Mindset – Orren Prunckun

How Not To Ask For Help

Orren Prunckun — Mon, 13 Aug 2018 14:23:12 +0000

I got a communication from an acquaintance.

This person had promised to do volunteer work at an event I ran, however they decided during the event to drop off so they could get event attendance.

Sometime later they contacted me with the following.

(Wording summarized so not to identify the person.)

Them: What do you do?

Me: I do many things. Here is my LinkedIn profile: LINK. What would you like to know more about?

Basically, I don’t want to pitch you on something that’s not relevant to you.

Them: XYZ. Can you tell me for free how do to do XYZ step-by-step?

Me: Here is a link to 100,000 words I have written on the subject: LINK.

Them: Thanks, I also work in XYZ. What should I charge people?

(And they also claim to manage $1,000,000+ of advertising on their LinkedIn profile.)

Me: That’s commercial in confidence.

Them: Because you’re not answering my question, you sound like you have no experience and have no idea what you are talking about. You’re an Arsehole.

Me: You have to be joking, right?

Them: I’d never work with you in the future.

Me: …

The TL:DR version:

They are competing with me but didn’t want to reveal that initially.
They wanted free advice on how to do the same job I do.
Then when I wouldn’t give it to them, they scold me.

Another contact of mine contacted me without prompt from me asking my experience with this person.

This other contact sent me a screenshot of the conversation with the person in question:

And I quote:

“Do you want a job or not stop wasting time.”

“We have high-level projects underway.”

“Look, dude stop fucking around – do you want a high paying job.”

The person in question has no idea how to sell people on joining his company (thus no idea how to sell), yet claims to be a sales company with $1,000,0000+ of advertising under management.

Someone is lying.

And it’s not me or my other contact.

How To Enjoy Marketing And Sales Rejection

Orren Prunckun — Mon, 13 Aug 2018 14:19:22 +0000

People hate rejection.

Surveys about human fears reveal that public speaking is the most fear activity, even more than death.

Why is this?

Public speaking means getting up in from of people and presenting something.

That something, or worse still, you is being evaluated by the audience.

If they like it, then that something or you are accepted.

If they don’t like it, then that something or you are is rejected.

It’s safe to say that the fear of public speaking is the fear of rejection.

I’ll say it again…

PEOPLE HATE REJECTION.

But the thing is, in marketing and sales, not just the strict sense that is marketing and selling any product, service or solution, but in the broad sense of marketing and selling sponsorship, partnerships, romantic relationships, jobs, customers, ambassadors, yourself and so on.

People are then passive aggressive as they don’t know how to be assertive.

This comes from a fear of rejection.

Most people fear to be upfront about what they want and need, because of potential rejection.

Yet ironically, rejection is a positive thing, it reveals incompatibility really fast.

Here it is: rejection saves all parties involved time.

It acts as a way to segment suspects into alignment.

In other words, qualified.

Are they unaligned with what you are marketing and selling?

Are they aligned with what you are marketing and selling?

If it is former, they were never going to buy as they have no need.

If it is latter, they are open to buying as they have a need.

Basically, you are looking for a big enough servable market.

Let’s have a quick look at an example, in this case, a health product…

You ask someone “Do you want to be healthier?”

And they respond “No.”

For all intents and purposes, they have rejected you or what you were hopefully trying to sell.

No matter, how much begging, pleasing, over-selling or sales tricks you try on them, they will keep saying no and start to resent you.

Whether you know it or like it or not, here you are proactively trying to segment suspects into alignment.

A more subtle version is simply putting brand communication out into the market, say via marketing and sales content.

This time, you are not directly asking someone “Do you want to be healthier?”

But you are still, trying to segment suspects into alignment.

People that are not interested will not respond.

Again, for all intents and purposes, they have rejected you or what you were hopefully trying to sell, in an indirect way.

If George Clooney asked a woman out, she’d drop and cancel everything to go on it.

If they are not responding, they simply are not interested.

I have mentioned that rejection is based on lack of need.

But something people are just nasty in how they reject you.

Maybe they are rude to you; maybe they call you nasty names, maybe they ignore you, maybe they threaten you or your family (trust me I have had a cold-called for charity, and I have heard everything!)

People take rejection personally and usually make it mean that there is something wrong with themselves at a core level.

This is utter nonsense.

Except if you did something truly heinous, the rejection is not about you personally and has no reflection on your identity or who you are.

Seriously.

They don’t know you.

At this stage, they don’t know you on a deep level, so they are only rejecting the context or the image of you by association in their mind.

For example, you’re wearing a red jumper, and their high school bully also wore the same red jumper.

They only have a small amount of data to make a choice on, and they certainly haven’t had time to get to know you as a person.

Based on this small amount of data, they are not rejecting you, but their perception concept or story of you.

However, if one person says you have a tail, they are probably insane, because obviously, humans do not have tails.

However, if 100 people say you have a tail, they are probably right, and you better turn around and see if it’s true, as they may be on to something!

What does this all mean?

It means based on the small amount of data you have given them, they have run it pass all of the rules and situations and experience they have had in the past that are similar and made a snap judgment about this current situation in relation to their past.

Malcolm Gladwell talks about this in his book Blink.

They are relating you to their past experience.

You have never communicated with them, so the rejection cannot be about you as a person.

If you don’t have positive signs from people, then they are unlikely to be emotionally willing to talk to you – you have no idea why, so don’t read it as a rejection.

According to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, humans desire to be self-actualized by being connected to things that are important to them.

Further, after physiological and safety needs, humans naturally want to be connected and deepen relationships with others.

So if you are being “rejected” or your communication isn’t working, it could be because of their emotional state.

Most people’s emotional willingness drops due to basic physiological factors such as:

They are tired;
They are hungry;
They are cold;
Etc.

They are not normally emotionally unwilling, but for those factors.

Beyond those, emotional unwillingness could be due to unusual circumstances such as:

Their cat died;
They lost their job;
They broke up with their partner;
Etc.

Or it could be that they are responding to their context of you, not actually you.

Their context of you is how you appear to them based on their past experience.

Most people’s context of a stove top is that it is hot and will burn them, even if the stove is off and physically cannot burn them.

At this stage, they don’t know you on a deep level, so they are only rejecting the context or the image of you by association in their mind.

For example, you’re wearing a red jumper, and their high school bully also wore the same red jumper.

A rejection, in other words, mean you cannot progress further in trust building, means that the person who is rejecting you is uncomfortable in deepening the relationship based on:

Them not having enough information; or
You communicating at a level of rapport that hasn’t been established yet (as per the previous “let’s get married” example.)

But if you are still being rejected or your communication isn’t working, it could be because of their emotional state…

On top of that past experience, you have no idea what situation they are currently going through.

Did they get a cancer diagnosis?

Did their cat die?

Did they lose their job?

There are so many other, legitimate and plausible factors to why they are rejecting you.

And unless you ask them directly (you may not get a straight answer then, because people lie to protect people feels or they are simply unaware or not confident to say so), you will never know the true meaning behind the rejection.

And even if you did, who cares, it doesn’t change the fact that they are still not aligned or qualified.

So there is no point, spending precious emotions energy and time dwelling on the reason.

This is not narrow either!

It applies ANYTIME you directly or indirect, proactively or passively ask something of someone.

My modus operandi is as follows: “Reject me quickly, so we do not waste both our time!”

I want to spend my time, money and effort on people that are aligned and qualified with what I am marketing and selling, as I know that is the best use of those resources.

Imagine if you follow this simple rule how much time, money and effort you would save.

This means that marketing and sales are a numbers game.

This means you can’t align and qualify them all.

This is because you are interacting with other humans.

And humans are complicated and complex, and this means you do not have 100% control over the outcome.

Attrition rates as you move down the marketing and sales funnel.

It’s also very hard for you to know where they are at.

Yes, you can ask, but unless you have a lot of rapport and trust, then it’s unlikely you will get the truth.

“Maybe,” “No,” “No, not right now,” “I don’t know” etc. are all better than ignoring communication.

But again, ignoring communication reveals incompatibility really quickly (if that’s a core value.)

No may only mean no for now, not no forever.

It means “no, until I have a need.”

The Myth Of “I”: Identity And Who You Really Are

Orren Prunckun — Mon, 13 Aug 2018 14:12:35 +0000

Identity could be interpreted via 3 levels.

Level 1 is who you really are/being;
Level 2 is what you do; and
Level 3 is what you have (a label or concept).

Layer 1 is who you authentically are.

Layer 2 and 3 is who you want to be perceived as.

If there is no alignment between all 3, you won’t be happy.

If there is alignment between all 3, you will be happy.

Identity is how you perceive yourself in your head.

This is Level 1.

When we think of identity, we default to:

What we do or what we have.

Our job, or career, our likes, our interests, or politics, our sexuality our gender.

Possessions;
Athletics;
Boundaries;
Self-esteem;
Occupations;
Social relationships;
Familial relationships;
Quasi-occupations;
Avocations;
Affiliations;
Abilities/disabilities;
Salient attributes;
Spirituality;
Physical;
Etc…

These are all concepts, distilled.

A photo of a car is not ACTUALLY a car.

A verbal description of a dog is not ACTUALLY a dog.

I can tell you how to ride a bike, but unless you actually ride a bike, it’s really hard to grasp them.

Likewise, I can tell you about a product, service or solutions benefits, but unless you actually experience those benefits, it’s really hard to grasp them.

Let’s try an experiment and a quick demonstration…

I want you to be present to your current experience.

What are your current:?

Beliefs;
Thoughts;
Emotions;
Decisions;
Actions;
Body sensations;
Feelings;
Attitudes;
States of mind;
Point of view;
Memories;
Etc…

Good.

The square represents right now.

Now describe your current experience.

You can’t!

What I have asked you to do is literally impossible.

The gap, between you apprehending your experience and describing your experience, means that time has passed (even if only milliseconds), and the experience is no longer present, has gone and is in the past.

The only thing that is possible to describe is a memory, even if it’s a fresh memory only a millisecond old!

It could be:

Record;
Symbol;
Concept;
Principle;
Bias;
Explanation;
Rule;
Etc…

In addition, what you are actually apprehending and describing is only 2,000 bits of information per second out of the 400,000,000,000 bits of information the brain receives.

What all this means is we experience something.

This memory acts to makes experience into helpful patterns so consistent with what you know.

For example, if you saw a ghost, our rules would say we were on drugs.

Couldn’t be able to remember anything and die.

The square and the circle represent memory of an experience, and the circle (memory) controls the square (experience).

Okay, now we understand concepts, let’s go further with the experiment…

Pick an object you can see, for example, a table.

Do you see the object?

Of course, you do.

Your eyes see it right over there.

Now, describe where the object is in relation to you.

You may say “the table is 3 metered in front of me.”

But where are you?

To know where the object is in relation to you, you must know where you are.

That is the definition of relation.

“You are here, and the table is over there.”

Good.

But where are you?

Point to yourself!

So where do you actually experience seeing that table?

Point to it!

Touch it!

“It’s over/out there, silly!”

I’m not asking you to describe the table:

How it smells;
How it looks;
How it sound;
How it tastes;
How it feels;
Your memories of it;
Etc.

This means you are now experiencing the table as an experience, not a concept.

You said the table is over/out there (remember you pointed to it out there) and you are in here.

But there is a problem!

But how can you experience the table over/out there, if you pointed to yourself “in here” in the same manner?

In other words, you can’t be “in here,” and the table can’t be “over/out there” if you pointed to both in the same manner.

It’s inconsistent.

Either the table is “in here” with you, or you are “over/out there” with the table.

If you are in “in here,” it’s impossible for you to experience the table “over/out there.”

But obviously, there is something “in here”: it’s your body or what you call “me, myself or I.”

An identity.

Maybe you are not who you think you are!

So, who are you?

What is your identity?

Maybe your identity is the space in which the table, the rest of the things you experience in life and yourself occur?

Who you are is the experiencer of experience and concepts.

Outside the square represents the source of experience or context experience and memory occurs.

So you or your identity is not your body, your concepts, your experiences, it is the space which experience and concepts occur.

Choice & The Myth Of Regret

Orren Prunckun — Sat, 11 Aug 2018 08:33:22 +0000

At every moment in time (at every millisecond) we almost have infinite choices:

Wash the dishes;
Walk the dog;
Have a nap;
Start a business;
Ad nausea…

And we need to choose.

Even if we don’t choose, we have still chosen.

At that moment in time (and at every millisecond), that choice sends us on a certain trajectory.

If also we have an opportunity cost.

One door opens, and a whole lot of other doors close.

Other trajectories close off too.

We are on a zig-zag path.

It’s like a big choose own adventure story but with no predictable ending!

And we make this decision based on information we have at the time.

If we had more information, we may make different choices.

Hence why hindsight is said to be 50/50.

But it’s never really 50/50.

The problem is we will never know how life would have turned out if we made a different choice.

It’s totally impossible to know.

Why?

This is because every moment we make infinite choices.

Infinite multiplied by infinite means infinite futures.

And as we only can control ourselves, multiply this by 7 billion people in the same situation, and it’s so random.

This brings Chaos Theory into a new light.

Chaos theory is a branch of mathematics, and it is focused on the behaviour of dynamical systems that are highly sensitive to initial conditions.

So no need to regret anything: you have no way of knowing how it would have turned out.

You never know in retrospect.

Look For Those Who Are Looking For You

Orren Prunckun — Thu, 09 Aug 2018 06:24:43 +0000

It’s really hard to change someone’s mind by convincing.

When was the last time you did?

Probably never.

And even if they changed their mind after you convinced them, you didn’t change their mind.

They changed their mind.

Maybe you influenced them (go on try and prove that you did and how it is apportioned!) but still, they ultimately changed their mind.

So if you can’t change someone’s mind, they will think what they want to think.

You cannot take what has not been handed over.

The only power you have is to put yourself, who you are and what you want out to the world and see who responds to that in kind.

Then find the ones from that group you also like.

If you look at how the following groups recruit you’ll see the pattern:

Bikies;
Pimps;
Cults;
Etc…

NOTE: I’m not value judging these or putting them in the same categories.

None of these groups do any outreach or advertising; recruits come to them.

This is where the importance of a brand comes in.

Brands are important for finding those who will respond to you in-kind.

Qualification is important for finding customers you want to serve.

The rest is building rapport, hooking customers and gaining customer loyalty.

But how do you practically deal with this?

There is a thing called a “coin counter,” and it looks like this:

You pour a bunch of different denomination coins in the top, and each coin rolls down the ramp and depending on its size, the same denominations are all allocated into the correct pile.

It sorts the “$2 coins” from the “5 cent coins.”

Obviously, you know who you are attracted to, and you automatically put people into piles of “attracted to” and “not attracted to” physically.

This is straightforward.

But, you also need to do the same for others and find the people who also like you.

That’s much harder.

On top of that, all the power (power being defined as an influence) you have is to be yourself and see who also likes you.

This again is self-evident, but worth mentioning.

Where the overlap exists are the people you need to invest your time and energy.

Those who you are attracted to, but is not reciprocated is a waste of your time and energy: you can’t sell people who don’t want to be sold.

And likewise, those who you are not attracted to, but is reciprocated is a waste of their time and energy.

Such is life.

Furthermore, beyond physical attraction when people show up in your life that overlaps physically, you still need to know what you want emotionally and articulate it assertively.

That’s the harder part, as it polarizes people.

But the more you polarize people, the better off you are: endorsers, enthusiasts, evangelists and enemies are revealed.

What you say or do, communicates one thing about you. How someone responds to that communicate EVERYTHING you need to know about them which allows you to choose if you invest more in them or not.

Qualifying people in this way is one of the most important skills you can possibly acquire for getting what you want out of relationships (both capital “R” and small “r”.)

Mutually filtering the “$2 coins” from the “5 cent coins” will see your relationships get a whole lot better.

Life As A Well

Orren Prunckun — Thu, 09 Aug 2018 06:04:19 +0000

Let’s pretend that life is like an unexplored well.

All wells have an opening at the top and a hard bottom.

As this is an unexplored well, its depth is unknown.

But we are certain that there is a bottom as all wells have a bottom.

Life starts when you are born, and by analogy at the top of the well.

Right after you are born you fall into the well and “start life.”

As life goes on, or more accurately, as every moment in time passes, that experience is known and certain.

It’s the light at the top of the well.

Then you fall into the well and start a constant forward spin.

This means you look toward the bottom of the well, that is dark, unknown and uncertain

That is the future.

Then you come out of the spin and look back up light, things are known and certain again.

This is because it’s in the past; you have experienced it and know what it was like.

And you oscillate between both past and future until you die.

That is life.

Yet some people get out of the constant forward spin and look back at the top of the well.

Then you die, when you hit the hard bottom of the well.

Don’t live life based on the past.

How Not To Give A Fuck About What People Think Of You

Orren Prunckun — Thu, 14 Dec 2017 13:39:52 +0000

Approximate read time: 2 minutes

It has taken me a long time to realize this, but it’s been truly life-changing.

Here it is: “You have zero right to tell others what to think about you.”

And if you think you do, you are self-indulgent.

Let me explain.

No one has the right to tell ME what to think.

I wouldn’t let someone come into my head and insert something I don’t want to be there.

I.e. via mind control.

That’s my domain – I get to choose what happens there.

The opposite is also true.

I have zero right to tell others what to think.

They wouldn’t let someone come into my head and insert something they don’t want to be there.

Technically you can’t do that anyway, so this is just moot.

Nor can you change someone’s mind by convincing.

When was the last time you did?

Never.

You didn’t change their mind.

They changed their mind.

Maybe you influenced them (go on try and prove that you did and how it is apportioned!) but still, they ultimately changed their mind.

So if you can’t change someone’s mind, they will think what they want to think.

And they will think what they want even, about you.

Good or bad.

And there is nothing you can do about it.

So don’t – you have zero right to tell others what to think about you.