Entrepreneurship

4 Stories of Psychopathy, Ego, and Ambition

The word insane is drastically overused for everything from mild moodiness and irritability to emotional changes. That's not what this article is about; these are four stories of times I did business with people who were deeply unwell psychologically.

Sometimes, I ask myself whether it's a degree of insanity within myself that has attracted these people and circumstances or whether it's just a matter of dumb luck that I've been quite intimately ensconced in business four separate times with people varying from unstable addicts to genuinely demented. I'm leaning more toward the former than the latter.

In addition to being entertaining, I hope that these stories can educate you on how to identify the tale-tale signs of insanity in the charming, persuasive people you are considering doing business with.

Negotiation is one of the finest communication skills to hone.

Even if you aren't in sales or business, you can benefit almost every day from sharpening your negotiating abilities. Over the years, I've saved myself and my businesses thousands (somewhere in the 5-figure range) of dollars in fees from my services companies. Here, I break down the mindset, communication style, influence methods, issue-leveraging techniques, and lines to use.

Yes, bad mental health days happen even for Biohackers, I had one last week. And I'll tell you how I turned it around in about 45 minutes.

I had been stressed about more than a few things. To name a few...

• Business has not been great lately.
• I hadn't slept great the night before (it happens, even to sleep hackers sometimes).
• There are some exciting but intimidating pivots I'm in the midst of making with Limitless Mindset (which involves a lot of work and learning some new things).
• And the looming threat of nuclear war (in the part of the world where my little family lives!)

Then my wife made a perfectly understandable, concerned comment while rushing out the door to attend to matters in Sofia, which set me off.

Business-to-business sales (B2B) is a difficult nut to crack, especially if you're used to dealing with decision-makers for smaller or local companies only.

Why does it seem like every startup is antsy to gobble up your helpful services, but the large C-level corporate heads couldn't care less about you? Do not be discouraged, my friend. Industry professionals who have "been there, done that" have a few suggestions to help you and your business break into this lucrative market.

$350 Billion (with a capital B) was the inflation-adjusted personal net worth of John D. Rockefeller.

He was history's wealthiest man, by a long shot, if you consider the wealthiest individuals of our lifetime...

• Elon Musk - $432 billion
• Jeff Bezos - $239 billion
• Mark Zuckerberg - $207 billion
• Vladimir Putin - Up to $200 billion
• Bill Gates - $159 billion
• Warren Buffet - $142 billion
• Carlos Helu Slim - $100 billion

These individuals are mere paupers in comparison. John D's titanic wealth was matched only by his altruism. So much of his wealth was given away to organizations that have made a sustainable positive impact on the world that it would not be unreasonable to say that virtually every person alive today benefits in one way or another from his altruism. Was John D. a lifehacker? Absolutely.

If you have any doubt that we live in the idiocracy timeline, let us cogitate here on the economic absurdity that almost every digital service or good offered in the current year has a free version and then starts at about $10 a month or $100 a year.

While so many in society are concerned with making everything fair and equal, elite Entrepreneurs are giving themselves a stark unfair advantage by embracing biohacking.

While so many in society are concerned with making everything fair and equal, elite Entrepreneurs are giving themselves a stark unfair advantage by embracing biohacking. We all have natural limits of how hard and smart we can work. The high-leverage, high-return-on-investment measure is to unleash the mind; enhancing cognition, training working memory, cultivating greater focus, and improving long-term memory. While mitigating and managing the downsides of a life lived intensely; stress and aging.

I was on a sales call and wasn't sure that the call was worth my while, but I have a sales process I follow regardless.

So I smiled and dialed, halfway through the sales call the balance of my Paypal account had increased by more than $2000.

Now, this doesn't happen to me every day, in fact, my experience of the business world and capitalizing on opportunity has been very asymmetrical - feast or famine; when it rains it pours. My experience is that it's not a numbers game; good fortune is due to almost invisible meta-factors, which conspire in rare moments to create windfalls - when they do it's worthwhile to analyze why.

I have 164 email newsletter subscribers on Substack, NOT 164 paying subscribers BUT 164 TOTAL subscribers. Not a very impressive number, right?

In every social interaction, one person is more reactive than the other to the words and actions of the person they are communicating with.

Frame control is a topic that gets discussed Ad nauseam in hypothetical terms, in this article I'll break out of that by providing a mix of examples in pop culture, movies, and television along with personal anecdotes. Frame control is relevant to every human interaction but the most colorful examples of it come from the domains of business and seduction, I could deconstruct boundless case studies of it that are a whole lot more PG-rated, I've chosen examples that are a bit edgier so that you remember and can apply them.