive. In women, the ability to detect deception. Of course, men would pass on their skills of deception to their offspring, be they girls or boys. And women would also pass on their skills of deception detection onto their offspring, be they boys or girls.

So as man evolved, there was a contest, in both men and women, between skills of deception, and skills to detect deception. As mankind grew, this required a bigger and bigger brain.

The reason for this is congruity. In order to detect deception, you must be able to detect incongruity. This requires massive attention to subtle clues of body language, facial expression, and voice tone. Too much for the conscious mind to handle. Many believe the unconscious mind was developed to detect deception without having to spend too much conscious bandwidth, so to speak.

So we developed an “intuition” to tell when somebody is lying or not. Our subconscious minds developed the ability to quickly scan somebody’s body language, facial expressions, and voice tone, and then deliver a gut reaction, or a “feeling” to our conscious minds. And those that have learned to pay attention to this “feeling” or “gut reaction” can spot a liar a mile away.

Conversely, those that can present a very congruent image can be some of the best salespeople and manipulators around. Of course, the best way to be a great salesperson is to really believe in what you are selling. There’s a reason that many companies require their salespeople to actually own and use the product they are selling.

Of course, when you are presenting yourself, either to a potential lover or to a potential boss, it is essential that you believe in yourself. If you have any self-doubts, you will be dead before you even open your mouth.

The moral of this essay is twofold. One, take some time to get in tune with your intuition. It can serve you well against making bad decisions. It is the product of hundreds of thousands of years of evolution, and is there for a reason. Use it, respect it, and listen to it.

Secondly, in order to present a believable image to the world, you must believe in yourself. Self-confidence and self-esteem stem from a belief that you are a good and worthy person with something of real value to offer the world. Don’t sell yourself short.

Believe in yourself, and trust your intuition, and you will go a long way.

Tap Egyptian Power of Success

I was sitting in a bowling alley recently, waiting for my turn, and this guy sitting next to me started talking about the Egyptian Pyramids. He was explaining all the historical and political significance of them, which I had never really thought of before. When most people think of the pyramids, they naturally think of these giant structures that were built out in the middle of the desert, many thousands of years ago by a culture that we can’t begin to understand. Some even believe they had influence from alien life forms, as some of the structural mathematics matches up keenly with certain elements of our solar system and out galaxy.

This guy was telling me how it was a brilliant political maneuver by the government at the time. They were very dependent on the Nile for almost all of their food, and when the Nile didn’t provide sufficient water, many people suffered. Every year the Nile would flood, submerging many peoples houses and farms, so they were not only dependent on the Nile, but they had to live and move according to its behavior.

Having a whole people who felt they were at the mercy of the gods was not an easy people to govern. Any edict the Pharaoh would proclaim would always be conspired in light of the heavens and the forces of nature, and would consequently take a back seat.

Enter the pyramids.

Deciding to build the pyramids was a stroke of genius. It gave virtually every Egyptian a feeling of being in control of something, for the first time in their lives. They knew they were building a very large structure, and they could even imagine a point up in the sky that they were aiming for, and that they would one day reach. To go even further, the engineers designed the pyramids so that when they were finished, they would point to a certain and prominent star in the sky, so even at night the people could connect their daily activity towards a specific goal to a far of distant point of light in the mysterious night sky.

If you’ve ever taken the time to look at your goals, it’s important to have them defined in two different ways. One way so that you can determine exactly when you have accomplished them, and giving you a specific time and place to focus your attention. Keep your eyes and mind on the finish line at all time, so to speak. This way your brain knows exactly what behaviors to do and not to do in order to get you to your goal. Many people set goals and fail, not because they don’t want them, but because they are not set with enough clarity and specificity.

The other important factor is to set a goal in a direction that you want to go in. Once you achieve your goal, you are going to have to come up with another one. Resting on your laurels has long been known as a killer of motivation and success. When you choose a far of direction, like the horizon, or a star in the sky, you will keep on going in the right direction, and can keep your motivation when you stumble along the way.

When you set both of these with enough clarity and specificity, you will almost get to your goal automatically. Just like the pyramids, once they set the plans, gave everybody a clear idea of where the were going, the pyramids went up almost automatically. And anything you want to create in life will go up just as quickly and as smoothly.

One thing that did go very smoothly, was my bowling. It seemed that every time I released it, it would roll very smoothly straight to the gutter, and my friends very quickly erupted in laughter and told me what an entertaining bowler I am to watch.