#the last line right now is ‘something something the psychology of why James Bond is a pushover bottom for every honeytrap’

[rambling-robot]

I think I just spent like two hours writing a full-on essay about The Character. Like, going into contextual depth, and all-but citing my sources per quote. Which really wasn’t necessary for anyone or anything. But the autism demanded it. And by golly is that essay format great for infodumping. Even if it’s sloppily done by formal essay standards.

[writing-prompts-for-friends]

Notes on Robert McKee’s Story 30: How to Create Crisis in Your Story

Story design is broken down into five essential parts: (Clicking on 1 or 2 will take you to my previous posts about them if you need a refresher.)

The Inciting Incident

Progressive Complications

Crisis

Climax

Resolution

Today we have reached the final three parts, all put into one chapter in McKee’s book. They are all very important though, so I’ll be breaking Crisis, Climax, and Resolution into their own posts. And without further ado...

Crisis

Crisis means “decision.” Characters make spontaneous decisions each time they open their mouths to say “this” not “that.” In each scene they make a decision to take one action rather than the other. But Crisis with a capital C is the ultimate decision. The Chinese kanji for Crisis is two terms: 危機 Danger/Opportunity--”danger” in that the wrong decision at this moment will lose forever what we want; “opportunity” in that the right choice will achieve our desire.

In your story, your Protagonist has faced progressively difficult situations and decisions in order to achieve his desire, but now he has reached the end of the line. The Crisis is the "do or die" moment, the one that leaves your audience wondering, "How will this entire story turn out?"

From the Inciting Incident, the audience has been waiting with increasing eagerness for this scene. Take JAWS, for example. From the very moment we see the shark, we are all wondering whether they'll be able to defeat it or whether they too will lose their lives to it. The moment of Crisis in JAWS is that final fight on the boat. 

"The Crisis must be a true dilemma--a choice between two irreconcilable goods, the lesser of two evils, or the two at once that places the protagonist under the maximum pressure of his life.

The dilemma confronts the protagonist who, when face-to-face with the most powerful and focused forces of antagonism in his life, must make a decision to take one action or another in a last effort to achieve his Object of Desire."

The choice that your character makes in Crisis will give the audience the deepest view into their deep character yet and is the ultimate expression of his humanity. It will also express the story's most important value. If there's been any doubt about which value is central, as the protagonist makes the Crisis Decision, the primary value comes to the fore.

Take the first Iron Man film for example. The film is about Tony Stark learning to put others before himself. At the beginning, he is a narcissistic weapons dealer who doesn't give a damn about anyone around him. As the movie progresses, we see a shift in his choices, leaning closer to selfless actions. However, almost all of his "selfless actions," such as returning to the terrorist group that captured him and wiping them out, could also be seen as Tony wanting to exact revenge for himself. At the Crisis Moment, Tony makes the ultimate decision to take Obadiah so high up in the atmosphere that Tony's suit freezes and dies, and there is a strong chance that he will not survive. 

"At Crisis, the protagonist's willpower is most severely tested. As we know from life, decisions are far more difficult to make than actions are to take. We often put off doing something for as long as possible, then as we finally make the decision and step into the action, we're surprised by its relative ease. We're left wondering why we dreaded doing it until we realize that most of life's actions are within our reach, but decisions take willpower."

☝ Okay, time out. This paragraph had not stop and give a good hard think about myself and my life, not just stories. Thank you, Mr. McKee. 

Crisis Within the Climax

"The action the protagonist chooses to take becomes the story's consummate event, causing a positive, negative, or ironically positive/negative Story Climax. If, however, as the protagonist takes the climactic action, we once more pry apart the gap between expectation and result, if we can split probability from necessity just one more time, we may create a majestic ending the audience will treasure for a lifetime. For a Climax built around a Turning Point is the most satisfying of all."

By the time we've reached the Climax, the protagonist has reached the limit. He thinks he knows his world and knows what he must do in the last effort. He summons the last wisps of his willpower, chooses the action he thinks will achieve his desire, but his world won't cooperate. Reality splits and he must improvise. The protagonist may or may not get what he wants, but it won't be the way he expects.

The most stunning, earth-shattering example of this that immediately comes to my mind is in Avengers Endgame when Thor swings Stormbreaker at Thanos and...well, I’m sure most people know what happened.

☝ Honestly, I forgot how to breathe when I saw this the first time.

The entire movie has been building towards this--Thor has just freaking withstood the power of a SUN to forge Stormbreaker, after having lost his brother and home world and everything he loves. Everything has been building towards him getting the justice that he and the entire world so badly deserves. We are all convinced that he's going to land that hit on Thanos and the world would be saved because this is a superhero movie and the good guys always win and Thor has worked so goddamn hard for this.

--But then the gap is opened between expectation and reality, and no one gets what they expected.

Placement of the Crisis

Generally, Crisis and Climax happen in the last minutes and in the same scene.

Here are some examples of different places you can put the Crisis, taken directly from McKee's book.

THELMA AND LOUISE: At Crisis, the women brave the lesser of two evils: imprisonment versus death. They look at each other and make their crisis Decision to “go for it,” a courageous choice to take their own lives. They immediately drive their car into the Grand Canyon—an unusually brief Climax elongated by filming it in slowmotion and freeze-framing on the car suspended over the abyss.

However, in other stories the Climax becomes an expansive action with its own progressions. As a result, it’s possible to use the Crisis Decision to turn the Penultimate Act Climax, filling all of the final act with climactic action.

CASABLANCA: Rick pursues Ilsa until she surrenders to him in the Act Two Climax, saying that he must make the decisions for everyone. In the next scene, Laszlo urges Rick to rejoin the antifascist cause. This irreconcilable-goods dilemma turns the act on Rick’s selfless Crisis Decision to return Ilsa to Laszlo and put wife and husband on the plane to America, a character-defining choice that reverses his conscious desire for Ilsa. The third act of Casablanca is fifteen minutes of climactic action that unravels Rick’s surprise-filled scheme to help the couple escape.

In rarer examples the Crisis Decision immediately follows the Inciting Incident and the entire film becomes climactic action.

JAMES BOND: Inciting Incident: Bond is offered the task of hunting down an arch-villain. Crisis Decision: Bond takes the assignment—a right/wrong choice and not a true dilemma, for it would never occur to him to choose otherwise. From this point on, all Bond films are an elaborate progression of a single action: the pursuit of the villain. Bond never makes another decision of substance, simply choices of which ploys to use in the pursuit.

The great risk of placing the Crisis on the heels of the Inciting Incident is repetitiousness. Whether it’s high-budget action repeating patterns of chase/fight, chase/fight, or low-budget repetitions of drinking/drinking/drinking or lovemaking/lovemaking/lovemaking, the problems of variety and progression are staggering. Yet mastery of the task may produce brilliance, as it did in the examples above.

Design of the Crisis

Okay, so where do you put the Crisis in your story? What works best?

Even though the Crisis Decision and climactic action usually take place at around the same time at the very end of the story, it's not uncommon for the Crisis decision to occur in one location and the Story Climax to happen later in another setting. 

The value of love in Kramer vs. Kramer turns negative in the Act Two Climax as a judge awards custody to Kramer’s ex-wife. As Act Three opens Kramer’s lawyer lays out the situation: Kramer has lost, but he could win on appeal. To do so, however, he’ll have to put his son on the witness stand and make the child choose with whom he wants to live. The boy will probably choose his father, and Kramer will win. But to put a child at this tender age in public and force him to choose between his mother and his father will psychologically scar him for life. A double dilemma of the needs of self versus the needs of another, the suffering of the self versus the suffering of another. Kramer looked up and said, “No, I can’t do that.” Cut to the Climax: a walk in Central Park and a river of tears as the father explains to his son how their life will be now that they’ll live apart.

The Crisis decision must be a deliberately static moment.

This is the Obligatory Scene.

Do not put it offscreen, or skim over it.

The audience wants to suffer with the protagonist through the pain of this dilemma. We freeze this moment because the rhythm of the last movement depends on it. An emotional momentum has built to this point, but the Crisis dams its flow. As the protagonist goes through this decision, the audience leans in, wonder: “What’s he going to do? What’s he going to do?” Tension builds and builds, then as the protagonist makes a choice of action, that compressed energy explodes into the Climax.

In Summary

When you create a Crisis, make sure that it is a true dilemma that will draw out the deepest truth of your character. 

Source: McKee, Robert. Story: Substance, Structure, Style, and the Principles of Screenwriting. York: Methuen, 1998. Print

[jgroffdaily]

[This story contains spoilers for season two of Mindhunter on Netflix.]

If you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you: That well-worn Nietzsche quote might be the best explanation for what happened to Holden Ford, the impetuous FBI wunderkind played by Jonathan Groff, in the season one finale of Mindhunter. Holden, alongside his partner Bill Tench (Holt McCallany), had spent months interviewing incarcerated serial killers in order to glean insight into their mind-set, pioneering the science of criminal profiling.

Having demonstrated an uncanny knack for getting truths out of monsters, Holden started to ride way too high on his own brilliance, alienating his colleagues and jeopardizing the already uncertain future of the fledgling Behavioral Science Unit. In the season finale he paid an ill-advised solo visit to the serial killer Ed Kemper (Cameron Britton), who responded by giving him the most menacing hug ever committed to film. The season closes with Holden in the grips of a long-overdue panic attack after escaping Kemper, the darkness of his work and the recklessness of his approach finally catching up to him.

Season two, which picks up directly after the finale, sees Holden continuing to struggle with panic attacks in private, while still letting his ego run away with him at work. “Though Holden is still engaged with doing interviews with serial killers, now he's getting a little snobby about it,” Groff tells The Hollywood Reporter. “He only wants to interview the killers that he personally deems worthy.” That new attitude, combined with his mental fragility, seems like a recipe for disaster — particularly once Holden travels to Atlanta to tackle the most difficult case of his career to date.

Groff spoke to THR about depicting Holden’s mental breakdown, what’s different about season two’s interrogation scenes and how the Atlanta child murders case unfolds onscreen.

At the end of season one, it feels like Holden has the air punctured out of him by Kemper. He goes from incredibly cocky to total psychological collapse. What was it like to play that very dramatic shift in the new season?

I was so interested to see how the writers were going to pick Holden up off the floor after the finale. In terms of the continuity between his panic attack in the hospital [after seeing Kemper] and his panic attack at the end of episode one after Shepard [Cotter Smith] talks to him, I realized that any time there's a mirror held up to Holden and he can sort of have a moment of self-awareness and really look at himself, it sends him into panic mode. That’s what Ed Kemper did at the end of the first season, he was turning the mirror back on Holden, and I think that’s also what Shepard does at the end of the season two premiere.

He’s in his element when he’s probing into other people’s psychology, but when it’s turned on him he can’t handle it.

Yeah, and when he’s in work mode, and he's a dog with a bone, it sort of evaporates and he's fine. It's just these little moments when his blinders are removed that he sinks into panic. The minute he pulls his shit together for the [David] Berkowitz interview, and Tench says “I think he’s back,” I love it because it adds a layer of drama to every scene moving forward. We’ve logged this information as something that can happen to Holden, and now that factors into every interview, knowing that potential is there.

What goes into depicting a panic attack onscreen?

I’d forgotten about this until just now, but when we were filming the season one finale, in the moment right before Kemper hugs me, David [Fincher] had me do this (inhales and exhales rapidly), just a lot of breaths really quick in and out, I think just to get all of the blood out of my face. I did almost pass out. That was the scene right before I run out of the room. The panic attack scene in the season two premiere was sort of the same thing — we did it at varying levels, and I started out by overdoing it. I think I was making noises, it was a lot, and David was like, “OK, Groff, take it down a notch.” I love working with him because he can say something like, “Take it down 50 percent from that,” and I’ll know what he’s talking about. I tend to just throw it out there, and then he shades and shapes the level of explosion.

The Atlanta child murders is the most contentious case that the show has tackled so far. There are still a lot of unanswered questions about the case itself, and the FBI’s role in it was specifically controversial. How does the show approach the case?

I listened to [podcast] Atlanta Monster and read James Baldwin’s book, The Evidence of Things Not Seen. And Courtenay Miles — who was our first AD in season one and one of our head writers on season two — could have a degree on the subject of Atlanta between 1978 and 1982. She did so much research, she spoke to police officials that were there during that time, and tried to really get all the conflicting opinions and ideas about what happened. They really try to lay out in the scripts the political atmosphere of what was going on at that time in Atlanta — the first black mayor had just been elected, “white flight” was happening in the city center, the new Atlanta airport that we now know as this giant hub was about to open in 1980.

It was just a huge moment of change in Atlanta, and the last thing that the city needed — in some people’s minds — was a lot of publicity about these children being murdered. On top of which you have the FBI coming in there and trying to prove this core theory of the Behavioral Science Unit, that you can actually take this psychological work and these interviews, and make a profile of someone and use that to catch an active criminal while it's happening.

Why is Holden so stubbornly determined that his theory of the case is correct?

One of the conclusions the BSU has drawn is that serial killers rarely cross racial lines, and so Holden firmly believes that this killer is black. A lot of other people think it’s the Ku Klux Klan, some people think it's a child pornography ring, there’s a bunch of different theories. But Holden is there to help catch what he believes is a serial killer, in order to help the city of Atlanta and also to prove his theory right, to prove that this method of profiling works.

Season two brings back Jim Barney (Albert Jones), the African-American agent Bill wanted to hire in season one. What’s the dynamic when Holden is doing interviews with Jim versus Bill, whom he’s used to working with?

I love Albert, he's a phenomenal actor, and they knew in the first season when they cast him that he was going to come back to play this bigger part. What’s interesting in those interview scenes is that this season, though Holden is still engaged with doing interviews with serial killers, now he's getting a little snobby about it. He only wants to interview the serial killers that he personally deems worthy, which is a stark contrast from the first season where he's like, “Feed me, I want everything, I want all the information! I want to meet everyone!” Now he’s a little more picky about who he’s gonna spend his very valuable time with.

So in episode three, he sort of begrudgingly agrees to go to Atlanta to meet with these killers who he deems unintelligent, and Barney ends up being sort of the Holden in those interviews, in that he's the one that's actually engaging with the person in a deep way, and ends up gleaning the information that Holden would normally glean. I loved reading that when I got the scripts, because there’s a clear evolution of these interviews in the second season, now that Holden kind of thinks he’s above it to a certain extent. Obviously not Charles Manson or David Berkowitz, but he maybe feels he’s outgrowing the interviews a little bit, and the character of Jim becomes my foil in that regard.

John Douglas, the real-life inspiration for the show, eventually moved away from FBI work and became more of an author and consultant. Holden is only loosely based on Douglas, but do you think he could take a similar path?

Well, I don't know this for sure and I'd have to ask John, but my feeling from meeting him and reading his stuff is that he didn’t move away from the FBI because of disinterest. He had a total mental and physical breakdown from how intense the work was. He was, I think for his whole career, a very obsessive worker. His breakdown happened much later [than Holden’s], when he was a little bit older and had been in the thick of it for much longer, so I think Holden’s panic attacks are kind of a nod to that. We deviate a lot in terms of the characters’ personal lives.

When Holden is hospitalized he calls Bill — who’s not thrilled about having to fly across the country to get him — and says he didn’t have anyone else to call. That line was interesting. Does he not have family?

I think at the end of the first season, we saw him kind of shut everybody out and go off on his own, so in my mind when I was reading that, when he says, “I didn’t have anyone else I could call," it was a moment of self-awareness. He realizes that he has put himself on an island. I mean, the only person he could turn to at the end of season one was Ed Kemper! But when he calls Bill, I thought it was kind of a beautiful nod to the fact that at the end of it all, the person I'm gonna call, for better or for worse, is the guy that I've been through all this shit with. Sometimes we have those people where we experience something insane, and the only person who gets it is the one who was in the room too. I think that line from Holden is a reminder, at the top of the season, that these two are kind of bonded forever, in a way. As different as they are, they have this very specific fucked up world that will bind them together for the rest of their lives.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

[sunevial]

If youre still doing writing things, may i suggest the void college au. Maybe with other appearances from outsiders to the void.

intense rubbing of temples

Alright, so, in proper college AU fashion, no one’s going by their actual names because that would be too easy. Here’s a handy dandy list for you all:

Murder God: Chancellor Eris Scriven

Old Priestess: Damiana Barros, English and Mythology Graduate Student

Lieutenant: Oliver Lund, Psychology Graduate Student (transfered from ???)

Witch: Margaret Dupont, Senior Chemistry Major, Minor in Mathematics

Bookkeeper: Inaya Zaman, Senior History Major

Advisor: Claus Gorman, Junior Anthropology Major

Huntress: Alexis Marinos, Junior Kinesthesiology Major, Minor in Environmental Science

Part Timer: James Hartwell, Sophomore in Pre-Med 

Young Priest: Marcus Bennet, Freshman Arts and Business Double Major  

There will also be some appearances by some other ‘outsiders’:

Anabel: Anabel Novak, History and Linguistics Graduate Student

Star, Dragon of Creativity (belonging to @starprincesshlc): Murine Drake, Senior Creative Writing and Theater Double Major

Keshil, Dragon of Destruction (belonging to @balthazarssass): Ardal Drake, Junior Architecture, Mythology, and Archeology Triple Major, Minor in Management

Rea, Dragon of Restoration (belonging to @balthazarssass): Eithne Drake, Junior Agriculture and Biology Double Major

“Alright everyone, make sure to read the next four chapters of your textbook and prepare questions on the various gods and goddess of the people of Gual,” Damiana said, closing her book and beginning to wipe down the blackboard with the large felt eraser just as the clock struck one. 

Like clockwork, students began packing their bags and bolting for the door, most hurrying off to other classes or to second jobs. Marcus, on the other hand, remained in his seat in the third row, aimlessly flipping a pencil between his fingers and pulling out a sketchbook to pass the time. Getting accepted into Blackhollow’s School of Arts and Sciences had not exactly been in the plan when he had sent out applications, but free tuition and board was too good of a deal to pass up. 

Of course…Chancellor Eris’ stipulation that he serve on the school’s student governing board was…well, it felt a little bit like selling his soul. But in his opinion, it was infinitely better than shelling out thousands of dollars to a loan shark. 

“Enjoying the class, dear?” Damiana asked in the slowly emptying classroom, flashing a smile and a mischievous twinkle in her eyes under wire frame glasses. She was the instructor for Mythology 10, a teaching assistant by definition but the true mastermind behind the course. It was also a requirement for first years in the ‘Black Stars Governing Program’.

“Oh, um…yeah, it’s…really…interesting?” he replied, unsure exactly how to respond. He shifted ever so slightly in his seat. “Are we having a meeting today or…?”

“Just a small one,” she said with a light chuckle, taking her books and papers and stashing them into her knapsack. “We’re just going over some new changes to the college’s recruitment policy.”

“I…see,” he replied, setting down his sketchbook and picking up his water bottle. “I’ll be right back, I just need to get a drink.”

She gave a light smile and a roll of her eyes. “Take your time, dear. It’s not like anyone’s going to actually be on time.” 

Giving a small nod, Marcus slipped out of the classroom, weaving his way between the masses of students lining the hallways. The majority of classes were crammed into three small buildings that had outgrown capacity almost four years ago. As a result, trying to get anywhere fast was a contest of who could shove more bodies the fastest. 

“Hey Marcus!” a voice shouted from across the hall, followed by a frantic waving arm. Though he couldn’t see the incredibly short woman, he certainly could recognize Margaret’s enthusiasm. He could see Inaya, breaking up the crowd of people with a combination of height and a stare that screamed ‘murder’. Though in vastly different disciplines, one was never especially far from the other, the two of them bonded in sisterhood from something that had happened in their Freshman year. “See you at the meeting! I brought cookies this time!”

He gave a short wave, unable to really call out before getting swept along with the tide. Eventually breaking free of the swarm of people, he tucked himself into the corner near the water fountain for a moment of respite. Despite the lack of instructional space, the school had splurged for a water bottle tap, albeit one that filled at a snail’s pace. He unscrewed the cap to his water bottle, placed it over the sensor, and began his waiting game.

“Oh so this is the new guy you guys were telling me about!” a female voice exclaimed, jolting Marcus out of his skin as a hand came into his field of vision. It belonged to a woman with light brown hair and deep emerald green eyes, one who was smiling with curiosity sparkling in her eyes. “A bit jumpy for a black star though.”

“You might want to introduce yourself, sis” came the heavily exhausted voice of Ardal, curly black hair poking from around the corner. He was one of the few juniors in the Mythology 101 course, using the class as an elective for one of his his half a dozen majors.

“Yeah, I’m not sure the new kid knows you yet,” Eithne added, bright green hair bouncing free of her bun as she popped a piece of bubblegum. She and Ardal were twins, the similarities more-so in their looks than their personality, given they were either side by side or on opposite sides of the classroom depending on the day. 

The other woman blinked, a cheerful smile crossing her face. “Oh my apologies, I just get a little excited sometimes. I’m Murine Drake, the oldest of the bunch,” she said. “Creative Writing and Theater.”

Marcus slowly took the hand and gave it a shake. While he didn’t recognize Murine, he did recognize the Drake family name. They were an old family in Blackhollow, influential both in the political and financial realms on campus. Generally slow to anger, but certainly not people to piss off either. “Marcus…Bennet…Arts and Business,” he slowly replied, grabbing his water bottle just before it began to overflow. “How do you…know…”

“You could say I have the ears of a dragon,” she said with a laugh and a small wink. “I just like keeping tabs on everything and Oliver and I are old friends from…well, that’s a bit of a long story. How is he doing, by the way?”

“I don’t…talk with him a lot.”

Murine gave a quick nod, some slight understanding in her eyes. “Not surprising, he’s a bit on the private side. Could you tell him hi for me then?”

“Why don’t you just say it yourself?” said transfer student said, seemingly appearing out of nowhere and tapping her on the shoulder. With a laugh, Murine turned on her heels and gave Oliver a grin that nearly split her face. The two of them rapidly began conversing in a language Marcus didn’t recognize off the top of his head, the other twins jumping in not long after. 

Marcus glanced around, his eyes landing on a woman in short blonde hair gave him a small nod. Anabel Novok, a graduate students and the person teaching his history class. From her body langauge, she had likely been in conversation with Oliver just minutes before.“It’s Gaelic, if you were wondering,” she said, leaning her back against the wall. “The two of them met some time ago in Ireland.”

“That would…explain a couple of things,” he slowly replied, screwing the cap back onto his water bottle. 

“You’re heading to the meeting, I presume?” she asked, raising an eyebrow. He never precisely liked her eyes; it always seemed like she knew exactly what was spinning through his head. “Could you tell Inaya to meet me in my office later? I have some books she might find particularly interesting.”

He gave a nod. “I can do that.”Before he could get in a word about the course contents, the group of Gaelic speakers parted ways, the Drakes heading down the hall with a chorus of ‘goodbyes’ and ‘see you laters’. 

Anabel gave a small smile and nod to Oliver, waving them on their way. “I’ll see you later about that paper then?”

Oliver gave a curt nod in return. “Cafe on Charter?”

“As per usual,” she replied, standing upright and giving a small hand gesture. “Take care, you both. And watch carefully where the wind blows.”

Left alone with the black star’s technically-but-not-actual president, the two of them wordlessly headed back down the much less crowded halls now. Nearly everyone gave them a wide berth. While there was technically nothing outwardly imposing about the psychology grad, everyone could agree there was something…off about him. Maybe it was his mannerisms, maybe it was his general confusion about societal norms, maybe it was that ever present feeling that he was always watching.

Even so, they made good time with the lack of obstacles, quickly making it back to Damiana’s classroom. In the time he had been away, everyone else had already arrived. Claus was in deep discussion with Inaya and Margaret, the three of them passionately debating either philosophy or potentially last week’s episode of Game of Thrones. While Marcus knew he was a foreign student, anytime he had asked the rather quirky anthropology major, he had received about seven different answers in return. His best guess at this point was either Germany or Mars. Towards the back, Alexis and James sat side by side, her shoulder resting on his as the two of them discussed some of the local sporting events. They were a bit of an odd pair, given that she was often off hunting on the weekends and he preferred to experiment with robotics, but they seemed relatively happy together.

 “Ah there the two of you are,” Damiana said, walking up to Oliver and planting a quick kiss on his cheek. “Are we all ready to start then?”

“I think we are,” he replied, walking up to the front board and taking a seat in one of the empty chairs. Marcus quickly scuttled back to his seat as Damiana took her place behind her desk.

“Alright then, let this week’s Black Star meeting underway…”

[aion-rsa]

Why Cary Fukunaga Left Stephen King’s It

https://ift.tt/39rKKX1

Amongst innumerable adaptations of Stephen King’s literature floating ubiquitously like creepy red balloons in the contemporary ether, director Andy Muschietti’s 2017 updated, polished big screen rendition of It stands out as one of the most prominent and profitable. However, the film—which was followed up with 2019’s It: Chapter Two—was the end product of almost a decade’s worth of permutations under various creative forces. One such force was Cary Fukunaga, who, before tackling HBO’s True Detective and upcoming Bond film No Time to Die, served as director and co-writer until creative clashes with studio New Line. Interestingly, Fukunaga now elaborates on the exact nature of said clashes.   

The choice of initial studio Warner Bros. for Fukunaga for It was contemporaneously bold in 2012, seeing as he was relatively new, coming off only his second feature, 2011’s adaptation of Charlotte Brontë novel Jane Eyre. After all, this was one of the most prominent novels in King’s sizable CV, and remains ingrained in the nostalgic memories and/or nightmares of generations by way of the ABC television miniseries, which, while cheesy, was driven by Tim Curry’s hauntingly iconic performance as demonic clown Pennywise. Thus, faced with big—demonic clown-sized—shoes to fill, Fukunaga came to It with a psychologically nuanced approach—which, as he tells THR, was his undoing.

“I was on that for four or five years with Warners and then it got moved to New Line, right before we were about to go into production,” he explains. “I think New Line’s view of what they wanted and my view of what I wanted were very different. I wanted to do a drama with horror elements, more like The Shining. I think they wanted to do something more [pure horror] like Annabelle [from The Conjuring films]. That was essentially the disconnect.”

Fukunaga’s logic arguably aligns with It, of which he openly counts himself as a fan. Story-wise, it’s an amalgam of two of King’s most potent thematic elements: pure nightmarish horror and coming-of-age ambiguity. However, he came into the project picking up pieces left behind by departed screenwriter David Kajganich (The Terror, The Invasion); pieces that were hampered by Warner’s early desire to cram the novel’s timeline-bifurcated story entirely into a single film. Fortunately, the conceit of doling out that herculean task subsided by the time Fukunaga boarded the project, and he was paired with an at-the-time relatively unknown co-writer in Chase Palmer (Naked Singularity) for a two-parter. At this point, the task had been changed into making the first film a childhood-era story about the Losers’ Club and their supernatural ordeal in Derry, leaving plans for a prospective second film on the back burner.

However, as production of It finally appeared to be getting underway in 2016, Fukunaga remained firmly attached, but was not yet locked down for the sequel. It was a contextually conspicuous state, as stories erupted about budget cuts and major disagreements about the direction with producers Dan Lin and Roy Lee. “If I was a difficult director, they wouldn’t necessarily want to be working with me,” he explains, albeit with the caveat that he currently bears no bad blood over the failed collaboration. Tellingly, in a 2014 Collider interview, Fukunaga described the then-gestating first film as “Goonies meets a horror film,” which seemingly contradicted New Line’s apparent mandate for a more conventional type of onscreen horror centered on an array of disturbing imagery and jump-scares.

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By John Saavedra

Fukunaga, however, was resolute in building the characters themselves, as opposed to the studio’s proclivities, of which he stated in a 2015 Variety interview, “I was trying to make an unconventional horror film. It didn’t fit into the algorithm of what they knew they could spend and make money back on based on not offending their standard genre audience. Our budget was perfectly fine. We were always hovering at the $32 million mark, which was their budget. They didn’t want any characters. They wanted archetypes and scares.”

Consequently, in a fate that was becoming increasingly inevitable as these behind-the-scenes battles persisted, Fukunaga exited It in May 2015, resulting in the hiring of Andy Muschietti, a breakout helmer who was coming off horror success from his 2013 written/directorial effort, Mama. However, while Muschietti worked off a rewritten version of the script by Gary Dauberman (Annabelle), Fukunaga’s handprint indelibly remained in It upon its 2017 release, since he, and Palmer, remained credited as co-writers. Of course, based on the hype and Bill Skarsgard’s compellingly terrifying performance as Pennywise, the film became an exponentially-profitable venture, having grossed $701.7 million worldwide off a microscopic $35 million final budget. The box office success was matched by critical praise, making it a watershed moment for the current array of King projects in the realm of film and television still on many dockets, even though delayed by the pandemic.

Ironically enough, Fukunaga might have gotten the last laugh when it comes to It’s spectacle-driven direction. Surprisingly, 2019 follow-up It: Chapter Two failed to capitalize on the franchise’s monumental momentum, and only earned $473 million worldwide—nearly half of its predecessor! One could conclude that, while audiences were overwhelmingly enthused to see the story updated on the big screen, the effort lacked the kind of potent pathos that would normally forge connections strong enough to see a sequel. Indeed, his studio-overruled approach, which would have spent more significant time building characters and psychological motivations, might have paid dividends. This is especially the case, seeing as Chapter Two came across as a farcical effort that constantly bombards viewers with bizarre, not-quite-scary imagery that detracts from—and arguably stultifies—the psychological trauma of our now-adult Losers’ Club members. And, like the notorious 1990 miniseries, it couldn’t quite match the giant-alien-space-turtle-teeming climactic scale of King’s original story.

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

Nevertheless, now far-removed from his It ordeal, Cary Fukunaga is facing the long-delayed release of his franchise epic, No Time to Die, which will serve as the cinematic swan song to Daniel Craig’s celebrated version of James Bond. The film hits U.S. theaters on Oct. 8.

The post Why Cary Fukunaga Left Stephen King’s It appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/3hUoadV

[vsaucefanpage]

Hey Vsauce! Michael Here.

Hey Vsauce! Michael Here.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau right now, in America, there are 106 people named Harry Potter. 1 007 named James Bond and eight people named Justin Bieber. They're just aren't enough names to go around. There are more than 300 million people in America but a hundred and fifty thousand last names and five thousand first names is all you need to name 9 out of every 10 of them. When are we gonna run out of names? Perhaps it's already happened to you. If it hasn't, when? Ten years, twenty years, a hundred, a thousand. When will someone with your exact name become famous? So famous in fact that your legacy changes forever to just being not the person people think of when they hear your name. And for that matter, when will every reasonably memorable pronounceable band name or brand name be taken? When will authors have no choice but to just start reusing book titles? According to Rovi Corp, owner of AllMusic.com, the most used band name is 'Bliss', followed in order by 'Mirage', 'One', Gemini', 'Legacy', 'Paradox' and 'Rain'. In the past when fewer bands had already been created and you couldn't just Google up every single band, overlap was easier to get away with and one word band names were plentiful. But now, after years and years and years of band formation, well, we have The Who', but we also have 'The What?', The Where', 'The When', 'The Why', 'The How' and even 'The The'. In order to stand out now, and have your own unique name, you have to be a bit more creative. O', 'Diarrhea Planet' or 'Betty's Not a Vitamin', which, by the way, is no longer true. Betty became a vitamin in 1994. What about Twitter handles or email addresses? Have we already reached peak username? We already find ourselves often having to use abbreviations, initials, numbers or just choosing something completely different. Will our children or our children's children live in a world where the only remaining Gmail addresses is are just random strings of alphanumeric characters? Are we approaching a name crisis? And if so, should we even call it a name crisis, lest we use up yet another precious name? Maybe you already share your name with someone famous. But if you don't, how long will it be until you probably will? I mean, new famous people are popping up all the time faster now than ever before because of the Internet and they are gobbling up top Google search billing. Maybe it won't happen until long after you've been dead but shouldn't the reservoir names, not taken by notable people, eventually run out? Computer scientist Samuel Arbesman approximated how many famous people there are alive today and I think his calculation will be helpful. You see, he points out that if we allow "famous" to simply mean "being notable enough to have your own Wikipedia page", well, because there are 700,000 living people with Wikipedia pages right now, that means one out of every 10,000 people on earth today are famous. Assuming at the least that that proportion remains constant since 255 people are born every minute, that means every hour a future famous person is born. Their name destined to become primarily associated with them, not everyone else who shares their name. All of those people will be relegated to disambiguation or the post-nominal, not the famous one. Luckily, if you do the math, you'll find that even at a rate of one future famous person born every hour, it would still take dozens of millennia for most of us to expect a future famous person with our exact name to emerge. Plus names change. New ones become popular, others obsolesce, but for fun, let's not focus on names we popularly use and instead look at how many possible names there can be. The Social Security Administration allows up to 36 letters for a complete name. Now, including spaces, 27 letters filling 36 spots, with repetition allowed, means 3 sextillion possible combinations. That's more than Earth has atoms. So let's refine our limits. How many pronounceable names are possible? For that, I say we look at what Randall Munroe, the author of the fantastic 'What If?' did when asked about naming stars. If you want to give every single star in the observable universe a unique but pronounceable English name, how long would the names have to be? His approximation is really fascinating. If we define a pronounceable word as a word that contains consonant-vowel pairs, we can roughly figure that there are about 105 different such pair possibilities. 105. That's not too much different from 99. So, funny enough, there are about the same number of consonant-vowel pairs possible as there are two-digit numbers, which means we could give every star in the observable universe a sayable unique name with just 24 letters, the same number of digits it would take to just number all of them. So, the bottom line is we may each have to give up uniquely owning a word or name that's common today, but the potential number of names that can be made is really hardy. In fact, before we run out of those our species will likely evolve to communicate in a completely different way. Also, names aren't just labels. A name on a screen, a username, a handle, a screen name doesn't always act exactly like its owner. User names can travel more quickly and more widely than flesh-and-blood people and do things that their puppeteers wouldn't normally do away from the keyboard. It's called the online disinhibition effect. If you can't see the people you're interacting with and they can't see you, you're all just online hiding behind different names than usual, why hold back? I mean, clearly such a system can't be serious business. On the Internet no one knows you're a dog. Why be nice or tell the truth? The subreddit KarmaCourt investigates and uncovers people who may think that the less face-to-face nature of the Internet makes lies easier to get away with. Like this person, who posted an image suggesting that they've been single for a year but had users found out posted three months earlier a picture of my girlfriend's cat. These behaviors aren't just what humans do when they can be anonymous or can hide behind different names, these behaviors can also be caused by the names themselves. Studies have found that the username you use can impact how you behave. Your own pre-existing stereotypes and expectations of certain words, shapes, colors can be confirmed by your behavior, in the same way that studies have found NFL and NHL players play more aggressively when wearing black uniforms. Studies have also found that the more sexualized an avatar is you make someone use, the more conscious they will be of their own body image. And the more an avatar resembles you, the more correlated you watching it exercise is with you being more likely to exercise more. It's called the Proteus effect. The features of a cyberspace version of yourself, a username and avatar can actually change you, the meat space "IRL" you. Usernames and avatars then aren't just handles attached to us. Psychologically, we often interact with them as if they're friends, distinct beings we created. They help us out but they also can influence us, egg us on, dare us to do things we wouldn't normally do because they offer us protection, entertainment. Some make us feel safe, professional, funny, dangerous, attractive. We want cool ones. The cool ones make us look cool. As we go about our daily lives and vie for attention, we are more and more frequently doing so with another name and exclusively through that name only. So, it becomes quite interesting that we're not going to run out of them anytime soon. In fact, they might run out of us first and may, in many ways, run us. And as always, thanks for watching.

Are you a curious human? If so, you should check out these bespoke Vsauce Tshirts >> http://bit.ly/vsauce-merchandise-low-poly http://ift.tt/2uUCf4B

[sparda3g]

My Hero Academia Chapter 229 Review

Two heads are better than one, but one mind is better than two. In short, it sucks to be Twice at this time. Not only Toga is targeted by Skeptic, but the puppets are disguised as him to corrupt his mentality. That’s twice the problem for him; that’s actually a line from this chapter. Despite my eye roll on that line, I thought this was a good chapter for a villain that stands out the most aside from the leader.

The beginning explains Skeptic’s quirk and how he’s using it to manipulate Twice, thanks to data. I got it right in the last chapter review, but to clarify, Skeptic uses his men and puppeteers them using Twice’s mask-less face to drive him crazy. To add twice the damage, he is using them to kill Toga as if to say, “What have you done?! You killed her!” It’s odd that Skeptic would take his sweet time to kill her when she is clearly weakened and the objective is to kill her. Why not just do it? I guess I am a sadist. Speaking of which, I heard this scene was in a spoiler and some took it as a scene that rhymed with tape. Let’s not lose our head now. The series is not even dark.

The chapter wasn’t going to favor the battle choreograph, but instead Twice’s mental battle, and that’s a good thing. It’s a good change of pace and a better way to dismiss the lack of exchange with something that was previously established for his character. This is why it’s good to flesh out a character and continue to push him/her in the long run. We have seen Twice before losing his mind without a mask, as well as his struggle with his quirk. That’s why the flashback feels more “important,” even if you are not a fan. Plus, it’s a good backstory.

His life was in a downward spiral when he was 16 years old; from causing trouble for the law to being called bad luck for damaging careers. His quirk was the only one he can trust, which is sad to say the least. It’s the same as speaking to yourself; no difference from a real-life problem with a lonely man. Can you blame him? He lost his family to a villain at a young age, which is sadly ironic because that’s exactly what he ended up doing next. Nothing but criminal activity because he wanted comfort and the only one he can trust was himself. That is until that day.

It’s sad that he had no one to trust; it’s even sadder that he can’t even trust himself, hence no longer wants to multiply. The weight is added more to the scene where everybody killed everybody. It’s understandable why he doesn’t want to do it anymore; he lost the trust in everyone, including himself. That’s rock bottom. It was Giran that legitimately saved his life by offering a chance to join the League for he can find his quirk useful, but more importantly, the trust he was looking for. Twice wasn’t kidding; he really did save him. All in all, it was a nice flashback that was helped due to his character receiving a long-term development. See? This is what happens when you keep stacking.

The scene with Twice struggling is different but in a good way. It feels like either the old sensation of the series or another series. I said this because again, it’s like a psychological battle, where a character reacts similar to real-life, especially the arm breaking. It’s like, “Damn! That is seriously painful. I feel bad for that guy.” Nowadays, it is like, “Ouch. I think that hurts. Oh well,” so this is definitely a good change of atmosphere. I still don’t get why it’s taking so long to kill Toga. It gives me that villain vibe from James Bond’s films; just do it.

As expected but welcoming, Twice does receive a power-up or rather, defeat his demon and begin to use multiply again. While I am glad that he has defeated his struggle, it did happen a little too fast. He breaks free, thanks to the power of love (Toga). I understand that, but maybe another page to reflect his love and then segue to his awakening. It would have left a stronger impression or time to digest the moment. Oh well, it was still cool for him to break free. So much for converting him to the dark side. Err, a darker side? I don’t know.

Overall, I enjoyed this chapter, thanks to Twice, who has the most time to flesh out compare to others not-Shigaraki. The sensation felt different but in a good way. The backstory was good and added more to an already dark scene. The struggle was tensed and the rebound at the end was cool, even if it did occur a little too fast. The Meta Liberation Army continue to provide help alas stepping stone, which is nothing new. It takes a villain to make a villain credible I suppose. Oh well. That will be twice the loss they will have to take.

[shenzhenblog]

The Content Moderation Imperative: How AI And Humans Will Make Social Media And Gaming Better For The World

Make content moderation good for business — and change the world

Q: We’ve become increasingly aware that user generated content on social platforms is open to all kinds of abuse. How do companies balance the benefits of engaging users on social platforms or in communities, with the risks decide where the boundaries are and keep as many users as possible engaged without over-stepping?

Brian: This whole idea is new. We’re still navigating what this looks like and what the best management practices are. We need to use the actions we’re seeing, like the violence live streamed on Facebook, cyberbullying, and toxic behavior, trolling and take steps to prevent those from happening and protect online communities from interacting with that kind of behavior. At the same time, we have to, as an industry, agree on what’s ok and what is not ok, clearly, and stand united.

Human interactions are complex and nuanced, so this isn’t an easy task. Generations are functioning on different standards. Stakeholder and shareholder pressure to monetize at all costs is pervasive. At the same time, there’s a huge disconnect between experts, parents, teachers and society as its evolving. This is creating new norms and behaviors that bring out the best and the worst in us on each platform. The challenge is that not all groups see things the same way or agree to or event see what’s dangerous or toxic at all. For some, they’re moving so fast between accelerating incidents and catastrophic events that it’s impossible to be empathetic for more than a minute because something else is around the corner. And leading platforms are either not reacting until something happens or they’re paying it lip service to the issues or they’re facilitating dangerous activity because it’s good for business.

Hate speech, abuse and violence should not be accepted as the price we pay to be on the internet. We’re bringing humanity back into the conversation. It’s why we’re here.

Q: In concrete terms, what are the risks that companies expose themselves to and the potential costs?

Brian: In a perfect world, this wouldn’t even be a discussion. Though it is a nuanced concept and constantly evolving, this kind of technology and practice is good for business. Brands and users shouldn’t participate or associate with platforms that have hate speech, abuse and illegal content. Yet, they do. With the very recent Facebook hearing and live streaming of violence, platforms are at an inflection point on how to manage their communities. What they do from here on out and also what they don’t do speaks volumes.

For example, Tumblr was removed from the App stores because there was child sexual abuse material (CSAM) on the platform. Last year they took steps to remove all pornography content and were then allowed back on the App stores. Being removed from the App store is a big hit and should be a huge deterrent. What does it say about our world when Apple is one of the only police forces protecting people online?

Companies should be proactive to implement this kind of protection in order to usurp toxic traffic with better quality users. That’s better for the online communities and it’s for long-term engagement.

Q: How do they best implement these boundaries? What is the best approach to content moderation?

Brian: Before implementing this kind of practice in your platform, you really need to identify and understand what kind of community you want to foster. Each platform has very unique behaviors and personality. For example, do you want a community like Medium; a positive and inviting community that embraces personal expression. Or would you want to be an 8chan; a toxic environment. It’s not an easy question to ask yourself, but it’s necessary. I think once you can establish your vision for the community you plan to build, you can then set very clear boundaries on what’s acceptable and what is not.

We know that technology and AI can only shoulder so much of the responsibility. A mix of both AI and human intelligence (HI) working together to be proactive in avoiding and removing unacceptable content is the best practice.

Q: What is the role of AI in meeting the challenges – and the corresponding role of human intelligence?

Brian: AI cannot do it all. It can do as much or as little to solve this problem. It comes down to the mandate and intended outcomes. I think it would put us at a disadvantage to believe that technology itself can fix this problem. This is a problem of human interaction and behavior, James Bond level villainy and intentionally unethical intent, an incredible absence of consequences, and emboldened behaviors as a result. So we need humans, AI and more to help fix it.

It’s a symbiotic relationship between AI and HI. Chris likes to describe AI as a toddler; it can identify things and inform you. It’s very good at that. AI is also much faster at processing and identifying sensitive material. But it’s still learning context and nuance.

That’s where humans come in. Humans can take the information from AI to make the tough calls, but in a more efficient way. We can let AI bear the responsibility of processing a lot of toxic material, then let humans come in when needed to make the final decision.

Q: Does our approach to content moderation need an overhaul? What does raising the bar mean to you?

Brian: We’re at a very interesting point in time. The internet creates insurmountable opportunity, mostly for good, but not always. As a society, we need to ask ourselves the tough questions. Are we really going to consent that this kind of behavior – CSAM (child pornography), extremism, livestreamed violence, cyberbullying, exploitation, psychological abuse and civil warfare, intentional misinformation campaigns. – is the cost of being online? It’s unacceptable. It’s unacceptable that we even have to have this conversation. I think the majority of people would agree. Users need to demand healthy online behavior. That’s the new cost of admission. Without the users, social platforms can’t exist.

It’s a human problem. Humans are using technology for evil, certainly. But we can also use technology as a solution. This kind of content moderation doesn’t hinder the ability to express, it protects our expression. It allows us to continue to post online, but with some reassurance that we’re in a welcoming environment.

Raising the bar means raising our standards. Demanding online communities foster healthy environments, protecting its users from toxic behavior and being unapologetic in doing so. And also raising our own standards as users. We need to understand the motivation behind our own behavior, and ask, “Why am I sharing this content? Why am I making this comment? Does this contribute to the greater good? Would I say this in real life? Why can’t I see that I am an asshole, a villain or as an active part of the problem.

We – as users and a society – need to demand a change from platforms – we have the power, we’re the ones using the platforms and feeding their ad revenue, so we have the power to influence their policies.

Q: And how will companies benefit – in concrete terms – from raising the bar?

Brian: This is good for business and it’s also what’s right. Platforms won’t have to fear losing advertisers or users because of harmful content and behavior. Brands and advertisers will look to platforms that have positive, lasting engagement.

We’re also at a point where doing the right thing is also good for business. Whether it’s CSR or #MutingRKelly, platforms are keenly aware of the reputation they build. Implementing this kind of technology and building a healthy community by doing so will help brands reputations, goals and bottom-lines.

Q: Forecasting ahead, where do you think we’ll be 1-2 years from now on this issue?

Brian: This conversation will and will not be very different if we do nothing about it now. We won’t be asking where we went wrong or what we could have done better. We’ll know. The technology is available, you can either use it or lose it. In the future, we’ll see that platforms are going to greater lengths to ensure healthy communities and protecting their users. We won’t be weighing the options of “should we use this technology” or “what is the cost/benefit analysis of adopting this practice?”

We’ll be very intentional about what platforms we use, what we post and why. All of us will have access to the best technology and established best practices for ourselves, our customers, our family, our friends and our society.

  Note : This article was originally published on www.briansolis.com

  Brian Solis

Brian Solis is a principal analyst at Altimeter, the digital analyst group at Prophet. He is also an award-winning author, prominent blogger/writer, and world renowned keynote speaker. A digital analyst, anthropologist, and futurist, Solis has studied and influenced the effects of emerging technology on business and society. His research and books help executives, and also everyday people, better understand the relationship between the evolution of technology and its impact on people and also the role we each play in evolution. As a result of his work, Solis also helps leading brands, celebrities, and startups develop new digital transformation, culture 2.0, and innovation strategies that enable businesses to adapt to new connected markets from the inside out.

The Content Moderation Imperative: How AI And Humans Will Make Social Media And Gaming Better For The World was originally published on Shenzhen Blog

[gabriellakirtonblog]

How to Supercharge Your Client’s Motivation

A motivated client is a paying client.

In the world of personal training, some don’t feel it’s their job to motivate clients to adhere to the programs they create, and that’s fine. Others embrace the role of cheerleader and even de facto psychologist.

We are nearing the end of January, and it’s reported that 80 percent of New Year’s resolutions will fail by the second week of February. Is there something you can do to keep your new clients who are struggling with motivation coming back through the spring months and beyond?

For starters, you could tell them about my new book. Wink and nudge.

The reasonable trainer preaches being a tortoise and not a hare. Slow and steady wins the weight-loss race. If your client sees their dead grandma beckoning them toward the light, you’re pushing them too hard.

Often, the same approach is taken with motivation: slow and steady. A forced march of baby steps across a behavioral tipping point where habits are slowly formed and become “sticky.” This approach has merit, because behavior change is hard. Case in point: rampant obesity and low rates of exercise adherence.

But inspiration to get and stay fit can also happen in a flash. And research reveals such people make bigger changes and have higher adherence rates. (When I write “research reveals,” it’s all in that book I mentioned.)

A simple explanation of how this works involves social psychologist Milton Rokeach’s model of personality. It’s like that line from Shrek where he says, “Ogres are like onions.”

People are also like onions. When you cut them, there can be crying. Wait. What I mean is, we have “layers” to our personalities. At the outer layer there are our actions, our “behaviors.” Go down a level and we have “beliefs.” Another level and there are “attitudes.” Then even deeper are “values,” and finally, there is the core identity, the “self.”

When solely focusing on that outer layer of behavior change, baby steps are key, because suffering. We don’t like suffering, and if you minimize it, you’re less likely to backslide. The small changes are considered tolerable.

It reminds me of Winston Churchill speaking in the House of Commons in 1947:

“[D]emocracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.”

The slow and steady approach to behavior change sucks, but it sucks less than the others.

Except perhaps not.

READ ALSO: Forget About Setting Goals. Do This Instead.

How Change Can Happen in an Instant

Baby steps are concrete. They don’t always work that well, but the path is readily discernable. It’s a series of small, definitive actions where the most significant problem is adherence. But when you focus on changing deeper layers of personality—a person’s identity and values regarding exercise—adherence has the ability to be far higher, the change more profound, because passion has been ignited.

It’s also a more enigmatic approach.

Such profound change in identity and values, where a person has what I call “a holy sh*t moment” (which is why I call my book The Holy Sh!t Moment: How Lasting Change Can Happen in an Instant), isn’t something that happens slowly. It’s not a tortoise. It’s not even a hare. It’s more like a ballistic missile of insight into one’s life, a finding of purpose. It’s a hard pivot that transforms a person’s being with an overwhelming sense of rightness about this new direction in life they feel compelled to take.

But the path to such a transformative experience is far from concrete. Psychologists John Kounios and Mark Beeman wrote in their book The Eureka Factor,

“Insights are like cats. They can be coaxed but don’t usually come when called.”

As a trainer, you may be in a position to help your clients coax such a cat.

If you converse with them about things other than programming and technique, getting into how they feel, psychologically, about their training, you can help inspire sudden change. It’s how they feel not just about their training but about themselves.

Telling people to suck it up and power through is rarely useful for those who are struggling. It’s better to tap into their emotional, passionate drivers based on those internal levels: the identity and values stuff.

I’ll tell you a story about my friend Chuck Gross. Chuck weighed over 400 pounds; he’d been heavy ever since childhood. He referred to it as an “anchor” on his personality. He’d tried and failed to lose weight many times, but he hated exercise and watching what he ate.

But one day, his wife walked out of the bathroom with an unexpected announcement: a positive pregnancy test. And Chuck felt the lightning strike. This time, he knew it was going to work. He knew he would get in shape and keep the weight off. “I didn’t have to struggle with my motivation,” he told me. “It came built in.” He lost 200 pounds and has kept it off for more than a decade.

This doesn’t mean you should start advocating pregnancies. It’s to drive home the point about identity and value changes. Chuck suddenly had a new mantle thrust upon him, that of a father. In an instant, he was inspired to become the man his child needed; being a fit dad was something that held tremendous value for him. (Incidentally, I wrote a piece about Chuck’s life-changing epiphany a few years back, and the PTDC named it the number-one fat-loss article of 2015.)

You can inspire your clients to become the best versions of themselves, and to live lives concordant with their deepest values, by appealing to their emotional drivers of what gives them purpose. Because perhaps that purpose will involve seeing what their bodies are capable of.

Make Sure It Sticks

Clients are prone to wavering motivation. Life gets in the way. The desire to stick with the program wanes. Trainers hate it when that happens. You don’t want to lose clients to apathy. You can design the best program possible that fits their abilities and matches their interests and gets them to achieve their goals, but if they lose their ambition for those goals you may struggle to pay bills.

It’s not your job to be the sole source of inspiration for a client to train, but you can play an assisting role by opening discussions on how they feel about the process, their progress, and their ambition for the future.

Because the standard-issue “rah-rah, you can do it!” isn’t enough. To help them unlock their exercise passion so motivation is no longer a scarce resource, you need to go deeper. Give them something to think about, even if it means giving them some psychological homework.

READ ALSO: Your Client Stopped Getting Results. Now What?

You do a training session with a client and it goes great. They’re in the zone, in a great mood. They crush it. Ask them why it was so great. Don’t accept “because you’re such a great trainer!” as an answer. Sure, it’s probably true, but you want to know what was going on with them, in their head, in their life, that tapped into some primal desire that made today such a kick-ass effort. Why did it feel good? What part of their personality was awakened in that moment?

Ask them if that person who kicked ass today felt more like the person they really are, deep down, yearning to be set free and reign supreme …

Ack. Barf. Sorry.

So maybe don’t use those exact words, but that’s the idea. You can nudge them toward a life-changing moment that awakens their desire to achieve great things with their body just by getting them to start thinking about it, by letting them know a rapid change in their motivation level is possible, by getting them to believe it can happen for them.

You can nudge your clients by recommending they spend some time thinking about their identity and values and how it relates to regular exercise. Tell them to spend some time analyzing these aspects of their personality. Advise them to put some real mental effort into it.

Then tell them to do something else.

The trick about a life-changing moment is that it doesn’t come while you’re actively trying to uncover it. Those thoughts need time to meander and collide, so they have a chance to gel in a profound way. Sudden insight arrives when one least expects it, when engaged in some form of distraction. It comes in the shower—the whole shower-thoughts thing—or while out for a walk, in nature, away from technological distraction.

I know people who had sudden insight strike while cleaning a toilet, while walking across a parking lot, while bonding with a shelter dog.

As a trainer, you likely can’t do a lot more than nudge this. As you well know, what they’re mostly after is guidance on lifting things. What’s more, sudden insight is a “comes from within” phenomenon. But there’s also the fact that most people don’t even consider the possibility of rapid mental transformation. Once you let them know it’s a thing that happens, they may begin considering it could happen for them.

And perhaps you’ll suggest they buy that book of mine to further help them achieve it.

And if it does happen for them? Don’t stand in the way. At last year’s Fitness Summit, my friend Kelly Coffey talked about her own life-changing moment. She went from killing herself with drugs and alcohol to wanting to crush herself with exercise. And the last thing she needed was someone to harsh that vibe by telling her to take it easy.

If someone comes at you inspired to go long and hard, show them the right way to do it so it doesn’t break them. Appreciate, admire, and encourage their passion.

Don’t kill their fire; stoke it.

This article is adapted from The Holy Sh!t Moment, by James Fell, on sale January 22.

        Your Client Is Motivated, But Are You Ready to Confidently Build Amazing Fitness Programs?

While every client’s fitness program is different, you don’t have to start from scratch.

Specifically, there are 7 principles to every great program, and when you know them, you’ll get a head start on your program writing.

To help, we put together a checklist with all 7 variables. With this checklist, you’ll also learn:

The HIDDEN VARIABLE that all great programs share

Enter your email below to get the checklist.

  The post How to Supercharge Your Client’s Motivation appeared first on The PTDC.

How to Supercharge Your Client’s Motivation published first on https://onezeroonesarms.tumblr.com/

[themoneybuff-blog]

The forever fallacy

Last week, Ben Carlson from A Wealth of Common Sense published an interesting article about how staying rich is harder than getting rich. He writes: Research shows over 50% of Americans will find themselves in the top 10% of earners for at least one year of their lives. More than 11% will find themselves in the top 1% of income-earners at some point. And close to 99% of those who make it into the top 1% of earners will find themselves on the outside looking in within a decade. Its great that so many people get to taste what its like to earn a lot of money, if only for a little while. Whats not so great is that as most people earn more, they spend more. But if you spend all (or most) of what you earn as youre surfing an income bubble, you can find yourself in trouble when that bubble bursts. Carlson quotes a story about a couple that lived a lavish lifestyle because they were making a lot of money. When the income dried up, they realized they had nothing left. They were broke. Says the husband: The money was just coming so fast and so easy that my ego led me to believe that, Oh, this is my life forever.' Ive been thinking about that last line for a week now: This is my life forever. This couple fell for a common (but seldom examined) mental trap: the forever fallacy. The forever fallacy is the mistaken belief that you will always have what you have today, that youll always be who you are today. The Forever Fallacy Its easiest to see the forever fallacy at play in extreme cases. Take professional athletes, for instance. In a 2009 Sports Illustrated article about how and why athletes go broke, Pablo S. Torre wrote that after two years of retirement, 78% of former NFL players have gone bankrupt or are under financial stress. Within five years of retirement, roughly 60% of former NBA players are in similar positions. Fundamentally, the problem here is the forever fallacy. Athletes (and popular entertainers) tend to enjoy a few years during which they earn great gobs of money. The challenge is to figure out how to make five years of income last for fifty years. This never occurs to most of them. As the money is rolling in, it feels like the money will always be rolling in. When the income stops, the pain begins. [A pro athlete] cant live like a king forever, says Bart Scott in ESPNs Broke, a documentary about pro athletes and their money problems. But you can live like a prince forever. [embedded content] The forever fallacy doesnt just trap athletes and entertainers and lottery winners. It snares average folks like you and me too. Im sure weve all had friends who found themselves flush, whether from a windfall or from a raise at work. They succumb to lifestyle inflation, spending more as they earn more. They buy a bigger house, a new car, a boat. Then, without warning, something awful occurs and theyre no longer rolling in dough. It felt like the good times would last forever but they didnt. The forever fallacy manifests itself in lots of little ways too. When you choose not to keep an emergency fund because youve never needed one in the past, youre succumbing to the forever fallacy.When you take out a large mortgage, one that pushes the limits of your earning power, youre giving in to the forever fallacy.When you fund your lifestyle through debt, youre living in the forever fallacy. The forever fallacy doesnt apply only to positive expectations. People also give in to the forever fallacy with negative expectations. Theyre trapped in a minimum wage job and project that theyll always be working minimum wage. Theyre in a shitty marriage and let themselves believe that theyll always be trapped in a shitty marriage. And so on. The key thing to understand is that everything changes. You change. Your circumstances change. The people around you change. Nothing is forever. The challenge then is to balance this concept everything changes with living in the present. You must learn to enjoy today while simultaneously preparing for possible tomorrows. Negative Visualization One way to protect yourself from the forever fallacy is to play what if? games. In A Guide to the Good Life by William Irvine, the author advocates a psychological exercise he calls negative visualization. Learn to ask yourself, Whats the worst that could happen? The Stoicsrecommended that we spend time imagining that we have lost the things we value that our wife has left us, our car was stolen, or we lost our job. Doing this, the Stoics thought, will make us value our wife, our car, and our job more than we otherwise would. Sounds a little gloomy, right? Irvine says thats not the case. Youre not meant to dwell on these things, but to occasionally ponder them as a thought exercise. In my own life, I used to imagine what it would be like if I lost my job. I could always go to work at McDonalds, I thought. And I grew up in a run-down trailer house. Worst case, I could always live in something like that again. This line of thinking drove my ex-wife crazy but gave me comfort. I knew that if disaster struck, Id be fine flipping burgers and living in a trailer park. Ive done it before and can do it again. Nowadays I challenge myself by thinking about what might happen if the stock market crashed or our house burned down. What would I do if I lost everything? Where would I go? How would I earn money? The Stoics took this exercise even further. Seneca the Younger encouraged followers to live as if each moment were their last. But thats not to say that he wanted people to descend into debauchery. Heres how Irvine explains it: Living as if each day were our last is simply an extension of the negative visualization technique: As we go about our day, we should periodically pause to reflect on the fact that we will not live forever and therefor that this day could be our last. Such reflection, rather than converting us into hedonists, will make us appreciate how wonderful it is that we are alive and have the opportunity to fill this day with activity. This in turn will make it less likely that we will squander our days. Negative visualization is useful because it forces you to look beyond the here and now, to imagine other possible realities. It encourages you to consider that the future might not be a linear projection of the present. I think it can also help nudge a person to think about whats truly important in their life. Too many people squander their days and their dollars. They spend their time and money on things that dont matter, not even a little. When you die, will you be glad you watched every episode of Game of Thrones? Or will you regret not having used that time for something better aligned with your passion and purpose? Be Prepared

Perhaps the best way to protect yourself from the forever fallacy is to become proactive. Like a Boy Scout or a Girl Guide, be prepared to do the right thing at the right moment. In the realm of personal finance, there are plenty of things you can do to be prepared. Get out of debt and stay out of debt. As somebody who was deep in debt for almost twenty years, I now see that carrying debt is a classic expression of the forever fallacy. Its blind faith that youll be able to repay what you owe in the future.Maintain an emergency fund to handle unexpected problems such as car accidents and broken bones.Start an opportunity fund so that you can take advantage of the unexpected good things that come along, such as a chance to travel with friends or a great deal on a used pickup truck.Carry adequate insurance to protect yourself from catastrophic loss like earthquake, heart attack, or giant fire-breathing monsters from the sea.Boost your saving rate, the gap between what you earn and what you spend. This has a two-fold effect. A high saving rate helps you set aside more for the future, but it also makes you more resistent to the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune today.Build social capital by creating a web of friends, family, and colleagues that you trust and support and who trust and support you. The truth is youre never going to beat the forever fallacy and neither am I. Not completely, anyhow. Its simply human nature to extrapolate our present and past into the future. The best we can do is mitigate the trouble caused by this tendency. Be Like Bond Recently, Ive been reading the original James Bond novels by Ian Fleming. I like the books because the literary Bond is more realistic than the cinematic Bond; hes less of a superhero and more of an everyday person (who happens to be a secret agent). He eats too much, drinks too much, and can be a bit lazy at times. Where Bond excels, however, is preparation. Hes always thinking a move or two ahead of his foes. He tries to anticipate what might go wrong so that he can take steps to prevent trouble. This doesnt mean that he always evades trouble thered be no drama if he did but his dedication to preparation helps him avoid some scrapes while also allowing him to sometimes survive certain death. Bond does not suffer from the forever fallacy, neither in the short term nor the long. (He often wonders if hes near the end of his career, too old to continue working as a spy.) Wed all have greater success in life if we were more like James Bond, if we took precautions, if we didnt give in to the forever fallacy. Accept the inevitability of change. Prepare for an uncertain future. Plan the best but be ready for the worst. Dont obsess over what might go wrong, but be aware of potential problems and plan for what youll do in a worst-case scenario. https://www.getrichslowly.org/forever-fallacy/

[sliceannarbor]

João Canziani

Photographer/Director New York City, New York Los Angeles, California joaocanziani.com

SPECIAL GUEST SERIES

João Canziani is a New York City-based photographer and director specializing in advertising, editorial portraits and travel, and personal work. His photographs have been featured in such publications as Afar, Bloomberg Markets, Travel & Leisure, Monocle, New York, Fast Company, Outside, Esquire, Real Simple and Wired, among others. João’s client list spans the likes of Apple, Nike, Delta Airlines, American Express, Microsoft, Verizon, and Lyft. He earned a bachelor’s degree in psychology at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada, and a BFA in photography at the Art Center College of Design in Los Angeles. The recipient of numerous awards, João has been recognized by American Photography and PDN Photo Annual. When he’s not working, you can find him bouncing his nine-month-old daughter, Paloma, on his lap, or running around Prospect Park when he’s “had enough with retouching or taking care of business.” João lives in Brooklyn with his wife Jordan, daughter, and “little pipsqueak of a dog” called Reggie. 

FAVORITES

Book: I’ve been reading Werner Herzog’s The Conquest of the Useless over the past few months, and I love it, but it’s been difficult to finish. I blame Paloma and the stop-and-go nature of my job. But also, I’d rather talk about favorite movies than favorite books. And if there’s one movie I’ve loved over the past year, it’s Call Me by Your Name. So if you’re reading this, and you haven’t already done so, go see that movie.

Destination: For shooting, most likely India. The light is incredible due to the smoke, I suspect. But that would be nothing without the rich, complicated, and chaotic culture there. There are a thousand stories happening at once on the street, and the moment you click the camera, you get sucked into wanting to dig at it more. Also, drop me anywhere in Italy.

Motto: It sounds so cheesy and somewhat banal, but for me it is, “You only live once.” I strive to live by it, and bug dear friends from time to time that they should too.

Prized possession: My iPhone. I really don’t know what I would do without it. Everything in my professional life goes through it. But I guess I would be liberated if I’d lost it.

THE QUERY 

Where were you born?

Lima, Perú.

What were some of the passions and pastimes of your earlier years?

I liked to draw when I was a kid - elaborate drawings of machines and vehicles and things, inspired by the gadgets of James Bond and Star Wars and such. I was set, I thought, to be an industrial designer or architect.

What is your first memory of photography as an experience?

I don’t think I can remember the first memory, but I do remember, after we moved from Perú to Canada, bugging my dad to no end when I repeatedly asked him to stop the car so that I could take a picture of the landscape when we took our weekend family road trips.

How did you begin to realize your intrigue with the art and science of photography?

I started shooting the last couple years of high school, and I took a photography class with a very nice teacher. Then at home, I took what I learned and I built myself a little black-and-white darkroom in the basement bathroom. I used to lock myself in there for hours. The pictures weren’t very good, but I loved being in there.

Why does this form of artistic expression suit you?

As I mentioned, I thought I’d be an industrial designer or architect. I also loved graphic design. But somewhere along the line, I decided that I didn’t want to be stuck in an office or studio all day. Photography offered me the chance to know the world, and then it taught me that I could enjoy the aspects of photography such as color and composition.

When and how did you get your start in the profession?

I moved to the U.S. from Canada in my late twenties so that I could study photography at the Art Center in Pasadena, California. I finished the full eight terms of school without a break inbetween, but unfortunately I graduated right before September 11, 2001. I was actually in New York for the first time when it happened. Long story short, this event halted my plans and career for a bit, as everything got disrupted. As you could imagine, starting a photography career right after that was quite tough, if not impossible. So for the next couple of years I assisted other photographers instead and got a little lazy and unmotivated. But slowly I got up, built a more relevant portfolio of personal work I had, and starting knocking on magazines’ doors. It took a while, but a magazine called The Fader called me back, and I started shooting small but really rewarding assignments of upcoming actors and music bands.

Is there a project/period along the way that has presented an important learning curve?

Yes, right after I moved to NYC, in 2009. I had another awakening, as if the world of photography became my oyster, and I started pushing myself to produce work that I was really happy with. I left this feeling of complacency behind.

Where have your travels taken you on assignment work?

Very fortunate to say that to quite a lot of places around the world. I’m currently in South Africa for the first time. First time in Africa, in fact. And after this I fly to Barcelona for another assignment. There’s still a huge chunk of Asia I don’t know either.

Is there a most memorable shoot, and why?

Yeah, I think this series of shoots I did for Apple toward the end of 2013. I worked alongside a director that inadvertently planted the seed in me to pursue more motion projects. If I’m allowed to name-drop one person, then let it be him (people that know me are likely really tired of me mentioning him, but I have to here, one last time): Emmanuel “Chivo” Lubezki, cinematographer extraordinaire of films such as The Revenant, Children of Men, and Birdman. Apart from that, these shoots were so special because they took me to India and China for the first time. I fell in love with India.

Do you have a favorite photographic image in your portfolio?

Oh man, it’s tough to pick just one. But if I have to, I suppose this blurred image of the moon and the forest in Patagonia that I shot in June of last year when I profiled chef Francis Mallmann for Esquire magazine.

What is the greatest challenge in capturing a very personal portrait?

Trying to break through the inhibitions and/or complexities of a person, particularly when that person has rarely been photographed (a “real” person, the somewhat ridiculous term people like to call those that don’t get shot for a living).

How would you describe your creative process? 

Hmmm, that’s a good question. Striving for balance in life I guess: feeling confident and good about oneself. For me, this means going running (or swimming in summer), enjoying good food and a good bottle of wine on occasion, spending quality time with my family, and most importantly shooting often, whether personally or for clients. I find this balance is the only way that I can feel creative enough to be able to try to discover new ways of seeing, for myself.

What three tools of the trade can’t you live without?

A camera, computer, and credit card.

How has your aesthetic/style evolved over the years?

I used to strive to shoot in a more formalistic way, as I shot a lot of 4x5 and medium format film. I used to think of complete and very neat (in the orderly meaning of the term) compositions and right angles. But I started breaking that down and trying to be a bit less derivative and boring. I began to get excited with infusing more color into my work, and striving to be a bit more intense and visceral.

Is there a photographer living today that you admire most?

Yes, indeed. Maybe these two if you’re asking me this question at this very minute: Christopher Anderson and Erik Madigan Heck.

What has been a pivotal period or moment in your life?

It used to be the first couple of years in New York, but now most definitely the birth of my daughter in the spring of last year. I know the repercussions of this event are still developing and growing in front of me, meaning that I know that over the years she will keep on inspiring me, but today is just the beginning.

Do you have a favorite artistic resource or inspiration that you turn to?

Oh boy, the first thing that comes to mind is Instagram. Take it or leave it, but I get inspired a lot there, particularly when I’m unable to go to a museum or a gallery because we’re at home with our daughter. But actually, other than that, I love watching movies and well-written TV shows. And, other photographers’ work I find through Instagram or online (it used to be Tumblr). Music. Music! But a bit of everywhere really.

What’s the best advice you’ve ever received?

Maybe an implicit advice I tell myself: Some things are just not meant to be. Give it a good fight, but know when to move on.

Is there a book or film that has changed you? 

Not sure if there’s something that has “changed” me like that, completely. But so many films or books have changed me gradually, over the years, nourishing and developing the way I see the world creatively.

Who in your life would you like to thank, and for what?

My wife for giving me the most precious gift.

What are you working on right now?

Currently editing this assignment I just finished in South Africa, and getting ready to embark on another in Spain.

What drives you these days?

The need to create, the need to discover, the need to love.

[viralhottopics]

This Is What A Con Artist Can Teach You About Communication Skills

It’s a miracle that I’ve ventured into entrepreneurship. My 9-year-old self would have never seen it coming.

You have to understand, I was the kid who was never able to sell any of that “World’s Best Chocolate.” I was the only Cub Scout who didn’t get the badge for sales of the holiday popcorn tins. Rather than go door-to-door, I would just let the catalog molder in my backpack until the very last day, then I’d beg my mom to buy some crappy nougat so that I didn’t look like a huge antisocial moron.

I just didn’t know the right things to say that would make someone want to take my advice or give me their money.

I guess you could say I was not adept at communicating.

I always thought that anything remotely connected to sales was grimy subterfuge. I felt bad for what I perceived to be making people buy something they didn’t want. The problem was that I knew that “World’s Best Chocolate” definitely was not the best in the world. It probably wasn’t even the best in the house. After all, why would I want to “trick” someone into buying an inferior product?

It’s not always about what you know.

What I’ve learned since then is that most of the time people do not buy things because of what they know about a product. People buy things because of what they feel about a product or the person selling it, even if they know there are better things out there. If you can create an environment that allows another person to open up to you, you no longer have to sell them anything. Your values become their values. They feel a strange affiliation with you, almost as if they are buying from themselves. That’s an easy sell.

Fast forward 10 years later to the summer of 2009. I’m 19 and I’m sitting on the loading dock of the warehouse at the factory where I worked, brown short-shorts riding up like they were looking for daylight. It was my lunch break.

Across from me sat a gaunt, yet ruggedly distinguished older man named James. How he was able to smoke half a pack of cigarettes on his break and still lift heavy boxes for hours afterwards will always be a mystery to me. Older guys have interesting perspectives. I liked eating lunch with James very much because he always had a story to tell. They weren’t just ordinary stories though. James had an exceptionally interesting career history.

He used to be a con artist.

How do I know this? Well, let’s just say that it’s probably better that I didn’t broadcast specifics. We are still friends. His stories, however, were the stuff of legends.

…Sophisticated bank fraud.

…Impersonation of elected officials.

…Racketeering in Vegas.

…Car chases.

That type of stuff.

I often wondered why he would tell me his biggest secrets. I mean, of all people, why me? Why spill his own dirt to a pimple-popping box boy? What did he have to gain? Why was he even still a free man?

Although at the time I never thought it would help me in a career outside of extortion or espionage (neither of which I’ve ever tried), I’ve found myself using this skill daily in my legitimate business life and my personal interactions.

The big con.

In one of his more long-winded epic retellings, James detailed how he’d been able to talk his way into a five-star hotel penthouse suite for a week free of charge (you know, the kind with the skylight and 24/7 concierge). Mind you, he’d actually been homeless at the time. He continually emphasized the conversation structure with the manager that had allowed him to slither in past her defenses and into the penthouse.

At first, I didn’t think much of it. I thought maybe she’d just felt bad for the poor chap. Then, like a ton of bricks, it hit me.

So what was the magic formula to the five-star con?

Brace yourself. Here it comes:

Smile. And listen.

A little anticlimactic? Not really. This stuff runs deep.

What exactly does that mean?

Human psychology 101 confirms that we love talking about ourselves. My guess is that this tendency to jabber on is rooted partly in narcissism and partly in a genuine unawareness of our social surroundings. Sometimes we don’t even know that we are hogging the conversation.

As entrepreneurs, we can ethically take advantage of others’ penchant for self love.

Levels of disclosure.

Whenever James wanted to get someone to like him, he’d simply let them talk about themselves. He’d listen intently, showing deep genuine interest through his body language. He’d adopt a relaxed posture that invited comfort, not project his authority over theirs. Then, he’d ask pertinent questions at just the right time that allowed for a deepening of the one-sided conversation. Questions like:

“Fascinating, have you ever heard of _______?”

“What do you mean, can you give me some examples?”

“I bet you’d know a lot about _______, wouldn’t you? What do you think about ______?”

Any question that requires the speaker to dig deeper than a “yes” or “no” response can work well here.

These types of questions are not randomly selected. They are designed to work like a katana slicing through verbal haze. Specifically, they accomplish two tasks:

First, they show the speaker that you’ve been listening to them. People love when others genuinely listen to what they have to say. Too often we just “hear” somebody, barely able to restrain our interjection, grateful when we can finally say the line we’ve been planning to blurt out. Stop that — listen and respond to what’s actually being said. Interact in real time.

Second, these type of complex questions allow the person speaking to continue creating more and more meaning, which creates an unspoken bond between you two. When someone feels like you know a little bit about them, they give a small piece of themselves to you. In communication theory, this is called levels of disclosure.

Now you have them.

The key here is that anybody who wants another person to open up to them has to express genuine interest in what the other person has to say. So learn how to become interested in more than yourself.

In a situation that requires you to gain the acceptance and approval of others (as any business situation does), shine the spotlight on the other person and let them do the talking. The conversation will fly by quickly for that person and you might even notice them commenting on how “easy you are to talk to”.

When this happens, you know you’re in.

Once the other person knows that you genuinely care about the things that they care about, they will automatically care about you. It’s impossible not to. People form kinships with those who live near them. They form bonds with those with whom they work and go to school. But the deepest affections are formed with those whom they share the same thoughts, opinions and values. This type of emotionally-rooted relationship is the foundational crux of some of the most powerful organizations in the world, including religion.

If I’d known this back in my Cub Scout days, I would have focused much less on selling the chocolate and much more on selling myself by aligning my values with the values of other people. Live and learn I guess.

As I’ve had time to reflect upon all of the things James taught me that summer, I’ve come to realize that a skill can be applied maliciously or completely benevolently. It’s the individual’s choice whether to use the skill for good or evil. That being said, go forth and conduct ethical communication that helps people and wins them you your side. When your transactions all go according to plan (insert maniacal laughter here), you can smile to yourself because you know the skill came from the most unlikely of sources.

Read more: http://tcat.tc/2jK6gKE

from This Is What A Con Artist Can Teach You About Communication Skills

[themoneybuff-blog]

The forever fallacy

Last week, Ben Carlson from A Wealth of Common Sense published an interesting article about how staying rich is harder than getting rich. He writes: Research shows over 50% of Americans will find themselves in the top 10% of earners for at least one year of their lives. More than 11% will find themselves in the top 1% of income-earners at some point. And close to 99% of those who make it into the top 1% of earners will find themselves on the outside looking in within a decade. Its great that so many people get to taste what its like to earn a lot of money, if only for a little while. Whats not so great is that as most people earn more, they spend more. But if you spend all (or most) of what you earn as youre surfing an income bubble, you can find yourself in trouble when that bubble bursts. Carlson quotes a story about a couple that lived a lavish lifestyle because they were making a lot of money. When the income dried up, they realized they had nothing left. They were broke. Says the husband: The money was just coming so fast and so easy that my ego led me to believe that, Oh, this is my life forever.' Ive been thinking about that last line for a week now: This is my life forever. This couple fell for a common (but seldom examined) mental trap: the forever fallacy. The forever fallacy is the mistaken belief that you will always have what you have today, that youll always be who you are today. The Forever Fallacy Its easiest to see the forever fallacy at play in extreme cases. Take professional athletes, for instance. In a 2009 Sports Illustrated article about how and why athletes go broke, Pablo S. Torre wrote that after two years of retirement, 78% of former NFL players have gone bankrupt or are under financial stress. Within five years of retirement, roughly 60% of former NBA players are in similar positions. Fundamentally, the problem here is the forever fallacy. Athletes (and popular entertainers) tend to enjoy a few years during which they earn great gobs of money. The challenge is to figure out how to make five years of income last for fifty years. This never occurs to most of them. As the money is rolling in, it feels like the money will always be rolling in. When the income stops, the pain begins. [A pro athlete] cant live like a king forever, says Bart Scott in ESPNs Broke, a documentary about pro athletes and their money problems. But you can live like a prince forever. [embedded content] The forever fallacy doesnt just trap athletes and entertainers and lottery winners. It snares average folks like you and me too. Im sure weve all had friends who found themselves flush, whether from a windfall or from a raise at work. They succumb to lifestyle inflation, spending more as they earn more. They buy a bigger house, a new car, a boat. Then, without warning, something awful occurs and theyre no longer rolling in dough. It felt like the good times would last forever but they didnt. The forever fallacy manifests itself in lots of little ways too. When you choose not to keep an emergency fund because youve never needed one in the past, youre succumbing to the forever fallacy.When you take out a large mortgage, one that pushes the limits of your earning power, youre giving in to the forever fallacy.When you fund your lifestyle through debt, youre living in the forever fallacy. The forever fallacy doesnt apply only to positive expectations. People also give in to the forever fallacy with negative expectations. Theyre trapped in a minimum wage job and project that theyll always be working minimum wage. Theyre in a shitty marriage and let themselves believe that theyll always be trapped in a shitty marriage. And so on. The key thing to understand is that everything changes. You change. Your circumstances change. The people around you change. Nothing is forever. The challenge then is to balance this concept everything changes with living in the present. You must learn to enjoy today while simultaneously preparing for possible tomorrows. Negative Visualization One way to protect yourself from the forever fallacy is to play what if? games. In A Guide to the Good Life by William Irvine, the author advocates a psychological exercise he calls negative visualization. Learn to ask yourself, Whats the worst that could happen? The Stoicsrecommended that we spend time imagining that we have lost the things we value that our wife has left us, our car was stolen, or we lost our job. Doing this, the Stoics thought, will make us value our wife, our car, and our job more than we otherwise would. Sounds a little gloomy, right? Irvine says thats not the case. Youre not meant to dwell on these things, but to occasionally ponder them as a thought exercise. In my own life, I used to imagine what it would be like if I lost my job. I could always go to work at McDonalds, I thought. And I grew up in a run-down trailer house. Worst case, I could always live in something like that again. This line of thinking drove my ex-wife crazy but gave me comfort. I knew that if disaster struck, Id be fine flipping burgers and living in a trailer park. Ive done it before and can do it again. Nowadays I challenge myself by thinking about what might happen if the stock market crashed or our house burned down. What would I do if I lost everything? Where would I go? How would I earn money? The Stoics took this exercise even further. Seneca the Younger encouraged followers to live as if each moment were their last. But thats not to say that he wanted people to descend into debauchery. Heres how Irvine explains it: Living as if each day were our last is simply an extension of the negative visualization technique: As we go about our day, we should periodically pause to reflect on the fact that we will not live forever and therefor that this day could be our last. Such reflection, rather than converting us into hedonists, will make us appreciate how wonderful it is that we are alive and have the opportunity to fill this day with activity. This in turn will make it less likely that we will squander our days. Negative visualization is useful because it forces you to look beyond the here and now, to imagine other possible realities. It encourages you to consider that the future might not be a linear projection of the present. I think it can also help nudge a person to think about whats truly important in their life. Too many people squander their days and their dollars. They spend their time and money on things that dont matter, not even a little. When you die, will you be glad you watched every episode of Game of Thrones? Or will you regret not having used that time for something better aligned with your passion and purpose? Be Prepared

Perhaps the best way to protect yourself from the forever fallacy is to become proactive. Like a Boy Scout or a Girl Guide, be prepared to do the right thing at the right moment. In the realm of personal finance, there are plenty of things you can do to be prepared. Get out of debt and stay out of debt. As somebody who was deep in debt for almost twenty years, I now see that carrying debt is a classic expression of the forever fallacy. Its blind faith that youll be able to repay what you owe in the future.Maintain an emergency fund to handle unexpected problems such as car accidents and broken bones.Start an opportunity fund so that you can take advantage of the unexpected good things that come along, such as a chance to travel with friends or a great deal on a used pickup truck.Carry adequate insurance to protect yourself from catastrophic loss like earthquake, heart attack, or giant fire-breathing monsters from the sea.Boost your saving rate, the gap between what you earn and what you spend. This has a two-fold effect. A high saving rate helps you set aside more for the future, but it also makes you more resistent to the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune today.Build social capital by creating a web of friends, family, and colleagues that you trust and support and who trust and support you. The truth is youre never going to beat the forever fallacy and neither am I. Not completely, anyhow. Its simply human nature to extrapolate our present and past into the future. The best we can do is mitigate the trouble caused by this tendency. Be Like Bond Recently, Ive been reading the original James Bond novels by Ian Fleming. I like the books because the literary Bond is more realistic than the cinematic Bond; hes less of a superhero and more of an everyday person (who happens to be a secret agent). He eats too much, drinks too much, and can be a bit lazy at times. Where Bond excels, however, is preparation. Hes always thinking a move or two ahead of his foes. He tries to anticipate what might go wrong so that he can take steps to prevent trouble. This doesnt mean that he always evades trouble thered be no drama if he did but his dedication to preparation helps him avoid some scrapes while also allowing him to sometimes survive certain death. Bond does not suffer from the forever fallacy, neither in the short term nor the long. (He often wonders if hes near the end of his career, too old to continue working as a spy.) Wed all have greater success in life if we were more like James Bond, if we took precautions, if we didnt give in to the forever fallacy. Accept the inevitability of change. Prepare for an uncertain future. Plan the best but be ready for the worst. Dont obsess over what might go wrong, but be aware of potential problems and plan for what youll do in a worst-case scenario. https://www.getrichslowly.org/forever-fallacy/