Introducing myself, mastering influence and persuasion, and how I found my life model.

Hello Steemers,

"If you hold your hands out with your palms facing up while telling a lie, it's more believable."

That was the first piece of body-language advice I was ever given.

I was 13 years old, and it would change my life in ways I could never have imagined.

More on that shortly...

Firstly, I'd like to introduce myself.

My name is Nick Cownie, and if I had to choose just two words to describe myself, I'd have to say:

Strategic Simplifier.

I'm a serial entrepreneur from Australia, where I live with my wife @alexcownie, and our two gorgeous kids.

When I'm not travelling, you'll find me either playing with my kids, working on my businesses, or training Japanese and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.

As I type this it's 10:17pm on a warm San Diego night. I've been here for a few days attending an elite intensive that I'd love to tell you about (but that'd violate the NDA), so you'll just have to trust me that it's amazing.

Otherwise I wouldn't have flown half way across the world from Australia, where I technically live, although I'm also technically homeless for the foreseeable future.

How did all of this come about?

As far back as I can remember I've been one to defy expectations.

At school I was famous for:

• Never paying attention,

• Having a low tolerance for foolishness, and

• Always being an A grade student.

I figured out early on that I could easily take in the information presented without paying a particularly large amount of attention. On the downside, I was constantly questioned by authority figures as to why I wasn't more attentive.

On the upside however I developed the ability that I now like to think of as peripheral absorption (...or in other words, the ability to absorb information without really paying attention).

If I'd known where that skill would lead me, I'd have probably paid more attention to not paying attention!

The Awkward Teenager

By the time I was thirteen years old I had braces, rather unflattering acne on my face, a mis-diagnosed eye condition that had me wearing thick glasses I didn't need, and a flat-top haircut like Vanilla Ice.

In short... I was hot!

Add to that a modest family income from my Dad's work as a police officer, and I found myself arriving at a life-altering decision.

"I've got no looks and no money... If I want to get ahead in life, I need to understand PEOPLE."

My best friend at the time was a tiny, little guy with long, blonde hair and a Kurt Cobain obsession called Lachlan.

We were both intelligent, skinny kids who looked ridiculous, so we were picked on a lot and would retreat - as was the refuge of many a nerd before us - to the safety of the school library.

And that's where Lochie first stumbled upon a book called 'Body Language' by Alan Pease.

Lochie loved this book because he'd discovered (as I eluded to at the beginning) that there were simple body language hacks you could implement that make you appear more believable and truthful when lying.

Such as holding your hands out, palms facing up.

Side note: It actually works. I wrote a pretty cool blog post on body language (http://digitalronins.com/mindset/body-language-hacks/) here on one of my websites.

I vividly remember the look on the librarian's face as she violently snatched the Body Language book from my hands, muttering "why don't you just buy a copy" under her breath as Lochie and I returned the book for what must've been the fourteenth or fifteenth consecutive time.

To say school was tough is an understatement.

Luckily, I'd always had an obsession with martial arts, and by the time I was sixteen, I'd trained in jujitsu and kickboxing enough that I could comfortably handle myself if the need arose.

Then... one day, many years later, it did.

The Night That Changed My Life

It was 2001. I'd just turned twenty-one. And about a month previous I'd finally achieved one of my lifetime goals -- I'd achieved my black belt in martial arts.

Every year on my birthday I'd hang out and have lunch or dinner with Lochie.

This particular year we couldn't make it, so opted to have dinner at his apartment the day after.

When I arrived at his place, it was evident that he'd just had a massive argument with his girlfriend, so we decided to go for a walk to clear the air and give them both some time to calm down.

In no way a wise decision at that time of night, we opted for a walk along the nearby river.

The result of our decision?

Armed robbery.

Three young guys set upon us, pulled a gun, threatened to shoot me in the head, and took everything we had.

Including my mental health for the next five years!

After that harrowing experience, I developed post-traumatic stress disorder and struggled with it for the next five years.

How I got rid of it is another story entirely, which I detail in my book 7 Minute Mindset (http://7minutemindset.com).

Fast-Forward...

Fast-forward a few years, and I found myself in Beijing, China working in a hospital as a traditional Chinese medicine student.

The next few years passed as a blur of further study, work, sticking needles in people for money, and trying to work out the kinks in a rather unfulfilling relationship.

Then one day, I saw her.

A gorgeous French girl... tall, beautiful, graceful.

I was dumb-struck. Couldn't look away. Didn't want to.

Two weeks later, I'd managed to land a date. That night I moved in, and never went home. And eleven months later to the day we were married on a beachside cliff and have never looked back.

These Days...

These days I spend my time doing pretty much what I'm doing now.

Writing. Teaching. Speaking. Creating value.

I've launched multiple business over the years, including:

• Massage clinic,

• Paediatric acupuncture practice,

• NLP and hypnosis training institute,

• Business coaching services and information product creation,

• International speaking business,

• And now a SAAS company.

I've been broke, rich, and everything in between. Here's a video version of how that all came about if you're interested to see how I went from $16,000 per year to $99,800 in a weekend (http://digitalronins.com/mindset/99k-weekend/).

Mastering Influence And Persuasion

People often ask me what has allowed to achieve so much in such a short time.

The answer is simple, really: Influence and persuasion.

If there's one thing I'd recommend to anyone, it's learn the skills of influence and persuasion. (I'll be writing a LOT about these two topics here if you'd care to follow me and discover more, including how I talked myself into the VIP of an exclusive Las Vegas nightclub for free).

Those two skills have allowed me to:

• Sell hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of products and packages.

• Have more time and freedom (and travel the world with my wife and kids).

• Meet my heroes (including Tim Ferriss, Neil Strauss, and Penn & Teller).

• Talk my way out of getting arrested after almost causing a head-on collision with a police car (which would have probably killed the police officer).

• Secure a spot on four separate speaking circuits as the resident mindset expert.

• Get my old car written off by an insurance company... because I broke a headlight (I rear-ended a car at a traffic light at five kph).

• Talk my way into Coca-Cola’s staff Christmas party, and have lunch with the CEO and his wife.

• Get invited to speak in San Diego with the world’s top marketers, writers, artists and more.

• And much, much, MUCH more.

As fun as all of that was (and continues to be), the last thing I'd like to share with you is something that has TRULY changed my life.

I call it "My Life Model."

For years I've silently struggled on and off with depression.

Apart from my wife Alex, no-one really knew this until recently, when I got out of my own way and finally started admitting it publicly.

The one thing that helped me snap out of it, and stay out of it was the discovery of my life model.

It's a very simple process, and I encourage you to give it a shot if you think it'd be helpful.

It works like this:

1. Answer this question: "If I could spend my life focussed on only three things, for the rest of my life, what would they be?"

For me, the answers were Family, Fun and Freedom.

2. Once you've identified your three things, put them into a Venn diagram, and ask,"If I had A and B, what does that give me?"

For example, "If I had Family and Fun, what does that give me?"

My answer is: Purpose.

Repeat for all three combinations.

By way of example, here are my answers:

• Family + Fun = Purpose.

• Fun + Freedom = Passion.

• Freedom + Family = Peace.

3. Live your life according to your Life Model.

I use the life model as my decision-making criteria.

Every decision, whether it be a life decision, or a business decision, gets filtered through the following questions:

• Will it give me more or less time with my family?

• Will this be fun?

• Will it improve or take away my freedom?

• Does it align with my purpose?

• Does it fuel my passion, or give me an outlet to express my passion?

• Will it increase or decrease my peace?

Knowing my life model has made a massive impact on my quality of life, and I hope if you take a few minutes to do this for yourself, you get the same life-changing results I've enjoyed.

And with that, I submit to you my introduction.

Choose Freedom,

Nick.