January 2009

The Pain and Pleasure Principle

by Vlad Dolezal on January 29, 2009

I have recently heard a very interesting theory about human behavior.

It’s incredibly simple. In fact, my first thought was “Hmmm, that’s all?”. But after a bit of thinking I realized it leads to some VERY interesting ideas. Are you ready?

All human behavior is motivated by two things – seeking pleasure and avoiding pain.

Yeah, I know. What kind of new insights can you get from that? After all, this theory is hardly revolutionary. But often the simpler the theory, the more interesting insights it can give you. And the pain and pleasure principle is a great example of that.

My first experience with the pain and pleasure principle

When I was 3 years old, my mother took me to have a vaccination. I knew what was coming… needles, pain, AAARGH! So I spent the whole time in the waiting room crying and thrashing around and screaming that I don’t want the vaccination.

Well, once I actually got the vaccination, it was surprisingly painless. Just one little prick, about 5 seconds of mild pain, and that was it.

All the huge pain and misery was just in my mind. And yet if I had any say in the matter, I never would have gotten the first vaccination! I would be going through life risking terrible diseases… all because of my IMAGINATION.

And even as adults, we often fall victim to the same trap…

It’s all about the IMAGINARY pain and pleasure

Here’s the fun thing. We make decisions based on what we THINK things will feel like in the future, not based on reality. It’s all about our PERCEPTION of reality.

Here’s a great quick exercise I got from Paul McKenna that demonstrates this:

You have been invited to a party. You’re still deciding whether or not you will go.

First imagine standing awkwardly in a corner, surrounded by people you don’t know and have nothing in common with. Your least favorite type of music is playing way too loud in the background. How much do you want to go to the party, on a scale from 1 to 10?

Now instead imagine standing there comfortably, surrounded by people who are interested in spending time with you. Your favorite type of music comes on in the background at just the right volume. How much do you want to go to the party now?

Did you feel a difference there?

If you felt any difference at all, you can see how the images you make in your head can influence your decisions. Even this simple 30-second exercise changed how you felt about going to a friend’s party. So imagine how much difference you could create if you understood this principle, and used it ALL THE TIME! For hours each day.

You could completely change how you feel about certain actions. In other words, create motivation!

Pain and pleasure in learning

The pain and pleasure principle also gives me a new perspective on some old ideas. For example, I have written before about how positive feedback is the number one secret behind learning.

Positive feedback focuses you on the things you do right, and so reinforces the right behavior. But it also associates pleasure with learning. So if your learning is based on positive feedback, you will be EAGER to learn more! You will want to go back and learn again and again!

That’s one thing the education system really screws up. It does an amazing job of linking PAIN to learning. All the boring classes, annoying assignments, pointless exams… if you wanted to devise a system to link pain to learning, you could hardly to a better job than the present education system.

One of the biggest influences on learning is your motivation. So keep the pain and pleasure principle in mind, and notice when you start linking pain to learning. The moment you do, STOP! Then figure out a way to make learning fun again!

How the pain and pleasure principle can change your life

Okay, now I’m going to share some insanely powerful techniques with you. Stuff that can truly change your life.

I’m putting it here in the middle, without much prior advertising, because I wanted to be sure you only get here if you’re really interested. Hopefully, I have now weeded out all those who read the first three paragraphs and then got distracted and went to slap witty captions on pictures of kittens. If you’re still reading, you probably have a keen interest in psychology and personal growth. I like that :)

I’m going to tie together a few concepts I put forward in this post, as well as some concepts from another two posts I wrote recently – Are you rationalizing your decisions? and How to conquer fear.

I really encourage you to read those two posts, because I can’t do them full justice in a few paragraphs here. But here’s a brief rundown of the relevant bits:

In Are you rationalizing your decisions? I explain how all our decisions are actually based on emotions, not on logic. Yes, logic comes into play, and it can affect your decisions. But emotions are always the first step in making a decision.

In How to conquer fear, I explained the triune brain theory which states that our brain evolved in three stages:

  • the reptilian brain, responsible for reflexes and instincts
  • the mammalian brain, responsible for emotions
  • the higher brain, responsible for logical thinking

I also showed you that whenever an older brain disagrees with a newer brain, the older brain always wins. So if you logically know there’s nothing to be afraid of, but your reptilian brain is telling you to run, you will run.

Now let’s tie these concepts together with the pain and pleasure principle:

By changing the pain and pleasure you associate with certain actions, your EMOTIONS will automatically drive you to take action, which you couldn’t achieve by using logic alone.

You probably don’t realize just yet how powerful this technique is. That’s alright, I didn’t believe it myself at first. But it works INSANELY well! In fact, I’m going to challenge you right now. I’ll challenge you to grab a piece of paper and a pen and make a few notes as you’re reading this article. You won’t believe the difference this will make to your life!

If you don’t have a paper and pen handy, just open your favorite word processor. It will do.

So why is this technique so incredibly powerful? Because it reduces the whole process of taking life-changing action to simply changing the pain and pleasure you associate with certain actions. It creates a whole chain of events:

1. Change the pain and pleasure you associate with an action
2. Your emotions will drive you to DECIDE to do something about it
3. Your emotions now work TOGETHER with your logical brain, instead of sabotaging it
4. Once you make a full-blown decision, action follows effortlessly. All you need is to brainstorm how to put your decision into reality.

And the real kicker is… changing the pain and pleasure associations is incredibly easy.

That’s right. EASY. Not just simple, as in you know what to do but you can’t bring yourself to do it. It’s actually EASY, as in it takes very little effort.

Do you have your pen and paper ready? If not, go get it, I can wait…

Okay, let’s get started!

I would you to think of three areas of your life where you LOGICALLY know what you want, but can’t quite feel it emotionally. And write them down. It could be quitting smoking, or getting the balls to approach someone, or quitting your job, or eating healthy, or anything else you want.

All the above scenarios have one thing in common. Taking action is too much of a hassle, so most people end up doing nothing. They say “Well, I would kinda like to stop smoking…”, or “It would be nice to eat healthy…”

That’s not enough. “Kinda”, or “Maybe” or “I would like to…,” aren’t good enough! In those cases, you simply associate too much pain with change.

The point you want to be at is “I’m going to get this part of my life handled, no matter what!” Where the pain of staying in the same old routine and the potential pleasure of change are so large, that you just CAN’T WAIT to get started! That’s when you truly decide to do something about it, and action the follows effortlessly.

So how do you get to that point? Simply associate pleasure with the desired outcome, and massive pain with sticking to the same old routine.

For evolutionary reasons, pain is a more powerful motivator than pleasure. So make sure you really associate a lot of pain to sticking with the old behavior. In fact, that’s one of the reasons why so much news on TV and in newspapers is negative. It gives us a stronger shot of emotions, and a shot of emotions is exactly why we watch news. After all, emotions are just addictive brain chemicals. But that’s a topic for another day…

How to associate pain and pleasure with the right actions

Ok, let’s get the associations started! By now you should have a paper in front of you with three areas of your life that you want to change. Even if you didn’t think of three, you REALLY need to have at least one example in your mind, as you follow along with me.

First think for a bit what associations you have right now. For example, if you’re a smoker, you probably associate smoking with relieving stress, and maybe feeling cool. Quitting smoking might be associated with the pain of withdrawal in your mind. In other words, sticking to what you’re doing is pleasure right now, and changing would mean pain.

So let’s change those associations. First we’re going to link pain to sticking to the same old routine. Go find some pictures of smokers’ lungs, go talk to some long-time smoker and notice how they cough and wheeze, go smell some long-time smoker’s breath, ask some non-smokers what they think of the smell of your clothing, calculate how much money you spend on smoking that you could save…

Whatever you do, make sure you really FEEL it. It’s not about logical thinking. Really feel the gut-level pain, and associate it with smoking.

Next, associate pleasure to quitting. Imagine what it would be like to go through your days without having to take a smoking break. All the extra stuff you could buy with the money you save. And any other pleasure that relates to changing your behavior.

And finally, make sure you can get any secondary payoffs handled. In other words, there are always some benefits you get from your current behavior. Figure out how to get them in a different way. If smoking relaxes you, find a different way to relax. (Actually a large part of why smoking relaxes people is the breathing pattern. Try breathing like a smoker, but without a cigarette in your mouth. Within moments you will feel more relaxed.)

I used the example of smoking, but this can be used for anything you want to change. If you decide you want to eliminate complaining from your life, just link up pain to it. Realize that it’s not outside events that make you feel bad. It’s your attitude towards them, like complaining. Associate complaining with feeling bad. Then think of and really picture in your mind how people will enjoy being around you more if you don’t complain, and how much more fun you will have. (The no-complaint experiment is quite fun. Give it a go some day.)

Oh, I almost forgot. One great techinque is to ask yourself “Where will I be 10 years from now, if I keep doing this?”

One of my friends tried that. He closed his eyes, and really immersed himself in his imagination. After a few moments, he suddenly jolted awake and went “God, no! No, no, NO! I do NOT want to go there!” – He realized where he would be 10 years from now if he didn’t change his behavior. And it meant massive pain to him! Suddenly he was more than willing to do whatever it takes to change!

So for each of the behaviors you would like to change, write down all the pain you can associate with the current behavior, and all the pleasure change would bring you. Then close your eyes and imagine it all vividly, to make sure you really FEEL the pain and pleasure.

You will know you have done enough when you get to the point of “I’m going to get this handled, no matter what!” After that, action and change will follow effortlessly, because your emotions are now aligned with your logical brain!

And that’s all I have to say about the pain and pleasure principle. If you enjoyed this article, I would appreciate if you shared it with others. Or simply gave it a thumb up on StumbleUpon. But more importantly, I would be really happy if you used what you learned here to change your life!

You now have no more need for “Top 10 motivation hacks” and similar articles. Because the pain and pleasure associations motivate ALL your behavior! And now you know how to change those, so you can motivates yourself for any behavior you want!

Happy personal growth!

{ 14 comments }

How to Conquer Fear

by Vlad Dolezal on January 24, 2009

Have you ever had the following conversation?

“Ok, go ahead!”
“I can’t. I’m too scared!”
“Why are scared? It’s going to be fine! There’s nothing to be scared of!”
“I know! But I’m still scared!”

I have definitely had many conversations like that. With myself.

We often logically know that there’s nothing to be afraid of in a particular situation – and yet we get completely paralyzed by fear. Whether it’s public speaking, or approaching someone you’re attracted to – the result is the same. We freeze up. The deer-in-headlights response.

Fear is irrational. It’s an emotion. And because fear is an emotion, you can’t make it go away by any amount of logical thinking.

Thankfully, there IS a simple (though not always easy) way to conquer fear. But before we get into that, let’s spend a little more time looking at why you can’t make fear go away just by thinking about it.

The triune brain theory

The triune brain theory is one of the most useful models I’ve ever seen for understanding human behavior. It states that our brain evolved in three stages, with the newer parts built on top of the older parts of our brains.

The deepest, most ancient part is the so-called reptilian brain. It’s located in your spinal cord and in a blob of the brain touching it. This part of the brain is responsible for the basic bodily functions like breathing and your heart rate. It’s also where reflexes reside – like pulling your hand away when you touch a hot stove, or the flight or fight response you get when you feel threatened.

The second part of our brains, built around the reptilian brain, is the mammalian brain. We have this in common with other mammals, like dogs and cats. This is where emotions reside. When you feel happy or sad, when you feel proud of your achievements, or when you feel love, that’s your mammalian brain at work.

And finally, there is the higher brain, also called the cortex. It’s the most advanced part of our brain, responsible for logical thinking. It allows you to abstract and think hypothetically. You could say your consciousness resides here, while the other two brains are mostly subconscious.

Now here’s the fun thing. The different brains don’t communicate together very well. And when the different brains disagree, the older brain always wins.

If you think about it a bit, you will realize that’s a necessity. If you’re standing around, and suddenly see a big angry bull running towards you, you can’t afford to wait for your logical brain to process the information, think about it logically, decide that the best thing to do is to run and then do it. Instead, your reptilian brain is designed to kick in, take over control of your body, do whatever it needs to do to guarantee your survival, and then give the control back to your higher brain.

Unfortunately your older brains can’t distinguish between a real physical threat (like a charging bull), and an imaginary threat (like public speaking). So when you think of getting up in front of a big audience, unless you have a lot of prior experience, you’re going to freeze up. Your reptilian brain will kick in, take over your body and make you not get up in front of all those people, in order to “guarantee your survival”.

Sure, you can consciously control your reactions to a limited extent. But in general, when two different parts of your brain wrestle for control, the older brains will win.

You can’t think your way out of fear

Since fear originates in your mammalian (and sometimes reptilian) brain, your higher brain can’t control it. Using logic will never work to conquer your fears.

Instead, you need to speak directly to your older brains. To some extent, you can do this through visualisations, affirmations and similar exercises. But I found these are luke-warm solutions at best.

Thankfully, there’s a way that’s a hundred times more effective. Taking action.

Your reptilian brain is very hands-on and down-to-earth. Logical reasoning won’t mean anything to it. But taking action? Hell, yeah!

So when you take action despite your fear, you will immediately notice more confidence. You literally transform fear into confidence by taking action.

In fact, you can think of it as a videogame. Assign a number of “fear units” to something you’re afraid of. Just think of a number that feels right. Maybe saying no to a friend is 5 fear units, while approaching someone you’re attracted to might be 100 units. Just choose a number that feels right for you.

Then, whenever you take action despite your fear, you will transform those fear units into the exact same number of cofidence units! Guaranteed!

One of my favorite personal growth authors, Doctor Paul, calls this “doing courage”. I really love that term, because it hits the nail on the head. It’s not thinking courage, or talking courage. It’s doing courage!

And another great thing I got from Doctor Paul is the exact definition of doing courage:

Do the right thing.

That’s it. Do the right thing. Courage doesn’t involved being cool, or going against the mainstream, or facing death. It’s simply about doing the right thing. Despite feeling the fear, just do what you logically know is the right thing to do. Then you are guaranteed to transform your fear into confidence.

A lot of self-improvement authors would have you believe you can get rid of fear. That’s not true. Fear will always be there. The difference between people who achieve amazing things and people who live an unremarkable life is in how they respond to fear.

Unremarkable people are simply paralyzed by fear. They let their older brains override their higher brain, and they fail to do the right thing. They stay inside their comfort zones, and then rationalize their decisions. They invent all sorts of reasons for not taking action and not doing courage, and convince their logical brain they are right. But deep inside they FEEL they didn’t do the right thing. Every time they don’t face their fears, they feel a little less alive.

People who lack the courage to act will always find a way to justify their lack of action.
- Mark Twain

The super-achievers, on the other hand, will act in the face of fear. The fears they face aren’t any smaller than the fears you and I face. In fact, they face much larger fears. But by years of consistently doing courage, they have built up huge reserves of confidence. That confidence allows them to act even in the face of huge fears as matter of factly as you or I can tie our shoelaces.

Start small

I wouldn’t expect you to immediately run out there and start speaking in front of audiences of thousands, or to approach every person you’re attracted to. Conquering that kind of fear takes a LOT of confidence.

But you can start building up your reserves immediately. Because no matter how much confidence you have right now, there will always be fears in your life that are just the right size. Not too big to completely freeze you up, yet big enough to make you feel the twang of fear, and take some effort to overcome.

Remember, conquering fear is simple. Just do the right thing.

It’s not always easy. But it’s simple.

So whether the kind of fears you face right now is approaching a millionaire with a business offer, or simply refusing a defective vegetable at your neighbourhood market, you know what to do.

The key is starting with fears that are the right size. In fact, a lot of the best learning programmes for overcoming your fear do just that. Like Toastmasters public speaking classes – in there, you know you are in a safe environment of only about two dozen people, and no matter how much you screw up your speech, everybody will congratulate you on the effort and stay positive. That alleviates a lot of the fear of public speaking.

And as you take action to conquer your fears every day, you will gather momentum. This process builds on itself exponentially. Even though you might be mortally afraid of such a simple task as asking to have your food in a restaurant done exactly the way you want it, you will soon get past that fear, and it will in fact seem ridiculously small compared to the new fears you will be facing.

And as you do courage every day, you will start to feel more happy, more passionate… more alive. Because what’s the difference between you and a rock? You take ACTION! A rock simply lies there, and lets the environment control it. The whole difference between being alive and being dead is taking action!

So don’t be a rock! Be a human! Take action, do courage, and feel the feeling of being ALIVE!

Remember, just do the right thing. It’s that simple.

{ 19 comments }

Are You Rationalizing Your Decisions? (guest post at PickTheBrain)

by Vlad Dolezal on January 21, 2009

I had a guest post published today at the self-improvement blog PickTheBrain. Here’s a short excerpt:

Are You Rationalizing Your Decisions? Let me answer that for you real quick.

Yes, you are.

There, you can stop reading now. Really. That’s the whole article.

…

What, you want more? Okay, okay :) … let me dig into it in a bit more depth.

In this article, I will show you:

  • why we humans rationalize our decisions
  • the difference between what we think influences our decisions, and what REALLY influences our decisions
  • how being aware of this can help you make better decisions
  • how it can help you influence others, by appealing to the right motives

Why we rationalize

We humans rationalize our decisions. All of us. Every day.

But I can show you how to spot when you’re rationalizing your decisions, and how to discover the real reasons behind your decisions. Then I will show you how to use this to ACTUALLY make rational decisions!

(…)

Read the full article over at PickTheBrain. Trust me, you’ll like it :)

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Look up! – excerpt from my newest free e-book

by Vlad Dolezal on January 13, 2009

Look up!

Look up!     (image courtesy of taqu)

 

Last week, I released my free e-book 5 Simple Steps to An Awesome Life. If you haven’t read it yet, here’s an excerpt to give you a taste of what you will find inside. If you have already read the e-book, feel free to skip this post.

 

Look up!

For years, I used to walk around looking at my feet. Then, one day, I read it’s a really cool idea to actually look up and about while walking. So the next time I walked to school (I was in high school back then), I looked up. (It took some serious mental effort to keep my gaze off the ground.)

I was like “Wow! The world looks so awesome when you stop looking at your feet!” I would just look in the distance, and a simple walk down the street would turn into an epic movie scene. I would look at things along the road, and notice how the stuff closer to me moves by faster, and the stuff further away moves by slower. I realized I hadn’t done that since I was a small kid. And again, it looked eerily like a movie.

I also use this as a metaphor for life in general. Life is awesome once you start noticing it. Once you “take your eyes off the ground” (stop being stuck in your head and start noticing everything around you), life becomes so much richer!

As I kept my gaze off the ground, and walked around like that more and more, I started noticing things. Friends would nod and greet me from the distance. Plenty of people at school would make eye contact and smile as we got closer. I realized there’s plenty of eye contact WANTING to happen to you. You just need to keep your eyes off the ground.

And it’s the same in life. There’s plenty of “eye contact” that WANTS to happen to you. People want to know you. Organizations want to work with you. Successful people want to give advice to you. But you will overlook all that if you keep looking at your feet. So glance up, and make the first step of approaching someone. Life is too short to be spent looking at your feet.

 

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Want to read more? Download the free e-book.

When I first released the e-book, I demanded you subscribe to my RSS feed before reading. Then I realized that was a mistake – you can now download the e-book without any RSS feed hassle. Just click the link above.

If you’re still considering the download, you can read more about the e-book. (includes other people’s reviews).

Cheers, and see you with new exciting stuff on Friday!

{ 1 comment }

How to Create Your Own Luck

by Vlad Dolezal on January 9, 2009

Luck is just one of those subjects. Just about everybody has an opinion on luck. And they will all go high and far to convince you that they are right.

I am no different :D

Some people claim you absolutely can’t control luck, so you shouldn’t even bother trying. Others say you can definitely create your own luck – but they don’t give you any practical tips, or they tell you to create your own luck by working really hard. Sure, working hard gives results, but that’s not creating your own luck.

In fact, creating your own luck is really simple. Just do little things that ALLOW the world to make you lucky.

My first experiences

I first came across the principle of creating your own luck when playing the board game Othello. If you don’t know what Othello is, just think about chess. The same principle applies.

I watched experts play, and analyzed their games with computer help. I noticed a funny pattern – the top players didn’t really play more precisely than the lesser players. Their moves were just more TRICKY.

So I tried emulating their style. Instead of making my usual moves, I tried to play moves that made the life just a bit harder for my opponent. And something amazing happened! I started winning some games even against players who were quite a bit better than me!

It worked really simply. I kept looking for chances to give my opponent little opportunities to make a mistake. Nobody who’s even moderately good at Othello should overlook those simple traps. So 9 times out of 10 they wouldn’t work. But every now and then, the opponent WOULD overlook a simple obvious trap! Anybody who was watching would say “Oh, that was just lucky!” But I knew better. I had CREATED my own luck!

And the same applies to creating your own luck in life. You just need to create little opportunities for the world to make you lucky. Sure, it might be lucky that you ended up sitting on the plane next to someone who later turned into your business partner. But if you talk to the person sitting next to you every time, you’re bound to find SOMEONE who enriches your life.

Success comes in lumps

Just recently, I read a great post by Scott H. Young about how success comes in lumps. In there, he explains how success is triggered by key events, even though all the work that came before the triggering event is just as important, if not more.

Similarly, my luck in Othello didn’t just come from that single tricky move that confused my opponent. It came equally much from the dozen tricky moves before that.

And that’s the counter-intuitive thing. You might be tempted to look for the ultimate triggering actions, and eliminate all the ones that don’t trigger huge success. But in fact, all the little actions have a chance to trigger success, it’s just that most of them don’t. Only a few of them will be “lucky”.

It’s the same in blogging. You might be tempted to try to create only excellent posts. After all, those are the ones that trigger huge success in social media. But following that strategy, you would probably agonize over each blog post for a month, tweaking every little bit for perfection, and then find out that most of them still don’t become hugely popular.

Instead, I focus on consistently being good in blogging. By consistently aiming for good posts, I can crank out a lot more of them. Sure, some will turn out average or even awful, but a couple will turn out excellent, and become hugely popular! And I often get surprised by which of my posts get popular – like the one on body language basics. I can’t predict in advance which actions will turn out lucky – but I know that some of them will.

Don’t worry about the critics

Some people will tell you that you can’t create your own luck, so you shouldn’t even bother trying. They do that because they don’t have the courage to take action themselves. And they want you to sit around and do nothing just like them, just in case you might prove them wrong. Don’t worry about people like that. They don’t matter.

What matters is your own life. Creating your own luck.

Creating your own luck in the real world

So how do you create your own luck in the real world?

Just take actions that give the world an opportunity to make you lucky. Actions that have a chance to give you a high payoff, even if it’s not at first obvious how.

Often, these actions will be disguised by the world to look plain and unimportant. Like a dust-covered  diamond lying by the side of the road of your life. You wouldn’t even stop and notice it if you didn’t know about it. But if you know there are a lot of dust-covered diamonds on the ground around you, you will keep picking up small dusty rocks and wiping them off, and eventually you will get “lucky”.

For example, you could:

  • try new hobbies
  • talk to strangers
  • start blogging
  • think of a topic you care about, then pick up a book on that topic that advises you to do something completely different from what you’ve been doing until now

If you’re a regular reader of my blog, most of the above tips will seem familiar. That’s because I can only think of examples that relate to my own life. If you can think of any examples from your own life on how to create your own luck, feel free to share them in the comments.

If you get out there and start taking little actions that MIGHT just make you lucky, you’ll be surprised at how often you actually DO get lucky! Remember that. YOU create your own luck, and nobody else. Take a couple of small actions, and see for yourself.

{ 6 comments }

5 Simple Steps to An Awesome Life – a Free e-Book

by Vlad Dolezal on January 6, 2009

Are you into personal growth? Do you sometimes wish the advice was easier to apply to your life? Do you wish some of the authors didn’t take themselves so seriously?

I know I do.

I have been into personal growth for years. I have read dozens of books, watched thousands of videos, and listened to hundreds of hours of material. Some of the information was crap, tons of the information were mildly useful, and every now and then I came across a few pearls of pure, distilled wisdom.

And these pearls are what I’m bringing you today. The best personal growth stuff I have found out there, mixed together with my own experiences and outlook on life, to give you a most delicious personal growth mix.

“I loved reading this book and found myself laughing out loud as I read it. Vlad has a fresh, engaging style and a thought-provoking approach. His enthusiasm is catching and to my surprise I found myself adopting some of his suggestions before I even reached the end of the book.”

- Gina from England

A lot of self-improvement authors take themselves too seriously. Sure, personal growth IS important and profound. But don’t forget to have fun along the way :) . Don’t be a self-improvement Sisyphus – forever laboring to be more productive and focused, while forgetting the fun and playfulness! Enjoy the journey!

To help you with that, I have put together a free e-book. Just click the button below, and it’s yours!

 


I think you’ll LOVE this book because you:

  1. Want something different from all the old rehashed information on goal-setting, single-tasking and such
  2. Want a book that distills the core principles of personal growth, without wasting your time with boring fluff
  3. Want to have fun while learning and growing

Here’s a partial list of what you will find in the e-book:

  • The number one skill that fuels personal growth
  • How to turn short-term quirks into long term growth through habits
  • How to eat healthy without worrying about all sorts of crazy diets
  • The best way to exercise (it’s fun!)
  • A simple technique you can use immediately to become more calm and collected
  • Learn how everything in the book fits into the big picture – and then get specific techniques and examples to translate it all to the real world
  • The number one way to mine useful information out of past experiences
  • Stories from my past that I never shared before
  • Learn exactly where enthusiasm fits in the grand scheme of things – and why enthusiasm alone doesn’t bring lasting personal growth
  • A guest contribution by the star blogger Scott H. Young!
  • The one thing that the top 5% of successful people do naturally – and how you can start using it right NOW!
  • How to not just speed up your personal growth, but ACCELERATE it. The more you practice the techniques in this e-book, the faster you will grow as a person!
  • Five dense, information-packed chapters. No boring fluff. Everything in the book is straight to the point (okay, almost everything… you’ll see :) ). You won’t be able to put the book down!
  • Stories and metaphors to help drive the information into your subconscious
  • Dozens of specific step-by-step techniques you can use IMMEDIATELY to start improving your life

 

Are you still having doubts? Here are a few objections you might be thinking right now:

Q: Do I really need yet another self-improvement e-book?
A: This isn’t just any self-improvement e-book. I have distilled years of my experience into five dense, information-packed chapters. All of the stuff in this book is proven to work, and truly transform your life. And it’s not some highly specific, marginally useful information. You will use information from every chapter of this book, every day, for the rest of your life!

Q: Why the huge sales copy?
A: Just practicing :) . I know it’s a great book and it’s free, so I wouldn’t really need to oversell it so much. I’m just practicing for the future.

 

It’s really easy to get started. Just click this button:

 

Don’t hesitate!

The principles in this book aren’t just about speeding up your growth. They’re about ACCELERATING it. Every bit of self-improvement advice you read after reading this book will be MORE useful than before. And your personal growth will keep ACCELERATING every day! It might seem like a small difference in the first few days, but in a few months or years you’ll look back, and be amazed at how far you have come! Don’t sit around and wonder if this is the right thing to do! It’s completely risk-free, so go for it!

 

Here is what others have to say about the e-book:

“Your e-book is definitely packed full of good advice! Like a lot of other extremely useful information, it comes off as common sense. But people have a bad habit of ignoring common sense and being reminded with such useful stuff is a great way to make them realize what’s going on in their lives. Especially helpful here is the chapter on Awareness; it would seem ridiculous that people could expect to fix their problems without knowing where they are, but many do try this and won’t know why they’re failing until they really pinpoint what’s wrong or what could be improved.

“Your lighthearted tone makes the book more fun to read. Self-help type material can often seem overly serious (since the information really is so important), and so joking around a little is a great way to help get your advice across. It also keeps you from seeming ‘holier-than-thou’ at all, which is awesome because once you’re on the same plane as the reader in their mind, they’re a lot more receptive.

“You’d think that after reading so much self-help advice I’d know pretty much all of it but there’s always something new to learn. Try and get this out to as many people as possible because everyone will get something out of it!”

- Brian from Colorado

 

“I really like how you steer clear of the traditional: set goals, ???, profit, mentality of most personal development writers. The book does not try to help you become a perfect person, just an awesome one. It is a lot more reminding people about the basics. The things that are easy but we often forget. I have already read through about 3 times.”

- Alex from Canada

 

“The book was chock full of energy. This is one of your great strengths as a blogger to my mind, and I’m extremely pleased that it found its way into your book so seamlessly. Everything you write about you are excited about; you really care a lot, and it shows. Furthermore, your excitement is infectious. Just reading about how much fun you have changing your life makes me want to change mine that much more!”

- Joe from Colorado

 

“For me, the most useful thing about this ebook was the fourth chapter on how to change behaviour. I’ve read a lot of material on personal development recently, and quickly came to the conclusion that there were things about my life that I wanted to change. This was relatively easy, the real challenge was figuring out how to change, and more importantly, making these changes last. Chapter four gives clear and simple advice on how to make changes that last, and addresses how to prevent common problems which occur when people try to change their habits.

“I also enjoyed the earlier chapters which advocated figuring out what works for you rather than following the often conflicting advice of self-proclaimed ‘experts’ who often imply that you can only suceed by buying into the latest fad and related products that go along with it.

“The author is not afraid to use other people’s good ideas rather than stealing all the limelight for himself. Some of the biggest ideas in the ebook are ideas from other people that have been tried and tested, and found to have worked. This is a refreshing change from some self-improvement material in which the author feels they have to think of everything themself and just end up ‘reinventing the wheel’.

“This was a fantastic read, not too long, but contained tons of useful information and I’m grateful to have read it as I feel it’s going to help me make real changes in my life. Thanks Vlad!”

- Nicola from England

Here’s your last chance. Make the most of it:

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Three Web 2.0 Inventions I Absolutely Love

by Vlad Dolezal on January 2, 2009

Ah, web 2.0 :) . I kept hearing about it for at least two years before I even learned what it IS. But it’s here, and it’s awesome!

Okay, in case you’re wondering (like I used to) what web 2.0 is:

Web 2.0 is about user-provided content. Like YouTube, Facebook, and StumbleUpon.

Now let’s move on to the three web 2.0 inventions I love! The inventions that made the internet some much more fun and pleasurable to use!

1. RSS Feeds

Remember the old days? When you regularly checked 3 or 4 websites for updates, read your e-mails, and that was all you did online? Well, those days are gone. Nowadays, you probably regularly check at least a dozen websites.

And it would be pretty time-consuming to check all those by hand. Thankfully, you don’t have to! RSS Feeds to the rescue! RSS feeds allow you to check all your favorite websites for updates from one spot. Your “feed reader”. In there, you can see if any of the websites you subscribed to have been updated since you last checked, and you even get to read the new content right there and then!

RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication. And it really IS simple! All you need to do is have a feed reader (Try Google reader), and then subscribe to blogs/websites you want to see updates from (for example my RSS feed). You can easily unsubscribe at any time with just two mouse clicks, and the websites don’t get any of your personal information!

If you’re not using RSS feeds yet, you’re really missing out. Give it a try, it couldn’t be simpler to get started :)

2. Social News Sites

Remember the old days? Most of your news were provided by major TV stations, and a little bit through gossip. The media basically controlled your opinions on most issues!

Not anymore. With social news sites like reddit and StumbleUpon, you get exactly the information you’re interested in, and you get it filtered by people with similar interests, so that you only read what’s really worth your time! (Actually, StumbleUpon is not so much about news – it’s more about discovering timeless great content. Which is even better!)

You can finally read all the news about Linux and Math you can digest, without hearing a single word about politics or celebrity gossip :) (or vice versa, if that’s your kind of thing).

3. User Provided Content

And finally, user provided content!

YouTube, Facebook, flickr, forums… and loads more! You know the old saying about an infinite number of monkeys typing on an infinite number of typewriters? Well, millions of YouTube users making dozens of videos each are bound to produce some really quality stuff :) . More importantly, among all those little-knows videos, there will be a few YOU personally really care about! Just recently, I found some great videos that were exactly what I was looking for… even though they had less than 2,000 views each. (Can you say “all hail Google search!” ? :) )

Plus, whenever you’re looking for a picture or video to illustrate a point or liven up a presentation, you can always find one. I heard some teachers are using YouTube videos to make classroom instruction more interesting. All I can say is… where are those teachers and why haven’t I met any of them? :)

And that’s all I have to say :) . Now get out there and enjoy web 2.0 while it’s here! (I heard people are already putting web 3.0 into practice, and planning web 4.0. Aaaargh!)

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