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Archives for April 2015

How To Start A Revolution

April 23, 2015 by Jon Frost

Imagine you live in a town with only one widget factory.

One day you go on a tour of Widgets Inc. and realize their entire business is terrible. The equipment is falling apart, workers are asleep at their posts, and the floor manager is in the back room snorting cocaine off the secretary’s taint.

Most people would ignore an experience like this, but a savvy businessman would recognize the looming failure of Widgets Inc. as a massive opportunity. No matter how big and secure the company may seem today, their position is fragile. Someone is going to come along and eat their lunch.

This is how Americans should view their current political elite.

What Is A Revolution?

Revolution seems like a big, scary word. It shouldn’t. Political revolutions occur often throughout history, and they don’t necessarily involve violence.

Revolutions occur when influential people are disappointed in the quality of their government, and start working to transfer stewardship from one ruling class to another.

The goals of a revolution are broad and far-reaching. At minimum, a true revolution will require the complete liquidation of the Democratic and Republican parties, and massive reforms to every branch of government, our financial system, academia, and mass media.

Who will benefit from a political revolution in the United States?

Revolutions result in winners and losers. Some people and groups will find their status elevated, others will not.

The people who stand to gain the most from a changing of the guard in Washington are flyover Americans: white, middle-class, Christian, Republicans, i.e. the most hated and shat-upon people in America today, who nonetheless are her most avid supporters. Middle America has been reduced to a spiritually empty shell of itself, and members of this Vaisya class are almost completely powerless in the modern world. A just revolution would elevate their position to one of basic respect.

Young Americans, awash in student loan debt, unable to afford middle-class lifestyles, and doomed to pay the financial and spiritual debts of the Baby Boom generation for the rest of their lives, are a likely reservoir of support for a political revolution.

The elite of Silicon Valley, as the most likely candidates for our next ruling class, are also likely to benefit from revolution.

The armed forces, disillusioned with a decade-plus of watching their friends die in utterly pointless wars and primarily populated by the Vaisya class, probably wouldn’t stand in anyone’s way. N.B., the United States Armed Forces officers have sworn an oath to defend the formal Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic. This probably justified a legal military coup in 1933, and certainly could justify one today.

And who would lose? The Washington-based political establishment; the academics and journalists who make their living reinforcing its legitimacy; the freak show social justice warriors and protected fringe classes terrorizing the kulaks on their behalf. Certainly no one whose career prospects are worth losing any sleep over.

What Would A Revolution Look Like?

It’s 2015, so forget about storming the Whitehouse with brickbats and torches. An ideal revolution wouldn’t require any violence at all. It’s possible that pre-revolutionary conditions could be established entirely through the internet.

Consider: what would happen if 75% of property-owning Americans verifiably supported an online petition requesting the federal government to abdicate all power and revert complete sovereign authority to each of the fifty states? There are other options. We could nominate a worthy man – say Peter Thiel, or Arnold Schwarzenegger – to the position of absolute monarch. We could choose declare war on an absurdly well-governed sovereign, like Switzerland or Lichtenstein, and immediately surrender, inviting them to conquer and administrate us.

Personally, I like all these ideas, but the simple dissolution of the USA into fifty independent nations is my favourite. It’s a simple, clean, humble admission of the complete failure of the American experiment, and it provides a nonviolent resolution to the Red/Blue conflict, letting each state’s population govern themselves as they see fit.

Would the armed forces stand in their way? Would Washington march against state militias, dissident army factions,  and citizens across the country, annihilating tens of millions of Vaisya Americans in a new civil war bloodier than any the world has ever seen? Maybe. But if so – if the ruling class would actually wage this war, commit a genocide against people who just want to be left alone, to go their own way, live their lives, and be free of their coastal overlords – well, then we’re probably fucked anyways.

In the absence of a revolution, here are the people on track to inherit power:

These people – and of course, those who actually control them –  must be stopped. That is our generation’s burden, and it is our great opportunity.

How To Prepare For A Revolution

Arguably, a revolution is already occurring in the American mind. People are losing faith in the status quo. By reading and sharing this post, you are already contributing to a pre-revolutionary environment. The only question is: will you be a part of what comes next?

The success or failure of any revolution will be a function of the quality of people supporting it. A revolution led by healthy, successful, intelligent, disciplined men will win. If you want power, become worthy of it.

If you believe that America in 2015 would benefit from a peaceful revolution – and quite frankly, between unnecessary wars, mass surveillance, population replacement, fiscal insolvency, the breakdown of family and community, a vanishing middle class, and the widespread elevation of depraved lunatic social justice warriors to positions of power and influence, you’d be crazy not too – the best thing you can do is work on becoming the best possible version of yourself.

Then wait.

An Introduction To Evolutionary Psychology

April 17, 2015 by Jon Frost

As more and more men find this blog and the larger Manosphere community, I’ve noticed many young guys are learning the conclusions of Red Pill theory without actually piecing together the “Why?” behind it all.

For example: why do women chase sex with assholes, but want to settle down with nice boyfriends? Why does acting aloof make you more desirable? Why are men who dress with a bit of flair perceived as more attractive? You know these observations are true, but can you explain why they’re true?

It can be useful to read superficial advice about tactics, i.e. how to look and act like an alpha male, but I believe it’s more valuable to internalize the scientific and logical foundations of Game and The Red Pill. You’ve been raised with self-sabotaging beliefs about how men should think and behave, and those beliefs are hard to just shake off on a whim.

What you need is a completely new understanding of the rules governing social behaviour, a new mindset, and a new paradigm through which you can interpret sex and dating: the paradigm of Evolutionary Psychology.

A Brief History Of Evolutionary Psychology

Once upon a time, some smart people realized that typical human behaviour may have been partially shaped by our Environment of Evolutionary Adaptation (EEA). Much like, you know, every single other organism on the face of the Earth.

Early pioneers of what was then called Sociobiology were harassed, intimidated, shouted down in lectures, and had fire alarms pulled at their conferences by proto-Social Justice Warriors infuriated at the crimethinkful implications of this new idea.

The battle raged in academia for decades, but as evidence and good arguments mounted, it became impossible for all but the most stupid and/or disingenuous academics to ignore it. By now, a truce appears to have been signed in which the core precepts of Evolutionary Psychology are accepted as too obvious to deny, but gauche to bring up in polite company. The early pick-up artist movement adopted Evolutionary Psychology as one of its foundational pillars, furthering the deeply uncool reputation of the field.

The purpose of this post is to offer an introductory reading list on the subject of Evolutionary Psychology. I recommend you work your way through it from top to bottom; the order is based on a combination of quality, importance, and accessibility.

Sperm Wars, Robin Baker

Sperm WarsSperm Wars is a fun and accessible book that explores evolutionary theories of human sexual behaviour through narratives paired with short explanatory chapters.

I often recommend this book on my blog, for a few reasons. On a personal level, it was one of my first introductions to the subject, so I will always gratefully associate it with that crucial mind-altering explosion of clarity I experienced while reading it as a clueless teenager. More importantly, I think it’s the most effective book for enticing men to start a lifelong habit of reading great books. If your mind isn’t currently open to knowledge (when’s the last time you read a real book?) Sperm Wars is a crowbar that will open the first crack in your willful ignorance.

I guarantee you will not get bored reading Sperm Wars, and you will get tremendous value from it if you aren’t already familiar with the many ways evolutionary psychology can enhance your relationships with women.

Buy From Amazon

The Selfish Gene, Richard Dawkins

Selfish GeneYes, I know Richard Dawkins turned into a bit of a poof, Speaking Truth To Power by making fun of conservative Christians and jumping on the New Atheism bandwagon.

But the man used to enjoy a good street fight, and The Selfish Gene is a brilliant exegesis of the theory of evolution at its most foundational level. The Selfish Gene transcends the unscientific navel-gazing just-so stories that characterize EvPsych at its worst, and delves into a unified theory of replication, reproduction, and descent with modification, taking the theory of evolution as far beyond mere biological organisms as you care to go.

Anyone interested in the ideological evolution of our society, and the political implications thereof, would do well to think hard about Dawkins’ infamous final chapter on memetic evolution. This may come as a surprise to younger readers, but the word “meme” can be applied to more than just silly kitten pictures and unclear photos of blue/gold dresses.

If you’re a natural reader with no shortage of focus and willingness to push through some occasionally dense (though always fascinating and articulate) prose, I recommend you start with The Selfish Gene, as it lays a theoretical foundation that every other book in this list builds upon.

Buy From Amazon

(Aside: Below is an excellent video which avoids the use of Dawkins’ coinage, probably because he’s speaking to a generation that associates ‘meme’ with cats and dresses, but nonetheless does an excellent job of describing the concept. I find it gloriously appropriate that the word Dawkins invented to describe the evolution of ideas, has itself evolved into a horrific and shallow version of itself.)

The Moral Animal, Robert Wright

Moral AnimalThe Moral Animal is one of many fine pop-science books that explore the implications of evolutionary psychology for human behaviour. It’s a very good popular introduction to Ev Psych and I’ll always have a fondness for it since it was my first introduction to Evolutionary Psychology as an academic discipline, after reading the mostly-narrative Sperm Wars.

More than any other book on this list, The Moral Animal covers the ethical implications of our primal nature, and the origins of morality as an adaptive construct. Basically: if our conception of morality is just a fitness-enhancing tendency to conform to group norms which ultimately has no basis in objective morality, why shouldn’t I go kill a nun right now?

The Moral Animal didn’t offer anything I took to be a satisfying answer – just some hand-waving and nice feelings – but it was nonetheless interesting and well-written throughout, hence it’s place in the top three of this list.

Buy From Amazon

The Mating Mind, Geoffrey Miller

Mating mindWhy do humans have such big brains? Our over-sized skulls make childbirth dangerous, use 25% of our bodies’ energy, and generally force humans to be soft, slow, sensitive, poorly-armed prey in a faunascape of much tougher competitors. Intelligence can be useful, but only to a certain point. It’s not like we need brains capable of writing sonnets, composing symphonies, and covering chapels with photo-realistic frescoes.

The human soul, from a survival perspective, is a complete waste of resources. The lion has her teeth, the cheetah her speed, and the turtle her shell, but mankind seems to have dumped its biological character points in a costly but mostly useless gaming console.

In The Mating Mind, Miller argues that humans evolved our big, impractical, calorically expensive brains for reasons unrelated to survival. Rather, our brains serve the same function as male peacocks’ tail feathers – counter-signalling. Basically: only a strong and healthy peacock could possibly survive with such a big, useless tail. So, female peacocks who desire the best mates will pursue the most encumbered, whose survival in spite of themselves is a credible signal of underlying genetic fitness.

Miller argues a similar mechanism is responsible for the existence of brains capable of humour, art, music, rhythm, and complex thought. Our brains are the result of sexual selection, which can be completely arbitrary, rather than natural selection, which is concerned entirely with our actual ability to survive and reproduce. Our brains, like the peacock’s tail, exist not in spite of their high cost but because of it.

In humans, unlike peacocks, the sexual selection effect cuts both ways. Rather than a simple Males Compete Females Choose (MCFC) dynamic, both human sexes are obligated by our evolutionary signalling equilibrium to dump resources into their mostly ornamental brains. This paradigm is called Mutual Mate Choice (MMC), and it has some interesting implications. Here’s Geoffrey Miller in a short publication, Mutual Mate Choice Models as the Red Pill in Evolutionary Psychology:

Thus, MMC usually maximizes variance in “mutation load” across individuals, and maximizes the strength of the general genetic “fitness factor” that seems to underlie some of the variation in intelligence, personality, moral virtues, mental health, and physical health across people (Arden et al., 2009; Prokosch et al., 2005). The result of MMC is that we end up living in a species with the lowest level of genetic equality that any mating system could possibly produce (Miller, 2010).
…
Ideologically, MMC models can sound like they naturalize neo-Victorian family values of slow courtship, careful mate choice, voluntary eugenics, long-term monogamy, sexual fidelity, and paternal duty. Thus, MMC threatens to impose a sort of puritanical buzzkill on the pop psychologists devoted to the MCFC “men are promiscuous, women are monogamous” mantra, and on the pop anthropologists who champion the “people are bonobos” mass-promiscuity model. They might not wel-come such a stern Galtonian party-crasher.
…
MMC is the toughest Red Pill to swallow because it leaves us stuck right here in the same old monogamous Matrix, with no sexually liberated Zion in sight, and no consolation other than a deeper understanding of how we came to be here.
…

[MMC]will also require the ideological maturity to accept that heritable individual differences have been important targets of male and female choice for a very long time, that some current inequalities arose as unintended genetic consequences of our ancestors’ mutual mate choices, and that such inequalities might persist as long as human mate choice remains consensual and free.

This Geoffrey Miller sure does sound like an interesting fella!

So what’s he up to now? Unfortunately, he’s taken a leave of absence to focus on a very promising side project: Ripping off the Manosphere, watering it down to PC-pablum, and partnering with former author Tucker Max on The Mating Grounds, a dating advice website for the mass* market.

(*Current stats for The Mating Grounds as of this writing: 268 Facebook Likes, 178 Twitter Followers, 98 YouTube Subscribers.)

Whatever he’s doing now though, Miller has nonetheless produced and popularized some interesting and important ideas in his earlier years, and The Mating Mind is an excellent book. Check it out.

Buy From Amazon

The Red Queen, Matt Ridley

Red QueenThe Red Queen overlaps with both The Moral Animal and The Mating Mind, but takes a much more speculative approach to the links between our Environment of Evolutionary Adaptation, and modern-day manifestations of behaviour. Ridley incautiously and aggressively posits theories about how natural and sexual selection has shaped human behaviour, as if he just dropped a few tabs of LSD and started writing down whatever came to mind.

This may sound like criticism, but it’s not. The Red Queen is upfront about the speculative nature of most chapters, and Ridley specifically claims that, in his estimation, half the theories in this book are wrong. The result is a book that is refreshing in its willingness to throw ideas around.

The Red Queen is best read (as its position on this list suggests) after you’ve had a good introduction to the theoretical background of Evolutionary Psychology. Treat this book like a conversation with a friend and evaluate some of the more far-fetched “just-so” stories on their merits, and it will be an enjoyable, informative, brain-stretching read.

Buy From Amazon

The Paleo Manifesto, by John DurantPaleo Manifesto

I’ve read a dozen books about Paleolithic health and nutrition, but The Paleo Manifesto is by far the best. In addition to being a fine introduction to the theory and practice of Paleolithic health, it also outlines a fascinating interpretation of The Old Testament as an allegorical history of mankind’s transition from hunter-gatherer tribes to agricultural civilization:

 Like a dream upon awakening, we struggle to remember life before literacy, life before herding and farming, life before the Fall. But if we step back from the fine details and take in the broad contours, the biblical memory of the Fall has the following arc. We lived in the Fertile Crescent (Genesis 2:10–14). We lived in harmony with our habitat (Genesis 2:8–25). It did not require much effort to procure food (Genesis 2:8–9). We didn’t wear clothes (Genesis 2:25). Then we did something wrong (Genesis 3:6). As punishment, men had to start farming, which was hard (Genesis 3:17–19). We had to eat bread (Genesis 3:19). As punishment, women had to bear more children, childbirth became painful and dangerous, and women fell under the dominion of men (Genesis 3:16). We built the first cities (Genesis 4:17). Our nature now clashed with this new habitat (Genesis 6:5–7, 6:11–12). Agrarian civilizations struggled with famine (Genesis 41), lawlessness (Exodus 20), large-scale warfare (Numbers), and disease (Exodus 7–11). Over time, urban farmers eating plant-based diets displaced hunters and herders eating animal-based diets (Genesis 3:17–19; Genesis 4:2–17; Genesis 25:23–34). Step even further back, and these early herder-farmers had a memory that goes something like this: Life was good. We ate something we shouldn’t have. Now life is bad. It would be a decidedly brilliant set of cultural rules that would help a tribe of herder-farmers adapt to life in the early Agricultural Age, and its most important new habitat: the city.

Durant also interprets the Mosaic precepts of cleanliness as instructions for avoiding food poisoning and microbial infections, far in advance of our overt understanding of the germ theory of disease. Mosaic Laws regarding hand-washing, food preparation, burying the dead, monogamy, and sexual restraint during menstruation may have helped Israelites succeed and thrive in post-agricultural close-quartered urban settings throughout recent history. Strident atheists like Richard Dawkins would presumably scoff at the silly Jews washing their hands and burying their dead, simply because a magic sky fairy (snort!) told them to, but The Paleo Manifesto transcends the contemporarily fashionable disdain for all things biblical, and the result is the most interesting book in the genre from the past decade.

Buy From Amazon

Why We Get Sick, Randolph Nesse and George Williams

Why we get sickIf our bodies have been fine-tuned by millions of years of evolution, why do they consistently fail us in horrific ways? Why do we degrade with age and develop acute conditions that cripple our ability to survive and reproduce?

Why We Get Sick is a fascinating exploration of the evolutionary rationale for illness and disease. The common principle throughout this book is that everything our genes do requires tradeoffs between various evils, and risk-reward calculations by self-interested genes unconcerned with our happiness and quality of life.

One example: Sickle Cell Anemia (SCA) occurs when a person is born with two copies of a certain gene, and the result is an early death and very little chance of reproduction. So, why does this particular gene exist at all? The answer is that one copy of this gene actually confers a survival advantage in the form of increased resistance to malaria. The result is that rather than dying out, the frequency of this gene strikes an equilibrium in which the expected survival benefit of increased malaria resistance is equal to the expected reproductive cost of an early death from SCA.

I’ve previously written that similar processes may underlie the link between Autism and spatial reasoning skills, which would explain a non-causal link between Autism and delayed fatherhood.

Why We Get Sick is not a book with a lot of practical applicability to your life, but it you’re the sort of curious person who finds these topics interesting, Why We Get Sick is a must-read.

Buy From Amazon

The Evolution Of Desire, David BussEvolution Of Desire

The Evolution of Desire is the most practical popular book on evolutionary psychology for men who wants to have more success with women, covering many of the common Red Pill paradigms such as dual mating strategies, lover/provider roles, and what cues women follow to classify men as one or the other.

It’s not one of my top recommendations, but it’s definitely a worthwhile addition to your library once you’ve made it through the rest of this list, especially if you’re struggling to understand women and dating.

Buy From Amazon

The Mystery Method, Erik Von MarkovikThe Mystery Method

In the late 20th century, groups of men on primitive internet message boards discovered evolutionary psychology and its applicability to the seduction of women. They called themselves pick-up artists, and if you’re not interested in their findings, you are simply not a curious person.

Erik Von Markovik (aka Mystery) was one of the most prolific and respected members of the early pick-up community, and The Mystery Method was his Magnum Opus. If you can overlook the occasional anachronistic reference to the pre-internet dating landscape (printed photographs, using telephones for voice chat, and not a single reference to Tinder) this book is a comprehensive and still-relevant breakdown of the application of Evolutionary Psychology to practical seduction and dating. It’s also interesting [like Neil Strauss’s The Game (Amazon)] from a historical perspective, as an insight into the origins of the Pick-Up Artist community, from which the Red Pill/Manosphere is a descendant.

Buy From Amazon

Conclusion

If you want to be more successful with women, and people in general, you need to do more than memorize lines – you have to develop a more complete understanding of what causes human behaviour. You will never find this knowledge if you only look for it in shallow waters – blogs, Twitter, internet forums.

Learning tactics has its place, but a few good pick-up lines will never replace a lifetime of de-masculinizing indoctrination. If you don’t understand the true foundation of human psychology, you’ll always be a confused imposter doing his best impression of an alpha male.

The nine books in this post will teach you to discern the logic behind male and female behaviours which currently strike you as confusing, irrational, self-defeating, and counter-intuitive. They will give you the tools to minimize unpleasant surprises, and steer social interactions in your preferred direction.

If you want to be more confident and successful in your social life start from the top and work your way through this list. As a bonus, you’ll be a wiser man, with a better understanding of the world around you, and a bit more fun at dinner parties.

Discussion

Readers: How has reading about evolutionary psychology improved your life? What are the most important unanswered questions in EvPsych right now? Can you suggest any other books deserve to be on this list?

NLP Exercises That Make You A Better Version Of Yourself

April 10, 2015 by Jon Frost

The human brain can be a real asshole sometimes, holding back motivation, social courage, or mental clarity right when it’s needed most. Somewhere inside your psyche is a version of you that will nail that presentation, approach that pretty girl, or snap your fingers and instantly get over a period of depression and ennui that’s holding you back, but something is holding you back from being that person.

Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to unlock all of your best qualities at will?

Below are three simple exercises that (weird as it may sound) can help you visualize your way into a more powerful mindset and unlock the best possible version of yourself. These exercises can only work if you truly invest in them and actually devote a few minutes to vivid imagination for each one. Try them out, and see if they work for you.

Exercise #1) The Switch

Choose someone you admire and respect, either a real-life mentor, a famous person, a historical figure, or even a fictional character. Let’s use Elon Musk as an example.

Now: close your eyes and imagine you and Elon Musk magically swapped bodies, resulting in two new people. One of these is in a bad situation that will end with SpaceX early adopters dying horrible fiery deaths, but forget about him right now.

What happens to the mind and soul of Elon Musk in your old body?

Chances are, Elon is not impressed with the situation he finds himself in. He gets up from the couch, brushes the potato chip crumbs from his chest and does a quick tour of his apartment, piecing together various aspects of his new life. He asks questions like:

  • Is my living space clean, organized, and conducive to productivity?
  • What does my body look like? What food is there in my fridge? Am I a healthy man?
  • What books am I reading?
  • Do I live in a city where I have opportunities to actually do something interesting with my life?
  • What’s my cashflow situation? Do I have the financial cushion to pursue interesting new ideas, or am I broke and living paycheck to paycheck?
  • What is the most important thing that I should be doing right now, to get my life back on track?

The purpose of this exercise is to make you look at your life through fresh eyes. Forget how you see your life, and focus on what Elon Musk would see. More importantly, think about what Elon Musk would do.

I can’t answer this question for you. Maybe it’s as simple as getting off the computer, doing the dishes, and going to bed at a reasonable hour. Maybe you just realized you need to save some money and get out of your Podunk town. Would Elon Musk be stressing over how long it’s taking some girl he hasn’t even met to message him back on Tinder? I don’t think so.

The point is that if Elon is reasonably impressed that you’re making the best of your current situation, you’re probably on the right track. If Elon (or whomever) is shaking his head at what a self-destructive twat you are… well, go ahead and ask your projected simulacrum what lifestyle changes he would recommend.

2) The Board Of Directors

Imagine sitting down at a table with your personal heroes. Living or dead, real or fictional – The sames rules apply as above. This is your board of directors.

Now: close your eyes and imagine explaining to them the pros and cons of an important decision you have to make. Prepare some notes and write out your arguments in advance, making the best case for each option. Try to imagine what each member of the board would say. What questions would they ask? Would they call bullshit on anything?

You can refer to the board and it’s members throughout your day-to-day life. It doesn’t have to be a lengthy process. Just take a few seconds to meditate on the imagined presence of people who inspire you, and consider how they would judge your actions and decisions.

The purpose of the virtual board of directors is to replace the negative social pressure of average people with social pressure from great men. No matter how well you structure your life, there will always be negative influences leaking into your mind from people and pop culture you interact with. The cliché response to this problem is that you should be your own man and answer to nobody, but ultimately this is a) impossible, and b) probably not desirable. Man is a social animal; it’s not healthy to fight that instinct. Instead, make it work in your favour – seek approval, but fill your life and thoughts with people whose approval is worth seeking.

3) Method Acting

Are you nervous when you approach girls? Approaching takes a lot of social courage, which most men simply don’t have.

But imagine you signed up for an improv acting class and the instructor told you that in your next scene, you have to play a confident and charming James Bond-type character. Not only would you be much less nervous about approaching girls in that scene, you would probably do a very good impression of how a confident man would act.

So: what’s the difference between doing an impression of a confident person, and actually being confident? Could you do an impression of a confident person every single day for the rest of your life? I bet you could. As an added bonus, developing the ability to perceive life as theatre is a good way to stop taking everything so damn seriously. In “real life” your ego is in control. On stage, there’s nothing to do but play the character you’re assigned and enjoy the show. You have the freedom to define every aspect of who you are and how you behave. There is no spoon.

Why Does This Work?

I don’t have a definite answer to this question, but I will speculate: most people are held back by feelings of inadequacy and imposter syndrome.

In hunter-gatherer tribes, lower-status men who aspire to be the top dog are swatted down hard, so we evolved a mental handbrake that keeps our ambitions in check. In the modern world, no one is going to rip off your testicles for trying to become a better man, but try telling that to your shitty brain. It’s like how morbidly obese people inhale sugary snacks out of a misguided terror of starving to death.

The exercises in this post bypass the self-destructive instinct to rein in your ambition, and reduce feelings of inadequacy. You may not feel like you deserve the life you want, but surely if Elon Musk had to suffer the indignity of building the best life possible from your current situation, he deserves all the good fortune as he gets. An imaginary board of directors mentoring you suggests that the tribe is deeply invested in your success, and so won’t punish your striving; method acting removes your ego from the equation and puts your actions in a context that allows ‘make-belief’ ambition.

An alternative explanation is that everything above is feel-good nonsense and Ev Psych just-so pseudoscience. Whatever the case though, I find these exercises helpful in finding motivation and clarity of purpose in my life. Take a few minutes, try them out, and let us know in the comments if they lead to any interesting revelations.

Further Reading

If you found this post useful and/or interesting, read NLP: The New Technology Of Achievement for more exercises and tools for overcoming phobias, anxiety, and other mental hurdles.

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