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Crowdsourced Reading Project #1
Inside a Womans Mind
Summarized by Neil Strauss
The Female Brain Explained

First of all, happy New Year. Today beings our 2012 initiative for the Inner Circle. Our goal: To read
52 life-changing books together over the course of the year. Youve hopefully received the email and
know the details by now, so step up and volunteer if you want to provide an executive summary of a
great book.
Im going to kick things off with The Female Brain by Louann Brizendine, a book that I would definitely add to the top Game-related reading list I started here (The Top Game Books), along with its
sequel, The Male Brain--which, tellingly, is not only 55 pages shorter than her analysis of the female
brain, but the print is much larger.
The Female Brain is written better and more clearly than most science and psychology books. But
despite being a quick easy read, it is packed with quality content. I underlined something on almost
every page, and it supports a lot of the theories and observations we developed while doing our own
version of lab work in The Game.
Here are a few of the interesting facts, answers, and takeaways from her writing on the female brain,
which she describes as a machine built for connection:
Why Men Are Smarter Than Women

Just kidding. Wanted to get your attention. She does say that the male brain is larger than the female
brain by nine percent (even after correcting for body size), but this doesnt mean that men are any
smarter. In fact, she says, in the brain centers for language and hearing, women have eleven percent
more neurons than men. And that a baby girl is born with a more mature brain, which develops one
or two years quicker than a boys.
Why Women Are Sadder Than Men

Another shocking headline, but slightly more true: Theres a two-to-one ratio of depression in women
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compared to men. In addition, anxiety, she writes, is four times more common in women.
Scientific Evidence of the Friend Zone

A study scanned the brains of men and women observing neutral scenes of a man and a woman
having a conversation. The male brains sexual areas immediately sparked--they saw it as a potential sexual rendezvous. The female brains did not have any activation in the sexual areas. The female
brains saw the situation as just two people talking. Welcome to the life of a guy with oneitis: theres
no sexual possibility to her, just two people talking. But dont give up hope...
How to Get Out of the Friend Zone

Okay, follow this: A girls brains primary goals, says Brizendine, are to forge connections, to create
community, and to organize and orchestrate a girls world so that shes at the center of it. Thats one
of the reasons women enjoy keeping guys with oneitis dancing around them. But at the same time,
a woman is careful, she continues, to walk a fine line between making sure shes at the center of her
friendships and risking pushing those relationships away. The goal is to get what she wants without sacrificing the relationship.
My biggest mistake as an AFC was to build a relationship with a woman I was attracted to--to give
her everything--thinking that somehow I was going to get sex or romance as a result. She already
had what she needed, and wasnt attracted and didnt want anything more. So to get out of friend
zone, take away the friendship--with no anger, no explanation, no expectation. Just disappear for a
while. When you return, then begin the seduction--and do it right this time. Its one of the basic strategies in Robert Greenes The Art of Seduction.
To quote Brizendine, Mens self-esteem derives more from their ability to maintain independence
from others, while womens self-esteem is maintained in part by the ability to sustain intimate relationships with others.
Note: Although I quote Brizendine as a source for the information here, most of this did not come
from her own studies, but studies she cites in the book and in its 130-plus pages of endnotes.
Why Women Dont Understand That Men Need to Learn How to Attract Them
According to Brizendine, males in the womb, with only one X chromosome and al lot of extra testosterone, get more socially handicapped than women. As a result, men in later life have to learn
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social behaviors and nuances that women understand intuitively and take for granted.
She goes on to say that biologically men are chasers and women are choosers. She paraphrases
Darwin, who said that males of all species were made for wooing females and females typically
chose among their suitors. In fact, theres actually an area in the hypothalamus known as the area
for sexual pursuit thats larger in men. Its called Strausss Region (no, actually its not).
Guys often have to talk women into having sex, she concludes. Its usually not the first thing on
womens minds.
Why Approach Anxiety Makes Sense

Rejection, Brizendine writes, actually hurts like physical pain because it triggers the same circuits
in the brain.
Should Women Who Talk Nonstop Be Punished?

On average, says Brizendine, girls speak two to three times more words per day than boys--and at
a quicker pace. Biologically, she continues, connecting through talking activates the pleasure centers in a womans brain, especially sharing secrets about romance and sexuality. The dopamine and
oxytocin rush, she goes on to claim, is the greatest neurological reward a woman can get outside of
an orgasm. (And is a good argument for the effectiveness of certain speed seduction patterns.) She
says that in colonial America, women were put in town stocks with wooden clips on their tongues or
dunked for the crime of talking too much. I know what some of you are thinking: keep it to yourself.
Why Women Have Trouble Letting Go

According to Brizendine, outside of the sexual pursuit area, the hippocampus is larger and more
active in women. And this is the area of the brain where, among other things, emotional memories
are stored. They remember these emotional events and their details-whether a romantic first date or
a big argument-more vividly and for longer than men. If only I knew this fact every time a girlfriend
chastised me for forgetting things like what she was wearing on our first date.
One result of this, however, is it makes it harder for women to let go of a bad relationship because
she still remembers all the positive feelings of the first months. Another reason why women stay in
unhealthy relationships is because in the wild, a woman may not survive if she loses a relationship
with a protective male provider. So, evidently her reptilian brain supposedly goes, better to be stuck
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with this asshole than dead.

Finally, in both men and women, being dumped, Brizendine goes on to say, actually heightens the
pheromone of passionate love in the brain circuits. And, yes, women may remember things longer,
but men can over-react in the moment. According to Brizendine, men are three to four times more
likely to commit suicide over a breakup.
Eve Came Before Adam

Many of you may also already know this, but if not, all you men were once women. Until we are eight
weeks old in the womb, we all have female brains and reproductive organs, until, in male babies,
shots of the hormones testosterone and MIS defeminize (as she puts it) the brain and body.
Why Negs Work on Three-month Olds

Baby girls are born interested in emotional expressions, she writes. They take meaning about
themselves from a look, a touch, every reaction from the people they come into contact with. From
these cues, they discover whether they are worthy, lovable, or annoying.
Furthermore, she goes on to explain, baby girls interpret an emotionless face as a negative sign that
theyre not doing something right, and will go after the person until they get an emotional response.
In fact, I know women-and some men-many decades older who do this with their partners in relationships.
Brizendine goes on to say that this instinct is what makes some adult women fall for narcissistic or
emotionally unavailable men.
She adds that key for a young girl as she grows up is being listened to, which validates and grows
her sense of self. Its interesting, that many negs (like, Wheres her off button?) are based on invalidating her feeling of being heard.
When girls hits puberty, Brizendine continues, they become almost exclusively interested in their
appearance, specifically whether the boys who populate their real and fantasy worlds will find them
attractive. Thus, the birth of another class of negs, based on fashion and appearance.
As her brain continues to marinate in estrogen and progesterone, the female-specific brain circuits,
she writes, become even more sensitive to emotional nuances, such as approval and disapproval,
acceptance and rejection. And so comes another category of negs, the push-pull, punishmentwww.NeilStrauss.com
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reward, validation-invalidation games.

IMPORTANT NOTE TO PERVERTS: The above section is by no means intended to convey that its
okay to sarge three-month or thirteen year olds. These examples are provided solely to explain the
scientific basis of social interactions with mature women by examining the development of their
minds.
Why Subcommunication is Important When Sarging

Brizendine writes that the female brain has been designed to be much more adept at reading subtle
facial expressions, interpreting tones of voice, and registering emotional nuances. This way, women
can pick up nonverbal cues from their infants and anticipate their needs-and also keep both their
children and themselves safe by being able to predict what a larger or more aggressive male is going
to do. They are also designed to bond with other women, in order to protect themselves in the safety
of the group. In fact, in games, studies show that girls take turns twenty times more than boys, who
are usually fighting for status, power, or territory.
Why Love is Blind

Brizendine says that when we are in love, the brain becomes involuntarily illogical. This in-love state
shares the same brain circuits with thirst and hunger--and intoxication. The brain circuits that are
activated when we are in love match those of the drug addict desperately craving the next fix.
Either This is a Typo Or Im Going to Start Having Sex Differently From Now On
Brizendine has a great section on the female orgasm, which takes on average three to ten times
longer than that of a man. As we all know, women generally need to be free of anxiety, stress, and
discomfort in the moment in order to have an orgasm; but she adds that researchers discovered that
women needed to be comfortable and have their feet kept warm before they felt like engaging in
sex. No longer is it necessary for AFCs to get a girl drunk; just give her wool socks. Brizendine goes
on to correlate shortened breath, arched back, and warm feet with signs of a womans orgasm.
For the record, however, I disagree with a point she makes shortly afterward: that there is no difference between a vaginal and a clitoral orgasm. She says theyre both the same thing. I have no scientific evidence to prove otherwise, but I do have some experience. And, sure, one can argue that a
different area of the clitoris is just being stimulated vaginally, but most women have two very different types of orgasm from these two different types of stimulation.
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Another Orgasm Fun Fact

Women who are seeing other men on the side have a tendency to fake orgasms more with their primary partner, says Brizendine. This is evidently a subconscious gambit, she says, to make her partner feel she is satisfied by him and faithful.
A Fact Thats a Bummer For Me (Though I get to Coin a New Word)

Many of you may already know that people find suitors with symmetrical faces more attractive:
evidently, a lack of symmetry is seen as a sign of disease, malnutrition, or genetic defects. (I wonder if thats one of the reasons why guys who leer seem creepy.) Anyway, what I didnt know is that
women supposedly have a higher frequency of orgasms during sexual intercourse with partners with
more symmetrical facial features and bodies. Finally, she notes that men with symmetrical features
end up in bed with women theyre dating quicker than men who are less symmetrical (regardless of
the rest of their other attractive qualities). These symmetri-men also invest the least amount of time
and money on those they date-- and they cheat more.
Why Looks Matter More to Men Than Women

Some of you may have already read David Busss The Evolution of Desire. (Any volunteers to write
a report on his book for The Inner Circle?) She cites his discovery that in every culture, Women are
less concerned with a potential husbands visual appeal and more interested in his material resources and social status. So get out of the gym, and get in the field.
Weve already established this in Rules of the Game, as we have her next point, which is that the
reason men like women who are young and beautiful--with clear skin, bright eyes, full lips, shiny hair,
and Victoria Secret model curves--is because these are indicators of health and fertility. In fact, one
of the subconscious reasons women have those hideous lip injections is because plumped lips are
an indicator to men of higher estrogen.
As a result of being so visual, however, men, she says, have a greater tendency to fall in love at first
sight than women. Once a person is in love, she continues, the cautious, critical-thinking pathways in the brain shut down. Oneitis anyone?
How to Make a Woman--Or Business Contact--Trust You

According to Brizendine, a rush of oxytocin and dopamine to the brain will suppress anxiety and
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skepticism. And one way to release oxytocin in women is hugging and cuddling. Oxytocin is naturally released in the brain after a twenty-second hug, triggering the trust circuits, she says, and increasing the likelihood that a woman will believe everything and anything she is told by the hugger.
Now you may not want to hug a business contact, but a study discovered that investors who were
administered a nasal spray with oxytocin offered twice as much money to a project as investors who
werent dosed.
And, sure, if you dont have the oxytocin spray, you can try hugging your business partner--but its
going to have to be an uncomfortably special hug. Men, she says, have to be touched two to three
times more frequently to sustain the same levels of oxytocin as women.
ANOTHER NOTE: All of the statements in this report are obviously generalizations. There are many
brain and hormonal variation between individual women, and whats true for one here may be less
true for another. In addition, most of the titles of these posts are even broader generalizations, meant
mostly to catch your eye--because this is a monster of a post. Hope youre getting something out of
it though.
A Seduction Tip for Women

After intense physical challenges, Brizendine writes, men will bond quickly and sexually with the
first willing female they lay eyes on. So standing at the summit of Mt. Everest may be a great place
to meet men.
Brizendine goes on to speculate this may be why soldiers sometimes shock friends and relatives by
bringing home brides after a war. (Maybe thats what happened when Elvis Presley was stationed in
Germany and met his future wife Priscilla.)
However, men beware: this will not work for you. She says women will rebuff advances or expressions of affection and desire when under stress. Evidently, the fairy tales are wrong: saving the life of
a damsel in distress is not going to make her want to marry you.
Why Men Dont Like Sluts

Youd think men, who fantasize about sex constantly, would love easy women. But Brizendine cites
basic evolutionary biology, stating that social reputation is a factor in male selection. This is because
a man wants to make sure a woman mates only with them to insure his paternity--and he also wants
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to make sure she sticks around to properly nurture the child.
The Survival of the Smoothes Proven?

I was originally going to call The Game by the title Survival of the Smoothest. Brizendine would have
agreed. Some anthropologists, she writes, speculate that natural selection favored men who were
good at deceiving women and getting them to agree to have sex.
My New Favorite Routine

Okay, take this with a grain of salt, because not everyone can do this--or should. But Ive been trying, for fun, to guess where women are in their menstrual cycle. Sounds completely insane, but if
you come from a place of curiosity and are NOT threatening, judgmental, or creepy, it can quickly
liven up a conversation.
The key is this: In the first two weeks of a womans cycle, estrogen is high and she is more likely to
be socially interested and relaxed with others. In addition, there is a 25 percent growth of connections in the hippocampus, which makes the brain a bit sharper, quicker, clearer, and able to remember more. In the second week, when she is the most fertile, she will be the most flirtatious.
However, on day 14, at ovulation, progesterone increases and estrogen lessens, and the brain becomes at first more sedated, then gradually more irritable. Finally, in the last few days of the cycle,
we all know what happens to some women (yet are smart enough not to tell them in the moment):
she becomes more liable to be upset, stressed, negative, hostile, depressed, and have impaired
judgment that tends to lead to uncontrollable, dramatic emotions. So tread lightly if you choose to
make this a conversation piece.
One final fun menstrual fact: Be wary if youre in a relationship. Evidently ovulating women with partners prefer the smell of other, more dominant men (though single women dont, which, Brizendine
says, means they are looking more for providers, whereas the women who already have providers
and are looking for studs to mate with; in fact, ten percent of children in a study were not actually
conceived by the man who thought he was their father).
Why Women Tend to Stick With Their Friends Instead of Going Home With a Guy
Women tend to avoid overt conflict. Their brains, as weve said, work to preserve relationships. Just
the thought of a conflict is enough to feel threatened. Thus there is an evolutionary concern that a
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real conflict or disagreement or negative feeling with a friend might end the relationship. So when it
comes to either rejecting a guy or keeping a current friend, many women choose the latter.
YET ANOTHER NOTE: Many of the correlations in this report between the female brain and attraction, seduction, and pickup are not in the book, but my own conclusions, based on Brizendines findings.
Are Girls With Acne Easy

According to Brizendine, they are. Its a clue that her androgen levels are high, making her more likely to have sex (If only I knew this in high school). Other signs of high testosterone in women are body
hair, facial hair growth, and a lower voice. So, um, next time you see that stinky bearded woman with
acne and a deep voice, either its on or shes a man.
She also adds, in case you havent already experienced this, that girls taking oral birth control have
lowered sexual drives.
Why Take Aways Work--And Dramatic Relationships Drag on

If youre a girl, she writes, youve been programmed to make sure you keep social harmony. This
is a matter of life and death to the brain. And furthermore, the state of romantic love can be reignited by the threat or fear of losing ones partner.
Why Your Relationship Problems May Not Be Your Fault

These differences in the brain often lead to marital problems: Some women get upset that their
husbands dont like being social or having long talks or being emotionally open. But this, Brizendine
says, is not his fault. Its just his brain chemistry.
More interestingly, if a womans partner stops talking to her or responding emotionally, she thinks
that he disapproves of her, that shes done something wrong, or that he doesnt love her anymore.
Shell panic that shes losing him or...think hes having an affair. Sound familiar to anyone?
The Biology Behind Getting Blown Out By a Girl Youre Not Even Attracted To
Ever see a girl in a club who youre just not into. In fact, you dont think shes attractive at all. Yet
shes strutting around like shes the hottest girl in the room and shooting down guys left and right.
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Brizendine explains: Women who were the most outspoken and had the highest self-regard also
had the highest levels of estrogen, testosterone, and androstenedione. They also ranked themselves
above how their peers ranked them. So although you may be put off by her, when closing time rolls
around, just remember what Brizendine says about women with more testosterone.
How to Game Your Wife Into Wanting a Baby

According to Brizendine, the sweet smell of an infants head carries pheromones that produce oxytocin in a woman, and create a literal baby lust. Thus, a woman will often be overcome by a deep
desire to have a child soon after cradling someone elses warm, soft newborn. So if, conversely,
youre not ready for children, dont let your significant other hold anyones babies.
Pregnancy Fun Facts

Fun fact number one: Six months into pregnancy, a womans brain actually shrinks--and doesnt return to its normal size until six months after she gives birth. (But nature has its revenge: mens brains
in old age shrink quicker than womens.)
Fun fact number two: Morning sickness comes from a heightened sensitivity to smell in the brain
circuits of a pregnant woman--and it is the intensity of everyday odors that creates the nausea.
Disclaimer: The information in these book reports comes from the authors themselves. By publishing
them, this blog is neither supporting nor denying their theories--just sharing them.
Why Men Should Keep Working When They Become Fathers

According to Brizendine, maternal aggression and increased vigilance can begin to alter the
personality of a new mother. One symptom: Reassessment of her husbands role as provider is not
unusual.
Stressed Out All The Time? Blame Your Mom

According to Brizendine, adults who received low maternal care as children display increased anxiety, have hyperactive responses to stress, and are more vigilant and fearful.
Why Having a Baby is Bad For Your Sex Life

Besides the obvious--such as new priorities, her biological changes, and both being exhausted
from taking care of the newborn (a new mother loses 700 hours of sleep in the first year)--Brizendine
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writes that a man actually has a sympathetic biological reaction to his partners pregnancy. Just
before birth, the hormone cortisol doubles in the man, increasing sensitivity and alertness (thus the
clich of the over-zealous, over-worried father-to-be). And in the first weeks after the baby is born, a
mans testosterone drops by a third, decreasing his sex drive, as his estrogen level increases.
In the meantime, Brizendine writes, Mother love and breast-feeding replace or interfere with a mothers desire for her partner. All the skin-to-skin contact with her baby saturates her brain in dopamine
and oxytocin, making her feel loved, deeply bonded, and emotionally and physically satisfied. Its
no wonder that she has no need for sexual contact, Brizendine concludes. Most of the positive
feelings she usually gets from intercourse are evoked several times daily by meeting the physical
needs of her young children.
Why Practice Makes Perfect--And Why You Can Retain Your Brain
The more you do something, Brizendine writes, the more cells the brain assigns to that task. I
suppose this makes the converse true as well, and all that not-having-sex after a child is born may
cause the brain to reassign those cells elsewhere. (If any psychologists are reading these book
reports, yes, after hearing scores of married men complain to me that their wives havent slept with
them in years, I did develop a slight marriage phobia.)
Why Real Man Dont Cry

At least a quarter of Brizendines book comes more from evolutionary psychology than neurobiology,
but obviously the two are inter-related. One of the interesting theories she mentions is that women
evolved to cry four times more than men. This is because the male brain, as youll hear more about
when I get around to reviewing her companion book, becomes less attuned to reading emotion and
interpreting faces in childhood. Consequently, it takes a bigger gesture thats not open to interpretation or doubt to get a mans attention. Without tears, men pick up the subtle signs of sadness in a
female face only 40 percent of the time, while women can spot the same signs in men 90 percent of
the time.
Why Women Are More Frightened Than Men by Horror Movies

Before reading this book, I thought women were culturally trained to act overly frightened in scary
movies and situations, and play a helpless role to get attention from men. Turns out, according to
Brizendine, this is biological. The extra estrogen means girls feel gut sensations and physical pain
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more than boys do. As a result, according to studies, from childhood, women startle more easily
and react more fearfully.
The Origin of Female Intuition

Brizendine says this comes from mirror neurons. A woman not only observes what someone else
is experiencing, but will actually imitate or mirror the hand gestures, body posture, breathing rate,
gaze, and facial expressions of someone else--and as a result not will only understand what the
other person is experiencing, but actually feels it. (Score a victory for NLP here.)
Women Are From Mars, Men Are From Rocks

In a study at Stanford, subjects were shown emotionally-moving images: nine different brain areas lit
up in women, while only two brain areas lit up in men.
Why Women Punch People (And Things) Less Than Men

The amygdala, says Brizendine, where, among other things, fear, anger, and aggression occur, is
larger in men; meanwhile, the prefrontal cortex, which controls and checks these emotions, is larger
in women. Add to this womens added aversion to conflict that could sever a friendship (reality
shows notwithstanding), and you have a world in which guys have more rage issues, especially men
with high testosterone
However, Brizendine concludes, although a woman is slower to act out of anger, once her faster
verbal circuits get going, they can cause her to unleash a barrage of angry words that a man cant
match. Been there?
This often leads to a situation where the man feels frustrated by her verbal torrent, and reacts with
anger, which then frightens her and causes her to shut down (the normal responses of fighting or
fleeing does not occur because it may cause her to lose her protective mate, Brizendine adds). And
thus you have the formula for some of the worlds worst relationships.
The Advantages of Menopause For Women

Though Brizendine describes the two to nine years before menopause as an unending case of PMS,
menopause also has its advantages. One of them is the end of the many ups and downs a woman
goes through hormonally in a month; instead, she becomes more constant and steady in her moods
and feelings. In addition, she becomes less concerned with pleasing others and more focused on
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herself, something her partner may not relish. This is a result of several hormonal drops in menopause, which make it so that she no longer gets a dopamine rush when talking with her friends or
nurturing others.
In addition, despite the stereotype of men leaving their wives for younger women, she says that 65
percent of divorces in couples over the age of 50 are initiated by women.
Why Older Women Are Less Likely to Cockblock

As a result of menopause, the ability to read subtle emotions and then either help out or work to preserve a friendship lessens. Consequently, Brizendine actually writes, older women find themselves
less obsessed with things like babysitting drunk friends. Do with this information what you will.
The Biology And Myth of Cougars

Sure, if youve been in the field long enough, youve probably had the experience of a much older
woman pawing at you like a piece of meat. Evidently, this is more an exception than the rule of aging. According to Brizendine, 50 percent of women between the ages of 42 and 52 lose their interest
in sex, are harder to arouse, and have fewer and less intense orgasms. She adds that a womans
testosterone high comes at age 19 (a mans is at 21--and ten times greater than a womans).
Other women, however, do get postmenopausal zest, as anthropologist Margaret Mead puts it,
and have a new sense of freedom from rules and rejuvenated sexual desire. (Please hold your jokes
about the first story in Rules of the Game.) For those of you who plan to still be doing it in your seventies, Brizendine recommends testosterone patches, gels, creams, and other treatments for women
who find themselves with no sexual interest or libido.
A Fact You Probably Didnt Want to Know

As for that other fifty percent of women who dont lose interest in sex, according to studies, a quarter of women aged seventy to ninety in nursing homes still masturbate.
What a Woman Wants

According to Brizendine, from her anecdotal evidence as a therapist, almost every woman shes
treated says she wants joy in her life, a fulfilling relationship, and less stress with more personal time.
An Important Tip For Growing Old

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According to a study at John Hopkins University, women and men over the age of sixty-five who
have the widest variety of activities have the lowest rates of dementia.
Im going to make some room for some of your book reports, and then conclude this series on the
male and female brains with a report on Brizendines follow-up book, The Male Brain. And if you
want to read Brizendines book, its a great, quick read--and unlike in this brief critical summary, all
her facts and studies are cited: The Female Brain
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Social Intelligence
Summary by Alex Pollack
Acclaimed brain and behavioral science writer Daniel Goleman, author of Social Intelligence: The
Revolutionary New Science of Human Relationships, wants to tell you about the social brain, or
as he calls it, those extensive neural modules that orchestrate our activities as we relate to other
people.
Before we go any further, please set your NERD ALERT antenna to its lowest setting. Goleman has
earned the right to talk in vocabulary better suited to an academic seminar than to a windows-tothe-wall-to-the-sweat-drop-down-my-balls nightclub. Hes got a Harvard PhD, and fortunately, he
can put into plain words what neural modules do for you and me.
According to Goleman, through neuroplasticity, you can basically refashion your brain by adopting
new patterns of interactive behavior. In other words, you can become a more sophisticated social
creature.
In Social Intelligence, the word Empathy surfaces again and again: empathy being the power one
person has to make another person feel felt. (Felt as in emotionally valued, not felt as in Tiffany
under the bleachers at the 9th grade pep rally.)
In this summary, Im going to cut through the scientific jargon of Golemans Social Intelligence and
present to you the books greatest hits, along with my own observations.
Note: Ive broken my analysis down according to the six parts of the book.
Part I- Wired to Connect

Who You Should Kick Your Bummer Friends to the Curb
Nourishing relationships have a beneficial impact on our health, while toxic ones can
act like slow poison in our bodies. p.5
Goleman writes that good friendships not only give us good feelings, but they can also activate
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T-cells, the immune systems foot soldiers in the constant battle against invading bacteria and viruses. Meanwhile, such cells are not activated when were associating ourselves with people who,
quite frankly, make us feel bad.
You iPod, Your Prison
The iPod wearer can readily ignore anyone, looking right through them in a universal
snub...to the extent that technology absorbs people in a virtual reality; it deadens them
to those who are actually nearby. P.8
If youre walking through a grocery store, a park, a university campus, or anywhere in public with ear
buds in, youre prone to miss out on potential connections with beautiful women and maybe-business acquaintances who pass you by. In short, dont trap yourself in a dungeon of Bieber Fever.
The Happy Face Advantage
Smiles have an edge over all other emotional expressions: the human brain prefers
happy faces, recognizing them more readily and quickly than those with negative expressions- an effect known as the happy face advantage. P.44
If youre in a bad mood and youre craving the happy face advantage, try clenching a pencil in your
teeth.
Hear me out.
Goleman suggests that you can, stir any emotion by intentionally setting out facial muscles for that
feeling. (p.19) He says that clenching a pencil in your teeth will force your face into a smile, subtly
evoking a positive feeling.
If you try this at home, please remove the pencil from your teeth before leaving the house.
Its Not All About You, Dude
Self-absorption in all its forms kills empathy, let alone compassion. When we focus on
ourselves, our world contracts as our problems and preoccupations loom large. But
when we focus on others, our world expands. Our own problems drift to the periphery
of the mind and so seem smaller, and we increase our capacity for connection. P. 54
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This quote of Goleman reminds me of a distinction Neil Strauss writes of in Rules of the
Game. Though Goleman is writing about general empathy and Neil is writing about empathy in terms of picking-up women, similar conclusions are drawn: The guy who fails
at the game is the one who goes out looking for women to make him feel good about
himself, Neil writes. The guy who succeeds at the game is the one who goes out and
makes other people feel good about themselves.
Change the Frame, Change the Memory
If at the time of the fear we tell ourselves something that eases its grip, then the same
memory becomes reencoded with less power over us. P. 79
Confession: I used to be afraid of dogs. When I was a kid going on walks with my mom, I would see
her face tighten in the presence of puppies. She would squeeze my hand, and I could practically
hear the acceleration of her heartbeat. For much of my life, I thought that I had adopted her fear
wholesale.
While I have not transformed into The Dog Whisperer, I have defeated my fear of dogs by, as they
say, faking it till I made it. Realizing that when I was scared, I would cross my arms, fold my legs,
and feel my shoulders stiffen, I have purposely changed my physical behavior around dogs: I now
keep my legs at an open stance and leave my arms to the side. Just by arranging my body in a less
closed way, I feel more comfortable around canines. My previous fears have become reencoded
by new behaviors. I have changed the frame, and therefore changed the memory.
Now if only I could convince my mom that she could too conquer her fear of dogs, Id really be getting somewhere.
Part II - Broken Bonds

Dont Say, Hey, Buddy, Can you Tell Im Showing You Empathy?
The Japanese word amae refers to...empathy that is taken for granted, and acted
upon, without calling attention to itself. P.108
True empathy involves not only listening to the others words, but also to his body language. If you
want to demonstrate high value as a person of empathy, it is far stronger to understand what the
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other person actually needs than it is to merely listen to what the other person says he needs.
I got 3000 Facebook Friends and ??? Real Friends
Feelings of inclusion depend not so much on having frequent social contacts or numerous relationships as on how accepted we feel, even in just a few key relationships.
P.114
My friends wife Jennifer has more than 3,000 Facebook friends. They write funny messages on her
wall and like her new pictures. But according to her husband, Jennifer never sees any of these
friends, much less has a deep conversation with any one of them. For all her Facebook contacts,
Jennifer complains to her husband about how she has nobody to talk to. None of those 3,000 people have eased Jennifers loneliness.
The lesson I take from Jennifer and from Goleman is that popularity is a slippery concept, one that is
not equivalent to the popular person feeling accepted. If Jennifer had even one person outside her
husband to confide to, she would be happier.
Sorry, Facebook; Mark Zuckerberg has not saved the world.
Caution: Projection is Not Empathy
Projection ignores the other persons inner reality; when we are projecting, we assume
the other feels and thinks as we do. P.115
Whats the difference between projection and empathy? According to Goleman, projection makes
the other an It, empathy sees the other as a You. Basically, self-absorbed people tend to tell the
other person what the other person is feeling, whether it is true or not, while empathetic people are
distinguished by searching toward a fit between [their] perception and the other persons reality.
Consider a celebrity gossip-obsessed friend who projects her own craving for fame onto you: Shut
up, youd love to be on TMZ! she might say, blind to how shes projecting her own desires onto you,
who has no desire to drink tiger blood like Charlie Sheen. (Thank you, March 2011.)
How Not to Get Punched in the Head
If we regard someone as merely an object, then we can more easily mistreat them,
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abuse them, or worse. P.129

At a bar the other night, I introduced myself to almost all of my friends friends, except for two people, one of whom was the boyfriend of a woman I decided to flirt with. I had no idea that the girl, Sasha, and the guy, G, were together. I probably could have learned this fact if I had been a good man
and introduced myself to him. (Im using Sasha and G as aliases in place of their real names.)
Unfortunately, I was introduced to G seconds after Sasha and I started kissing at the back of the
bar, with G coming upon me like a flash of lightning and socking me in the noggin. When I told him,
Dude, I didnt know, he didnt reply; he just wordlessly jabbed me until I escaped his grasp.
To G, I was not a three-dimensional person; I was the Anonymous guy hitting on his girlfriend. I was
no more than an object of his wrath. If wed met each other properly and talked it out, we may have
been able to prevent the ugly scene.
If we dont want to be seen as objects, we better present ourselves as people.
Part III - Nurturing Nature

Just Because She Hated Her Dad Does Not Mean She Will Hate You Too
Anyone who in childhood was treated by caretakers as an It rather than as a You is
likely to bear such sensitivities and emotional wounds, but, [UCLA psychologist Allan]
Schore argues that nurturing relationships later in life can to some extent rewrite the
neural scripts that were encrypted in the brain during childhood. p.171
In the early 2000s, I listened to the radio show Loveline, and was both amazed and saddened to
hear how Dr. Drew and Adam Carolla could so easily peg callers as victims of abusive relationships.
The callers would often admit, or be prodded into admitting, that they were replicating their past by
continuing to attach themselves to partners who reminded them of their past abusers.
Encouragingly, Schores research, as pointed out by Goleman, suggests that those Loveline callers
are not doomed to a life sentence of being treated as objects rather than as people, as long as they
can find and form nurturing relationships (be it with a therapist, a supportive friend, or a lover). Because the neural scripts encrypted in their brain can somewhat be rewritten, so too can their futures.
Part IV - Loves Varieties

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Attachment + Caring + Sexual Attraction = Romantic Love

When attachment entwines with caring and sexual attraction, we can savor full-blown
romance. But when any of these three goes missing, romantic love stumbles. p. 189
This equation sounds like a simple one, but turn it into a question: If you, dear reader, are currently
dating someone, do you feel attached to her? Do you care about her? Are you sexually attracted to
her? If you hesitated when answering yes or no to any of those three questions, it may be time to reevaluate your needs and hers.
Love at First Sight, or Dopamine Spike?
When a man receives the direct gaze of a woman he finds attractive, his brain activates a dopamine circuit that delivers a dollop of pleasure. Simply looking at beautiful
women, or making eye contact with someone not perceived as attractive, fails to stir
this circuitry. P.191
Though Goleman does not specifically cite the idea of love at first sight, the mental jump is easy to
make: lock eyes with a woman you find attractive, and youll feel a spike of pleasure. Some call that
feeling love at first sight, when in reality, its just a trigger of chemicals. Remember this if youre
having a difficult time getting over your oneitis because you cant shake the memory of her looking
into your eyes.
Men Dig Beauty, Women Dig Status? Its Not That Simple
Though women tend to find allure in signs of a mans power and wealth, and men in a
womans physical attraction, these are not the prime draws for either sex-just the ones
they most differ on. For men and women alike, kindness tops the list. P. 199
At first glance, this quote may fly in the face of what students of game have practiced: we have to
neg, we have to disqualify, and we have to tease her until she wants us to please her. While teasing
is indeed an ingredient of sexual tension, there comes a point in the day where, after the attraction
and the seduction, both the man and the woman want somebody who is, gasp, kind.
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Kind is not a sexy word, but it is a word wed do well not to dismiss.
I Want to Sweat You Up
Presumably, as couples dance, their hormonal hug quietly paves the way for sexual
arousal, as their bodies subliminally orchestrate conditions conducive to reproduction.
P.201
Thank you, Dr. Goleman, for providing another reason to sign up for salsa lessons.
Hey, Lover. You Look Exactly Like Me, and That Does Not Spook Me
Something rather remarkable tends to happen with couples who live together for decades, finding happiness with each other. Their continual rapport even seems to leave
its mark on their faces, which come to resemble each other, apparently a result of the
sculpting of facial muscles as they evoke the same emotions over the years. Since each
emotion tenses and relaxes a specific set of facial muscles, as partners smile or frown
in unison they strengthen the parallel set of muscles. This gradually molds similar ridges, wrinkles, and lines, making their faces appear more alike. P. 218
In the song Boombox, the comical music trio Lonely Island suggests that old people find love
through the power of a boombox and a plate of boiled goose. The reality of elderly love is likely less
salacious, but dont feel sorry for that elderly couple you spot on the sidewalk if they look more like
siblings than spouses. If theyre together, they may very well be satisfied with many years of rapport
etched into their faces through much mirroring of each others facial expressions.
Part V - Healthy Connections

Girlfriends Need Girlfriends
Many surveys of American women show that positive relationships are their major
source of satisfaction and well-being throughout life. For American men, on the other
hand, positive relationships rate lower in importance than a sense of personal growth or
a feeling of independence. P. 241
This quote reminds me again of my friends wife, Jennifer, who has hopped from job to job, looking
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for satisfaction through networking for a better career rather than stopping to enjoy a friendship as
an end unto itself.
Maybe I should slip Golemans book into Jennifers mailbox.
Part IV - Social Consequence

Some Stress is Healthy
Stress varies with challenge; at the low end, too little breeds disinterest and boredom,
while as challenge increases it boosts interest, attention, and motivation- which at their
optimal level produce maximum cognitive efficiency and achievement. As challenges
continue to rise beyond our skill to handle them, stress intensifies; at its extreme, our
performance and learning collapse. P. 271
If youre reading this article, youre likely interested in self-improvement and pushing yourself outside
your comfort zone. However, if youre the type of person who only reads articles about changing
your life and does little too actually enact such changes when he leaves the computer, you may
very well feel bored.
The stress involved with reading about changing yourself is a low end stress, but if you put these
suggestions into action, youll likely feel a higher-level stress. As long as you feel engaged and focused in your journey, that kind of stress is healthy. Dont challenge yourself to break bread with
Mark Cuban or be Kim Kardashians rebound boyfriend; start off slow, but start off somewhere.
Now, drop down and give me twenty.
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On Becoming a Person
Summarized by Henrick - MSC Counnseling
On Becoming a Person by Carl R. Rogers is a classic text on humanistic and existential psychotherapy. The book is based on works by Rogers during the 1950s and 60s, yet the material is still highly
relevant today. The book contains some interesting ideas and perspectives on personal growth and
development.
A key point is Rogers view on what it means to become that self who one truly is, and thus a fully
functioning person. Rogers discusses the process of getting in touch with ones emotions so that
one might live life based on a real self instead of a false, ideal self. The incongruence between these
two selves is a major cause of personal distress according to Rogers.
The book explains what it means to move away from facades and toward self-direction. It discusses
the trust of self and how to face lifes complexities. The good life is a process. Not a state of being.
Rogers emphasizes flexibility and an openness to experience, instead of a rigid, defensive approach
to life. His teachings are all based on an optimistic and positive view of people and the world.
The following is a summary of some core themes in the book that I believe are of most interest to the
Inner Circle members.
To be your true self

self-deception or distortion. To be your true self involves a strong awareness of your total life experience where basic sensory and visceral experiences are strengthened and refined. The opposite, a
false or ideal self, is what most people base their lives on. What do others think I should do in this
situation? What would my parents or my culture want me to do? What do I think ought to be
done? These are all examples of thinking based on a false, ideal self. To be your true self, you need
to ask instead: How do I experience this? What does it mean to me?
Being your true self, you are aware of what you are actually experiencing, and not simply what you
can permit yourself to experience after a thorough screening through a conceptual filter. You can
listen sensitively to yourself. You can be what you are - your experience. This is what Rogers would
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label a fully functioning human organism.

Many people are in distress because of an incongruence between their false and their real self. Life
is based on the false self, which contradicts their real life experience. People are most often unaware
that this incongruence is causing their distress, maladjustment etc. Rogers based this assumption
on what he learned from thousands of therapy sessions with people from all walks of life. As people
get to know themselves better and learn to accept their experience, the incongruence diminishes
and suffering is relieved. Accepting all of your emotions as part of the life experience is crucial in being your true self.
Rogers had an optimistic and positive view of people. He stated that when peoples capacity of
awareness is functioning freely and fully, people would not be evil or out of control, but organisms
able to achieve a balanced, realistic, self-enhancing, prosocial behavior. According to Rogers, when
people deny awareness to various aspects of their experience, then we all too often have reason to
fear them and their behavior.
Rogers points out that no one person fully achieves his description of a true self. It is a lifelong goal
to strive toward. Each individual is a separate, distinct and unique person. The following generalizations of a true self can still be drawn:
Away from facades: Instead of hiding behind a faade, as if it were yourself, you must
come closer to being yourself - whatever emotions that might involve.
Away from oughts: Upbringing and the relationship with parents is most often the cause
of an unhealthy, compelling image of what you ought to be. Abandon such false, self-concepts.
Away from meeting expectations: Our culture puts many expectations on us to subordinate our individuality to fit into the group needs - we are socialized into society. Be aware how
this might conflict with your real self.
Away from pleasing others: Many people form themselves by trying to please others.
Toward self-direction: Be autonomous. Choose your own goals. Become responsible for
yourself.
Toward being process: Be a process, a changing fluidity. Do not be disturbed that you
are not the same from day to day, or dont always hold the same feelings toward a person or
experience. End statements and conclusions are of less importance.
Toward being complexity: Be the complexity of your own feelings. Be all of yourself in
each moment - all the richness and complexity with nothing hidden from yourself, and nothing
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feared in yourself. This is difficult indeed, and in its absolute sense an impossible goal.
Toward openness to experience: Live in an open, friendly, close relationship to your own
experience of external reality. Experiencing is a friendly resource, not a frightening enemy.
This implies a superior awareness of your own impulses, desires, opinions, and subjective
reactions in general.
Toward acceptance of others: Value and appreciate others experience for what it is without arguing or demanding that it be otherwise.
Toward trust of self: Trust and value the process within you. Creative people like Hemingway or Einstein, were told that good writers or scientists do not do it that way. Still, they
persisted and moved toward being themselves.
Getting in touch with your emotions

Becoming aware of your own emotions or feelings is a crucial prerequisite to be your true self. People sense their feelings to varying degrees. Many live their lives with this awareness mostly hidden or
repressed. In Rogers therapy, revealing the inner life of the client was a central goal. He described
seven stages in a process leading to a full awareness of ones emotional life. Very few clients ever
reached the seventh stage.
Rogers explained the process as one where a person changes from fixity to flowingness. It is a move
away from a state in which feelings are unrecognized, unowned and unexpressed. It is a move toward a flow in which ever-changing feelings are experienced in the moment, knowingly and acceptingly, and may be accurately expressed.
Here are the seven stages:
1. There is an unwillingness to communicate self. Communication is only about externals. Feelings and personal meanings are neither recognized nor owned. Close and communicative relationships are construed as dangerous. There is no desire to change.
2. Expression begins to flow in regard to non-self topics. Problems are perceived as external
to self. There is no sense of personal responsibility in problems. Feelings are described as unowned, or as past objects. Feelings may be exhibited, but are not recognized as such or owned.
Experience is bound by the structure of the past. Differentiation of personal meanings and feelings is very limited and global. There is little recognition of contradictions.
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3. There is a freer flow of expression about the self as an object, and self -related experience as
objects. There is also expression about the self as a reflected object, existing primarily in others.
There is much expression about feelings and personal meanings not now present. There is little
acceptance of feelings. They are seen as something shameful, bad, abnormal, etc. Experiencing
is still described as in the past or as somewhat remote from the self.
4. Descriptions of feelings are more intense, sometimes as objects in the present. Occasionally
feelings are expressed as in the present, but the client distrusts and fears this happening. There
is slightly more acceptance of feelings, and they are not as bound by structures of the past.
There is also an increased differentiation of feelings, constructs and personal meanings. There is
a realization of concern about contradictions and incongruences between experience and self.
There are vacillating feelings of responsibility in problems.
5. Feelings are expressed freely as in the present. Feelings are very close to being fully experienced. They bubble up or seep through in spite of the fear and distrust which the client feels
at experiencing them with fullness and immediacy. There is an increasing ownership of self-feelings, and a desire to be these - the real me. Experience is loosened, no longer remote, and frequently occurs with little postponement. Differentiation of feelings and meanings are much more
exact. There is an increased quality of acceptance of self-responsibility.
6. Feelings can flow to their full result and are directly experienced with immediacy and richness. Feelings are accepted, and not denied, feared or struggled against. There is a quality of
living subjectively in the experience, not feelings about it. A physiological loosening accompanies
this - tears, sighs, muscular relaxation etc. The incongruence between experience and awareness
disappears. In this stage there are no longer problems, external or internal. The client is living,
subjectively, a phase of his problem. It is not an object.
7. Feelings are experienced with immediacy and richness of detail in all life situations. The
changing of feelings are accepted, owned and trusted. Situations are experienced and interpreted in their newness, not as the past or structure-bound. The self is something confidently felt
in process. Internal communication is clear with feelings and symbols well matched. Personal
constructs are tentatively reformulated, to be validated against further experience, but even then
to be held loosely. There is the experiencing of effective choice of new ways of living.
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Rogers lessons
In his therapeutic work, Rogers came to several important lessons that he summarized in his book. A
few of them are these:
In my relationship with persons, I have found that it does not help, in the long run, to act
as though I were something that I am not.
I find I am more effective when I can listen acceptingly to myself, and can be myself.
My total organismic sensing of a situation is more trustworthy than my intellect.
Experience is, for me, the highest authority.
People have a basically positive direction.
Life, at its best, is a flowing, changing process in which nothing is fixed.
Concluding comments
The above describes a deep inward journey of self-discovery. Though originating in a therapeutic
setting, I believe these ideas can be a source of self-help and development for people outside the
therapy room as well. Today, many self-help books and popular psychology is based on cognitivebehavioral theory, where a simple change in thinking patterns is the remedy for personal distress.
In my opinion such techniques have limited value if we are unaware of our true self. For lasting and
thorough personal change to occur, we must first and foremost learn to know ourselves. Then we
have a better foundation to grow and change as people.
A detailed outline of Rogers therapeutic methods is beyond this report, but a summarizing quote
from his book gives a glimpse of the essence:
If I can create a relationship characterized on my part:
by a genuineness and transparency, in which I am my real feelings;
by a warm acceptance of and prizing of the other person as a separate individual;
by a sensitive ability to see his world and himself as he sees them;
Then the other individual in the relationship:
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will experience and understand aspects of himself which he previously has repressed;
will find himself becoming better integrated;
will become more like the person he would like to be;
will be more self-directing and self-confident;
will become more of a person, more unique and more self-expressive;
will be more understanding and acceptant of others;
will be able to cope with the problems of life more adequately and more comfortably.
Rogers believed this statement was true of all his relationships, professional and private.
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How to Stop Worrying and Start Living
Summarized by Josh Lipovetsky
This book is about worry, stress, and how our minds can be our own worst enemy. The book
teaches us how to deal with the worry, and reduce/eliminate it. Wouldnt it be wonderful if you could
pursue any challenge in life with the attitude of a carefree child, running your life as an enjoyable experiment without taking failure/upset to heart? This would be a beautiful way to live, not to mention a
great mindset for success with women!
Though the book was written in 1948, its timeless. Our psychology hasnt changed, so the lessons
are still as fresh today as they were when they were published.
Dale Carnegie wrote, Since worry is one of the biggest problems facing mankind, you would think,
wouldnt you, that every high school and college in the land would give a course on How to Stop
Worrying? Yet, if there is even one course on that subject in any college in the land, I have never
heard of it...the result? More than half of our hospital beds are occupied by people with nervous and
emotional troubles.
In the book, you will find knowledge that, if applied, will take away much of the worry and negative
stress in your life.
Here are some things you can expect to get out of the book, when you apply the lessons:
1. Gives you a number of practical, tested formulas for solving worry situations.
2. Shows you how to eliminate 50 percent of your business worries immediately
3. Brings you seven ways to cultivate a mental attitude that will give you peace and happiness
4. Shows you how to lessen financial worries
5. Shows you how to avoid fatigue - and keep looking young
6. Tells you how to add one hour a day to your waking life
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And much more! Lets get started:
A Magical Formula for Solving Worries:

Dale Carnegie writes about a sure-fire recipe for handling worry situations - a technique you can
start using right away. I tried the technique, and it really helped me find a solution for my problem!
7. Find a problem: Analyze it honestly and fearlessly, find out whats the worst that could possibly happen
8. Mentally accept the worst case scenario in your head, in case it actually happens
9. Devote your time and energy/write down and brainstorm solutions that could greatly improve
upon the worst case scenario
Lets try an example:
I have so much difficulty approaching a woman, and Im terrified about what could happen if she
rejects me. I feel such an intense nervous tension right in my stomach, and my body almost shivers
when I think about approaching her. When I do approach her, here are some of the worst things I can
think of: Ill say Hi, shell say Hi, and there will be awkward silence. Her boyfriend will step into the
picture out of nowhere and threaten me. Her friends will laugh at me. She will be very standoffish,
and not want to talk to me. I will be publicly humiliated in some way.
All of these scenarios seem tough. However, I accept all of them happening to me. I will live through
it, and become a stronger person (even in the absolute worst-case scenario. As a matter of fact, the
worse the scenario, the faster Ill grow! So its actually a big WIN for me!)
If theres an awkward silence, Ill have a set phrase in mind, like: So what do you do for fun? or
something along those lines. If theres awkward silence after that, its okay. If her boyfriend comes
out of nowhere and threatens me, Ill say something like: I didnt know she had a boyfriend, didnt
mean to cause any trouble. If I get publicly embarrassed, Ill roll with it, and play off of that! It will be
something that I look back on and smile! All of the experiences are a great chance for me to grow,
and the nervous tension will dissipate the more I approach! WIN!
You get the idea. This approach can help you brainstorm solutions for pretty much any problem in
your life, and lead you to stop worrying!
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Another Similar Formula that You Can Apply

What am I worrying about?
What can I do about it?
When am I going to start doing it?
SO SIMPLE! But so effective!
Engagement: A Great Cure for Worry

Marion J. Douglas (fake name) felt the tension of grief. He lost his five-year-old daughter, and 10
months later, God gave us another little girl-and she died in five days...I couldnt sleep, I couldnt
eat, I couldnt rest or relax. My nerves were utterly shaken and my confidence gone...But thank God, I
had one child left-He gave me the solution to my problem. He asked: Daddy, will you build a boat for
me? That boat took me three hours...I realized that those three hours were the first hours of mental
relaxation and peace that I had had in months!
Marion found out that being engaged in something makes even the most severe worries disappear!
Lets go back to the problem with women: Do you ever feel worried about your skills with women?
Do you ever worry that you will never achieve the level you want to achieve with women? Well, I bet
most of this worrying is done inside the house, when youre alone. How often do you worry when
youre out and about, talking with women, and being engaged? Not very much, I would think! The
answer to the problem is so, so simple, but sometimes very tough to apply: Be mentally engaged in
something thats meaningful to you, and your worry will dissipate.
Become busy, so that you have no time for worry!
The Little Things are the Big Things, Unfortunately

Human beings are amazing. We can weather pretty much any harsh circumstance that life throws
at us: Tragedy, death, disease, etc. But I find it most difficult, in my experience, to deal with the little
things. My favorite sports team losing again. Little, annoying interruptions throughout the day. Here
is a great metaphor from the book:
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On the slope of Longs Peak in Colorado lies the ruin of a gigantic tree. Naturalists tell
us that it stood for some four hundred years. It was a seedling when Columbus landed
at San Salvador, and half grown when the Pilgrims settled at Plymouth. During the
course of its long life it was struck by lightning fourteen times, and the innumerable avalanches and storms of four centuries thundered past it. It survived them all. In the end,
however, an army of beetles attacked the tree and leveled it to the ground. The insects
ate their way through the bark and gradually destroyed the inner strength of the tree by
their tiny but incessant attacks. A forest giant which age had not withered, nor lightning
blasted, nor storms subdued, fell at last before beetles so small that a man could crush
them between his forefinger and his thumb.
The beetles are the real problems you should be on guard for. Those little annoyances that inevitably
happen every day have the potential to destroy our lives if we dont get them handled.
Remove Worry with Statistics

This is a rational technique, called The Law of Averages. Its simple: Think about what youre worrying about. Ask: Statically, whats the probability that this will actually happen? Its probably pretty
low. And even if its high, worrying will only make it more likely. Ironic!
Cooperate with the Inevitable

When I was a little boy, I was playing with some of my friends in the attic...As I climbed
down out of the attic, I rested my feet on a window sill for a moment-and then jumped.
I had a ring on my left forefinger, and as I jumped, the ring caught on a nailhead and
tore off my finger. I screamed. I was terrified. I was positive I was going to die. But after
the hand healed, I never worried about it for one split second. What would have been
the use?...I accepted the inevitable.
Do you have any problems in your life that you would be better off accepting, rather than fighting
against? For example, I have a strong form of Crohns Disease. It has changed a lot of things that I
can/cant do in life. I now focus on the things that I can do (its a long list!), rather than the few things
that I cant. I dont find myself worrying about it, because there are better battles to fight: Like workwww.NeilStrauss.com
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ing on myself, my inner game, my purpose in life, my success with women, and my overall contribution to the world.
Our Life is What Our Thoughts Make It

3 men were tested on grip strength: Their average strength was 101 pounds. When hypnotized to
believe that they were weak, their average grip was 29 pounds. When they were hypnotized to believe that they were strong, their average grip strength was 142 pounds! Thats incredible. Though
this lesson is very old, it doesnt ring any less true.
The mind is its own place, and in itself
Can make a heaven of Hell, a hell of Heaven
A political victory, a rise in rents, the recovery of your sick, or the return of your absent
friend, or some other quite external event, raises your spirits, and you think good days
are preparing for you. Do not believe it. It can never be so. Nothing can bring you peace
but yourself. -Ralph Waldo Emerson
How can we change our thoughts? Dale Carnegie proposes a little thought trick that may be familiar to you. Act as if you are in a cheerful mood, even if you arent. Try it as youre reading this. Start
singing, whistling, and humming. Maintain a good posture, and put on a big smile. Its hard to argue
that this technique doesnt work. You, may, however, look very strange if you do this 100% of the
time in public. But whatever works for you is great!
2 Key Points to Avoid Frustration When Dealing with Other People

People will do things that may stir up anger in you. They may betray you. They may hurt you. They
may cheat you. They may lie to you. It is absolutely essential that you keep these people out of your
mind. Please forgive them, if only for your own sake (to keep your mental clarity, and to stay focused
on more productive things!) I realize that patriotism is not enough. I must have no hatred or bitterness toward anyone. -Edith Cavell
When you do nice things for other people, its best not to expect gratitude. People will usually be
thankful, but gratitude is unnatural. Ingratitude is part of human nature, like weeds. Please and
Thank you must be conditioned through setting examples. Understand that many people have not
grown up with these positive examples; so if other people are ungrateful, just let it go. Try to give for
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the true benefit of yourself + others, without expecting gratitude. Easier said than done, but awareness is a good start.
How to Be Happy for What You Have

I had the blues because I had no shoes,
Until upon the street, I met a man who had no feet.
There are two things to aim at in life: first, to get what you want; and, after that, to enjoy it. Only the wisest of mankind achieve the second. -Logan Pearsall Smith
If you have all the fresh water you want to drink and all the food you want to eat, you
ought never to complain about anything. -Eddie Rickenbacker
Ought is the key word here. We know on a conscious level that we shouldnt be worried about anything. Yet, the worry seems to sink in, like unwanted weeds.
Time ran an article about a sergeant who had been wounded on Guadalcanal. Hit in
the throat by a shell fragment, this sergeant had had seven blood transfusions. Writing
a note to his doctor, he asked: Will I live? The doctor replies: Yes. He wrote another
note, asking: Will I be able to talk? Again the answer was yes. He then wrote another
note, saying: Then what in the hell am I worrying about?
Ask yourself: What in the hell am I worrying about!? I find this to be an enlightening question!
Be Yourself...but Who am I?
Of course How to Stop Worrying and Start Living has a section that tells you to be yourself. This
concept is very foggy. Who are you?
I came up with an exercise that helps you identify your strongest personality traits. Try it out!
Make an inventory of your most powerful strengths, personality wise. When do you feel best? When
youre in an outgoing/shy state of mind? In solitude? Giving a speech? At a party? What are some
of your favorite aspects of your own personality? BONUS: Ask your friends/family about what they
believe to be your strongest/most admirable skills and personality traits. It could open up your eyes
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wide to new insights about the clichd proverb: Be Yourself
Can Religion Help You Conquer Worry?

There is a 15-page section in the book that is dedicated towards religion, and how adopting a belief
in God could alleviate many of the worries in your life. Personally, I do believe in God, and this belief
has helped me out so much. However, I highly respect both theists/atheists. Heres an exercise that I
encourage, to help you get in touch with your own religious beliefs:
What are your beliefs on the existence of God? How have these beliefs benefitted your life in the
past? For what reason do you accept/reject God, and how can you use these beliefs to your advantage?
Dealing with Criticism

A great saying: No one kicks a dead dog. Unjust criticism is often a compliment in disguise. How
would your life look if you adopted this mindset: The more I am criticized, the more successful I am.
Im sure Neil can attest to this. Obviously, if you are criticized all of the time, and you have no loyal
fans/followers; you may be doing something wrong to piss everyone off. Likewise, if you have no
critics, it probably means you have yet to upset the status quo (or you havent been noticed on a big
enough scale...YET).
The Weekly Self Analysis - A Cool Habit to Adopt
For years I have kept an engagement book showing all the appointments I have during
the day, Mr. Howell told me when I asked him to explain the reasons for his success...
After dinner I go off by myself, open my engagement book, and think over all the interviews, discussions, and meetings that have taken place since Monday morning. I ask
myself: What mistakes did I make that time? What did I do that was right-and in what
way could I have improved my performance? What lessons can I learn from that experience? This system of self-analysis, continued year after year, has done more for me
than any other thing I have ever attempted.
Every man is a damn fool for at least five minutes every day. Wisdom consists in not
exceeding that limit.-Elbert Hubbard
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What if you set up a once-weekly habit to go over your entire week in your mind, and write down all
of the mistakes you made? This would be very enlightening. Dale Carnegie writes: Lets be our own
most severe critic.
Some possible questions to ask:
What mistakes did I make in the past week?
What did I do that was right in the past week?
How can I improve next week? What lessons can I apply?
Napping - Preventing Fatigue and Worry

Its so easy to worry when you are fatigued. It lowers your willpower, and makes it easy for you to
forget all of the lessons in this amazing book. Luckily, Carnegie dedicates an entire section to improving your energy. The first piece of advice is daily napping. He claims that even a 5-10 minute
nap, where you simply relax and close your eyes, has a great effect on your physical energy!
Carnegie makes a bold claim: If you can sleep for an hour around five, six, or seven oclock, you
can add one hour a day to your waking life. Why? How? Because an hours nap before the evening
meal plus six hours sleep at night - a total of seven hours - will do you more good than eight hours
of unbroken sleep.
Interesting! I dont want to go so far as to say this is 100% true for everyone, but it may be true for
you! Like most things in life, you wont gain the wisdom by simply reading. You can try it out, and
see how it works for you.
Are you tensing muscles while you work?

Dale Carnegie also claims that mental work does not make you tired. Its your attitude toward the
work + your physical posture, that can lead to fatigue. He advocates that you physically relax your
body as much as possible during work, ideally like a limp sock! Personally, having a good posture
has been amazing for my life. Ive been working on it using an interval timer (Gymboss), and its great
stuff! I believe Neil also used the Alexander Technique to help his posture. Its worth it!
Catharsis - Another Way to Alleviate Worries

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Do you have a great social network? Can you think of a friend or two that you can call up to talk
about whats bothering you? If you dont have anyone you can vent to, I suggest working on your
social network (Never Eat Alone is a great book for this issue), or writing down your worries on paper
- using the exercise listed in the beginning of this outline. A combination of both would work best!
2 Notebook Habits to Prevent Worry

Keeping a journal of inspirational quotes. I have had a quote journal for about 4 years. Whenever I
have a short insight, I write it down. Whenever Im reading a book, I write down quotes that inspire
me from it. When I stumble upon a nice quote on the Internet, I write it down. From time to time, I
look at my quote journal, and I always feel much better after I read it. Highly recommended!
Write a schedule for tomorrows work before you go to bed. This helps you get rid of the stressful
question: What am I going to do today? It also helps you tell the difference between whats urgent in
your life, and whats important in your life. Many of the items that are of most importance to you, are
also the least urgent on a day-to-day basis! Writing down what youre going to do the night before is
a great way to ensure that the right things get done!
A Couple of Good Working Habits

Clear your desk of all papers except those related to the problem at hand - Self-explanatory. It helps
clear your mind!
Do things in the Order of Their Importance - I cannot stress this one enough. I have struggled in my
life with productivity, and I find that my greatest days are the ones where I do the toughest and most
daunting task FIRST. There is no way around it. I have tried. This is one of the key ingredients to a
good day. Good Days = Good Life
Dealing with Insomnia

Dale Carnegie gives a few tips for dealing with insomnia. The usual progressive relaxation, as well
as reading + working until youre very tired. He also states that rolling your eyes in an upward position helps trigger fatigue and makes you tired. He also mentions an essential point: Insomnia doesnt
hurt you as much as WORRYING about insomnia. Its the worry that harms you the most.
And thats the theme of this incredible book. The worry harms you the most, not the problems. I read
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ibly simple, yet simply invaluable. There are also many inspirational stories about people overcoming
horrible adversities to become less stressed out in their lives.
How can this book help you? I believe that the lessons in this book, when applied, are an excellent
foundation for ANY ENDEAVOR you want to go on. Want to get better with women? This book will
help. Want to make more money? This book will help. Want to build an amazing network of people?
This book will help. Want to revolutionize your health? How to Stop Worrying and Start Living will
help you out a lot!
This book will help by developing you into the type of person who can handle adversity. Scratch that.
This book will help you develop into the type of person who THRIVES on adversity. In my experience, pain and adversity is the quickest shortcut to success. If you apply the lessons, youll learn to
handle pain and adversity like a champion. Theres no way that your life wont improve drastically.
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The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem
Summarized by Ericson
So why should I listen to Nathaniel Branden?

Nathaniel Branden is pretty much a guru on self-esteem. This guy just never quits. Like an artist to
a block of marble, Branden has spent the better half of his life studying and writing book after book
about Self-Esteem, each time chiseling away at all the excess to sculpt the quintessential guide to
Self-Actualization. Branden even admits himself that the topic of self-esteem leaves a lot to be discovered but The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem does a great job presenting six basic practices to maintain
a healthy mind and self-image.
The turbulence of our time demands strong selves with a clear sense of identity, competence and
worth, writes Branden. Whether you are trying to attract women, accomplish your career goals, or
simply walk down the street feeling more complete, practicing good self-esteem will only enrich your
life for the better.
Self Esteem is Determined by You and No One Else.

Early on in The Six-Pillars, Dr. Branden makes an acute observation: To avoid being a braggart,
people attempt modesty in the hopes that others will point out their accomplishments. This attitude
is typical of those who believe ones self-esteem is primarily determined by other people.
This is absolutely wrong. While recognition is a great reward, there is nothing wrong with being confident in ones own right to be happy. There is nothing wrong with being proud of your accomplishments and wanting to share what makes you great with the rest of world. If we spend all our time
trying to elicit peoples admiration and recognition, we diminish our self-worth by not believing we
are worthy of it in the first place.
The difference between Self-Esteem and Arrogance.

Many people mistake high self-esteem for bragging or over-confidence but there is a distinct difference between over-compensating and being self-assured: Persons of high self-esteem are not
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driven to make themselves superior to others... their joy is in being who they are, not in being better
than someone else.
Im not a fan of any metaphor that uses a dogs way of looking at the world but Nathaniel Branden
nails the point on the head when he describes watching his dog play in the backyard: She was not
thinking that she was more glad to be alive than the dog next door. She was simply delighted in her
own existence.
Life is not about being on top but simply enjoying the fortune of your existence. People who are
looking for recognition and envy are usually quite the opposite of self-assured. Those with high selfesteem are typically just happy to revel in their fortune without measuring it against the fortune of
others.
Alright Already! What is Self- Esteem?

That basic principle of self-esteem is summed up in the first chapter: To trust ones mind and to
know one is worthy of happiness is the essence of self-esteem.
Self-esteem is not a competition; it is not a measure of worth but more a measure of how much one
values his own self.
Nathaniel Branden goes even further and breaks self-esteem down into two major components:
Self-Efficacy
To be efficacious is to be capable of producing a desired result.
Taking on this project was a challenge for me. I have never been a quick reader and certainly have
never written anything that has been published for a mass audience. So I admit the challenge was
a bit overwhelming since failing would not only let myself down but the people I was writing it for.
At one point I thought I was way in over my head: What right do I have to write an article on selfesteem?.
Telling yourself you cannot accomplish things only keeps you from progressing. To maintain self-efficacy is to believe you have the ability to overcome obstacles and accomplish your goals and doing
so. Confidence in our basic efficacy is confidence in our ability to learn what we need to learn and
do what we need to do in order to achieve our goals.
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Self-Respect
Almost everyone has, at some point, self-sabotaged themselves. Perhaps it was a promotion they
were interviewing for or a relationship with someone they thought was too good for them. Whatever
the stakes, whatever the losses, self-sabotage is usually followed by the same thought: I deserve
this.
This behavior is not only self-destructive. Just as it not the responsibility of others to nurture our
self-esteem, it is not their decision but our own whether we are worthy of happiness. Worthiness is
the other half to having healthy self-esteem. While maintaining the self-efficacy to work towards our
goals, we must also consider ourselves worthy of the rewards of our actions.
So What are the Six Pillars?

1) The Practice of Living Consciously
Those who believe they have thought enough and learned enough are on a downward trajectory of
increasing unconsciousness.
Its not an uncommon trend for us to believe we have learned all there is to know. That we are the
way we are and there is no more room for growth. We reach a point in our lives where we think this
is it and just live day in and day out pondering the past and wishing for the future.
Nathaniel Branden argues (and I agree) that this is counterproductive. In order to maintain healthy
self-esteem you must focus on the one thing you can control: the here and now. This means being
conscious of what is happening in the moment, being conscious of the direction you are heading
and making the necessary adjustments to make sure its the direction you want to be going.
2) The Practice of Self-Acceptance.
To be self-accepting is to be on my own side.
This may be amongst the hardest of all the pillars. We all have aspects of us that we wish we could
change. They may be aspects of our character, past mistakes, but more often than not they are
physical in their manifestation. But regardless of what we might not like about ourselves, we must
learn to accept them. This isnt finding enjoyment in our deficiencies. Instead, we acknowledge them
and move past them so that they do not own us.
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Self-acceptance entails our willingness to experience-that is, to make real to ourselves, without denial or evasion- that we think what we think, feel what we feel, desire what we desire, have done what
we done, and are what we are.
3) The Practice of Self-Responsibility
I think it is safe to assume at one time we have all blamed someone or something for a certain predicament. Usually it is our parents; they didnt love us enough, support us in our dreams, or treat us
like adults. Maybe its a boss who wont give us a promotion or a teacher who is not allowing us to
pass a class. In the end its all the same thing: we are finding security in playing out the victim in our
own stories.
Throughout the The Six Pillars, Dr. Branden makes a point to remind us that no one is coming to
save us. We can play the victim all we want but in the end our own actions are the only thing under our control and blaming others for our problems while waiting for another to save us will lead to
nothing but disappointment.
If there is a problem, men and women who are self-responsible ask, what can I do about it? What
avenues of action are possible to me? ... they do not protest but its not my job!... they are typically
solutions oriented.
4) The Practice of Self-Assertiveness
To practice self-assertiveness is to live authentically, to speak and act from my innermost convictions and feelings.
Despite disagreement, people tend to respond more to those that are confident about their opinions
and beliefs. By standing by our words and actions we display a person who is self-assured and confident in who they are, something a lot of people secretly yearn for.
Its natural for us to try to modify our behavior in a way that makes us more appealing to those
around us, but it must not come at the cost of being true to our selves.
5) The Practice of Living Purposefully
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selves competent in life.

Personally, if there was one pillar that someone could adopt to be more self-assured it would be
this one. The majority of the world is filled of people just trying to get by in life; working nine to five
jobs and maybe another part time gig on the side just to make ends meet. Their leisure time is spent
playing video games, watching movies or passing time drinking with friends. And all of them have
a dream in life of what theyd rather be doing but the opportunity to do so never seems to present
itself.
Living Purposefully means not only having goals in life but living in a manner that drives you towards completing them. This can be incredibly scary for some but that only underlines its importance. If we are too afraid of failure we are lacking both self-efficacy and self-respect by not allowing
ourselves to attempt to reach our full potential.
Its always important to remember if I dont do something, nothing is going to change.
6) The Practice of Personal Integrity
Integrity is the integration of ideals, convictions, standards, beliefs- and behavior. When our behavior
is congruent and practices match, we have integrity.
Im sure we all have moments in our life where we could have labeled ourselves as hypocritical. We
may not acknowledge these hypocrisies but we will always notice them as we commit them. Regardless if people know we are acting incongruent to our beliefs, theres that sinking feeling in our
stomach that we are not the person we want to be. The essence of guilt, whether major or minor, is
self reproach.
By living consciously we must also be conscious of our standards and live up to them. While it may
be hard to hold integrity in an world where the amoral continually succeed (corporate deals, shady
politics, etc.) it is important for the sake of self identity to be as true to your values as possible.
Just as we must be self-assertive and vocal about who we are and our beliefs, we must also work
diligently to remain congruent with who we want to be.
The Seventh Pillar

Essentially Nathaniel Brandens point is that self-esteem is more like a muscle than a blessing. Instead of being something bestowed on us, we must work towards maintaining our self-esteem.
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We cannot be lazy in regards to our body as well as our emotional development. Like working out to
maintain physical shape; there is no ceiling, you are always maintaining yourself. And just like working out, this may require us to endure discomfort from time to time. But as the saying goes, the
things worth doing in life are hard.
Self-esteem requires a willingness to endure discomfort when that is what ones spiritual growth
entails.
The first step in building self-esteem is having the willingness to embrace change; to challenge
oneself to grow beyond his current comforts, to believe I am lovable and capable. It is a choice,
first and foremost, to practice the six-pillars of self-esteem, and no one can make that choice except
you.
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The Education of Millionaires
Summarized by Johannes Maneljuk
Michael Ellsberg: The Education of Millionaires. Its Not What You Think and Its Not Too Late
Most people, including parents, teachers, and politicians, will tell you that if you dont get your college degree, youre going to end up as a garbage man. How did you avoid buying into that viewpoint
and having faith in yourself that you could go out and succeed by educating yourself instead?
This was the first question Michael Ellsberg asked all the interviewees in his book - except the probably most successful garbage man in the word, Brian Scudamore, CEO of 1-800-GOT-JUNK? who
earns more than $100 million in junk hauling business per year.
To succeed in the business world you have to receive good grades, go to a good college, study
hard and hopefully get the essential credentials. This is the most common assumption people make
when they reflect on successful careers. Michael Ellsberg doesnt think much of that. In his opinion
there are many real world skills college education wont teach you. Practical skills that are, however, crucial for professional success. But he goes even further: For many people spending time for
a bachelors or a masters degree is a waste of time and money. To prove his unorthodox thesis he
interviewed a wide range of millionaires and billionaires who didnt study at the institutions of higher
education and in some cases didnt even finish college. Pink Floyd lead guitarist and songwriter David Gilmour and Matt Mullenweg, the creator of WordPress, are only two of them.
Why are so many super-successful people out there who never graduated from university or who
are even high-school dropouts? And why are so many BAs and MAs either not working in the field
theyve been educated in or even unemployed? Something with todays formal education has to
be wrong, says Michael Ellsberg, who holds a degree in International Relations from Brown University. One day, at the age of thirty-two, he came to a shocking realization: Not a single penny of
his income was related to anything he ever studied or learned in college. Ellsberg, former wannabe
bad boy in literature and today a successful author, supports the hypothesis that formal education doesnt automatically lead to a well-paid job and financial security. In the business world, street
smarts, acquired through business experience in the real world, are much more important. Our
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current educational system is a typewriter, but it could be a WI-FI-connected Laptop, claims Ellsberg at an early chapter of his book. Therefore, he distilled seven key skills for success:
Making work meaningful and meaning work
Finding great mentors and teachers and building excellent networks
Learning about marketing
Learning about sales
Investing for success
Building a brand of you
Internalizing an entrepreneurial mind-set (vs. an employee mind-set)
THE Portrait of the Artist as a Young Fuckup

When it comes to his own development, Ellsberg doesnt beat around the bush. Possessed with the
idea that he wanted to publish his first book and to be a literary superstar, he wrote a manuscript
of creative nonfiction. This was at the age of twenty-seven. His idols were Henry Miller, Hunter S.
Thompson and Michel Houellebecq. While he moved back in with his parents again to save money
for the rent he dreamed about joining the table of the bad boys in literature. The twenty-two rejection letters he received after sending his manuscript titled Rock Star Envy to several editors couldnt
dissuade him from thinking that they just couldnt recognize the genius of Art within his work. One
of the rejection letters read as follows: Im going to pass on this project. Mr. Ellsbergs writing is not
strong enough to overcome the simple fact that he is not a very likable person. Over time, however,
his views of this episode changed. Especially the word undisciplined which was used in many of
the rejection letters, led to the insight that all the rejections were right. He just didnt know where his
trailblazing work led. In 2006, after the second submission of Rock Star Envy had been rejected,
he got the message that he wouldnt end up as an enfant terrible of memoir writing. The following
process of realizing that he had to adjust his set of skills (writing and editing nonfiction) to market
realities in order to pay the rent and buy groceries led him to a four-step plan.
The Four Steps to Combine Money and Meaning - Or: The Art of Earning Money
While Doing What You Want To Do
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As the author wants to make clear that he doesnt recommend behaviors that hes never proven
to be successful through his own experience, Ellsberg brakes down the process of aligning your
money and your meaning into four steps:
1. Get on your feet financially - or: feel kinesthetically able to pay your rent
Step one is mostly about learning to walk on your own or - in other words - being able to pay the
monthly bills by yourself which is a good feeling. The goal is to learn to appreciate financial stability.
At this phase it doesnt matter if your job is what you want to do for the rest of your life if it pays you
enough to finance yourself. The first step is giving up on your dreams, purpose or meaning for a little
while to reach financial stability. If there really is that kinesthetic feeling in your body of how it feels
to have enough money I dont know, but its worth trying to get it.
2. Create more room for experimentation - or: how to disappear appropriately
If the kinesthetic experiences of the first step dont fulfill you anymore, its time for the next level.
The spirit and aims of this step is to find a meeting ground for both your money and meaning.
Therefore experimentation is needed. And experiments take time. As you achieved financial stability through step one, you are now able to take measured risks in your life without getting bankrupt
after one failure. In other words: you bought room for experimentation through your regular job. But
what to do if there is no free time besides your job? You have to free up some time and space for
experimentation in leadership, innovation and marketing - which Tim Ferriss, author of the 4-Hour
Workweek would call the Disappearing Act: How to Escape the Office. If your job takes too much
time begin to take some risks at work: Convince your boss to evaluate your work more on results
and less on the time you spent at the bureau. A more flexible schedule or working at home with your
laptop and mobile phone could free up some space and time which you had otherwise spent at your
workplace.
3. Begin experimenting with your new space in your workday - or: push the start button
Now, with more flexibility at your workplace and with stable financial grounding, its time to push the
start button and start experimenting. Solving problems that werent your responsibility and contributing in ways you werent expected to contribute feels meaningful. Ask yourself whether you are indispensable at your workplace or not. The goal is to become a Linchpin in your organization. In summary, the third step is to apply an entrepreneurial mindset at your work by taking some risks toward
making a difference within your organization and to dismiss the employee mindset. This is also
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the phase which is suitable for most people to remain in. If you put step three into practice you will
have a regular job that pays the bills and provides enough free time due to the creative and leading
skills you acquired at work. It frees up time to follow your passion, whether it is writing, songwriting,
sports or - the most delicate of all - women.
4. Striking out on your own and become self-employed or: earn your living by following your passion
The last step is the mastery. Its about earning your living by following your passion. Starting a small
business on the side, finding ways to earn money through artistry or other passions or preparing for
self-study to start a career in another field - the options are infinite. To make a living from that means
to do a deep dive into the success skills in the book - which are, according to Ellsberg, marketing,
sales, and networking: Youre going to have to wrap your own passions, talents, and purpose - the
things you care most about and are best at - in the package of these fundamental success skills.
And he doesnt forget to add a praise of creativity - as often throughout the book: A major pitfall in
this journey is that we are so conditioned to thinking of money and meaning as separate, we overlook creative ways that we can bring them together.
The Importance of Connections and The Real Power of Networking

Whats the difference between two minutes of time spent by a BA and two minutes of Eben Pagans
time (better known in PUA circles as David DeAngelo)? According to Ellsberg, its rather simple:
Ebens two minutes have much more influence on the world than the two minutes of an unknown
person. Why is that? Is it because of Eben Pagans superpowers? Definitely not. Its because of his
widely connected network. In other words: his actions cause much impact because his huge network functions as a multiplier of his actions. The difference between someone who is part of a huge
network and someone who is barely known is that the former has the power to make a difference
in the lives of many people with just one action. (An interesting side-note in the book is that Eben
Pagan found Michael Ellsbergs relationship to his partner Jena la Flamme so strong and healthy that
Eben wanted to get his advice on relationships.)
Why Everyone Should Get Educated in Marketing

A very important topic in Ellsbergs book is marketing. In this chapter one understands why the subtitle of the book contains the words Its not what you think. The chapter about the importance of
marketing skills and how to obtain them - namely to be able to teach yourself after reading his book
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- is a very uncommon approach to marketing. Yes, Ellsberg really likes to bash the way marketing is
taught at university and understood by most PhDs and MBAs. Taught and practiced the right way,
marketing has a lot more impact on personal success than most people realize, because it focuses
on the needs and desires of people and tries to bring up solutions to help people - this is the message he wants the reader to get: The best marketing is about human connection on a genuine level
and therefore pretty much what the game is about. Arent we masters of self-marketing when we are
our best self, as Neil Strauss put it in The Game and in The Rules of the Game and arent we masters of marketing when we spend good times with girls and make them feel good?
So - Is Formal Education All Bullshit?

Michael Ellsbergs book is definitely an eye-opener concerning marketing, sales and networking.
Beyond that, his wisdom and comprehension of the world is a remarkable example of self-study on a
highly effective level. Nevertheless, there are some points I would disagree with. As a graduate which
holds a masters degree in Rhetoric and Germanic Literature and Language I can say from personal
experience that there are profits from the academic education. However, especially in a field like cultural studies these profits are not so obvious and hard to measure.
Therefore you should never stop anyone from applying at a university. Its not all bullshit courses
how Ellsberg says in his book. Different perspectives on culture and literature can lead to a higher
level of understanding and reflecting the world. In this respect, Ellsberg stays too focused on the
economic value of formal education. The only studies he recommends without reservation are law,
engineering, and medical science.
The Three Success Skills and the Definition of Leadership

A very insightful part of the book deals with the three success skills: marketing, sales and leadership. What Ellsberg says is that you cant lead without inspiring people. In his eyes the leaders ability to control other people is just a myth: Leadership boils down to the ability to change the hearts
and minds of people. Not controlling people; its a myth that the leader has control. The true power
of a leader lies within his ability to influence people to do what he thinks is the best. A leader should
always bear in mind that hes dealing with people who exercise their free will. The consequence is:
you cant persuade people of doing something. You can only inspire them so they can persuade
themselves. Leadership, marketing and sales are, according to Ellsberg, dependent on each other.
This leads the author to the following statement: If you can get people who dont know about you
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to know about you (marketing), and you can convert them into customers (sales), and once theyre
customers, you can lead them from point A to point B, you can accomplish anything on the planet.
The passage on leadership is a must read, especially for many self-proclaimed or wannabe-alphas
out there who still think that leadership just equals controlling and dominating people without caring about their needs and desires. Ellsbergs definition of leadership is one of the strongest Ive ever
read. His idea of leadership is influenced by Seth Godin, author of Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us
and Linchpin: Are You Indispensable? who says that leadership is the new marketing. In Ellsbergs
understanding, marketing, sales, and leadership become life skills, highly connected and inseparable
from one another - a viewpoint which is very uncommon and throws overboard our comprehension
of the three words.
The Ideal of the Lifelong Learner

One could argue that Ellsbergs depreciation of formal education was a diatribe against education in
general. The opposite is true. What is characteristic of all of the successful entrepreneurs mentioned
in his book is the fact that they are all lifelong learners. All of them acquired their knowledge by
taking action, failing, adjusting, improving, and taking action again until their ideas actually worked
out. They didnt acquire this kind of knowledge at school or at universities but only in real life while
dealing with concrete needs of customers. This is what Ellsberg calls street smarts - knowing how
things work out in the real world instead of reading and writing about it at universities. The most
successful people, he argues, are constantly investing their resources in their personal growth. This
way they will benefit the most in the future. The ideal of the lifelong learner is reflected in the way the
author aims to teach the reader to acquire new skills and wisdom. The principle is teaching to teach
yourself.
The Philosophy Behind This Book - Or: Be a Giver, Not a Taker

One of the strongest reasons why I decided to write a report about this book is the controversial philosophy behind it. Today the fear of not getting a profitable job even with excellent grades and credentials is widespread. This situation has been further aggravated by the financial market crisis. In
the main chapter of his book, The entrepreneurial mind-set versus the employee mind-set, Ellsberg
lays the groundwork for a major shift in attitude towards the business world.
The entrepreneurial mind-set demands a contributive perspective. It focuses on whats needed and
not whats requested, on outcome and not on output. Its about taking responsibility for your actions
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and increasing, not decreasing responsibility. It should not help to protect your current job but to
work yourself out of it. In this passage the author reveals his motivation to share his knowledge with
others: One of my main motivations for writing this book is encouraging you, my readers, to see
the world as less fixed - a little more open to creative molding and shaping - than you thought it was
when you first started reading the book.
What looks like a very risky lifestyle at first glance turns out to be the opposite if looked at closely.
Safe is the new risky, says Seth Godin, whom Ellsberg interviewed for his book as well. Its the expression of the employee mind-set which means hiding behind the masses instead of sticking your
neck out. And this is why many of the safe players lost their jobs during the financial crisis: they just
followed instructions.
What I like most about The Education of Millionaires is the fact that it leaves the reader with a feeling
of power instead of powerlessness without falling into the usual fluff talk many self-help books suffer
from. It shows entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial thinking as a self-determined way of life. Although Ellsbergs opinions about bullshit college classes appear quite radical and in some respect
a bit exaggerated, he can prove his introductory thesis impressively. The bootstrapped education,
the lifelong self-study and the triad of marketing, sales and leadership are insightful and field tested.
Therefore this book is more than just business guidance. Its underlying concepts and strategies can
be applied to many realms of our lives in which we want to grow, for example to relationships and to
dealing with people. Taking action instead of remaining in quiet desperation - to cite Thoreau - is,
overall, the key principle to achieve anything in life - whether you want to be a business magnate or
a pickup artist.
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Croudsourced Reading Project #7
How the Mind Works
Summarized by Chris
After reading The Game, I eventually read The Selfish Gene, The Red Queen, and Sperm Wars. However, my personal candidate for the best book on psychology ever written is Stephen Pinkers How
the Mind Works. It covers a lot of the same ground as those other books, but since its a comprehensive take on the human mind, it provides valuable context for what those other books say.
What we take for granted

One of the central ideas in Steven Pinkers How the Mind Works is that the most interesting features
of the mind are things we tend to ignore because we take them for granted. When we think intelligence, we think Einstein. However, Pinker writers, The difference between Einstein and a high
school dropout is trivial compared to the difference between the high school dropout and the best
robot in existence, or between the high school dropout and a chimpanzee.
From an engineers point of view, its easier to build a pocket calculator to save us the trouble of doing long division than it is to build a digital camera that will adjust well to taking pictures in a dimlylit nightclub. Humans, however, adjust effortlessly to the clubs lighting conditions; its long division
thats difficult for us. And compensating for lighting is only one of several difficult problems our brain
needs to solve to make sense of what our eyes are telling us. Movement--walking on two legs, manipulating objects with our hands, and so on--presents an entirely different set of problems for our
brains. Our brain solves them all, without our even being aware of it.
The importance of evolution

Its not hard to guess why humans are so much better at seeing and moving than we are at long
division. The answer is evolution. On the African savanna, vision and movement were crucial to our
survival; long division was not. Thus, long division remains hard for us, even though its relatively
easy to build a machine that does long division. This is another central idea in How the Mind Works:
Evolution explains a huge range of otherwise puzzling features of the human mind.
The human mind is, in its entirety, the product of evolution, but this does not mean all of our behavior
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is adaptive, or that all we really want to do is pass on our genes. One reason for this is that evolution can only give us what worked in the past and is slow (slow, on a human timescale) to adapt to
changes in the environment. Had the Pleistocene savanna contained trees bearing birth-control
pills, Pinker writes, we might have evolved to find them as terrifying as a venomous spider. And
few men get terribly excited about the prospect of donating to sperm banks.
Nature vs. Nurture

From what Ive said so far, many readers will assume that Pinker comes down on the nature side
of the so-called nature-nurture debate. In fact, he argues that the entire debate is confused: If the
mind has a complex innate structure, he writes, that does not mean that learning is unimportant.
That makes no more sense than saying that if a computer has a lot of special-purpose gadgets, it
will do the same thing no matter what the user types in.
For similar reasons, it also isnt terribly helpful to say things like nature and nurture interact in complex ways. That would be like saying, The behavior of a computer comes from a complex interaction between the processor and the input. Such statements are true but useless--what we want
to know is what it is about the complex machinery (of either the computer or the brain) that makes
these complex interactions possible.
Emotion
So far, Ive been focusing on general principles; now lets get into specifics. Because of their relevance to human social life, two of the books later chapters, starting with Hotheads, Pinkers discussion of emotion, deserve focus.
Emotions are universal. The same emotions are found in cultures the world over. Intellectuals have
sometimes claimed that some cultures do not have particular emotions, but Pinker argues that they
have been misled by those cultures establishment propaganda. The Utuku-Inuit claim not to feel
anger, but they recognize anger in foreigners, beat their dogs to discipline them, squeeze their
children painfully hard, and occasionally get heatedup. Similarly, in some cultures that practice arranged marriages, the elders will claim that romantic love doesnt exist, but young people generally
have other ideas.
While emotions are not merely the products of culture, they are also not atavistic remnants of our
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son. They are, rather, evolutionary adaptations which were quite useful to our recent ancestors and
which still do us a lot of good today. Fear, for example, keeps us from being bitten by poisonous
snakes and falling off cliffs. Disgust keeps us from eating things that could kill us.
Selfish Genes
That much may sound obvious, but the emotions really get interesting when we come to the ones
that govern our interactions with other people, like love, anger and gratitude. To understand these
emotions, we need to do away with one more misconception about evolution: that evolution acts for
the good of the group or species. The reality, as Richard Dawkins explained in The Selfish Gene, is
that evolution will promote whatever genes are good at getting copies of themselves made. Its possible to imagine circumstances where this could lead to an animal evolving to look out for the good
of the group, but in practice those circumstances probably never occur.
It is, however, very much possible for an animal to evolve to look out for family members. Selfish
genes need not make selfish organisms. Siblings share 50% of their genes, as do parents and offspring, so a gene for looking out for your own siblings, parents, and children will help to make copies
of itself 50% of the time. A similar but weaker principle applies to more distant relations. This is what
makes love of family evolutionarily adaptive.
What about the emotions we feel towards non-family? Well, cooperation can be mutually beneficial
even when the parties dont ultimately have each others best interests at heart. To that end, gratitude can be beneficial if repaying favors leads to a pattern of fruitful interactions, and a tendency
to bear grudges can be beneficial if for no other reason than to prevent you from wasting time on
cheaters.
The Doomsday Machine

However, to explain our most intense emotions, Pinker uses an unlikely analogy: the Doomsday
Machine from the movie Dr. Strangelove. In the movie, the Soviets had built a machine which would
automatically destroy all life on earth if the Soviet Union were ever attacked with nuclear weapons.
Horrifying as the idea sounds, it actually makes sense as nuclear strategy.
During the Cold War, each side was supposed to be deterred from launching a nuclear first-strike by
fear of retaliation. The problem with this strategy is that once a first-strike has been launched, retaliation cannot prevent or undo the deaths caused by the first strike, it can only cause more deaths. This
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might lead the leader of a doomed country to decide not to launch a first strike. But the possibility
that a leader might decide not to retaliate makes a first strike tempting. A Doomsday Machine that
is set to go off automatically in response to an attack, without the need for human decision making,
would solve this problem.
Pinker proposes that some emotions act as a kind of Doomsday Machine. If we sometimes get
angry, lose control, and seek revenge regardless of whether it is in our own rational self-interest, and
other people know this, it gives them a reason not to cross us. The part about other people knowing this is key--it means that this strategy only works if a tendency to have such emotions is hard to
fake, but we all know that emotions are in fact hard to fake.
Romantic love may function on a similar principle, but instead of committing us to retaliation, it
commits us to sticking by our partners even when it is no longer in our own self-interest to do so.
Because being abandoned by a partner as soon as it becomes convenient is potentially disastrous,
the ability to commit on a deeper level is worth having in a mate. This makes calling attention to your
ability to commit--your ability to fall in love--a useful courtship tactic, though as Pinker notes, being
too ready to fall in love reeks of desperation. (So seriously, guys, knock off the obsessing over that
one girl whos never shown any interest in you. Theres probably an evolutionary explanation for why
youre feeling that way, but its still creepy.)
Self-deception
The fact that its hard to fake emotions has another important evolutionary consequence: self-deception. If youre not the best liar in the world, sometimes it helps to believe your own lies. Typically, our
self-deceptions present us in the best possible light, so as to better sell that image of ourselves to
others. This explains a great many of the insights in Dale Carnegies How to Win Friends and Influence People--including the fact that you cant win an argument (admitting you were wrong looks
bad, so people have reason not to admit that even to themselves) and the fact that everyone is the
hero of their own story (Carnegie used the example of Al Capone; Pinker instead mentions Hitler).
Brotherly Love
The discussion of emotions, however, only scratches the surface of the psychology of social relations. Pinker goes into much greater depth in the chapter titled Family Values--a somewhat ironic
title, given that Pinker emphasizes that humans have not evolved to live in perfect harmony with one
another at all times. Because social relations are a part of virtually everything humans do, this ends
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up being an extraordinarily rich chapter--Pinker notes that a large majority of the worlds stock fictional plots involve problems he discusses.
Theres no way to do this chapter justice in the limited space I have here, so Ill pass over some issues with less relevance to modern life, such as the evolutionary logic behind arranged marriages
and tribal warfare. Theyre still worth reading, though--in fact, if you ever have a copy of How the
Mind Works but dont have time to read the whole thing, Id recommend starting with this chapter.
Moving on: evolution explains brotherly love, but it also explains a great deal about conflicts within
families. You may have heard that youre more likely to be murdered by a relative than a stranger, but
it turns out that the overwhelming majority of people murdered by relatives are murdered by nonblood relatives (fictive kin.) This is what we would expect on evolutionary grounds, since the evolutionary reasons for loving your blood relatives do not apply to fictive kin, hence the wicked steprelatives of folklore.
While blood relatives generally refrain from murdering each other, everyone knows they still come
into conflict, and evolution explains why. An older brother shares fifty percent of his genes with his
younger sibling, but he shares one hundred percent of his genes with himself. This leads to sibling
rivalry--siblings may not want each other dead, but each would prefer their parents would spend
more time and energy on his or her self, and less on their siblings. (Incidentally, this also leads to
parent-child conflicts, since parents will generally want to treat their children more equitably.)
Men and Women

Now for the part youve all been waiting for: men, women, and what makes them different. Pinker
comes down strongly on the side of there being profound innate differences between the sexes,
enough to constitute two human natures. Furthermore, all the prominent differences between
males and females stem from the difference in the minimum size of their investment in offspring. In
humans, this difference in investment is quite large: men need only contribute a squirt of semen,
whereas women contribute nine months of pregnancy followed by a period of breastfeeding, which
can last two to four years in hunter-gatherer cultures.
Pinker describes a number of scientific studies of the evolutionary consequences of these biological facts. In one experiment, researchers hired attractive men and women to approach strangers of
the opposite sex on a college campus to ask them either Would you go out with me tonight? or
Would you go to bed with me tonight? Both half of the men and half of the women agreed to the
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date. But for the would you go to bed with me tonight? question, the percentages of yeses were
75% and 0%, for men and women respectively. Pinker comments:
Of the remaining twenty-five percent [of the men], many were apologetic, asking for a rain check or
explaining that they couldnt because their fianc was in town. The results have been replicated in
several states. When the studies were conducted, contraception was widely available and safe-sex
practices were heavily publicized, so the results cannot be simply dismissed simply because women
might be more cautious about pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases.
None of this is surprising: from an evolutionary point of view, a man who is sexually propositioned
by a strange woman has just gotten a (virtually) free shot at reproduction, but when the situation is
reversed, the woman is essentially being asked to embark on a costly endeavor for no particular
reason. Also note Pinkers last sentence, a good illustration of how human behavior is adapted to the
environment we evolved in, rather than the modern environment.
So what do women want? Sometimes, they will trade sex for material resources directly, as in pros-
titution. More commonly, theyll look for a partner who shows signs of both willingness and ability
to provide for any children than result from the union--willingness in the form of dependability and
professions of love, and ability in the form of wealth and status, or at least the talent and ambition to
acquire them.
Its extremely important to stress, however, that material resources arent the only factor influencing
womens choice of partners. Women also have an interest in seeking out the best available genes
for their offspring. They cant directly test genetic quality, but they can, for example (and this is only
one example), seek out successful men because the traits that lead to success are likely to be partly
heritable.
Dominance and Status

This brings us to a final pair of topics: dominance and status. Why do animals engage in intimidation
contests and mock-battles that fail to draw blood? It has nothing to do with the good of the species.
Rather, fights to the death are costly, even for the winner, who may be badly injured in the course of
killing his rival. Therefore, its in the interest of both parties to figure out who would win a fight to the
death without actually fighting. If the animals remember each other, the loser will defer to the winner
in the future, and in a group of animals, this eventually results in a dominance hierarchy or pecking
order.
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In many primate groups, the dominance hierarchy among males takes on extra importance, because
dominant males mate more often. Theyre able to push other males out of the way, and whats more,
females prefer to mate with them, again because the traits that lead to dominance are heritable. This
is why, in some human cultures, men are willing to kill to avenge an insult, because ending up at the
bottom of a dominance hierarchy can be evolutionarily disastrous. In our own society, such behavior occurs mainly among poor young men whose prospects teeter between zero and nonzero and
therefore have little to lose.
Pinker defines status as a kind of signal showing who can help you, and in humans, one of its main
forms in both humans and other animals is deliberately wasteful displays, from the peacocks tail to
gold bathroom fixtures. The message they send is simple: I can afford to waste resources on this, so
you know I must have a lot of resources to spare. But this is not the only way humans signal status.
We also have the fashion cycle: the game in which everybody tries to look like people richer than
themselves, except for a few wealthy trendsetters, who struggle to set themselves apart from all the
people trying to imitate them.
The standard fashion cycle is about looking high-class, but sometimes people actively avoid conforming or even try to look low-class. Why? Aggressive nonconformity, Pinker explains, is an
advertisement that one is so confident in ones station or abilities that one can jeopardize the good
will of others without ending up ostracized and destitute. Pinkers book was published in 1997, but
had it been written today, he could have mentioned the ultimate example: hipsters who compete to
like things that no one else likes. There is much that is impressive about How the Mind Works, but
this has to be one of my favorite parts: explaining hipsters before hipsters existed!
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Iron John
Summarized by Ramiro
I am originally from Argentina and although I believe my writing ability in English is acceptable, I
apologize in case that the expression of the ideas of the book that I summarized for you is lacking in
some way. I summarized this book for The Inner Circle because it was a book recommended to me
by a well-known Argentinean Therapist and Psychologist named Guillermo Vilaseca, who is an expert in mens psychology and male gender issues. I hope you enjoy the summary and I wholeheartedly recommend reading the book if you do have the time.
The main theme of Iron John, A Book about Men is male softness and immaturity. The author, Robert
Bly, uses the story of Iron John, (an old German fairy tale), as a way to describe and dissect the issue
of male initiation and the lack of it in contemporary culture. Robert Bly argues in favor of a masculinity that goes beyond the macho men stereotype but doesnt end up in the other extreme, the soft
male that is only able to be in tune with the feminine and willing to gain the favor and the admiration
of women but losing sight of his beliefs and wants in the process.
Iron John: Brothers Grimm Fairy Tale, c. 1820

The story begins in a remote area of the forest near the Kings castle. Hunters go there and never
come back. A hunter offers helping the King by going to that area and trying to discover the source
of the problem. Upon arrival to the problematic area, the hunters dog is pulled by a mysterious hand
into a pond. The hunter goes back to the Kings castle and gets more people involved and goes
back to the pond to see what is going on in the pond, and they bring buckets with them to dry out
the pond and get to the bottom of the pond. They find a hairy man. This hairy man has reddish hair
to his feet. They bring the hairy man to the castle and the King names him Iron John and puts him in
a cage. This hairy man is a metaphor for the part of men that is lacking in current male culture. Iron
John represents the wild man. The wild man represents the primitive male energy that is associated
with authentic masculinity, which is different from the other extremes: it is neither the macho-man
that is unable to have feelings, nor the receptive and soft male-type.
The rest of the Iron John tale explores the relationship between Iron John (the Wild man) and the
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Kings son. Letting the Wild Man out of the cage is a metaphor for the male opening his inner psychology and letting out the inner Wild Man to achieve complete male maturity.
The following are some of the main concepts and ideas discussed in the book:
Mens Lack of Initiation

The main problem with contemporary men, according to Bly, is that so many of us are not properly
initiated into manhood. In contrast, most ancient or tribal societies have clear procedures where
older men initiate younger men into adult manhood. The lack of initiation in todays society has led to
mens softness, passivity, and lack of vitality. Women generally mature naturally through the process
of giving birth, which gives clear visual indications of their own transition into maturity.
There is an Absence of Positive Male Figures and Mentors

Bly argues that men are not properly initiated into manhood, and this lack of maturity is also connected to the various institutions that are part of the lives of modern men. Men go from one hierarchical, vertically-governed institution to another (schools, businesses, government jobs, etc.) with no
time or resources to develop from boys to men. Older men - who in ancient cultures would take the
role of initiators of children into mature men - are either not physically present (because they retired
and moved away to a warmer climate) or simply take a passive role. Fathers work long hours, sometimes in remote locations, and are physically and psychologically detached from their sons. Women
end up doing most of the fathering and this is reflected in the values that the boys grow up with, with
a general negative attitude toward men. This collective male identity is further disseminated across
the cultural context by the influence of TV, movies, and media in general.
Passivity and Naivet in Man

Passivity in men can be seen in the lack of involvement in activities that require energy such as finishing conversations at home, setting discipline with children, saying what one wants and what one
doesnt want, and fighting for possessions or beliefs. On the other hand, naivet is related to a lack
of boundaries. The nave man takes pain from women and carries it; the nave man is content with
absorbing the pain and recovering in isolation. The nave man shares whatever is in his mind at any
time, from personal plans to last nights dreams, in the belief that each person is basically noble by
nature, and only twisted a little by institutions. In other words, the naive man is often taken advantaged of or subjected to ridicule, easily cheated, or betrayed.
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Many Men Fear and Distrust Authority

Fathers have transitioned, since the Industrial Revolution, from making things with their hands and
being able to show their sons the trade, to abstract labor that makes the relationship between men
and work more vague and difficult to understand, and communicate between fathers and sons. That
process of physical to intellectual work has created a metaphoric hole in the sons psyche. Most
young men dont know what their fathers actually do in the office and they become suspicious of
their fathers occupation. This disconnect can lead sons to make the assumption that the fathers
work is inherently evil. This negative attitude toward fathers occupations is what is behind the general disdain for authority in many young males; this lack of knowledge of what the father does is
what underlies the idea that men in positions of authority are suspicious. Robert Bly says, There
is a general suspicion now that every man in a position of power is or will soon be corrupt and oppressive. Yet the Greeks understood and praised a positive male energy that has accepted authority. This lack of trust and respect in everything that revolves around the fathers work is one of the
reasons why boys tend to gravitate more toward the feminine, which is represented by the mothers
values and ways of being.
Why Some Women Prefer Passive Men

Many women today prefer passive men who avoid conflict at any conflict at any cost. This same pattern is seen in institutions such as corporations, universities, and the church, where men comfortable
with conflict are rare and conformity and compliance is encouraged across the board. Team-worker
is often a euphemism to describe the lack of passion required to fit in corporate environments.
The Inner King and How to Bring Him Back

The Inner King represents what we are passionate about and what we desire. At some point during
our childhood, it sometimes happens that our father carries a huge Inner King and our Inner King
is diminished and eventually we become numb to our Inner King. The process turns us from being
boys that are able to freely express our desires, to sulking teenagers that have repressed emotions
because there is only space for one Inner King in the house (typically our fathers Inner King). With
our own Inner King being dormant and useless, we cant express our wants and preferences, and
we become passive and dull. To recapture the Inner King later in life, we should pay attention to our
tiny desires and become sensitized to what we enjoy and prefer. The key to being a more active and
persuasive individual lies in developing and nurturing the Inner King, which is another way of saying
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that we should make a conscious effort to put our passions and desires first and reduce our need to
please other people all the time.
How to Go past Shame and Liberate the Inner Deep Masculinity

Mainstream culture, through the years, has made it shameful to be a man. Notice the embarrassment that expressing our desires can bring, and the fact that manliness in general is often a source
of ridicule. How can we reclaim our inner King, our Wild man? The first step would be to understand
the cultural problem and how it affects us individually. The second and subsequent steps need to
entail getting in touch with our deep masculinity and our desires and nurture them. We need to turn
the passive, numb individual that is a guest in his own house, to a person that is in close contact
with his emotions and his passions. We will not be able to find this deep masculinity by spending
time watching TV or drinking alcohol, but we are more likely to grow and mature if we become in
contact with an older man that we admire and try to obtain some guidance on how to be a man.
Top 5 Takeaways
1) Issue of Boundaries (Or Lack Thereof)
We must build boundaries that are rigid enough to protect our desires and wants from outside psychological aggression (usually in the form of put-downs or ridicule), while at the same time flexible
enough to be able to sustain relationships with others. In other words, the boundary has to be semipermeable so that some influence from others is welcomed. But on the other hand, we need to be
firm when it comes to protecting our inner desires. The boundary has to turn into a membrane that
lets good stuff in and keeps the harmful influences away. This is something that we need to work
on and get better at. The concrete message to take away is that we need to protect our desires and
opinions firmly and not let anyone ridicule us for what we want and believe.
2) Learning to Say No
This is related to the issue of boundaries. Without boundaries, we let others dictate our agenda
and our objectives. If we are passive and we go with the flow, we are not in control of our life and
how it unfolds on a daily basis. We need to be in touch with our objectives and have a level of selfrespect such that we are able to say no, especially to those that are closest to us.
3) Expressing Our Desires
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When we are confident in our ability to protect our inner psychological health from outside attacks,
we are secure and more likely to articulate our desires and express those desires to the outside
world without repression or inhibition, and thus able to someday reach those objectives or simply
live and affirmative life; a life that is in line with our intrinsic values.
4) Making a Clean Break from our Mother and later from our Father
We need to cut the umbilical cord that attaches us to our mothers and that stunts our maturity as
men. The break has to be clean and peaceful instead of messy and violent. Many immature boys
mistakenly become hostile to their mothers as a way to create some psychological distance. Robert
Bly talks about stealing the key to Iron Johns cage from our mothers pillow as metaphor to describe
the need for becoming psychologically independent from our progenitors.
5) Setting the Wild Man Free
Lastly, we need to gradually become in tune with our passions and tiny desires, and expressing
them to the outside world. The sulking boy that many of us have inside has to evolve into a man that
respects himself and is willing to take risks by just listening to our wants and needs and going after
what we want. The key is to go after what we want and do this consistently. We need to be more
expressive, more assertive. As men, we need to understand that we decide the persons we want to
become and that we are not relegated or limited by a stereotype.
Here is an audio version of the book that is free to download: http://archive.org/details/Iron_John_
Audiobook
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The 33 Strategies of War
Summarized by Domenic
While we want to believe that fairness and honesty is what must rule the world, we also cannot deny
the fact that it is full of dicks and douchebags. There are also power freaks who dont really give a
fuck about the groups objective. Some are also filled with vanity and theyll do everything to make
themselves look good to an audience. These people are generally clever in the social arts (whether
consciously or not), which makes them all the more dangerous. These people therefore, must be
neutralized or converted, if not eliminated at all. Whether you believe in a noble cause, a mere political animal out for personal gain, or simply a person needing more knowledge in order to protect
himself from scumbags, to neglect the reality of strategic interaction is the perfect path to a miserable life.
While The 33 Strategies of War is seemingly a book destined to return a man back to his barbaric
tendencies, understanding the essence of the 33 strategies will instead bring you more peace. With
it, you will no longer let yourself be driven by a whirlwind of emotional tantrums from your mom, your
dad, your hot but passive-aggressive girlfriend, or that dickhead in your workplace. Instead you will
now act your way strategically towards the best possible outcome. By learning the 33 strategies of
war, asking your girlfriend to serve sandwiches and blowjobs is now a possibility-a strategic endeavor that provides flow for the creative mind.
PART I: Self-Directed Warfare

This is the most important part of the book which. The ultimate beginning of all endeavors that you
seek to accomplish is none other than you. However, we do not encourage you to become a terrible
narcissist.
1. The Polarity Strategy.
A war is pointless without an enemy because a war without an enemy is well... not a war and its
none of our business here. Thats the first thing you have to remember: Find a point of focus in your
campaign. It can be a person or an abstraction such as douchebaggery, toolmanship or vanity.
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When you find one, it is generally not recommended to send a mandate declaring war because it
looks stupid. Just declare it inwardly. Pickupartistry tells us that we should know what we want to be
but there is still more to life than that - we should also know what we do not want to be. The purpose
of creating a polarity between you and your point of focus is to gain clarity, not paranoia. Many tyrants have fallen because they think they have enemies everywhere. You might be doing what Hitler
has done to himself and were not just referring to his mustache.
2. The Guerilla-War-of-Mind Strategy.
Do not let your mind become static. Kill the sacred cows of your brain. Revisit your most cherished
formulas. Be formless like water. Mysterys top hat may have gotten him laid a thousand times but it
could make you spend a night with your hand and a tissue. Learn to think for yourself. All the things
that you have read from The Game to How to Make Friends and Influence People are just there to
expand your vision of the world. They are just there for you so you can make your own creative maneuver as you see fit.
3. The Counterbalance Strategy.
Whenever a threatening or unusual situation confronts us, we begin to feel shaken. We feel angry,
intimidated, or rejected, in short, we feel like an ass and it stinks. Understand: Our mind is weaker
than our emotions. The key to counterbalance this natural phenomenon is to gain presence of mind.
It cannot be acquired by merely reading books or eating courage pills. Through patience, discipline,
and will, acquired it is. Thats Yoda speaking to you. One way to do this is to expose yourself to conflict. This is not so much as punching people in the face, as diving into situations that you would really want to be in but feel uncomfortable about (such as approaching women with big boobs). Unintimidate yourself by cutting people down to size. Look at the man (or woman), not the myth, though
the myth could also help you understand the man. Tiffany, one of Neils assistants, gave me an
advice to visualize the girl as someone who looks like shit - this may work for you as well, but since
youre a very nice person, you still think she looks fine (Read Mr. Strauss post on the Hot Girl Relief
Fund | Link: http://www.neilstrauss.com/neil/the-hot-girl-relief-fund). When you feel shaken, focus
on a simple task such as fixing your sleeves, rubbing your watch, or scratching your head - anything
that can make your mind focus - for a focused mind has no room for anxiety.
4. The Death-Ground Strategy.
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self in a kind of death-ground, a point of no return, where losing is not just rhetorical but visceral.
Sign a contract, where if you fail, you have something to lose. You must not just understand, but realize, that you can die at anytime in the most pathetic way such as getting hit by an ice cream truck.
Ponder your death everyday and you will gain a sense of desperation and urgency - a thirst for life, a
sense of clarity - that will keep your life going.
PART II: Organizational (Team) Warfare

In an organization, not all AMOGs are true AMOGS - some are just power freaks. Remember that
true dominance does not mean being domineering. Harmony and cooperation will lead to success,
not dominance. While people might be a little scared of you, they will also secretly resent you by being domineering. If you are faced with such, this is the way to deal with them.
5. The Command-and-Control Strategy.
In a bunch of people, some are political animals. These political animals are not after the welfare of
the group; they only care for the advancement of their own career. As we all know, this type of people are willing to pull any dick move even at your cost. One way to deal with this problem is to infect
them with your actions, not words. By living your principle, you no longer need to think about how to
make them work like you, your actions alone will have the irresistible persuasion that gets to the very
depths of their bones.
6. The Controlled-Chaos Strategy.
In a group that you lead, the worst type of leader that you can be is a control freak. Absolute control
requires a little part of letting go. Instead of telling your men to follow orders by the letter, tell them to
follow it in spirit. By creating independent units that follow the spirit of the groups task, you will not
only gain control and loyalty, but also save time and energy.
7. Moral Strategy.
Making the team more group-centered than self-centered is vital. Make them move or work for an
idea. Yet, such a motivation could not last long if their bellies arent full - survival comes first. Studying Maslows Hierarchy of Needs could help you in building up your mens morale. You must ensure
that they have their physiological needs moderated or else, they might work half-assed efficiency or
much worse, they could betray you. As the leader of the group, your task is not to push them from
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less with the fools among your group but remember to reward even those in lowest of the ranks.
Part III: Defensive Warfare

8. The Perfect-Economy Strategy.
We all have limitations - this idea can be quite contrary to Neils lesson on our limiting beliefs so you
decide for yourself, gentlemen - and our energies and skills can only take us as far as that. Perfect
economy is not about spending or using as little as possible - this could lead to boredom and halfassed results. The key is to look into what you really have and then figure out what you can do with
it. I will quote the book directly:
Think of it as finding your level - a perfect balance between what you are capable
of and the task at hand. When the job you are doing is neither above nor below your
talents but at your level, you are neither exhausted nor bored and depressed. You suddenly have new energy and creativity. Fighting with perfect economy is like hitting that
level -- less resistance in your path, greater energy unleashed...
A separate yet more precise explanation of this can be found on Neils post about the idea of Flow.
Also, I have a personal favorite quote in this book which reads,
Like the cat... Their awareness that their days are numbered - that they could die at
anytime - grounds them in reality. There are things they can never do, talents they will
never have, lofty goals they will never reach; that hardly bothers them.
9. The Counterattack Strategy.
Learn to hold yourself back, to take time before talking back to someone that makes you angry. We
humans are naturally impatient, we our desires immediately gratified. This is a handicap on our part
and we should learn to curb this if we are to acquire all the psychological advantages to be gained in
letting your opponents expose their weakness first. Hold yourself back, settle yourself, and when its
time hit, hit them hard with all your might.
10. Deterrence Strategies.
The strategies of deterrence are generally strategies for the weak. They are designed to prevent
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aggressors from attacking in the very first place. I personally find these rarely applicable in nonphysical aggressions so feel free to comment below if you could think of a non-physical application
of these.
One strategy is to surprise your aggressors with a bold move. This will prevent them from going any
further. Remember, the key here is the element of surprise.
Second, you may reverse the threat by suddenly threatening them back. There is no need to go too
far, just a little pain will do and actions are much more recommended than words.
Third, seem unpredictable and irrational. You may choose suicidal attacks to defend yourself when it
calls for it. By letting go of everything, you will have nothing to lose, which will repel those who have
a lot to lose.
Fourth, play on peoples natural paranoia. This is a form of indirect threatening; let your enemies
discover that you are up to something against them. They will believe this even more because they
have discovered it themselves. However, you must be cautious because this could also lead them to
make a counterattack.
The most powerful of all deterrence strategies is to build up a reputation. Be ruthless and calculating, cold and ruthless or any other reputation that would mean messing with you is difficult, even
being a nice person can be an option. The process of establishing this reputation is very tasking for
your acts have to be real. Once youre already an established person, the reaction you need comes
even before you arrive.
11. The Nonengagement Strategy.
It takes prudence and true strength of character to retreat in the face of a strong enemy. When faced
with a situation where you are very likely to lose, resist the tempting rewards of taking on it, such as
a quick reputation boost. Know your current limitations, accept them, and fight another day. In fact,
there are times when you can actually win by merely doing nothing.
Part IV: Offensive Warefare

12. The Grand Strategy.
A saying goes like Lose the battles, but win the war. Though this phrase may sound all too overused, it is still easier said than done. Go back to the first strategy, the polarity strategy, to remind
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yourself of the point of focus to keep your grounded. Keep your mind focused on whats important
and what will help you achieve or keep it, then weigh everything else according to that. At the same
time, accept that your emotions might get in the way and could lead to impulsive decisions. Accept
it as they are and that they need not to be repressed but to be used to their best effect.
13. The Intelligence Strategy.
This one, I believe, is a little difficult and takes a lot of practice. Enter the mind of your target, which
could be an enemy or a lover. Keep things smooth between you until you figure out what you needed
to know from him - it could be something he cherishes or a secret you need to discover. Then decide
what you will do after evaluating the information you have gathered. Remember, at the same time,
that there might also be people who are doing this to you - whether consciously or unconsciously and the way to counter this is to be as difficult to read as you allow yourself to be.
14. The Blitzkrieg Strategy.
While you might think that this is the opposite of the counterattack strategy (9), you will notice that
they arent really so if scrutinize the properties of both. For example, both strategies require speed.
So to speak, we could say that the counterattack strategy is a form of blitzkrieg. The very point of
this strategy is that by using speed and suddenness, your enemies will feel unbearable pressure and
chaos. With all those, they could no longer keep up and their defeat is just a matter of time. Just
keep the pressure going until then. Use this strategy according to your judgment.
15. Forcing Strategies.
One way to force people on your terms is to keep them on their heels by surprising them, then seizing that momentary advantage. It will take time for them to process and evaluate the chaos you
have caused; use that momentary advantage to its maximum effect. Second, as long as you have
the choice, never fight anyone in their terms, never in their own terrain. Instead of trying to dominate
their every move, work to define the dynamics of the relationship itself.
Forcing people into your own terms isnt always about coercion. Subtlety could also work, sometimes even more effectively. Make them commit as much mistakes as possible. This can be achieved
by moving a little the factors affecting his plans or even by simply letting them be. There are also
times when you can just let the other party think that they are the ones in control. You can do this by
simply giving up a part of the dynamics which you consider insignificant and this works particularly
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effective on the overly aggressive and the passive-aggressive.

16. Center-of-Gravity Strategy.
This one is very simple: hit them where it hurts. Find the source of your enemys strength. Perhaps
it could be their financial supporters, if so, sever their ties with him. It could also be an accomplishment or attribute that they take pride on themselves; ruin it, ignore it, or even top it if the situation
calls for it.
17. The Divide-and-Conquer Strategy.
This strategy requires a careful and complete understanding of what or who your adversary is. After that, you try to break him down, piece by piece. Ask yourself: What is the structure of his power
base? Figure that structure out and destroy it detail after detail. This strategy will really depend on
the structure of your opponent so be sure to deconstruct and destroy him.
18. The Turning Strategy.
Again, this one is very simple. Threaten a false target (although subtly to make it convincing) and
make your moves against your real target virtually invisible. Applying this until the annihilating strike
will make your opponents never know what will hit them. Same thing can be applied can be applied
to seduction, by that, it means that you may not immediately giving them your own IOIs and talk to
them about something unrelated to sex or relationships instead.
19. The Annihilation Strategy.
Give your opponent no room for retreat or recovery. Destroy him in material, in body, and in spirit. Do
not apply this in seduction, you will be a rapist.
20. The Ripening-for-the-Sickle Strategy.
This is the offensive part of the Perfect-Economy Strategy (8). While using the Perfect-Economy
Strategy, create an offensive plan (or a business maneuver) with several branches and thinking about
what could be wrong. This will allow you to make more rational decisions in case things go messy.
Also, do not just give your competitors one problem to solve; all single problems can be solved
systematically. Instead, give them dilemma and they will think theyre already fucked up before doing
anything.
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21. The Diplomatic-War Strategy.

The key principle of this strategy is that words are just another weapon for creating a fog in the
adversarys vision. This strategy can be used like the Turning Strategy (18) because you can distract
the enemys focus while you create a maneuver as the negotiation takes place. Amoral indeed but
these things happen whether youd do it or not is always your call.
22. The Exit Strategy.
Always vision things until the end and see your way to it. Remember: You must never end up saying
Ok, its done. So what now? and the same time, you should also know if it is already time to give
up and move on to something else. The only real end is death: Everything else - victory or defeat,
marriage or rejection - is just a transition.
Part V: Unconventional (Dirty) Warefare

Break the codes of morality and forget about honesty and honor; this is a war where anything goes.
Dick moves included.
23. Misperception Strategy.
The perfect deception is not created with pure lies. They are made with a seamless blend of fact and
fiction. Reveal true details about your plan along with false stories and instead of sending it directly
to them, make them discover it and itll be all the more believable. Perception is reality, thus, if you
control their perception, you control their reality.
24. The Ordinary-Extraordinary Strategy.
When your enemy expects the unexpected, then what you thought is unexpected is now predictable
- and you lose. Hence, dont just always think of the unconventional because sometimes, the ordinary is what falls in the line of least expectation.
25. The Righteous Strategy.
The importance of you and your mens disposition can never be overemphasized. The world is political, not just in offices with government seals, but even in a mere workplace. Find the most righteous
cause to fight for then question the cause of your adversary. By occupying the moral high ground,
not only will you be able to keep fighting with ferocity, you will also be able to convert enemies to
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your side.
26. The Strategy of the Void.
When fighting against a much more powerful enemy, the key to destroy him is to never fight him upfront. Instead, just keep on retreating from him and dont give up on retreating. He might think your
just being a coward but youre actually draining down his resources - both mental and material.
27. The Alliance Strategy.
Create a shifting network of allies that compensate for your deficiencies. We know these allies are
what we make friendships with. Thus, a friendship is a contract. Do what they cant and they do
what you couldnt. If you do your duties as a friend correctly, they could even go as far as to fight
your own wars for you. This will set your defense up if an adversary thought of using some form of
Divide-and-Conquer Strategy. On the other hand, you must apply these two hand in hand for the finest effect.
28. The One-upmanship Strategy.
You must understand this strategy by heart because circumstances might force you to use this in
the workplace. The plot of this strategy is deceptively uncomplicated: (1) Create an extremely subtle
move, one that can be as unattached and passionless as possible. This move will brush his ego and
stroke his insecurities. It will cause him to react unbecomingly, which will serve as the trigger for your
one-up and his one-down. (2) Keep things cool. Youve done your part and all you have to do is to
keep your hands clean. Do not attack him because if you do that, everyone will see you as a dick.
In fact, you may even act like you seem to be on his side while giving him dubious assistance and
advice. (3) Watch as you witness his downfall without him knowing how the hell it happened.
29. The Fait Accompli Strategy.
In this strategy, you will have two allies - time and the conservative side of human nature. You will
accomplish many things by taking small bites. You may also take big bites of whatever it is that you
are trying to conquer, and then give back part of what youve given. People will only remember your
generosity, not the empire you are slowly amassing. Taking things one step at a time is the general
principle of this strategy.
30. Communication Strategy.
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Ones failure to communicate his ideas isnt the fault of the dumb audience but of the unstrategic
communicator. You must remember that most talks can only reach people superficially without inducing any change in behavior. Because some people are self-indulgent pricks, thats why and you
are not going to be one of them. So if the goal of your communication is to induce change among
people, make it strategic. Instead of directly delivering them the conclusion you wanted them to
have, simply hold yourself back, stick your premises, and let them connect the dots towards your
intended conclusion.
31. The Inner-Front Strategy.
Traitors unite - this is the strategy for you. Think of an invisible enemy or a friendly takeover. All wars
can only be fought when the enemy is in sight. Penetrate their social circle, get inside their organiza-
tion and attack them from the inside without you being suspected. Like a lotus waiting to blossom,
you will only be seen when the takeover is perfected or when theyre entirely destroyed.
32. The Passive-Aggressive Strategy.
Of all the 33 strategies, this is the one which has an almost exclusively social application of all. In
contrast to the Inner-Front Strategy, this one does not require you to be inside the targets organization or social circle and its offensive part is more psychological than tangible. To execute this strategy, you need to be a bitch. You will present a friendly mask with all of your hostile feelings hidden
inside... hidden even from you during your encounters with your targets. For example, with this
friendly surface, you will begin to offer them your help but do their work poorly. Your work is poor but
you did it with the best of intentions, but the truth is not because youre a back-stabbing, two-faced,
sabotaging prick.
33. The Chain-Reaction Strategy.
Fear can be used to your advantage. It comes in the form of unpredictability and a calculated illusion
of omnipresence. In violent wars, terrorism has reached its pinnacle at this point in time. By attacking
so suddenly and creating an image that you can be anywhere from the shadows, your enemies will
fear you thereby multiplying your power in the eyes of your enemy. Random, insane, and devastating
is what you have to be. When facing an enemy of this caliber, your most important asset is the fortitude of your heart; that you will stand and fight the unseen enemy until you restore the peace they
have once taken away. But the heart is not enough. After handling your emotions - the intangible
aspect of the conflict - covertly work in finding the unseen enemy, they must not know the progress
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you are making in your search for them, and finally destroy them.
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Sex at Dawn
Summarized by Grivio
Motto: The majority of husbands remind me of an orangutan trying to play the violin. (Honor De
Balzac)
Some of the questions answered in this summary:
What is jealousy?
What is it to be in love?
How to be a lot more fulfilled sexually?
Why men ejaculate prematurely and what is the natural way to handle this?
Are we meant to be monogamous?
What Sex at Dawn teaches the reader has huge implications on our everyday lives: It helps us better
understand modern sexuality. Its a long writing full of facts on the real inherent human nature that
has shaped our society, and its all backed by thorough research.
The flaws of the Alpha Male Theory

The common description of our ancestors tribal lives is utterly wrong: There was no alpha male, and
nobody could force the others into anything, as in that case they simply could ostracize the person
and walk away. During most of our evolution, there was no scarcity of any kind of food (!), so nobody
was indispensable for gathering or hunting it. The second reason that clarifies the error of the Alpha
Male Theory is that almost no man has a strong enough will to keep to monogamy or celibacy, e.g.
no matter how grave the consequences, presidents, priests and husbands get caught every day.
(And women as well...) Its evident, that we humans are social creatures; therefore we surely lived
in tribes. There was absolutely no way to keep track of every person any given time, so they could
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sible.
Therefore, it is wrong to look at women as prostitutes and men as providers and guardians. Sex
is great for everybody, and it had not much to do with sharing food and protection. Family planning was especially non-existent. In fact there was no family, but the whole tribe was like an ideal
big family: rarely up to 150 people, sharing everything, bringing up the children together, everybody knew everybody, shared the same values and much more similar interests than today, nobody
wanted to seriously compete with the others etc. We are not made to compete, but to cooperate! As
perishable food couldnt be cooled and because it took very little effort to acquire food, they happily
shared it (which they expected from each other too). In these circumstances a high level of empathy
and the will to give naturally develops in every member of the community and ill-will barely occurs if
ever. As mostly they lived together happily and knew each other well, why would it? Also, someone
guilty of acting against the welfare of who the person lived with, could have been found out easily
in a small group of people. Humankind is not inherently wicked. We are the victims of our collective,
self-made circumstances and cultures.
Paradise and the beginning of the new age

We are here on Earth to fart around, and dont let anybody tell you any different. (Kurt Vonnegut,
Jr.)
We think we are lucky to live in these modern times, with all these gadgets, running water, online
shopping, etc, but we are wrong!
Before agriculture began, our ancestors regularly roamed. This ensured a varied and plentiful diet with very little effort.
Sex only happened for the fun of it, and was not regulated needlessly, so it was abundant,
and their lives didnt revolve around it. Aggression rarely formed in people because there was
no sex deprivation.
The whole tribe parented all the children so they were never a big burden on any mother;
they grew up psychologically healthy, and didnt have the disadvantage of growing up in a
broken family.
According to fossil evidence, sickness was also very rare; and contrary to the common
belief, people often lived to a ripe old age.
As they didnt interact with as many people as we are in the present, they knew each other
very well, and were a lot less different from each other. This allowed for joyful social interac-
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tions all day long.

Their pretty stress-free lives let them be playful all throughout their lives (different source).
Humans lived like this over millions of years up until the dawn of agriculture and husbandry, roughly
10 000 years ago. (And in some hidden parts of the world, even until today!)
Agriculture depends on the weather, the farmers expertise, the lack of pests, weeds and diseases;
therefore famines became regular. This scarcity made selfishness became common and drove
people into living in families and have private properties. The husband wanted to make sure, that he
is working hard to provide food for his own children, and female coyness came to life. This process
constructed monogamy, which had never existed before!
Women Are Malleable

Womens attitudes towards sex and their sexual behaviors are very malleable, not ingrained in their
instincts so deeply as mens. These are formed by the culture they grow up in and by individuals who
they feel close and look up to, such as their families, friends and boyfriends. Even if this is not what
they feel (and some may be furious to hear it), there is ample proof supporting it: nuns actual celibacy, harems in the past, polygamy, polyamory (living in a sexually liberal community) in numerous
societies.
This has three very important results:
They can adept to monogamy to a lot higher extent than men. (And they dont understand
why men cannot.)
As nowadays peoples sets of values are very diverse, women develop different and different preferences in choosing partners. For this reason, if a guy wants to attract a certain girl,
physical attraction often doesnt amount to much. The key is to understand what makes her
tick, and to act accordingly.
Womens conscious and subconscious judgments of sexual events are proven to be almost entirely independent from each other. Their conscious choices often dont correspond to
what arouse them.
Men are not this adaptable: To avoid the genetic stagnation that would have dragged our ancestors
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into extinction long ago, males evolved a strong appetite for sexual novelty and a robust aversion
to the overly familiar. Women also tend to be instinctually more attracted to the mystical stranger
over an old friend, and often over the long term partner as well. This appetite for novelty is really
important to avoid incest.
Sex at Dawn
Is sex dirty? Only when its being done right. (Woody Allen)
While foragers, humans sex lives were not only entirely free, but even more different: orgies were the
common form!
Proofs:
Women groan very loudly during sex. The function of this was to call other males to have
sex with her too. Such loud vocalizations are less common among monogamous species.
Women need a lot more time to reach orgasm than men. Multiple men can make her reach
that point effortlessly. Men were not encouraged to try and prolong the intercourse. Surely
women enjoyed sex more back in those days, which made them keener on having sex and
also more often.
Sex between only two people would have made female multiple orgasms superfluous.
It arouses people, but perhaps men even more, to see others having sex. If you think
about it, its not that obvious. If we had been monogamous, wouldnt it be much more logical
if the same sight made a guy instinctively aggressive?
Human testicles are much larger and human semen also contain a lot more sperm cells
then monogamous species ones.
Monogamy definitely doesnt allow for the necessary sexual fulfillment. Even if one has a
partner, after a while they have less and less sex. This insufficiency makes people become irritable, aggressive, negative, stressed and depressed, and this works against social cohesion.
The biggest advantage our species had, that allowed us to survive for millions of years, was
our endlessly complex interactions with each other. The advantage gained from the complexity of these interactions would be pointless without unity.
The above deprivation has also been proven to cause and exacerbate an array of illnesses.
Sex with multiple members is still common today in remote forager societies.
You might ask how it is possible, that our ancestors didnt end up having too many children and
didnt have trouble with overpopulation. These days, people eat way much more carbohydrates than
what our bodies are prepared for. This causes womens (well, everybodys) body-fat levels to be
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much higher than normal, which affects when they start ovulating (this is the age, from when they
can have babies): As it can be observed in the modern age too, women in forager societies dont
start ovulating until their late teens, resulting in a shorter reproductive life. Also, women rarely
conceive while breastfeeding, and without milk from domesticated animals, hunter-gatherer women
typically breastfeed each child for five or six years.
Jealousy
Jealousy stems from the fear of (temporarily) losing necessary intimate physical and non-physical interactions and sex. Men who are honest to themselves would admit that most women would be able
to tempt them behaving the right way if the circumstances allowed. If our conscious thinking and our
instincts werent subdued by our present culture, women also would feel attracted to most men. This
was essential to keep the integrity of the tribe and avoid people being aggressive, negative and destructive. Imagine that: virtually any woman you lust, you can have. All you can eat! As plentiful sex
kept everybody satisfied and entertained, and harmony allowed for the full spectrum of intimacy at
all times, jealousy was rare, not the norm! Dont get me wrong, there were strong sexual and intimate
relationships between individuals back in those days as well, but exclusivity wasnt in the terms and
conditions. After all, the love a person can give is not finite, only his or her time is. We could live in
a much better and happier world if love between two people didnt affect the love between one of
them and another person.
Being in love is enthusiasm attached to love and attraction in case of men, though many women
have the adaptability to actually feel it, and make it real in themselves.
Possible solutions - Sometimes sex is just sex

(...) this perspective of us as humans to look at our world through the lens of normal
is one of the forces that stop us developing real solutions. (Justin Hall-Tipping on the
problems of the world)
The book doesnt advocate one single solution to replace the failing monogamy, but I see two fundamental ways:
Open relationship, though its tough to base a family on it;
Polyamory: Living in a sexually liberal community. This may involve any number of people
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with an arbitrary proportion of men and women; and is increasingly common: The estimate is
around 500 000 people living in polyamorous families in the US. However, bear in mind, that
sexual and intimate fulfillment of all parties involved is necessary to make these work! Its
worth mentioning though, that if you are already in a monogamous relationship, its probably
hard to shift to open relationship, because 1) almost certainly neither of you have other people
floating around that both of you can gain fulfillment from (intimacy as well!), 2) opening the
relationship would feel like losing each other.
Arent these options a lot better than people constantly ending up in broken families and women
struggling to bring up children on their own? The reason for the majority of the divorces all over the
world is cheating! Arent these nonconformist relationships also much better than a large proportion
of women barely having orgasms, if at all, as it is the case nowadays?
Think about this next time you are calling a girl easy: If women werent praised for being bashful, but
encouraged to enjoy sex (and intimacy) the way they feel like, more people would be fulfilled. More
content people means less aggression and crimes, better general atmosphere, and less money, effort and time wasted on trying to be cool and fashionable. I know that this sounds idealistic, but on
the long run and if the word spreads...
Until then, I would rather oppose public opinion than nature...
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How to Win Friends and Influence People
Summarized by Brian
Introduction
Dale Carnegie published How To Win Friends and Influence People in 1936 yet the lessons it contains are extremely relevant and valuable 75 years later. This book is essential reading for anyone in
a sales or marketing role and will help solidify both business and personal relationships. Essentially,
this book spells out a plan for getting what you want from other people by changing the way you
behave.
What You Will Learn

In this summary, you will learn:
Why listening to what other people are saying is more important than talking about yourself.
How positive reinforcement is the best way to motivate others.
Techniques that you can use to make other people believe what you are telling them.
How to be a better leader.
Fundamental Techniques in Handling People

To get the most out of this book, youll need to constantly remind yourself about how important
these principles are, review them, and think about how to apply them. Apply them whenever you can
and even ask a spouse or business associate to remind you when you violate one of these principles. As you practice, review your progress and keep notes showing when you have used these
methods. In doing so, youll be creating your own business field report that will help you hone your
influencing skills.
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The first basic principle of handling people is being nice. Dont criticize, condemn, or complain about
people. Instead of judging people or condemning them, try to understand them and why they do
what they do. This way, you can better show support, sympathy, tolerance, and kindness. People
like others who treat them this way and will respond positively to such an approach. You may need
to exercise control to hold back from expressing your negative feelings, but do so. In fact, if you
have the desire to change others, its better to begin with yourself.
The second principle is recognizing what others want and giving it to them. There are many things
that people want. Some of the most common include health and the preservation of life, food, sleep,
money and the things money will buy, sexual gratification, the well-being of our family, and a feeling
of importance. Most of these wants are usually fulfilled, except the desire to feel important and that
is a very strong basic desire. Its the desire that motivates people to want to be fashionable, drive
nice cars, and seek success. The way to understand a persons basic character is to know what
creates a feeling of importance for them. Once you know that key, you can make that person feel
important. At the same time, avoid saying or doing things that undermine feelings of importance. For
example, if you have someone working for you, use incentives rather than criticism to motivate him
or her. Nothing else kills the ambitions of a person like the criticisms from superiors. Praise where
you can and be hesitant to find fault. However, avoid insincere flattery, since that doesnt work well
either. Generally, people will see it as shallow and selfish. The key is to give honest and sincere appreciation.
The third principle is to arouse an eager want in others. This principle works because we are all
interested in getting what we want. So if you want influence over other people, find out what others
want and how you can help them get it. In doing so, it helps to understand the other persons point
of view and see things from their perspective as well as your own.
Six Ways to Make People like You

There are six basic rules for getting people to like you. The underlying principle is to pay attention to
others and show you are concerned.
The first rule is to become genuinely interested in other people. By doing so, you can gain the attention of others and secure their cooperation again and again. By showing this interest in others as a
manager, you can develop loyalty to your company as well, since people see you as a representative
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of your company.
The second rule is to make a good first impression by smiling. This smile is important, since actions
speak louder than words, and a smile helps to show that you like the person. It shows you are glad
to see him and want to be friendly. Of course, this smile shouldnt be an insincere grin, which looks
mechanical and people resent it. But a smile that comes from within will help attract people to you.
The third rule is to remember the persons name. A good way to do this is to fix the persons name
and some facts about his or her family, business, or interests firmly in mind when you meet. Then,
when you see that person again, you will remember it. Having this recall is critical because people
value their names highly, as reflected in the way that many companies are named after their founders
or the way that donors give large bequests to organizations that name libraries, museums, or other
buildings after them.
The fourth rule is to be a good listener and encourage others to talk about themselves. It is especially flattering to pay exclusive attention to the person who is speaking to you rather than looking around to see who else might be there. Listening is also very important for someone to provide
proper customer service. For example, if someone comes to complain, just listening attentively can
help to diffuse that persons anger. It may even make the persons grievances disappear.
The fifth rule is to talk in a way that interests others. Talk about what they care about.
The sixth and final rule says to find a sincere way to make others feel important. For example, ask
yourself what you honestly admire about the other person. Remember that the psychologist William
James said that, the deepest principle in human nature is the craving to be appreciated. By showing your appreciation for another person; you help nurture their feelings of self-importance. It is very
important to be sincere when you show your appreciation so your compliments dont come across
as insincere flattery.
Win People to Your Way of Thinking

There are 12 techniques addressed for convincing other people to believe what you are telling them.
Consciously try to apply each of the following methods in your conversations:
1. Avoid arguments, since this is the only way to win an argument. Generally, arguments only
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make others defensive, and if a person feels he has lost an argument, he loses face. Once you
get drawn into an argument, you cant win, because if you lose it, you lose it, and if you win it,
you lose it.
2. Show respect for the other peoples opinions. You dont want to make people think you disagree with them with careless words, looks, intonations or gestures. When you challenge other
peoples opinions, you make them want to strike back, not change their mind.
3. Admit when you are wrong. If you make a mistake, acknowledge it quickly. Making such an
admission is especially helpful when you know that the other person is thinking or wants to say
that you are wrong. It is much easier to listen to self-criticism than criticism from others, and generally when you admit a mistake, the other person is more likely to be forgiving and supportive.
When you dont, they are apt to be more critical.
4. Even if you are angry, begin discussions in a friendly manner. Use sugar to make the medicine
go down. You cant win over someone who is feeling negative towards you. But if you begin to
soothe that persons feeling, you can start to persuade them to your point of view.
5. Get the other person to say yes in the beginning. Once you get a no response, you have
a handicap to overcome, since the person youre talking to wants to remain consistent. Thus, it
helps to start off with questions that will evoke a yes or a statement that will bring about agreement. Once the person is in the habit of saying yes, you can ask the harder questions.
6. In the case of complaints, let the other person do the talking. As they do, you will learn more
about their business and problems so you will be in a better position to help. The key is to listen
patiently with an open mind, be sincere, and encourage the other person to express his ideas
fully.
7. If you are seeking cooperation, let the other person feel the idea is theirs. People have more
faith in the ideas that they discover for themselves.
8. See things from the other persons point of view. The technique here is to put yourself in the
other persons place, so you can better understand what he wants and needs. This can be especially helpful if you are trying to sell someone a product or service. This exercise will help you
understand what motivates the other person.
9. Show your sympathy to what the other person thinks or wants. This way, even if you disagree
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or would do something differently, you show that you understand and empathize. Say something
like: I dont blame you at all feeling the way you do. If I were you I would probably feel the same.
10. Appeal to peoples higher aspirations and nobler motives. People usually have two reasons
for doing something: the real reason and one that sounds good. Since people are idealists at
heart and like to think they are led to act out of good motives, you will have better luck in changing people by appealing to these better motives.
11. Express your ideas in a dramatic way. By dramatizing your ideas you make them more powerful and persuasive. Use strong illustrations and showmanship to get your ideas across. This approach works well because merely stating a truth isnt enough. The truth has to be made vivid.
12. Use a challenge to motivate others. This technique works because every successful person
loves the chance to prove his or her worth. For example, the industrialist Charles Schwab once
drew a big 6 on the floor of a mill to mark down how many items the day shift made. The next
day when the night shift came in, they drew a 7 on the floor to show they had done even better.
That inspired the day shift to work even harder and place a 10 on the floor when they left. By
expressing what he wanted, Schwab encouraged the men to work harder. This tactic was more
effective than if he had just asked for improved work.
Be a Leader
Finally, if you are in a leadership position, there are some techniques that you can use to get people
to change without offending them or creating resentment. The eight most important leadership principles are the following:
If you have to find fault with someone, start with praise and honest appreciation.
If someone makes a mistake, call attention to his mistakes indirectly.
Before criticizing someone else, talk about your own mistakes first.
Instead of giving a direct order, ask questions, such as What do you think of this?
Praise every improvement, no matter how slight.
Give the other person a fine reputation to live up to.
Use encouragement and make the fault seem easy to correct.
Make the other person happy about doing the things you suggest.
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Summary of Key Takeaways:

At an absolute minimum, be aware of the following takeaways: It may be useful to post these in a
location where you will see them daily.
Be genuinely interested in other people.
Dont criticize, condemn or complain about people.
Encourage others to talk about themselves.
If you make a mistake, acknowledge it quickly.
Before criticizing someone else, talk about your own mistakes first.
Praise all improvements, no matter how slight.
If you want to change others, start with yourself first.
To feel important is one of the strongest human desires. Always make others feel important and never undermine anyones sense of importance.
Remember peoples names. A persons name is the sweetest and most important sound in
any language.
Express your ideas in a dramatic way. Use illustrations and showmanship to get your ideas
across.
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The Art of Learning
Summarized by Neelang Parghi
Josh Waitzkin rose to prominence as the inspiration for the chess prodigy portrayed in the film
Searching for Bobby Fischer. Beginning his chess studies at age six, he spent his childhood and
teen years competing in and winning the worlds top chess tournaments. Once the film was released, Waitzkin grew wary of the attention and pressure that soon followed, and turned to martial
arts as a way of regaining focus. He would soon rise to the top of the Tai Chi ladder, becoming a
multiple world-title holder. In The Art of Learning, Waitzkin takes us through the processes he used
to reach the pinnacle of these two very different disciplines, and breaks down how his techniques
can be applied to virtually anything.
Entity Learning vs. Incremental Learning

He lays the foundation by describing a research study from developmental psychology researcher
Dr. Carol Dweck which found that people subscribe to one of two different theories of learning: entity
and incremental.
In the entity theory, a person sees their overall intelligence or skill level at a certain discipline [as] a fixed entity, a thing that cannot evolve. Theyll try something for a little while, not
succeed quickly enough (if at all), and then give up. Im not smart enough for this, theyll tell
themselves, as they move onto something less challenging/rewarding. To entity learners, new
skills can almost never be learned or evolve.
Incremental learners sense that with hard work, difficult material can be grasped - step by
step, incrementally, the novice can become the master. They wont back down during those
initial stages of difficulty. They realize that the learning process can take time and that often,
baby steps are necessary. When things get tough, theyll tell themselves, Oh boy, now Im
really gonna have to try hard.
Knowing and realizing this difference is what distinguishes those who constantly succeed from those
who constantly fall short.
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The key to pursuing excellence is to embrace an organic, long-term learning process, and not to
live in a shell of static, safe mediocrity, Waitzkin writes. Usually, growth comes at the expense of
previous comfort or safety.
He uses the analogy of a hermit crab to illustrate his point. As these crabs grow, they need to find
bigger shells to live in. When they step out of their shells, they no longer have the security and protection of their shell. This is similar to the difficult learning phase that people grow through. Its not
easy, but youll be better and stronger once its over.
Someone with an entity theory of intelligence is like an anorexic hermit crab, starving itself so it
doesnt have to find a new shell.
The Importance of Failure

Sure, nobody likes to lose. But why should we dread losing if it will make us better?
Any learner who approaches a challenge with the right attitude will realize that failure and loss are
critical parts of the process. If you want to be successful, you must be willing to endure this pain so
you can move forward. In the long run, painful losses may prove much more valuable than wins, he
writes.
One example is a boy Waitzkin knew who was the best chess player in his school, but refused to
play against anyone outside his circle of friends. He was so petrified of ruining his winning streak
that he never challenged himself, and thusly, never got to know just how good he could be. For
people like him, [l]osing is always a crisis instead of an opportunity for growth - if they were a winner because they won, this new losing must make them a loser.
Investing in Loss
Waitzkins own losses were moments wracked with pain, but they were also defining gut-checks
packed with potential. The setbacks taught me how to succeed.
This is his idea of investing in loss, which means that you can allow yourself to fail over
and over but still stay on the path until youre forced to adapt new habits that allow you to
succeed. Great ones are willing to get burned time and again as they sharpen their swords in
the fire, he wrote.
Michael Jordan made more last-minute game winning shots than any other player in NBA
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history, but also missed more last-minute shots to lose the game in history. What made him
great was not perfection, but a willingness to put himself on the line as a way of life.
Master the Fundamentals

Before beginning any type of endeavor, its important to make sure you master the fundamentals
before progressing. Waitzkin applied this philosophy to both chess and martial arts.
You can practice something as simple as a straight punch over and over until the movement is so internalized that you know through feeling that it was thrown correctly. Once youre
at this level of mastery, you can focus on generating that same feeling using less movement
and power.
You will eventually reach the point where you can deliver a powerful strike with barely any
movement.
When beginning his chess studies, he and his trainer would begin by studying an empty
chess board, and then adding a king vs. a king and pawn, and building from there. Using this
approach, Waitzkin was able to focus on the essentials and build knowledge from the foundation up.
This philosophy allowed him to win his first national Tai Chi championship after only two
years of practice: Surely many of my opponents knew more about Tai Chi than I did, but I
was very good at what I did know...Depth beats breadth any day of the week.
So when youre involved in any sort of battle, dont rely too heavily on the latest new techniques or
tricks that you just learned. Always remember the fundamentals, and never stop practicing them.
Once this is achieved, then it opens the door for creativity and imagination to come through.
The Importance of Obstacles

Obstacles and setbacks should never discourage you, but inspire you to press on. Let them become
opportunities for learning and improvement. When something doesnt go as you planned, youre
given an opportunity to look at what went wrong, and do something about it.
You have to make obstacles spur you to creative new angles in the learning process. Let setbacks
deepen your resolve, he writes. You should always come off an injury or a loss better than when
you went down.
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Injuries and setbacks are also important in helping us escape monotony and routines. They force us
to become imaginative. One doesnt have to be injured, though, to experience these sorts of leaps.
Try focusing on some weakness for a while and see if you can raise your game. Use the adversity to
your advantage and let it be a source of inspiration.
One example described in the book is when the author broke his right hand during a martial arts
tournament. Rather than avoiding training during the recovery, he focused on improving and developing the weaker left hand. Starting off slowly with simple movements (master the fundamentals!),
he was eventually able to use his left arm as if it were two arms, giving him a great advantage once
he recovered.
Its easy to get depressed and mope around when youve been hurt, dumped, fired, etc. but the ability and willingness to turn these adversities into advantages is what distinguishes those who want to
be the best from those who merely want to be decent.
The Importance of Relaxation

Doing anything that requires intense concentration can cause most people to burn out mentally. As a
young chess competitor, Waitzkin had a habit of focusing so intensely on the earlier games at tournaments, that he would be mentally depleted later on, when the stakes were much higher. He eventually learned that taking some time to pause and relax led to improvements in performance.
Players who are able to relax in brief moments of inactivity are almost always the ones who end up
coming through when the game is on the line, says Waitzkin.
Its not necessary to remain constantly focused on whatever youre working on. Try relaxing and releasing some tension and see if this leads to renewed energy and focus. If your concentration starts
to waver, take a break! When youre ready to dive back in, youre focus will be renewed and your
performance will benefit.
Do What Feels Right For You

Once youve reached the highest levels of anything competitive, you can expect to be surrounded
by great performers. At that stage, when skill levels are virtually equal, the advantage often goes to
whoever can dictate the tone and direction of the battle. To do this, you must be aware of your own
strengths and have a unique style.
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Former world chess champ Tigran Petrosyian would quietly observe his own mood each morning
before playing. If he felt cautious and quiet, he would choose an opening move that took fewer risks.
If he felt confident, he would open with something more creative. Instead of imposing an artificial
structure on his match strategy, Petrosian tried to be as true to himself as possible on a moment-tomoment basis. He kept his mood and his strategy in synch.
Learn how to play on your own strengths and personality. There is more than one solution to virtually every meaningful problem, he writes. We are unique individuals who should put our own flair
into everything we do.
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The Black Swan
Summarized by Bernardo
Nassim Talebs book begins with the story about the discovery of the first black swan in Australia.
Up until that point in history, Europeans had never seen a black swan, thus they believed all swans
were white, and then all of the sudden, there was this black bird that was also a swan, but of the
wrong colour.
This analogy introduces the concept of Talebs Black Swan: unexpected, highly improbable events
that have three main properties: 1. They are unpredictable because they lie outside the scope of
our predictions and knowledge; 2. They have huge impact; and 3. Every time we come across an
extremely unpredictable event like the Black Swan, we tend to rationalise and overanalyze it to the
point that we think it was rather predictable.
After explaining a brief outline of the problem of the Black Swan, Taleb embarks on a comprehensive
philosophical diatribe, with the purpose of defying conventional wisdom and our way of thinking. The
author does this by skillfully dissecting our though process and breaking down his argument to deal
with knowledge, prediction, and the role of talent and chance in the success of people.
The conclusion that you might reach after reading this book is that we humans arent as extraordinary as we might think. Theres nothing special about our species.
Black Swans and Knowledge

Knowledge, even when it is exact, does not often lead to appropriate actions because we tend
to forget what we know, or forget how to process it properly if we do not pay attention, even when
we are experts. The core of this book is knowledge, and the distorted belief that we have about it.
Epistemic arrogance is an impediment associated with our handling of knowledge that the author
describes in the book. It basically represents the belief that we know more than we actually do, and
the arrogance steps in when, because of this epistemic arrogance, were unable to utter the words I
dont know.
An important part of the book is dedicated to the treatment of history and the way we study it. Basiwww.NeilStrauss.com
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cally, the author explains The Triplet of Opacity, which identifies the main three problems we encounter when we come into contact with history. These are:
1. The illusion of understanding whats really going on, when in reality we live in a more complicated and complex world than we actually realize.
2. The retrospective distortion: how were able to assess matters only after theyve happened.
3. The over-evaluation of information - our obsession with categorizing facts and pieces of information.
These problems also have a lot to do with how we deal with knowledge in general. For instance, our
obsession with categorizing, which can also be called Platonification, leads us to compulsively
simplify facts by assigning categories, or tags, to them. In real life, however, we need this in order
to make information consumption more organized; the real problem is when these categories are
deemed definitive in our mind, in other words when we remain narrow-minded when exposed to
ideas that defy our preconceptions.
The Platonification compulsion is directly related to another mental impediment: the narrative fallacy,
or in simpler terms, our vulnerability to compact stories when dealing with knowledge. We have a
strong predilection for explanations and causal links - Mother Nature gave us this defect because it
helps things make more sense.
To further understand our inability to inability to generalize properties of the world by making single
observations, a concept called knowledge induction, Taleb presents us the story of the turkey before Thanksgiving - this problem was originally proposed by the philosopher Bertrand Russell under
the name of problem of induction. Imagine a turkey that is fed every day; every single feeding will
confirm the birds belief that its the general rule of life to be fed every day by a friendly human. But
then the day before Thanksgiving, something unexpected will happen to the turkey - something that
the bird wasnt expecting at all.
To close this short section about knowledge, heres a summary: the things we dont know are ignored, thus we never see whats on the hidden side of things; thats also why we Platonify, because
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we like schemes and well-organized knowledge, which leads us to favor our confirmation bias. We
have a lot of respect for what has happened, but not for what could have happened, that defines us
as shallow and superficial.
Black Swans and Prediction

Taleb cleverly comes up with this idea of two different worlds coexisting at this point in time: Mediocristan and Extremistan. The key differences between these two worlds are summarized as follows:
particular events dont play much individually in Mediocristan, while in Extremistan one single variable can have a disproportionate effect on the rest of the population.
What calls for some thought and insight about this is the fact that our world is, day by day, becoming more and more like Extremistan, where events have radical impact on the world around us. Consider the variable income, which belongs to Extremistan; if you get a group of people with rather
similar incomes, and then add to that group the wealthiest person living, then that person will end up
representing more than 90% of the others net worth.
This leads us to the first problem of prediction and Extremistan (our current type of environment). If
you try to generalize knowledge, and hence predict whats in store for us, from observation in Extremistan, youre going to be in trouble, because its simply too random. One single event in Extremistan can change the appearance of your entire outlook, thus ruining your prediction - it boils down
to the inability to obtain information accurate enough to make our prediction.
Another problem with us predicting so much is the non-linearity of the world. We can attribute this
defect in perception to our education system. Weve always been taught that in order to learn something, we need to study our way from point A to point B, and progress will be directly related to our
studies. However, this is hardly the case; languages are a great example of non-linearity - you can
study hard following a linear scheme, and in the meantime experience no progress whatsoever, until
one day you start noticing that you can put elaborate thoughts together in the target language. The
world is non-linear full stop.
Another flaw within our prediction system is caused by a psychological phenomenon called anticipated utility, theorized by Daniel Kahneman. It causes us to fail to predict the outcome of a future
event. Taleb in his book illustrates this bias with the story of a man who dreams of getting a new car,
and thinks only about how great hed feel once he gets a hold of this new car; it turns out that after
getting the car and driving it for awhile, he no longer feels the same thrill, and forgets that he felt the
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same way with his first car. It would have cost him much less to stop and reflect on this fact before
purchasing the new vehicle. Were hopeless predictors.
Chance and Talent

The concept of silent evidence is also a fundamental part in this work, because it plays a major role
in talent and other peoples success. We tend to look at people who have had success in their ventures and think that its been because of their skills or motivation, when in reality the silent evidence
argument holds that while there are hundreds of people who have succeeded in something, there are
even more who tried and failed, but we dont see it because they are never accounted for. A great
way to work around this problem is to think before we undertake anything about all the people that
might have failed in the past but havent come forth, therefore remain silent.
A great misconception is the belief that a result will be achieved in a linear way thanks to focused
effort - notice the word focused and its relation with the mental impediment of tunneling. The truth is
that almost everything we have now, of utility, has been invented by mistake or as a spin-off of other
products. A vivid example of this process is the Internet, which was designed by the military for military purposes, and yet it has become something with a dramatic different set of uses.
Taleb opens the third section of the book with the headline The World Is Unfair, and goes on to explain why he thinks that way. You see, with his idea of Extremistan, hes describing a world that is far
too random for us to understand, and therefore acquire knowledge from. In this random world luck
is everything, and not the focus on skills as leading to success. Arbitrary situations and random outcomes explain success and prompt people to obtain superstar status.
Final Words
This philosophical work is attractive because of its practicality. Taleb throughout the book gives the
reader modest, yet powerful, suggestions to live in this random world; from shutting down the TV,
to minimizing the time you spend reading newspapers, these ideas will surely make you think about
your habits and become more aware of them.
Being narrow-minded is a sure way to be fooled by unpredictability. Dont tunnel into your predictions or even your knowledge. In the book we find the story of the hedgehog and the fox: the hedgehog knows only one thing and lives its life by it, whereas the fox knows many things and remains
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minded and be prepared for whatever it may come, seizing opportunities as they present themselves.
Other suggestions, which are a little more philosophical, include learning to control your decisions
by holding your judgement. This has to do with training yourself to use a rational system of thinking,
thereby becoming more insightful about your actions and consequences. Leave the more visceral
part of your brain for unimportant matters.
An interesting proposal in the book is to arrange our lives in order to increase what the author calls
positive accidents - the key to being exposed to Black Swans of the positive kind is to collect opportunities around you, simply to reap the benefits of randomness.
And finally, my epiphany moment with this inspiring and thoughtful book: avoid the social pressure to
live our lives according to what others expect from us; with the logical result of everlasting unhappiness and discontent, mainly because existence in such conditions becomes painful.
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Predictably Irrational
Summarized by Rob H.
Sometimes it feels like youre doing everything right, but for some reason everything falls apart. The
girl youre interested in walks off, a business relationship falls apart, a perfect proposal is rejected.
Its frustrating, draining and a little demoralizing when you see that youve done the right things every
step of the way, but you just couldnt close the deal.
The truth is, you might have done everything perfectly - but none the less, something has tripped
you up. And that something is likely to be one of the many hidden forces that shape our decisions.
Imagine understanding how people are primed for decisions, and how you can prime yourself (and
others). Imagine being able to structure your offerings in the way that you can influence the final decisions. This, and why a 50c Aspirin can do what a penny Aspirin cant, are just some of the insightful tricks of decision influence tackled in Dan Arielys Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That
Shape Our Decisions.
Arielys book, written in 2008, will challenge your assumptions about how you and the people you
interact with make decisions. It will not only show you the biases that youre falling prey to on a day
to day basis, but how you can use those same biases to to influence others - and get more desirable
outcomes.
One of the most interesting factors of this book is how intertwined all of the concepts are, and how
you can gain a compound effect by using these techniques.
The Top Five Irrational Takeaways

1. Choice Presentation Influences Our Decision Making
Wed all like to think that were in total control of our decision making abilities, but the fact is that we
arent. Were at the mercy of Relativity of choice and asymmetry.
Irrationality In Theory
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If were planning our honeymoon (all in good time, gents) and must pick from Paris (free breakfast),
Rome (free breakfast) or Rome (no breakfast included), we are most likely to choose Rome (free
breakfast).
The reason for this is because weve although been presented with three options, one is a decoy Paris - because it cannot be directly compared to the other choices. As a result we remove it from
our sphere of choice and select the best of the remaining two options.
Irrationality In The Real World
In the business world, it makes sense to create three potential offers for individuals. By creating two
easily comparable options (one of which is better), and a third decoy choice, you can give a client
the best solution by indirectly influencing their selection. When the client starts thinking How do I
use this guy? instead of do I use this this guy?, the battle is half won.
Note: This can be entirely unethical in the wrong hands. I recommend you only use it for good, instead of evil.
2. Value Is Entirely Relative.
We purchase goods based on three factors; value, quality and availability. However, each of these
factors is easily influenced through relative anchoring. The anchoring occurs in two different ways through associated value, and through initial value.
Associated value occurs when something (or someone) is perceived to be high in value because of
its visible association. To explain this point, Ariely talks of The Tahitian Black Pearl - a total flop when
it was first put on the market. However, when he convinced a friend (the infamous gemstone dealer
Harry Winston) to string them up inside his 5th Avenue Store Window and attach a ridiculously high
price tag to them. The result? Their perceived value boomed because of their newly anchored association.
Initial value anchoring can easily be explained with a MacBook Pro. If the first computer you ever
considered buying was a Macbook Pro for $2,500, your judgement of all future computers would be
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ence of the initial value.

To gain value rapidly, its clear that your associations matter. If you want high social status, you need
to associate with others of high social status and steal a bit of their frame. If you want to be powerful, then you can get started by associating yourself with other powerful people.
Alternatively, if you want to alter the perception of your charges as a service provider, its important
to first create a value anchor. By saying others in the field will charge $6,000 for this, which I feel is
outrageous. I only charge $4,700 you make yourself seem affordable - after all, you dont charge
$6,000.
On the flip side, if you say now, others in the field would try and tell you that this can be done to a
high standard for just $6,000, but this is a case of you get what you pay for. For services, the cost
is $13,700 you re-anchor the price of $6,000 as being equal to cheap and low quality - and your
charge becomes more valuable in the process.
3. We HATE not being paid what were worth, but well do work for free.
When we interact with others, we either do it in the frame of a market norm or a social norm. Market norms include wages, prices, rents, cost benefits, etc and social norms are simple requests that
dont require instant payback.
The best explanation of this is asking Lawyers to provide needy retirees with common services for a
low cost of just $30. Naturally, the Lawyers felt that this was insulting compared to their normal rates
(this is anchoring from The Fallacy Of Supply And Demand in action) and declined.
However, when asked to provide their services for free as a favor, the frame shifted from being a
Market Frame to a Social Frame... and the lawyers accepted.
Want someone to do it? Dont use money - its an expensive motivator. Wherever possible invoke a
social norm to influence someones behavior. If you buy someone a gift, dont talk about its cost (this
includes drinks) as it becomes a sign of worth to the receiver and the giver.
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Either ask for or give it as a favor, or work with market rates (preferably market rates that you anchored advantageously).
4. Emotions Help Us Make Decisions We Normally Wouldnt
No big surprises here. Our decisions, no matter how much we try to deny it, are influenced by emotion. If we can use emotion to influence ourselves (or others) into making decisions, we can be more
influential as a result.
Ariely and a friend, George Loewenstein, created a test to assess the influence of arousal on decision making. Armed with glad-wrapped laptops developed to stimulate sexual arousal distributed to
young men, they identified a (rather unsurprising) truth - when stimulated, young men are more likely
to take actions they normally wouldnt.
If you can drive yourself, or others, to take action by using strong emotions, do it. Its a powerful
way to override the brains analytical approach and inspire them to take a particular course of action.
Powerful emotions include fear, anger and frustration.
5. We Can Stop Procrastination With The Right Motivators
A natural habit of people is to put off the work that they dont want to do for as long as possible. For
some, procrastination has even become an art form. In this section Ariely explores a few approaches
that we could use to decrease procrastination and increase results.
We have two states from which we make decisions - the cold, analytical state and the hot, immediately satisfied state. Ariely states that proper motivators, such as deadlines and penalties, are effective at getting people to hit long-term goals or deadlines. They are even more effective when set by
an authority figure.
Thus, to reduce procrastination you need to increase the stakes.
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Want to get something done? Have the task set by an authority figure or have a penalty in place for
not achieving the goal. An example of this is Stickk.com - an online site for setting the stakes and
deadlines. You can use a service like Stickk.com to bet that youll achieve your goal, and if you fail it
can automatically pay a friend or donate it to a charity you hate.
Use deadlines and penalties to push yourself and get things done.
6. The Power Of Price
Price isnt just an indicator of worth. Its an indicator of the quality we will end up expecting. In this
chapter, Ariely discusses the use of expensive placebos and whether or not they should hold consideration, as well as the mental relationship between monetary cost, role and perception.
One of the heuristics that we employ in our day to day life is price as a sign of quality, although this
isnt always the case. In this chapter we here the story of a 2003 study where more than one-third of
patients who received antibiotics for their sore throat were found to actually have a viral infection...
for which antibiotics does nothing (Side note - antibiotics are only good for bacterial infections, not
viral infections).
Thats the kicker. The medication they paid for, and took, as a treatment for their throat actually had
no effect. They just believed it did because of the price they paid.
Matt Mullenweg, founder of WordPress and Automatic, has been quoted as saying be a painkiller,
not a vitamin.
Theres a strong reason for this. Vitamins are nice to have, but painkillers will be paid for -even if
theyre a placebo.
Your role isnt to help people at a social gathering have more fun - its to overcome the awkwardness
of the situation and make them feel at ease. Your job isnt to help your business optimize the dollars
that its already making - its to stop it losing dollars from the competition. By being perceived as a
painkiller youll be worth more, to more people.
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TL;DR - Predictably Irrational in a Nut Shell

In life youre either the selection or the selector, and in both instances youre going to be at the mercy of the secret agents of influence. By understanding the way that yourself and others are affected
by these secret agents, you stand a better chance of positioning yourself against then.
In this review, Ive outlined what I believe are the top six takeaways from the book. Just implementing one of these could have a massive impact on your business, your ability to get things done,
social life or even current relationship.
When you influence the options, you influence the outcome.
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Courdsourced Reading Project #15
The Year of Living Biblically
Summarized by Luis Fernando ALejos
I never pray but tonight Im on my knees, yeah.

Bittersweet Symphony - The Verve
Spirituality is no laughing matter. Actually, if you think about it: not only does the Holy Spirit manifest
itself within the believer through laughter, but there are many rules found in the Bible that, if observed
today, could be considered outright funny and absurd. A.J. Jacobs knew about the many pitfalls
surrounding biblical literalism, going back to his uncle Gil: At some point along his spiritual path,
Gil decided to take the Bible literally. Completely literally. The Bible says to bind money to your hand
(Deuteronomy 14:25), so Gil withdrew three hundred dollars from the bank and tied the bills to his
palm with a thread. The Bible says to wear fringes on the corners of your garment (Numbers 15:38),
so Gil bought yarn from a knitting shop, made a bunch of tassels, and attached them to his shirt collar and the end of his sleeves.
His premise has current relevance. Millions of Americans say they take the Bible literally, he writes.
According to a 2005 Gallup poll, the number hovers near 33 percent; a 2004 Newsweek poll put it
at 55 percent. A literal interpretation of the Bible --both Jewish and Christian--shapes American policies on the Middle East, homosexuality, stem cell research, education, abortion--right down to rules
about buying beer on Sunday.
Now, Jacobs did not want to attempt biblical literalism for performance theater-like purposes only
(even though he becomes a spectacle in many ways, along this year) or just for the sake of writing
this book; he had deeper motives associated with trying to find meaning in The Bible, throughout the
most widely known rules (love your neighbor, do not steal, honor your parents), as well as those not
only baffling, but federally outlawed. As in: Destroy idols. Kill magicians. Sacrifice oxen. Not only
that: the many contradictory messages, interpretations and rules are part of what the author finds
disconcerting. A merciful, yet also cruel biblical personification of God had swayed him from explor103
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ing The Bible in the past. Im sure most of us have shared (or share) this skepticism and confusion.
Now, his preparation, upon taking on this experiment included:
1. Choosing the appropriate Bible. The first one he picked up was the Revised Standard Version.
Ultimately, Jacobs chose to study from a proverbial stack of Bibles, almost waist high, from
the estimated three thousand English translations available (as well as Bibles friends had sent to
him). The author, to keep it safe, also ordered Bible commentaries, The Bible for Dummies and
The Complete Idiots Guide to the Bible.
2. Discovering the meaning of biblical literalism in practice: To take the Bible literally, by definition, wouldve been misleading, Jacobs writes. As an alternative, he proposed to find the original intent of the biblical rule or teaching and follow that to the letter. Taking figurative passages
aside, he opted to follow the words literally.
3. Obeying the Old Testament, the New Testament, or both: The author split up his experiment: 8
months for Old Testament, and 4 months for the New Testament. He explains that the bulk of the
Bibles rules is found in the Old Testament. Given his Jewish heritage, he felt more comfortable
living and writing about the Old Testament. (Or, as many Jews prefer to call it, the Hebrew Bible,
since old implies outdated, and new implies improved). However, he felt that not exploring the
New Testament would have been to ignore half of the story. Jacobs highlights the sway, both
for the good [...] and, to my secular mind, the notso-good, of the evangelical movement and its
literal interpretation of the Bible.
4. To seek guides during his journey: Jacobs seeks the aid of spiritual advisors in many shapes
and forms: rabbis, ministers, and priests, some of them conservative, some of them one fourletter away from excommunication, in addition to new acquaintances and referrals. Not only
that, he will seek out guides to provide advice and context, groups that take the Bible literally in
their own way: the ultra-Orthodox Jews, the ancient sect of Samaritans, and the Amish, among
others. The author, nonetheless, will let the Bible have the final word, even if it comes down to a
DIY religion type of endeavor.
Now, just following a set of rules was not going to cut it for Jacobs. He aimed at experiencing the
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underlying higher meaning of the rules themselves. As an agnostic, writer and editor of Esquire
magazine, this would prove to be an everyday challenge. He had already experienced brief quasimystical experiences, as he describes them, during his teenage years: The epiphanies would descend
on me without warning: One came while I was lying on a blanket in Central Parks Great Lawn, another while I was riding the bullet train on a family trip in Japan. They were at once utterly humbling
(my life so piddling and insignificant) and totally energizing (but its also part of something so huge).
The glow from these mental orgasms would last several days, making me, at least temporarily, more
serene and Buddha-like.
Jacobs discovers that these divine experiences can be more than a glitch in his brain. Some find
this communion with God or the universe by handling snakes (the author witnesses such an event),
through observing the Sabbath or by simple and honest prayer.
Cafeteria Christianity
One of the writers most predominant hurdles when it comes to the possibility of biblical literalism in
modern times, is where to draw the line. Upon visiting The Creation Museum, and meeting its host,
group called Answers in Genesis, Jacobs discovers boundaries to what people will believe in. A creationist astrophysicist, Jason Lisle, lets him know that hes not geocentric --he doesnt believe the
earth is the center of the universe. Does anyone anymore? I asked. He said, yes, there is a group
called biblical astronomers--they believe the earth is stationary because the Bible says the earth
shall never be moved (Psalms 93:1). Jason considers them an embarrassment. Jacobs writes:
That was something I hadnt expected: moderate creationists who view other creationists as too extreme. But it will turn out to be one of this years big lessons: Moderation is a relative term.
Nearing the end of his biblical year, Jacobs reflects upon a term called Cafeteria Christianity, a
derisive term, he explains, used by fundamentalist Christians to describe moderate Christians. The
idea is that the moderates pick and choose the parts of the Bible they want to follow. They take a
nice helping of mercy and compassion. But the ban on homosexuality? They leave that on the countertop. Some Jews follow this same approach, commanding to follow the complete Torah, not just
the parts that are palatable.
Jacobs comes to the conclusion that this supposed inconsistency is practiced even by fundamentalists. They cant heap everything on their plate. Otherwise theyd kick women out of church
for saying hello (the women should keep silence in the churches. For they are not permitted to
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speak...--1 Corinthians 14:34) and boot out men for talking about the Tenessee Titans (make
no mention of the names of other gods...--Exodus 23:13). Theres nothing wrong with choosing,
Jacobs points out.
Look Beyond The Weirdness

The point of a law, rule or ritual can somehow overshadow it. There were a couple of spiritual retreats
that I took part of, a few years ago, when I remember not getting most of the scheduled activities:
the chanting and yelling, the hysterical reactions of some of the attendees. I did, on one occasion,
fall on my back. The brothers summoned the Holy Spirit and I felt it. I tried to get up, but felt pressure on my chest as if some invincible force was letting me know: its okay, take a breather, rest.
Jacobs experiences, not unlike me, the collective power of a ritual: observing a Jewish holiday, Simchas Torah (as he points out, Its not in the Bible per se but it refers to the end of the annual reading
of the five books of Moses), in a dance-filled-vodka-included celebration like a Seattle mosh pit circa 1992. Though he is not close to his moment of surrender, the writer encounters a breakthrough:
I feel something transcendent, something that melts away the future and the past and the deadlines
and the MasterCard bills and puts me squarely in the moment. His guide for the night comforts him,
when he calls it a night after three hours of dancing: sometimes you have to look beyond the weirdness. Its like the temple in ancient Jerusalem. If you went there, youd see oxen being slaughtered
and all sorts of things. But look beyond the weirdness, to what it means.
Loving Your Neighbor

As I was telling my wife yesterday, one of many ironies found in Jacobss approach: the most widely
known rules are sometimes the hardest to follow. E.g. Love your neighbor as yourself (Leviticus
19:18), as the writer recalls, complex and strange mandates are sometimes thrown together with
simple teachings, which constitute what he calls one of the biggest mysteries of the Bible. How can
these ethically advanced rules and these bizarre decrees be found in the same book? And not just
the same book. Sometimes the same page. The prohibition against mixing wool and linen comes
right after the command to love your neighbor. Its not like the Bible has a section called And Now
for Some Crazy Laws. Theyre all jumbled up like a chopped salad.
Nevertheless, these simple truths are often passed over, lost in-between rhetoric and dogma. Not
only that, it sometimes happens that we commit one sin while trying to avoid others... and thats
okay. The question of authority, after realizing that we pick and choose from the Bible as we see fit,
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arises: doesnt that destroy its credibility?, Jacobs asks. Though there is not one satisfying answer,
to consider that all possible wisdom is found in the Bible, Robbie Harris (one of his rabbi advisors)
makes a point that brings me comfort: If you insist that God revealed himself only at one time, at
one particular place, using these discrete words, and never any time other than that--that in itself is
a kind of idolatry. Jacobs adds:You can commit idolatry on the Bible itself. You can start to worship
the words instead of the spirit. You need to meet God halfway in the woods.
The answers, as it turns out are not always found when and how you expect them, no matter how
literally you read into the questions.
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Courdsourced Reading Project #16
Escape from Cubicle Nation
Summarized by David
Your alarm clock goes off at 7:15 in the morning. You begrudingly swat at it to turn it off. An hour
later, youre in your car and on the way to a job youve done for way too long. You get to work, stare
at your computer for a few hours, and dream about living in Costa Rica until the clock hits 5 pm. Is
this really the way you wanted to live? Do you really want to do this for the next 20 to 30 years? Your
eight-year-old self would be so upset youre stuck in a cubicle all day and not off exploring space or
saving the world from bad guys!
Pam Slim is a lifestyle coach who helps people quit their 9-5 and create your own dream company.
Her book, Escape From Cubicle Nation: From Corporate Prisoner to Thriving Entrepreneur is a wonderful breakdown of the steps involved in quitting a job and creating a business (think Tim Ferriss
4-Hour Workweek, but with more detailed steps as to how to actually create your muse).
Whats the benefit of creating your own company? Well, for you, my fellow friends, it leaves you
more time to sarge on your own schedule. In essence, you get to do things as you want to do them,
without having to answer to all your crazy boss requests (how many more times can you hear you
need to finish another competitive analysis by Thursday?).
Now, in full disclosure, this isnt a cure-all book. A lot of you have the dream of walking up to your
boss, telling him to jump off a tall building, and then, all of the sudden youre sitting on the beaches
of Costa Rica raking in passive income from your cat product business. Well, time for a rude awakening: Creating a business as Pam outlines takes effort. A lot of effort. As Pam says in the intro,
creating a company is, not all glamour and is, a labor of intense love and sweat and patience.
However, while many of you may have the dream of creating a business, very few of you will actually
do it. Why? Because a lot of you are nervous (which is totally normal!). Theres a fear of losing everything, or as Pam mentions, living in a van down by the river. The first step Pam outlines is taming
the wonderful beast of fear. How do we calm this fear? Pam offers a wonderful strategy: treat the
fear as a pet lizard. Acknowledge it, be present in it, and become aware that youre afraid (again, its
only natural). In fact, Pam spends an entire chapter on breaking out of the mental cage of fear with
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some pretty useful exercises. As Pam says, uncertainty is powerful and liberating!
Unsurprisingly, however, there are risks of running your own business, which Pam goes over in detail
in chapter five. Some keys to remember:
Always pay attention to your life purpose and business goals, and re-evaluate regularly so
you dont waste time on unnecessary things (the business-savvy readers know this as preventing scope creep).
Remember that passion is the ingredient to success, so if youre working on something
youre not passionate about, think of something else!
Get very, very focused with your idea -- research and then research again to determine the
who, what, how, why of your business and customers.
As I briefly mentioned above, running a business takes work; youre probably not going to
successfully create a six-figure passive income business in the matter of a few weeks. Patience is a virtue!
Its very, very important to remember that passion doesnt always equate to success, however. As
noted in chapter six of the book, an intense passion for something isnt always a viable business
plan. I have an intense passion for napping and laying on the beach. Could I make a business out of
that? Probably not. It is OK, however, to initially fail as you determine which of your passions would
make a good business. As Wayne Gretzky said, you miss 100% of the shots you dont take. In this
same chapter, Pam also discusses how to shift from a vague business idea to a concrete goal (and
how to sell to clients!).
While you scale your business up, its likely youre going to need some help. As Pam points out,
theres no shame in seeking outside assistance, and, youre not weak if you need people. She
offers tips for finding mentors, recruiting your team, and growing your business into a successful
group venture.
But what do you do once your business is scaled up, you have a team, and your business is a success? Well, you rethink your position within the company! Some of you may be familiar with Tim
Ferriss (who I mentioned above), the popular life hacker who wrote a book that hinged on spending
every waking hour effectively. Pam comes from the same school of thought, and offers words of wisdom on evaluating a location independent lifestyle. She also gives a great example of a successful
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business called Zen Habits that followed these principles.

The second half of the book really focuses on the ins-and-outs of running a successful business.
Topics like, do I really need a business plan? (Hint: not necessarily, but Pam mentions that its vital
to define your target market and niche so you know who youre selling to.) How do I start with protoypes and samples? There are answers and exercises to dozens of in-depth, late-stage business
questions. Truthfully, the later chapters are too detailed to be included in a review, and will likely only
be useful when youve read (and completed the exercises) from the earlier chapters. However, there
is very important advice that Pam mentions in chapter 15 that is relevant at the start of your business
venture: take care of everything before you move into creating your own company full-steam-ahead.
She gives a wonderful analogy: taking care of all the small things before you start your business is
like backing up everything from your computer; its the best way to deal with just in case.
Pam Slims book is an excellent, detailed breakdown of what a reader can expect if they want to
start their own business. Similar to Tim Ferriss 4HWW, its a look inside the life of those that want to
be self-employed (which isnt always glamorous). If youre interested in starting your own company,
I strongly recommend you read Pams book. After all, who wouldnt like to live on a beach and run
their own business?
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The Red Queen
Summarized by Thomas Scott McKenzie
In The Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature by Matt Ridley, we learn that were also
shaped by millions of years of evolution.
Understanding the evolutionary nature of attraction and mating, as well as the correlations in the
animal kingdom, is essential in understanding our own sexual strategies.
According to Ridley, the most powerful tool were evolved when it comes to meeting women is our
mind: Most evolutionary anthropologists now believe outwit and out scheme other men... or because big brains were originally used to court and seduce members of the other sex, he writes.
Why Men Prefer Beautiful Women

Many men tend to think that women in their particular city or country are different and require a
unique seduction strategy. Not only is this not true today, according to the experiences of tens of
thousands of students, but its not true evolutionarily as well. Wherever you go, the game largely
remains the same.
Until very recently the life of a European was essentially the same as that of an African, Ridley
writes. He explains that both groups hunted meat and gathered plants, made tools from the same
materials, utilized complex languages, and raised children in similar manners. Advances such as
metalworking, agriculture, and written language, he continues, arrived less than three hundred generations ago, far too recently to have left much imprint... There is, therefor, such a thing as universal
human nature, common to all peoples.
He cites a study involving more than a thousand subjects in thirty-seven countries. The statistical
evidence revealed that men pay more attention to youth and beauty, women to wealth and status.
These universal principles of selection exist not because human beings around the world are shallow
but because they want to bear as many offspring as possible and have their offspring survive. Thus,
according to Ridley, the male obsession with beautiful women is not so much about form as it is
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about function: Prettiness is an indicator of youth and health, which are indicators of fertility.
Even the saying that gentlemen prefer blondes, Ridley claims, goes back to a correlation between
blondness and youth.
Why Women Prefer High-Status Men

Men have it easier than women in the looks department. In a survey of 200 tribal societies, two
scientists confirmed that the handsomeness of a man depends on his skills and prowess rather than
his appearance, Ridley writes. Study after study has shown that women are attracted to personality,
dominance, and status. In a monogamous society, a woman often chooses a mate long before he
has had a chance to become a chief, and she must look for clues to his future potential rather than
reply only on past achievements, Ridley writes. Poise, self-assurance, optimism, efficiency, perseverance, courage, decisiveness, intelligence, ambition--these are the things that cause men to rise to
the top of their professions. And not coincidentally, these are the things women find attractive.
Why Popularity Matters

Ridley points out that peacocks are among the few birds to gather together in groups for sexual
selection. Scientists call this gathering a lek. The characteristic of the lek is that one or a few males,
usually those that display near its center, achieve the most matings. But the central position of a
successful male is not the cause of his success so much as the consequence: Other males gather
around him.
Elsewhere in the chapter, Ridley writes that in experiments with guppy fish, when a female is allowed
to see two males--one courting a female, the other not--she later prefers the male who was with the
female, even if the courted female is no longer present.
Female competitiveness and social proof--the idea that individuals emulate what they see others in
their peer group doing--seem to be effective, even in the animal kingdom.
Why Women Get to Choose

The instinctual goal for female animals is to find a mate with the genetic makeup necessary to be a
good provider or a good father. Male animals, on the other hand, have a goal of locating as many
wives and mothers as possible.
The reason for these disparate goals is <I>investment<I>. The gender that invests that most in
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children (by carrying a fetus for months, for instance) is the one that has the least to gain from extra
mating. On the other hand, the gender that invests the least in children has the most extra time to
spend searching for additional mates.
These different goals lend a scientific authority to something every man whos entered a singles club
immediately learns: Males compete for the attention of females.
Ridley continues, The males goal is seduction: He is trying to manipulate the female into falling for
his charms, to get inside her head and steer her mind his way. The evolutionary pressure is on him
to prefect displays that make her well disposed toward him and sexually aroused so that he can be
certain of mating.
Ridley examines the mating habits that revolve around peacock tails,deer antlers, swallow tail feathers, and the colors of butterflies and guppies. The bottom line is that females choose; their choosiness is inherited; they prefer exaggerated ornaments; exaggerated ornaments are a burden to males.
That much is now uncontroversial.
For many women, high heels, push-up bras, tight clothing, and waxed body hair are just part of
being fashionable and attractive. If you want to be successful with women, you have to be willing
to carry a similar burden. It may feel unnatural or uncomfortable sometimes, but wearing clothes
that distinguish you from the herd conveys confidence, leadership and individuality (as long as the
clothes arent wearing you). As Ridley puts it, There is no preference for the average.
Why Men Pursue Casual Sex More Than Women

Ridley argues that our different attitudes toward sex are determined by consequences. Historically
speaking, casual sex for a man was a fairly low-risk activity with a huge potential payoff: a cheap
addition of an extra child to his genetic legacy, as Ridley puts it. Men who seized such opportunities certainly left behind more descendants than men who did not. Therefor, since we are by definition descended for prolific ancestors rather than barren ones, it is a fair bet that modern men possess a streak of sexual opportunism.
Conversely, women faced massive risks when it came to casual sex. In the generations before reliable birth control, a married woman could be left with a pregnancy and potential revenge from her
husband. If she was unmarried, then she could be doomed to a life of spinsterhood. These enormous risks were offset by no great reward. Her chances of conceiving were just as great if she re113
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mained faithful to one partner, and her chances of losing the child without a husbands help were
greater. Therefore, women who accepted casual sex left fewer rather than more descendants, and
modern women are likely to be equipped with suspicion of casual sex.
Ridley points to interesting studies that further support his theories on promiscuity, citing research
estimating that 75 percent of gay men in San Francisco have had more than one hundred partners
(25 percent have had more than one thousand), while in contrast most lesbians have had fewer than
ten partners in their lifetime.
Why Men and Women Cheat

One interesting conclusion suggested by Ridleys book is that human beings are naturally monogamous, but theyre also naturally adulterous.
Though Ridley says that women are less inclined toward casual sex, that doesnt men they arent
promiscuous. But their promiscuity often has a purpose. For examples, Ridley looks to the animal
kingdom--specifically to the phenomenon of adultery among colonial birds.
Like many human beings, female colonial birds divide men into two different categories: lovers and
providers. When a female mates with an attractive male, he works less hard and she works harder
at bringing up the young, Ridley writes. It is as if he feels that he has done her a favor by providing superior genes and therefore expects her to repay him with harder work around the nest. This, of
course, increases her incentive to find a mediocre but hardworking husband an cuckold him by having an affair with a supperstud next door.
Ridley closes his discussion of this topic with a crude summary of the hunter-gatherer rules that he
claims still exist deep in the minds of women: It began with a women who married the best unmarried hunter in the tribe and had and affair with the best married hunter, thus ensuring her children a
rich supply of meat. It continues with a rich tycoons wife bearing a baby that grows up to resemble
her beefy bodyguard. Men are to be exploited as providers of parental care, wealth, and genes.
Why Men Like Porn More Than Women

One of Ridleys more interesting asides concerns studies on male and female arousal.
Men are generally aroused by visual images; hence the success of pornography and Maxim. But
what is the equivalent of pornography for women? His answer: romance novels, which have hardly
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varied for decades.

What turns women on in romance novels, however, isnt their descriptions of dashing men or lurid
sex. Sex in romance novels, he explains, is described mainly through the heroines emotional reaction to what is done to her--particularly the tactile things--and not to any detailed description of the
mans body.
The point is that women are aroused through emotional reactions, and the key to these are words
and touch. So to become a master seducer, you must become a master of language and the female
body.
According to another study of heterosexual men and women, men are more aroused by group sex,
while women are more aroused by heterosexual couples. Yet both heterosexual women and men are
aroused by lesbian scenes, while neither is aroused by male homosexual scenes. So if youre one of
those men who thinks that sending a woman a close-up naked picture of his abs or his genitalia to
turn her on, think again.
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Tricks of the Mind
Summarized by Kevin Redmond
Learning is for everyone forever. This book is essentially an autobiography by a fairly well known
British mentalist/hypnotist/magician type guy. As well as the usual information about his childhood
etc. he also reveals the techniques behind his seemingly impossible mental feats. The dedication he
has to honing his craft is immense. It is these parts of the book I will concentrate on, the ones that
are of value to all of us in our daily lives. Covered in this summary are memory techniques, hypnotism and spotting deceptive behavior.
Part 1: Magic
Simple coin trick
Everyone loves a decent trick. A quick one described at the start of the book. Sitting across from the
subject, give them a coin to check it is real and have them place it on the table between the two of
you. You slide the coin to the edge of the table on your side. At this point rather than picking it up,
you let it drop into your lap (the slide and fake pick up is all one fluid movement). However, you act
as if you have picked it up and show the coin to the subject. You then bring your two hands together is some over the top magician way, blow on your hands and Magic! The coin is gone. As they are
checking around for it you discreetly pick it up from your lap and pull it from behind your subjects
ear.
Part 2: Memory
How it works: All of our memories work through using images, color and a combination of humor/
exaggeration. Any time we want to remember something both sides of our brain have to be kept
happy. The left side of our brain likes structure/rules/detail/logic whereas the right hand side of our
brain likes color/imagination.
All of the techniques below use this idea in a myriad of different ways. Images should be vivid - see
the picture clearly in your head once you have decided upon it. Let yourself emotional engage with
the image. If it is amusing, look at it and find it funny. If it is disgusting, actually find it repulsive.
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The elements of the image should interact with each other in some very strange way. A standing
beside B is no good. If A could smack, bugger or dance with B, much better
The image should be unusual. e.g. linking man and cup, the image is more memorable if the man
has fallen into a giant cup and is scrabbling to get out.
The linking System

To remember lists of words, a simple way is to link words together in images. This is best explained
through example. Consider the following list of words, read through them once, slowly and try to
memorize as many as you can in the correct order:
1. Telephone
2. Sausage
3. Monkey
4. Button
5. Book
6. Cabbage
7. Glass
8. Mouse
9. Stomach
10. Cardboard
11. Ferry
12. Christmas
13. Athlete
14. Key
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15. Wingman
16. Baby
17. Kiwi
18. Bed
19. Paintbrush
20. Walnut
Next, get a pen and paper and write them down. The majority of people from 20 words can memorize between 4-10 on average. Now read the following examples of how these words can be linked
together remembering that our brain uses imagery and structure to remember. We will link the first
word to the second, the second to the third. Do not do anything other than read and try to see these
images clearly in your mind.
Telephone/Sausage Trying to dial an old fashioned telephone using flaccid uncooked sausages. Its
utterly impractical to work the dial. It feels revolting and cold to the fingers.
Sausage/Monkey Watching footage from a wildlife documentary of a monkey, in the jungle, cooking
sausages over a barbecue. These are rare monkeys, this is first time they have been captured on film
Monkey/Button You no longer have to spend valuable time doing up your own shirt buttons. You
now have a trained monkey to do it for you. You stand there in your socks and he works away doing
up your buttons.
Button/Book Its a book entirely about buttons, and in order to open it you have to unfasten a line
of big colorful buttons down the side. Hugely impractical marketing gimmick. Makes opening it very
irritating.
Book/Cabbage Opening up a book to have a quiet read at lunch time, only to find that all of the
pages have leaves of rotten stinking cabbage stuck to them. It smells disgusting and the pages are
ruined.
Cabbage/Glass A beautiful but enormous cabbage created out of glass. The artist is proudly showwww.NeilStrauss.com
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ing it off, flicking it with his fingers and making a pinging sound. Everyone is standing around with
glasses of wine appreciating it. Personally, you think its ridiculous.
Glass/Mouse You go to drink a glass of wine, to find that the wine has gone and there is a tiny
mouse at the bottom of the glass. The mouse is clearly drunk and is wearing a party hat with streamers over his shoulder.
Mouse/Stomach Imagine an extremely bad stomach pain which turns out to be a family of mice living in your stomach. They all come streaming out of ass. The relief is horrifying.
Stomach/Cardboard A pregnant lady covering her stomach with cardboard from old boxes. Taping it
around her. Now she feels protected.
Cardboard/Ferry Image the Staten Island ferry sinking into the Hudson river because in a spectacularly misjudged move to save money, the entire boat was manufactured out of cardboard.
Ferry/Christmas A little ferry sat on top of a Christmas tree, perhaps at a school for the hard of hearing. Little streamers around the hull.
Christmas/Athlete Your grandmother on Christmas day having her annual race against Usain Bolt.
Shes doing superbly giving the World Record holder a run for his money.
Athlete/Key The winning athlete is given a 4-foot-long golden key on a ribbon as a prize. She tries to
hold it aloft but it is so heavy she wishes she could just have an ordinary medal.
Key/Wigwam A key hangs unnoticed from the headgear of a Native American Indian who is unable
to get into his wigwam to use the toilet. Hugely frustrating for him. You can see him searching franti-
cally as you watch the key glinting in the sun.
Wigwam/Baby New aged fad, placing your baby to sleep in a wigwam. Imagine a giant baby asleep
inside, snoring, making the sides of the wigwam suck in and blow out.
Baby/Kiwi A baby shoving green furry kiwi fruit into its mouth. One after another. A huge pile of
them waiting to be eaten. Kiwi juice all down his bib, vomiting kiwi everywhere. He loves kiwi fruit.
Kiwi/Bed Tucking up a little Kiwi for the night in a big king-sized bed. Sitting next to it and reading it
a story until it falls asleep.
Bed/Paintbrush Youve changed the dcor of your bedroom and the bed no longer matches. So
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rather than buy new covers, you decide to paint them the same colors as the wall. Sloshing paint
over the entire bed. Watching it go hard and uncomfortable.
Paintbrush/Walnut Not owning a nutcracker youre forced to try and open a huge walnut with a
paintbrush. Youre using the brush end and it isnt working. Theres paint splashing everywhere but
you really want that walnut.
Now grab a pen and paper again and list out the words starting with the first image of the Telephone.....
Did you improve? Try doing it backwards, starting with Walnut....
The Loci System

The Loci method works by attaching images to places along a familiar real-life route you know well.
For instance, imagine walking around your own home, as you walk notice 10 different places, e.g.
hall table, stairs, sofa, TV, fireplace, coffee table, dining room table, piano, cooker, fridge.
Now imagine 10 things that you need to remember to do tomorrow:
Buy stamps
Pick up dry cleaning
Make a particular phone call
Get cell phone fixed
Feed to parrot
Phone dave
Record Luck
Buy useless stuff on ebay
Get haircut
Now begin your Loci route. First thing, buy stamps. Imagine a massive stamp covering the hall table,
how did it even get there, its huge, you start trying to pull it off but its really stuck on there.
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On your stairs you see someone has set up a dry cleaners business. Youre not too happy about it
but maybe youll get yours done for free. Continue this around your route placing images as you go.
When you are finished, retrace your steps and recall what you saw at each location. Your to-do list is
taken care of!
The Peg System

I am going to get straight into this system without the build-up in the book. Numbers are not words
so they cannot be visually linked. However if each number could be represented by a letter and then
a word, you would be able to link away quite happily. Listed below are the words Derren uses for the
digits 0-9. The letters are explained in parenthesizes and the word is formed by adding soft vowels.
These letters for 0-9 are used to build up any amount of words and are used to memorize a full deck
of 52 playing cards.
0 - z/s : zoo (z is in zero and sounds like the number)

1 - l : ale (they look similar)
2 - n : hen (2 downward strokes on the n)
3 - m : ham (3 downward strokes on the m)
4 - r : whore (r sounds like four)
5 - f/v : hive (sounds similar)
6 - b/p : bee (looks similar and b and p look and sound almost the same)
7 - T : tea (looks similar)
8 - ch/sh/j : shoe (because of the gh in eight and then j is the nearest to these
sounds)
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9 - g : goo (looks similar)

Now, as we get into double digits we combine the letters we already know and form
more words:
10 : l & z/s : lice
11 : l & l : lily
12 : l & n : line
13: l & m : lime etc.
This can continue ad infinitum. For example if the 23 thing on your list was a wheelchair
23 : n & m : Nam : Your image might be of the entire Nam war being fought by people in wheelchairs.
When you go to translate your image back into the 23rd word, you think of the war - Nam(23) and
what was happening everyone in a Wheelchair.
Memorizing a deck of cards

If you have continued the above system to 52 numbers you might like to try applying it to memorizing a deck of cards. Each card is first changed into an image and it them interacts with its corresponding position in the deck.
Firstly; converting each card into a word image. Lets say your third card is the nine of hearts (9H).
Firstly you say H9 and use the peg letter for 9....g. You then form a word which could be hag or
hug. We then connect hug with our peg for its position (3 : m: ham). Our image might then be of
hugging a piece of ham as if our life depended on it.
Imagine your forth card is the six of spades (6S).
Reverse 6S = S6
Use peg to create a word : S6 = s + b = sob
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Use peg to code the position : 4 (forth card) = whore

Now link sob (6S) with whore (4): our image of a sobbing whore (come up with your own back
story there!)
So at this point if you needed to know what card is 3rd, you would conjure up an image of yourself
hugging a ham. The hug would then be decoded as hearts/nine and you know the third card was
the nine of hearts. It will take practice but you will not believe how quickly you will get the hang of it.
Face cards do not adhere to this rule but are easily dealt with. E.g.
Ace of hearts = AH : a big love heart
Jack of clubs = JC : young guy at a club
King of spades = KS : head gardener etc.
Importance of reviewing
Any of these images you create in your mind will inevitably fade over time. If there is something you
want to commit to your long term memory, reviewing it is key. You must tell your brain that this information is important and keep the links strong. To review this information, just think it through once
a day to begin with and once every couple of weeks after that. This is done at any time of the day.
Sitting on a bus, walking to work etc. It is a very interesting and fun exercise.
Peg system for remembering numbers
Memorizing a deck of cards
Remembering names
Part 3: Hypnosis & suggestibility
Pacing & leading

Hypnosis is based primarily on the understanding of pacing or feeding back the subjects experience
to her and then leading her to the new desired behavior. A simple example works as follows: as you
X, so you Y. The first piece of behavior X is known to be true, the desired behavior, Y, is connected
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with it as if the two are somehow interdependent.

E.g.
As you sit there and listen to my words, with your eyes closed, feeling your hands there on the arm
of the chair, allowing my words to relax you as your breathing becomes regular and peaceful, Id like
you to let yourself begin to drift away into a kind of sleep.
Everything up to the word chair is simply feedback. The leading is then snuck in along with those
items of pure feedback.
Presupposition
In hypnosis, presupposing something is hugely beneficial. For instance, a sentence such as youll
notice that your eyes start to grow heavy as you listen to me. It presupposes that the eyes are growing heavy and only questions when the subject will happen to notice it.
A nice example of pacing, leading and supposition is the sentence As you sit there I want you to
notice that your body is growing heavy
Tone of voice
Everything must be said with a gentle relaxed tone. If it sounds harsh, you wont be as effective. Do
not fall for the trap of elongating your words to the point where it is a distraction to the subject. Allow
yourself to fully relax as you talk so that the subject naturally relaxes with you.
Use of imagery
Appeal to all senses by referring to things that youd like them to see, hear, feel, smell or even taste.
Be sure to allow the subject to fill the gaps themselves and be careful not to contradict something
about a picture you might have suggested.
Structure
Prepare subject and induce light stages of trance. This may involve the suggestion of eye
closure
Deepen the metaphor such as going down stairs
Carry out your hypnotic work
Fully awaken the subject.
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Part 4: Unconscious Communications

Learning to read people/Spotting lies and giveaway tells
The most common misconception is that people break eye-contact when they lie. Nonsense: people
break eye contact all the time. When looking for deceit, you are looking for a change in behavior.
Firstly, it is necessary to watch a person in a state of disengagement. This will establish a baseline.
Without this appreciation of the persons normal behavior, it is impossible to note important changes. For example, if a person is already swinging his foot back and forth, it may be the ceasing of the
swinging that suggests a significant response to a question. There are three ways to spot deceit: by
looking at non-verbal language, verbal language, and by measuring small physiological responses
such as increases in blood-pressure, heart-rate and sweating of the palms.
Head and Face

This is often the worst place to look for signs for what is going on beneath the words. Generally
people are quite good at controlling their facial expressions. The commonly asserted view that a
smile is not genuine unless the eyes are involved is true. But this can be missed unless a person is
highly trained to spot it.
Hands
People can sometimes unconsciously point to themselves when telling a story. For instance, imagine a person is talking about a problem at work as he says I dont know what the problem is he
gestures to himself. This might suggest that he unconsciously feels he is the source of the issue, in
which case he may very well be.
Feet and legs

A person may start tapping their feet as a sign that they want to get away. Watch also for the sudden crossing and uncrossing of feet when significant subjects are brought up. A person may sound
uninterested in you, but if her feet are a little turned out towards you, especially when coupled with a
slight turn of the hands towards you which exposes the wrists, the chances are that she is very open
to you indeed.
Blinking
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These tiny movements seem to correlate to the amount of mental stress we are experiencing and
the frequency of our blinking shows the speed at which we are processing information. In a normal
conversation where the other person is attuned to you, he will blink at roughly the same rate as you,
often at moments when you pause in your speech. When they have to engage in a lot of cognitive
work in his head - for example, to work out a lie - that blink rate will normally increase.
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The Fountainhead
Summarized by Pnelly
There are very few guideposts in life, The Fountainhead is one of them and will strengthen your
core belief system. Written in 1943 by Ayn Rand, this was her first literary success. More than 6.5M
copies have been sold, bringing her fame and fortune. It transcends time and you will feel like a better person after reading this book.
12 different publishers rejected her, before a young editor risked his job to get this book printed. Society as a whole gave mixed reviews, she gained a cult following by word of mouth, and a Hollywood
film was produced.
If youre fighting for something, and need a little reaffirmation that what you believe and stand for is
right, this book will give you the confidence to stay the course.
Human Progress
Mans ego is the fountainhead of human progress.
It is not the nature of any living thing to start out by giving up.
Giving up requires a process of corruption, pressure or pain. Some give up at the first sign of pressure, some sell out because its easier, and some just lose their fire and never get it back. This lack
of self-esteem and motivation drains the collective society, even though it is society that betrays us
into believing it is better to blend in and not make noise.
Fountainhead is a confirmation of the spirit of youth, proclaiming mans glory, showing how much is
really possible Embrace the creativity and desire to achieve that we were born with, we will make a
difference in the world of human progress.
Cast of Characters
Ayn Rand dives deep into the characters, intentionally, so that you dont have time to notice the life
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conscious.
The interaction between the characters is also instructional, going into great detail of work and personal interactions, hidden and unspoken events and ulterior motives.
Her ideal man: Howard Roark. After Howard gets expelled from architecture school for drawing
outside of the lines, he sets off on the most difficult career path possible. He deliberately seeks an
architect that he admires for his modernistic and original approach, though hes been disgraced and
outcast. He hops between lowly jobs when his idol goes out of business, is frequently out of work
and forced to live in poverty or hard labor, and suffers greatly at the hands of society because he
refuses to conform to tradition-worship.
Roark is the central figure in the book, and every other character introduced gets put on a comparative mini-trial for their integrity and independent-mindedness.
Second-handers are the followers not the creators, and they either assist or hinder his progress,
or both. Roark is a prime mover, or what we would call a first mover today. He sets out to achieve
pure art in everything he touches and never strays.
One constant suck on Howards life is Peter Keating. We all know a Peter; he is the company man,
the boot lick who gets ahead by selling out. Top of his class, handsome, slick and all faade, Peter
is a guy we want to tussle with quickly. Peter also has friends, and his over bearing mom at his side,
and they all play the game.
Toohey writes in a popular newspaper, and is a very opinionated blowhard. Unfortunately, he is gaining the power of the mob (society). If Toohey says its so, it must be so, especially in architecture. All
the weak-minded businessmen and rich women that attend important fakey galas and charity balls
listen to what this outspoken socialist has to say. Toohey knows he can manipulate Peter, but not
Howard, so he sets out to destroy Howard Roark.
At one point, Toohey asks: Why dont you tell me what you think of me? To which, Roark replies:
But I dont think of you.
To the rescue come a few new characters, one may be Ayn Rands ideal woman? Dominique Francon. Described as the woman for a man like Howard Roark. She is a stunningly beautiful woman,
sexy as hell, smart as a whip, and a thorn in her big daddys side. (Her dad, Guy, is a big time architect that wants to eventually hand over his firm to Peter) She has no problem backing Roarks work,
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because she is sick of the status quo and no one else can measure up to her standards.
Her first encounter with Roark is a battle of wills, and ends up in a power struggle, with her giving in
to what was called at the time a rape scene. I didnt realize it was rape while I was reading it, but was
definitely aware of the vivid nature of the writing. Sex is sprinkled liberally through out the book.
A second friend to Howard is Gail Wynand. He is the owner and editor-in-jefe of the newspaper that
Toohey writes for. He meets Roark independently of Dominique and Peter, even though there is a gigantic love rectangle going on. Wynand and Roark are kindred spirits, they both have stood for what
they believe in, both have strong wills, and both came from nothing.
In the end Wynand has to give up his close friendship with Howard because he realizes he is at the
mercy of the people, the mob that reads his newspaper. His efforts to support what he believes in,
which is Howards work, fails because he has to chose his business over his beliefs. He sells out.
Shameful, and the description of him is even worse than that of Peters.
Lessons/Life Parallels
My life lesson, right now, during an early stage technology startup is to stick out the tough times.
There is always a limit to what we can bear as humans: cost, essential items, family life, safety, security, material things and more. But if you believe in something so strongly, so strongly that if you gave
it up it would haunt you for the rest of your life, push on.
This book came to me when I needed it most, the Universe provided it for me. I will work towards the
goal of ultimate success, I will be Howard Roark among a sea of second-handers, and I will create
pure art as I see it.
Thought Provoking
What do you care about so strongly that would make you stand up and give everything youve got?
If you dont have something that drives you like this, why not? What are your goals, dreams, what do
you want to be when you grow up?
Prime Mover
Or First Mover is a lifestyle choice. It is an advantage gained by the first person to do something different. Think about meeting the opposite sex, on a chance first encounter making a great first im129
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pression could mean everything. Think about business. If you or your business is not creating a first
mover advantage, why will anyone care about you? And why wouldnt you seek out the big bucks
and exclusive status that is usually linked to owning a space or product category. Of course it can
also get bloody, being the first to break through a wall or barrier.
First Movers create the world around us. Its not easy, but its worth it, and someone has to do it!
(Inspiration from a plaque found at Epcot, in Walt Disney World below)
Objectivism
A philosophy for living on Earth, grounded in reality, and aimed at defining a mans nature and the
nature of the world in which he lives:
My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own
happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest
activity, and reason as his only absolute. - Ayn Rand
You can imagine how society might react to this statement 60-70+ years ago. Every belief system on
the planet has been compared to how Ayn Rand sees the world. Ethically, politically, metaphysically,
aesthetically, intellectually, and every other ally which is a separate subject unto itself.
Instructive
There is an underlying education of architecture within the analogies and ideas she expresses. Comparing the old way of doing things, to the new, modern way that things could be done better and
show progress.
It was said that Roark was based on American architect Frank Lloyd Wright. Roark believes that
buildings should be sculpted to fit their location, local materials, and purpose elegantly and efficiently, instead of copying or basing design on historical convention. No cookie-cutter homes or cube
farms.
Ending
The end occurs in a courtroom because Roark took the ultimate stand, and blew up a building that
he designed. As part of the jury, I deemed him innocent as he had every right to destroy his work
after it was altered to conform to an acceptable standard without his approval.
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This courtroom setting provides great meaning and makes a lot of sense. It is Roarks trial for his life
and the way he wants to live it. We are all defending our individualistic rights at one time or another,
and to most of us it feels like the weight of the judicial system and more is on our backs. Roark delivers an academy award winning testimony, one man against the system, which shows if you prepare
your stance and it makes sense at the basic level of the argument, no one can dispute the way you
want to live your life.
Roark is the human spirit personified, his struggle represents the triumph of individualism over collectivism. We all want to be him, or at least take a few lessons from him, and shape the world with
our own hands.
The Fountainhead is a great lead-in to Ayn Rands Atlas Shrugged. Another great piece of literature
that goes even further into the powerful forces at work against our instinctual desire to create, stand
out, and make a difference in our lives.
--About the author of this review: PNelly spends his days designing, engineering, and manufacturing
consumer electronics, and has participated in many recognizable and revolutionary products.
Not everyone got his or her names in Steve Jobs book
You can find him @JPNelly
Ludic City, Silicon Valley
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The Now Habit
Summarized by Rob
What it lacks in...ehm, graphic swing The Now Habit makes up in constructive content about procrastination. The underlying theme that really sets this book apart is the emphasis on understanding
why we create the need to procrastinate instead of jumping to instant-solutions.
The Now Habit is a method, with practical insights to change individual aspects of yourself in each
chapter. There is quite some soul searching to be done before your procrastination-weapons are
battle-ready. So lets get to it.
Why We Procrastinate
For a big reward:
Procrastination is rewarding, it rewards us with temporary relief from stress. The more you feel that
endless work deprives you of the pleasure of leisure time, the more you will avoid work. It is double
rewarding if the work we thought we had to do later proves to be unnecessary.
To be a powerful victim:
I have to pay the bills or go to jail, I have to give up my vacation or lose my job. If you feel like a
victim whose life is controlled by others who make the rules, saying I have to reaffirms your refusal to accept the rules. As a powerless victim you feel you cant openly rebel, because that would
mean risking the probable consequences (anger and punishment) as well as losing the side benefits
of the victim role. (self- righteousness and martyrdom). By procrastinating, you temporarily, secretly
dethrone this authority. You can resist by dragging your feet and giving a halfhearted effort to gain
some power and control over your life.
When being too successful (the pole-vaulter syndrome)
Imagine: you work long and hard for a very difficult goal, such as pole-vaulting sixteen feet. Youre
terribly afraid of failing, but the pressure of the crowd and your own expectations push you to try
harder. Barely making the jump and somehow making it over the bar, the applause of the crowd lasts
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for a few seconds, and then theyre raising the bar to sixteen feet, six inches. And then some more,
until you got no more reserves left. Success raises the anxiety that still more is going to be expected
in the future but procrastination gives some protection against that threat. Fiore calls this the fear of
delayed failure.
How We Procrastinate
Monitor yourself
Knowing how you procrastinate is even more important than knowing why. You can use your awareness of negative patterns to redirect your energy toward forming positive habits. Identifying how you
go about doing anything is essential to improving your performance.
Create a procrastination log
Procrastinate at your normal level for another week. Observe yourself without judgements. Where is
your time going? What are you doing when youre really productive? Dont judge yourself or analyze
your behavior. Concentrate on becoming aware of your current behavior patterns. Divide your day
into three or four segments, for example: morning, afternoon, and evening to better assess when you
are the most and the least productive. Record the time spent on each activity throughout your day.
Getting aware
Your procrastination log will alert you to your inner dialogue and how it is helping or hindering your
goal achievement. Awareness of you inner dialogue and how it connects to your procrastination patterns will allow you to get the most out of the Now Habit.
Exercise: Walking the Plank

Situation A: The task before you is to walk a solid board, thirty feet long, four inches thick, one foot
wide. You have all the physical, mental and emotional capabilities necessary to perform this task.
You can carefully place one foot in front of the other, or you can dance, skip, or leap across the
board. You can do it. No problem.
Situation B: Add two buildings and raise up the board between them by 100 feet. Imagine how the
difference in attempting to walk the same board makes you feel;
Situation C: Add some heat behind you, the building supporting your end of the board is on fire!
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Imagine the added feelings the situation creates.

When you procrastinate, its as if you are the one raising the board off the ground, getting yourself
frozen, and then lighting that fire to create the pressure of a real deadline.
Understanding the stages:
First, you give a task or a goal the power to determine your worth and happiness (getting this task,
dating this person will change my life and make me happy)
Second, you use perfectionism to raise the task 100 feet above the ground (any mistakes would be
tantamount to death).
Third, you find yourself frozen with anxiety as your natural stress response produces adrenaline to
deal with threats to your survival.
Fourth, you then use procrastination to escape your dilemma (which brings the deadline closer, creating time pressure, anxiety and threat of imperfect work).
Fifth and last stage, you use a real threat such as a fire or a deadline to release yourself from perfectionism and to act as a motivator.
Situation D: Youre back on the board again, 100 feet above the ground and still frozen by procrastination. But this time theres no fire, only a strong, supportive net, just three feet beneath the board.
You now know that if you fall the worst that could happen is that you might feel a little embarrassed.
Falling no longer means death. Youll need a positive self-statement that will give you the ability to
recover from any mistake, say to yourself: Whatever happens I will survive. I will find a way to carry
on. I will not let this be the end of the world for me. I will find a way to lessen the pain in my life and
maximize the joy.
Talking to Yourself
Five self-statements that distinguish procrastinators from producers:
1. Negative thinking of I have to.
Replace with: I choose to.
Choose to work, or accept responsibility for choosing to delay, shift from a negative thought to an
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attitude of choice and power.

2. Negative thinking of I must finish.
Replace with: When can I start?
Finishing is in the vague distance, replace agitated energy with a clear focus on what can be tackled
now.
3. Negative thinking of This project is so big and important. Replace with: I can take one small
step.
When feeling overwhelmed, remember: one small step, one rough draft, one small hello. You can
never build a house at once. All you can do now is pour the concrete, hammer a nail, raise a wall.
One small step at a time.
4. Negative thinking of I must be perfect.
Replace with: I can be perfectly human.
As you learn to expect and accept imperfect early steps on your projects, youll build in the persistence of a producer, and youll be better prepared to bounce back because youll have a safety net
of compassion (because of your courageous efforts to create real, imperfect work).
5. Negative thinking of I dont have time to play.
Replace with: I must take time to play.
Insisting on your regular time for exercise, dinners with friends, and breaks/vacations you increase
feelings of inner worth and respect for yourself that are at the heart of unlearning the need for procrastination.
Reprogram confusing and counterproductive statements with powerful focus:
I choose to start on one small step, knowing I have plenty of time for play.
The Importance of Play

Through play we learn the physical, mental, and social skills necessary for adult life. With toys and
imagination children create scenarios that prepare them for work, relationships, and conflict.
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Adults use these skills learned in childhood to work alone and sit still for hours in front of a computer
terminal, a drafting desk, or an accounting ledger. They call upon the mental and physical states of
concentration and creativity that were learned decades earlier while playing in the security of the
home. Later in life they will need these experiences to face tasks that require persistent problemsolving and the risk of mistakes and rejection.
Overcoming Blocks to Action

Tools to combat the three major fears that block action and create procrastination:
1. Three-dimensional thinking and the reverse calendar, to combat the terror of being overwhelmed.
3D Thinking
Tackling any large project requires an overview of its size, length and breadth so that you can plan
the direction you will take and decide when and where you will start. It is the opposite of having your
nose up against a skyscraper with the expectation that you have to get to the top in one exhausting
leap. You will experience stress and anxiety when your body tries to be in several places at once.
The Reverse Calendar

The reverse calendar starts with the ultimate deadline for you project and moves back, step by step,
to the present where you can focus your energy on starting.
2. The work of worrying, to tackle the fear of failure and the fear of being imperfect
Worrying can warn you of danger and evoke action to prepare for that danger. Respect your ability to
worry as a means to alert you to potential danger. You need to do the work of worrying to direct the
energy of worry and panic into plans to remove the threat. Ask yourself these six questions as part of
your work of worrying:
What is the worst that could happen?
What would I do if the worst really happened?
How would I lessen the pain and get on with as much happiness as possible if the worst
did occur?
What alternatives would I have?
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What can I do now to lessen the probability of this dreaded event occurring?
Is there anything I can do now to increase my chances of achieving my goal?
True confidence is the ability to say, I am prepared for the worst, now I can focus on the work that
will lead to the best.
3. Persistent starting, to tackle the fear of not finishing
Prepare challenges to Negative Statements and Attitudes.
I need to do more preparation before I can start.
Be alert to when preparation becomes procrastination. Theres work involved in trying to escape
through procrastination. So why not choose the work of taking one more step forward?
At this rate Ill never finish.
The rate of learning and accomplishment in the beginning of a project is often slower than youre accustomed to. Remember that later on, when you are more familiar with the subject matter and more
confident in your new situation, it will go faster.
I should have started earlier.
You got started and you need to appreciate that. Make sure you reward every step of progress, regardless how small and keep your commitment to guilt free play.
Theres only more work after this.
Keep this work separate from your decision about future projects. Avoid feelings of have to and
victimhood about work that isnt even here yet. You are in control of when you will face the next
piece of work.
Its not working.
Rather than hoping for a perfect path with no problems, you can maintain a resolute commitment to
make things work on this path. As a producer, you are focusing on the desired results and making
this path work for you.
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I only need a little more time.

You may find it difficult to accept that others do not hold your high standards of quality. You must
learn to tolerate the anxiety and risks of finishing even though you know your work isnt perfect.
Acknowledge that valuable time is wasted on polishing in an attempt to ensure perfection. Get your
work out there - out of the fantasy stage and into the real world.
Keep on starting, and finishing will take care of itself. When youre afraid of finishing, keep asking,
When can I start?
The Unschedule
In case nobody told you, theres no such thing as a life of complete play. Trying to escape work by
procrastinating will only increase your anxiety; only work will diminish your anxiety. Neither chocolate chip cookies nor TV will lessen tension about a overwhelming task, starting work will. The book
works a little bit towards the Unschedule, it is a great tool to work with if you understand previous
chapters about why and how you procrastinate.
A system built on reversed psychology:
Do not work more then twenty hours a week on this project.
Do not work more than five hours a day on this project.
You must exercise, play, or dance at least one hour a day.
You must take at least one day a week off from any work.
Aim for starting on thirty minutes of quality work.
Work for an imperfect, perfectly human first effort.
Start small.
Steps on how to use the unschedule:

1. Schedule only:
previously committed time such as meals, sleep, meetings;
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free time, recreation, leisure reading;

socializing, lunches and dinners with friends;
health activities such as swimming, running, tennis, working out at the gym;
routine structured events such as commuting time, classes, medical appointments;
do not schedule work on projects!
Fill in your Unschedule with as many non-work activities as possible. It will help you overcome the
fantasy that you have twenty-four hours a day and forty-eight hours on the weekends to work on
your projects. It will sharpen your perception of actual time available.
2. Fill in your Unschedule with work on projects only after you have completed at least one-half hour
of quality work.
Think of the Unschedule as a time clock that you punch in as you start work and punch out when
you take credit for your progress. Maintain an excitement about how much youve accomplished in a
short period of time.
3. Take credit only for periods of work that represent at least thirty minutes of uninterrupted work.
Do not record the time on your Unschedule if you stop before thirty minutes are up. When you stay
with the discipline of uninterrupted work, you really know that the half hour you earned on your Unschedule represents quality work, not trips to get potato chips or to make calls.
4. Reward yourself with a break or a change to a more enjoyable task after each period worked.
You deserve it. You got started! And by overcoming inertia, you have begun to build momentum that
will make it easier to get started next time. With rewards for each positive achievement you create
positive associations with work instead of negative ones.
5. Keep track of the number of quality hours worked each day and each week.
Total them up. Emphasize what you did accomplish. This is rewarding in itself and establishes a
positive pattern by following work with a pat on the back.
6. Always leave at least one full day a week for recreation and any small chores you wish to take care
of.
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Avoid the feeling of resentment and the burnout that can come when there are no holidays because
of work. This day is essential for rejuvenation and maintaining creativity and motivation.
7. Before deciding to go to a recreational activity or social commitment, take time out for just thirty
minutes of work on your project.
Grandmas principle: You can get your ice cream only after you eat your spinach. Or, as Fiore explains: Any pleasurable or frequent activity you engage in has the power to create motivation for the
activity it follows.
8. Focus on starting.
Your task is to get to the starting place on time. Replace all thoughts about finishing with thoughts
about when, where, and on what you can start.
9. Think small
Do not aim to finish a book, write letters, complete your income tax. Aim for thirty minutes of quality,
focused work
10. Keep starting.
Finishing will take care of itself. When it is time to start the last thirty minutes that will finish the project, that too will be an act of starting. If you must worry, worry about starting. In order to finish all
you have to do is to just keep starting!
11. Never end down.
That is, never stop work when youre blocked or at the end of a section. Remember Grandmas principle: to create good habits your breaks and treats must follow some work. No treats until you face
what youve been avoiding. Always stay with a tough spot for another five or ten minutes, trying to
come up with at least a partial solution that you can pursue later.
A last Word
Experiment with the above techniques, avoid statements such as Ill try it or Its not working,
which reveal a testing attitude rather than a firm commitment. The feeling behind Ill try is that you
will make a halfhearted effort and then fail. Defeatist statements such as Its not working mean
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solved, and that you are likely to rely on your old attempted solution, procrastination to escape fear
and discomfort. How can I make this work for me? reflects a greater commitment and drive toward
success. Get in touch with your own abilities, motivation and inner genius and look forward to having
a positive attitude toward work, control over procrastination, resiliency against setbacks, and a new
identity as a producer!
PS:
Note from the reviewer: when you start your project and work from home. Change your view, literally!
I have a great library nearby in Amsterdam with a view thats superior to the one in my small apartment. I kept pushing this review forward to the point it just became too embarrassing, but when I
took a friday afternoon and saturday (today) off to really focus on it I nearly finished the whole thing
in less then 2 days. And Im convinced the view (and the additional light) worked wonders. So, find a
big building with a view to start your next project!
PPS:
Chapters I didnt summarize:
In my opinion these are great follow ups for previous chapters, but a bit too in-depth for this summary. Of course if people want to read more about certain chapters I will make an effort!
Chapter 7. Working in the flow state
The flow state focuses on a method that teaches you how to reach a natural level of calm, focused
energy and attention we experience in shifts during the day. Fiore explains a lot about relaxation exercises and other ways in creating this state for yourself.
Chapter 8. Fine-tuning your progress
More powerful techniques for overcoming the setbacks and obstacles to your progress from procrastinator to producer.
Chapter 9. The procrastinator in your life
Here Fiore explains how to live, work, and relate to individuals whose own problems with procrastination affect us negatively.
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Switch
Summarized by Alexis
How to change things, when change is hard...

That is a great question often unanswered.
And too many guys give up at the first sign of a setback.
Switch is a very valuable book... but it is also usable in every aspect of our lives (socially, physically,
psychologically...)
It covers a bunch of personal development concepts and Chip and Dan Heath make them crystal
clear to understand.
They also share helpful tips to motivate you instantly and show you how to trick yourself into success.
We all know that change is hard.
And this book is the perfect starting point to help every one of us who wants a change in his life.
For things to change, somebody somewhere has to start acting differently.
They came up with 3 surprises about change:
What looks like a resistance is often a lack of clarity
What looks like laziness if often exhaustion
What looks like a people problem is often a situation problem
From these 3 statements Heath Brothers, will break down the whole book.
And we are going to use this analogy: We have an emotional Elephant side and a rational Rider side.
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And weve also got to clear the way for them to succeed.
In short, we must do three things:
1. Direct the Rider (rational brain) : Provide crystal-clear direction

2. Motivate the Elephant (emotional brain) : Engage peoples emotional side
3. Shape the path: Make it easier to have the right behavior
So, how to do that?
1. Direct the Rider

Show him where to go, how to act, what destination to pursue.
1.1 Find the Bright Spots

The question is simple here: What is working right now and how can we do more of it ?
But for us, weird human beings, we are wired on the negative. We see the negative side and focus
on it. We have to make an intellectual effort to shift our awareness on the positive.
So investigate on whats working already and clone it.
From my own experience, a set of very powerful coaching questions look like this:
What have you already tried to solve your problem and had a meaningful impact?
How can you do more of it?
How can you replicate that?
You will have aha moment from that.

These flashes of success - these bright spots - can illuminate the road map for action and spark the
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hope that change is possible.

Ask yourself: What Ive already tried to solve my problem and worked? And how can I do more of it?
1.2 Script the Critical Moves

This is a key chapter and the easiest to implement.
The more choices the rider is offered, the more exhausted the rider gets
Dont be stuck in decision paralysis.
More options can freeze us.
Ambiguity is our enemy.
Because, change brings new choices that create uncertainty, and when the road is uncertain the
Elephant (emotional brain) is anxious.
When you want someone to behave in a new way, explain the new way clearly. Dont assume the
new moves are obvious. Any successful change requires a translation of ambiguous goals in to concrete behaviors.
You dont ask them to eat healthier. You say, Next time youre in the dairy aisle of the grocery store,
reach for a jug of 1% milk instead of a whole milk.
So in order to avoid decision paralysis and kill ambiguity: script the critical moves.
Because clarity dissolves resistances.
Dont think big picture, think in terms of specific behaviors.
Behavioral goals are more effective than any other kind of goal
As Tony Schwartz says: plan your new ritual in details.
1.3 Point to the Destination

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If you want people to change, you must provide a crystal-clear direction.

Change is easier when you know where youre going and why its worth it.
Crystal Jones joined Teach For America in 2003. She was assigned to teach the first-grade class at
tan elementary school in Atlanta. At the beginning of the school year, she announced a goal for her
class that she knew would captivate every student: By the end of this school year, youre going to be
third graders.
You know the feeling you get when youre admiring the grace and power of an Olympic athlete?
Thats the feeling first graders get about thirds graders. And by the end of the year 90% were reading at or above a third-grade level.
To a first grader, becoming a third grader in nine months is a gut-smacked goal.
This goal directs the rider and motivates the elephant.
To the rider, analyzing phase is often more satisfying than the doing phase and thats dangerous for
your switch. Anyone else feels targeted?
Goal often lacks emotional resonance.
SMART goals have become the norm. It is still a great cure for the worst sin of goal setting: ambiguity and irrelevance. But they will not fit for change behavior. If you want to motivate the elephant you
cant bank on SMART goal...
You need a gut-smacking goal, one that appeals to both Rider and Elephant.
As Jim Collins says, in Built To Last: find your BHGA - Big Hairy Audacious Goal
2. Motivate the Elephant

Self-control is a limited resource.
2.1 Find the Feelings

Knowing something isnt enough to cause change. Make people feel something.
The core of the matter is always about changing the behavior of people, and behavior change happens in highly successful situations mostly by speaking to peoples feelings. In highly successful
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change efforts, people find ways to help others see the problems or solutions in ways that influence
emotions, not just thought.
If we dont find the feeling, the why of our change: we will never change. We will never get the desired outcomes, we will never get the girl we deserve, we will never be able to be appreciated for
what we do and it will be impossible to achieve our goals.
On the other hand, if we can imagine the feeling of control and power we will have or feel the fear,
anxiety or doom of our inaction, we will instantly feel motivated to change, to move away from our
worst scenario, move towards our goals and take massive action.
If necessary we need to create a crisis to convince people theyre facing a catastrophe and have no
choice but to move.
From what Ive seen so far in my life: People tend to find the courage to change only after an emotional cataclysm.
There is no question that negative emotions are motivating. If we need a quick and specific action,
then negative emotions might help.
Ive seen that Tim Ferris imagine the worst case scenario if he doesnt act, simply to find the motivation.
Positive emotions does not trigger strong emotions like: fleeing or avoiding. But positive emotions
broaden and build.
So, you must provide hope and motivation.
To apply the idea : ask you why you want the desired outcomes and what is going to happen if you
do not act.
2.2 Shrink the Change

Break down the change until it no longer spooks the Elephant.
One way to motivate action is to make people feel as though theyre already closer to the finish line
than they might have thought.
That sense of progress is essential, because the elephant in us is easily demoralized. Its easily
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spooked so it needs reassurance, even for the very first step of the journey.
Remind you whats already been conquered.
A business clich commands us to raise the bar. But thats wrong if you want to motivate a reluctant
elephant. The elephant hates doing thing with no immediate pay off.
Make the start easy.
Example: Im just going to clean my room for 5 minutes. Im just gonna run for 10 min.
Make the change small enough so you cant help but score a victory.
Hope is precious to change effort. Its elephant fuel.
Once people are on the path and making progress, its important to make their advance visible.
Small targets lead to small victories, and small victories can often trigger a positive spiral of behavior.
With each step the elephant feels less scared and less reluctant, because things are working. With
each step, the Elephant starts feeling the change. A journey that started with a dread is evolving
toward a feeling of confidence and pride.
Important: make the start easy.
2.3 Grow your people

Cultivate a sense of identity and instill the growth mindset.
Inspire them to be more determinate, more ready, more motivated. And when you build people up in
this way, they develop the strength to act.
If you dont develop and grow your identity you will never change your self-image. On the other hand
if you grow your personality you will trigger decisions and action that lead to your goal.
You must build a new identity.
Because identities are central to the way people make decisions, any change effort that violates
someones identity is likely doomed to failure. So the question is: How can you make your change a
matter of identity rather than a matter of consequences?
At Lovelace Hospital Systems in Albuquerque the turnover rata among its nurses was terrible (30%
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per year). So they start to develop a new orientation program that stressed the inherently admirable
nature of nursing work. They created mentorship programs to help nurses improve their knowledge
and skills.
The first hint that something had changed was evident on the annual employee satisfaction survey.
And then the turnover decreased and the patient satisfaction increased.
They cultivated professional pride in nurses.
Fixed Mindset VS Growth Mindset
So to change, you need to become a new you. To have a new identity, new behaviors, new habits...
There is problem, though. Its awfully hard.
As Carol Dweck said, you need to develop a growth mindset instead of a fixed-mindset. Because
you cant learn without failing. You cant change without failing. And the elephant really hates to fail.
The answer sounds strange: you need to create the expectation of failure en route.
People with a fixed-mindset try to get it right on the first try, tend to avoid challenge and fear failure.
But the most effective team tends to adopt a learning frame.
If you want to reach your full potential you need a growth mindset. You will then focus on learning.
All the studies in Carol Dwecks book (Mindset) shows that successful people have a growth mindset.
The elephant has to believe thats capable of conquering the change.
Adopt a growth mindset and learn by action.
My personal understanding of this part (if I can add my personal point of view, in the middle of the
genius) is summarized by the formula: success = failure + rectifications.
And as Im writing this summary, I just had this insight: What was not me must become the new
me.
3. Shape the path

If you want people to change, you can provide clear direction (Rider) or boost their motivation or
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determination (Elephant). Or you can make the journey easier. Remove some friction from the trail. In
short, you can shape the path.
3.1 Tweak the Environment

When the situation changes, the behavior changes. So change the situation.
Eben Pagan explains that to build his habit to drink 50cl of water every morning, he simply put the
bottle in the sink of the bathroom the day before.
Example to tweak your environment:
Have a laptop you use only to work (no Wi-Fi, no browser)
Download a plugin like StayFocusd to prevent you to go on specific website that kill your
productivity.
Download GymPact on your iPhone
Make bad behavior impossible. Make the desired behavior inevitable.

Simply tweaks of the path can make dramatic changes in behavior.
To apply the idea: trick yourself to make the behavior inevitable
3.2 Build habits

Habits are behavioral autopilot.
When behavior is habitual, its free--it doesnt tax the Rider.
Look for ways to encourage habits.
We are going to see 2 tools:

Use the humble checklist. Checklists make big screwups less likely. It just works. So use
it.
Set Action-triggers: you will preload a decision and you will make an instant habit. I finish
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my dinner, I brush my tooth. She gave me 3 indicators of interest, I make her a compliment.
When I remove my suit and tie, I put a short and go for a run. After a coffee break, I call 5
clients.
Action-triggers are most effective in the most difficult situations - the ones that are most draining to
the Riders self control.
The action-trigger help make the behavior habitual.
At the end, the more instinctive a behavior becomes, the less self control from the rider it requires,
and thus the more sustainable it becomes.
To apply the idea : use checklist and action-triggers
3.3 Rally the Herd

Its easier to persevere on a long journey when you rally the herd.
When you are in a new place (new country, first time at church, special dinner...) , youre not sure
how to behave so you watch other people.
We all want to wear the right clothes, to say the right things, to frequent the right places, because we
instantly try to fit in with our peer group, behavior is contagious. (Thats why barista seed the tip jar
before opening)
The Elephant constantly looks to the herd for cues about how to behave.
Behavior is contagious. Help it spread.
To implement the idea: you can hang out with people who already reached your goal, join a club or
have a mentor/coach.
Keep the switch going

To sum up, paraphrase and be clear:
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Set specific behavioral goals

Find your why and make the start easy
Set up your environment so you can help but succeed
The book is full of examples in the real world. And full of tricks, techniques and strategies to change
for the long run.
Use them to get the change you want in your social, professional and personal life.
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Self Reliance
Summarized by Nathaniel Kelley
Philosopher and poet Ralph Waldo Emerson first published his perennial essay Self-Reliance in
1841. Part of the American Transcendentalist, argued for individualism and questioning of societys
norms. Many intertwined philosophical roots from The Game, pop Buddhism, and the counter-culture can be found in Self-Reliance, as it argues going against the grain, individual thought, focusing on the moment, and improvement of the self. It begins with the quote, Ne te quaesiveris extra-do not seek outside yourself.
Being Yourself
To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for
all men--that is genius. You have to speak what you feel, no matter how large the opposition may
seem. Geniuses are the ones who are unafraid to voice our own rejected thoughts.
I do not wish to expiate, but to live. My life is for itself and not for a spectacle. Do not need the reassurance of others to be yourself. You have to do what matters to you, regardless of other peoples
wants. As hard as a rule as that may be to follow, you must stick true to it, even when it seems that
others know you better than yourself.
Insist on yourself; never imitate. Being yourself is the gift you can give to the world. Every great
man is unique, and, if you conform to the rest of the world, you cannot achieve that greatness. You
need to be an outlier.
In youth, we arent afraid to push the limits, to fail, to search for new paths. In adulthood, we lose
that drive, constantly monitoring ourselves to be accepted by others. As we age, we conform more
to the democracy that society necessitates; self-reliance combats that. You have to return to that
youthful mindset.
Focusing on the Now

We cannot let the past dictate the present when it comes to ourselves, our cultures, or our religions.
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History is an impertinence and an injury if it be any thing more than a cheerful apologue or parable
of my being and becoming. We have to explore the present moment for ourselves, not just accepting what the great minds of the past figured out about their own moments.
I have no churlish objection to the circumnavigation of the globe for purposes or art, of study, and
benevolence, so that the man is first domesticated, or does not go abroad with the hope of finding
somewhat greater than he knows. If you do not realize that your grass is just as green as everyone
elses, everywhere you go, you grass will always seem less green. You have to rid yourself of that
brown-grass mindset. Maybe you are the person you envy, you just cant see it yet.
Emerson then says one of his most famous quotations: Man postpones or remembers; he does not
live in the present, but with reverted eye laments the past, or, heedless of the riches that surround
him, stands on tiptoe to foresee the future. He cannot be happy and strong until he too lives with
nature in the present above time.
When you are present in the moment, there is not life, there is not death. There is no joy or hope or
sorrow. There exists a paradox where everything becomes infinite through that singular focus; time
does not matter if you are not contemplating its duration.
Nature, incapable of escaping the now, is self-reliant, ever healing, ever growing. It does not suffer. It
just experiences and then reacts accordingly.
Being an Individual
A man needs to be a nonconformist, not just accepting the rules and laws prescribed for him but
questioning what about those regulations makes them good. Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind. Your understanding of good needs to be honest and edgy, or else it falls into
the middling ground that is complacency.
With each undying allegiance you make to a group or tribe, you are tying up your freedom of
thought. Each relationship intangibly affects the others; one allegiance taints the rest of your mentality. It is about constant evolution. If you are letting yourself be absorbed in who you are now becoming, and not who you were, you have the greatest room to grow.
You need to untether yourself from people in your life. Be grateful for what they have given you thus
far, and tell them as much, but you need to walk alone to be self-reliant. This way you can truly be
yourself without having to worry about the judgments and expectations of others.
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The best men are those who stand in the middle of the crowd but still maintain the freedom that their
solitude brings, not those who turn to isolation.
Knowing Your Worth
Each man should know his worth, his capacity to transcend his current conditions and become
something greater. Emerson references the fable where the drunkard was picked up in the street,
taken to the dukes house, put in his bed, and told that he was insane-that he was really the duke.
No and then [a man] wake up, exercises his reason and finds himself a true prince. Your mindset
determines your reality. Dont forget you have that capacity: But perception is not whimsical, but fatal. If I see a trait, my children will see it after me, and in course of time all mankind--although it may
chance that no one has seen it before me. For my perception of it is much a fact as the sun.
Prayer
Emerson then turns to the topic of prayer. Prayer is the contemplation of the facts of life from the
highest point of view...As soon as the man is at one with God, he will not beg. He will then see
prayer in all action. The statement, taken away from its Christian context, is very Buddhist. Through
meditation and reflection inwards, one can start to see the larger picture.
Society
Society never advances. It recedes as fast on one side as it gains on the other. Society makes
us reliant on other things: cars, computers, watches. If they were to disappear, how self-sustaining
would each of us be able to be? (Emergency anyone?) The civilized man has built a coach, but has
lost the use of his feet.
Other thoughts
We live in a world of constant technological stimulation and input. We need to be able to take time
to shut off and reflect inwards. Without doing so, we leave ourselves incomplete and uncared for. A
lot of people go into relationships seeking that completion, when really it should be about wanting to
share your whole self with someone elses whole self.
Nothing can bring you peace but yourself. It is only with an understanding of yourself and how you
see the world that you can find that both your best self and happiness.
Poem
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Emerson also wrote a poem called Self-Reliance which I want to end with:
Henceforth, please God, forever I forego
The yoke of mens opinions. I will be
Light-hearted as a bird, and live with God.
I find him in the bottom of my heart,
I hear continually his voice therein.
***
The little needle always knows the North,
The little bird remembereth his note,
And this wise Seer within me never errs.
I never taught it what it teaches me;
I only follow, when I act aright.
October 9, 1832.
And when I am entombed in my place,
Be it remembered of a single man,
He never, though he dearly loved his race,
For fear of human eyes swerved from his plan.
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Oh what is Heaven but the fellowship

Of minds that each can stand against the world
By its own meek and incorruptible will?
The days pass over me
And I am still the same;
The aroma of my life is gone
With the flower with which it came.
1833.
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Croudsourced Reading Project #23
Get Anyone To Do Anything
Summarized by Anthony Blatner
Why do we need power, and where does it come from?

Every interaction has millions of moving parts. Its incredibly hard to pinpoint specific pieces of the
social machine to fix because as we change, each cog in the machine changes. Life is composed
of internal workings under our control, external variables out of our control, and elements were not
even aware of.
Weve all had conversations, meetings, and dates in our lives that couldnt gone better, but we have
no idea what was different between that failed instance and the last stellar interaction.
Here, Im going to give you the best techniques and tactics found in Get Anyone To Do Anything
by David Lieberman to help you better understand and control the social dynamics swirling around
us. As this book promises, well show you many ways to steer interactions, avoid being taken advantage of, understand how to lead, influence, and motivate anyone to your ideas, and control how
others perceive you.
The power here comes in the words you choose, the delivery of your message, and many subconscious factors.
About the Author

David Lieberman, Ph.D., is a leader in the field of human behavior. His techniques and research are
used by governments, corporations, and professionals in countries all over the world.
The Vibe
At first, most of the tips come across as common knowledge. I thought this book was the fluffy theoretical side of social dynamics. I thought most of the techniques mentioned were common sense we
already knew. Then I read it again. Months later, I found that I had unconsciously started using much
of this material successfully.
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Lieberman provides examples and applies his advice to real-world situations. The books chapters
are divided into specific scenarios, and the ones Im about to share are chapters that I unknowingly
found myself using. Some sound obvious, and I have found that much of its usefulness is how Lieberman explicitly articulates the social dynamics that we knew implicitly. It puts words to the intangibles and brings attention to things that we already knew, but the
explanations, examples, and research serve to emphasize the important pieces. This helps us really
understand why and how it works, and apply it to the rest of our life. Most of the strategies listed in
this book are supported by psychological studies the author references. Ill save you from the hard
science and extract the tangible takeaways.
The author does over promise the ability to apply proven, fast-working psychological tactics to
gain complete and total cooperation from all people in any situation. He says, imagine how easy
life would be if you were able to predict and control the outcome of any encounter. And there is a
slightly ominous vibe when it encourages you to enable your mind to become your greatest weapon. Yet, most of the situations are harmless and tactics refer to everyday encounters, and the author requests that you dont use this info maliciously... but what fun is that.
The Secrets of Psychology

How to Make a Fantastic First Impression
Smile. Duh. A smile conveys confidence, happiness, enthusiasm, and shows acceptance. Duh,
again. Well the reason that smiling is important is because of the Primacy effect. A first impression
of another person causes us to interpret his or her subsequent behavior in a manner consistent with
the first impression.
Our perceptions have an element of momentum. If we get a good feeling from first meeting someone, we automatically assume positives about them, but if we get a negative feeling, then as we get
to know them we bias the new information in a negative way.
Think of a time that youve heard, Johnny could have never done that, hes such a nice guy! Same
idea.
The next piece of advice on first impressions is to use positive language and emotions around new
acquaintances. Dont be a negative nancy. Duh, yet again. And the reason this is helpful is accessibility and priming, or basically seeding a conversation or interaction. Lieberman says that whatever
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emotions are most accessible to a person, the ones theyre hearing and feeling, are the emotions
they associate with a situation or other people. If youre in a bright room full of happy people, youre
going to be in a better mood than standing in a dim room with depressed people, even if youre not
interacting with them.
Now you can use the primacy effect with the concepts of accessibility and priming for more than just
first impressions.
Get anyone to say what theyre really thinking
Asking for confirmation wont get you the truth. When youre having a conversation, but want to
challenge to speaker, questioning them with are you sure? or do you really? will always get the
same response. People wont contradict themselves.
Here, we see psychological effects of consistency and expectancy. Consistency: people have a need
for continuity in their thinking. Expectancy: people often do what is expected of them. To get around
this, you need to ask the right questions. First, it helps to agree with the speaker, so they dont become defense and feel that theyre being challenged. Next, ask them for more input and give them
the opportunity to reveal what theyre thinking.
For example:
Designer: Do you like my new designs
Client: Sure, theyre original
Designer: Ok, what would it take for you to love them? Client: Well, Im really into ___ right now...
Person: Do you like my new car?
Friend: Sure, it looks good
Person: Yea, but I feel that it just needs a little something Friend: Oh, well you could do...
Get anyone to take immediate action in any situation
We all procrastinate, but we hate when others procrastinate. These tips are applicable to managing
others, when looking for favors, or leading a group.
Limit options and give a deadline. Fewer choices mean faster decisions. This sounds generalized,
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but the fastest decisions are made with three or fewer options. A deadline provides an expectation,
and allows you to check-in a quarter of the way through, halfway through, etc. Keep them on an
agreed schedule.
Here is also a good place to mention the law of inertia, people in motion stay in motion. When someone is presented with a small request and does it, they are much more likely to accept a larger request later, instead of being initially presented with the larger request. This is the same reason that
the compliance ladder works in pick-up. Similarly, use phrases like while were out, lets run that
errand on the way instead of when/if we go out, lets run that errand.
Finally, conveying confidence and expectation that they will comply is important. When youre not
confident, its apparent that theres doubt in your mind that they will complete the task. If theres
doubt, they know theres room to wiggle out of the assignment through this crack in confidence.
Get anyone to follow through on a commitment to you
People falsely agree to commitments to get out of a situation or change an uncomfortable topic.
Women give men fake numbers so they go away, friends promise to hangout and then flake. Heres
how to keep them on point or find the cracks in their commitments.
What would have to happen for this not to work out? is a powerful question. For example, instead
of asking your buddy, are you sure you want to marry
her? rephrase that question and ask, what would have to happen for you to not marry her next
year? If theres a crack in that engagement, hes more likely to be honest about a few issues in the
relationship.
To confirm a promise, reinforce it. If youre making plans, end the conversation with, So Ill see you
next Saturday then, right? And as the day approaches, send them a text or email letting them know
how much you appreciate their help. Guilt is a strong emotion.
Finding cracks in a plan is about squeezing in through the small problems. Reinforcing a commitment is about repeatedly cementing a promise.
Get a stubborn person to change their mind about anything
As we mentioned earlier, consider the law of inertia and the feelings of consistency and expectation.
In an interaction it would be inconsistent for a person will not change their mind without new inforwww.NeilStrauss.com
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mation. We have a need to be consistent so that we can internally reason with ourselves that what
were saying or doing is right and logical.
When attempting to change someones mind, provide new information and bring in additional social
proof. Yea, I still think you should invest in that company, they just published great new financials
today, and even my stockbroker here, Dan, has invested. This gives the person a reason to change
their mind and an opening to make that decision without feeling inconsistent. The reinforcement of
the stockbroker gives a comforting feeling, and can also create social pressure if that person is present.
Another example, if a friend says theyre going to a different party that will be more fun. Asking
them are you sure isnt going to work. Again, It would be inconsistent and unexpected for them to
change their mind without a reason. Instead the following phrase subconsciously hits the consistency and expectancy switches, remember how much fun you said you had at our last party, well were
throwing another one and its going to be even better. I know youll love it.
Get anyone to do a favor for you
Its important to have people around you that are willing to help and look out for your best interest.
To get those people on your side, either in work or social situations use these simple ideas.
First is the law of reciprocity. If I do nice things for you, no matter how big or small, youll feel the
need to reciprocate and do nice things for me. Else you risk losing a friend because of an unequal
relationship. For example, if I brought you a cup of coffee this morning, and a sandwich tomorrow for
lunch, you will feel expected to bring me something or do a favor I request. Just dont ask when the
other person is preoccupied, as that will give them a likely reason to decline your request.
The second idea when trying to get someone to do a favor for you is to add personal responsibility.
Tell them you have no one else to turn to or that youre really counting on them. Most people (that
have a conscience) will feel more obligated to help you out in your situation. Although, dont give a
reason from your own incompetence, else youll generate apathy, not empathy. Dont make yourself
look stupid, or theyll think its your own fault. Focus on the parts of your predicament that were not
your own doing, and dont overuse this second idea or youll come across as needy.
The #1 mistake most people make in life
Life is a stream of decisions that we make. Many of these decisions are risks, many we dont know
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what the outcome will be, and most we cant undo. The way people gamble in a casino and live their
lives is usually the same. Most people make the same errors they do in life as they do in gambling,
and its rooted in their mindset. It comes down to being on tilt versus being in the zone.
Playing on tilt is when youre losing, yet increasing your bets to make back the ground youve already lost. This is when you make desperate moves, and its when emotions drive your decisions, instead of logic. This is when players get themselves in real trouble -- in both gambling and life. When
you feel your emotions taking over, do what gamblers hate to do -- stop. All unsuccessful gambling
strategies are based on fear. When you need to win, when you emphasize the outcome and ignore
the actual game, youll lose. Never do anything out of fear. When you feel your emotions spark and
confidence waver, then stop and analyze the situation.
On the flip side, the best mindset is one of emotional detachment. Think of the last time you were
in the zone. You were totally present. You may not have even been aware of yourself, but you knew
what to do. You didnt think about your actions, you just performed. You saw the obstacles, and you
handled them. There were no feelings of fear, only responses to stimuli.
Get anyone to open up to you
To create a deeper and emotional connection with someone, you need them to open up. Sometimes
you want information from them, or are just looking for the inside scoop.
With sensitive topics, its not comfortable to jump right in and question them directly. Start with small
talk and lead the conversation into the direction you want to learn more about. Conversations and
people need to be warmed up. If it feels like a subject is naturally segued to in a conversation, then
the other parties will be comfortable discussing it. Then once youre on that topic, create a gap in
the conversation. Theyll feel expected to fill that gap and tell you the information youre looking for.
Secondly, sometimes its useful to answer the question youre asking first and then look for their
input. Theyll feel more comfortable sharing after theyve heard from you. Its the law of reciprocity
again. The best part is that your answer doesnt even have to be relevant, and you dont have to give
up sensitive information. Just sharing creates this connection and expectation.
For example, you might not directly ask a colleague or rival if their business received funding. Instead, try the following:
You: Hey, looks like you had a stressful day today
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Them: Yea, we had a meeting with the investors this morning, it got kind of crazy
You: Oh man, sounds like theres a good story there
Them: Yea, ...
You: And you guys were in that weird shaped room, I never feel comfortable in there. It must have
been a tough pitch.
Them: Yea, ...
Here youre commenting on the current situation, how they look, and leading the conversation where
you want, onto their funding. Then you just need to act interested and leave a gap in the conversation, created by saying sounds like theres a good story. Theres an expectation that theyll tell you
the story. If not, you share something about yourself, and now that youre on the topic you can come
out and ask So... how did it go? Did you guys get funded?
Get anyone to find you irresistibly attractive
Attraction is just another emotion. When you do exciting activities, all your emotions are heightened and easier to access. Dinner dates suck because they lack excitement, and therefore emotion.
Choose engaging activities, such as amusement parks, scary movies, or even physical exercise. The
excitement a person feels gets unconsciously translated into sexual desire and arousal. This arousal
will be attributed to whomever the person is with. So if youre the person sitting closest to her in a
scary movie, shes going to associate more emotions with you.
These emotions are also affected by outside factors. A study by Elaine Walster Hatfield showed
that a woman who is introduced to a man will find him more appealing if her self-esteem has been
temporarily injured than a woman whose self-esteem has not been impaired. This is why negs work.
Conversely, when her esteem is in high-gear, shes more likely to brush others off or perceive them
as being comparatively lower value. Another reason why you should always open a set with the
same or slightly higher energy.
There are also ways to suggest emotions. Similar to the law of reciprocation is reciprocal attraction.
We like those who like us, and are more attracted to those people once we learn that they are attracted to us. The first reason is that we dont want to over commit and feel embarrassed if the feelings arent returned. The second reason is that it puts the emotion in the front of our mind, making it
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readily accessible. The lesson here is that when she begins giving us IOIs, its important to return the
IOIs and be more direct.
The people surrounding you affect the vibe you produce. This is the law of contrast and association,
when we see and judge people in comparison to the others they are with. The problem is that it usually it doesnt work in our favor. For example, if were with a group of very attractive people, others
will perceive us as less attractive. And if were with a group of lesser attractive people, the group as
a whole is less attractive, and that includes us. This is why its best to approach sets solo, because
we will be judged and perceived for who we are. Consider this when meeting someone for the first
time or out sarging.
Conclusion
Get Anyone To Do Anything provides practical tips and techniques for handling and understanding
many social and psychological situations. Even more importantly, it provides the explanation behind
those techniques and why they work, so they can be applied to any interaction. It doesnt give you
the powers that the title promises, but it does begin to break down the social matrix. So takes these
techniques and examples, and visualize how they can be applied to your interactions.
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The Female Brain Explained

Why Men Are Smarter Than Women

Why Women Are Sadder Than Men

Scientific Evidence of the Friend Zone

How to Get Out of the Friend Zone

Why Approach Anxiety Makes Sense

Should Women Who Talk Nonstop Be Punished?

Why Women Have Trouble Letting Go

with this asshole than dead.

Eve Came Before Adam

Why Negs Work on Three-month Olds

reward, validation-invalidation games.

Why Subcommunication is Important When Sarging

Why Love is Blind

Another Orgasm Fun Fact

A Fact Thats a Bummer For Me (Though I get to Coin a New Word)

Why Looks Matter More to Men Than Women

How to Make a Woman--Or Business Contact--Trust You

A Seduction Tip for Women

Why Men Dont Like Sluts

to make sure she sticks around to properly nurture the child.

The Survival of the Smoothes Proven?

My New Favorite Routine

Are Girls With Acne Easy

Why Take Aways Work--And Dramatic Relationships Drag on

Why Your Relationship Problems May Not Be Your Fault

How to Game Your Wife Into Wanting a Baby

Pregnancy Fun Facts

Why Men Should Keep Working When They Become Fathers

Stressed Out All The Time? Blame Your Mom

Why Having a Baby is Bad For Your Sex Life

Why Real Man Dont Cry

Why Women Are More Frightened Than Men by Horror Movies

The Origin of Female Intuition

Women Are From Mars, Men Are From Rocks

Why Women Punch People (And Things) Less Than Men

The Advantages of Menopause For Women

Why Older Women Are Less Likely to Cockblock

The Biology And Myth of Cougars

A Fact You Probably Didnt Want to Know

What a Woman Wants

An Important Tip For Growing Old

Part I- Wired to Connect

Part II - Broken Bonds

abuse them, or worse. P.129

Part III - Nurturing Nature

Part IV - Loves Varieties

Attachment + Caring + Sexual Attraction = Romantic Love

Part V - Healthy Connections

Part IV - Social Consequence

To be your true self

label a fully functioning human organism.

Getting in touch with your emotions

And much more! Lets get started:

A Magical Formula for Solving Worries:

Another Similar Formula that You Can Apply

SO SIMPLE! But so effective!

Engagement: A Great Cure for Worry

The Little Things are the Big Things, Unfortunately

Remove Worry with Statistics

Cooperate with the Inevitable

Our Life is What Our Thoughts Make It