Expectancy is the 80th floor of the tallest building in the world. Visualization (visualize what you want), goal setting (things you want to happen this year to you) , positive attitude (i know I can do it!) and the old fashioned definition of “optimism” where the glass is half full are all either at the ground floor or below ground in the case of those aspects that aren’t helpful in most life projects. (Seligman’s Optimism meanwhile is up there around the 60th floor.)
What I expect of myself is different from what I expect of you. And I expect a lot from you. What I expect to observe as far as the rest of the world as a whole is very different from what I expect from myself. I expect the ongoing net negative from the rest of the world. But most people consider me to be an optimist.
I don’t think about optimism or pessimism because even in Seligman’s definitions they really measure perceptions of experience and everyone who reads Coffee knows bad stuff is going to happen in life and Black Swans are always flying overhead…and none of it… is going to stop you.
Because you are DIFFERENT. You and I EXPECT most things will ultimately work out because of your plan, your expectancy, certainty, preparation, Plan B’s and Plan C’s, attention to obstacles and on and on.
Examples? I expect (you and) I will take care of the family. I will teach them, show them what good character is by action. I expect I will work with the world on various levels of overall impact and the impact will be largely positive. I expect I will be valuable to each person I meet so that they gain some aspect of a new philosophy as to how THEY can make each room they walk into, at LEAST, 1% better before they leave.
And if I’m working with you on some level, probably as personal and business consultant, a mentor, I expect you will do what we agree to do and that you will move forward in life while the rest of the world is inert. I expect the 85% of humans in the world to make the world worse than it was before.
I expect the crowd to screw things up for all the individuals who actually work for a living and take care of their families. Crowds burn buildings, storm capitols when they could be productive and valuable to the community and world. I expect that people that believe in the Wisdom of Crowds will continue to devolve and will ultimately preclude many of the very best possible futures.
However, even with significant and often dramatic impact, that does leave individuals and families to carefully navigate life, making it beautiful for the people they love.
I expect YOU to GAIN what you HOPE you will Be, Do and Have because YOU will do what you expect you will do. 
If you are reading this, I expect you to be a lot smarter and a lot more caring than the 85%. I also expect your behavior, as well as mine and that of the rest of the world to fall within the basic rules of human behavior.
I expect will people will behave in an overall neutral or negative fashion but that in any moment, I can personally turn that group or person to act for the better, at least in the MOMENT. Those are a few expectations I have. A few.
I expect a HELL OF A LOT from people that I come into contact with.
FLOW AND EXPECTATIONS I KNOW that to move the majority of the 15% (the 85% will remain inert, kick, scream, complain, whine and devolve over time), I will have to put people in projects and life choices that will put them in “flow.” Flow takes place when you do something which is a bit challenging and because it’s a bit challenging you enjoy or engaged in, it.
That’s a pretty cool feeling right? You are appropriately challenged by…the challenge. IF it was really tough, well you’d almost certainly give it up. AND, if it was SUPER EASY, you’d have to give it up because what is it the point? Think about that while you read on… Anyone who plays tic tac toe can learn a simple algorithm in minutes that will allow them to never lose another game.
They may not win any, but they will never lose. For example: You can literally play 1000 games of tic tac toe and NEVER lose a game. At SOME POINT you will have had enough. OK, yeah, the rules are there, just do x,y,z and you will push or win every game. No exceptions. And that’s how it is.
A big part of my life is expecting to not ultimately lose because I will lose on various aspects of projects every week through errors, random events, moments of emotional upheaval, family requirements, because even the 15% are subject to emotional failures, reality of life around them and miscalculations. Not losing permanently, not losing big is avoiding disaster.
When errors occur or crazy people get in the way and trip you up, expect that you will get back on your feet. NOT LOSING permanently or not losing it all, is a big part of life. People think it’s all about buying bitcoin at $50,000 because it will be $100,000 tomorrow. And that outcome is possible.
If you have millions or billions of dollars that might be a great decision. If that $50,000 is your life savings then you’d be making a big mistake. People who go up to the blackjack table, put all their cash on the table, get their chips then put all their chips on a hand of cards are uneducated and they will be broke in minutes or hours. Because people are in fact unwise by nature.
NO ONE TAUGHT THEM ANYTHING about life. In life I expect most all people fail to save for the rainiest of days and then retirement after that. No one taught them that you NEVER bet all of your money on bitcoin. (I like the concept of bitcoin.) In Money Control you never put more than 1% of your unspent money into any one stock. (You can put a much higher percentage in an index and avert most of the risks that can happen to single stocks that taken as a broad group are unlikely to fall victim to. In other words, there might be a destructive tsunami in one country but the rest of the world will only have a minor impact.
I expect that I simply won’t play more than 2.5% of my unspent bankroll on a hand of blackjack. (There are very important exceptions where you would bet more than 2 1/2% BUT, 90% of the time smart people don’t bet more than that 2.5%. I expect others to not follow these simple rules in life. People believe in fantasies.
But you don’t start from scratch all by yourself most of the time. Most of the time, someone GIVES YOU A TASK and this works a little differently. When assigned a task it can be easy or difficult. The higher their expectancy of completing a HARD ASSIGNED task, there is a greater chance it will be completed successfully. Surprisingly, if someone is a assigned an easy task and they expect they will successfully complete it, there is a lower chance it will be successfully completed than if it were difficult and approached as such.
If a person is CHOOSING their own task it’s different. Assign yourself a task and the likelihood is low that it will be completed, it’s very unlikely you will do it. Meanwhile a medium sized task has a greater chance of getting done. If someone assigns themselves a task which is EASY they will not likely they will do it.
Expectancy is NOT “I believe in myself.” People look out there and have no idea what to expect so they walk with the safety of the group. The group is unified. And THEN they notice their own behavior is changing. That’s how devolution occurs.
Expectancy is your certain anticipation that whatever project you are doing will be accomplished. Expectancy CAUSES Performance. In the world’s largest marketing study ever it was discovered that a man receiving a promotional letter with a 1.5″ x 1.0″ image of a wholesome woman, from a bank offering an 11% interest rate drew as many inquiries as did a 7% interest rate with no image.
An image of man did not impact women in any way and caused men to NOT respond to the letter. In the study it was also found that names that sounded similar to a person’s own name (or had threads of identification like sender and recipient both Jewish names for example) people responded much better. Story edit all the stuff that influenced and shaped you when you were young.
You also have to story edit your future. You are going what your current trajectory currently is UNTIL you story edit your future. Determine where they are REALLY going. Allow complaints from yourself and others as long as they OVERPERFORM while they are going to be fine.
Part of the process of overperformance in the future is to avoid being “associated” as you “see” the future. Instead be dissociated from your image of future growth/changes. Here’s how this works, imagine my editor says, “I was certain I could edit 20 pages by lunch.” She accomplishes that task. Now she is “certain” and expects that she could do 30 pages by lunch.” She accomplishes that task the next day.
She will continue to be sure that she can accomplish more (better, faster) and set more difficult outcomes as time goes on. As she selects a higher goal, her expectations are increased and so is her performance.
This will continue as she goes forward and THAT is why she needs a mentor to be there when she isn’t hitting new targets. Everyone hits periods where they don’t accomplish even what they were easily accomplishing months or years ago. There are a few things you can do to keep expectations increasing.
- The tangible upgrade includes evidence that you have increasing capacity. For example, an MBA is a tangible upgrade from their Bachelors which might increase their expectation or someone else’s expectation of them. You can’t get the MBA INSTEAD of performance. You get it parallel to your working.
- The reframe, “Kev how do I change when I have been doing this all my life?” Put the action reframe up on your Facebook, or with your mentor.
- Start doing new things, new behaviors, hang out with NEW PEOPLE. NOW the stuff you do… A+ B+ C = Q…. Q which is a new result which is a new expectation and increasing of goals difficulty.
How do you change the expectant state? 
You learn what to expect by shaping your life story. Every single day you story edit your life. I’ve written a little about this in Invisible Influence. story editing your life is an every day process. Imagine, “Why did she say no to me?” Maybe you LOOKED GOOFY to her. She said no.
You don’t actually KNOW you were goofy looking. In this case you look at your high school yearbook and FIND OUT the TRUTH. Were you goofy looking? “Because I think she said no because I really was goofy looking, THEN I CHANGED (IF YOU HAVE) by x, y, z. If I were her, I would have said no too.” But…it might also be something else.
“I thought I was goofy looking but I wasn’t. I’ve been told that I was actually quite good looking. There was another reason she said no.”
The story editing and story awareness process is life changing.
Master that piece then understand IDENTIFICATION. It’s actually a lot simpler and WAY MORE IMPORTANT, than most people make it out to be. People who go through life and death situations together typically have a tremendous bond. But how long do you need to experience the situation before it causes a linkage between two people.
What happens when there is no life or death situation and the experience of two previously unknown people before they will have identification with another person. Not long ago researchers brought in students to participate in an experiment. They used all women subjects and a woman confederate (selected by the professor and part of the con).
Confederate is operating under a pretense that she doesn’t tell the subject. Professor gives them sheets of paper to circle 20 adjectives that describes themselves on the page. The process will take 90 seconds then the two pages will be returned to the professor. Sometimes after 90 seconds the professor comes back and meets the confederate and subject to dismiss them.
Professor returns in 90 seconds. If the professor doesn’t return the confederate talks for 30 seconds to the subject and then the prof returns and dismisses them. In each case as they leave, the confederate asks the subject to write a paper which will take about one hour…tonight.
Immediately after they leave the room the confederate makes this request:”By the way, I have an 8 page paper I need one person I don’t know, to read and write a on page review as to whether it is persuasive. It will take about one hour. Would you be willing to do this for me?”
Talk 30 seconds after the adjective list is done for a total of two minutes? 48.7% of the people say yes they will write the one hour paper tonight. Silence for 30 seconds and the professor returns? 48.6% of the women say yes they will write the one hour paper tonight.
What happens when you are by yourself who comes into the hallway from a separate room? 28% agree to write the paper and all that happens is the confederate told the subject they had just done the same thing. In the next conditions the professor comes in after the first 90 seconds and the professor talks to the two women after scoring the papers.
He then tells them the “results” If there were 3 adjectives in common between the two women, 43% of the time the subject convinces the confederates to do the project. If there were 10 adjectives in common between the two women, 60% of the time she does the project for the woman that night. If there were 17 adjectives in common between the two women, 76.7% of the time she does the project for the woman that night. Clearly the more two people see themselves as like someone else the more likely they are to do something silly like waste an hour writing a paper that night for someone they don’t know.
And clearly simply experiencing the 2 minute adjective experience together is enough for almost half to agree to help out tonight and if they simply meet in the hall after they “run into each other, 28% agree to help TONIGHT. When I was a kid I had a locker next to Hofftiezer my sophomore year of high school. In my senior year I had a locker next to Higganbothom.
I went into NLP training with Horton and exchanged endorsements for hypnosis books with Hunter. These experiences show both sides of identification. In one instance you are stuck in a locker situation with someone next to you.
In another it’s all about connecting with people who happen to have letters in the alphabet that are the same as yours or CLOSE to yours. F, G, H, I, J would be close to mine. How about you? Even meeting in the hallway and sharing their experiences caused 28% to agree.
Birthdays the same, the professor says? 62% agree. Professor says, “You have the…no you don’t have the same two birthdays. ” 34% agree. (They do NOT have the same birthdays) Professor takes a finger print of each person, comes back in 30 seconds. “Did you know you don’t have the same fingerprints?” 54.8% agree. “Did you know that you have the same rare fingerprint in common?” 82.1% agree.
They spend time together. They shared ONE THING IN COMMON. They had something unusual, rare or unique in common. The question must begin with, what do people have in common? What is their common experience? Then as you begin to recognize those common places, what are the rare and unique points? When someone is meeting you, what is the common thread? (First you are meeting each other.) If you’re dressed alike as men, it connects.
If you are a man it doesn’t but the common thread is the common thread. Sure it could be politics or religion but it definitely doesn’t ever have to be brought up in a discussion. Do THEY SEE YOU AS LIKE THEM? DO THIS:
- Write down 5 – 10 keywords people use to describe your look, your personality. (ex. how does your mom,, sister, brother, friends describe you)
2. Write down 5 – 10 words you would LIKE/prefer people to say about/describe you when they talk about you? (If you don’t know it will ALL be bad)
3.People will attach words to you. At one of our boot camps I asked our team to describe one of our speakers. Bob Beverley. In seconds they shouted these adjectives from the crowd in ONE SECOND . “Warm, gentle, caring, genuine, authentic, brilliant, engaging, funny, entertaining, wise.” Then I said, “that’s enough. I then asked the same question about Roberto Monaco (another multiyear speaker at our boot camps year after year.
Here is how people described him in ONE SECOND. “Energetic, funny, confident, smart, passionate, expert, motivating, inspiring.” Every story about you has to reveal a clear presentation of who you are, even within your inconsistencies. You are NOT one story. You are not ONE thing. Misperceptions in the influence process: If you realize that there are 4000 messages/ads JUST as you spend 4 hours online, you understand that there are going to be 3,997 people that will not be getting your business. It means that you will not do business with you and they will NOT be doing business with them. It’s almost NEVER.
That’s why people buy what’s IN FRONT OF THEM for the longer possible periods. I expect this to be true therefore I want to be in front of the people who I can be useful to.
I changed my mind… We decided against it…. I looked at the budget… We talked about it but… I wanted to but my boss…I need to check with my attorney… People really believe they have a 50/50 chance this could pull through in the sales red zone. What is the real red zone? 94% certain = they are 50% certain, this is where the red zone BEGINS 90% sure means they are almost certainly wrong. “I’m 90% she’ll approve.” It becomes likely “stop by Tuesday, pick up the check” = 94% sure. 90% = no. Ultimately: They said, “no.” WHY? sorry reasons feel bad Take this memory home. If people say they are 90% sure they are wrong about 90% of the time.
Expectation requires you THEN willing to do the work about 98% of time and then you will lock up winning at least half of the time.
