The SnowHow

Category: Personal

  • Your next thought might save your life.

    I tell you what I’ve noticed, different thoughts have different levels of power. Power to raise you up power to bring you down.

    As much as thoughts have no real depth in the physical world they have a great deal of size and weight in the mental world.

    You see everything comes to us as a thought. Try and think of something that doesn’t 🙂

    You see our day to day life is almost totally controlled by the thoughts we have. Sometimes our thoughts manifest in the real world. I’ll give you an example: try thinking about all the reasons why the world is out to get you. Things like big business never giving you an opportunity to make it for yourself, the government stealing all your money for taxes. Your boss never being grateful for the work you do. Your romantic partner never appreciating all the effort you put in. Or more mundane things like why is everything so much more expensive these days, why is there never anything good on tv. Why is this wifi so incredibly slow.

    When you get into those sort of thought patterns it is so very easy to spiral further and further down ever onwards gradually drawing closer and closer to despair.

    You see each thought within your mind has a certain level of gravity to it. It attracts to it similar thoughts making the weight of the first thought that little bit heavier and that little bit more magnetic to the next thought. On and on the weight of the thought goes getting bigger and bigger as it attaches the next thought to it. In the form of negatives this might over time look like this… Indifference to meh to grumpy to annoyed to angry to depressed to despair.

    They don’t generally happen quickly they sneak up on you like some sort of mind directed stealth ninja. And because these thoughts come gradually we never tend to notice the itty bitty changes that are taking place.

    Maybe it gets so bad that the next thought after despair leads you to the thought that there is no hope and it is better to end it all. Literally in that situation your next thought could kill you.

    See what I mean when I say thoughts have weight and power.

    So what do we do when we are starting to spiral well the logical thing would be to think of the happiest thing possible the most wonderful thing in the universe. Well, you know what from the depths of despair that may not be possible, but I’ll tell you what is possible is to choose the next best thought.

    From where you are if you ask yourself what could make my day just that tiny bit better? Who knows you may find an answer that could literally save your life. Maybe your journey starts with the thought hey maybe i will just take a couple of deep breaths. Nothing ground breaking.

    Maybe your next thought is that you say to yourself maybe i should just get up and take a stretch. Then we continue upwards with our thoughts. i know that water is good for me maybe i will have a nice cold glass. maybe i should go for a walk that always clears my head. Maybe i could go to the park I am always feel better when i look at nature. On and on we go up and up our thoughts go starting to develop a gravity all of their own.

    Then as we get back to neutral we start looking for happy thoughts. What is good in my life right now. who are the people I care about. What are the things I’m looking forward to doing. on and on up and up we go. Then we get to the 600lbs gorilla thoughts like what am I grateful for.

    For years I made the mistake of intellectualising the idea of using gratitude thoughts (no pun intended). You should heed these words and avoid that mistake. Gratitude thoughts have more gravity to them than any other thoughts with the exception of maybe love. They have power to make radical changes in your psyche and in your life.

    They are like rocket fuel to our psyche and we should reach for them as often as we can. At any point in the day be grateful for something anything. Currently I’m grateful to Apple for building a laptop for me to write these words on. I am grateful to Evernote for keeping these words safe. I’m grateful to everyone involved in getting me my coffee to me as I write this (from the farmers, the roasters, the transporters, the exchange, the grinders the packagers to the lovely barista who served it to me etc).

    There are not too many things in the world in which we get to claim absolute control of. Our thoughts are one of those things. On a side note you may think other people can affect your mood this is a mistake in thinking that many people make. I may cover this in another article. For now I will leave you with one parting thought and it is this. So wherever you are whatever you are doing reach for the next best thought (it could save your life.)

    Snowy

  • How To Meet New People Without Getting Told To F**K Off!

    So it’s really hard to meet new people these days. Especially in person.

    More and more are we relying on electronic devices to provide a digital solution to our human connection needs. And hey sometimes that is a good thing. I mean lets be fair Facebook has allowed me and everyone else to get back in touch and stay connected to friends from the past. People who we would no longer have a method to reach if it wasn’t for them. They also allow communication and exchange with people who would other wise be separated by distance to keep updated with their comings and goings.

    We see pictures and status updates of what is going on with their life. Oh and if we are really enthused by that we can say what the hell and give them a like. Maybe if we are particularly moved we can throw in the occasional comment (if like me mostly sarcasm or some for of derogatory comment.)

    But with the advent of this, communication real human communication is being lost.

    We now no longer connect with people we exchange information. You see there is a ladder of communication and on its lowest rung lies exchange. Only slightly higher up the ladder comes connection. Now connection is not bad when it comes to communication the fact of the matter is that connection is great we all love to connect yet we are getting further and further away from that.

    With the advent of SMS/text messaging, Twitters” 140 characters and countless other digital devices, our method of communication has been limited to an exchange of ideas and thoughts in short format.

    This in and of itself sounds fine, but the reality is that it verbally but more importantly humanly it isolates us from the rest of our fellow earth dwellers.

    I have a question, and it is this. How often do you speak to strangers? Actually, when was the last time you spoke to a stranger?

    Let’s take this a little further, when was the last time you gave a stranger a simple greeting like “hello” or ‘Good morning”?

    If you are one of the bold people who says I do that all the time, then ask yourself when was the last time you tried to find out from a stranger what made them unique and special?

    A number of years ago the author Neil Strauss wrote quite a controversial book called “The Game” about an underground society of pick up artists. The book introduced the masses to many concepts of how it is possible for men to systematically and strategically have a process to meet connect and then seduce women. Interesting stuff.

    Within the book a concept was introduced called “approach anxiety”. What it is is as the name suggests is an uncomfortable feeling/fear (even dread) at the thought of walking up to an attractive woman, with the view of trying to get to know her and then effectively chat her up.

    They gave evolutionary reasons for this about how if we got it wrong we would be ostracized from our tribe and could likely die because of this etc.

    I was familiar with the feeling, if in small doses, and sort of understood the reason why (after all hot women are scary and could probably beat you in a fist fight).

    At the time I assumed that approach anxiety was confined only within the terms of meeting and connecting to people of the opposite sex who you had romantic aspirations with.

    However, this now appears to me to be not true.

    More and more do I see this phenomenon happening with every day people. We are losing the ability to talk to other people in general.

    I know you may be thinking “so what” but i will tell you why this is important. In business there is an expression “your network is your net worth”. OK so you don’t care about business! So how does it effect your everyday life.

    Well Anthony Robbins the well known peak performance strategist has stated you will become the average of the 5 people you spend time with.

    What happens if the only people in your life are total dipshits and all they do is drag you down?

    If you have no way to meet new people your screwed.

    Never mind that more than anything else people are what most effect the quality of your life.

    In fact on a side note the quickest way i know to change your lot in life for the better, is to start to surround yourself with people who you admire and inspire you.

    If you can’t speak to these people how on earth are you going to bring them into your life.

    So if you feel that you are having trouble meeting new people start to exercise your conversational skills.

    You can start small and work up. Smile at a stranger until you get one to smile back.

    Say “Hello’ to a stranger until you get a hello back.

    Ask a stranger how their day is going until you get a reply. Then hey tell them about your day.

    Build on this until you get to the point where you get good at conversation. (I will write more on the art of conversation at a later stage but for now you should practice the building blocks)

    Once you get good at talking to strangers you will become more and more socially confident which makes you more socially attractive. People will gravitate towards you and want to be in your company.

    As other peoples social skills decline through technology your skills with ascend through practice and repetition. As you become better and this you will become a leader of men/women, after all we naturally gravitate to people with charisma and charm and that is what you will attain by this process.

    So before I go I want to leave you with a poem i read as a very young man. It changed my life for the better all those years ago without ever realising it. I would suggest you read it often and adopt the sentiments contained within it. So here it is from Walt Whitman.

    To You

    STRANGER! if you, passing, meet me, and desire to speak to me, why should you not speak to me?
    And why should I not speak to you?
    Have fun talking to people. Practice every day.

    Snowy

  • How To Become Super Interesting!

    If you have ever wanted to be the most interesting person in the room, then read on…

    Being interesting, It’s not easy! It takes some skill.

    Today, each person will have thousands of distractions that will vie for their attention. That sucks if you are looking to be an important part of someones life.

    Think of the things you are competing with if you are looking to gain someones attention.

    In no particular order, other people, their chosen mobile device (and all of the apps on it, news, sport, social media, games etc) TV, radio, newspapers, books etc. Not to mention their own mind and the problems that they are having to deal with. Things like work, finances, relationships (friends/family, romantic etc) and all the other day to day worries and woes that we each face.

    So in order to break through all of that noise we have to offer something that can rise above the rest of what life is throwing at that person.

    We have to be a shining beacon of light, the proverbial water in their desert of life.

    So that sounds like a tough ask when you put it that way doesn’t it!

    Well, I can see why you would think so.

    But fear not there is a secret!

    First we have to figure out what is the single most interesting subject to each person?

    Yep I know that sounds like you would have to be Sherlock Homes or some type of cold reading expert to figure that out in advance, but no that is not true there is a universal subject that each and every one of us is interested in. In fact it is the single most important subject to each of us.

    Can you guess what it is yet?

    Well, I will get back to you on that in a little while. Before I do that I want to tell you a story I first heard from legendary marketer Jay Abraham.

    As the story goes Jay was once over in Australia on a business trip and before he headed to bed he headed to the bar for a nightcap. What he had to drink is unimportant to this story, but what happened next is incredibly educational.

    At the bar was another man. Let’s call him Dave. Jay being a friendly guy, introduces himself to Dave saying words to the effect “Hi my name is Jay I’m in town on business, pleased to meet you. Dave says “hi my name is dave”. Jay then asks so Dave what is it that you do?

    Dave replies “I sell population control programs!”

    Fascinated by this Jay begins to ask dave a series of questions about that.

    To whom do you sell them?
    What is the average price?
    Is there much competition in that marketplace?
    How do you persuade people/governments to buy your product and not your competitors?
    What are the problems of implementing the programs?
    What are the ethics of such a program?

    On and on Jay asked astute questions all about Dave and his business.

    After about 45 mins Jay has finished his drink and is not feeling a bit jet lagged and tired. Says to Dave “Hey i’m a bit tired now and going to head of to bed, it was really nice meeting you.”

    What is interesting about this story is what Dave said next…

    So just as Jay is leaving Dave stops him and says this “Jay in all my years of travel you are without doubt the singly most interesting man that I have ever met!”

    So if you are smart you will say but hold on a second, Jay only told him two things about himself.

    1. His name is Jay
    2. He was in town on business.

    Yet Dave clearly stated that he thought him the most interesting of all the people he has ever met!

    Why is that?

    Well, lets go back to our earlier question what is the single subject that is most important to all of us?

    The answer is simple… It is OURSELVES!

    We are the most interesting subject to ourselves.

    The easiest way to to be the shining light to another person is to be genuinely interested in exactly who they are.

    It doesn’t have to be about either. It can be all manner of things, their hopes and dreams, their problems and worries, their regrets, their current situation, their hobbies all manner of things that make them them.

    Each and every person is a unique microcosm of complexity for you to discover.

    If you take the time to find out you will find that you can become fascinated by the wonders of each and every persons unique situation.

    The lesson we learn from Jay and his experience is this… In order to be INTERESTING we just have to be INTERESTED!

    Don’t be boring telling people about you, there will be plenty of time for that as long as first you find out what makes this new person unique and special.

    So go be Interested!

    Snowy

  • Drive A Stake Through The Heart Of Emotional Vampires!

    The people in your life can be an amazing source of value to you. They provide fun, conversation, entertainment, drama, information, education. They give you highs and lows and sometimes take you on an emotional roller-coaster. Some add incredible value to your life and some don’t.
    For most of us we let the good people mingle with the bad. We give equal amounts of time to each type of friends.

    Is this smart? Does this really help us?

    Well then let’s take a look at that shall we.

    I want to offer up two ideas…

    1. the emotional vampire/mood hover.
    2. the 80/20 rule/Pareto principle.

    OK so the first idea is this we all have friends that take more value than they give. Have a think about that idea. You see most people don’t (think about that.) When you think about all your friends do you rate them by who gives the most value and who takes the most value. Well neither did I.
    You see most of us have awesome friends who we love and trust and rely on, in return they do the same for us. Real friends who make our day brighter for having them in it. That when we think about seeing them our hearts and our smiles lift.

    We also have those friends who only come to us with their problems and woe. They come telling you of all their hassles and dramas most of which they cause for themselves. They never take responsibility for anything. It’s as if they go out of the way to find problems that never existed before they got involved.

    They never take advice they only want to bend your ear. They want your shoulder to cry on and your sympathy. They take take take with very little in return. This is the dead wood of your life.
    But hey, do you know what, there is an argument that there is a place for both types of people in your life. The argument is a little thin on the ground but hey some people like being that shoulder or that listener.

    I’m not here to judge, just offer a tiny bit of advice.

    Here it is…

    Make a list of the top ten most important people in your life who give you joy and pleasure and really add to the quality of your life. Pick no more than ten. (yes it gets really hard when you have to exclude people you like but do it anyway. If you like, think about the people who you would like to still be in your life five years from now.) I know that it takes a bit of effort, but you will have quite a nice feeling at the end, knowing who you think are the really important people in your life.
    There you have your list (and some clarity.)

    Here is the second part, the 80/20 part actually we are going to change it to 90/10.
    Spend 90% of your time with your top ten people and 10% with everyone else.

    I know it will be hard at the start to distance yourself from the others. Just start to learn to say no to them in a nice way.

    So they ask can they come over or for you to meet up. Just say “I can’t tonight I’ve already got plans, I’ll call you later in the week when I have time”. Don’t say a direct no just a deferred no.
    Saying no is hard, deferring is much easier.

    If they try and invite themselves to your plan again defer them.

    Next start to schedule time with your top ten. Easy you like being around them anyway.

    If you do this you will notice a marked improvement in your life. There is a popular notion that you become the average of the five people that you hang around with most.

    If this is true then you are clearly stacking the odds in your favor.

    If you want to take this to the next step then I would suggest culling your ten every six to twelve months and trying to keep improving the quality of your group that way you will have people in your group that constantly lift you and inspire you and take you to the next level.

    Keep a vigilant eye on the people in your life, and make sure no one goes lame. If they do cut them out.

    Say after me no more dead wood!

    Until next time. Question everything.

    Snowy

  • You, Your Life And Winning The Kobayashi Maru!

    If you are like most people then the game of life is unwinable. Harsh but True. It’s the Kobayashi Maru.If you are unfamiliar with the Kobayashi Maru well it’s an idea from the StarTrek universe. For the non Sci-fi folk bear with me as the idea is more important than where the idea arrives from.
    Ok so the Kobayashi Maru is an unwinable simulation taught to all would be star ship captains. In brief it works like this there is a ship. The aforementioned Kobayashi Maru. It is in enemy space and has broken down. If you leave it there all the crew will die. If you try and rescue it you will die. Unwinable!
    However, one captain… James T Kirk found a way to beat it. I will tell you how a little later.

    For now that’s where we are at, the game of life = Unwinable.

    I know, I know some people clearly are winning the game of life! They have fame, fortune and glory!

    But for most people they as Theroux quoted live lives of quiet desperation and go to their grave with their song still in them.

    So why does this happen. Well I have a few theories but the main one is that they take bad advice from well meaning people. People like friends, family, teachers and colleagues.

    So what sort of advice keeps you trapped in an unwinable game.

    Work hard in school/University and then get a good job.

    It is better to have someone than be alone.

    Starting your own business is risky.

    Get a job first and you can do what you love later.

    Your own home is an asset.

    Think about this how many people do you know who take this advice?

    Now ask how many of them are happy and are winning the game of life?

    Let me just drive this home. How many out of 100 put a number on it.

    People hate their jobs, stuck in a rut, hate their boss. Hate there partner/spouse, getting divorced. No money, living pay check to paycheck, in debt, massive mortgage hanging over their heads. Looking forward to that two weeks a year when they get to go on a second rate holiday and thinking that it is the bees knees.

    So how many out of the 100?

    It’s not pretty is it!

    So how do we win the Kobayashi Maru?

    Well we do what Captain Kirk did we cheat!

    We break the conventional rules and make our own.

    Kirk reprogrammed the simulation in order to win!

    We are going to do the same with the game of life. We will do this in a systematic way.

    We have a three step plan…

    First,  we are going to learn the rules of the game.

    Second, we are going to play better than the rules.

    Third, we will make our own rules.

    Simple!

    This is where TheSnowHow comes in. We will look to show you just how the game is played. Then show you how to build your skill to beat the game. Then make your own game a game you can win. This will come though observations of what it really take to win the game of life in all its different areas. Things like health, wealth, business, freedom, psychology, success and real happiness.

    We will upgrade your thinking, your knowledge, your performance and your understanding of what it takes to be able to take your life by the scruff of the neck and lift yourself out of the game that other people want to force upon you and go on to be able to win your game.

    If that sounds like something that appeals to you then keep reading. You are just about to swallow the “Red Pill” and see how deep the rabbit hole goes!

    More importantly it should allow you to live long and prosper!

    Snowy.