FIRST!!!

 Haha dang it!

 hehe that was pretty close

Brad,

Great concept to write about.  It's a sticking point of all humanity.  One that enslaves people to themselves in a never ending negative reality from which many, regretably, never awaken.

For me, aside from reframing the seemingly negative events of my life in a positive light, I find it most important to be able to acknowledge, yet detach from, the negative emotions that are attendant to everyday human life.  Many of the everyday troubles that we encounter as human beings are inevitable, attendant to the modern world that we live in.  However, we can either choose to let them define us, or experience and resolve them metnally, freeing ourselves from the negative thought patterns that are so easy to fall into.  For me, a classic zen story is most instructive (especially to RSD, albeit, only in verbage):

Two monks were returning to the monastery in the evening. It had rained and there were puddles of water on the road sides. At one place a beautiful young woman was standing unable to walk accross because of a puddle of water. The elder of the two monks went up to a her lifted her in his alms and left her on the other side of the road, and continued his way to the monastery.

In the evening the younger monk came to the elder monk and said, "Sir, as monks, we cannot touch a woman?"  The elder monk answered "yes, brother"."  Then the younger monk asked again, " but then Sir, how is that you lifted that woman on the roadside?"  The elder monk smiled at him and told him " I left her on the other side of the road, but you are still carrying her ."

As human beings we need to make sure that we do not carry with us the negative emotions that we are destined to encounter.  Sure, you might open a set, really click with a girl you actually find attractive and that fits your standards, only to have her ripped away from you by her amazingly rude, obnoxious, helplessly over-weight friend who remarks to you, "she's not interested."  

Such an occurrence could, and very likely has, for many of us, changed our mentality for the rest of the night (it certainly did for me at the beginning of my cold approach career).  But why should it?  Sure, what could have happend could have been amazing.  But should it prevent us from continuing to have a great night?  Enjoying our time?  The world will continue to turn as you still carry her.

Of course, this is easier said than done, and a couple of practical exercises are in order.  First, many of us live in a hectic work world, frought with stress and worry.  As a practicing lawyer, I encounter so many real big fucks and problems that, very easily, these problems could follow me home, and drain the mental and physical energy that I have to live my own life, on my own time.  When you get home from work, or after you have a massive problem which could throw off your whole day, pause, lie down if you have to, and clear your mind.  Conciously tell yourself that the situation you're in is causing you to be stressed, that it can and will be dealt with at the appropriate time ("this too shall pass"), and that its now time to move forward.  Not later.  Not tomorrow.  Now.  In the club, one of the ways I like to shake off a severely disappointing moment is to do what I've just outlined above while going to take a piss.  Get in line, clear your mind, and let the anger, frustration, or embarassment flow out of you like the piss from your cock, emerging from the bathroom a new man.  Or better yet, so the same with merely a quick pause, refocus, and re-engagement.  Don't think about the fat bitch who stole her away.  Stop carrying her.

Keep it sexy,

BLife

"The right thing to say is what you say when you don't care what you're saying."

i swear these posts are getting tailor made my where im at right now.
Nice one, thanks all once again!

In response to the last guy about not being able to build muscle,

Lifting twice a week is not enough. You should hit the gym 3 or 4 times a week. Also, the Paleo diet is, in all likelihood, fucking you up. You're probably taking in too few carbs which will kill your gains. The only time you should reduce your carbs is when you're on a cut.

Make sure you're hitting each muscle hard with proper controlled form (explosive on the positive, slow on the negative).

Thanks for this. Had my interview with Todd two days ago and been having jitters/excitements. Glad to see this is universal and this reframe really took the edge off.

Talk about freedom from outcome.

I like to use little tricks to get out of negativity. Or even prevent it from happening.

1 HAND GESTURE.
I had issues with self confidence. My mother has always emotionally abused me. (phew, that sounds so heavy! I have grown over it a long time ago)  After I realised what my mom was doing, I had a huge argument with her. I couldn't live with her anymore. I fled to my dad for two weeks and found a new home. But I still wasn't better. Emotionally I was still the same. Every time somebody got mad for whatever reason, it was like they pushed a button. There I was: Totally deflated, feeling guilty and ashamed. I was an utter and complete loser, and incapable to talk about anything.

I got myself a stressfull job, and regularly got in trouble like that. So I went into therapy. Especially for this tiny particular problem. I started reading. I read somewhere that samurai used a hand gesture. A tiny ritual before they start the fight, to get into their "fighting" state. Somewhere else I read that hand-gestures can act like real (or imagened/ placebo) magic. Whatever! If it worked it was good enough for me. And if I had the LOSER-button, I wanted a RESET-button. So I devised a special hand-gesture: Making the yin-yang symbol with my hands. This was going to be my RESET-button.

The results where amazing. First of all, it was getting easier and easier to recognise that the Loser-button had been pushed. Second, whenever it had been pushed I could actually reset it. What? I could actually reset it! I couldn't believe it, it simply worked! And whenever I did that, it felt amazing. Third, the Loser-button was getting harder to push as the weeks went by. I remember the first day I used the Reset-button ten times. After one week three times per day. The third week, I used it once in a couple days. The fourth I used it once. I was proud to quit therapy after only a couple of sessions. 

2 THROWING A COIN.
This is not so much a way to get out, but rather to prevent it: to grow stronger. When I am in the negative headspace it is extremely hard to make decisions. I feel it's a powerful and paralyzing mix of worries, doubts, and remorse. There is a simple solution I have used for a while now. And I am beginning to see the profound and deep changes it has on me. Whenever I am confronted with a difficult decision I throw a coin. Plain and simple:

It eleminates all negativity in a split second: All worries, doubts and remorse are cut off. Bam! Heads or tails. No worries.

Throwing a coin is not good because of a divine reason. It just takes way less effort. It feels light. Instead of carrying the world on your shoulders, I carry nothing and let fate guide my way. Often I am able to make decisions I was previously not able to make. So not only do I feel better, I randomly do more!

3 TRUST.
No little trick. Just a mindset. I think TRUST is more important than state. I think 'state' or simply having fun is something that comes naturally, and I don't want to worry about it. Cuz it dunne work dat way, hehe! Trust on the other hand is way more important, because it helps me get over my negative shit. The main realisation: Everything is temporary, even negativity. So what I feel right now, all that negative shit, all the blaming, the self pity, the loathing and hatred, is not necessarily what I will feel next week, tomorrow or even in five minutes. Eventually I WILL have fun! So I get up, do something, and usually something happens and I am back where I want to be: Happy and enjoying life.

Good topic. Crucial!

Agreed, recognising negative thought patterns is the key to the ever present positive mindframe.

That m83 tracks is awesome. A lot of the stuff off the soundtrack for Drive is making me hard too.

Loving the question answer style of your vblogs.

I have a question that's sort of related to this maybe. Maybe a bit different. Anyway...

For pretty much all of my life I've wanted to be a musician in some form or other. I've been in a pretty good band in my early twenties although it wasn't my project, but from my mid to late 20s and now into my early thirties I know that I want to be a singer songwriter. I have the goods. I can play and sing well enough and I know I can write well and have a great ear for melody. However, I can't seem to motivate myself into pulling this all together and spending time writing a few songs. I'd probably only need three or four to start doing open mics and get cracking, but I tend to spend my free time doing anything but.

I work full time and I'm pretty successful in what I do. I'm also commited to what I do, but what I'd really love to do is my songwriting. I'm really not bothered if it's received well or takes me anywhere, it's just the doing that I'd love to immerse myself in.

Do you have any suggestions on how to motivate myself and cut out the procrastination. Do you have any suggestions as to why I'm avoiding what I know I truly love doing?

www.bradbranson.com/the-brad-diet-masterlist/

It's all about awareness! You first become aware then you decide to not indulge negativity.

Those were powerful articles that will benefit alot of peope including myself. That vid had alot of valuable info about alot of stuff. I cant thank Tyler, Rsd n Rsdnation enough for everything. Life is good! Godbless everyone including myself! hehe Rsdnation#1!!! Stay up sir!

Thanks for taking the time to reply to my question.

Sweet, what sort of music did you play and what was your weapon of choice?

Your suggestions are great. I haven't thought of it like that before; I definately see songwriting as some kind of chore. Maybe getting out there with other people's stuff will get my dickhard about writing my own stuff.

I'll try your suggestion and try and reframe music into an activity I look foward to.

I'll report back once I manage to fight the groupies off my cock.

Well I like the idea of focusing on one thing at once. For me I come from the lowest of the low. And right now I haven't had an alcoholic drink in 2 months, and haven't had a smoke in 2 and a half weeks. To me this is a big achievement. I have also changed my sleeping routine, to where I am awake during the day. I also added some more healthy fruit to my diet. I have now started running a little more (I am an overweight guy).

Now this sounds impressive on paper in reality, these changes are so small you wouldn't even notice them unless you were me. For me these changes are significant.

Now i'm pretty sure this "on and off relationship" I am in is now completely over. In fact I will it to be over permenantly. Here are some real problems that I have and I don't know if these are just thoughts, but if you can help brad, by all means....

1) Last time I had a job was as a call center operator and I got fired after 3 weeks of not acquiring enough clients. For two years now I have worried sick about all my previous job references, I send my resume out , but I get a sick feeling my referees are sending me down the drain, I have never been the best employee. So how will I get a job without any good referees? I also lack the proper motivation, but I want to have the motivation.

2) I have a blog, and I've managed to learn alot about building a website and blogging (well I knew nothing before so it's impressive for me). Now I want to bring more traffic to my blog and build an income through advertisements, affilating  etc and other such things, but I am just perplexed and procrastinate on how the fuck I'm going to find a genuine traffic method when there are millions of websites saying they have the true method. So rather than focus on real big good time traffic, I do simple stuff and get traffic , I post, but I procrastinate on the main issue at hand, I want an online income.

3) I don't have any friends and don't have anything to offer them, as I don't drink or smoke and I have no place to met others. Generally I am a logical person who thinks to anaytically and deeply I don't know if people want that in a friend.

4) I don't feel comfortable going out to game alone, I have done before, I will need to build the courage to do it again soon. I feel completely subject to the same thoughts everyone else has. I feel they control my descions, how can I truly go out and not worry about what people are thinking?

5) With health, I have no money to afford the gym, so I worry about always remaining the same size. Even if I could trim down, how would I build muscle without gym membership etc and no friends to really tell me what to do?

6) I am a contradiciton. I am content in the sense that I am stalemate, I am not in danger of anything. Yet I am dissatisfied with not feeling a little genuinely happy more often. I worry that I may not be fullfliled in the long run. What is the set of actions or experience I must achieve to really feel at peace with myself, or just happy sitting in a bar by myself or whatever? 

7) In thinking about all the houses/flats i've ever lived in and my childhood, I came to realize some behaviour patterns in me. I avoid rejection at all cost (unless I act on instinct or in state, drinking, whatever). I avoid rejection so much I even avoid a social life. In fact I avoid the POSSIBILITY of rejection. I observe myself clearly seeking pleasure 100% all the time as a way to cope with never facing pain/rejection. How do I really at my core level stop behaving like I have for over 20 years? 

Dude. Keep working on it little by little. You're one step away from success.
It may seem your life suck in all those areas. Truth is you only have the potential for tons of growth/fun (how would be life witthout challenges, heh?). 
One area improve the others. It compounds. Use Kaizen.
I'm often the same. I have the big vision for myself. And only see where I am now, and the 234 steps it will take to get there. Focus on what you can do now. 
1 small thing at a time. THe real you is who you envision to be. Have integrity towards yourself and get there. You're already ahead of 95%+ of people who don't even think about that. And you know, you could have cancer or something like that. So everything is good.

1-Get a crappy part time job to survive. Or hustle. mow laws etc. Truth is you can live with nearly nothing for your needs. Heck. Nearly all purchases are for stuff people don't need anyway.
2-Only 3 ways to get traffic. Create(ex:via content, seo and stuff). Buy(ex: ppc, few others). and Borrow(ex: affiliates).
3-Play sports or something like that.
4-What they think is their problem. Not yours.
5-Find what to do online. Workout at home. Or get some moolah. Or persuade a gym owner to let you enter.(offer them value). Don't take no for an answer. Money isn't a substitute for ressourcefulness, ever, it just make thing easier. (heck, with ressourefulness comes money).

 good brad.



Alexander~

Brad, I like the article on your blog very much!

My game is pretty tight i guess and most of the time i am a very poitive person. I have an issue with my looks, thogh.
I think i am handsome, but i am going bald and it is getting worse and worse. There are some treatments on the market, but i actually decided not to take them, because there might be side effects and the idea of taking hormones and changing the natural physiology of the body is in conflict with my values.

Sometimes i catch myself on negative thought loops surrounding this issue.
I guess this is a problem many guys have and it is so problematic because, in my case, i was really identified with my good looks and i kind of built a huge ego around my hairstyle^^. I feel like my looks are drastically falling like from a 8 to a 4 because my head does not have the shape to be reveald...lol.
On the other hand i think that it is so problematic because there is no way to change the fact that the hair are falling out and there is nothing you can do. There is no way to take action and it can feel like there is no hope.

Anyways...I think a big point is just accepting it fully TOLLE style. If you are not your mind, then you are definetly not your hair. I decided to shave my head down to 3mm a year ago and get some new refference points.. that helped a lot, too. Like you say: your mind needs proof, not promise.
For guys with a similar issue: When i get into a headspace like "Damn.. this sucks... i was looking so much better with hair and yada yada yada maybe i should start taking the pills to keep what is left...." I reframe it like: If i am gaming with this fucked up hair and i am still carismatic and just dont give a fuck.. how much cooler does that make me?
I also think, that taking medication is no option, because you are fighting this problem and you do not just accept it and it will eventually destroying your self esteem because you are doing something that feeds into that conflict and makes it more difficult to truely understand that YOU ARE ENOUGH.

If there is someone withe similar problems: how do you reframe thoughts like "Will my game really be as good if i become ugly...." Hope there was some value in my way of dealing with it as well.

 Thanks bro. Appreciate the pointers.