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https://loopvids.s3.amazonaws.com/Oct20Post.mp4 One of the very first "transactions" that went down on planet Earth happened by accident. Biologists believe the very first multi-cellular life form happened when one single celled dude tried to eat another single celled dude. But it was kind of like the world famous "peanut butter in my chocolate" discovery. That old commercial where one lady was walking down the street eating some chocolate. Another dude was walking down the street eating peanut butter, from a jar. They bumped into each other and BOOM! A new candy was invented. This is exactly what happened way back in the days if single celled organisms. When that one dude crept up on another dude and tried to eat him. Of course, he didn't really "eat" him. He (or it) tried to surround the smaller single cell and become a bit bigger, kind of like the horror movie "the blob." Only things didn't go as planned. Turns out the smaller dude was pretty good and producing energy. And the bigger dude had a very thick cell membrane. And they ended up being the perfect team. (Just like peanut butter and chocolate) The little dude on the inside would provide the energy. The bigger dude on the outside would provide the protection. Flash forward a billion years or so, and this kind of "overlapping selfishness" happens EVERYWHERE. Bees and flowers. Monkeys and fruit. Monkey see the bright colors and get excited. Because their DNA knows that "bright colors = sweet taste." The eat the fruit and poop out the seeds. This is EXACTLY like bees and flowers. One group gets the sweet stuff. The other groups gets help with reproduction. This is also how they think dogs went from wolves who ate people to being "man's best friend." Overlapping selfishness. Dogs got free food. Humans got this perfect alarm-home-defense system. Adam Smith even talked about this. The butcher, the baker, the brewer don't do what they do because they give two rips about us. They want our money. But like bees, and monkeys and dogs, they have to GIVE us something in exchange for our money. Bread, beer, bacon, etc. This is how ALL LIFE works. Even chemical bonds. Two single atoms are better off TOGETHER than they are rolling solo. This is also how human relationships are formed. Through a mostly unconscious overlapping selfishness. We like hanging around with friends and lovers because we are better TOGETHER than we are apart. Everybody knows HOW to do this. Little kids have been making friends with other little kids since the dawn of time. So when you look across the room, and ASSUME that gorgeous lady has EVERYTHING, and you walk over like a beggar, you are NOT following the rules of nature. But if you DO stroll on over there like an atom with an extra space for a electron, you ARE following the rules of nature. This is not something you need to learn. This is only something you need to remember. Get Started: https://mindpersuasion.com/personal-magnetism/

https://loopvids.s3.amazonaws.com/Jun10Post.mp4 The creation of life on Earth is a mystery. Kind of. They don't know exactly how it happened, but they've got some pretty good ideas. Way back in the beginning, there were a kajillion atoms and basic molecules all bouncing around. Eventually, some of the these basic molecules would hook up to from bigger and bigger molecules. Pretty soon these molecules create what we call "life." It took a LONG time. But many suspect that this would always happen, eventually, given the right ingredients, temperatures, pressures. From a purely probability standpoint, certain things are inevitable given the limits of the system. For example, if you stood there tossing a coin, eventually you'd get five heads in a row. Given how many tosses per minute, you could even predict how often you'd get five heads in a row. Similarly, given enough time (a billion years or so) and the right basic components under the right conditions, you'd eventually get life. The way atoms form molecules is pretty cool. One metaphorical way to think about this is like a giant container of jigsaw puzzle pieces. Every jigsaw puzzle piece is looking around for a good fit. But every they join together, they make a BIGGER jigsaw puzzle. The reason we are a carbon based life form, along with oxygen and hydrogen, is with only these three atoms, you can get TONS of different molecules. This may seem a bit of a leap, but humans are LOT like atoms. There are many, many ways we can create these overlapping, mutually beneficial relationships. For things like bees and flowers, this is pretty easy to understand. They have one thing they other needs. They "co-evolved" to help each other out. But humans have many, many more potential "things" to help each other out. This is exactly what Adam Smith described in the wealth of nations, way back in 1776. People want money. So they need to figure out what to make, that we will want MORE than our money. We trade our money for their stuff, and both people are happy. Just like bees and flowers. But on non-financial, subconscious level, there are TONS more opportunities. In comic books and movies about hero's, this is kind of obvious. Different superheroes have different superpowers, and they join a team to create an unbeatable force. Very much like in the movie, "Ocean's Eleven." They put together a "dream team" of criminals to rob a casino. Every member had their own criminal superpower. Every single human has TONS of strengths and weaknesses. This means every single human you come across a lot of potential to create overlapping, mutually beneficial relationships. But since most of these live in the subconscious, most people don't notice this. Most people only notice the obvious. But if you can see BEYOND the obvious, you can create your own team of superheroes, for any reason. Learn How: https://mindpersuasion.com/intuition/

https://loopvids.s3.amazonaws.com/May28Post.mp4 Everything is made of energy. Even particles, according to particle physics, are actually tightly packed energy waves. We humans can be described as "energy pumps." We need to consume at least 2000 calories per day. We eat organic matter, and when we digest it, we get the energy from the chemical bonds. We can be called "pumps" because we consume energy, and expend waste. But our waste goes back into the Earth, and the cycle continues. Bees and flowers have an overlapping, selfish relationship. The bees think they are getting free nectar. Free energy. But the flowers think they are getting free help cross pollinating. They evolved together, to help each other out. They call this "co-evolution." It's essentially how all animals became domesticated. We didn't go out, capture animals and then train them. The process of domestication takes plenty of generations. We find the smartest, most docile, most human-liking animals among the entire herd. Then each generation, we keep picking the smartest and most docile animals to breed. This is kind of a human-driven co-evolution. Other co-evolution happens between fruit trees and primates. We primates evolve a sense of color, and a affinity for the sweet taste of the fruit. Those fruit trees evolved sweet and colorful fruit around the seeds. Pretty much the same relationship between bees and flowers. The bees get the sweet stuff, and in turn they help the flowers reproduce. Primates eat the sweet fruit, and poop out the seeds, and help the tree reproduce. You'll find this kind of overlapping, co-evolved behavior among plenty of different species. Mostly between insects and plants. Since there a kajillion different kinds of each. But this also happens between humans and humans. Even among the same tribe. The dudes all compete to see who can kill the biggest animal. Their selfish reward is social validation. The people giving the social validation are getting the benefit of all the calories from the slain beast. Nobody thinks about this. It just comes naturally. An overlapping instinct that works perfectly to keep the tribe healthy. This is EXACTLY what Adam Smith described in his book, "The Wealth Of Nations." People don't work hard to produce stuff because they care about us. Or because it's part of some goofy "social contract." People work hard to make stuff because they want our money. And we happily give them our money in exchange for the stuff. Very much like ancient people "gave" social validation in exchange for plenty of delicious protein. This "money-instinct" rests directly on top of this mutually selfish instinct. The kind that exists between ALL KINDS of living creatures. This means money is a natural part of a healthy society. A natural part of life. Embrace this ancient instinct, and get in the game. Learn How: https://mindpersuasion.com/money-magnet/

https://loopvids.s3.amazonaws.com/Jan16Post.mp4 There's a pretty cool idea called "co-evolution." It describes how different species tend to form overlapping relationships. Most of them are between insects and plants. Simply because there are tons of different insects, and tons of different plants. Bees and flowers are the most popular example. The flowers give the bees nectar. The bees cross pollinate the flowers. To get the nectar, the bees have to go inside the flower. The pick up pollen on these small prickly things that have outside. And when they go from flower to flower, they pick up pollen from one flower, and leave it in another flower. Of course, neither the bees nor the flowers have any idea what's going on. But we can sort of imagine how his insect-flower "trade agreement" might have occurred. Once upon a time, there were plenty of different kinds of bees. And there were different kinds of flowers. The flowers that happened to have their free nectar right next to their pollen were a perfect match for the nectar loving bees who happened to have those prickly things on them. Maybe there were a bunch of nectar loving bees without those prickly things. Maybe there were a bunch of nectar giving flowers with their pollen somewhere else. But after tens of thousands (or millions) of generations of natural selection, these two (the bees and the flowers) are a perfect match. This type of "co-evolution" is also what they think domesticated dogs. It wasn't like humans went out one day, captured a bunch of wolves and decided to train them. Over perhaps several hundred generations, the most passive dogs started hanging around humans. Just like bees and flowers, they "co-evolved" to help each other out. The dogs got easy food, that they didn't have to chase or kill. The humans got a potentially fierce looking and sounding animal that would chase away strangers. Just like bees and flowers, a perfect match. Another perfect match happens between humans and humans. We humans have TONS of overlapping selfishness. Adam Smith describes this in the book, "The Wealth of Nations." He said the farmer, the butcher, the baker, they don't work hard to produce bread and beer because they desperately want us to be happy. They want our money. But they also know that the only way to get our money is to make something we want MORE than our money. This is the same as bees and flowers. Only we humans have two very critical advantages. One is our conscious thinking minds. We can look around and CHOOSE what kind of stuff we can make. The other is money. When these two ideas combine, magic happens. Learn More: https://mindpersuasion.com/money-instinct/

https://loopvids.s3.amazonaws.com/Jan05Post.mp4 A very helpful metaphor comes from Adam Smith. The guy who wrote, "The Wealth of Nations," way back in 1776. The metaphor is one that is almost always misunderstood. It describes how pricing works in a relatively free economy. How people only need to know the price of something, and everything else will kind of fall into place. For example, suppose you sell burgers. You've got a decent burger restaurant and have a decent stream of customers. But you've noticed that in the past couple months, the price of ground beef has been slowly rising. This would cause you to look for other sources. Which you would do. You'd find other sources, and they'd be cheap, and you'd be back in business. Or suppose you were THINKING about getting into the burger business. You did some calculations, and you figured you could put together and sell a burger for $3 at your costs. Which would mean that if you could sell each burger for $4, you'd be in good shape. The problems was that the going rate for burgers was only $3.50. Not quite enough for you to make a profit. But then you started seeing reports on the news about the price of burgers skyrocketing. People were paying $5 and $6 for a burger. You checked with your people, and you could still make them for $3 and sell them for $4. You get in there, and make a killing. In any of these examples, nobody needs to know WHY the price is what it is. Only that it's going up or down. From a consumer standpoint, this is much easier to see. Suppose you loved yourself a good burger. But only if they were LESS than $5. So you see the news, about how prices of burgers are dropping. The price of the average burger is only $2. You don't need to know why. All you need to know is that you love burgers, and they are now selling for $2. So you get out there and get some. All this is what Adam Smith referred to as the "Invisible Hand." The fact that all everybody, buyers, sellers, potential buyers, potential sellers, need to know is the price. And just knowing the price will slightly alter everybody's behavior. Even if nobody speaks the same language. This is who goods can flow around the world. Goods flow one way, money flows the other. Money to Earth is like blood to your body. Unfortunately, money is a mystery to most people. A confusing mystery. But if you understand money, you can get in the game. And get some. Get Started: https://mindpersuasion.com/money-instinct/

Plenty of people, including myself, love con artist movies. They are usually written so the bad guy has kind of a good reason for being the bad guy. And the guys they usually con aren't that innocent. What's particularly interesting is all the thinking and planning that goes into the con. Movies like Ocean's Eleven, for example, involve a gigantic con centered around a robbery. The entire purpose of the con was an enormous sleight of hand. Get everybody looking over here, so you can do something over there. PT Barnum was famous for saying there's a sucker born every minute. But what's not usually mentioned is the second half of that famous quote. Namely, that suckers are suckers BECAUSE they are willing to believe something that is TOO GOOD to be true. The flip side of this idea is that you "can't con an honest man." Perhaps this is we love con artist movies so much. Nobody is innocent. Even in Ocean's Eleven, they were robbing a casino. A place that makes its money by tricking people that they can get lucky, and go home richer than they came. Some of the coolest cons are ones you'll find in nature. The Venus fly trap and other plants that trick insects into thinking they are getting some kind of delicious snack. When it reality they about to get digested. Some creatures get lucky and "co-evolve." Bees and flowers, for example. Bees aren't any smarter than the poor suckers who get eaten by Venus fly traps. But they DO provide a service to the flowers. Even though it's something that arose organically, it is very instructive. The bees get something, and they give something in return. The flowers get something, and they give something in return. Bees get paid in nectar for doing the work of pollination. We humans like bees because they make honey. And we like flowers because they are easy on the eyes and nose. Flies on the other hand? If they get suckered into getting eaten, no worries. This idea is very useful, and very powerful. If you expect to GET something, you should always expect to GIVE something. Not necessarily in exchange, like bees and flowers. But generally speaking, good results will COST something. Either time, risk, patience, or skills that few people have. The more you think you are going to "get lucky" and get something for free, maybe it's time to check your assumptions. As they say in poker, if you don't know who the sucker is, it's you. Even though bees sting (everybody gets to defend themselves) we all like them because of what they provide. You want to get something, you got to give something. Inside your brain, and outside in the world. Learn More: http://mindpersuasion.com/goal-setting-sucks/

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