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Propagand Tea

How to Brainwash People: Techniques to Put an Idea into Someone’s Mind

It was another day in Khost, Afghanistan, when Shakirullah Yasin Ali, aged 14, climbed into the driver’s seat of a car, turned the ignition, and said a final prayer. The car was wired to a bomb. Shakirhullah knew his mission to drive the car near clustered British and American people then detonate it. He was about to die – or so he thought. Stopped and caught, he later said, “All I know is what the mullahs told me and kept telling me: that the British and Americans were against God”.

30 years before that on November 18th, 1978, 909 people drank Flavor-Aid mixed with cyanide and valium. The group knew death was imminent. They were members of a cult reportedly persuaded by their leader to drink the poison. Known as the Jonestown incident, this is one example of multiple ritual suicides committed by cult members.

What kind of power can convince people – from frightened teenagers to large groups of adults – to do something as extreme as ending their own lives? Read more

Lady having a job interview with a panel of three

Job Interview Advice to Ace Any Interview

Another email just arrived in my inbox. This person wanted me to hire him because he had just been fired, needed to feed his family, and was frustrated with the economic conditions.

I shook my head as I sat working on my computer at home, sipping a coffee. I felt frustrated for him. He did not need work – he needed a 180-degree shift in perspective with self-probing questions, tips, skills, and advice to get the work he wanted – not to get job interview advice or a job.

Whether you’re going for a retail, nursing, accounting, teacher, or government interview full-time or part-time over the phone, online, or in person, the following job interview advice will help you ace any interview to get the job of your dreams. Read more

Young woman shouting

Principles and Tips to Deal with Difficult People

The investigative in-law. The bossy boss. The crying child. The nasty neighbor. The cranky colleague. You may prefer to categorize them all as “jerks”. The list of “jerks” that make life miserable go on. Fortunately, there are principles and tips to help you deal with difficult people.

Principles do not change. Water is two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom – this will not change. The North poles of two magnets repel – this will not change. Gravity rips you down to Earth – this will not change. The unchanging laws of science are parallel to the unchanging principles and laws of communication to deal with difficult people.

If you have a difficult person in your life, you may think he or she is impossible to deal with, yet the person is not an impenetrable rock. It’s human! And humans follow laws of psychology and behavior you can benefit from. This article will provide you with judo-like principles to convert seemingly impossible forces of a difficult person into tips to effectively deal with them. Read more

Couple arguing with therapist

4 Reasons Advice and Other Solutions Kill Relationships

Orders, better ways of doing things, and simple suggestions – these are solutions you likely send to people, which kills your relationship with them. A solution may appear harmless on the surface, yet in this article I’ll dig deep into why your solutions are not only ineffective at changing people, but also killing the emotional lives of people you touch.

“Hang out the washing”, “Stop moping around and cheer up”, “Fix what you broke”, “You need to improve your skills with customers”, “Get a new attitude”, “Obey your mother and father”. There are four reasons why such statements kill your relationships. Read more

The decision tree with business leader

How to Delegate Responsibility to Anyone with the Decision Tree of Effective Leadership

When you think of delegation and getting other people to do tasks without you watching their every move, do you only think of leadership in business? Book after book has been written on delegation at work. Your ability to delegate is a powerful skill to learn to help with raising children, working with service staff like cleaners, and everyday decision-making.

This article is beyond business to help you empower anybody to make decisions on their own while not subjecting anyone to the pain of a control freak. You learn how to avoid turning yourself into a cantankerous, controlling individual while still getting things done. Read more

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

Review of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey

This is a book review of Stephen R. Covey’s The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change.

Covey’s book has sold over 15 million copies for a reason: It ignores trends and popular psychology, and sticks with enduring principles of lasting change. His seven principles build a lasting foundation for truth, openness, and integrity. The principles are timeless – unchanging to events – that make the book the personal development favorite of many self-help experts. Read more

Influence

Review of Influence by Robert Cialdini

This is a book review of Robert B. Cialdini’s Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, a classic book on subtly getting people to do what you want.

Robert Cialdini is currently Regent’s Professor of Psychology at Arizona State University. His book Influence is a fantastic classic on persuasion as he transforms what most people took as hidden and unknown variables in decision-making into clear principles that you can use to influence people. Read more

Confused woman

On Achieving Goals – Part 1: Defining What You Truly Want

Alexander Graham Bell said, “What this power is I cannot say; all I know is that it exists and it becomes available only when a man is in that state of mind in which he knows exactly what he wants and is fully determined not to quit until he finds it.” Napoleon Hill said, “The starting point of all achievement is desire.” Abraham Lincoln said, “You can have anything you want – if you want it badly enough. You can be anything you want to be, do anything you set out to accomplish if you hold to that desire with singleness of purpose.”

How to Make Nothing Stop You – Ever

For centuries, mankind has explored this mysterious emotional state that gets him want he wants. This power is not the law of attraction. It is a power within you. The power is your power. It is self-motivation. You control if your self-motivated. Self-motivation gives you anything you damn well want if you want it bad enough. Read more

The 48 Laws of Power

Review of The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene

This is a book review of Robert Greene’s The 48 Laws of Power.

Greene takes you back centuries when Marie Antoinette become the French Queen and was later decapitated, and Machiavelli charmed the court to his way of thinking. From nationwide victories to intimate seductions and lies of alchemy, Greene has written a masterpiece that deduces 48 laws of power from past powerful individuals and the not so powerful. Read more

Made to Stick

Review of Made to Stick by Chip Heath and Dan Heath

This is a book review of Chip Heath and Dan Heath’s Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die.

Why is it that urban legends, conspiracy theories, and public health scares can reach the other side of the world; while most businesses, teachers, and public speakers cannot get their ideas to reach a person two feet in front of them? The answer lies in Made to Stick. Read more