It may come as a surprise to you, but yes, there’s only one single skill you need to succeed in life. And it’s the one skill every man possesses. It’s in our blood from the day we are born. We, the men, have one distinct feature that we, unfortunately, don’t use to its full extent. And it’s something insanely powerful.
Many will argue that women are far better in what we are going to explain in here, but as you’ll see, after reviewing all the facts, their ability is reserved to the field of safety.
That’s not what we are talking about here. We are talking about gaining an edge and that means offensive – something we are built for!
Some skills we learn but some we already have
As we like to say, your school did a pretty good job teaching you a certain set of skills that will enable you to sell your labor for monetary compensation. In other words, to find a job. Although, they missed teaching a few vital lessons essential for our contemporary lifestyle.
Yes, in case you are wondering, you’re not “earning” anything. You’re practically selling your mental and physical abilities for the agreed fixed hourly fee + eventual bonuses.
This is all fine, of course, but…
Did you ever wonder how come some folks progress while some stay idle?
Even better, did you come up with the answer?
You have two peers. Boys who grew up together and shared everything. They even went to the same school to learn practically the same set of skills, which eventually allowed both of them to find the job in the same company – on the same entry levels.
But, as time went by, one of them got promoted once, then the second time and eventually reached the executive level. His old pal, at the same time, didn’t move from that same old entry job. He’s still busting his ballz, for 8 hours straight, just to bring home at least some money that may or may not last for the entire month.
Needless to say that today, our lives depend on money. Lots of it. And the only way to acquire money is through sales. Therefore, it’s in our best interest to sell something, even if it’s our own labor, for maximum profit.
One of our two friends figured that out and became determined to make that happen. The other one, unfortunately, failed to recognize that necessity, but what’s even more tragic, he failed to recognize the innate tool he possesses to change his life for better.
How’s that even possible, if the school system educated both the same way? What gave an edge to one of them?
The answer is rather simple.
The more successful one is actively using his innate intuition and tendency for
PROFILING
Yeah, most will automatically jump up and start bitching about how women are the intuitive ones. Well, only in a part connected with safety, as we already stated.
Women are wired differently from men. Their game can be described as the defensive one. They are more likely to cave in, back down and generally retreat on the smallest sign of risk.
Men, however, are wired for the pure, and sometimes even brutal, offense! Defense is something we learn afterward by being exposed to the different dogmas about “responsible adult”, “meekness” and similar crap.
In our blood, there’s a pure kerosene, just waiting to be ignited.
And it’s that ignition that depends on whether we are using our profiling skills or not.
What is PROFILING and how it’s utilized in our contemporary world?
No, you don’t have to become an FBI’s behavioral expert. Those are the everyday folks, just like you, me and Mark here, only with their intuition trimmed to the extremes. It’s something we are all born with – without exceptions.
That same intuition, or to put it in the more precise way, ability to “profile” certain situation, is what keeps us alive. It’s one of the oldest traits we men, the natural born killers, possess.
It’s just the question of how sharp that skill is, and how frequently and thoroughly are we using it.
Correlation of that specific skill and our contemporary society
Our current society revolves around two main axes – sales and purchases. Whatever we do in our lives, from the earliest childhood, we either sell or buy. It can be an opinion or a product, all the same.
What gave the edge to one of our two friends is his tendency to practice constant situational awareness. Nothing happens in his closest environment without him noticing and analyzing it.
As soon as he felt comfortable in his new environment, he started to explore – to profile.
For the most part of his day at work, other than just performing his tasks, he observed the people around him and their mutual interaction.
Pretty soon, he could group his colleagues in 3 different categories:
- Kissasses whose only joy is backstabbing
- Minding their own business folks
- Natural leaders, or the assertive kind of folks
This simple profiling gave him an idea with whom to talk more freely and whom to avoid completely – something his pal from the old days failed to notice in time, which already cost him dearly.
Then he moved further and started paying special attention to his supervisor and CEO. What he wanted to know is how they assess employees and what values are appreciated mostly. It’s at this point in time when he actively started working on his promotions.
All that time, his pal, the guy who falls in a category #2, stood still, performed his tasks to avoid getting fired, and refrained from any communication since it already backfired.
Unlike him, his more determined peer, who figured out that the only way to bring home more money for the same amount of hours spent on his job is to get promoted, decided to utilize his natural instinct and tendency for assertive behavior – again, something all men possess!
He made sure that controllers, supervisors, and CEOs clearly see his demonstration of leadership abilities, BEFORE those that fall into that 3rd category, start doing the same thing.
All that time he observed the executive staff, waiting for the opportunity. It wasn’t long before the foreman got sick and someone had to replace him.
Guess who that someone was?
This story is lovely, but how do I pull something like that, you ask.
How to bring out and sharpen your innate profiling skill
How do you choose whom to like and whom to avoid?
You use your instincts. Some folks have done nothing wrong to you, yet you can’t stand them.
It’s a chemical thing, like everything else in your body and all around you.
Don’t confuse us with some spiritual beings. We are one dangerous chemical compound, completely operated by the set of chemicals, a small amount of electricity and testosterone.
Your brain, among everything else, contains one specific chemical – a neurotransmitter, responsible for trust establishment. It’s oxytocin.
Your relationship with someone fully depends on levels of that particular hormone, the brain decides to release when you are in that person’s vicinity.
That’s your first clue about someone – the famous “first impression” you get about someone after the handshake, during which oxytocin exchange occurs.
But that’s just a small fragment of the entire mechanism, residing in your limbic parts of the brain, that allows you to profile the crowd and predict that someone will throw the bottle or backstab you.
That part is connected to something even more amazing that you are not even aware of. Maybe you are, but not to the extent we are going to demonstrate right now.
It’s your advanced neocortex and frontal lobe with unbelievable analytical potentials that do the work
Nothing similar exists in nature. A human brain, man’s in particular, is the only true wonder. Complex neuronal network, with the center in your developed front lobe, is firing neurotransmitters on several levels (frequencies), each for a specific analytical task.
It works in two different modes: the slow one and the fast one.
The fast one is what we call the “intuition.”
It’s the system that pulls data from your memory at the speed of the light, making possible for you to draw instant conclusions about the situation, without even assessing the whole thing.
This fast system is what keeps us alive in life or death situations when there’s no time to think shit through.
But there’s a problem with this system.
It can be wrong because it relies solely on your memory blocks and not using any calculations. It’s more of an associative method of thinking, only extremely fast. Sometimes you’ll guess right. But more often, you’ll be wrong because eyes and ears can fool you.
It’s when we tend to say, “He jumped to the conclusion.”
This is where System 2 steps in – the slow one.
That motherfucker is cunning. It will even force you to read stuff like this just to get that information necessary for the final calculation.
That’s right. The only reason why you’re reading these words is because System 2 forced you to do it. You simply cannot resist it, even if you want it, because it became obvious that some critical memory block, with the potential to give you an edge and improve your odds, is missing.
Trust us when we say – never ignore System 2!
Because, unlike the fast system of thinking, System 2 never rushes. Instead, it takes its time to assess the situation, using those same memory blocks utilized by System 1 but combines them with some serious analyses and advanced mathematics.
You are not even aware of what kind of complex mathematical models your brain is capable of developing – every millisecond of your life!
Only, System 1 can sometimes be so freakin’ overwhelming that it simply doesn’t allow activation of the System 2 – the logical, smart and correct system.
Here’s a neat test to see these two systems in practice.
Read carefully and try to answer immediately, without too much thinking.
“The ball and the bat cost $1.10. If the bat is $1 more expensive than the ball, how much is the ball?”
Your System 1 already formed the number in your head. It’s $0.10.
That was some fast thinking. But essentially wrong.
Now, make the effort and employ System 2. Do the math.
Yeah, the correct answer is $0.05! Because 0.05 + 1.05 = 1.10
Let’s check that out.
1.05 – 0.05 = 1
The bat is $1 more expensive than the ball, right? That was the known fact of the question.
Let me guess, you’re having trouble believing it, aren’t you?
Yes, that’s how powerful our “intuition” is. It can easily knock us out of the right track, without us even realizing it.
So how do you leverage the immense potential of these two systems to be able to profile anything with high precision?
You combine these two systems!
The only way to do that is to refrain from fast conclusions when it’s not necessary.
You want to employ System 2 in almost every situation.
When combined with the experience, which is nothing more than an immense amount of memory blocks about particular stimuli, for instance, your ability to drive the car, these two systems are single, most powerful weapon in your hunting arsenal.
That’s what our more successful friend did to keep getting promoted.
He utilized his experience in basic human behavior, acquired throughout his life, by placing it into this new environment. Then he employed System 2 to derive conclusions about individuals, small groups of those same individuals (mini-tribes) and finally the entire community (the super-tribe). Once he profiled every single one of them, he could clearly see the way they interact with each other, on an individual and group level.
That’s all he had to do. That’s all you have to do because everything around you has been built by men. It’s us who run this world. Our rules apply for the most part.
Sure, nature can throw a surprise here and there and wreak havoc, but for the biggest portion of your life, you depend on a complex set of principles — the matrix — set by men. By men like you, me, Mark and every other man who walks on the surface of this planet!
We wrote those rules so everything that’s happening around you, has its roots in basic human behavior. All you need to do is to be aware of those rules to be able to recognize the specific behavior, which will give you a clue about the most optimal course of action! In other words, it will give you an edge!
Still having trouble with that damn number, don’t’ you?
