How to Be Open Minded

Let me ask you a question: Do you think that you are open-minded?

Answer this question in 2 parts:

1. What are you open-minded to?

2. What are you closed minded to?

Take out a sheet of paper and a pen and write candid answers to these questions. You can make bullets to answer these questions, you can write them down in paragraphs or whatever you like. However, do NOT use a word document to do this. It MUST be with a pen and paper so that your mind engages with this and that retain the information here.

Continue reading when you are done answering.

Do you have an answer?

Ok, read what you wrote. Based on what you wrote and where you are right now in life, are those answers helping you? Write either yes or no down, nothing else.

If it’s not helping you now and you have never considered it, it is time for a lesson in how to be open minded and to broaden your mind to new ideas and philosophies to straighten out your plan to your goal and your habits.

Chances are, if you are in the not helping out category, you probably listed something along these lines right here or something desirable, but counterproductive:

Open-Minded: Going out with friends, texting on the phone, going on Snapchat and Instagram taking selfies, watching sports, at least if you’re a guy, watching TV, remaining content with what you are doing, chillin’ and saying “Chillin’?” “Yeah, just chillin’.”

Pause right there: What I say to the Chillin’ people: HA, yeah right. You’re gonna chill if you are in college and you need to get a job or if you’re someone who wants to get out of debt and has a payment due tomorrow and you don’t have the money to pay it off? Get out of town!

And here’s the first lesson for you write this down: Patience is NOT a virtue! Because with patience, everyone has to wait and there is a lack of action. Who loves to wait and sit around when you are in dire straits? Heck, even if you are NOT in dire straits, WHO IN THE WORLD WANTS TO WAIT?! THAT’S BULLS***!

Know this: A sense of URGENCY, like it’s an emergency with the sirens going WEE-WOO WEE-WOO WEE-WOO, is a VIRTUE. It means that you are ready for action, willing to take control of the situation and reduce the wait time (because most of the time, there is no way around it). You’ll be like Veruca Salt saying “I want to go in, don’t you dare stop me! Give me that pen!” BAM! THAT’S HOW YOU DO IT GIRL!

I hope that struck a chord with you. Now to the closed-minded answers!

Closed-Minded: Conflict, pain, more work, rigor, control, disappointing your loved ones if it’s what it takes, going the extra mile (I know that this 20 year old will so you have no choice but to challenge me) to get the freakin’ job done, aiming for the stars (I’m doing that too, so you better or otherwise, it’s not gonna happen for you. Just being honest. I’m NOT sorry if it hurts your feelings), being BAD, etc.

If you answered the Open and Closed Minded answers like that, it’s time for a new enlightenment.

Let me first start by saying that I understand why you would be doing what you are doing. You want instant pleasure, you want to have fun (I’m all about having fun, but not “silly fun.” The awesome fun is where it’s at.), you want to settle down after a hard day of work, you want to share sympathy with your family of the hectic nature of work like:

“AAAAHHHHHH! My boss gave me this assignment that is due on this day, he told me to insert that Excel sheet into this and that we have to submit to his supervisor or else we would stay at work for another 3 hours doing all of this BS about this, that, the other, etc.”

Believe me, that’s a bunch of bulls*** work for pennies. You deserve WAY more than that. I’m talking about Benjamins like this:

Now THAT’S what we are talking about!

However, to get those Benjamins, you must understand something that is very fundamental to the universe in general and that is: The Basic Laws of Physics. Let me explain.

Physics Business

The universe is centered around the idea that a larger force will dominate a weaker force hands down. If you put two things in a battle relative to the necessary skill or characteristic to win that battle, whether it’s strength, knowledge, money, etc., you will find, or already have found, that the one who’s the strongest, the most strategic, the one with the most money will have a larger influence on the result and hence, more control.

You must understand that this reality is NOT controllable. You must accept it. It’s survival of the fittest. No debating it.

HOWEVER, there IS a way to take control of this situation and tilt it towards your favor to become the greater force. And that is something that you ALSO must accept to be true!

The real question lies in what your goal is and how will manipulating this reality get you to achieve that goal? And after defining the goal, you need to ask yourself “What are my current habits and how are they hindering my ability to manipulate this reality?”

For example, if you are on Snapchat just for fun and it is not making you more money to fulfill your goal of say going to the Bahamas for a week, than you must say to yourself this:

“I am going to be closed-minded to using Snapchat and I will become open-minded to learning and selling a skill that will facilitate me in getting the money that will influence the seller to sell me this vacation. In other words, up to what point can the seller have no choice but to sell me this vacation?”

Do you see where we are going here?

You have to redirect what you are open-minded to and closed-minded to relative to where you are and where you want to be and what you want to be doing.

Now, if you are actually ON that vacation and you are most people who don’t want to do any business on a vacation, then the script would flip. You would become closed minded to developing skills to get yourself the power to purchase the vacation and become open-minded to relaxing to fulfill your new goal of relaxing on the vacation. Because now, developing skills would hinder your power in the form of time to relax on the vacation.

And on a side note, is time a cool currency or what?!

Word to the wise: Use your time very wisely; it’s the 8th wonder of the world.

Now let’s take another example. Suppose that you are looking for a job, but you lack the currency of doing well in interviews that will acquire you that job (yes, doing well in interviews is a currency).

To satisfy this goal of getting a job and knowing that you need to sharpen up your interviewing skills in order to get the job (make a payment in exchange for the job), you need to look at your current habits and say “Is this conducive for me to accumulate knowledge in how to interview (your wealth)?” If yes, you can be open minded to implementing it.

If not, then you shall become closed minded to implementing it.

The deal here is that for every goal that you have, you must identify what is the required currency that could be used in exchange for what you want, and doing so in a way that proves that the value of the wealth that you are trading to the opposing party is greater than what they have.

So in the case of the interviewing, as the interviewee, you must utilize through your wealth of techniques that them hiring you will bring them more value to the company than what they are going to pay you.

Or if you are a fighter, the strength and knowledge that you have for battle will serve as a form of payment in exchange for winning the battle. Really, you and your opponents are fighting for a product, which is life. If you come up with the most money in exchange for life, which is the product, you will win the fight since you provided more value to nature than your opponent.

So you are essentially selling and buying at the same time. You are saying “I have the most money to the table in exchange for your product” and from the fight, if you articulate that you have the greater currency relative to your opponents, life will see that you have the most money and they will exchange to you survival.

The main takeaway is: Whoever provides the most value with the respective currency WINS and you have GOT to understand that.

And this is not an easy concept to grasp by any stretch of the imagination because when you think of money, it’s just Benjamins right?! But it’s so much more than that and you have to understand and implement that philosophy in order to get whatever you want in your life.

And that is the epitome of being open-minded.

Hard Work Beats Talent When Talent Fails to Work Hard

Here’s the real secret of everything which really isn’t a secret but it must be reemphasized over and over again:

You better work hard.

And not just work hard, but work your f*****’ a** off hard.

Because if you don’t do that, you will get eaten up alive.

Many people say “Don’t work hard, work smart.”

I call bulls*** on that!

Where’s the hustle in that? Where’s the grind? Where’s the sense of urgency? Where is the “I better DO SOMETHING FAST?”

Nowhere.

Now, do you have to work smart as well? Yes, because otherwise, you won’t formulate the roadmap that’ll get you to where you need to be.

But the motor? Heck no that’s not smart work. That’s HARD WORK!

You gotta “push hard” to get that thing going (maybe not physically, but mentally you better believe it)!

And please note, hard work forces you to PERSIST to the end and it gets your adrenaline going! It forces you to run for the exits when the shooter is in the building!

Just know these simple equations:

No hard work = Game Over

Hard Work + (No Smart Work or Not Enough Smart Work) = Game Over

Hard Work + Enough Smart Work = You Win

And please, don’t be apologetic whatsoever. Have no reservations about a justified plan EVER! Always persist like you are the best. Nothing less.

And no, I’m not apologizing for my foul language here; I mean what I say and I am shameless about it. You can call me the bad guy, the good guy, the devil, the god, whatever. Evan will still be Evan and he’ll still stand for what he believes in. Let that be an example for you. End of story regarding that.

Homework

Ok so now that you’ve read this entire blog post, here’s a homework assignment for you to complete in order to implement this into your life and to get what you desire:

1. Write down your personal goal. In other words, “Where the heck are you going captain?!”

2. Ask yourself “What skill do I need in order to acquire the currency that will pay for my goals?” Go back and review the article again if you must to firmly grasp the concept because chances are, you won’t get it the first time!

3. If you need to pay liquid currency to do 2., “How do I earn the money to get that skill?”

4. Learn the skill and once you have learned it to the point where you bring enough value to the market place in exchange for what you want (preferably mastered so you can have complete control over the situation), sell and close yourself and if you are selling physical products like a standard business, on and offline, don’t forget to give the customer ownership of the product so that they can test it out for themselves and make changes to it if need be.

To close this deal, I would really suggest using a line that falls along the lines of “On a scale of 1-10, how would you rate this product based off x,y,z? What would make it a 10?” This close is a close from Grant Cardone’s “The Closer’s Survival Guide,” which is available on Amazon right here on my affiliate link.

Here, you can gauge as to how the buyer perceives your product and let’s you know what flaws are in it so that you can bring it up to par with what they are looking for.

Hence, an opportunity to edit your product and to articulate a greater proof of value to them to facilitate the close and to cater the discussion to their interests, hence letting them drive the discussion all the way up to the point where they are satisfied and will buy your product.

And just know this, I’m quoting Grant Cardone here but I will provide my own input into it.

In his book Sell or Be Sold, which is available on Amazon right here on my affiliate link, he mentions on page 4 “Knowing the customer’s problem and articulating how you are the most effective solution into solving that problem is the key to closing the sale.”

What this means is that if you clearly identify what the customer’s problem is and you show them that your solution fixes their problem more effectively than anyone else, hence providing the most value, you will close the sale.

Guaranteed.

And the factors that will get you to the close are the things that YOU should be open-minded to and you should be closed-minded to everything else, except your health of course 🙂

And the last thing to understand is this: Earning is lightyears better than saving money. Don’t you feel more powerful more eager more aroused less bored and have a great feeling of “My god, I wanna take over the world!” when you earn?

Because let’s face it, even though there’s nothing wrong with saving (you do have to save to invest), saving puts you to sleep. You’re always like “Are we there yet? Are we there yet?” in the back seat without actually driving the car! So get in that Indy Car as the driver and just ZOOM! In other words, GO EARN, because the more you learn, the more you earn as Warren Buffett would say!

I shall leave you with this: You might be asking “Why the heck should we trust the potty mouth kid?” You might believe that I lack knowledge, lack experience, and lack expertise, which I do as a 20 year old (21 now) man who still has lots to learn about the world.

But one thing that I don’t lack is conviction in what I say and believe. If I know it works, I’ll tell you and help you to the max my future islander. I am here for YOU. And please note, you don’t have to pay for this information.

It’s right here for free.

So why not give it a try? The worst that can happen is that you find it too risky and you don’t do anything.

That’s fine.

I’m indifferent either way.

If you implement, great. If you don’t, that’s fine too. Just know that it’s your call at the end of the day. Is there anything else that you would like to see in future blog posts that could further assist you?

Comment below and let me know and I will be more than happy to provide that information for you along your journey to your own self defined island.

And if you can’t do it for you, and you can’t do for your loved one or other family member, do it for me.

And I also encourage you to take the time to be grateful that you can even read this blog post on arguably the world’s greatest resource, the internet. Not everyone can do this.

There are people who are starving and don’t have access to blogs and they can’t just get all of the information that they need to succeed in their endeavors and here you are, the ambitious person, looking for answers to get you to where you need to be. You are your inner hero for doing this.

Also, on a scale from 1-10, how would you rate this blog post in terms of impactfulness and its value to you? Comment below. Speak your feedback if you so please.

Until next time,

This is Chief Islander Evan signing off.