“The map is not the territory.” Alfred Korzybski wrote this early last century, and it’s one of those phrases that sounds obvious until you realise how completely most people ignore it. They confuse the description of reality with reality itself, the menu with the meal, the guidebook with the journey. And then they wonder why…
Most people I meet, and most people I talk to professionally, are on the surface just regular people doing the best that they can do to get on with their lives. But go a little deeper, and this is why the self-improvement industry is so large: there are many, many people who want a bit…
When an elephant is young, a common practice historically was to attach its hind leg via a chain to a strong unmovable post or tree, so that when it’s chained up, it knows it can’t get away. It takes about two months for the young elephant to stop struggling against the chain, and from then…
You know them. Maybe you are one of them. The naysayers, the pessimists, the complainers, the negative people who cast gloom around them everywhere they go. These unfortunate souls live in a world seeing only what’s wrong and what could go wrong. They’re constantly scanning everything around them for something negative to comment on, and…
You’re doing it because everyone else is doing it. That’s it. That’s the reason. Not because it makes sense. Not because you’ve thought it through. Not because you genuinely believe it’s the right thing to do. You’re doing it because other people are doing it, and the more people who join in, the more acceptable…
I have two kids. Let’s just say there’s very often a bit of healthy sibling rivalry going on between them. Actually, scratch that. “Healthy” might be overselling it. Sometimes it’s more like a Cold War with occasional hot skirmishes over who gets the last biscuit or who sits in the front seat of the car….
I’ve never actually seen a person with a halo above their head. Yet every single day, I watch good-looking people, popular people, and charismatic people get more credence in meetings than they really should be getting. I see attractive people in adverts selling you watches, perfumes, and lifestyles you don’t need. And I see you…
You’re about to learn about a syndrome that doesn’t appear in any medical textbook, any psychiatric manual, or any psychology journal. Yet I can guarantee with almost absolute certainty that once you understand what it is, you’ll start noticing it everywhere. In yourself. In your colleagues. In your friends. Probably in at least three conversations…
You’re doing it again. You’ve just taken what I said, twisted it through your mental gymnastics machine, and spat it back out as something I never actually meant. You’re sitting there asking, “So you’re saying if I don’t do this perfectly, I’m a complete failure?” No. That’s not what I’m saying. That’s what you’re hearing…
Nobody tells you, when you’re growing up, that the single biggest factor in whether your life goes well or badly isn’t your intelligence, your talent, your work ethic, or even your luck. It’s the people around you. That’s it. That’s the whole secret. The people you surround yourself with will determine more about your outcomes…