I spend a lot of time thinking about persuasion. Over the last year and a half I've spent a tremendous amount of time thinking of self-persuasion and self-mastery and as a result have noticed some phenomenal results in my life. Ultimately, the way to really make progress in the outside world is to make progress on the inside world.

If you learn how to ask the right questions, you will all of the sudden lock in on the right answers. With that as my guide, I began asking myself questions.

Some of the "right" questions: What is the real make up of a human being? Where do we come from? What is our organic makeup?

Where does the subconscious mind live? It lives in the body. What then would be the influence of the body on our subconscious mind? If the subconscious mind lives within the framework of a human being, must it carry with it then the frame work of that body?

I would suggest that the answer is yes.

Our bodies carry genetic programming. This genetic programming directly influences our subconscious/other than conscious minds, our thought process, our learning, our experiences, how we form values. . .

What in life is more fundamental than our values?

Our core drives. There are four that supersede every other drive we have as human beings. First and foremost, we have the drive to sustain ourselves. Without food, we die. It's that simple.

We all know that if we stopped eating right now, forever, our lives would end fairly soon. Energy consumption allows live to exist. It's about continuing on.

This drive can most definitely become perverted. . .think gluttony. It becomes not about survival and continuing, but something else.

Last year I began to ask some hard questions. What's the difference between "needing" to eat and my drive for pleasure? I used to think about food all the time. I'd say things like, "I can't wait for dinner tonight. It's going to feel good eating the kinds of my wife cooks for me."

Eating for pleasure, like I was, has the potential to really do some damage. I began to persuade myself that it is far more important to eat to survive than it is to eat for momentary pleasure. I am continually working mindfully to make the right choices. It's not always easy. Cake is delicious. But cake is not helping me to continue. Cake, for me, was helping me to die. The choice became very clear.

There is some research that has been done recently on why do some people when faced with huge health issues change and other people don't. The desire to eat turns into something so perverted, so infected, so unhealthy, that the concept of 'continuing on' is not even a priority anymore. (More on the other kind of perversion/desire in an upcoming article on the fourth base drive.)

My big question became: how can I learn to eat to survive and not for purposes of enjoyment. This focus has helped immeasurably. I have begun to find my enjoyment in other things.

Look for more on the remaining base desires of fight, flight, and reproduction to come, and for tips on how to use these impulses, urges and drives to persuade like crazy.

About the Author

Kenrick Cleveland teaches techniques to earn the business of affluent clients using persuasion. He runs public and private seminars and offers home study courses and coaching programs in persuasion techniques. You are welcome to reprint this article - but get your own unique content version here.

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