Allrighty then, so you want to control your mind? Or maybe you want to control other people’s minds?

Well, there’s no real way to make other people be your robot-like servant, but you can certainly bend your own mind to suit your will. And, if that’s what you need or want to do, you should check out My Mind Control, which is a handy little eBook that will help you whip your own mind into shape.

Focus. Concentrate. Stay on task. Get stuff done.

If that’s what you need to do, you should go get yourself a copy of My Mind Control right now. What are you waiting for?

On the flip side, if you’re more interested in controlling other people’s minds, at least so far as getting them to buy stuff from you, you should check out Sally Taylor’s Mind Control: Building the Illusion. In it, “YOU WILL FIND OUT HOW TO BUILD THE ILLUSION OF YOUR PRODUCT BEING NECESSARY FOR THE ATTAINMENT OF THE PERFECT LIFESTYLE.”

Has this post made you decide to purchase either one of those books? No? Well, maybe if I had purchased and read Sally’s book, it would. But I haven’t. So, if you don’t want your sales pitch to be as awful as mine, you ought to grab a copy of Sally’s book now.

DISCLAIMER: I know Sally Taylor from several Internet forums. I have not been paid or received a copy of the book for this post. The link to her book is not an affiliate link. I don’t receive a commission if you buy a copy. If you buy a copy of my eBook, I make money. If you buy a copy of Sally’s book, I get jack-squat. But, if you do buy a copy of Sally’s book, maybe she’ll owe me a favor. If a bunch of you buy, maybe she’ll owe me a bigger favor. But, as far as any exchange of money or free product is concerned, I’ve gotten nothing.

You may recall a little over a week ago, I posted about my new “My Mind Control” product, which was really just a rebranding (as far as promotions go) for the “How to Train Your Mind” guide I’ve had available for several months, or more.

If you’ve yet to purchase the guide, now is a good time. You see, there is a new marketplace for Internet marketing products and services online called WSO Gold.

For a limited time, I’ve got an offer up there where you can purchase “My Mind Control” at an incredible price. Seriously, it’s pretty darn low. You don’t want to miss it!

Also, if you’ve been itching to get a copy of the Internet Marketing Backstage Pass, I have a very special offer on that running over on WSO Gold as well. That’s another fabulous deal you do not want to miss out on!

Of course, WSO Gold doesn’t just have special offers on my products—it’s not my site—so you’ll find other Internet marketing related offers there as well. So, be sure to visit the site to grab some golden deals!

You may have noticed a different ad in the sidebar. The “How to Train Your Mind” ad is gone, with the ad for “The Internet Marketing Backstage Pass” moved down in its place. At the top, where the IMBP ad was, is now an ad for “My Mind Control“.

It’s new, but it’s not. It is simply a slight rebranding of the “How to Train Your Mind” guide. Well, not so much a rebranding as an alternative sales letter.

What I’ve found is that people seem to search for “mind control” more than “brain training.” Of course, a good amount of the former are looking for ways to control other people’s minds and not their own. And that was one of the reasons I used “brain training” rather than “mind control.”

But, people do search for “mind control” for personal mind control as well. They want to break bad habits. They want to get things done. They want to remember things better. They want more out of life and their minds are holding them back.

Often, we are our own worst enemy when it comes to accomplishing our goals in life. We may procrastinate. We may spread ourselves too thin, jumping around from project to project instead of focusing on one thing and getting that one thing done before moving on to something else.

So, with personal “mind control”, you have a solution. You learn how to whip your own mind into shape and make it work to your advantage instead of your disadvantage. Often, we are at war between what we want and what we want right now. We want a nice big house. We want a huge flat screen TV. We want a new car. We want lots of things we don’t have and currently may not be able to afford. The problem is that what we want right now is to take a nap. Or play a game. Or watch TV. Or do any of a myriad of other things that pull us off the course of reaching that long term goal.

And, now, with the economy such as it is, we need to be focused and productive more than ever. If you have a job and want to keep it, you’re going to have to prove your worth to your employer. You need to get things done and make sure that, if they need to make cutbacks, they’ll be more likely to let go of the person who isn’t pulling their weight instead of you! If you don’t have a job, well, then you need to focus on finding one or getting your own business going—both of which require hunkering down and getting things done.

With “personal mind control”, you can help train your mind and using it effectively to get things done. Your brain isn’t entirely unlike any other muscle in your body. Think of any physical activity, such as a favorite sport. The first time you did it, you may not have been very good. But, as you practiced, you improved. After enough practice, things became second-nature.

Training your mind is like riding a bike. The first time you tried, you were wobbly and perhaps fell over. You may have stumbled quite a few times before you got the hang of it. But, once you did, you couldn’t imagine not being able to ride a bike. It feels so natural that it’s hard to remember what it was like to not be able to balance on the bike. How did you ever not get it?

Training your mind is a lot like that. You may wobble and fall when you start out. Unfortunately, that’s where many people stop. “I can’t do this!” is their battle cry. They just think their minds aren’t up to it. They can’t remember better. They can’t focus better. It’s just the way their brain is.

But, you’d never accept that about riding a bike. Why accept it when it comes to your mind? Isn’t controlling your mind and making it work for you many times more important than riding a bike? Isn’t it, therefore, worth the practice and effort it will take to properly train your mind and get it under your control?

If someone told you they’d give you the home of your dreams just for learning to ride a bike, you’d do it, wouldn’t you? If you fell, you’d get right back up and try again, no? You’d keep trying and trying until you were able to ride down the street on your own without training wheels, wouldn’t you? You’d practice and practice until the keys to that house were finally in your hand, wouldn’t you?

Then why wouldn’t you do the same for your mind? If procrastination holds you back, train your mind to do otherwise. If a lack of focus holds you back, train your mind otherwise. If bad habits hold you back, train your mind otherwise.

If you want to train your mind and learn to control your mind, get your copy of “My Mind Control” today.

And then, practice! Practice! Practice! Practice until it becomes second nature to you and you can no longer remember what it was like to not be in control of your mind.

Walk on the moon! Ha ha!

Seriously, we are approaching the time of year when everyone will be looking for ways to change things. Some people start this around the holidays, wishing they could lose a few pounds before seeing other family members or wishing they could earn some extra money before Christmas and so on.

But, for most people, it really starts after the holidays with their New Year’s Resolutions.

And, as most of us know, those New Year’s Resolutions don’t stick.

You see, we try but most of us aren’t making a full commitment to sticking to those resolutions. Additionally, we pile on too many things at once. We want to lose 20 pounds, we want to make more money, we want to stop eating this or that, we want to exercise more, we want to spend more time with family, we want to do better with our home business, we want to clean out the closet, etc.

And, we start a few things but then it gets overwhelming and those New Year’s Resolutions get broken and tossed aside.

The problem is that we really haven’t changed our own mentality. Most of the problems are caused by bad habits. We need to break bad habits and replace them with new, good habits. For example, you might want to lose 20 pounds, but if you have a habit of wolfing down a bag of chips while watching TV at night, you’re not going to get there. You might try to start an exercise routine, but, when the pounds don’t come off, you’re back to scarfing down chips at the TV. Why? Because it’s less work and the results are the same! That is, you could exercise and not lose weight or you could not exercise and not lose weight. Which is easier?

Of course, a regular exercise routine can help you shed the pounds, but it will not be effective unless you stick with it.

So, you have to make exercise a new habit. You must make it so that doing it becomes natural to you–a habit. Likewise with any other significant change in your life. The thing is, you didn’t form bad habits overnight. They became bad habits over time. First, you sat down at the TV and had a few potato chips. Then, you had a few more. After a while, those few weren’t satisfying enough. What will a few more hurt? After a bit, you started eating the whole bag and were shocked when the bag was empty!

After that, you were no longer shocked when the bag was empty. That became your new normal. Then, you added dip. And soda.

After a while, you were making a complete fourth meal of chips, dip and soda while watching TV. That didn’t happen overnight. It happened over time.

That’s a tough habit to break. Most people cannot quit that cold turkey. You have to wean yourself down. Start new habits. You could start by swapping out the cola for water or unsweetened iced tea. Replace the chips with a variety with less fat, or substitute popcorn or something else that would be better.

Over time, you can create new habits. With that, you will have more success keeping your New Year’s Resolutions than trying to quit all your bad habits cold turkey and starting with new ones. It doesn’t work that way for most people! If it hasn’t for you, it’s time to try a different approach.

A lot of times, before you can whip your body into shape, you need to whip your mind into shape. This is something that is often overlooked! For more about getting your brain into shape, check out “How to Train Your Mind“, a guide which can help you increase your focus, overcome bad habits and be more efficient in your life.

Finally, I have finished my other eBook, you know the one I started before the Internet marketing guide.

It’s basically an old book which I edited and added new material in the form of exercises and worksheets based on the lessons in the book. So, it becomes a course rather than just a simple book.

And then I let it sit on my hard drive for ages while I pondered how to touch up a few things.

Which led to being sidetracked into other projects.

Which is the kind of stuff you’ll learn not to do if you follow the lessons in the book.

Remember when this blog used to have better content? Well, that was when I was applying the principles learned in this book.

And then I slacked off.

And you have seen the results.

At any rate, the book is now available: How to Train Your Mind. And, as a new release, I’ve set it up with special introductory pricing, which will not last long.

So, if you’re interested in boosting your brain power, and getting a good deal, now is to time to check out that link!

What? You think you could do better? Well, that wouldn’t be terribly hard to do, so don’t go patting yourself on the back just yet!

Being more creative is something many of us want to do. The first thing to point out is that being creative doesn’t require any special skills. You don’t have to be able to draw. You don’t even have to be able to write well. If necessary, you can be the idea person and someone else can draw or write your ideas. (That’s called outsourcing, you know.) But, any skills you have can assist you in being more creative and, the more skills you have, the greater your opportunities for creativity.

A good imagination is also very, very important. It is perhaps the most important thing of all. Hopefully, your schooling and/or career haven’t completely killed your imagination. And, if it has, don’t worry. Imagination can never be completely killed, so you can regain it if it has been lost.

One way of being more creative is simply doing different things. If you drive to work, take an alternative route. That gets your brain shaken up a bit, in that you really have to think about what you’re doing and where you’re going. You’re not just robotically repeating your normal drive to work. There are new places to turn, new things to see, new potholes to be aware of. Likewise, if you walk or ride a bike to work, you can also go a different way. That kind of thing gets your brain going, which helps overall. Plus, you’ll have new visual sensations. You may see a tree you wouldn’t normally see. You might think, hey, that tree looks like hands reaching up to touch the sky. Or, perhaps you’ll see a new billboard and think, wouldn’t it be funny if…

Part of being creative is making connections that people normally wouldn’t or seeing something more in things that others overlook. For example, many people would see an Assassin Bug and simply think (or say), eek, a bug! But, when I saw one, I thought of what you can learn from the assassin bug.

Some people would listen to Chamillionaire’s “Ridin’” and think, hey, that’s a good song. But, Weird Al listened to the song and thought, hey, white and nerdy!

Similarly, another way to be more creative is simply by thinking about alternative ways of doing things. For example, if you just finished reading a book, and it wasn’t that good, think about how you could have done it better. Many people will just stop at the “this book is no good” point and hope the next book is better. So, taking the next step and actually considering how it could have been better puts you a step ahead of the crowd. While eating dinner, consider how you would eat if you didn’t have a fork (or chopsticks). Would you eat with your hands? Would you eat with your knife? And, why? If you weren’t concerned about appearances, you might just grab your food in your hands and eat it. But, if you view eating with your hands as something akin to living like a wild animal, you might consider an approach that is more “civilized.” In that case, you might eat with your knife in an attempt to preserve some modicum of “civilized” behavior.

Now, if you’re a fiction writer, thinking of those things in this last exercise can help you develop authentic characters with real motivations behind their actions. But, if you’re not a fiction writer, you might be thinking about how such an exercise would be useful to you. If you’re in advertising and selling silverware, you might be able to use such a characterization in your ads. If you’re not using XYZ Silverware, you might as well be eating with your hands! You could try to give the impression that your product is so much better than anyone else’s that, if people use anyone else’s, they might as well just grab and tear their food with their hands and teeth!

And, even if you’re neither of those things, just the exercise of thinking in different ways will get your brain thinking of different ways in other activities as well, and that will be of benefit to you in whatever your line of work.

Finally, another way to be more creative is to go outside. Whether you live in the city, the suburbs or a rural area, there is almost always something going on outside. From construction work to wild animals playing, there is something happening. You may need to look closer, at the world of insects, or farther away, at the bustle of the city streets. Seeing people, animals and other forms of life going about their lives can almost always shed some insight or provide some spark of an idea that can lead to an increase in your creativity.

And, it’s not always a specific thing that will light the creative spark. It may just be the act of letting your brain wander (and wonder!) that leads to creative imaginings that may have little to do with your current surroundings!

So, get out there and do different things and see if that doesn’t fire up a creative spark for you!

Mind you, these are just a few of the ways that you can be more creative. You’ll find more in my forthcoming “How to Train Your Mind” course. Visit the site to sign up for my mailing list and be notified when it’s available.

Last year, I posed the question “Are You Salt or Sodium?” As you recall, sodium is what you really want to be.

But, being sodium can be difficult. It requires some degree of creativity in order to create the circumstances that allow you to create that Big Bang! Sometimes you just don’t feel you have that creative energy. You feel too burdened with stress and the pressures of life to be in anyway creative. How do you bring out that creative gold from your inner mind when you feel more like lead?

First, you need to find a way to relax. One way is with exercise. Another is with an activity that takes your mind off your troubles, like a hobby that’s unrelated to your job.

You need to get rid of that lead weight that’s keeping your brain from firing those creative sparks!

It may help too to talk to somebody. These days, many people feel isolated from others. You may be alone in your office, separated by a cubicle or even work at home, largely alone. Just finding some kind of outlet, whether it’s online or in the real world with a group of friends, can do wonders to spark your creativity.

Most people can’t force creativity. It has to be inspired in some way. Usually, it comes as a result of the mixing of ideas. For example, you might have some ideas floating around in the back of your mind, but something someone says in a conversation will spark another idea that ties them all together in some coherent fashion.

The best way to overcome a creativity block is just to stop stressing over it and let your mind relax a bit so the ideas can get flowing again. Take a walk. Play a video game. Hang out with some friends. Just do something that’ll let your mind loosen up a bit!

Haven’t done a Brain Power post in a while, so here’s one for you.

Start at the green square. Next, find the shortest path to the red square. I’ve shaded the squares to make them easier to count.

What is the shortest path from the green square to the red square?

Leave your answer in the comments.

As I mentioned on Saturday, Revellian Dot Com touched on this earlier last week in his post “The Secret - Exposing the The Truth and How It was Conceived.”

A lot of the focus (and criticism) on the Secret is visualization. Visualization is in Wallace Wattles’ book as well (see Saturday’s post for the links). It’s also in a number of other similar works.

It’s pretty easy to criticize and, because of that, people are quick to dismiss the whole idea. Lots of people daydream, but few people ever realize those dreams. School children daydream during classes, but rare is the kid that grows up and accomplishes those dreams. At work, plenty of adults daydream too, but few of them ever realize their goals either. Even those that daydream consistently, and really hope for those dreams to come true, never realize those dreams.

All in all, visualization is pretty much busted, no?

Don’t Be So Quick to Dismiss Visualization!

Visualization is not exactly like daydreaming, so it should not be dismissed so easily.

First, take a look here. The video shown is different than what is described in the post, and different from the original video. The original video was better, and was a clip from a TV program, so was probably yanked for copyright infringement. But, the point is still good.

Did you watch the video yet? Don’t read further until you have.

I’ll wait…

Okay. Now there is a scientific reason for visualization. We see what we are looking for. So, if we focus on bad things, we will notice them and dwell on them more often. If we focus on good things, we will notice them and dwell on them more often.

Forgetting about the Law of Attraction for the moment, we can choose the things we want out of life. We can choose to find the good opportunities awaiting us simply by focusing our minds on such things. Likewise, if we are negative, it is the negatives we will see.

When we focus on the positive, we will see less of the negative. And vice versa.

Now, that doesn’t mean that bad things won’t happen, but, if we focus on the positive, we will see the silver lining. Of course, that’s not to say bad things won’t happen that have no silver linings. Bad things will always happen. Death, for example. We haven’t yet found a way to prevent it, so we will all lose people we know and care about to it.

Positive thinking doesn’t turn the world into a happy, magical place where everyone is happy and no one ever dies and every day is a sun shiny happy day and there’s never a cloud in the sky except for those white puffy ones that look like dragons and castles.

Some people get stuck on that point. Something bad happens, and they give up on any type of positive thinking or visualization. You can’t stop bad things from happening, but there’s no reason you cannot be a happier person in between bad things.

For example, if you just mope around and are miserable all the time because you just know bad things are going to happen, what good does that do anyone? You can argue that you are just accepting the inevitable, but really you are just denying yourself happiness. You will one day lose a loved one. That’s a bad thing. It would be an even worse thing if you have no happy memories of that loved one because you were too busy being all melancholy because you knew one day they would die.

Get it? Positive thinking doesn’t prevent bad things from happening, it just creates more opportunities for good things to happen. Got it?

I’ll assume you have…

The Metaphysical

Now, I am going to wax metaphysical for a moment. I’ve just given you the rational and scientific explanation for positive thinking and visualization. Now, let’s get into the metaphysical, the not-so-scientific.

I don’t want to spend too much time on this area, because it’s not so easy to prove. I cannot offer you evidence or scientific reasoning. But, I don’t think anyone should be too quick to dismiss the more metaphysical aspects of visualization, the idea that like attracts like, the concept that your thoughts become manifest.

I know. It’s a bit weird.

But, before the realities of adult life set in and discourage you from such things as daydreaming, I noticed that things just sort of used to go my way. I had dreams and goals and daydreams and hopes for the future, with a (mostly) positive outlook. And, during those times (the positive ones), I noticed that things just seemed to go my way.

It went deeper than finding the silver lining in things. Things just happened in such a way that they pushed me closer to those dreams.

Perhaps you’ve experienced that as well? In any case, that is why I am not too quick to dismiss the law of attraction concept.

The Secret Behind Visualization

This is the bit you’ve been waiting for, right? The part that, on Saturday, I promised I would give to you today. And, no, you’re not going to have to download an eBook. Not even a free one.

What is the secret? Well, Lewis Empire touched upon it last week too. It was something he was having some problems with.

The most difficult part behind visualization is–are you ready for this?–knowing what you want.

Yes. That’s it. That’s the big secret behind the secret.

Knowing What You Want

The hardest part of visualization is knowing what you want. This is, I think, the biggest reason most people don’t achieve the results they want with visualization.

You see, you need to have a clear vision of what you want. This is something that Wallace Wattles recognized.

Again, this goes to the more rational explanation of why visualization works too. If you have a clear goal in mind, if you focus on achieving that goal, you will be far more likely to achieve that goal than if you have something more nebulous and less defined in mind.

But, knowing what you want is the hardest part. Yes, it’s easy to imagine having a million dollars, but what else is in that vision of your future? A nice house? A fancy car? Sure, it’s easy to picture those things, but you still haven’t visualized your future.

How will you get a million dollars? That’s the part many people leave unanswered. They picture having a million dollars, but have foggy image in their mind as to how they will get it.

In 1977, in Sidney Harris’ book What’s so Funny About Science?, there is a cartoon showing a math problem. On the left side is the beginning of the problem and calculations. On the right side is further calculations and the solution. In the middle, the calculation is “Then a miracle occurs.” See the image here.

That illustrates how most people try to use visualization. People want the million dollars, but they hope for a miracle to occur in order to get it. But, that is not visualization. That is daydreaming!

Believe. Act. Achieve!

Don’t you love the way I managed to squeeze that in?

As I’ve said before, first you have to believe, then you act, and only then can you achieve. Visualization can be part of your believe portion of the task. You have to know what you want. You have to picture it. You have to feel that it’s yours just waiting for you to grab it. Then, you have to also act on your dreams.

If your act portion of the task is “then a miracle occurs,” how can you act on it? More visualization? More hoping and dreaming isn’t going to get you there. You might get lucky and win the lottery, but if your act part of the task is buying lottery tickets, odds are you’re not going to have fun because you’re not going to get to where you want to be!

I Have to Have a Plan?

People want to skip this part. They don’t want to have to figure out a plan. That’s too much like work! They just want to daydream and hope the million dollars appears.

Yes, it’s there. It’s waiting for you. But you have to build a bridge to get there.

Maybe your bridge is a restaurant. Maybe it’s an online store. Maybe it’s a blog.

But, you have to have a plan. You have to have a more defined goal than “I want a million dollars!”

Most businesses fail, because many of them never had a business plan.

Most people fail at visualization, because they never had a plan either.

There’s no easy way out. You can achieve, but you have to both believe and also act!

If I Have a Plan, Why Do I Need to Visualize?

You need the visualization to maintain your focus on the goal, to see what you’re working for, to know that it’s waiting for you to come and get it. And, as I mentioned before, you shouldn’t be too quick to dismiss the metaphysical aspects of it.

Can you succeed with a plan alone? Without visualization? Visualization is not a guarantee of success. But, a lack of a plan, a lack of a defined goal, a lack of a clear vision of what you are trying to achieve is a guarantee of failure.

Ah, but I haven’t answered the questions…

• Can you succeed with just a plan?
  You have to have a plan to act upon! Otherwise, you’re just doing things aimlessly, hoping something will come of it.
• Can you succeed without visualization?
  Now, there’s the rub! You see, having a plan is part and parcel of visualization. Part of any type of planning is visualization. And, part of visualization is having the plan! It’s a Catch-22. You cannot have one without the other! Visualization without a plan is just daydreaming!

That’s also why visualization is valuable. It has both the concrete (forcing you to develop an actual plan and clear goals) and the metaphysical (like attracts like). Even if you don’t believe in the latter, that doesn’t negate the former.

If you’ve been visualizing things without having a plan, you’ve just been daydreaming! Give it another try, but this time do it properly.

As always,
Believe. Act. Achieve!

Do you want to know a secret?

Revellian Dot Com touched on this early this week in his post “The Secret - Exposing the The Truth and How It was Conceived.” (By the way, if you want to read Wallace Wattles‘ “The Science of Getting Rich,” you can get a PDF copy here or read it in HTML here.)

I am going to disagree with Bobby a little bit here. While you “can be happy and make money by working hard and believing in yourself,” it may not be enough. There are a lot of people that work hard and believe in themselves, but still don’t get ahead in life. They don’t reach the positions they want to be in, nor are they able to get what they want out of life.

While a variety of factors come into play for everyone, I don’t think we can so easily dismiss the power of visualization. As I’ve said before, you have to both believe and act in order to achieve! Daydreaming alone will not get you where you want to be. And hard work alone may not get you where you want to be.

While I wouldn’t blame a lack of visualization for anyone’s misfortunes, I do think it can be a hindrance for being successful.

And, that’s because there’s a little secret behind visualization. It’s something that gets overlooked or under-noticed because it just doesn’t have that “Wow!” factor that inspires the imagination and builds up your hopes as something promoted as “The Secret” does.

In fact, it’s something you probably already know. Or even learned in school.

It’s also something you were already told about visualization, but probably didn’t pay attention to it because you were so interested in getting started and dreaming about your future fortunes.

It’s also the toughest part about visualization for most people.

So, what is this other secret? I’m going to tell you and, no, I’m not going to ask you to buy an eBook to find out.

But, I am going to ask you to wait until Monday.