You can ask me anything and fact check everything. It’s an interesting month. Your last name will be added if you request it. Otherwise you’re stuck with first name only. No anonymous Q’s are taken.
“Kev, how do you find your passion? I have a few of your programs on disc and you never address this question.”
Ivan, there is nothing to find.
You MUST have passion but passion isn’t there to be found. There is no “Ivan’s passion” exit on the highway and it’s not buried in your brain, your soul, your heart or with your soulmate. Passion is an unquenchable lust for something. It can’t be found.
Think of the guy who’s Mom made him sit at the piano every day for an hour a day starting at age 4 and THEN he developed a passion for music at age 10 after suffering miserably. That’s how passion begins. You start out doing something you are TERRIBLE at because you’re STARTING. You’re frustrated and may even hate doing whatever thing it is you might be passionate about some day.
Jack Young was one of the best chess players ever to walk this planet. A “Life Master” in the language of the chess player. Jack beat me more than a THOUSAND games when we were kids playing on the phone. I never beat him. I LOVED playing Jack. I’m quite certain his famous fishing pole opening was developed in our game play (I was Jack’s fish and he also often accurately called me… “pawn grabber.”) and I’m pretty sure I fell for it far more than once… Truth is, I didn’t mind losing, but just because I loved playing did not give me a PASSION for the game. If you put a chess board in front of me I will play. My chess rating is probably 900 points lower than Jack’s and that explains why it’s impossible to beat him. Yes I will happily play anyone chess, pool, and definitely foos ball (for which I have a greater passion) but that doesn’t mean I want to pursue that enjoyment of playing chess into WINNING and making it profitable for me.
All of these things… I sucked at on day one. Just because I’m pretty good doesn’t mean I have passion and want to REALLY MAKE IT and be the best.
But persuasion, social influence, changing human behavior, predicting future results that are based in human motivations? Well that’s another story.
Passion is DEVELOPED, EARNED, WORKED AT, MASTERED. Passion drives you to be the best or as close to the best as you can be. This comes from your TRYING OUT 25 hobbies and areas of interest, not once, but 10, 20 times. Then you begin to get a “feeling” or “sense” of whether you have a passion (low level, like I do for guitar, pool, Foos Ball) or higher level (think sex drive or food drive level but for something like swimming or similar). But you don’t get to the higher level until you’ve STARTED.
I wanted to be good at baseball from age 6 and we played from age 6. I can still compete with people of all ages. I had a passion but not the talent to be the best. On the other hand I had no talent for writing and developed a passion for writing that is insatiable.
And persuasion, social influence, human behavior change technology… I wanted to be the best or as close to the best as could be measured. That’s passion.
Interesting: I have a huge passion for probability of uncertain events and prediction of the same and put it on display for the public every year in the Las Vegas Super Contest. I still haven’t won the contest of the best predictors on the planet…but I’m not done yet. That’s passion. Hundreds of hours of DEVELOPMENT, Thousands of hours of work. Only problem is there are a few hundred people out there who are better predictors than I am and I can prove it because they’ve beaten me…so far.
None of which can be found. Great question.
“Kevin, how can people be happy in 2020? You have written you are pessimistic but most people see you as very optimistic. How does that happen? You also have written that other people are a better judge of yourself than you are of yourself. I suggest that makes you an optimist.”
Happiness: Affect (emotional state) is often a function of biology and genetics. People with depression can be happy. The two things don’t necessarily operate on opposite sides of the exact same continuum.
Happy is one of those squishy words that doesn’t mean the same thing to everyone.
That said, I developed a fairly simple change technology called “Positive Regressions” which is published in The New Hypnotherapy Handbook. When people are suffering with a severe problem I have them perform one positive regression (about 25 minutes of real time), every single day. At first this sucks for the client because they are SUFFERING. The reshaping of the brain that starts on #1 is adding ONE EXPERIENCE from the person’s past every single day, in RICH DETAIL into their data base of POSITIVE experiences.
This translates to “my life has actually been pretty good in a lot of ways, considering how f’ed up as it’s been.
Those positive regressions bring to mind an encyclopedia of references on how to have a more balanced experience of life. More precisely, a more integrated or holistic experience of life.
Happiness is a difficult word to define because it’s a fuzzy word. I don’t like the word, but I like experiencing what I sense is happiness and I love experiencing joy and euphoria.
Part of the equation of being more satisfied with life is about re-experiencing the past and then REALIZE that you weren’t even ON PURPOSE in those days and you STILL had ALL these positive experiences.
Doing good for others is a VERY valuable experience for several reasons. First the Happiness Fanatics tell you this story always ends happy by performing random acts of kindness and there is truth there BUT when people are slapped in the face for the intentional good that they do, there is a NEW life experience. Your reward for doing good is WITHIN YOU and does NOT necessarily come from external validation because when you are VERY GOOD to the world the world does not like to compete with your VERY GOOD. So to be happier you have to be OK with negative feedback and a LOT of negative feedback to your POSITIVE EFFORTS and WORK to being a net positive in other people’s life.
Finally, happiness comes from knowing that YOU ARE IN CONTROL of a big chunk of the results in your life. You PROBABLY ARE A VICTIM and that’s fine. (Really) But just because you got a raw deal in life doesn’t typically give you an excuse to cry out inequality or suppression. Instead you get back on the field when your team is losing by three touchdowns playing an unfair opponent. YOU DO WHILE YOU CRY. You FIGHT with what you can CONTROL to WIN in life because that IS OPTIMISM. People who recognize that they are not alone in the unfairness of life have a CHANCE to be happier IF they DEMAND CONTROL and THEN USE THAT CONTROL and KNOW THAT YOU CAN OFTEN WIN.
Knowing that you don’t give up and you keep at it changes your BRAIN into one of certainty which is even superior to Seligman’s Optimism. (Never confuse optimism with “positive attitude.” Optimism means that when bad things happen you know that the universe doesn’t have it out for you more than the rest of the world. It means that bad stuff doesn’t happen to you more, forever than most. And optimism means that you are in control of a LOT of what happens next.
If you define happiness as feeling good, then simply eat chocolate until you have given up the ghost. But if you define happiness as life outside of chocolate and feeling “good,” these three things will change your life forever.
“Kevin, you seem to put a lot of confidence in the Hedonometer. I’m surprised.”
Me too. Really.
I got on Twitter because Deb Cole told me to in 2008. No reason. “Kevin just do it.” Maybe I have 1000 tweets. I’ve certainly put no effort into it. Generally it’s pretty difficult to say something meaningful in 20 words. But some really smart big data collectors scraped twitter and figured out what stocks might go up. They figured out a lot about the newer ways people were interacting with each other. And perhaps most importantly they have been able to figure out the tone of the world. To be specific, my understanding is that the hedonometer scrapes all English speaking tweets, so “the world” really means the 300 million tweets per day (I’m making that number up but it might be close, you fact check it) and calculate how “happy” people are. That’s my word and my take.
Had I not been familiar with Twitter’s power for driving opinion in general, I never would have bought this. But I started digging into the algorithm and it’s simplicity and complexity both impressed.
The hedonometer, for me, began as a way to get a handle on the zeitgeist of the world. And now I see just how solid of a tool it is. I appreciate that I can have it at no cost. Remarkable.
In a nutshell we see that world happiness cycled up and down very “evenly” in a seemingly predictable pattern, until this year.
2009 – mid 2011 Pretty Happy
mid 2011 – early 2014 Pretty Unhappy
early 2014 – early 2017 Pretty Happy
Early 2017 – Early 2020 Pretty Unhappy
March/April 2020 VeryUnhappy
Mid 2020 – today Unhappy and now stablizing at Pretty Unhappy
What’s fascinating is that you just got censored in the U.S. You have more life volatility and messages of hate put out into the world, every day and yet today, literally the tone of the world is simply PRETTY Unhappy. People have become familiar with living pretty unhappily and I suspect that we’ll see more lashing out, probably a lot of it around the elections, but for this MOMENT, people are pretty unhappy about their situation, but not DOING something about it, and certainly almost no one is doing anything constructive that contributes to the world being better in the near future.
The hedonometer is one tool that is incredibly useful in measuring the tone of the world, especially the english speaking world. Everyone should be familiar with it.
Kev, can people really count cards and make money playing blackjack in Las Vegas? I read an article about a group of people who went to Las Vegas a couple years ago as a team. They are card counters and have won a lot of money. They said they made a lot of money. Have you thought about making a video or course about blackjack.
This isn’t the 1960’s or 1970’s when you COULD do that, with a lot of money, skill and luck. The game has changed. Just like baseball changed with analytics, blackjack is a VERY tough game to beat in 2020. I didn’t see the article but it’s not likely to be accurate as far as “did it really happen in 2018.” Certainly team playing at blackjack was a real thing all the way in the very early 2000’s. But then things changed.
I haven’t said, “no” yet to your question, yet.
I still play but not what I did before 2010. (true until the end of 2019). To make the net I did 15 years ago, is no predictably likely.
I have been barred from the Casino Royale, next to The Venetian, though I suspect they’d let me play today…probably.
The reason the story doesn’t ring true about the team playing in 2018 is that the rules of the game subtly changed over time. Casino’s made the game more difficult to beat. Counting cards, at very specific tables, in specific hotels, yes you CAN win but you won’t beat the casino long term any more. That’s Las Vegas.
In Europe you have no chance of winning long run. I’ve played at a dozen or so casino’s there and only for “fun” because the games are set up for wealthy guys trying to impress their girl. Even the very liberal games are not beatable long term there. Same is true in Australia. I don’t know about China as I haven’t played in Macau, but will.
The last time I played at MGM, I asked for a more liberal comp than they had given me and they refused citing the fact I only play at tables with the most liberal rules. I did beat them that day and had lots of nice conversations throughout the day with floor managers, supervisors and several dealers.
The casino obviously KNOWS these tables exist because they put them there with specific purpose in mind. FIGURE OUT WHO CAN BEAT YOU. No potential winner will pick a random table and sit down. That’s what 99.99% of the public does. You have to go find the tables with specific rules that give the house a much smaller advantage. You only can do this by asking questions, because all of the rules are NOT POSTED at the tables. Only experienced players ask these questions, so when I sit down they already know I know the game.
But it doesn’t matter. Yes I can beat them, predictably and no, I won’t get barred. The problem is your “expected win” (which is really “expected loss”) has changed even at these liberal tables. There are three out of 100 tables like this at MGM. There are a few in Bellagio and Wynn and there are two tables that El Cortez offers which I haven’t lost at yet, but NOT LOSING is very different than playing to make a living. Setting liberal rules is offset by reducing the maximum bets at $200 per hand for example, which means no one can make much at the El Cortez. In the math of casino’s, beating a $200 max bet table means you might walk away with a few thousand dollars. It’s not important.
Back at the MGM trio of tables where you will play against two decks with liberal rules only offers you a very good game with a very good chance of winning in the short run but because you have to work so hard to find out which tables are which, the floor people distract you with pleasant conversation.
One floor guy (maybe a floor manager, I don’t recall) last year asked me, “How long have you been counting cards?”
I said, “since I was 12 years old. I played when I was 17 at the Tropicana Hotel.”
He said, “You’d never get away with that today.”
“I know I’m not 17 any more.”
No one is going to throw you out for saying you can count cards, especially when you’re playing by yourself and no one else plays the table.
Then we had the conversation about comps I mentioned above. I can play anytime I want, I will not get the comps I would playing three tables down and I’m not playing at that table because I can’t beat it in the long run. Simple as that. Comps matter because they help you offset your trip cost. (If you’re playing for real, they should completely cover your trip cost.)
They talked with me, I played my game, they played their game and it’s actually not meaningful that I won. I did $5000 in six hours, and headed out, which phases no one, including me. The game is no longer as exciting to play because your probability of having the big night is less than it used to be.
Sure, we’ll make a video because it could completely erase major losses and make a trip a lot more fun. Just don’t expect 20 years of predictable winning. It’s a different game.
Kev, everyone knows you like the metals but is now really a good time to buy? What about stocks? Crypto?
First, be smart and keep your currency and coins. The Federal Reserve and the United States Treasury CHOOSE not to put “REAL MONEY” into circulation. That tells you something. Paper money and coins are now collectible.
Second, would you rather buy a share of Apple, Facebook, Amazon, Google, Netflix (FAANG) or would you prefer an equal currency amount in gold, silver or bitcoin? Maybe that’s the right frame.
First choice would be bitcoin. My second choice is silver on the list of overpriced stuff. Silver is VERY expensive but it is easy for people to buy physical silver because it’s thirty bucks an ounce vs. gold’s $2,000 per ounce. Unfortunately I don’t like digital metal for the long term so I’d probably pick up an ounce of gold.
Here’s the thing, if you go on ebay and grab an ounce of gold (one nice gold coin) you will probably have that ounce in 10 years. How many dollars do you have in the house from ten years ago? It’s not really what you EARN in life that determines wealth but what you KEEP. Metal is easy to keep. It’s like collecting art. You buy it, you got it. It’s there and it has value and is very difficult to impulse shop with. Stuff that has value that also has a built in self regulation tool inside is not easy to find.
Gold does NOT make you rich. The mental structure and self discipline of the person who buys gold causes them to have a stable financial life.
EVERYTHING you mentioned is worth owning until the elections come closer. In the period before and after the elections (early November 2020) you might see gold and silver at VERY high prices as it is hard to imagine the dollar will be desirable come November 1. Bitcoin could easily be $20,000 on any given day in November. (25% chance?) Gold could easily be $2500. (35% chance?) The rest of the summer? Random.
You don’t “invest” in gold. You COLLECT it. Like books. Just having books around makes you smarter and feel more secure. Same thing with metal.
Whatever madness begins around the elections is likely to be quelled by the holidays and then a resurgence of craziness after 1/2/2021. So we could be in for some serious swings in the markets. I don’t know what REAL LIFE drivers of the markets could trigger a lot of upside.
FAANG is up about 40% on the year and the rest of the SP495 combined is down about 5% on the year. That shows you a fascinating divergence. There is nothing after November 1 to keep the markets rising unless the money printing continues of course which can throw everything into a mess. However with all kinds of politicians desiring re-election you can bet that more phoney money will be digitally dumped into the market and THAT will cause “more of the same” until it stops after the elections. At that point everything should go down, except maybe cryptocurrency and metals.
There is one other unique point of note. Because the elections are likely to be called into question as to “who really won” this year…that adds a LOT of uncertainty and a LOT of potential volatility in human behavior which makes non-stock assets very, very valuable.
Hey Kev, what is the better investment, gold or the stock market? We had a debate at dinner and I said you invest in both. Can you settle this for us?
Make sure you read the above Q/A first then you can continue here:
Because gold was money that was stolen by the government under FDR and was money again until Nixon came to office, it’s not easy to find a starting point. So use digital gold (GLD) and compare it to the S&P 500 since gold started trading digitally. (The price between digital gold and physical gold is generally quite close, with physical gold costing more, always, because it is 100% real.)
GLD started in late 2004. Had you put $100,000 in GLD and $100,000 in the S&P that would have been a fairly logical thing to do. Gold doesn’t pay a dividend but it’s a millenia old money. Meanwhile the S & P 500 does pay almost 2%. Both gold and the SP500 are pretty close to their all time highs so that’s a factor here.
Results?
Had you kept the money in both somehow…
The gold would be worth $431,000 today.
The S&P 500 would be worth $284,000 today.
16 years, and in either case you’d be happy.
Using another measurement point, if you simply looked at returns from 5 years back, $100,000 in each:
The gold would be worth $182,000.
The S&P would be worth $161,000.
Finally if you are a real short term person…if you put $100,000 in one year ago in each:
The gold would be worth $134,000.
The S&P would be worth $112,000.
I know it sounds ridiculous to say “stay intelligently diversified” when you have a clear winner but the winner finished the race yesterday and you can only model the future, so the future could provide different results. The next time you ask this question it might need cryptocurrency in the answer, no one knows.
The Success System: 10 Week Online Course – The Algorithm for Your Life – Begins August 22, 2020
This the first and only success course that uses proven mental technology to meet real life desired outcomes.
“When you design THE success course, you want to make sure it’s the first one that actually works.” Kevin Hogan, Psy.D.
Returning from London, I had two more trips to make for business and then I was off to Norway for the first leg of a multi-month fundraising project for kids.
Norway was one of those places I just had to go see and I got a chance to see some of this planets prettiest spots. For me that connection was a feeling of success.
Success is what you define it to be but two common elements are on almost everyone’s criteria list.
1. Money and all the security, safety, family protection, fun, beautiful home and toys that go with it.
2. Love / Relationship
Few people have all the money they need or want, AND the right person in their life.
The Success System will change that.
Success begins with the philosophy of winning. The great thing about winning in life is that there are no losers.
In fact, when you win in life, lots of other people by default win too!
The opposite is also true.
Male or female?
There is no glass ceiling in success.
Age?
Doesn’t matter. Every age has different built in advantages to winning in life.
Race?
Success is 100% color blind.
Success is a daily conscious choice, followed by specific repetitive actions within a flexible and focused plan that is very different from what the vast majority of people do.
No one can force success on you.
Success ONLY happens by YOUR decision.
Successful people move quickly. They collect information necessary to make those decisions and then move fast.
I will teach you how to collect the RIGHT DATA and make decisions QUICKLY.
Successful people think quickly, assess information at high speed and make decisions in a way that appears “instant” to others around them. (This is actually not true. Successful people put a lot of stop signs in front of themselves, but when the probability of something working well is there, they either open or close the door quickly.)
Being successful can be very exciting!
It affords you the luxury of traveling pretty much anywhere you want to go.
I always wanted to go to Paris, I mean outside of the airport which is a hub of all Euro-travel. First stop was the River Seine. It had to be. I’ll tell you that story later. After we got back from Paris we turned around and headed South to South America for about a month, then returned to Minneapolis the day before CV19 stopped the world.
Success means you’ll probably get picked up at the airport in a limo and probably be staying at a 5 star hotel.
Success for most will mean that your home is a place that everyone will want to visit.
And by the way, I want you to visit.
I PROMISE I will do SEVEN THINGS with and FOR YOU in this 10 week course.
1) I will give you the knowledge you need to be successful.
2) I will show you HOW to use that knowledge.
3) I will give you the TOOLS you need to APPLY that knowledge.
4) I am here to CLARIFY any possible confusion so there is clarity.
5) I will tell you the likelihood of any ideas or plans working.
or not working for you.
6) If something is UNlikely to be successful whether in your personal relationships, job or business projects, I WILL TELL YOU.
7) If you ask, I will show you what to CHANGE and HOW so you SUCCEED.
Success DOES allow you to have ANYTHING you want…but not everything!
I always tell people, “You can have ONE thing.” (I say ONE to keep their early expectations in check, eventually this moves up to 2,3,45 “things”)
The success lifestyle changes how you think and reduces pressure on RESULTS.
If a hitter in baseball gets a hit 30% of the time he gets paid $5,000,000 per year.
If the hitter hits a home run 5% of the time he gets paid twice that.
That is the nature of success. Success has an accumulation effect built in. What happens on any given day is not so important. Whether a specific project you are working on makes money or not is generally not important at all. But over time, that consistency of 30% or 5% changes everything.
If you are reading and understanding this, there is NOTHING that will get in your way of winning in life…except yourself.
Because SUCCESS IS A CHOICE.
More specifically, success is a series of choices.
The Success System has been constructed in such a way that you will have the big picture clearly painted first.
Then once that makes sense to you, you learn the difference makers.
Once you know what they are, you learn how to use them each and every day. This is one of the things that is missing in every book, program and course I’ve read, and I’ve read them all.
There are absolutely a few critical details that you will do daily that are different from what average people do. They require no heavy lifting. They simply MUST be done or you will fail.
This probably brings to mind two questions that people ask me with great frequency:
“Why do other success programs fall short and what makes The Success System work?”
and
“I’ve tried everything and I am not successful. Why?”
Two simple questions which took me YEARS to get the answers to…
Let’s answer the first question, first.
Almost all success programs reference truly remarkable stories about billionaires like Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, Mark Zuckerberg, Warren Buffett as illustrations of your own designable future.
The problems with this are many. First, very few can wrap their mind around what a BILLION dollars is! For example,
how long would it take the average worker ($50,000 per year) in the United States to make a billion dollars over his life?
Answer?
20,000 YEARS.
A billion is not success, it is something I want you to set aside in your mind.
There are other factors that go into having a billion dollars that the vast majority of people simply can’t have and don’t want to deal with.
But we’re going to get you to a million, an achievement all by itself, and something that you CAN wrap your mind around.
The average American will earn about $2,000,000 in their life.
Unfortunately the average American will also live paycheck to paycheck and has $125,000 in his 401k.
I want you to be above average. That means all that’s left is for YOU to be DETERMINED that you WILL BE.
I will NEVER allow you to develop a “lottery mentality” because people that “hope” to win the lottery, simply can’t and won’t.
How long would it take to “win the Power Ball lottery?”
If you bought one ticket per week it would take you approximately 40,000 years to have a 50/50 chance to have won once.
You’re going to have all the money you could ever need. Please never get into “The Next Zuckerberg” thinking. Please be happy with having FAR more than enough and let’s just be THERE!
I promise you that the lottery is only for people who are destined to have failed relationships and no resources.
Never do it.
And as far as real life “billionaire stories”
The Edison stories are interesting but they are not achievable by PLAN. And you NEED a plan.
You hear the stories, say “WOW” and after those stories are laid out, you’re told you can be just like them.
The person who tells you the story would require 20,000 years to “be like them.” They are simply misled or lying. Take your pick.
Gates, Musk, and Bezos…are superstars. Like them or not they have changed the universe. But I’m nothing like them. Tell me the truth.
Have you ever been able to identify with Henry Ford, Jeff Bezos or Warrent Buffet?
I haven’t.
I was born and grew up in Chicago. We weren’t just “poor,” we lived in unbelievably distressing conditions. When I was 4 years old I was the oldest of three boys. I didn’t start kindergarten at age 4 because I was a genius. (I like to think that’s the case but it almost certainly is not.)
The mile long walk to the elementary school every morning took about a half hour. I’d leave around 7:30 AM and walk home at lunch time. The door was always open.
The cost of “day care,” something that didn’t exist as you know it, was overwhelming for THREE kids. It was almost the same as my Mom’s hourly wage.
I had a Mom…
I was damn lucky to have an amazing mother who kept us alive in a time when being without a Father was unusual and humiliating. My youngest brother had just been born and as a Mom she had to figure out how to raise an infant on the money she made in the checkout aisle at the grocery store.
Ever the pragmatist my Mom remarried a year later. It was either that or…
My first sister was born almost a year later. My second sister came along when I was 8.
Life was seriously better for almost two years!
Then like a curse, my new Dad was diagnosed with congestive heart failure.
The simple story is that he was going to die soon, we just didn’t know when.
Then life wasn’t seriously better any more.
It wasn’t long before things were far worse than they had been five years earlier.
My Mom’s skills were many but her income couldn’t offset the care of five kids. She worked hard and long hours. She always had a smile on her house when she walked in the door at the end of the day. No kidding. It was obvious the distress was taking it’s toll but she did her best.
She told me that my brothers and I would soon be taken to the orphanage. “We’ll try to keep you kids together wherever you go.”
That was a lot for a 12 year old to hear. She never told the other kids.
[I never dreamed that one day I would get a chance to make a difference in the lives of these kids with no parents. They WILL succeed in life. More about this later.]
Those years when her third husband was sick were tough. I did the babysitting every day with the help of one of the neighborhood girls. That girl never got paid much for her time but she gained my everlasting appreciation.
When my new Dad died, I knew we were living on borrowed time as a family.
My school work deteriorated. My teachers didn’t know what was wrong with Kevin. I never told them. Neither did my Mom. I was 12 years old, in 8th grade and never DREAMED I’d SURVIVE to be a teenager…
I had several cash jobs at night and early morning from 8 – 12 years old. When I was 12, I got my first W-2 form. Today 12 year olds can’t get a job. Thank god I was able to.
The story goes on of course, gets even more challenging, but you get the idea.
No, I didn’t and still don’t identify with billionaires.
I identify with people who have been through difficult times and I LOVE hearing stories of men and women who not only survived but made it past survival.
I never THOUGHT of anything as abstract as “success.” There were no “dreams” of a “better day.”
There were no success stories around.
I’ve been fortunate to meet many people who grew up with some similar circumstances here in the U.S. or in other countries.
And it’s been cool as heck to see what can be overcome with love and determination.
For ME, SUCCESS begins with overcoming pain and massive obstacles and then do something that REALLY matters.
[This little one was given up a year ago. He took his first steps when I visited. I PUSHED for this moment to happen. I really wanted him to walk. He’ll tell stories about what a pain in the butt I was to have as a visitor.]
Success is creating an atmosphere of love and safety for those you care about. It’s about giving them a life that will not remotely resemble my personal experience.
For ME, success is about giving myself and those I love the benefits of staying in the finest hotels to always remember the stark contrast of where I lived and how I grew up.
For me, success is about giving others what I didn’t have and honestly never dreamed I would do otherwise.
Every year at Christmas we raise money for children who live in tough times. THAT is success.
The human brain will resonate with who it most strongly identifies with.
I spent two years as a janitor in a nursing home. And that wasn’t the most difficult job I ever had. I worked for my first million. Had I known what I know today, I could have compressed a decade into 2 years with ease.
Today I make up for some of what was missing early on…
If you want to have a cool car (I don’t), a mansion for a home (I do and I love it), eat the finest foods in the world (I often do but really… only when I have to) and have the resources to do pretty much anything you want…then… I will show you EXACTLY HOW to get there.
The truth is people THINK they have answers to what makes successful people. Even more people think they can spot key behaviors that lead to success.
I’ve been studying this a long time. I’m living the life and it’s been a Herculean task to unearth the RIGHT puzzle PIECES.
Most programs go through a list of principles and then tell you to do those things.
For example:
“Persist until you succeed.” (That’s a good piece of advice…but it’s also frought with disaster.)
Then you are told a story to support persisting. A good thing!
(Remember how many times The Psychology of Persuasion got turned down before it was published?! It’s embarassing even today!)
BUT WAIT. What about projects that failed? What about projects that took a long time to succeed? How do you know WHICH are WHICH?!
Now the question becomes…
“WHEN do you persist until you succeed?”
On what level of persistence? What contexts?
This is just ONE FACTOR. Quite often, you MUST PERSIST until you STOP and CHANGE PROJECTS because many projects just aren’t going to pan out!
This means you have to know both when and HOW to CHANGE.
(Don’t worry I’ll show you that in The Success System!)
The Breakthrough to Success
Just finding the right direction is a significant task. When you finally stand in front of the RIGHT DOOR, there is one more thing that must be done!
Beating your head against a locked door in hopes it will open is a lousy idea.
Yet, if you NEED that door open (let’s say this metaphor represents the door to a successful future) then testing different tools could be pretty helpful in getting that door open.
So you go get a bunch of tools, bring them to the door and start banging and drilling and hammering and so on.
BUT then you have to ask, “How do you know when to SWITCH tools and WHICH TOOLS should you use? What if you do NOT have the right tools?!”
In fact THIS IS ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT QUESTIONS that is ANSWERED in The Success System.
NO ONE ELSE ANYWHERE has ever ANSWERED these questions for you or anyone else.
STOP: Think about
. It’s too much work to answer questions like this right? It takes time and thinking. Publishers aren’t going to wait for this. They want to publish NOW.
All I want to do is GET IT RIGHT FOR YOU.
Want to start on the Success System, RIGHT NOW? Today: Begin listening to people with the SOLE PURPOSE of understanding them. When in doubt, ASK A QUESTION.
You will hear me say this 50 times in The Success System.
People don’t listen to each other. They simply wait for their turn to talk.
Me?
I take notes.
I ask questions.
I am genuinely interested.
One of the real secrets of persuasion and of course by extension, success, is that…
…if you are GENUINELY interested in others you will be not just liked but ADORED.
You can’t fake this one for long. Develop this CHARACTER TRAIT now.
In my estimation this is a good example of a NET POSITIVE.
You can say it this way as well:
“Thou shalt not hurt people.”
“Thou shalt do good stuff and avoid the bad stuff.”
The Success System will repair old programming that didn’t work.
Of the principles that are often highlighted in a success program, a lot of them are either ERRANT, WRONG, subtly IMMORAL or they are of such little consequence that they are meaningless to put attention on.
Let me give you two quick examples. First…
“Just do a little bit each day.”
That might be the most useless piece of advice in attaining success that has ever been written.
You have to cut the lawn. You have a 1/2 acre yard…
You go out and cut six feet this afternoon and return the lawn mower to the garage.
Tomorrow you go out and cut another six feet. It will take years to cut the lawn!
It’s ridiculous. It’s misleading, condescending and painfully useless.
Why do “they” suggest it?
Because it SOUNDS GOOD in the seminar room. Makes for great back of room sales… and it’s garbage.
No wait, there is another that is far more damaging.
A Second Example of Required Reprogramming
“Don’t sweat the small stuff…and it’s all small stuff.”
That’s perhaps the most evil piece of advice given to good people that I have ever heard.
The child with cancer, the parent who cares for her 16 year old paralyzed since birth, the person with devastating mental illness.
The FACT is this: Some real life “stuff” is not just BIG, it’s OVERWHELMING.
In my world we help people. We try to make changes to give them a better world. We never insult the suffering to share with them that their “stuff is small.” NEVER.
It’s NOT OK.
You will finally get rid of the absolutely devastating garbage myths in The Success System… and then show you the truth, even if it is difficult to hear compared to the garbage.
The second question I opened with today,
“Kevin, I’ve tried everything and I’m still not successful, what do I do?”
This is a GREAT question and one of the foundations that this course was built on!
Can I share a story with you?
Much of what you were taught to do doesn’t work, wasn’t safe, smart or rational. It didn’t generate love, happiness, resources or ANYTHING good.
This is incredibly frustrating and I know because I dealt with this for YEARS, (not days, weeks or months but YEARS) early in my career. I spent about a decade with my wheels spinning. From 1990-1997 I sold 12,000 books, earning $1 per book.
After Psychology of Persuasion FINALLY got published, I got a mentor, a REAL MENTOR, not some bullsh… coach. and within one year everything began to change. Miracle?
Oh there were PEAKS and VALLEYS to be sure and I was never told there would be otherwise, but everything changed.
Trying to FIND a REAL MENTOR can be another Herculean task. Perhaps 1 of every 1000 coaches out there is a truly good mentor. Maybe.
You will need one. Every successful person I know has a mentor that is a rock and a treasure chest of wisdom. He believes in you, sees your skills, recognizes your REAL POTENTIAL and can see your best paths into the future.
Another key truth is that you have NOT tried EVERYTHING that WORKS…yet.
Another fact is the people who told you to do something (perhaps unwittingly) misled you.
Can I share another story from my life with you?
It’s possible you were given the instructions to build the swing set in the backyard and you ended up with two massive pieces of metal that simply didn’t fit together. (You didn’t have the skill set to apply the knowledge!)
This actually happened to me when my daughter was 10 years old.
The fact is that in 2020, science has uncovered enough about the brain, the body, behavior and social interaction as to what is required to succeed in life. NOW we can have a predictable program that can accomplish such an outcome.
I loved listening to Napoleon Hill, but some of his advice was simply dead wrong. When I was younger, I got enormous psychological lifts from listening to him. But three principles in Think and Grow Rich are counter productive and virtually assure failure. I will unwind those messes in The Success System. The truth is, I don’t think he KNEW he was wrong.
The other principles Hill and others after him shared were either spot on, or close enough. But taken in whole they weren’t even close to enough. Worse, with three strikes working against you, it is like driving a Mercedes with only one tire…
The Success System is unique in that you don’t just learn a principle and hear an example. You are given a number of specific tasks and then you bring each to me for feedback and confirmation.
There are a few key aspects in implementation of concepts so they become HABITS in daily life.
Most programs I listened to when I was young, DID give ONE element of implementation but missed out on the other two.
And the fact is, I didn’t find the third element of implementation until 6 years ago. No one else did either…
Whether a “principle” turned out to be “right or wrong” almost didn’t matter. The implementation material left the reader or listener no better off than when they began…
But STOP here!
What happens when you have the right concept, the right idea and enough information to implement it into your relationship, your project, your business, your employees and you don’t then DO IT!?
Is it possible that the individual (that’s everyone) is responsible?
It is.
Quick Story Time
I can think of a handful of specific moments in life when someone told me something that, if I implemented it, the result would be a better life.
And then I didn’t do it!
(Sometimes it took YEARS to do something I had been clearly told to do.)
This one is easy.
I simply didn’t do it and neither did you.
My world changed after I met my mentor. I needed a serious push and I said, “PUSH HARD.”
I had the right mentor. The problem was sometimes it took awhile for me to ALWAYS DO what he said to DO.
Don’t get me wrong, I was earning a fair amount of money. I was being a pretty darned good Dad to my kids and a very good husband to my wife. But I was working very hard doing things that were only going to pay what I exchanged my hours for.
Truth?
In spite of this occasional rebellion, I earned the right to do better and make more.
You?
You tell me.
Here’s what I will share with you.
With The Success System your world is going to be brighter in 2020.
Maybe you are experiencing what you want on the spiritual level or the level of health but not in money or your relationship.
That’s absolutely normal.
And I’m about to cause you to be …different.
This is not simply a “course.”
This is a course where you have a real mentor with NEW TOOLS that you have NEVER SEEN or even IMAGINED.
Your mentor is not an assistant or intern.
Your mentor…of course… is Kevin Hogan.
I MOVE FAST. I move faster than is comfortable for a lot of people.
Walk with me next time you see me. I move like the wind. Walk with me in this course!
You get more than information you get the drive to DECIDE NOW….DO NOW.
I analyze options very carefully and then DO ONE.
I don’t care one bit if I am wrong about something. You simply CHANGE the direction and make it RIGHT.
I’ve done everything that I will share with you. I’ve trained and taught dozens of people I’ve mentored to DO.
And for TWO MONTHS you will have the SAME ACCESS to me as my Inner Circle members do.
You don’t need to be online at any specific time. I will add material each week that you will do. You will be encouraged to send me your experience and plans. You can email me and ask me questions. Whether you do this or not is YOUR RESPONSIBILITY.
🙂
At this moment there are over 40 videos of knowledge and mental restructuring. Most of it is me sitting down with you one on one, as if you were here with me at my home.
There’s also some pretty useful audio content that you can put on your phone and listen as you drive. This is NOT the same as the video content but covers completely DIFFERENT required knowledge for success.
Additionally each week you have a small but critical project that you will do that specific week and then for the next one YEAR.
I will get back to you with “feedback” letting you know whether it will work, or not.
You are not required to do the projects but you have access to me for two months and only two months….your decision…
You will have access to me for the entire period. Then I’m going to bed! Once the course is complete only Inner Circle Members have access.
You do NOT need to be online at any specific time or on any specific day. You DO need to do your projects in YOUR TWO MONTHS!
This is the rocket launch and operators manual.
The Success System is $4995 after Covid. For the moment it is $1995 and that’s the final answer.
OR…
Want more details?!
This is for you, about you and your world…your current life and your future.
Finally.
It’s taken four YEARS to put this together.
Every success related program I’ve listened to totally ignores the relationships that the listener/student has. In other words, what is the wife/husband going to think? How about the neighbors? What do you DO about THAT?!?!?! You don’t have to go any further than that. If you don’t address ALL the relationships, then no program on earth will cause success for someone.
I’ve integrated the deepest level of human influence and motivation at a level no one has ever taught before. You’re going to have that feeling of self mastery and concrete confidence a short time after this course is complete.
Question-
What would life be like if you could be with the person or people you chose and have all the resources needed to take all of you into the future for as long as you lived?
Pause. Read that question again. It’s important right?
Without the influence of the right person (and people) in your life, there is no success. This course will open the door to as many resources as you need and the answers to how to make life work.
Because life should be easy…and yet it is not..
I want people gossiping about you next year…
I’d really like to see you do something next year that matters so much that people talk about you. I mean positive quality “gossip!”
“Hey did you hear what Kev did on the other side of the world at Christmas?”
After they are telling this story about YOU then I’ll be pleased.
And then there will be a story YOU will tell that inspires people to do something very similar in THEIR WORLD.
Influence = Power with Self and Others ===> Success and Happiness for MANY
Only with influence and effort does real success result.
Don’t get me wrong.
I do want (and will all but demand) you to have love, happiness, a life with meaning, personal significance, confidence, a feeling of being loved. I want you to be fulfilled.
And I want this, for you, SOONER rather than later.
But I will NOT be patient.
I heard two people talking in a pretty big group conversation last month. “Look you’re closer to dead than alive, so get your ass in gear.”
And no, I didn’t say it. I WISH I would have said it. Therefore, I WILL say it to you.
When I set out to create this online course (originally it was going to be a big DVD program….ah well) I wanted to make this so YOU could do it, WILL do it, WILL teach the people you love in your family to do it. THAT took a bit of work…and it is done.
Success is such an ambiguous word. It can mean a dozen things to any one person and they can all be different from how the next person in line perceives success.
This course is designed so your definition(s) of success can be used so you can get what you want, and not what someone else wants for you.
When I began, I knew the course needed to be something that would fit into almost anyone’s world. And that came to pass.
Here’s a simple yet truly profound concept –
Everything you have, everything you experience now, today, this week, this month, has been the result of an accumulation of experiences and knowledge you have gained over your lifetime.
Some of the results of this truth have manifest in your life and the fact is the results are often FABULOUS. Some aspects of of where you are today are INCREDIBLE.
But are you satisfied?
Will they be telling your story?
Will you be the person they talk about when asked if you changed their lives?
…gave them hope?
….fed them when there was nothing?
You’ve done a lot of good in your life. You’ve been valuable to a lot of people.
But…
Have you taken their black and white world and added color to it?
From where I stand, life is more about giving than getting. In fact, I’m not sure I like the idea of being around people that get more than they give.
Now that I think more about that…. I’m sure of it.
Have you taken YOUR life and put vivid color into it?
So often we get wrapped up (yes you and me both) into doing unto ONE other person or job or family and forget about ourselves and then forget about our ability to imprint our hearts and minds onto many, many people’s hearts and minds.
I guess in one way, this course is “selfish” in nature.
You will be far better in every way than you are today. It certainly makes you (almost instantly) more influential as a person and triggers all the internal buttons so that you are more eloquent and persuasive in the moment. But this is about success in love, your passion, work and all that matters in life.
How Change Happens…How Comfort Zone Reconstruction Needs to REALLY WORK
The SELF influential aspect will be put to the test quickly.
This is where you SLOWLY move from your “comfort zone” and SLOWLY place your Personal Flag in the next space you CHOOSE.
You will be able to have new comfort zones for the first time in a decade. This is not a one day “exercise,” rather it requires a number of weeks to slowly inch your way from point A to B.
I used to enjoy talking about moving away from your comfort zone and creating a new one.
But most people in the world misunderstood the concept of a comfort zone.
Nothing new really happens while you’re in this place. “Flow” only happens when you are challenged. Life in flow is pretty special.
Life in the comfort zone is what I need at night when I go to bed.
But, in order to experience cool things in life… in order to be with cool people… you have to get out of comfort zone A and move to zone B which you will then create to be comfortable. Then you move from B to C which will be uncomfortable at first and then yep… it becomes comfortable.
Here’s What Will Happen in Your Life and Your Comfort Zone
I do NOT want every minute of your life to be lived outside of ANY comfort zone. That would not be all fun or wise. I do want you to constantly create comfort where you were previously uncomfortable.
And of course you have a dozen comfort zones, all of which are context dependent. (Comfort zone with the wife, the kids, the new project, the boss, the neighbors, your ambitions, etc. etc.)
You’ve already discovered that if you jump too far from your comfort zone, too quickly, you just go right back.
This happens because you don’t have your LIFE STORY written…yet.
You haven’t spent time showing the world, The Book of You, that you wrote… that brought you from challenged to winning.
This course will fix that once and for all.
YOU ARE A SUCCESS STORY
Really…
Now THAT might sound ridiculous…but wait…
You don’t need to fully believe this…yet… and you know me well enough to be certain that this isn’t about think it and it will appear, whatever IT IS.
The truth is, your personal story is this: You get out of one comfort zone for one aspect of life, while the other zones are still stuck in back in place where you were last year.
This is going to shift real soon.
🙂
Success means you won.
You don’t need to be Michael Jordan or Bill Gates.
YOU DO NEED TO BE THE BEST YOU
You were put on this planet for some reason or another.
Yours?
We’ll figure it out.
One thing is for sure, you weren’t designed to sit and run in place like you’re on a tread mill for the rest of your life.
All comfort zones are NOT created equally. You will find out why and how to work your way through some REALLY TOUGH challenges. And I’d love to tell you this will always be fast and easy.
But that would not be right…because it’s not correct.
Your MIND is about to get a world class tune up.
90% (a made up number that is close to accurate) of your life success, fulfillment, meaning, pride, time, achievement is going to come from your MIND.
Thinking.
You MUST learn how to RETRAIN and USE that mind to BE where you wish to be.
I’m going to ask you
to do something big JUST BECAUSE I’M ASKING YOU.
You’ve seen the results of everything you’ve experienced and done in life.
You KNOW where you are today far better than any other human does.
You KNOW how you feel inside.
You KNOW that you have tried and become frustrated doing many things to get MORE from life.
But you didn’t quite get ALL of it… and sometimes in some aspects of life you got very little at all.
Success is simply having what you want to have, being where you want to be with who you want to be and having won the games and battles you choose to win in life.
A lot of people gave up on the hard battles and the tough games. Believe me, I understand…more than you would guess. I promise.
That’s going to change.
I’m going to give you some NEW, SIMPLE, CONCRETE things to do every day.
These dozens of tiny puzzle pieces of success power are mostly unlike anything you’ve experienced before.
Sure, some of it will be familiar, but most of this is brand new!
This course is going to fill in the GAPS so that you can begin to USE all of that knowledge you have above your shoulders.
I’m not going to repeat what you already know. I will however fill in gaps and take you to a deeper level of understanding that hasn’t been experienced in the past.
How can I be so sure?
Because you have a live Life Consultant who’s worked with thousands of successful people. And I wouldn’t farm YOU out to anyone.
You ask a question, it will be answered.
The points of uncertainty are going to vanish.
The points of reality are going to appear.
The answers to questions are going to be found and the ONLY way to do that is to have the RIGHT QUESTIONS.
And then you have to know HOW to ask them. I’ll show you…
I’ve never seen anyone train anything like this.
I’ve read everyone. I’ve given particular attention to the wisest and the proven. I REALLY like PROOF. You’ll need to give me PROOF before this course is complete.
I’m going to show you the Operators, their simplicity and their profoundness.
You might say, “oh I know that…” and then you’ll do as I ask, because I ask and no other reason and report back three days later and TELL ME precisely what is shifting in your thinking, in life, WHERE you want to be and WHAT you want to be.
I’m not going to give you tons of “actions” to do. Mostly I am going to show you how to master your thinking and life, using the Operators of a Successful Life.
I look at this and I think, it’s a lot to ask of anyone.
Trust is earned.
Maybe I’ve earned yours over the years.
If so, you’ll put your chips out there with mine and we’ll both walk away winners.
And that IS THE DEAL.
I want you to look at your life and without hesitation I want you to say, “I WON!”, with respect to ALL aspects of life.
There are people out there that NEED your wisdom, knowledge and love.
I want you to kno
w that YOU have NOT come full circle and tasted all the life that there is to have.
w that YOU have NOT come full circle and tasted all the life that there is to have.There are projects to be done, love to be given and received.
There are victories to be had and a STORY that ends with YOU WINNING and being appreciated by many.
“I WON.”
That’s what I want to hear you say…
Persistence, desire, drive, belief, outcomes. These are FACTORS.
Excellent.
Everyone has heard of them. Everyone knows that persisting is important. Desire is critical to success in love, business, influencing others. Belief is huge in every aspect of life. You know it. I know it.
Everyone needs to know the factors and implement them in life.
But…
REALLY… how?
If all it took were the FACTORS to achieve and succeed then everyone would (theoretically) have already done it!
But that is not the case.
What’s missing are the OPERATORS. Operators are like the plus (+) sign or the multiply by (x) sign. Simple enough.
So what are the operators? If you have the operators, does that yield instant success?
Nope.
But you DO need to have them and work with them every single day.
Good news!
There are fewer than a handful of Life Operators.
I’ve scratched the surface of Life Operators at Influence: Boot Camp and for some of my Inner Circle members.
And, I’ve been telling my Inner Circle that as soon as I have time I’m going to put together THIS course. But I never got enough time.
So 10 months ago, after collecting and plowing through 4 years of studies, research, and the best ways to fill the gaps, I said, “STOP” …I’m making the time, NOW.
And that is what I have done.
You see, if you have the OPERATORS AND the FACTORS AND you use them AS INSTRUCTED, it would be very, very hard to screw up.
The Success System is going to require effort, but it is WELL DESIGNED and the required SECRET daily actions essentially DEMAND that you succeed.
(I haven’t thought of every Black Swan…but I’ve lived through MOST of those birds so they’re ALL dealt with here.)
In other words, almost any human with the operators to move the
factors will succeed in life. Really? Sounds hyperbolic to me and I’m writing this.
I’ve spent more time ripping this entire course apart than you can imagine. At every stage, I said, “no way, that won’t work for everyone.”
And sometimes I found that this was a great idea. People not able to move about freely in a free country will still benefit from this work but it will not yield the results you will get in a free society.
But what about everyone who IS able to think and communicate in a free nation?
Yep.
You’re going to be a “better you.” You’re going to FEEL success and it FEELS GOOD.
It works… the end result is SUCCESS.
And that is cool.
You’ve noticed that for the last four years I have not put out ONE new program.
I promised myself THIS would be the next one. And it’s not even a program. It’s bigger than I anticipated. The operators alone, while incredibly simple in concept do take time to integrate and apply and I am very, very focused on APPLICATION in this course.
And…it’s a BIG course. It’s eight weeks.
If you’ve ever taken an E- Course with me you know the following:
– You don’t have to be online at a certain time.
– You have ME as the go to person who will answer YOUR LIFE SPECIFIC questions through the term of the course. (The course begins August 22!)
– You will have more content than you have ever experienced in any E Course on this planet.
– It’s ALL about you.
– You WILL be required to do the content by the end of the course unless something dramatically bad happens in life.
– My expectations of you are higher than your expectations for the course.
This course is the culmination of a lifetime of work to date. Sure maybe I’ll have something more fun someday, I really don’t care right now.
This is the MOST IMPORTANT an
d MEANINGFUL course I could have put together for you. It is the treasure chest that we all look for.
USE the operators and you win.
They are the missing elements. And the cool part is that YOU can do this.
Promise.
The content of this course and knowing EXACTLY HOW to use it will not change your life.
It WILL allow YOU to BE the person YOU want and need to be. And of course you’ll always BE YOU, just a BETTER YOU. A you that makes a bigger difference. A you that is safer, more secure. A you that is willing to PUT FORTH THE EFFORT to control your own destiny.
You won’t be able to write out a script for the rest of your life. But you WILL get to where you want to be because you will know what to do, when, why and where…and most importantly HOW.
Knowing the factors will certainly be a plus but ultimately in THIS course they don’t matter.
2 months from now…
1) If you choose, you will be able to influence in mass.
2) You will find out precisely how to find the answers you need in life.
3) You’ll easily see how to implement those answers.
4) You will see that operators are different from factors. Factors are difficult.
Operators are remarkably simple.
5) You do need BOTH and you need to SEE and EXPERIENCE both to accomplish and live the life you want.
You do NOT need to be online at any specific time or on any specific day. You DO need to do your projects in YOUR TWO MONTHS!
This is the rocket launch and operators manual.
The Success System is $1995.
OR…
