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Pence. Trump. Water Bottle. Covert Influence

A buddy sent me this video of Trump and Pence.

He’s a liberal, and I despise politics, so hopefully I’ll avoid getting myself in trouble this time talking about Trump’s influence…

Sitting at a FEMA event, after Trump takes his water bottle off the table and puts it on the floor, Pence immediately follows.

The video went viral because the behavior seems strange, but at a deeper level there’s something very powerful to learn from it.

Most People Are Blind To Influence

In some ways I made a bad decision to write the book on how Trump was winning, but I also wanted to talk about a crucial topic that few others observed.

Just like nearly every single economist who failed to predict the most devastating recession in modern history, nearly every commentator who watched Trump win failed to see how.

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NLP’s Mind Reading Influence

All the time we wish we could get more insight into what people are thinking, and here a little knowledge can go a long way.

An example from NLP is how to decode other people’s non-verbal cues.

Think of it this way, right before you say yes or no, you do something with your body. Maybe your face scrunches on no, or on yes you’re already nodding.

With a little bit of practice, you can easily read minds by reading these cues!

Become Fake Psychic

You don’t need to be an expert at this like the FBI’s Joe Navarro who can interpret a micro gesture on someone’s cheek, but it can be easy and helpful to know if people are agreeing with what you’re saying.

Imagine sitting in a negotiation, and before they say anything, just by reading their cues, you know whether they’re in agreement with you.

Top negotiators I know do this unconsciously in “reading the room,” and others do this more deliberately.

This is how some of the fake psychics work.

It’s an art and a science called cold reading where you do something like…

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How Learning To Shoot Like John Wick Transformed These People

Some time ago I decided that if our society wasn’t going to control guns, then I would learn some gun control of my own.

Watching a video of Keanu Reeves shooting 3 gun for his role in John Wick, I thought to myself, that’s exactly how I want to shoot.

So I sought out trainers—two Navy SEALs—and every month or so I run around the desert training to shoot like John Wick.

Now, I won’t pretend that I’m doing this because I ever expect to be in a gunfight—I do this because for nearly two decades I’ve sought out transformational experiences through learning fun skills.

If you think shooting is bad or immoral or wrong for whatever reason, I understand this stuff isn’t for everyone, even if every night we “entertain” ourselves with murder, and playing with toy guns is for most of our kids…

But if you think it would be an awesome experience learning to shoot with two SEALs over your shoulder, then I bet you’ll think it’s even more awesome what I did next.

I Invited My Friends

I’ve become somewhat open about the stuff I do.

For a decade I was too embarrassed to admit that, um… I’m into Eckhart Tolle, but these days I pretty much just share how it is.

That said, I still felt I was going a bit too far when I wrote about training Remote Viewing with one of the greatest men I know, psychic spy, Joe McMoneagle, but I was surprised by the response—

I want to do that. Let’s plan a group trip!

And that got me thinking…

What would it be like if I put together a group to have some of the experiences that have been so transforming for me?

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One Change To Help Stop Active Shooters

Stop making them famous.

How?

Stop disclosing their name—Call them busted person X

Stop broadcasting their face—How does it help anyone knowing what they looked like?

Stop telling their stories—Killing innocent people shouldn’t be a six-part mini-series like celebrating the work of Jeffrey Dahmer.

Stop spreading their fear—Terrorists’ terror spreads because we spread it.

Stop glorifying their violence—Our “entertainment” complex is the greatest promoter of violence (TV, movies, games, sports) on the planet because we demand it.

Stop tuning in—There’s a difference between being “informed” about another lunatic vs. rolling around like a pig in their murder like you’re watching CSI.

Fame-Obsessed World

We live in a fame-obsessed world and sick minds will do just about anything to break the Internet.

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Where’s That North Korea Worry Now?

Writing this article earlier in the week, I thought I was so insightful highlighting the amount of worry that was wasted on North Korea.

Then, Drudge, with his sirens blaring and massive headline—NKorea Threatens To Cancel Trump Summit—reminded me that we can still find plenty to fear.

At first I thought, crap my article is outdated, but then I realized, actually, it’s even more timely.

We can allow our emotions to be whipped around by things that we can’t control—e.g. the worst people in our world, stock market, nearly everything else—or we can…

Choose Our Thoughts

In nearly 20 years of researching these topics, there’s one crucial lesson that most stands out—

We are what we think.

Literally, what we think about is our ENTIRE experience of reality.

If you’re a football fan and spend all day every day immersed in football, this becomes your life.

If you’re an investor who spends every waking moment thinking about opportunities in the market, the market is your reality.

And if you’re tuned into fearful news all day every day, your life is full of fear and worry.

Guard Your Mind

Around the time ding dong North Korea was doing his little public display of disaffection, my client told me about a weekend retreat he attended with a group of business leaders.

Over dinners and lunches they spent hours talking about the situation, indulging the fears, debating what to do…

None of them could do anything.

They knew nothing beyond what the media had told them. They aren’t in any way involved in military or government or any group that solves such problems, yet they spent their weekend infecting each other with fear.

While it’s important to be informed of some of what’s happening in our world, it’s equally important to be informed about how our world is using us and our attention.

It’s not just that we live in a world of propaganda—which is so dominant that presidential elections are, literally, won off of it—but because, especially in this case, it’s obvious there is plenty of theatrics going on.

Over time the so-called experts and propagandists gave us many intelligent-sounding explanations of the threat from North Korea, but I’m yet to hear an intelligent explanation of how it was resolved!

How did two mortal enemies who’ve been spewing hatred and K-pop across the DMZ for decades get to this WWE gesture?

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Watch Tony Hawk Fail

I saw James Altucher write about interviewing Tony Hawk so I went and watched this video.

It’s only a couple of minutes long, and it’s worth watching to see this guy just fails and fails and fails until he pulls it off!

Report: Living Dalio’s Principles

Since I first read the pdf version of Principles, I’ve been fascinated by the way Ray Dalio thinks.

It’s true that his billionaire success is what drew me into his thinking, but it’s the rigor of Ray’s ideas that really hooked me.

Although I spend my life exploring ideas, I’m intensely practical. I’m not interested in philosophy or kicking around ideas for the sake of it, but in ideas that you can use.

And that’s what I see from Ray.

He’s deep, deep, deep on the topics he knows, but ultimately he’s focused on identifying the best ideas so he can rigorously put them to work.

More Than Principles

While I find Ray’s principles incredibly fascinating, what I most enjoyed in reading Ray’s recently released book, Principles, was his story at the front.

Some time ago I remember seeing Ray quoted about failure, and thought to myself, With all of his success, what could he possibly know about failure?

It turns out, quite a lot.

In fact, the way Ray tells his story, it was failure that led him to develop his principles-based approach to begin with, so he could avoid making the same mistakes.

Writing with great humility, throughout the book Ray calls himself things like a “dumb shit,” and suggests that the success he’s created has less to do with him, and more to do with his principles.

While there’s certainly some modesty in that, perhaps the greatest learning from Ray’s book is seeing that it’s not so much his principles that have driven his success, but the discipline and focus that Ray dedicates to living this way.

How Do You Live It?

In reading Ray’s book I began to think more deeply about how, specifically, we each might develop and use our own principles.

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Why We Resist Change And How To Change It

All the time people tell me how hard it can be to change.

It’s so true. Many of us strongly resist changing our brand of shampoo or toothpaste, let alone anything that truly matters in life.

Change can be hard to make because near everything we do is habitual, but there are also ways that we make change harder on ourselves… which are easy to change.

Ironically, in the world of personal development, one way is to stop making change so personal.

Who Is The “I?”

“I’m” just not any good at this?

“I’ve” always been this way.

“I” know that I need to change, and “I’m” really trying hard…

While it’s of course natural for us to conduct ourselves in first person, whenever we use a derivative of the pronoun “I,” we’ve made it personal, and this can make it infinitely harder to change.

Instead of simply changing a behavior—such as getting angry—or an attribute—such as our hair color—now it’s about us and how we’re a flawed little “I.”

And because that “I” inside each of us hates to be diminished, let alone told it is inferior in some way, when confronted it’s far more likely to get insecure, resistant, defensive than it is to embrace even its own desire to change.

See Yourself As A Doer

If you grab a kid by the collar and give them a “good talking to,” scolding them for their bad performance and rattling off all the ways that they can improve, how would you expect them to respond?

Most kids would get upset, or defensive, and even that subservient kid who dutifully does what you say will likely resent you over time.

A smart parent knows that approach fails, yet we often fail to see that it also fails with ourselves.

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Two Ways To Blow Out That Fear

In last week’s newsletter I opened the door on fear, and this week I want to offer some ways to close it!

There I wrote about how fear holds us all back, and those people who get themselves to take action in the face of their fear.

While we all recognize the power in this, the real question is, how do we get ourselves and others beyond our fear?

The Simple Answer

We all already know how to get beyond our fears…

Simple. Do the thing that we feared, and we no longer fear it.

Once we climb those stairs and jump from the proverbial diving board, we’ll no longer be afraid to jump.

Most fears we diminish or extinguish this simple way.

Think about the timid salesperson from last week. By asking for the order over and over again, they get beyond the fear of asking for the order.

We all know this, which is why the simple answer mostly fails.

Our Fears Keep Us Stuck

Because we know that we can easily squash most fears just by taking action…

Rather than just doing it, we tend to avoid those things that we fear 🙂

Think of it this way.

We typically “try” to get ourselves and others beyond fear by saying stuff like You’ve just gotta do it.

If we can just lead with more conviction. Ask for that date. Or start to build momentum on that project, we know that we’ll move beyond our fear…

Yet, we already knew that!

And unless we’re suddenly more capable in taking that action, we’re more likely to avoid that thing we fear. (e.g. pretending we don’t really want it)

Just Get Motivated!

When the fear is high and we find ourselves or others stuck in taking action, we often reach for more motivation.

That’s like massaging a broken leg hoping to heal it. It doesn’t matter how strong your motivation is when fear is walking the talk.

Perhaps the best example is a fear that, despite our strongest biological motivations, has held every single one of us back.

Like a dog humping a leg we hardly need much motivation to pursue love and sex, yet who amongst us hasn’t been held back by fear?

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Timid Salespeople Have Skinny Kids

In all arenas of success there’s a small number of things that make the most difference.

If you get these things right, you massively move the needle in your favor, but there’s no such thing as a free lunch.

Doing these “hard things” often requires overcoming debilitating fears, and training yourself to do things other people won’t do.

Going After It

There’s a young guy in London who I’ve been giving my time to.

He’s very good at getting me to help him, and other leaders too.

Coming out of college he earned himself a top job, and already in his business of wealth management he is producing way beyond those years ahead of him.

I suspect that’s because he influences others the way that he influenced me…

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The Time Of Our Lives

We all have those experiences in life that fundamentally change us, and I just had one of them.

In the last few weeks I’ve had the most magical adventure.

Even after being home for a week I’m still getting back into it, and I’m also trying my best not to…

It’s so easy for us to put our heads down and keep ploughing forward, when I’m holding onto where I’ve been.

Playing In Time

I’m very lucky that magical adventures are the norm for me, but this was special.

After a few days skiing in Vail I drove the car I keep out west to Las Vegas to meet up with my brother, which was an adventure in itself, but was only the beginning for us.

Because he lives in Australia, it’s been a decade since we’ve spent real time together, and just hanging out was special.

But what made our time even more special was what he had come here to do…

Leaving Las Vegas we headed to Virginia to train the mind.

Put Away Your Watch

Last time I was in Virginia I was training Remote Viewing. This time we were training altered states of consciousness and the out of body experience.

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Relive Your Best Times

Constantly I am reminded of the power of the mind and the importance of putting your mind in the “best” place.

It’s not just about getting your mind out of a “bad” place, but to make your life better and better.

Much, if not all, of what we think and feel is habitual, so the more we choose to focus on good things, the more habitually our mind elevates.

While we all know this intuitively, it helps to have reminders.

Back To The Future

Last week I was back in Vail, Colorado.

After living in the mountains for a few ski seasons I hadn’t been back for a couple of years, and last week I got to relive some of my best memories from Vail.

Some of them of course relate to skiing, but most of my great memories come back to the joy of living in the mountains. Waking up to the snow. Looking out on the mountain. Wandering through town. Eating at my favorite restaurants. Hanging with the locals. My time with friends who came to stay with me.

Just being in Vail these memories came flooding back to me and I realized that I want to keep reliving them.

A Daily Practice

If you’ve read my Limitless Mind book or these newsletters you’ve seen me talk about running mental movies.

In re-watching mental movies of the greatest times in your life, not only do you get a chance to keep reliving these times, but you can also use these movies to “pull” state.

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Another Mass Shooting. What Can You Do About It?

We’re all deeply impacted each time another person goes on a rampage hurting innocent people.

Although few of us are directly affected, we all feel for the victims and their families, and we want answers on how this could have happened again, and again.

Yet it does. And just like the wars, injustices, and human suffering that have forever plagued our species, awful things will keep happening.

The only choice each of us has is what we do about it.

Protect Yourself From Terror

I received many emails on this article I wrote after the terrorist ran down innocent people in a U-Haul close to my home.

That article is about choosing your thoughts to protect your mind from terror, and last week I got more questions about it.

A client said, “But I can’t just tune out these awful things, this really happened.” He’s right, and that’s not my point.

My point is that our brains are addicted to emotional spikes and we’re naturally drawn into such events, which means that we can find ourselves stuck fixating on the worst of the world.

But just because it happens in the world doesn’t mean that we have to turn it into our world.

There’s a fine line between being informed and caring for others, relative to getting our minds sucked into every detail of these situations and making them our “reality.”

What’s The Reality?

As I write this I’m looking into an apartment across the way seeing two little girls sitting around the kitchen table playing a game with their Dad.

Certainly, Dad knows about it, but his reality is that he’s sitting with his little girls. He could make that killer’s reality his, he could even put it on the TV for his little girls to see, or he can keep his mind on what is real in his life, and what he wants it to be.

Tragedies, natural or otherwise, orient our social consciousness towards one horrible event, stealing our attention away from the totality of our world.

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I Was Wrong. This Isn’t Nike

I didn’t like the feeling I left from that newsletter last week.

In being so “right,” I was being so wrong.

I was disappointed that the two readers weren’t getting what they want and I failed to take responsibility.

Instead of pointing to the articles that I have put out to be helpful, I failed to see where my approach was letting them down.

Reflecting on this got me thinking radically different.

Dalio Helped

I read Ray Dalio’s book Principles last week, and it helped me dive deeper into some of these things.

His brutal honesty and good hearted intent, the proverbial iron fist in a velvet glove, comes across well in his writing, which got me thinking more about mine.

But most of all what I got from Ray was a continuous drumming of the importance of radical truth.

Through this lens I saw in that newsletter I was putting their lack of action onto them, when I first must put it onto me.

I Failed

If someone I know hasn’t taken the right action, then I have failed to do what I can for them.

If people are reading these newsletters for years and still not doing them, then I’m obviously failing to reach the right people or failing to deliver people what they need.

I don’t write because being a self-help expert is cool… but to share ideas that are actually helpful to people, yet I failed to see where I wasn’t helping.

The same is true with the other emailer I wrote about.

If she’s taking the time to write and tell me that my work sucks, then it does for her…

It was wrong of me to make her wrong, when I should be asking what I can do more right.

I’m Not Nike

Instead of learning the lesson and really thinking about what I must do better to serve people, I responded like a Nike slogan…

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The Difference Between Good and Great Investors and Traders

Public market investors and traders, by and large, fit a certain mold. They are:

Optimistic, but extremely skeptical.
Data-driven, but creative.
Ambitious, but soberingly realistic.

And most of all, they are always looking for an edge.

More often than not, we look for edge via outside resources—better research, information, technology, etc.—but in my experience working with top Wall Streeters, the difference between the good and great is never outside of them.

The difference is inside. The difference is their mind.

More specifically, great investors and traders recognize that they have access to more or less the same outside resources. What separates them is, of course, what they do with it.

While the right outside resources are crucial to making good investment and trading decisions, the fundamental tool we rely upon is the 3 pound organ that sits between our ears. Great investors recognize the crucial importance of getting their mind right in the way that they approach each and every trading day.

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Captain Obvious Speaks Again

Last week’s newsletter was a tale of two heads.

One reader, who I’ll call Angry Amy, sent us a scathing email branding me Captain Obvious and giving me a mouthful for “endlessly repeating wise sounding phrases without actually saying anything useful.”

As she put it, “Everyone over the age of 15 already knows all of the mushy smart sounding ‘insight’ you just unloaded.”

She might be right.

It might be obvious to her how she transforms what she thinks into what she wants, but it wasn’t obvious to me when I found myself stuck in my work. It’s not obvious to my clients. I know from the other emails we receive it’s not obvious to many in our community. And, the same day I saw it wasn’t obvious to one of our long-term readers either.

Around the same time that Angry Amy was writing to compliment me on my wise and smart-sounding phrases, I was at lunch with a senior Wall Streeter who was showing me the other side of the coin.

Mrs. I Know I Should

Mrs. I Know I Should has been reading my newsletters for years, but she hasn’t been “doing them.”

Like many people who talk a good game on these topics, she’s got extensive knowledge of what it takes to succeed and decades of achievement behind her, yet when it comes to the things that are hard in her career, as I wrote about here, she’s much better at avoiding, than doing.

It’s not because she’s stupid; she’s highly intelligent. Or lazy; even those who’ve spent decades on Wall Street still work around the clock. Or has a lack of focus; she knows what matters.

But she’s been struggling on these hard topics in her career because, quite frankly, she hasn’t been doing the work.

About halfway through our lunch, after having said a lot of thoughtful things, she looked over at me and asked, “So, do you think it’s important to be writing this stuff down?”

Mouth hanging open I looked at her like wtf?

Right then and there I realized that although she’s been reading and thinking about these topics for years, she hadn’t even committed her thoughts to paper, let alone actions.

Nobody builds a house from a plan in their head. A football team writes out their plays. Heck, most of us write up a shopping list so we remember the milk, yet we still “try” (mostly unsuccessfully) to solve the hardest challenges of our lives, in our heads.

That’s just one reason many of us get stuck “shoulding” all over ourselves.

“Shoulding” All Over Herself

Throughout the lunch Mrs. I Know I Should kept telling me what she “should” be doing, and affirming, “I completely agree” with the approach that I laid out.

Yet when I asked her, “OK, so why aren’t you doing it?” she looked at me deer in the headlights.

I wasn’t trying to be a jerk or to shame her. I was doing my “job” (for free, as I do every time I write), trying to help her get beyond where she’s been stuck, literally, for years.

When we’re stuck in life it’s easy to beat up on ourselves, and tell ourselves what we “should” be doing, but all that matters is whether we can actually get ourselves doing those things!

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Why Most People Will Never Get What They Want

I know my work is inspiring to people, but I also know that’s not enough.

Lots of people recognize that there’s more they can be doing to get what they want.

They think that if they get more focused on their goals, organized around what to do, and build a more powerful mind, that they could improve their life.

I know this because all the time people tell me, but talk doesn’t get the job done…

Easier Said Than Done

On a cold New York morning a couple of weeks back, I met a mid-thirties fellow in the elevator of my apartment building.

I was headed to see my body mechanic, who helps me stand and walk, and he was on his way to, “ugh, work.”

At least that was how he said it to me.

He looked like a banker, but I’d bet he’s a securities lawyer. After plenty of time around the two you can distinguish the sadness and fatigue in their eyes.

When he asked me what I do, I paused.

Feeling sorry for the man who had clearly spent the last 30 minutes cheerleading himself to throw on his suit and get in that elevator, I said, “I’m a consultant.”

“So, what type of consulting job enables you to be headed out in your gym gear at 9:00am?” he sarcastically quipped.

“One where I do what I want,” I replied.

With those sad eyes and a mousy depressed voice, he responded, “Easier said than done.”

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The Trick To Focusing On What Matters… Building Momentum

Continuing on our theme for the year of getting done what matters to you, I want to hit the most basic and fundamental idea.

All the time people ask me what is the trick to getting yourself doing those things you’ve been avoiding, and this is, quite literally, what matters most—

You must be skillful at getting yourself moving and building momentum.

That’s it.

It’s very simple, but, of course, as with all things that we talk about here, this doesn’t make it easy to do.

Why Is It Hard To Build New Habits?

As I wrote about last week there are many things that can get in the way of making progress on our goals.

Some times we’re resisting. Other times avoiding. Inner conflicts. Lack of commitment. There are lots of reasons we get stalled.

Yet, no matter what the reason, we get held back for more or less the same cause…

We are creatures of habit. And anything new that we “try” to get ourselves to do is, by definition, in conflict with our “muscle memory,” our habits, our old ways of being.

So, while just getting ourselves to take new actions can be hard in its own right, it’s also the elastic pull, or gravity, of our old habits that we must escape.

Think of someone with a goal to change their job. Just imagining all the things they must do to hunt and claim that new job might be resistance-inducing enough, but first reaching escape velocity from their old job can be even harder.

They might be fired up about making a job change, but waking up every day and heading to that old job tends to have a way of starving that new job of oxygen.

To make progress you must be able to get beyond those old ways of being, get yourself moving in a new direction, and build momentum in your goals and days.

Momentum In Your Goals

Progress begets progress. We of course know this. A rolling stone gathers no moss and all that…

But when it comes to our goals, crucially, progress also acts as a “convincer” that we’re on the right track.

Results validate our belief and effort, which begets more belief and effort. And this shot in the arm is often all we need to keep taking action.

In most goals this happens naturally with progress, but we also want to engineer our goals in such a way that we can build momentum with small victories.

Any small victory will do. One more day in a row you ate right. Or went to the gym. Or didn’t drink. Just a couple of great meetings might be all it takes to feel like you’re building momentum in a job search.

You also want to find ways to remind yourself of your momentum. You might do this in your Daily Exercises. A calendar on the wall that you mark with progress. An app that does the same thing.

However you do it keep finding ways to prove to yourself that you’re building momentum, and you’ll find it easier to get yourself focused and taking action.

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Ways We Avoid Focusing on What Matters

In the last few weeks one article on my website keeps getting hit over and over again.

The headline, How to Focus on What Really Matters and Stop Wasting Time, tells you exactly what many of us are searching for.

If we had to label in one word what’s driving this search, we might choose “regret.”

Looking back on those things that we didn’t get done last year, we’re seeking strategies to get them done this year.

Correctly, we identify that our problem might come back to focus.

Incorrectly, we often think the solution is getting better at time management…

NOT About Time

Some of the most “successful” people I’ve known are hardly experts at time management, nor are they even efficient.

In fact, many of them are downright inefficient.

They aren’t particularly clear on what matters most to success, nor are they particularly exceptional at getting focused on those things…

But for what they lack in focus, they make up for in brute force by throwing a lot of hours at their goals.

Unlike a surgeon whose every cut could be the difference between life and death, in many arenas of success, precise focus can be less relevant than simply working at it.

My old world of investment banking is a perfect example—

You don’t need to be the best banker on the planet if you’re willing to work 100 hours a week for the rest of your life.

This Is Focus

You decide.

See, it’s not about solving questions like, “How do I stop wasting time and focus on what matters?” It’s about committing to what matters!

Whether you want to get the house painted, your mind right, or step back and get focused on landing the job you truly want, it’s your decision that gets you moving.

A decision is simple. It says, This matters. And I’m going to do whatever it takes to make it happen.

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New Year’s Resolutions Are Stupid. Set Goals.

What Do I Want

People keep baiting me on the topic of New Year’s resolutions.

Perhaps because I’ve called them stupid in the past, they think I have a negative view of such resolutions…

But that’s not true—I’m fired up about any catalyst that gets people to change.

It’s not New Year’s resolutions that are stupid, only how people pretend to use them!

Phony Goals

Like a political speech, people so proudly announce their New Year’s resolutions—

I hereby proclaim that starting on January 1 (but no sooner), I will stop watching cat videos on Fakebook and go to the gym at least 6 times a day.

And just like a parent applauding their 7-year-old’s school play, we‘re expected to celebrate their “achievement” in making such a resolution.

Good on you, Timmy!

Let’s hope you’re not in the 80% of people who give up on their resolutions by the second week in February…

New Year’s “Aspirations”

Nearly all resolutions fail because they were only aspirations to begin with.

Every day of the year you can make a new resolution, but repeating it to yourself and others doesn’t make it a goal.

An aspiration is to Get In Great Shape This Year. A goal is to specifically define how you are eating better and exercising consistently.

Resolutions become goals when they are backed by action, and that’s where, by definition, most resolutions are destined to fail.

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