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https://loopvids.s3.amazonaws.com/Dec11Post.mp4 One common problem both salespeople and social persuaders have is an inability to close. Sales people can give the most fantastic presentations ever, but when it comes to the close, they flounder. Guys and girls can talk a great game, but when it comes time to close, it goes sideways. Both people feel it. Both people know that SOMEBODY should say something. But both sit there, mumbling and suddenly avoiding eye contact. "So, uh, yea, wow, gee..." There are two ways to get around this common problem. One is to ALWAYS close. Close everywhere and often. This, however, is only a superficial solution. It's kind of like ripping a bandage off. It's painful, and you want to get it over with. This is the basic philosophy of number closing everybody who looks in your direction. It kind of, sort of, makes it SEEM like you are being confident. If you tell your buddies you number closed twenty girls in the past weekend, they'd be impressed. After all, most guys are terrified of number closing ONCE, let alone twenty times. But when you look at the stats, they aren't really that great. You ask twenty girls for their number. Fifteen politely decline. Four gave you a number only because they were too shy to say no. That one who was actually interested, was really only interested in the moment. You impressed her with your confidence, your focus, your lack of anxiety. But since that attraction was built QUICKLY, it dissipated quickly. So when you call her a day or so later, she might not even remember you. So, yeah, while number closing twenty girls a week is pretty cool from a confidence, brag to your buddies angle, it's pretty ineffective if you actually want to MEET people. If you want to slowly expand your social circle, and get to KNOW people, number closing everybody with a pulse is not the way to do it. Consider doing the OPPOSITE. This is counter intuitive. This is a LONG GAME strategy. This will build up your REAL confidence. The deep confidence that isn't temporary. The kind of deep confidence that naturally radiates from you when you are ordering a slice of pizza or asking the waitress for a refill on your diet coke. How can you BUILD this confidence? By practicing hit and run compliments. But not OBVIOUS compliments. Not compliments about how they look, or how pretty their eyes are. Compliments about their choices, their decisions. Compliments about THEM. That indicate you see them more deeply than everybody else. What will make these particularly powerful is if you deliver them with linguistic presuppositions. These will make them radiate in their mind much longer. Walk up, deliver the compliment, smile and keep walking. This will create a massive number of memories in your brain. Of people looking at YOU and wanting more. This will add up to a deep and REAL belief that people WANT you. This is something few people will EVER experience. Learn How: https://mindpersuasion.com/cold-reading/
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https://loopvids.s3.amazonaws.com/July7Post.mp4 Way back when I was in high school, my buddies and I love to watch Mad Max. My buddies were all car freaks, more so than I was. They loved the idea of having a big V8 with a secret nitrous oxide injection to give it an extra boost. Their favorite part was when Max was chasing the bad guys, then he'd calmly flip on the switch to give his car a boost. Then he'd suddenly accelerate, overtake the bad guys and cause them all to crash. One of the Star Trek movies was a crossover. Where they had the original cast in with the Next Generation cast. One engineer from the original cast was talking to an engineer from the Next Generation cast. He was asking him how fast the engines would go. The guy told him, and then he asked again. "Yeah, but how fast do they REALLY go?" The Next Generation engineer didn't understand the question. The original engineer shook his head, and said: "Never tell the captain how fast the engines will REALLY go." The idea of having a hidden resource of energy is very compelling. A secret ace up your sleeve. There's even a theory from physiology that we all have secret hidden reservoirs of energy in case of emergencies. To lift up cars, or make it an extra mile when we're about to die. But because we are usually VERY safe and not anywhere NEAR life threatening danger, we'll never really know. This is ONE reason why people love extreme sports. It gets them out on the edge of safety. When they get mad adrenalin rushes. The opposite is also common. Unfortunately, very common. Of thinking you don't have ANY skills or energy beyond what you are doing RIGHT NOW. If you believe you really DO have some secret power source, or an ace up your sleeve, it will give you a TON of confidence. So much you'll never have to need that secret stash. But if you are secretly terrified you have NOTHING, that will have the opposite effect. Knowing you have a secret stash will naturally EXPAND your comfort zone outward. Being terrified you have nothing will make it shrink. Luckily, the size of your comfort zone is completely up to you. It's based on plenty of assumptions you make about yourself, and about the world. Most of those assumptions are wrong. Which means if you can RE-CALIBRATE your assumptions, your comfort will expand significantly. Making everything you want OUT THERE much easier. Learn How: http://mindpersuasion.com/self-esteem/
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https://loopvids.s3.amazonaws.com/Jun28Post.mp4 A very common movie scene is the halftime locker room speech. Where the hero's team is behind at halftime. The coach gives them a rousing speech that fires them up. They come out, destroy the other team, and everybody lives happily ever after. It's also common for guys who are going out to pick up girls to a have some kind of "pre-game" warm up. Some times this involves hitting a bar before to knock back a few and practice some conversations. So when they get to the place where the girls are, they built up their courage. It's also very common for movie heroes to give themselves mirror pep talks before critical events. All these situations presuppose that the extra boost of energy is helpful. Kind of like in the original Mad Max, when he fired up the nitrous oxide to give his "Interceptor" and extra boost of power to overtake the bad guys. But what would happen if you didn't need that extra boost? What would happen if you ALWAYS had the energy you needed? We like underdog movies, and stories about underdog hero's because WE feel like WE are underdogs. We wish somebody would give US a pep talk. We wish WE could pull off a stunning, come from behind victory. In a sense, that is the main PURPOSE of those movies. To BE that "pep talk" for us. To give us a little bit of extra inspiration to hang onto when WE go into whatever situations WE feel we would like that extra bit of juice. These types of stories have been told since the dawn of time. Even way back in the caveman days, sometimes those dudes needed some extra motivation. It wasn't always easy for them. It isn't always easy for us. We can imagine two levels of energy. Our constant, base level energy. And the temporary higher level that we CAN achieve when we REALLY need to. When it's down to you and somebody else for the job. When it's time to ask the girl for her number. When it's time to lay down the law to an office bully. All humans have a two sided story instinct. To listen and remember those motivational parts. The parts we need to get us over the humps. AND to be the story teller to inspire others. Most of the time, we need to be inspired. But sometimes we NEED to step up and inspire others. You can build skills for both. The more you practice, the stronger you'll be. On both sides of that ancient and necessary instinct. Learn How: http://mindpersuasion.com/public-speaking-confidence/
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https://loopvids.s3.amazonaws.com/Jun27Post.mp4 There's a pretty common scene in movies. One guy has got to do something painful to another guy. Like set a broken arm, or put a dislocated shoulder back. The common way is for the guy or gal doing the painful thing to count. "OK, on three..." And then they invariably do the thing halfway between 2 and 3. The idea being to get the guy off guard, so it happens more quickly and less painfully. But this is so common in the movies, the some shows are starting to have the guy getting the bone fixed to KNOW that they're going to do it halfway between 2 and 3. Now, from a pure writing standpoint, they do this so the viewer won't think, "Oh I've seen this before." To have the other guy (the guy getting his bone fixed) know the same thing the viewer is expecting, that the dude's gonna pop his bone back on 2 1/2 instead of on 3. It's kind of cool from a meta, viewers standpoint. But it also presupposes that the guy getting his arm fixed has ALSO watched a bunch of those same shows. Otherwise, how would he know it was coming a 2 and 1/2? All centered around the idea that getting a bone fixed SUCKS. Or getting your shoulder popped back in. I can attest that getting a bone set really DOES suck. Even when they inject you with a bunch of stuff that's supposed to make it NOT suck. It STILL sucks. Which is why even in real life they do it quickly. This is how most of us think about personal development. We imagine whatever it takes to get to where we are is going to SUCK. So we want to get it over as quickly as possible. This is why we LOVE the idea of hypnosis. The idea that somebody can put you to SLEEP and do the work FOR YOU is massively compelling. But as an effective strategy, it's right up there with losing weight while you sleep. Sure, if you have to give ONE speech, it's not a bad idea to just suck it up and get it over with. But the idea of learning skills is completely different. Unfortunately, the ENTIRE self help industry is built around FALSE ideas of "quick fixes." That you need to pay a bunch of money and go to a seminar where you have a BREAKTHROUGH experience. But the truth is actually much, much simpler. AND easier. AND, believe it or not, cheaper. Changing your body through exercise diet takes time. And if you ever STOP, it's easy to backslide. But when anything related to social skills, once you get past a certain point it is self sustaining. This is why going as slow as possible is much better. No seminars, no gurus, no goofy metaphysics. Only a pen some paper, your brain and a few minutes per day. Learn How: http://mindpersuasion.com/public-speaking-confidence/
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https://loopvids.s3.amazonaws.com/Jun24Post.mp4 Human hierarchies are everywhere. But they are mostly subconscious. The thing about humans is that we are driven by deep instincts. But we are capable of being driven by external triggers that indicate those deeper instincts. For example, by sheer mathematics, men have evolved a natural attraction to women who are, all else equal, younger rather than older. This is simply because the guys of the past who were RANDOMLY programmed to be attracted to younger women had MORE babies. Because a women who starts having babies younger rather than older will have more babies, since she's got more baby years ahead of her. So more kids will be born that have the gene to make the dudes naturally attracted to younger women. Similarly, all else equal, women are genetically programmed to be naturally attracted to older, more powerful men. For the same reasons. Ancient women that had the RANDOMLY programmed genes to be attracted to older, more powerful men had more kids. Since that older, more powerful man could support more kids than a young guy. So over time, more kids were made with the genes that made women naturally attracted to older, more powerful men. All this happened WAY before organized society. Long before money was invented. There are other instincts that can override these deeper, and basic instincts. One of those is social proof. If the entire tribe believes something, that will tend to OVERRIDE the deeper, more ancient instincts. In modern societies, we have all kinds of instincts fighting for our attention. For example, let's say you've got a big reunion coming up. The part of you that wants positive social proof, a very strong instinct, will WANT you to lose weight. But the part of you that wants to eat, ANOTHER very strong instinct, will compete with that. This is really the ONLY WAY to shut down the instincts we don't like. By pitting them against other instincts. Either for real, or by building up powerful emotional images. As mentioned above, we are still very influenced by social hierarchies. Where we are in the hierarchy. Men AND women. Modern experiments show this over and over. Stick ten people in a room, give them a task, and they will QUICKLY and subconsciously self organize into a hierarchy. How do they do this? We can imagine we all are giving off, and reading, some collection of subconscious, non verbal behavior that indicated where WE are on the social hierarchy. So much that every time they do this experiment, the same thing happens. Everybody looks around, reads this energy and AUTOMATICALLY takes their place. The take way is that the MORE of this subconscious, social hierarchy energy you are RADIATING, the higher up the food chain you'll be. Learn How: http://mindpersuasion.com/public-speaking-confidence/
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https://loopvids.s3.amazonaws.com/Jun20Post.mp4 I've a had a pretty interesting experience a few times. And that is to spend quite a lot of time traveling. 20-30 hours. And when you're traveling, you're thinking about how tired you are. How crappy the seats are. How annoying all the people are. And how happy you'll be when you can collapse onto your hotel bed. But then you show up in the city. A city you've never been to before. And suddenly you've got tons of energy. So you go out exploring. Maybe only to get a bite to eat, something to drink. Next thing you know, it's way later than you'd thought. Certain situations tend to do that to us humans. They wake up some hidden source of energy. Sometimes it's easy to see where this is coming from. Other times it's hard to pinpoint the source. All the pieces just kind of fit together, and part of you decides it's game time. Your body is flooded with energy and excitement. It's a very "outward" energy. A very "outgoing" energy. When you are driven to get involved as much as you can with your environment. Other times, it's the absolute opposite. This is more common. The familiar, "fight or flight" response. This is when your mind-body system recognizes extreme danger. The first kind of energy requires a HUGE feeling safety. But not only safety. But safety combined with new things, combined with a HUGE potential for new and exciting experiences. The second one is the exact opposite. The funny thing is if you randomly pick a whole bunch of people, they won't all have the same responses to the same experiences. Some will have a fight or flight response in the SAME situation as the "Wow! Let's party!" response that others have. What's the difference? It CAN'T be based on the environment. Otherwise everybody would respond in the same way to the same environment. It's got to do with how we INTERPRET our environment. Two people can be in the same situation at the same time. One person wants to flee. The other person is having the "lets party" response. The good news is that you can slowly RE-CALIBRATE where and when you WANT to have the "lets party" response. It's not quite as easy as flipping a switch. It's kind of like opening up a machine, and carefully rewiring it. It takes a little bit of time and patience. Mostly patience, since the process is pretty boring. But when you're finished rewiring your brain, you'll have MUCH MORE CONTROL of your seemingly AUTOMATIC responses to those situations. Learn How: http://mindpersuasion.com/public-speaking-confidence/
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https://loopvids.s3.amazonaws.com/Jun18Post.mp4 Status is important. At the same time, we like to pretend it's not. It's a happy idea that people will see us for who we REALLY are beyond things like money and status, etc. We all have this deep belief that if people take the time to "get to know us," then they will TRULY appreciate and LIKE who we really are. But in a way, that's kind of selfish. Because every single human out there has a limited amount of time and attention. And they have to decide exactly HOW to use that limited time and attention. Suppose the AVERAGE human crosses paths with 100 people each day. 100 NEW people. Further suppose that EACH one of those people have that SAME idea up in their brain. That if people ONLY took the time to get to know them, then they would like and appreciate who they REALLY are. How long would that take? How long would it take for somebody to get to know YOU? Multiply that by 100. That's how long it would take for EACH HUMAN to get to know all the people they cross paths with on a regular basis. They reason why this is selfish is we expect OTHER PEOPLE to do the work to "get to know us." How many people, on a DAILY basis do you take time to really "get to know"? Not just once or twice, but every single day? Probably not many. The reason is simple logistics. Nobody has enough time OR confidence to go around starting conversations with strangers JUST to get to know them. What would happen if somebody approached YOU out of nowhere, just to "get to know you?" Sure, if they were sexy that would be one thing. But imagine somebody who WASN'T particularly attractive OR interesting? What if you were approached by 100 of these people each day? Life would suck! The idea of OTHER PEOPLE taking the time to "get to know us" is not only extremely selfish (expecting them to do all the work,) but it's also LOGISTICALLY IMPOSSIBLE. If you WANT people to "get to know you" you've got to do the work. You've got to SELL YOURSELF. Not go door and door or anything like that. But when you see somebody that MIGHT be interesting, it's YOUR job to get the ball rolling. This takes confidence. This takes persistence. But there IS a much better position to be in. So that many people WILL naturally want to get to know you. And that gets us back to status. The more STATUS you have, the more people will WANT to get to know you. Not fake status. Real status. Real status is very ancient and is sent and picked up subconsciously. It's a certain kind of confidence. One few people have. Learn to develop THIS kind of confidence, and you'll have REAL status. Ancient status. Attractive status. Learn How: http://mindpersuasion.com/public-speaking-confidence/
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https://loopvids.s3.amazonaws.com/Jun17Post.mp4 Once I was at this local bar. And they had this blues band playing. A local band. Their guitarist was much better than you'd imagine to see in a small local bar playing up on stage. The bar could hold maybe 50 people, if it were packed. But this guy was up there just absolutely shredding. But he was doing it in a way that indicated he didn't need much of his conscious brain. Of course, nobody thinks like this. "Wow, that guy seems to well into the range of unconscious competence!" But when somebody plays guitar without needing to even open his eyes, just playing by feel, even going off on wild tangents, it's clearly a very high level skill. My friend made an interesting remark. "That dude must sleep with his guitar!" Meaning he must spend a LOT of time with his guitar. Practicing. We tend to automatically assume people spend a lot of time practicing when we see them with CERTAIN skills or abilities. If you saw a guy walking down the street with an eight pack and zero body fat, you'd think he spent a lot of time in the gym. Or he didn't drink beer or eat cookies. But for some reason, some skills we don't tend to think of as learned. We tend to think of them as in-born. If we assume, first, that ALL SKILLS can be improved, then WHY, specifically, would people assume the opposite? For example, guys see another guy walk up and effectively talk a girl into feeling happy, outgoing, and attracted. Most guys don't assume he's spent a lot of time practicing. Most guys say he's a "natural." Meaning he just showed up with those skills. But why don't we see a guy playing guitar and assume he's a natural guitar player? Why don't we assume that eight-pack-guy was born that way? Because there is ALWAYS another thought associated with learned skills. Especially observed learned skills. We see a guy up on stage, shredding on his guitar. We assume he spent a lot of time practicing. We QUICKLY imagine our own, usually subconscious, cost-benefit analysis of US spending that same time practicing. Meaning we quickly imagine why HE decided to spend all that time practicing, while we didn't. The answer that generally comes back is we've got better things to do. We don't WANT to become a literal guitar super hero. OK, fine. But why do we label "naturals" as naturals? Because anything that involves social skills is TERRIFYING. We don't even like to CONSIDER the idea of practicing and getting better. But the truth is twofold. Part one is EVERYTHING is a skill. EVERYTHING you can do can be improved. Usually a lot. The second part is practicing social skills is not nearly as terrifying as people think. Quite the opposite. In fact, if you practice correctly, it's actually pretty boring. Learn How: http://mindpersuasion.com/public-speaking-confidence/
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https://loopvids.s3.amazonaws.com/Jun16Post.mp4 If you ever find yourself up against a gang of bad guys, that strategy is pretty straightforward. At least from movie fighting strategy. Figure out which guy is the leader, and punch that guy first. Then the rest of the bad guys will flee. There was a movie a few years ago with Tom Cruise where he had to play this soldier fighting against aliens. He got some "super special" alien blood on him, so he could relive the same day over and over. Eventually, like most complex alien movies, in order to kill ALL the aliens, they had to kill the MAIN alien. Which was essentially the alien brain. This is a very common theme in movies. Mainly because we humans are hierarchical. So it makes perfect sense to kill the dude in charge and you'll be in good shape. It also makes sense to WANT to BE the guy in charge. If you are a good guy, and you are leading a good tribe or group of people, not much is better. The guys up on top get most of the good stuff. In chimps and in humans, social hierarchy is closely correlated with all the stuff we humans generally want. Money, sex, fame, etc. There is one idea binding these two ideas together. Killing the bad guy in charge, and being the good guy in charge. And that is public speaking. If you CAN manage to speak effectively in front of any crowd, for any amount of time, this will be a solid way to demonstrate REAL authority. Especially if your message is compelling. Everybody will be in the crowd watching you. Everybody will notice that everybody is watching you. This will give you both social proof AND authority. The two most powerful subconscious triggers. But to get there, you've got to get over your public speaking fear. A fear nearly EVERYBODY has. A fear nearly EVERYBODY thinks is WORSE than death. This is good news. Why? Because of all the fears up in your brain, fear of public speaking is the greatest. So if you knock out the leading fear, all the rest of your fears will scatter. Just like punching the leader of a gang in the face. So, what, punch yourself in the face? Like in Fight Club? No, nothing that drastic! Turns out there are a ton of simple and easy exercises you can do that will SLOWLY dismantle your public speaking fear. That's a problem with punching the bad guy in the face. He might come back! But if you DISMANTLE your fear, it will never show up again. Learn How: http://mindpersuasion.com/public-speaking-confidence/
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I had a friend a while back who went through a divorce. It completely blindsided him. He was really messed up, and went in for some counseling. One thing she told him was to be careful while driving. Turns out lots of people have accidents after a traumatic event. It messes up your thinking. A lot of negative emotions swirling around. The thing about emotions is we only feel some of them. They're kind of like an iceberg. For most of us, we only feel the small portion that is poking through the ocean surface. This isn't bad or wrong, this makes perfect sense. It is a very strong survival instinct. If you dwell on negative emotions, they'll mess you up. Which means if you're driving, you won't pay as much attention as you should, and you might crash. But for ancient humans, dwelling on negative emotions would make you a terrible hunter. Imagine a guy up to bat, bottom the ninth, last game of the world series. Only right before he stepped up to the plate, his girlfriend called him and yelled at him for not putting the toilet seat down. Dude probably wouldn't do so well. Even in Rocky III (or maybe II or IV...) Rocky didn't want to train because Adrian was in a coma. But when she woke up, it all changed. Especially when she told him to win. Then it was on like Donkey Kong. This is how emotions can impact performance. Good emotions caused by people we care about will make is conquer the world. Bad emotions caused by people we care about will make us crash our cars. For ancient humans, this was a matter of life and death. So we evolved an instinct to keep bad emotions buried deep beneath the surface. Ignoring them helped us survive. Only now, that instinct doesn't work so much any more. Which means if we want to be REALLY successful, we'll need to manage them. Just like we need to manage our eating and activity if we want to be healthy. Luckily, managing your emotions is WAY easier than managing your hunger. In a way, it's kind of opposite. When you're full, it's EASY to imagine going on a diet. But the longer your diet lasts, the harder it gets. But emotions are the opposite. Just IMAGINING them causes deep anxiety and fear. But they are actually not so bad. Kind of like Rocky was taunting Mr. T. "You ain't so bad! You ain't so bad! You ain't nothing!" Once you can handle and manage your emotions, you'll open up a LOT more processing power in your brain. For all KINDS of intelligence. Learn How: http://mindpersuasion.com/eq/
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I like to cook. But most of the time, I don't use any recipes. Once in a while, I'll find a decent one online. But I rarely follow it exactly. Long time ago, I took an "Asian cooking" class. I took it twice, two summers in a row. Same class, different teachers. The first teacher was very specific. Exact amounts. Exact temperatures. Exact times. The second teacher was much more laid back. Little of this, dash of that, and Bob's your uncle. Most of the time, when I cook, that's how I do it. Think of the ingredients, imagine how they'll go together, and then figure it out. Of course, some times it comes out awful. But I'm not very much a step-by-step kind of guy. I'm more of a figure it out as you go along kind of guy. But the thing is, when you're cooking, there's very little risk. You kind of get a feel for what goes with what, and what doesn't go with what. Human communication is the same way. Human communication is related to human thought structure. If you've NEVER cooked before, it can be intimidating without a recipe. Just like a common worry when going into social situations is not knowing what to say. But just like understanding food can help with whipping something up, understanding human thought structure can help understand what to say. The thing about human thought is it's not that complex. Sure, when we're talking or thinking about super important things, it can be extremely complicated. But in social situations, it's pretty easy. Since the main people go to social situations is to relax and enjoy themselves. And learning about basic human thought patterns under those situations is pretty easy. Everybody wants the same thing. To meet a few interesting people and have an enjoyable time. Everybody fears the same thing. Unwanted social exposure, getting rejected, being put down or ridiculed in front of others. Learning how to speak to people to maximize what they want, and minimize what they don't want is pretty easy. Human thought, just like human language, has a very simple structure. And for having fun, this can be a very enjoyable structure. Which is EXACTLY what everybody is looking for. So when you can speak in this structure, you'll always be a big hit. At every party or social situation. Lots of fun, and zero rejection. Learn How: http://mindpersuasion.com/party-hypnosis/
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Secrets of Unlimited Authority https://mindpersuasion.com/over-the-line/
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One of Dale Carnegie's most useful pieces of advice is how to best persuade people. That you can get anybody to do anything so long as they think it was their idea. This is the fundamental idea behind covert hypnosis. The type of conversational hypnosis invented by Dr. Milton Erickson. He would tell a bunch of stories with specifically vague parts. His patients would follow along, and they would have to fill in the vague parts with their own experience. So at the end of a few confusing stories, even though Erickson would be the guy talking, it would FEEL like the patient's ideas. This was Erickson's genius. He would be talking the whole time, but the patient would feel like they solved their problem on their own. Usually subconsciously. The LAST thing Erickson wanted to do was to make it feel like he was giving advice. Advice is the OPPOSITE of Carnegies golden rule. Advice is BLATANT about not being their idea. But Erickson had a huge advantage. People came to him for the specific purpose of solving problems. This is very similar to sales. People specifically talk to sales people to maybe buy something. From a structural perspective, this is very close. Which is why you can use the Milton Model VERY EFFECTIVELY to sell things to people. But it's also why using the Milton Model has limitations socially. Patients EXPECT therapists to solve problems. Customers EXPECT salespeople to sell products. How can you do this socially? Turns out pretty easily. First you need to understand the very basics of human nature. Our deep instinctive desires and fears. Then you can just pay attention to HOW people talk. What they talk about. This will allow you to read their subconscious energy. THEN you can quickly spin a few stories. Some metaphors. About a friend, or a friend of a friend. Or something you saw on TV. From THEIR perspective, you'll just be telling a few stories. Literally putting them "out there." They'll look into the stories and get some ideas. Ideas that will feel like theirs. Ideas which will seem FANTASTIC. They won't have any idea what REALLY happened. That you hid the ideas within those stories. That you kind of put off to the side. This will give you an ENORMOUS amount of social influence. A huge amount of persuasive power. People will do whatever you want. And NOBODY will know, but you. Learn How: http://mindpersuasion.com/storytelling-magic/
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Humans are curious creatures. If you saw some guy up on stage jamming with his guitar, you'd assume he'd spent a lot of time practicing. If you saw some ripped guy or gal walking down the street, you'd assume they spent a lot of time in the gym. And a lot of time eating healthy food. If you met somebody that spoke several languages, you'd assume they spent a lot of time practicing. But sometimes we see people with skills, and we just assume they were born with those skills. It's even more complicated when we understand that some people have certain advantages. For example, if somebody grows up in a family that speaks many languages, and the live in a country that speaks many languages, and they go to a school that speaks many languages, their multi-language skill was more or less passively learned. But that's not the ONLY way to learn many languages. Anybody can learn many languages. IF they are willing to put in the time and effort. And if they are willing to pay the opportunity costs. What are opportunity costs? The things you GIVE UP in order to learn the skill. Opportunity costs come with everything. Learning skills, getting in shape, losing weight. EVERYBODY would LOVE a magic pill that gives them an instant skill. Everybody would LOVE to play and instrument, but few are willing to put in the time. Everybody would LOVE to have a toned body, but few are willing to put in the time. Some skills can SEEM even harder. Like communication and persuasion skills. These seem to be LOCKED behind a wall of social anxiety. Sure, practicing the piano is BORING. But it doesn't cause any anxiety. But things like persuasion are paradoxically HARDER than playing the piano. Why paradoxically? Because while the skills themselves are fairly easy, they are ASSOCIATED with tons of anxiety. The added anxiety makes them seem TERRIFYING to learn. But take away the anxiety, and learning things like persuasion is EASY. Even EASIER is something like seduction. Of talking to people and getting them INTERESTED in you. Removing the anxiety makes learning skills like this VERY ENJOYABLE. So much that the opportunity costs essentially drop to zero. This requires that you go SLOWER than you want to. To build up momentum. To get to the point where you WANT to move forward, but you must consciously slow yourself down. When you get to this point, learning how to SEDUCE PEOPLE because very, very enjoyable. Learn How: http://mindpersuasion.com/girls-like-you/
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If you have tons of money, it's easy to get a loan. If you not only have tons of money but have a couple of steady income streams, it's even easier to get a loan. On the other hand, if you're broke and walk into a bank, they'll want nothing to do with you. The same idea goes for generating unconscious attraction. If you are desperate, nobody will want anything to do with you. If you are the opposite of desperate, everybody will want some. If you've walked through any crowded nightspot with a nice lady on your arm, you know this feeling. EVERYBODY is checking you out. From a social proof standpoint, there's about four different levels. The first level is if you are by yourself and radiating desperate energy. Your head whips around to every pretty girl that walks by. The second level is if you are with a group of guys. But if that won't do much more if you still radiate that desperate energy. The third level is you are a clear alpha of that group. You don't pay much attention to what's going on around you. You and you crew are doing fine on your own. The fourth and most coveted level is if you are with one or more ladies. This sends a completely DIFFERENT signal to the entire room. But it's very possible to cultivate that fourth level energy EVEN IF you are by yourself. 93% of communication is non-verbal. Most of THAT is subconscious. Both sent and received. If you are desperate, you are sending out TONS of non-verbal and subconscious signals. But if you are the OPPOSITE of desperate, you'll be sending out completely different types of energy. Very attractive types of energy. Energy that will be picked up subconsciously. This takes a while to develop. But you can get started today. Most of the required exercises are pretty easy. They are JUST LIKE calisthenics. The more you do, the stronger you'll get. Most guys will ALWAYS be desperate. Meaning even when they are IN a relationship, they'll still be worried about losing access to emotional and sexual intimacy. This is why most guys are pretty easy to manipulate. But when you develop this anti-needy energy, you will radiate the opposite. YOU will be the chooser. And everybody will know that. Which means you can take your time, develop your criteria and be patient. Learn How: http://mindpersuasion.com/girls-like-you/
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A common technique in self development is to fake it till you make it. This works great in some situations, but not so great in others. The shorter the bridge between faking it and making it, the easier it is. For example, if you don't feel confident, you CAN fake it enough until you really DO feel confident. Start to walk confidently. Shoulders back, face forward. Confident expression on your face. This "fake" exterior will be believable by others. They will respond to your "fake" confidence. Their response will slowly make you feel REAL confidence. This REAL confidence will then subconsciously drive your expressions and behavior. First you faked it. Then you made it. Other times, this isn't so difficult. The more and complex your interactions are with others, the harder it is. The greater the distance between what you are faking and what you are feeling, the harder it is. If you are looking for a long term relationship with a high quality woman, this can end in DISASTER. How? It's possible to fake enough confidence to have a decent conversation. Even a few dates. Even enough for SEX. But something happens to a lot of guys once they have sex. This is an instinctive thing. And instincts are VERY HARD to ignore. Once a guy has sex with a girl, it makes him FEEL completely differently about her. At least it CAN. This means it's a billion times more difficult to keep up with the fake confidence. The REAL you shows up. This often comes across when guys express their TRUE feelings. Said too soon, this will scare a girl away. This is behind the FEMALE JOKE about guys being like bathroom tile. Lay them once and you can walk all over them forever. This is because once a guy has SEX with a girl, his ancient instincts are telling him to hang on for dear life. Since our ancient instincts think we only have ONE chance to have sex. This is something that it's VERY DIFFICULT to "fake until you make." Unless you are a stone cold sociopath player. How can you get around this? GO SLOWLY. Get to know plenty of girls at once. Always have a backup plan. Talk to any girl you can. Whether you are attracted to her or not. Play the VERY LONG game. SLOWLY build up your deep relationships skills so you don't have to FAKE anything. This takes a LOT of time. But it will save a LOT of heartache. And in the long run, it will make you INSANELY attractive. Giving a much higher quality of women to choose from. And she'll feel those feelings WAY before you do. Learn How: http://mindpersuasion.com/girls-like-you/
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When a little kid touches a hot stove, they learn quickly that stoves are dangerous. The way this exists in their brain is as a cause-effect relationship. The see the stove, and that becomes the cause. The effect is the memory of the unexpected pain. Of course, as kids grow up, they learn to NOT be afraid of stoves. This is a natural process. They learn that stoves are tools, and not animate objects. They learn the stoves as tools RESPOND to how WE decide to operate them. They watch mom make cookies. They help mom make cookies. They make cookies themselves. All of these NEW experiences serve to OVER WRITE the previous, scary experiences. When this happens naturally, the kid will grow up and NOT REMEMBER being afraid of the stove. The positive experiences with the stove are more numerous and more recent. This same strategy can be used to re-write any other belief. It involves taking what happens naturally, bringing it up to the conscious awareness, and then RE-WRITING it. This is how we can learn to IMPROVE any kind of behavior. We take a collection of subconscious and automatic behaviors. We bring them up to the conscious level. We re-program our conscious behaviors. We practice those NEW conscious behaviors. We practice them until the NEW behaviors are back "down" to the level of unconscious competence. Then we can switch back into auto pilot mode. With kids and stoves, this entire process happens automatically. For other things, this is more conscious. Sports, music, martial arts, even speaking and presenting oneself with more confidence and charisma. But the same collection of techniques can be applied to how we see the world. How we think about the world. How we think about ourselves in the world. And just like the stove, the world can transition from a SCARY place that we are afraid of, to a TOOL that will obey our commands. Just like the stove. But since the world around us, and all the people in it, are much more flexible than a stove, you can learn to think ANYTHING you want about the world. And find plenty of PROOF that support those new beliefs. You take any response from any event, and re-write your beliefs so you can feel that SAME response in any other event. How do you feel when the pizza guy rings your doorbell? Happy and excited. How do you feel when your favorite TV show or movie is about to start? With time and practice, you can feel that way AUTOMATICALLY in any situation you want. Learn How: http://mindpersuasion.com/beliefchange/
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Finding motivation is a common desire. There are tons of motivational videos. Lots of offices have motivational posters. If you are a decent motivational speaker, you could earn a lot of money. But motivation might not be the best idea. Why not? Motivation is essentially trying to find energy that you don't have. For example, if you were walking down the street, and you saw a $100 bill on the ground, would you need to motivate yourself to bend over and pick it up? No, you'd pick it up without even thinking. Imagine if you just spent the afternoon at the park, running around the track. Say you'd finished running five miles. And you'd done your quickest time yet. There you were, sitting on the park bench. Completely exhausted. And then you saw a $100 bill floating by in the breeze. Would you need to find some hidden "motivation" to reach out and grab it? Or would you grab it automatically? The idea of needing motivation is the same as thinking you SHOULD do something, but part of you doesn't want to. Or part of you wants to, but another part, a STRONGER part, doesn't want to. We can imagine that we always have a couple parts. One wanting to do something, and one not wanting to do that thing. When you AUTOMATICALLY reach over to grab found money, the part that wants it is WAY stronger than the part that doesn't. So admitting you need "motivation" is admitting that the part that DOESN'T want to take action is STRONGER than the part that wants to take action. But motivation that comes from speakers, and videos, and songs, and posters is VERY GENERAL. And it doesn't last long. The internal motivation, the natural motivation that makes you AUTOMATICALLY pick up money comes from the inside. It happens UNCONSCIOUSLY. Wouldn't it be better, then, to figure out how to make that happen for the stuff you WANT? Instead of needing songs and seminars and posters? If you want to be "motivated" to be more outgoing socially, there are some easy exercises that will do the trick. They won't require you "push yourself," or "fake it until you make it." It's based on internal thinking. Observational and journaling. But slowly building up your NATURAL desire, until you reach that tipping point. So going over and talking to interesting people is JUST as automatic and natural as picking up money. Learn How: http://mindpersuasion.com/deep-mind-persuasion/
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Everybody loves deep conversations. The kind that make you really think. The kind that stand out in your mind and your memory. Everybody would like to make an impression on others. Most do so by trying to be IMPRESSIVE. Grammatically, this makes perfect sense. You want to make an impression, so you act and speak impressively. The idea being that when the conversation is over, they'll remember you. And they'll remember you by thinking, "Wow, that guy was really IMPRESSIVE." How would you do this? Be very clever. Have a lot of interesting stories and anecdotes. Be extremely witty and humorous. Have an extremely strong frame so when they try and poke holes in it, you can easily out frame them. This is all very possible. And it is THE most common strategy. Unfortunately, while it can work like magic, it takes a LOT of practice. It's all based on YOU. And how they JUDGE you. No matter how strong of a "game" you build, you are always presenting yourself to them for approval. Because this is common, you are essentially COMPETING with everybody else who has this same strategy. So when you try to IMPRESS somebody, they are comparing you to everybody else who has tried to IMPRESS them. If you happen to BE a very impressive person, this is pretty easy. Unfortunately most of us are pretty normal. Lucky for us, there is a MUCH EASIER way. A way to leave a much BETTER impression that has NOTHING to do with you. Nothing to do with your job, your bling, your social status, or even your physical appearance. And EVERYTHING to do with how you make them FEEL. How do you do this? By focusing on STRUCTURE instead of content. Content is all the THINGS you try to impress them with. Structure is HOW they think. HOW they see the world. It's one thing to ask about them from a content level. This is essentially Dale Carnegie's advice. Talk about them instead of you. Since they are more attracted to ideas about THEM than they are about you. But when you ask about them from a structure level, it will seem incredibly deep and memorable. You'll ask them simple questions that get them thinking in ways they've NEVER done before. And because you'll be covertly eliciting their deep FILTERS, you will know MORE about them in just a few minutes than their best friends. And when you demonstrate this, they'll be more impressed with you than anybody they've ever met. Learn How: http://mindpersuasion.com/deep-mind-persuasion/
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There are two specific thoughts that create social anxiety. The first is not knowing what to say. You see a cute guy or girl across the room. You share a few IOI's. But then you wonder, "what should I say?" There is a belief among many that you need to IMPRESS the other person with your conversation skills. This idea presupposes that THEY have the ability to accept or reject you. Which more deeply presupposes that YOU have already ACCEPTED them. This puts you behind before you even get started. And to a greater extent, we have this "default" mindset when we present ourselves to ANYBODY and hope to be ACCEPTED. One way this comes across is in job interviews. The idea is the interviewer has all the power. And the interviewee has to make themselves sound BETTER than everybody else. This is not the best strategy. This is what happens when we operate from SCARCITY. When we think that ONE PERSON is our only hope for happiness. That if that ONE PERSON reject us, we are doomed. If you need a job, or if you haven't been with anybody in a while, it is very hard to shake this mindset. But unless you DO manage to shake it, the scarcity mindset will continue to haunt you. Unfortunately, it's not something that can be switched off. It's kind of like a bad habit. You need to re-train yourself. Luckily, you can do this with friends and colleagues. By practicing a STRUCTURAL way to talk to people. There are seven basic STRUCTURAL filters that we use to help make sense of all the data hitting our senses. Because these filters operate subconsciously, few people know about them. But once you understand how these work, and how to talk about them, a couple of VERY IMPORTANT things will happen. One is you'll NEVER worry about wondering what to say. Once you understand these seven basic structures, they can be the source of ENDLESS conversational topics. With very little thinking required. The second thing is people will LOVE talking about these things. They are very DEEP. They are questions that will automatically create a deep connection. Never again will you feel the need to IMPRESS anybody. Because everybody has treasure. And once you learn how EASY it is to go treasure hunting in ANYBODY's brain, you'll soon be the center of attention in ANY social situation. Learn How: http://mindpersuasion.com/deep-mind-persuasion/
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There's a very powerful way to respond to insults. And when you can do this correctly, the insulter will be absolutely speechless. Everybody watching will think you are super hero of language. It requires that you have an idea of the type of insult. The linguistic structure. It's very similar to the idea of agreeing and amplifying. This is very useful when done playfully. Say you are wearing a particularly bright shirt. And your friend sees you and makes a joke. "Dude, you should have told me, I would have brought my sunglasses" The structure of agree and expand means to agree that your shirt is bright and roll with it. So you might say something like: "Yeah, sorry, I had an eye exam today. I can't see very well so I wore this shirt so I wouldn't bump into stuff." Whenever somebody insults us, they expect to knock us off balance. So when you agree and amplify, it's NOT what they are expecting. And it makes you look pretty cool. Not only can you take a joke, but you can agree with the implied insult (dude that shirt is bright) but you can make a BETTER joke than the insulter. It's a way to maintain the frame while allowing them to keep theirs. Essentially, you make your frame bigger and more compelling. This is fairly easy when done playfully. But what about when the insult is real? When it's NOT friendly? When it's genuine purpose is to make you look bad? Same structure, except when you agree and amplify, you turn the meaning around so it makes the insulter look bad. And you deliver it with dead pan seriousness. This takes a lot of practice, and some quick thinking. OR if you have an idea of the insults that will come. For example, consider the bright shirt comment. If it came from an enemy, and not a friend, here's one way you COULD respond. First agree, that the shirt is bright. But instead of making a joke, you take that idea and make it a negative comment about the insulter. He says the bright shirt is BAD. You extend that to mean that bright lights are bad. Which could mean he prefers darkness. Those that prefer to operate in darkness are shady characters. So a possible comeback, delivered with pure deadpan, humorless energy could be: You prefer to operate in the dark, where nobody can see you? This would stun them. It's logical ENOUGH so they'd have to think about it. They would be silent for long enough to shift the focus from you, onto them. All you need to do is drop a couple comments like this and you'd quickly build a STRONG reputation. It takes practice, but it is well worth it. Learn How: http://mindpersuasion.com/verbal-assassin/
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https://mindpersuasion.com/party-hero/
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Groucho Marx famously said that sincerity is the most important thing in the world. And if you can fake it, you've got it made. A-list actors are very good at faking sincerity. This is why they get paid so much. Just looking at their facial expressions makes it seem real. The other night I watched a weird, low budget, alien, time travel movie. The acting was very good. In one scene, an actress had to look out her kitchen window, and make it seem like she was really seeing a glimpse of hell. Then she went back to normal. She had to go from a normal expression, to seeing actual hell, and then back to normal. All in a few seconds. Of course, they later put on a lot of hellish sounds and colors and shadows, but her facial expressions did all the work. If most of us tried this, it would look silly. It's why actors that suck are referred to as "wooden." Their faces don't move. Good actors, on the other hand, can conjure up any emotion they want. And for them, it's a REAL emotion. It's not uncommon for actors to have serious and long lasting trauma because of a particular role. Shelly Duvall, for example, was seriously messed up after filming, "The Shining." Plenty of other actors have some lingering side effects. This is what you'd expect. To be in a situation where you PURPOSELY conjure up REAL emotions of getting hunted by evil supernatural entities. Kind of hard to shrug that kind of stuff off. But the technique is something most of us can use. Most people expect their situation to do the work for them. For example, people try to apply Dale Carnegies advice to let others do the talking. But then they find that most other people are pretty boring. The thing is, though, that ANYBODY can let somebody else do talking if that other person is INTERESTING. Listening to an interesting person talk is NOT a very valuable skill, since ANYBODY can do it. Another common idea is to expect the external situation to help us feel safe. We don't usually think in these terms. But we behave this way. We only feel safe when we are around friendly people and friendly situations. When we are in unknown situations, or around unknown people, we don't feel nearly as safe. But this is ONLY because our "factory setting" is to let our EXTERNAL situation dictate our INTERNAL state. But we can do the same thing actors do. Create an internal state at will. And let that internally created state OVERRIDE our external situations. This is exactly what actors do when they pretend they are surrounded by demons, but in reality, they are surrounded by dudes with cameras. Of course, you don't want to pretend you are surrounded by demons. You can pretend you are surrounded by anything you want. Like friendly angels. The more you practice, the better you get. Learn How: http://mindpersuasion.com/cb/
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There are two bad things that can happen if your level of skill is not correctly calibrated to your level of expectations. If you think you will get much more than your skills actually can, you'll develop a sense of entitlement. This can lead to a feeling that the world is rigged against you. You try something, expect to get a very good result, but only get a so-so result. But if you only have so-so skills, you should only get a so-so result. If you have so-so skills but expect amazing results, you'll feel cheated. The more you try, the more cheated you'll feel. This will lead you to EXTERNALIZE your frustration. This doesn't lead to an improvement of skills. Since you don't think you NEED to improve your skills. You'll develop a belief that the world is broken. The other side of mis-calibration is just as bad. If your skills are HIGHER than your expectations. You have FANTASTIC skills but you only believe you have so-so skills. This will lead you to getting results ABOVE what you think you should. This generally leads to self-sabotage. You purposely mess up so your results match what you expect. But since what you expect is BELOW what you can actually get, you keep getting good results, but then messing them up. Like they say in the Kinks song: "You get a good thing going and you blow yourself out." Of course, having an expectation that is based on your actual skills is best. It MINIMIZES frustration and MAXIMIZES growth. When this is properly calibrated, EVERYTHING will feel like doing something simple like shooting baskets. Since the basket is right in front of you, it's hard to NOT match your understanding of your skills to your results. This can be difficult to accept, especially with social skills. But if you were to measure the actual RESULTS you were getting, and used your results as the ONLY MEASUREMENT of your skills, you could improve much more quickly. Especially if you could break down all the micro-skills and practice them independently. Kind of like in sports or music. So long as you have an accurate read of your skills, and an understanding of all the micro skills and have to practice them, continuous improvement is easy and automatic. Learn How: http://mindpersuasion.com/cb/
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I had a roommate once who decided to get into shape. He's been out of shape for a long time. And he decided to start running. He, like most people, did way too much too soon. Next time I saw him he had ace bandages on both knees. This is the source of the famous yo-yo diet. You see yourself in the mirror and get disgusted. So you make a VOW to lose weight. You start off with TONS of motivation. But the further away in time you get from that initial burst of motivation, the harder it is to maintain. When you had the initial burst of motivation, the BENEFITS were clear in your mind. But the costs were not. The more you move forward in time, the more the costs pile up. And since the motivation was to move away from a negative, the benefits get smaller as you go forward in time. Pretty soon the costs OUTWEIGH the benefits, and you stop. Gaining back whatever you'd lost. Most people repeat this process again and again. This is common when it comes to physical fitness. The DESIRE is clear, but the costs to get that desire are not. The costs are difficult, but they don't cause anxiety. Anxiety creates a completely different set of costs. So this same process, when it happens with social skills, seems a billion times worse. You have a clear DESIRE. Maybe to become outgoing. Maybe to talk to a certain person. So long as your safely at home, it's easy to imagine the benefit. But as soon as the rubber meets the road, you feel a HUGE internal resistance. With something like weight loss, the resistance builds slowly. The costs slowly increase, and the benefits slowly decrease. But with anything social skills related, it's like a smack in the face. You could be TOTALLY pumped up in the car. But as soon as you get inside, and start making eye contact with others, that resistance is very sudden, and very strong. Losing weight is difficult. But it doesn't evoke any ancient fears of death. When you think of exposing yourself socially, it DOES. Your ancient monkey brain actually feels life threatening fear. So using the yo-yo metaphor isn't even appropriate. So, how can you get around this very common problem? By understanding it and breaking it down. To the most BASIC elements. Turns out when you just suck it up and get out there, you are combining a LOT of elements. Each of which can be treated INDIVIDUALLY. And privately. So you can slowly build them up individually and privately. Until you're ready to get out there. And when you do, it will feel natural and automatic. No sucking it up required. Learn How: http://mindpersuasion.com/cb/
