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GORILLA MINDSETHow to Dominate and

Unleashthe Animal Inside of You

Better Self-Control,Improved Health and Fitness,

and More Money

by Mike Cernovich

Mike Cernovichs mindset tech-niques have helped...

Mike Cernovichs mindset techniques havehelped countless people improve their healthand fitness, develop deeper personal and ro-mantic relationships, and take control ofanxiety and worry.

In Gorilla Mindset you will learn how to:

Improve your self-confidence bychanging the way you talk to yourselfand others.

View the most brutal challenges asopportunities for personal growthwith the power of framing.

Stop bad moods dead in their tracks,and learn how to feel powerful andtriumphant, even at your lowestpoints in life.

Eliminate feelings of frenzy and ab-sent mindedness.

Develop clearer, sharper, and morefocused thinking.

Have a body that feels good andworks for you rather than againstyou.

Earn more money by thinking ofyourself as a personal brand.

Live a life so remarkable you werepreviously too afraid to imagine it.

Join the millions of readers and listenerswho have learned how to start believing inthemselves by following the Gorilla Mindsetprinciples today!

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MORE INFORMATIONIn addition to authoring Gorilla Mindset,

Mike Cernovich produces and hosts the mostsuccessful mindset podcast on iTunes. Youcan learn more about Mike Cernovich, andobtain free supplemental reading materialsand podcasts, at GorillaMindset.com.

INTRODUCTIONChange Your Mindset, Change Your Life

Gorilla Mindset is a book for those whowant more out of life. That more could becontrol over your emotions, a better relation-ship with your children, more money, betterromances, a more rewarding career, or evenfreedom from anxiety and depression.

But theres a catch. To get more out of lifeyou must get more out of yourself. You musttake personal responsibility for yourthoughts and emotions. You must stop blam-ing the system. The days of looking outsideof yourself for answers are gone.

This goes against what weve all beentaught. We are told that the secret to gettingmore out of life is to buy some new gadget orcar or to drink beer or smoke cigarettes. One

successful cigarette ad campaign proclaimed,Youve come a long way, babe, as if inhal-ing cancer represented a triumph of womensliberation and the apex of human freedom.

All of us have tried filling the void withmaterial objects. We see something brightand shiny. Maybe its a new watch or new caror piece of jewelry. Something inside us sayswe are lacking, and if we make this purchasesome need will be met.

That is all a lie. To get more out of life youmust get more out of yourself. The hard work(and this is not a book of feel-good nothing-ness or validation) starts with you. The workis hard but it is also fulfilling.

This book teaches you how to get the mostout of yourself. By the time you finish thisbook you will be on your way to total controlof your thoughts, feelings, and emotions the building blocks to life. You will get moreout of life by getting more out of yourself.

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Who is Mike Cernovich?

This is a practical book on mindset. Youwant to know why it will work for you and,quite frankly, who the heck am I to tell youanything? Those are legitimate concerns.The techniques in Gorilla Mindset, whilebeing research-backed, were first applied tomy own life.

I grew up as a child on welfare. I had holesin my clothes. My parents were well-mean-ing and good people, but they had noconcept of how to make or save money. Theymade mistakes and did the best they could,which is all you can expect from anyone.

Not only was I usually the poorest kid inschool, I was also the fattest. I wasnaturally chubby and was picked on, ri-diculed, and beaten up. I was afraid to walkhome from school, as more often than notpeople would follow me. Id be called namesand beaten up.

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My dad told me to start taking martialarts, and he even started taking classes withme. I was not naturally athletic. I was clumsyand out of shape, and couldnt even do asingle push-up. I hated martial arts classesand would have quit had my dad not beenthere taking classes with me. I went throughthe motions, but I had no natural talent orbelief in myself.

One day a bully beat me up badly. It washumiliating. My sister had to pull my attack-er off of me. I felt demoralized and power-less. We had a mattress in our garage. I wentto the garage, laid down, and cried myself tosleep. When my dad came home from work,he opened the garage door, looked down atme with part pity and part contempt, andasked me one question that changed my life.

When are you going to get serious?Those words, coupled with the expression onhis face, were a wake-up call for me. I made

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the decision right then and there: I would getserious. Very serious.

I would train until my body was exhaustedand would hit the heavy bag until myknuckles bled. When I read in a martial artsmagazine that Thai fighters do 10 rounds onthe heavy bag, I decided to do the same.When I learned that Thai boxers would rollup magazines and hit their shins and legs totoughen themselves up, I did that as well.

I learned that when you consciously put inwork, you will make progress. You mighthave terrible genetics, you might not havepotential to be in the Olympics or win a UFCtitle, but you will improve.

I earned my black belt in Tae Kwon Do,boxed, and began beating up the bullies whohad bullied me. I had a hair-trigger, andwould even look for reasons to fight. But Iwas never happy, and my social skills werepoor. I was awkward and weird. My mindsetwas based on vengeance rather than on

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exploration, connecting with people, or beinghappy.

At one point I was invited to attend aschool lock-in at the YMCA with a bunch ofother classmates. I was so wrapped up infight mode that I put on Tiger Balm to keepmy joints warm, lest someone decided tostart a fight with me.

I also didnt perform well in school, withevery teacher having the same line for myparents at PTA meetings: Michael is sosmart. He does not live up to his potential.

It wasnt that I enjoyed getting intotrouble, but I grew up in a poor neighbor-hood. Where I came from, getting goodgrades and doing homework wasnt thenorm. Id get into fights, steal sandwichesfrom the local grocery store, and shoot outcar windows with a BB gun (which was alsostolen). When one of my acts of vandalismmade the local newspaper, I clipped out thepicture with pride.

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To change my life, I had to change my ownmindset. The need to do hood-rat thingsand the anger inside me had to be focusedinto something more productive. It took a lotof work, but I ended up going from a poorbullied fat kid without any money to a well-known lawyer, writer, and podcaster whotravels the world. In most ways my successmakes me laugh, as my life story isunbelievable.

And Im still working hard at improvingevery day. Sometimes when people say theylike me or ask me for advice, its hard to un-derstand why. There are days I still feel likethe fat kid who was afraid to walk home fromschool. But here I am, successes, failures,and flaws in all their shame and glory. Somaybe youll find that I have some advice togive. To begin with, I will ask you:

Isnt it time to get serious?

What is mindset?

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The online encyclopedia that some peoplelove and many people hate, Wikipedia,defines mindset as a set of assumptions,methods, or notations held by one or morepeople or groups of people that is so estab-lished that it creates a powerful incentivewithin these people or groups to continue toadopt or accept prior behaviors, choices, ortools.

Imagine a computer. The monitor, key-board, and processor are the hardware.Without any software to run it, your com-puter would be worthless. Your body is yourhardware and your mindset is your operatingsystem. It gives you access to the power ofthe hardware, and determines what softwareyou can run. It lets you get the most out ofyour computer, allowing you to balance yourcheckbook and even create 3-D designs.

Your mindset determines how you per-ceive and interact with the world.

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Mindset: The New Psychology ofSuccess

It was Carol Dweck who led the mindsetrevolution in her breakthrough book Mind-set: The New Psychology of Success. InMindset, Dr. Dweck identified powerful re-search into psychology showing that the dif-ference between success and failure oftenhad less to do with innate talent and more todo with one the type of mindset one has: agrowth mindset or a fixed mindset. Researchshowed that those who adopted a growthmindset a belief that challenges and diffi-culties give you an opportunity to grow yourabilities were far more likely to succeedthan those with a fixed mindset, that is, a be-lief that your intelligence and ability do notincrease but instead have a set-point.

Dr. Dwecks work is important and invalu-able, but is primarily a scholarly work ratherthan one focused on application. In GorillaMindset, you will learn how to apply a

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growth mindset to your life. In addition, youwill be introduced to the power of the abund-ance mindset.

Adopt an abundance mindset

Just as mindset can be understood as be-ing growth or fixed, the abundance andscarcity mindsets are another polarity inyour life. Those who have an abundancemindset are far more likely to be happy withtheir lives and to achieve their goals than arethose who have a scarcity mindset.

Imagine that you start with the assump-tion we live in a world of limited possibilities.You have a fixed mindset, that is, a belief youcannot change. Nothing you do ultimatelymatters. You will never be good enough. Ifyou begin with that scarcity mindset, whyeven get out of bed? Life would feel like apointless grind. Nothing you would matter.Life would be gray and empty. Many de-pressed people have a scarcity mindset,

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believing nothing matters and the world isone of limited possibilities.

Now imagine that you believe that theworld is massive. The world is one of endlessresources and infinite possibilities. What youdo matters. Choices matter. You matter.Each day is a new day full of limitless possib-ilities. How would you act if you knew thatanything you wanted to do was possible?Would you live life differently if you believedthat you were abundant and full of potential?

Why is Gorilla Mindset different?

A gorilla is a powerful, dominant animal.We humans are known as great apes, orhuman primates.

Rather than view our physical nature assomething dirty or evil, I embrace my gorillanature. This doesnt mean being a mindlessbrute. This means recognizing that bothmind and body are important to success andhappiness. As you will learn in this book,

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mind and body are deeply connected. Youcannot completely succeed in improving onewithout improving the other.

This book is about embracing your gorillanature to find dominance and power, but youwill see that this primarily means power overyourself, not others. The third eye in the gor-illa recognizes we are great apes who seekenlightenment. We want answers. These an-swers cannot be found only in our bodies, oronly in our minds.

With Gorilla Mindset you will recognizethe power of unifying your body and mind of simultaneously embracing and overcom-ing our primitive natures.

Your mindset is a choice.

Those of you who have children (or even aplayful dog) are no doubt astounded theywake you up with excitement and curiosity.My dog wakes me up in the morning. Hejumps on my bed and licks my face. He acts

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as if he has never seen me and that our daypresents endless excitement. To him, its as ifchasing a ball is something he has neverdone. My dog believes that each day offersnever-ending possibility. In other words, mydog has an abundance mindset.

We all started off as children. We had anabundance mindset and a genuine fascina-tion and curiosity about life. Somewherealong the way we lost it. Mindset is a choice.We can choose to view the world as one ofscarcity or one of abundance.

Change your mindset, change yourlife.

Remember the definition of mindset?Mindset is a set of assumptions, methods,or notations, which are so powerful theyforce you to continue to adopt or accept pri-or behaviors, choices, or tools. You cantchange your life unless you change yourmindset.

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I know this better than a lot of people. Ithought there was no hope. I stopped lookingat my environment and the people aroundme and started looking deep within myself.It was then I learned a powerful secret.

The answer to all of lifes most difficultquestions resides inside of you. You mightfind that statement controversial now, but Ipromise that you that you wont find it hardto believe once you finish this book. For sev-eral years I have helped thousands of menchange their lives through mindset training.Men have learned how to be more confident,assertive, and happier by changing theirmindset.

But dont take my word for it. My podcastis one of the highest rated on iTunes and mywebsites have had millions of unique visits.Men across the world have written in andposted reviews:

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This podcast is mind bending. It willalter your consciousness into an al-pha male godlike realm where any-thing is possible Alex M.

I can say with all honesty that Mikeprovides the most honest outlook onissues he is passionate about that Ihave come across online. Sebastian

If you want to improve yourself as aman, then this is the best podcast foryou. P.N.

Unfiltered, authentic, high-qualityself-improvement. Rice S.

Danger & Play made me a betterman. Period. Frank U.

No other self-help book has been tar-geted towards men like you. The message isalways watered down to appeal to a wideraudience. This book is for those of you will-ing to do whatever it takes to succeed.

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You have the permission and tools youneed to succeed.

When is the last time someone sat next toyou and asked you your hopes and dreams?Society usually only speaks of duty and re-sponsibilities, and loads you up like a packmule. Youre not allowed to seek danger, asthat could jeopardize your ability to producefor this consumerist society. Youre told notto seek play, as you need to be in bed early towake up for some life you may not even wantto live.

You need permission and tools. I am giv-ing you permission. As of right now, at thisvery moment, you are going to live life onyour terms, however you define those terms.I am also going to give you the tools. In fact,you already have the tools. They are lockedinside your mind.

This book is a key, no more.

The Gorilla Mindset system.

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The heart of the Gorilla Mindset system isa paradigm that, when applied, will changehow you think, feel, and live your life. In thefirst part of the book well discuss the GorillaMindset Model. Youll start by masteringself-talk. From there youll be introduced toframe, mindfulness, state, and focus.

As your mindset and lifestyle are connec-ted, well also discuss some health, fitness,and other lifestyle changes to make to yourlife. While each chapter stands on its own,the chapters are especially powerful whenthey work in sync. The chapter on self-talkwill lead into frame, and both chapters willhelp you learn how to live in the present mo-ment, which in turn will improve your stateor mood. Youll begin to see how your self-talk is influenced by how you choose toframe problems. As you work through themindfulness and state-control exercises,youll see how they can impact your health,

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your confidence, your willpower, and muchmore.

Gorilla Mindset shifts.

Throughout this book are immediate stepsyou can take to change the way you think called mindset shift. These mindset shifts actas a switch in your brain. While these shiftsare subtle, youll find they switch on parts ofyour brain you hadnt used in a long time orperhaps ever.

Gorilla Mindset Habits.

At the end of each chapter are actionablehabits you can immediately apply to yourlife. These are small habits that will have bigresults in your life.

Gorilla Mindset Worksheets.

In many cases its helpful to write out yourpatterns of thought. Where applicable, Iveincluded worksheets you may use to further

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enhance your understanding of mindset. TheGorilla Mindset shifts, habits, and work-sheets will reinforce and help you apply yournew mindset habits to your life. Its now timeto change your life.

How to use this book.

This is a workbook, not a lecture. The op-erative word is work, and you will need tomake a commitment to putting in work, orreading this book will be a waste of yourtime. If you are ready to put the work in, Ihave one request. Abuse this book. Print itout. Write on it. Annotate it. Scribble on itand scribble in it again and then throw itaway. Print out a new copy and fill it outagain.

Writing is a physical act that engages yourbody and mind. Putting your words to papermakes your ideas real and concrete. It unitesbody and mind into one (and they are one).Take ownership of your life. Start by taking

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ownership of your words. These are exercisesthat I have performed and had thousands ofmen perform. They work. They are based onscience and personal experience.

Remember: This is YOUR book, not mine.

Actively engage with this book. If youthink Im full of crap, great. Prove me wrong.Dont write me to tell me Im wrong, as yourtruth may be different from my truth. In-stead, focus on yourself and your goals:Mike is wrong. Im not going to do what hesuggests. I am going to do something else.

The point is that you do something. If thisbook instills in you a sense that you mustlead a more productive, more conscious life,then my job has been done. Im here to shareconcepts and some specifics. What will spe-cifically work for your life may differ fromwhat works for my life. Celebrate difference.

Lets get to work!

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CHAPTER 1Mindset is a Conversation: The Powerof Self-Talk

If you talked to your friends likeyou talk to yourself, you wouldnthave any friends.

Mike Cernovich

Imagine that a friend of yours came to youfor some advice. Perhaps he had lost his jobor his wife left him. Imagine he was facing areal crisis and turned to you for help. Whatwould happen to your relationship with thisfriend or loved one if your response was,Your life is over! You probably wouldnthave that friend for long, would you?

You should never candy-coat truths; butbeing overly dramatic is both inaccurate andunhelpful. Our friends turn to us for a

combination of emotional support, valida-tion, and actionable advice. You should sup-port yourself in the same way.

Gorilla Mindset shift: Treat your-self like a treasured and trustedfriend.

Shouldnt you treat yourself like atreasured friend?

Think about how you talk to yourself whenyou are down. Here are some actual sen-tences Ive uttered to myself:

You are so stupid!

Why does this always happen tome?

My life is over!

While those negative sentiments are bad inthemselves, what makes them worse is howoverly dramatic they are. If you have said

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things like that to yourself, you know theyhave all proven to be false. Negative thinkingusually ends up being lies. Besides, even ifwe do make a mistake that seems to ruin ourlives, we can make a mindset shift to over-come those challenges.

Do you know anyone who has hystericaloverreactions to everything in life, no matterhow small? You probably try to avoid thatperson. Yet that is how we often talk toourselves about our own problems. If talkingto your friends like that isnt healthy, thenwhy would talking to yourself like that begood for your mental health?

What is self-talk?

Self-talk is the conversations you havewith yourself. Interlocution and intraper-sonal communication are two fancy ways ofdescribing the same thing: the dialogue thatruns through your head. Self-talk can bemundane, like repeating someones

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telephone number that youre trying to re-member; but it can also be a problem if youare in the habit of criticizing yourself.

Where did you learn self-talk?

We learned how to talk to ourselves fromsomeone else. Unfortunately we grew up inan often-negative society. Even if our homelives were healthy and enriching (and manywere not), we went to schools where peoplewere bullied and where small-minded peoplecriticized and complained.

No one taught us how to talk to ourselves.It happened through osmosis. We silently re-peated the same speaking patterns, wordsand phrases to ourselves that others hadspoken to us out loud. You could spend hun-dreds of hours on a therapists couch analyz-ing where you learned how to talk to your-self. But where you learned it is not the ques-tion you need to answer. Gorilla Mindset isnot about blaming your parents, teachers, or

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other loved ones or authority figures. This isa book about taking action.

How can you improve your self-talk?

Theres a well-known marketing adagethat applies in times of a brand crisis. Ima-gine your company or an employee is underattack. If you dont like the conversation,what can you do?

Gorilla Mindset shift: Change theconversation.

To improve your self-talk, the first step isto recognize that youre actually engaging inself-talk. This may seem obvious. Yet howmany times has your mind spiraled out ofcontrol? When a conversation starts, seizeon it. (In the chapter on mindfulness, youllbe given specific techniques to help you getinto the moment.) Write it down, then lookat the piece of paper so you can literally seethe things you are saying to yourself. Onceyouve recognized that a conversation has

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started, take these four actionable steps toimprove your self-talk:

1. Talk to yourself in a mirror

Rather than merely attacking yourself insilence, bring the conversation out ofyour head. Find a mirror. Look into themirror. Begin talking. Do not censoryourself. Have the same conversation infront of the mirror that you were havinginside your head. As youre talking, be-come observant. Look at your facial ex-pressions. Does your brow furrow? Doesyour face look monstrous? That look yousee in the mirror is what your uncon-scious mind sees when you talk yourselfdown. It is ugly, hateful, and disgusting.

Ask yourself: Is this person looking atme the person I want myself, my family,and my friends to see?

2. Record those nasty voices

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Get a tape recorder or use your com-puter or iPhones record function. Intodays smart phone era, there are manyeasy ways for you to record yourself.Turn on the recorder. Start talking. Aswith the mirror exercise, above, do notcensor yourself. Be real. Let it all out.Say all of those mean, nasty, angrythoughts out loud. Get it out of yoursystem!

Then, in a day or two, play back the re-cording. Listen to it objectively. You willrealize it sounds ridiculous. When I havecoaching clients perform this exercise,they often feel disgust. They simply can-not believe they said those things. Yetbefore using the recorder, my clients re-peated those words to themselves day inand day out.

Save the recording. When your self-talkstarts to become negative, play it to re-mind yourself of how ridiculous it really

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sounds. Youll probably want to deletethe recording a day or two later. It willbe embarrassing. You should feel free todelete it: after all, you are learning andgrowing, and moving on with your life.But if you catch yourself trapped innegative self-talk again, make a new re-cording. Make as many recordings asyou need to remind yourself whatnegative self-talk really sounds like.

3. Ask yourself questions.

Criticism and self-hate are not based onopen inquiry. They are based on valuejudgments. More often than not, thosevalue judgments were someone elses.The attacks in your head are otherpeoples voices that youve heard and in-ternalized over the years. That meansthat you are attacking yourself based onsomeone elses standards. How goofy isthat?

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Self-hate is not based on inquisitiveness.It is a rant: repeating negative state-ments over and over. When you feelyourself going on a self-destructive, self-hating rant, stop making statements andstart asking questions.

Am I being a hateful person?

Do I want to be a hateful person?

Am I a drama queen?

Am I the type of person who loses mymind over stupidity and nonsense?

Am I choosing, in this moment, to bethe type of person I want to become?

Ask those questions. Answer them. Lit-erally start a conversation. As you askmore questions, a rich conversation willemerge. Youll begin to reconsider yourassumptions about the world. You mayeven begin asking the most fundamental

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questions of all, Who am I really livingfor? and Who do I want to be?

4. Affirmations and Mantras.

Change negative self-talk into positiveself-talk. Positive self-talk can come inthe form of affirmations or mantras. Anaffirmation can be a sentence, para-graph, or even a full page of conversa-tion you have with yourself. A mantratends to be shorter, usually a word ortwo.

When writing your mantra, imagine theperson you want to be. Visualize this. (Inthe chapter on visualization, youll learnexactly how to do this!) Repeat your af-firmation or mantra as often as you needto. Many people begin their days with anaffirmation or mantra. Others use theseaffirmations or mantras when facingstress.

Gorilla Mindset shift: Its YOURaffirmation. It can be as corny as

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you want it to be. What matters isthat the powerful self-talk reson-ates with you. You have permis-sion to do any goofy New Age stuff,so long as it works.

Here are some examples:

I am unstoppable.

I love the smell of Napalm in themorning. It smells like victory.[Apocalypse Now.]

This is a fantastic challenge that willtest my resolve and will. Even if Idont win, I will grow stronger.

Today I am better than I was yester-day. [Last of the Renshai, a sciencefiction book.]

The only easy day was yesterday.[Navy SEAL motto.]

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I knew a doctor who, when confrontedwith a problem would say, Mighty. By re-peating, Mighty! Mighty! Mighty! Mighty!hed remind himself who he was. Again, itdoesnt matter what your affirmation ormantra is. Its yours. There are no right orwrong answers. I want you to discover YOURtruth, not my truth. What matters is how youfeel. Your mantra or affirmation should en-courage, motivate, and in times of stress,comfort you.

Your mantra can be a short form of a fullaffirmation, and can even be a stepping offpoint for an entire code of conduct or creed.The United States Army Rangers, an elitespecial operations force that conducts someof the most dangerous missions around theworld, makes each soldier memorize theRanger Creed.

By being forced to memorize the Creed,Rangers begin to live the creed. It includessome affirmations as, Never shall I fail my

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comrades. I will always keep myself mentallyalert, physically strong, and morally straightand I will shoulder more than my share ofthe task whatever it may be, one-hundredpercent and then some.

Thats powerful living!

Improving your self-talk will improveall of your relationships.

Your self-talk affects your relationshipwith yourself. If you are constantly beatingyourself up or using abusive language onyourself, you will be in a poorer mood. Youllbe angrier. You wont be fun to be around.

Once you improve your self-talk, yourmood will improve. Whats more, yourimproved self-talk will have another effect: itwill improve how you treat those aroundyou. When you start talking more politely toyourself, your friends, family, business asso-ciates, and other loved ones may be sur-prised by how you talk to them.

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Youll begin to choose your words morecarefully. When you stop insulting and over-reacting to yourself, you will discover thatyou also dont overreact when dealing withothers.

Create powerful affirmations.

Extensive research into the science of will-power and mindset has shown that peopleare far more likely to believe somethingwhen they are given a reason to do so. Unlessyou have a reason for your affirmation, youmay not believe in it, and you wont followthrough.

Your affirmation can be anything from abelief you hold about yourself to a commit-ment to perform some new task or engage ina new set of habits. In other words, affirma-tion is not a fixed concept with a clearmeaning. It is not a rule to abide by, or aclever saying. Structure your affirmations asfollows:

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I am going to _______________,because _________________.

For example: I am going to warmup mybrain before work because I enjoy havingclarity of thought and intense focus. I am go-ing to take a contrast shower because I wantto feel invigorated. I am going to get out ofbed rather than hit the snooze button be-cause Im tired of being passive about life.

Write out your affirmations. Type themout or pull out a piece of paper. Your affirm-ation can be short or long. For example, thefollowing essay, I Will, is my affirmationon life.

I WILL

Maybe this, maybe that, maybe Ill be acontender.

Mr. Maybe is the ultimate seducer. Mr.Maybe whispers honey in your ear.

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When you talk to Mr. Maybe, he tells youwhat your ego wants to hear.

Maybe gives you the illusion that someday,by golly, youll live the life you dreamed of.Mr. Maybe tells you, It will happen. Trustme!

Committing to Mr. Maybe is easy. It re-quires no risk, only rationalization.

I could have been a contender, youll tellyourself later in life when you inevitably real-ize that the only certainly that follows maybeis regret.

Dont, Call me maybe?

There is no maybe. There is no I might.There is no that sounds interesting.

You are in or you are out.

There only is the daily, hourly, minute-by-minute, unrelenting commitment.

Make a commitment to yourself, startingthis very moment.

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Its a basic commitment that only requirestwo words.

I will.

I will treat today like the beginning of anew life.

I will go to the gym.

I will turn off the television.

I will stop reading filth, rage, and click-bait websites.

I will fuel my body for optimalperformance.

I will make more money than I spend.

I will visualize my perfect day.

I will keep moving, fighting, struggling,and giving the world my all.

I will fall asleep a better man than I wokeup.

Are you willing to kill Mr. Maybe?

Youre either in or youre out.

What its going to be?

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The Self-Talk Worksheet

Self-talk refers the conversation we havewith ourselves. To improve the conversationwith yourself, put your words into writing.Filling out this worksheet will help you be-come more mindful and conscious of yourlanguage and thought patterns.

How do you speak to yourself?

What words and phrases do you use whentalking to yourself? What is the phrase youmost commonly use when you find yourselfin a troubling situation?

Write it out:_________________________________________________

Heres an example from my own life: Itend to speak in absolutes. When somethingdoesnt go my way or when I make a mistake,I say to myself, You always mess this up, orYou never get this right. This negativethinking reinforces an unconscious belief

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that I am incompetent. It is harmful anddestructive.

When you talk to yourself in that way,how do you feel?

Write it out:_________________________________________________

Example: I tend to feel hopeless, as I amalways making the same mistakes or neverdoing something right. Using works likenever or always make me feel like growthor change is impossible.

What is a new empowering or com-forting phrase you can use when talk-ing to yourself?

This must be a phrase that YOU own.When you make a mistake, how can you re-cognize and correct that mistake withoutbeating yourself up?

Write it out:__________________________________________________

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Example: I often make mistakes. My mis-takes are not an indictment of my characterbut a reminder I am human. Each mistakegives me an opportunity to reflect and grow.

Better self-talk will lead to better con-versations with others.

As you perform those self-talk exercises,youll notice a surprising side effect. You willactually start talking to your friends, familymembers, lovers, and others with a morehelpful, encouraging tone. After all, much ofthe negative energy you direct outward ori-ginates inside yourself.

Gorilla Self-Talk Habits

1. Avoid speaking in absolutes.

Rather than saying, I always make thissame mistake, recognize that each mis-take is an opportunity for growth.Moreover, do you really always makethe same mistake? That is probably not

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true and telling yourself you alwaysmake that mistake and will never im-prove is certainly not helpful. Insteadsay, I made a mistake. I will avoid it inthe future by _____.

2. Talk to yourself as you would a closefriend.

When going on a negative rant againstyourself, stop to ask: Would I talk to aclose friend or loved one like this?Maybe you would, but I doubt it. Youare probably meaner to yourself thanyou are to others.

3. Smile when youre angry at yourself.

Mood and posture are linked, and itsbeen proving that engaging in the phys-ical act of smiling can actually make youfeel happier. When you start talking toyourself in a negative manner, raise yourbody up, take a deep breath, and smile.You might find the rant stops in itstracks.

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4. Turn a critical statement aboutyourself into a question.

Rather than blame yourself and talkdown to yourself, ask, How can I pre-vent making this same choice in thefuture?

5. Talk to yourself in front of a mirror.

Look at yourself as you talk to yourself.Repeat the same negative words in frontof a mirror. How do you look? Is that thetype of person you want to be?

6. Repeat your mantra.

Your mantra of affirmations could be aword, a sentence, or even an entireessay.

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CHAPTER 2Mindset is a Choice: Change The WayYou Perceive Lifes Challenges.

Weve all heard the expression, Its allabout your frame of mind. That is one ofthose pieces of homespun wisdom everyoneassumes you understand and no one ex-plains. We are left with an intuitive sensesome nebulous concept frame exists andmatters. But when you start to think deeplyabout what a frame is, it turns up endlesspossibilities.

What is framing?

The idea that frame of mind is a form ofmood makes sense in some ways, but theresa more powerful way of understanding whatframe is, how it affects your life, and how youcan change it.

As a lawyer, I learned a more technicalmeaning for the idea of frame. When lawyersspeak of frame, they are talking about thekey issue or legal question that matters in acase. That is, what question do you ask ajudge or jury to decide?

How you ask a question and what facts youinclude when asking your question often in-fluences the answer. There are entire booksdevoted to how to ask the right questionswhen seeking a raise in salary, a favor from afriend, or even a date.

The way you ask a question can often de-termine how the question is answered. Thisis something even children understand.When they ask one parent for a privilege,they often frame the question as, Mom saidI could stay the night at my friends house. Isthat OK with you? By including the fact thatmom said its OK, the child is letting youknow your answer wont cause drama or

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conflict. Even children know how to framethe issue!

Framing the issue is so important that en-tire chapters of legal writing books are de-voted to framing exercises. Framing the issueinvolves choosing what facts you want thejudge or jury to focus on. After all, life ismessy. Not every fact matters. Some facts arematerial and some are immaterial.

Psychologists also use the idea of framingwhen studying preferences, choices, and risk.Any choice can be described in terms of itsgood outcomes, its bad outcomes, or both.Whether a decision is described using a pos-itive frame (focusing on good outcomes) or anegative frame (focusing on bad outcomes)will radically change not only your decisions,but your willingness to take risks and eventhe way you remember your decisions lateron.

Framing is a part of our everyday lives. Inthe real world, decisions are complicated and

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problems are messy. Were somewhat moral,somewhat immoral, and somewhat confused.Some facts help us and some facts hurt us.Whether we are conscious of it or not, weconstantly create frames for the stories wetell ourselves, and for the stories we tell oth-er people.

Why does framing matter?

In the previous chapter we looked at self-talk. When you talk to yourself, youre ulti-mately sending signals to yourself to controlhow you think and feel. And you understandhow important those conversations withyourself are.

Imagine your consciousness is the judge orjury or parent or friend you must persuade.You want your conscious mind to believe inyou. Framing is how your mind perceiveswhatever situation you are in. Framing ishow you choose to think about and thus per-ceive a challenge in your life.

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Frame is how you talk to yourself.

The language you use impacts your frame.Are you facing a problem or a challenge?What language do you use?

In reality, a problem is something to besolved. You become more resourceful everytime you discover a new solution. A problemcan be truthfully seen either as somethingbad or as an opportunity. How you see it is achoice you make, in the present moment, byframing the issue.

Frame is focus.

Tony Robbins, a wildly successful self-helpauthor, often says, What you focus on iswhat you feel. Robbins is recognizing thathow you frame an issue (i.e. what you chooseto focus on) will determine how you feelabout the issue. There is considerable sci-entific research on this very issue. Lets in-troduce this by asking you a question: Would

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you rather win a silver medal in theOlympics or a bronze medal?

Thats not a trick question. Would yourather finish in second or third place?

The answer would seem obvious to you.While a gold medal is best, why wouldnt youwant to win a silver medal instead of abronze medal. Yet research by Drs. VictoriaMedvec, Thomas Gilovic, and Scott Madeyshowed our intuitive answer is incorrect. Wewould actually be happier in the long run byfinishing in third place!

In their study, When Less is More: Coun-terfactual Thinking and Satisfaction amongOlympic Medalists, Medvec and her col-leagues examined the reactions and post-game statements of Olympic silver andbronze medal winners from the 1992Olympic games, and interviewed over 150silver and bronze medal winners in the 1994Empire State Games, to assess their state ofmind. In both cases, the bronze medal

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winners both appeared happier and soundedmore satisfied during post-game interviewsthan the silver medal winners.

How could you not be happier with a silvermedal than with a gold medal? The answerlies in our focus. What do Olympic winnersfocus on?

I might have won a gold medal andbeen on a Wheaties box, says the sil-ver medalist.

I might have not been on the podi-um at all, says the bronze medalist.

Its all in frame.

The silver medalist choose to focus onwhat might have been (a gold medal). Thebronze medalist also chose to focus on whatmight have been (no medal at all)! The silvermedalist, rather than choose to focus on howhe almost became the next Michael Phelps,

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could instead reframe the issue, choosing tobe grateful that hes on the podium at all.

Always remember that your frame is achoice. How you choose to view lifes diffi-culties and what you choose to focus on is achoice you make in the present moment.

Gorilla Mindset shift: Reframe theissues. Choose to focus on how thedifficulty youre facing will makeyou stronger, more intelligent,more emotionally complex, ormore resourceful.

He who controls the frame controlsthe debate.

There are several specific ways you canchange your frame of mind. Frame yourproblem as being small relative to a worseproblem. Its helpful to get out of our heads,or as you may have heard growing up: Getover yourself. Someone else has it worse.Look around. Express gratitude for what you

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have. Choose to focus on what you haverather than what you do not have.

Frame your problems as a source of power.Each problem you face is preparation foryour big moment! What if, instead of feelinghopelessness or self-pity, you reframed yourproblem in this way:

Once Ive gotten through this problem, Iwill have a reservoir of strength that willmake me unstoppable!

Sure, youll still have the same problem.Yet what happens to your mind and yourbody when you change how you think aboutthis problem? Your breathing improves.Your posture is more upright. You no longerfeel dejected. You develop a sense of, Yeah, Igot this. Remember that your mind andbody are connected: when your frame is pos-itive, you will feel stronger and more ener-getic as well. You embrace the struggle. Yes,this hurts and is hard. Once its over, no onewill be able to stop me.

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Frame starts with a choice.

Philosophers might debate about free will;but when you live your life day to day, you al-ways have a choice. You can choose how youfeel by choosing how you frame your issues.You can choose to view your problems asspecial and unique, the biggest burden in theworld! Or you can view your problems as be-ing nothing compared to what others haveendured. You can choose to view your prob-lems as pointless suffering. Or you canchoose to view your problems as preparationfor life. The choice, as always, is yours.

The Frame Control Worksheet

What is your biggest problem? This prob-lem could concern health and fitness, moneyand finances, or relationships with yourfriends or family.

Write it out:______________________________.

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How can you reframe your problem as achallenge? For example, I might say, Mybiggest problem is learning how to stick to abudget. I could reframe that problem into achallenge by saying, Therefore I am going tolearn how to track my spending in a softwareprogram like Mint.

What is one area of your life that can beimproved by choosing to frame this problemas an opportunity for growth?

List three ways solving your problem willhelp you grow:

1. _________________________,

2. _________________________,

3. _________________________.

If youre stuck, here are some ideas: Solv-ing problems makes us more resourceful,which gives us more tools to succeed in life.Solving problems also requires self-discip-line, which we could all benefit from. Finally,you will become more thoughtful and

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conscious by identifying challenges and op-portunities in your life.

Could you choose to reframe your prob-lems as being smaller relative to other prob-lems? For example, the silver medalist in theOlympics sees his problem as having notwon the gold medal, whereas the bronzemedalist feels lucky, as not winning a medalat all would have been an even worseoutcome?

Write out your problems and reflect onhow much worse your life could be. This willgive you a sense of gratitude for what youhave.

Gorilla Frame Control Habits

1. Watch your language.

Instead of calling something aproblem, reframe it as a challenge.That seems clich, but it really works.

2. Remember that growth is painful.

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Adopting a growth mindset is bitter-sweet. The bitterness comes from thepain accompanying growth. No pain,no gain, is true. The sweetness comesfrom growth. Nothing feels as good aswinning.

3. Remember that pain is inevitable.

Even if you didnt embrace the pain ofgrowth, life would bring pain to youeventually. You cannot choose whetherthe pain is coming. As is said in Game ofThrones, a hit book series and later anHBO adaption, Winter is coming.Once you accept that pain is inevitableand leads to growth, youll be better pre-pared to endure winter.

4. Take the long view.

The challenges you face today will giveyou the resources you need to succeedtomorrow. You fell down a lot as a tod-dler before you learned to crawl. Youtripped when learning to run. At some

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point you were clueless and made mis-takes. Yet those mistakes led to youreventual success and mastery.

5. Embrace the suck.

Lets face it. Sometimes life is going tobe hard and no amount of arguing orwishing it were otherwise will change.When you go through points in your lifelike this (and we all have or will), acceptand then embrace it. Army Rangers callthis, Embrace the suck. Rangers gothrough demanding training. For 58days they average less than 2 hours ofsleep a day. Every day is worse than thelast. Bodies ache and break down. Ifthey sat around complaining, theydnever get through training. Instead theychoose to Embrace the suck, which al-lows them to endure.

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CHAPTER 3Mindset is a Moment: How to Check Into Your Life

Weve covered a lot of ground in a shortperiod of time. The concepts we are learningand applying to ourselves do not take mil-lions of words to explain. But the conceptsare deep, and real understanding takes placeonly after youve taken action by applyingthese principles to your life.

We started off talking about self-talk, andthen the power of choices, frame, and focus.Now you are ready to learn about mindful-ness, and how getting into the present mo-ment can give you freedom from anxiety andworry. Some think of mindfulness as eso-teric or abstract, but you will see that itsimply brings together all of the ideas we

have covered so far, and will have real prac-tical consequences for your life.

What is mindfulness?

Its helpful to look at the definition othersuse, so that we can see how our exercisesbuild on, and sometimes deviate from, thecommon understanding of mindfulness.Wikipedia observes: Mindfulness is the in-tentional, accepting and non-judgmental fo-cus of ones attention on the emotions,thoughts and sensations occurring in thepresent moment, which can be trained bymeditational practices.

Thats a nice start, but does that definitionclarify the concept for you? It doesnt for me.I have been applying mindfulness to my ownlife for more than 15 years, and still that dic-tionary definition tells me nothing specific oruseful. It is too vague to be of any practicalvalue. To understand mindfulness better,lets start with something more concrete.

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Sometimes its helpful to think of the oppos-ite of a concept in order to appreciate theconcept. We all understand what it means tobe mindless: low consciousness, distracted,and unaware.

Mindfulness is the opposite of mindless-ness. Mindfulness is high consciousness.

Here is how I view mindfulness.

Mindfulness is freedom from anxietyor worry.

Mindfulness is perception, notjudgment.

Mindfulness is getting out of yourhead and getting into your body.

Mindfulness is checking in to thepresent moment.

Mindfulness is being in the zone or inflow state.

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Mindfulness is being present andengaged.

Mindfulness is being rather thandoing.

Your view of mindfulness may differ, andthats totally cool. This is not a book wherewe argue with one another or prove the otherperson wrong. This book is for you to applyto your life. The answers are already insideyou, and all we need to do is talk throughyour issues to help you discover these an-swers. By the end of this chapter, you shouldhave your own list of what mindfulnessmeans for you. Whether that list is the sameas mine or different, the goal of this chapterwill have been achieved.

Now that we have a working definition ofmindfulness, lets get to the fun part. Therest of this chapter is divided into two majorsections. In the first part, we will go throughspecific things you can do to become more

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mindful. In the second part, we will look atvery specific ways that your increased mind-fulness can be put to good use to change yourmood, your wellbeing, and your effectivenessin life.

Part 1: How can we become moremindful?

The dictionary definition mentioned med-itation, so Id like to start with this question:Is meditation necessary to become moremindful, present, aware, active, engaged, andchecked in?

Meditation is one approach that peoplecan use to become more mindful. Indeed, inmy teens and early 20s I trained with a mas-ter of Samadhi meditation. Mediation isvaluable, as it teaches you to control yourbreath and posture, two key components ofmindfulness. Yet meditation also encouragesyou stop-thought, which is a form of disen-gagement with the world. Meditation is

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valuable for relaxing and de-stressing. To be-come fully mindful, however, I prefer wetake a more active approach.

My view of mindfulness is more active. Iwant to be fully immersed in experiences Ifind valuable. I want to rid my body of negat-ive emotions, thoughts, and feelings whileliving my day-to-day life. How does thatsound to you? Would you like to be more act-ively engaged in your life and to live a lifefree of worry? How can you be physically act-ive, mentally active, alert, and in the presentmoment?

It takes discipline to become moremindful.

Getting into the present moment is an act-ive process involving discipline and self-con-trol. In fact, youve already begun to developthese skills from the previous chapters. Younow see why we covered self-talk and framebefore discussing mindset. You realize

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already that self-talk and frame and focuswill help you get into the present moment.

When you feel your thoughts spiral out ofcontrol (a lack of mindfulness), you use self-talk and frame techniques to bring yourthoughts into control.

Using self-talk and framing techniquesto become more mindful.

Where are you, right now? Yes, I am talk-ing to you through the pages.

Are you watching TV while skimming thewords on the page? Its OK. I wont judgeyou. Dont judge yourself. Mindfulness, afterall, is about perception rather than judg-ment. Use self-talk in the present moment.Right now. You might say, I am sitting onthe couch reading a book. Im rushed andfeel like I dont have enough time to finish it.The concepts are a bit esoteric. I dont knowif this stuff will work for me. Where are thescientific studies? In other words, right now

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youre judging the book, youre judging yourexperience.

Try this instead. I am [insert where youare, what you are wearing, in a non-judg-mental way] reading a book to help me grow.I may not agree with everything in the book,but even not agreeing with someone can helpme discover the truth, as disagreement al-lows me to examine my own deep inner be-liefs and core values.

Do you see what we did there? You justchecked in. You were conscious. You wereengaged. You were mindful! Ultimately thatsyour first step to developing mindfulness.Simply use self-talk to become aware ofwhere you are and what you are doing. Whenyou find yourself judging some person orsome experience, reframe it. Instead of get-ting frustrated or angry by saying, This iswrong, reframe the issue as, This is a greatopportunity for me to examine my own be-liefs. I am improving by focusing on the

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opportunity for personal development andgrowth.

Mindfulness is learning to control thisinner judge.

Our minds are constantly imposing realityonto perceptions. This reality often comesfrom past experiences or even cultural brain-washing. To see this in action, read this sen-tence: If you can raed tihs, you hvae asgtrane mnid, too. Can you raed tihs? Olny55 plepoe out of 100 can.

Most people can read that sentence, eventhough its gibberish. In fact, many can readit quickly without any problem. When youkeep the first and last letter of the word tospell words we are familiar with, our innerjudge takes over and fills in the blanks. Thisheuristic is helpful. It helps us save time. Yetoften this inner judge fills in the blankswith negative thoughts, feelings, senses, andemotions.

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Mindfulness is checking in.

Many of you reading this have had thisproblem. You want to do something. Maybeits talk to your boss about a raise or ap-proach a girl who you are attracted to. Yourmind starts spinning out of control. Yourbreathing changes. You become breathless,as your rapid breathing puts you in a mildstate of hyperventilation. When your mindstarts spinning out of control, you have lostyour state of mindfulness. To regain yourmindfulness, check in to your thoughts andcheck into your body.

How to check in to the presentmoment.

The surest way to get into the moment isto become aware of yourself. Become awareof your body. The easiest way to becomeaware of yourself and aware of your body, isto either start talking out loud or use self-talk to check in to your environment.

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It doesnt matter where you are. You canuse mindfulness techniques anywhere. Forexample, I have a popular podcast on iTunescalled Mike Cernovich Podcast. Before eachepisode I use the very mindfulness tech-niques were talking about to prepare myselffor the show. Before speaking, I use self-talk(or sometimes talk out loud, to warm up myvocal cords) to check in. Heres an example:Im looking at a microphone. Its a silver orbwith slots cut out that have a black sort ofmesh under the slots. There is Blue writtenon it, the brand of the microphone. The Bhas a lightning bolt on it. Theres a red lighton the side of the microphone.

Rather than be worried about what thepodcast will be about, whether I will make amistake, or whatever else, I simply becomeengaged in the process of speaking. Whilechecking in, Im not trying to think brilliantthoughts. Im merely become mindful andaware. Because of this, I have no anxiety

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when podcasting. In fact, I usually dont evenuse a script; instead I trust the process.

Go to big spaces to become moremindful.

Why do most great thinkers and philo-sophers talk about going to the mountains orgoing into the wilderness? Why does theocean calm people? Why are sunsets beauti-ful? We love mountains, oceans, and sunsetsas they ease our anxiety by making us feelconnected with something bigger. Its mucheasier to be in the present moment whenocean waves are crashing.

How to check in to your body to be-come more mindful.

We often arent even aware of our bodiesunless we feel deep pain or injury or greatjoy. Otherwise we tend to not even realizethat our bodies exist. Our brains are blobsresiding in a meat sack. One powerful way to

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improve your mindfulness is to check intoyour body, to become fully aware who youare. Find a way to become present in yourbody. You neednt be too creative here. Anysmall step helps.

Gorilla Mindset shift: Check intoyour body by using self-talk to talkabout what your body is doing andfeeling in the present moment.

Maybe you are sitting down on the couchreading this book. Are you lying flat on yourback? Are you sitting up? Are you holdingthe book out in front of your face? Are youusing an e-reader such as a Kindle? Yourself-talk could go something like, Im lyingon my back. Im holding my Kindle out infront of me. Im reading a book. My legs arestretched out over the edge of the couch. Myneck is kinked slightly forward as I read.

Or maybe youre doing something entirelydifferent. It doesnt matter! The GorillaMindset shift to make is simply to become

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aware, to realize where you are and what youare doing without judgment.

Step 2: How to use mindfulness toachieve your goals and improve yourlife

Weve looked at very specific and practicalthings you can do in order to improve mind-fulness. This will make you more alert, moreaware, and more engaged with the presentmoment. It will lead to you feeling more pos-itive and more peaceful. But mindfulnessgoes beyond just affecting how you think andfeel. These changes will also have a practical,physical impact in your life and your actions.Now that you understand the steps you cantake to be more mindful, lets look at waysyou can use that mindfulness to make realchanges in the way you live your life.

Use mindfulness to improve yourreading comprehension and focus.

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Years ago I began studying the work ofMilton H. Erickson and his amazing work,My Voice Will Go With You. I used thesame techniques and language patternsErickson used to treat his patients duringtherapy when talking to myself. During mystudies, I came across an amazing mindful-ness exercise that improves reading compre-hension. Although the exercise was notlabeled as a mindfulness exercise, thats howI chose to view it.

Since youre reading this book, youre ob-viously a voracious reader. Try this exercise,which comes from Handbook of HypnoticSuggestions and Metaphors by D. CorydonHammond, before you begin reading, orwhen you otherwise want to improve yourfocus:

Notice the paper. What color is it? Noticehow clean and crisp it seems. Fingers slideover the surface, and feel how smooth. Eyes

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can flow across the page, going easily fromside to side, seeing everything.Notice the letters on the page. They seemdark and distinct. The round parts of the Osand Cs are very smooth; the up and downparts of the Ts and Ls are tall and strong.The printing is especially vivid. The wordsseem to stand out very clearly.

Youve already become more mindful ofthe shapes of the very letters youre nowreading. You are more present, aware, andactively engaged with what you are reading.You have checked in to Gorilla Mindset ina powerful way.

Indeed, you may find that this style ofreading is difficult and mentally taxing atfirst. It is a challenge. Yet as you becomemore mindful, your reading comprehensionimproves. By now you have learned to re-frame tiring as an opportunity for growth.

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How to use mindfulness to move withpurpose.

One of my most popular podcasts wastitled, How to Move and Live With Pur-pose. That episode of the Mike CernovichPodcast walked listeners through a mindful-ness exercise I use when I walk. If you wouldlike to listen to the podcast, you can find itfor free at GorillaMindset.com/Podcasts

In the podcast, I noted my favorite activityis walking. Walking has been the pastime ofthe worlds great thinkers. Aristotle, Plato,and Socrates were all famous for taking theirstudents on walking lectures. Their philo-sophical discussions did not occur in theclassroom. They would walk and talk.

Henry David Thoreau wrote an entire es-say on how he would walk, think, and formu-late ideas. Im the same way. I walk all thetime and I have my best ideas when I walk. Ijust get completely inside of my head andstart moving. When your body moves, your

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mind and your brain move along with it be-cause everything is connected.

In the podcast I explained how to usemindfulness to improve your posture whilewalking, and how improving your posturewould change your physical gait and evenboost your mood.

Although its most helpful to listen to thepodcast while walking, the instructions areset forth below.

Gorilla Mindset shift: Walk with apurpose by talking to yourself asyou walk about how you arewalking.

To become one with your body, start pay-ing attention to how you walk. Although weall know how to walk, many of us do somindlessly. We have poor posture and ourgait is not sure or self-possessed. Do youknow how you walk? Most likely, you goheel-to-toe, heel-to-toe. Your pelvis is tightand your shoulders lean forward a bit. Our

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postures from sitting at work carry over tohow we walk.

The next time you go for a walk, get intouch with your body. Start from your feet.Say to yourself, My feet are striking theground. Yes, actually use self-talk. You maysay something like, OK my feet are walkingon the ground, touching the ground, left footright foot left foot right foot. Heel to toe, heelto toe.

While having this conversation, you willsuddenly become aware of how your feetmove when walking, which isnt somethingmost of us are aware of. When walking, youtend to land on your heel. From there youkind of fall forward and then you propelyourself from the ball of your foot. Thats ac-tually not the way we have evolved to walk.We walk that way because we wear shoes.You want to start walking a bit differentlyand heres how you change that. Change thedialogue you have with your body.

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Check into the present moment whenwalking. Use self-talk to say, Heel to toe,heel to toe; Im going to flex my calf a littlebit. As you are walking just flex your calf alittle bit on each step. Youll notice youyoure going to become aware of the balls ofyour feet and your calves. Your calves mayeven develop a slight pump.

Continue with the conversation: I feel theballs of my feet now. I feel how my footflexes. I feel my arch. My calves are burningslightly. Even though walking is not rigor-ous, youre going to feel your respiratory rateincrease and your heart rate increase. Yourpace is going to increase simply due to thefact that you are flexing your calf.

The next step is to think about your glu-teus muscles (your glutes or butt muscles).As you walk start flexing your glutes witheach step as your foot lands and you propelyourself with the ball of your foot. You gluteswill flex a bit; it will feel a little weird. At

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first, you might not even know what yourefeeling because theres something a lot ofpeople have called gluteal amnesia.

We have gluteal amnesia because we sittoo much. We rarely use our glute musclesare they are not activated while sitting. Asyou are walking and you are flexing your glu-tes you start to realize that your legs mightfeel longer. And your hips might feel a littlebit tight. Your hips feel tight, especially if youwork in an office, due to anterior pelvic tilt.Anterior pelvic tilt occurs when your pelvis istilting forward rather than being properlyaligned straight.

We deal with anterior pelvic tilt from sit-ting down in a chair. When you sit down in achair you lean forward slightly with your up-per torso. This causes your hips to get tight.When you are walking, you actually begin toloosen up and cure your anterior pelvic tiltby walking.

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Do you see how everything is connectednow? We started talking about paying atten-tion to how you walk. You thought, I knowhow to walk! As youre walking, youre onthe balls of your feet now. Youre actuallystarting to flex your glutes with each stride.You suddenly feel like your legs are length-ening. Youre also noticing something elsethats happening, which is, your pelvis isstretching out, your hips are stretching out,your legs feel longer and youre actually mov-ing forward.

When you start walking this way, youregoing to start feeling more confident. Youregoing to feel more certain. Why? You are notsimply living in your body. You are movingwith a sense of connectedness and purpose.Most people walk like they are mindlessdrones. Thats because most of the time weare not aware of our bodies. We are checkedout.

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Continue walking. Youre on the balls ofyour feet, youre flexing your glutes, yourelengthening your hips. You are standing tall!Now pay attention to your chest. I bet yourelike me and everybody else who works be-hind a keyboard. Youre going to have whatscalled pronated shoulders. Pronated comesfrom the root pro-, which means forward.Your shoulders lean forward. Our pelvisestilt. We hunch forward. You are now awareof your body, and you realize the power ofchecking in.

Focus on your chest. Imagine thatsomeone is grabbing you by the nape of yourneck, much like a mama bear grabs the cubright by the nape of the neck. Imagine some-body is grabbing you by the nape of the neckand kind of pulling you up pulling youstraight up. As your chest rises up, you mightnotice a strain on your lower back. As youbecome one with your body, you realize how

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much effort it takes to stand with properposture.

Youre no longer treating your body likesome abstraction. You are becoming awareof every muscle in your body. You noticewhen you are walking you that have abdom-inal flexion, that is, youll notice your coremuscles flex. Youll start to feel yourshoulders being drawn back. Suddenly yourchin will rise up. Look around you. Do yousee most people have chins hanging down?

Watch some people walk. Their shouldersslouch and their chins are down. That is be-cause their posture is poor. Theyre not intouch with their bodies. Again, imaginesomebody is pulling your neck back andyoure up now. Your shoulders are drawn,your chin is up, and now you are walkingway. Check in with your body. How do youfeel? You feel present, powerful, andconfident.

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Practice walking. Notice how your gaitchanges. More importantly, notice how yourmood improves. As you continue walking ina mindful way, youll notice that your pos-ture improves when standing up. Youll havethe posture of a soldier. You will stand andwalk with pride, focus, and confidence.

Use mindfulness to deal with anxiety,concern, or worry.

Anxiety is caused by focusing on an uncer-tain event in the future. We humans tend tohave the same anxieties, as they largely in-volve money, friends, family, and health. Weagonize over money, wondering how we willpay our bills. When you are worried aboutsome uncertain future event, youre not liv-ing in the present moment. Active medita-tion and living mindfully doesnt mean thatyou ignore your problems. If you have moneyproblems then we should want to solve them.

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But is being in a state of anxiety going tosolve that problem? Anxiety is an emotion. Itis an emotion that disempowers you and ac-complishes nothing. So when you learn howto get into the moment and how to engage inactive meditation, you no longer feel anxietyand you get into a state of flow. Flow is aconcept from a book called Finding Flow:The Psychology of Engagement with Every-day Life by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi.

As you talk to yourself more, you get intothe moment and suddenly you dont feelanxious anymore. Why dont you feelanxious anymore? The logical mind wants alogical explanation for why you stopped feel-ing anxious. Since anxiety is usually a feelingthat comes from anticipating the future,anxiety is generally only about a possibility.You dont know whats going to happentomorrow.

You dont know whats going to happen inthe next minute, much less at point further

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in the future. So why are you worrying aboutit? When you start living in the moment, youstop worrying about the future.

Using mindfulness at the Gym.

I perform a mindfulness workout beforelifting weights. I started being mindful dur-ing my training sessions after watching aday-in-the-life video of professional body-builder Kai Green. Kai Green is one of theworlds top bodybuilders. He engages in bru-tal workouts. Before each workout hechecks in using self-talk and mindfulnesstechniques. He asks himself why he is at thegym. He visualizes who he wants to become.

I used to find long warmups a bore and ittook a lot of effort at first to complete them. Ilater realized boredom is the result of not be-ing in the present moment.

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Turn off your cell phone. (Even bet-ter, leave it in your car or gymlocker.)

Get on a treadmill, exercise bike, orstair climber.

As your body starts moving, focus onhaving good posture.

Begin at a slow to moderate pace.

Ask yourself, Why am I here? Whatdo I expect to accomplish today?

Begin to feel your blood circulating,your respiration increasing, andsweat forming.

Tell yourself that you are at the gymas you will feel better after theworkout, and that going to the gymbenefits you, as it improves your clar-ity of thinking and overall health.

You should also be mindful when liftingweights. There are people you see at the gym

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day after day, year after year, who never seeany results. Part of the reason is they are al-ways talking with friends, or looking at a cellphone.

Instead, check into your body. Feel eachmovement. You are at the gym to build yourbody. Focus.

Using mindfulness to create deeperconnections.

To connect deeply with others, you mustbe there. You must be present, mindful,and engaged.

Yet often we talk to someone and feel likewe arent heard. We feel like the personacross from us is somewhere else.

To make deeper connections, you want theperson youre talking to feel like the onlyperson in the room. Mindfulness is helpful.

When you feel distracted during a conver-sation, you can help yourself check in by

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using these two powerful mantras. I usethem regularly, especially when theres a lullin conversation.

Theres no place else Id rather be.

Theres no one else I want to see.

When you tell yourself this, you actuallybelieve it. When you believe there is nowhereelse youd rather be and no one else youdrather see, the other person can feel it.

You will make deeper, longer-lasting con-nections through this mindfulnesstechnique.

As you can see, mindfulness is notsomething woo-woo or New Age.

Mindfulness is a mindset technique youcan apply to all areas of your life.

The Mindfulness Worksheet

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When did you last feel on, in thezone, or in flow?

Youll likely notice you have betterworkouts or even days at work when youwarm up. A warmup helps you get into themoment. Think back to a time you feltwarmed up and prepared for action.

Write out what you did:________________________________________________

For example, I might write, Before doinga podcast I start talking out loud. I talk aboutwhats in the room. I take in deep breathsand exhale deeply. This warms up my vocalcords, helps me get a pace for my podcast,and provides oxygen to my brain.

Check in to whatever task youre aboutto perform.

Before you begin a hard day at work or aworkout or even have a family dinner withthe in-laws, check in. Ask yourself why

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youre doing what youre doing. Are youworking hard to take care of your family?

Checking in will help you be more aware ofyour emotions and will make even challen-ging or mundane challenges more fulfillingand meaningful.

I am about to________________________________.I am going to do this because____________________,____________________________.

For example, I would write, I am about togo to the gym. I go to the gym because I feelamazing afterwards. The hour or so of suffer-ing in the gym makes the rest of my life feelamazing. I have more energy, more vitality,and just feel better.

If I were about to do something unpleas-ant, such as visit family, I may say, I am go-ing to visit my family. They are kind-heartedpeople who have always been there for me.

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Whatever annoyances I face are small incomparison to the largeness of their hearts.

Can you think of another way to becomemore mindful of life? If so, write it out, andfeel free to email it to me.

Gorilla Mindfulness Habits

The detailed exercises we talked about willhelp improve your mindfulness, and helpyou to use mindfulness to improve your day-to-day life.

Do you want to push yourself even further,turning mindfulness into a practical part ofyour everyday life training? If so, here aresome additional mindfulness habits. As withall of the habits in Gorilla Mindset, these aresmall changes you can make that will havebig results in your life.

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When you feel an emotion coming,ask yourself, Where do I feel this mybody?

Go big. Find an ocean, skyscrapers,waterfalls, mountains. Focus on thevastness of it. Imagine the wavescrashing in.

Buy an MP3 or CD with white noiseor the sounds of rainfall.

Buy a miniature waterfall.

Listen to some house, trance, jazz, orclassical musical.

Listen to deep vocal beats when writ-ing. Rhythm. Its like running.

When all else fails, talk to yourself.Here I am, in the present moment.

10 Quick Ways to Become More Mind-ful by Paying More Attention to Life

Mindfulness is getting into the moment.You are noticing things. Writers and artists

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are masters at noticing details and quirksothers miss, as a writer must paint an imagein the minds eye of a reader.

Here are 10 ways to become more awareand conscious of your surroundings.

1. Notice the eye color of every person youinteract with. Most people are either toobusy looking at their computer screens orthey lack the self-confidence to make eyecontact.

2. Count the forehead wrinkles someonehas in his or her forehead Humans make fa-cial expressions, leading to wrinkles. You canalso tell how much time someone spends inthe sun and whether they wear sunscreen.

3. Watch a person smile. Do the cheeksmove or does the area around the eyescrinkle (the so-called crows feet).

4. Look at the persons shoulders. Do theyslump? Do they protrude forward?

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5. Look at a palm reading chart. Read yourown palm. Is this arbitrary? Sure. There isnothing magical about reading your palm.There is something magical about learninghow to start noticing details others dont see.

6. Sit in a coffee shop for an hour. Countthe number of people who come in. Pay at-tention to their age, race, and gender. Try es-timating how many customers the caf hason a given day.

7. Pay attention to the size and shape ofeach word in this sentence. How many wordsdoes this paragraph contain?

8. Get out a stopwatch. Count the numberof breaths you take in a minute.

This will help you become more mindful ofyour breathing patterns.

9. Pick up your favorite book or check outyour favorite website. Count the number ofwords in each sentence, the number of sen-tences in each paragraph, and the number of

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paragraphs on each page. Is there a patternor cadence? If so, can you use that same pat-tern or cadence in your own writing?

10. Take a look around, wherever you are.Count the number of different colors you see.

Word is actually very busy and strikes meas poorly designed. Its cluttered. There arefour different rows, each filled with iconsand butters I never use. This reminds mewhy I dislike Word. I almost always type inWordPress as its much less cluttered. Im onan airplane without WiFi.

Theres nothing particularly special aboutthose 10 habits. Make up your own if youwant to. Mindful people notice what othersdont. Once you notice details others miss,you become more interesting as visionariessee where the patterns are heading.

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CHAPTER 4Mindset is a Mood: How to ControlYour State

State is a concept much like frame. Weveheard people talk about having the rightstate of mind, but no one really explainswhat that means What does it mean to talkabout your state?

What is state?

State is your mood, your emotions, or howyou feel in the present moment.

The way we treat state is a bit contradict-ory. On one hand, we are told even as chil-dren, Learn to control your emotions! Butother than perhaps counting backwards from10, we are never told how. Instead, state issomething we treat as being passive. It is

simply a given. We feel a certain way andwe must accept that feeling.

When we feel good, we have a good dayand treat people well. When we feel badly,we treat people poorly while having a hor-rible day. In some cases people have horribleyears or even miserable lifetimes, due to liv-ing in servitude to their moods.

Weve all heard the expression, I woke upon the wrong side of the bed! This is a re-cognition that Its going to be one of thosedays, where nothing seems to go right. It isrecognizing something about your state. Butit is also approaching your state with an atti-tude of passiveness, of resignation, indeedeven of what Thoreau referred to as quietdesperation. Why not take an active ap-proach to our state? Why dont we use statecontrol?

Gorilla Mindset shift: I am goingto take an active approach to man-aging my state.

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How to manage and change your state.

The original exercises for managing yourstate came from the groundbreaking bookNLP: The New Technology of Achievement.Since then others such as Tony Robbins haveadopted and modified those exercises.

To change your state, you must first usethe mindfulness exercises to check in. Whatis your default state? That how, how you feelgenerally? Right now, in the present mo-ment, how do you feel?

For example, my default state is a bit stoic.I dont feel all that much at all. I sort of ac-cept life. While Stoicism is helpful when fa-cing adversity, Stoics miss out on a majorpart of human existence and the human ex-perience. The weakness of my state is that Ioften lack excitement and enthusiasm. I canalso appear passive and uncaring to others.Sometimes my go with the flow defaultstate also makes me seem weak, when thetruth is I simply dont care about most of the

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stuff others find important (such as the dailydiscussion people have regarding where toeat lunch).

Examples of default state:

Optimistic: You are enthusiastic(some might say overly so) about life,like a puppy dog.

Negative: You always see the down-side of life and the worst in people.You constantly watch your back andcall everything a scam.

In-between: You feel moved by thegood in good situations and the badin bad situations. You tend to acceptwhatever feeling life gives you.

Resourceful: You view yourself aspossessing the power to solvewhatever problems come your way.

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It doesnt matter what your default stateis. Remember our mindfulness techniques.We are not judging our default state. We areaccepting and understanding how we tend togenerally feel.

4 Steps to Mastering State Control

This exercise might seem a little mysticaland touchy-feely. I felt weird after perform-ing a variation of state control exercises thathad been outlined in NLP: The New Techno-logy of Achievement. The truth is this stuffisnt that weird.

Your body and mind are connected. Youremotions are influenced both by your think-ing and by how your body feels. Think ofthese exercises like acting class. To get intorole, an actor has to trick himself into believ-ing he thinks, feels, and acts like someoneelse. The same principles actors have usedfor centuries apply here, as well.

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To perform these state control exercisesits essential you are alone in a place whereyou feel comfortable to completely let looseand get weird. This is a private momentwith yourself. Do not be around otherpeople. Mastering your state requires you tobe honest with yourself, to dig deep, and tobe comfortable letting go. Unfortunatelymost people never master state as somethinginside them some inner judge or precon-ceived notion stops them from performingthese exercises.

Each state will be explained in detailbelow:

1. Go into a room by yourself.

2. Feel the emotions inside of yourbody.

3. Create your sphere of emotionalspace.

4. Reinforce your new state.

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Step 1: To find yourself, go at it alone.

Go somewhere where you will not be dis-tracted for at least 30 minutes. Do not bringanything into the room with you. Turn offthe television, your smart phone, and anyother distractions.

Remember when I said its time to getweird? Now youll see what I meant.

You are going to talk to yourself. (Remem-ber, after the chapters on self-talk and mind-fulness, talking to yourself isnt that weird!)The purpose of talking to yourself is to re-wire your default state. Your default state(what we call home base) is how you feelwhen not trying to feel a certain way. Itshow you naturally feel, without any addi-tional effort.

When youre by yourself, you begin sayingto yourself: I am setting my home base, mybase state is going to be one of empower-ment, resourcefulness, and invincibility.

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You may want to feel an entirely differentway. If so, thats fine and you can modifythese exercises. What matters most is youare taking control, and deciding what yourhome base will be, instead of just treatingyour emotions, feelings, or moods assomething that happens to you.

Invincibility means you cannot be de-feated, as long as you do not quit. Resource-fulness means believing you have the abilit-ies and resources to solve any of lifes prob-lems. To change your default state, you mustreturn to a time in your mind when you feltinvincible, powerful, and resourceful.

Was there ever a time in your life whenyou felt on top of the world? Maybe you wonthe spelling bee as a kid, or had some successas an athlete. Or maybe you took the firststep towards changing your life, which feltincredible. It doesnt matter how big orsmall your victory was: winning feels thesame to your body, and we are capturing that

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feeling of victory. Avoid judging yourachievements by trivializing them. Avoidsaying, This event where I felt invincibleisnt big enough to care about.

Youre not judging yourself because itsyour life. If you felt great after askingsomeone out on a date, awesome! What mat-ters is how you felt, not how others wouldhave felt. Have you returned to a time inyour life when you felt invincible? Fantastic.

Step 2. Feel the emotions inside ofyour body.

As you return to a moment of triumph, bemindful of what happens to your body. Be-come aware. Check in. How do you feel? Isyour skin tingling? Do you feel a rush ofblood to your cheeks or arms? Everyonesbody will be a react differently to this statecontrol exercise. For example, I feel bloodflow and energy in my forearms. Others feel

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these exercises in their legs, shoulders, chest,and even cheeks.

There is no wrong place to feel this energy.What matters is learning to feel this energy,to become one with it. Pay attention to whatis happening to both your body and yourmind. As you monitor your body, youre alsocreating a new biofeedback loop between youemotional state and your physical state. Youcan return to a state of mental power bylearning how to re-create these feelings ofphysical power. Since I feel energy in myforearms during this state control exercise, Iwill shake my forearms when in a bad mood.Getting extra blood flowing to my arms im-proves my mood.

This may sound weird, but it really doeswork!

Instead of feeling like Im losing confid-ence, I gesticulate my arms. As I move myarms back and forth, I feel my state of re-sourcefulness returning to me. As you

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become more in touch with the connectionbetween your body and mind, you too will beable to trigger emotions by moving yourbody.

Step 3. Create your sphere of emotion-al space.

You now know how to capture feelings ofpower in your body. Before ending the exer-cise, close your eyes. Start to breathe deeply.As you breathe deeply with your eyes closed,imagine an orb of energy surrounding you.This is a sphere of power. Imagine that thisorb or force field is surrounding your body,protecting you from all of the negative influ-ences and emotions of the outside world.

I actually imagine having a cartoon-likebubble around me. This bubble is a meta-phor for your personal space. We all have asense of personal space, which is generallyabout 18 inches away from our face. When aperson invades our personal space, we feel

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threatened. What about our emotionalspace? Shouldnt it be equally important tocreate emotional space?

Thats what the orb does! Its emotionalspace. When you create this orb of emotionalspace, even if youre surrounded by chaos,youll feel powerful and invulnerable.

Step 4. Reinforce your newfoundstate.

Once youve gone into a room alone, dugdeep into yourself, found that feeling ofpower in your body, you need to reinforcethe state.

Just like brushing your teeth or going tothe gym, state control is something youmust do frequently. You cannot change yourdefault state just by wanting to, or just bythinking about it, any more than you can be-come a star athlete by just thinking aboutsports. You must get your body into the habitof actually being in the state you want to be

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in. To form a habit, you need to practice overand over again.

When starting off, its helpful to performthe state control exercise several times a day.As your competency increases, you can re-duce the exercises to a couple of times eachweek.

The State Control WorksheetThink back to a time when you felt on top

of the world. Write out this experience in asmuch detail as you can. If you are stuck,think about the who, what, when, where,and why of the situation. Write it out:________________________________________________.

Describe how you felt when you were ontop of the world. Did you feel powerful, con-fidence, resourceful, invincible, happy?There is no right or wrong answer here. Thisis about how you felt. Write it out, in asmuch detail as possible:

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______________________________________________________.

As you imagine feeling [however you feltin the worksheet you filled out], describewhat happens to your body. Do you feel in-creased blood flow to a certain part of yourbody? Do you perhaps stand or sit with a dif-ferent posture? Does your chin lift up? Writeout what happens:_____________________________________________________.

How can you move your body to recapturethe powerful emotional feeling you felt? Forexample, I move my arms out away from mybody. This triggers powerful feelings withinmyself. What do you do? Again, journal thisfeeling:

______________________________________________________.

Additional notes.

Include anything else you need toadd:______________________________________________________.

Gorilla State Control Habits

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Remind yourself that how you feel is achoice you make.

Remind yourself you have the power tochoose how you feel. Tell yourself, How Ifeel is a choice I make in the present mo-ment. Do not passively accept whateveremotional state happens to affect your body.

Capture and recreate the moment.

We all have good days and challengingdays. When you are feeling especially good,resourceful, or confident, capture the mo-ment. Track where in your body you havethis feeling. Recreate this feeling when youreby yourself or having blah day.

Find an outlet.

Find a release valve for yourself. Some-times it feels good to release the negative en-ergy from your body. Theres nothing wrongwith shouting. Just dont shout at yourspouse, family, friends, or especially your

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children