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Why You?
You are:
Busy & Stressed ... with back-to-back meetings, a chaotic work day, crabby bosses, high-resistant prospects, high-conflict clients/employees ... you don't have time for drama and yet you constantly end up stuck in the middle of drama ...
Struggling: to see through the human games and BS ... wondering why people do what they do ... how to tell when someone legit has a problem or they are confused or they are just being a jerk or they are trying to hustle you/game the system ...
Grappling: with the possibility that you will be forced to tread water for good, only to die bitter and confused ...
Wishing: you'd studied veterinary science or just led a simpler life without the politics and drama of dealing with people ...
FINALLY DONE with prestigious education that makes no sense and hollow "expert" opinions that sound nice but do nothing for you. You just want no-BS, no-nonsense guidance. You want someone to tell you what is really going on, even if it goes against all the popular noise in the airwaves today ...
Not interested in watered-down techniques or puff pieces ... you want the turbocharged tools that work like high voltage cable-chargers so you can bypass all the pitfalls and traps and instead learn to bend reality like you're Neo in the Matrix ...
If this is you, then you NEED to meet me. My name is Jamie. I am the Oracle to your Neo, here to guide you through the Matrix of your own internal wiring, human dynamics and human relations. No BS. No fillers. Just pure, simple truths to guide you on your way.
WARNING: it is advised you STOP reading if:
You want fluffy answers that make you feel good. This Manual is confronting. You may hate me for that if you aren't ready for this. You're encouraged to stay with it, because your life is only going to get better once you're able to process this Manual.
You are under 18 years old. This Manual is rated R18+ for a reason. I would even caution you not to read this if you are under the age of 25.
You have all the answers. You'll be disappointed here if you already have all the answers.
If this is you, continue at your own risk. You were forewarned.
Still here? Excellent.
Why Me?
I am NOT a doctor. And that's a good thing. Because it means that I cannot hide behind my title or medical jargon to persuade you. In fact, I will resist the urge to cite medical terminology to impress you. Instead, I will be using greater wisdom - real-world experiences in dispute resolution practice and epistemology (the knowledge of knowledge) - which is only going to benefit us both in the long run.
I am the leading authority on special intelligence in negotiation and conflict resolution practice on the planet. Yes, you read that right: the planet. Why?
For starters, no-one else has claimed the title. So I got lucky there and pulled a Christopher Columbus.
But also I have won prestigious tertiary, state and international awards in mediation, negotiation, trial advocacy and diplomacy and earned my stripes running over 2,000+ seriously juicy deals and disputes in litigation, business and mediation (from $1 to $7bn, pedestrian gripes to monster litigation). I've run trials, appeared at the UN, with equal measures of experience managing relationships that work well for SME businesses, in high-end corporate consulting, politics and diplomacy.
I have read 500+ books on human dynamics - from psychology, persuasion, linguistics, hardcore philosophy, litigation, military history, theatre studies and more - to formulate my own brand of wicked smart intelligence (without the wicked part).
I run Dispute Intelligence², a bad-ass special intelligence program like the Matrix in negotiation and conflict resolution practice for a handful of exceptional candidates who make the cut each year (less than 0.00001%).
And I've developed a life-changing system, called the Modern Guardian's Playbook, that will transform you (yes, you, spilling your coffee, who goes to Google for answers and doubts if he/she can) into a walking, talking modern-day Solomon. This system will teach you a completely original and ethical approach to shrewdly manage yourself and others in business and conflict, with god-like psychological powers (without 20 years experience, an MBA, a brain transplant, selling your soul to the devil or developing Nixon-levels of paranoia).
First, Some Context ...
I’ll let you in on a not-so-secret secret. Thousands of years before Daniel Goleman dazzled us with his breakthrough work on emotional intelligence and amygdala hijacks - even centuries before neuroscientists started studying the brain and psychologists started studying the mind - philosophers were freaking out big time. Why? Because they knew the incredible power of emotions (positive and negative) and trickery to change minds. (Don't worry - I am going somewhere with this.)
Their biggest fear was:
How do we keep society in tact when a big chunk of the population is so basic and easy to trick and an even bigger chunk of the population is so greedy and eager to exploit that basicness?
Maybe they didn't add the basic part, but you get the picture. Did you see the movie Parasite last year? That's the level of trickery they were worried about.
There’s a moment in one Platonic Dialogue between Socrates and another guy that captures this fear perfectly. Socrates leads the conversation, saying:
“…don't you agree with me in thinking that men are unwillingly deprived of good things but willingly of evil? …
“Well, then, by those who are constrained or forced I mean those whom some pain or suffering compels to change their minds.” …
“And the victims of sorcery I am sure you too would say are they who alter their opinions under the spell of pleasure or terrified by some fear.”
“Yes,” he said: “everything that deceives appears to cast a spell upon the mind.”
“Well then, as I was just saying, we must look for those who are the best guardians of the indwelling conviction that what they have to do is what they at any time believe to be the best for the state. Then we must observe them ..."
“...and again we must subject them to toils and pains and competitions in which we have to watch for the same traits ... then ... must we not institute a third kind of competitive test with regard to sorcery and observe them in that?
Just as men conduct colts to noises and uproar to see if they are liable to take fright, so we must bring these lads while young into fears and again pass them into pleasures, testing them much more carefully than men do gold in the fire, to see if the man remains immune to such witchcraft and preserves his composure throughout, a good guardian of himself and the culture which he has received, maintaining the true rhythm and harmony of his being in all those conditions, and the character that would make him most useful to himself and to the state.”
(Plato, The Republic, at 413-414)
From this vantage point, all the drama of life - all the theatrics, everything that seems so intense and chaotic, all the crap that drags you down and makes you feel bad - is all just a charade designed to mindfurk you. It's there to get you to react, fall into line and change your mind so that you will bow down and surrender to the status quo.
To quote the legendary Bertrand Russell:
The social psychologists of the future will ... try different methods of producing an unshakable conviction that snow is black ... It is for future scientists to ... discover exactly