If I told my work-mates that I haven’t watched TV for eight years, they’d look at me like I was a little peculiar.

So, I don’t. One thing I find about trying to better myself is that it becomes really hard for the average person to relate to me. I guess that’s why I prefer to hang around other people with some ambition. People who don’t want to be a sheep like everyone else.

But how do people get like this? How do they become ‘normal’ and how are they kept in a state of quiescence?

Always the same way. They are conditioned over a long period of time.

So, what is conditioning? Wikipedia says it is, “is a process of behaviour modification”.

Therefore, when you are conditioned, your behaviour is modified. Modified how, to what, by whom and to what purpose you may ask.

The main methods of modification are advertisements and marketing, media (TV, newspapers, internet news, magazines, films, radio, etc), our parents, the education system and our peers.

Hypnotised

With the exception of Football (Match of the Day) and Formula One racing, I watch no TV at all. I sold my TV and have never looked back. It all started when I broke up with my girlfriend and discovered self-development books.

I noticed that after I came back from band practice or work, or whatever I’d been doing, she’d always be sitting on the sofa watching some TV programme.

I’d visit my parents and they’d be sitting in front of the TV. They live in Spain, so I Skype them every couple of weeks. The last time I did so, my own mother left the conversation halfway through so she could watch a TV programme that was about to start.

Before I dumped all of them and got new ones, I would visit friends at their houses and the TV would be on. I would be talking to them and their gaze would not shift from whatever was on the screen as they replied to me.

They looked like zombies. They looked like they were hypnotised, with their eyes wide and glazed over, minds wide open, ready to accept their programming. And this is exactly what is happening. TV is the ideal medium for conditioning because when we are watching it, we are in a highly suggestible, hypnotic state.

You’re not a Person, You are a Consumer

In our consumer society, the main manipulators are the corporations. They tell you what to buy. In the UK, we have a couple of TV channels run by the BBC which do not feature advertisements during and between programmes. This is not the case anywhere else in the world, to my knowledge. Every fifteen minutes, whatever you’re viewing is interrupted by ‘special announcements’, devised to make you want to buy whatever products are currently being peddled.

The same applies to billboard posters you see everywhere and advertisements in magazines. Some magazines are 80% or more advertisements and no actual news. One thing you will notice when you look at advertisements targeted at men is it will always be:

1. Attractive girl
2. Whatever it is they want you to buy
3. Some humour (as emotion is what triggers the hypnotic response)
4. Promise that buying said products will get you the attractive girl

Just look at this Lynx advert or this Guinness advert, or just about any advert targeted at men. Advertisers are cunning. They figure out what it is a guy wants (hot women, prestige, success) and link their product to it. They do the same for women. What do women want? A hot guy, comfort and security, approval from their peers, etc: Gucci advert (hot guy, emotion), L’oreal advert (approval, emotion), etc.

With enough repeat exposure to this, we are conditioned to want to buy it.

Consumerism is not the only thing that is trying to influence the way we think. If you live in a nation (as pretty much everybody does), you will have a class or wealth system (usually these two are heinously intertwined). The rich elite, who unsurprisingly own the large corporations we just talked about need a large group of people to fuel the economy and buy stuff.

Your Entire Life is Planned to Maximise the Profit of your Country and its Major Corporations

If this large group of people (sheep) had an abundant degree of independence and autonomy, they could do whatever they wanted and would probably just leave the country and move somewhere nice and warm, content to sit by the beach and drink cocktails all day. They’d be bored and would spend their time fucking or socialising. All stuff that costs nothing. All stuff that produces nothing.

But what we actually have is conditioning from birth telling you how to live your life.

Here is a table to help translate the views help by the sheep.

I can go on, but you get the idea. All of this stuff is ‘normal’. It’s so ingrained in our brains from birth by our parents, in films, everywhere that this is the way to live. If you start to think differently, you’re damaged goods because you no longer ‘contribute to society’.

Well society isn’t there to help me. It’s to help the people in power stay in power and to help the rich get richer.

Now don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against power and riches. In fact I love it. I intend to get rich myself. Why?

Because money buys freedom.

No wonder the rich work so hard to gain it. But where does the money come from?

The conditioned masses.

How to Gain your Freedom

The solution is to recognise the conditioning and limit the amount of it that you are exposed to.

• Stop watching TV.
• Stop reading or watching the news.
• Stop reading magazines.

Be vigilant when exposed to any media, as you can be sure that nine times out of ten, what you are experiencing is designed to manipulate the way you think. And not in a way which is beneficial to you as an individual.

As a man in the process of development and betterment, whether it be in terms of game, business or anything, your main tool is your mind. The majority of the work you do will be on your mind. Shaping it to have positive belief systems, to take positive action, to think creatively, to be brave, to be individual.

The media wants to stop that. They want you to be scared and confused. They want you to be part of the herd. They want you to look to others for guidance. They want you to do what they tell you to do.

If you want to achieve anything in your life, limit the influence of the mainstream media. Break the habit of a lifetime and be selective in your exposure.

Just by doing that, you will free up extra hours in your week which you can devote to a creative pursuit. One which will enhance your life, not the lives of the rich elite. Eventually you’ll be sitting on a beach somewhere or fucking hot girls or whatever you want.

Looking at the title of this post, you could easily think, “Oh no, another one of those woo-woo new-age articles about the power of positive thinking.”

And although I think positive thinking is a good idea, this post is not about that.

It’s about something that keeps happening to me.

The ultra-sceptical side of me wants to dismiss it but the logical data-gathering side of me is saying, “Hmm, the law of cause and effect seems to be acting.”

Let me explain.

Like most people in the world, there have been plenty of times in my life where I would look admiringly at the high achievers in life and think to myself, “I wish I could achieve half of what they’ve done.”

I’d either leave it there and forget about it or I’d become obsessed with it and do lots of research and gain lots of knowledge…

And still do nothing.

More often than than not, the reason for this state of inaction was some doubt in my mind. The mind is amazing at coming up with some excuse not to break out of your comfort zone and just do something.

But then there have been times in my life where I’ve just grabbed hold of my balls and taken action to achieve something.

I’ll give you two examples to help you understand what I mean:

Japan

At the end of last year, my Sensei (martial arts instructor) told me that there was a Taikai in October this year in Japan. For those of you not familiar with Japanese martial arts, a Taikai is an event where a large group of people meet up and train together. He told me that this particular Taikai was important, because it might be the last chance to train with the Grandmaster of the martial art that I practice, as he’s getting old and will be less inclined to travel.

In addition to this, I’d always wanted to go to Japan. Despite the fact that I’m attracted to Asian women, I’ve been in love with martial arts since I saw Bruce Lee’s film ‘The Big Boss‘ as a child on a hired VCR at my parent’s house in the early eighties. The idea of travelling to the Far East is a long-held dream.

But that’s all it’s ever been. A dream.

My mind is forever telling me, “It’s too expensive to go there, I can always go when I’m rich,” but I’m still not rich and I’ve still not travelled to Japan.

My Sensei told me that in order to be able to go, a deposit had to be paid before the end of January and another large sum of money had to be paid before the end of April.

I did some mental calculations and knew I could manage the deposit, but I also knew that I’d be short of the full payment by several hundred pounds. So, for a month or two, I gave in with resignation to not being able to go to the Taikai.

Then, a couple of weeks ago, Sensei said that the time for the deposit to be put down had almost approached and asked for any last students to hand it in at the next training session.

I could see these excuses going through my mind again and I got angry.

“Why can’t I go to Japan? I’m fucking pissed off”, I thought to myself.

Right then and there, I decided that I would go. I would put down the deposit and just find a way to get the rest of the money before the deadline.

Somehow.

I got the deposit from the bank and gave it to Sensei at the next training session.

Now here’s the good part.

The very next day, I got an email from an agent saying that they’d seen my CV somewhere on the internet and they had a vacancy at a company which they thought would be a good fit for me. I had a look at the job specification and not only was it a perfect fit for my current skill-set, but there was scope for training and development to learn more advanced techniques which would in the future allow me to earn more.

And the company was offering a significant increase on my current salary.

I worked out if, after getting the job I could afford to pay for the Taikai and the figures were almost perfect.

A coincidence? I don’t know.

London

Another example came after I’d been at my graduate job a couple of years and had managed to pay off all of my debts. I had learned the ropes of Daygame and wanted to move to London to get access to a larger number and variety of hot women. I wanted to work up a sum of money to enable me to get a flat and keep me going down there until I got myself a job. I worked out that it would take another nine months at least to save the money.

This made me grumpy and dissatisfied. I wanted the pussy and I wanted it now!

Then something unexpected happened. The company I was working for lost their biggest client and in order to survive, had to let all of their employees go (except key people). I got given my notice and because I’d just completed two years at the company, I also got a fat redundancy cheque.

Without thinking of the possible consequences, I gave notice of my intention to move out of my flat, started selling all my furniture and unused possessions and began trying to get jobs and somewhere to live in London.

It was a real hassle trying to get somewhere to live, but I eventually found what I though was a good place and made an offer. The main issue they had with me was that although I was a professional, I wasn’t in work. I eventually persuaded them to take three months rent in advance plus the deposit, but that wiped out most of my spare cash, leaving me with just over a month of living costs in my bank.

I squashed everything I owned into my little car and moved everything down to London in one day. I’d managed to get a couple of interviews in the preceding week, but I wasn’t hopeful so I set about really pushing to find a job. But I didn’t need to, because a day later, one of the companies I’d interviewed for offered me a job.

At the end of the month, just before I got my first pay cheque, I had less than ten pounds left in my account.

Is it a coincidence that the figures worked out so perfectly or did the act of being brave and going after what I wanted despite a high possibility of failure somehow cause events to work out exactly in my favour?

I don’t know, but like I said before, I’ve had a number of situations in my life where I’ve taken a risk and despite not knowing how I’m going to come out of the situation unscathed, something has happened to provide the solution.

So, be brave my friend. Be brave.