Mike Cernovich - Gorilla Mindset

Table of Contents

GORILLA MINDSET

How to Dominate and Unleash
the Animal Inside of You

Better Self-Control,
Improved Health and Fitness,
and More Money

by Mike Cernovich

Mike Cernovichs mindset techniques have helped...

Mike Cernovichs mindset techniques have helped countless people improve their health and fitness, develop deeper personal and romantic relationships, and take control of anxiety and worry.

In Gorilla Mindset you will learn how to:

• Improve your self-confidence by changing the way you talk to yourself and others.
• View the most brutal challenges as opportunities for personal growth with the power of framing.
• Stop bad moods dead in their tracks, and learn how to feel powerful and triumphant, even at your lowest points in life.
• Eliminate feelings of frenzy and absent mindedness.
• Develop clearer, sharper, and more focused thinking.
• Have a body that feels good and works for you rather than against you.
• Earn more money by thinking of yourself as a personal brand.
• Live a life so remarkable you were previously too afraid to imagine it.

Join the millions of readers and listeners who have learned how to start believing in themselves by following the Gorilla Mindset principles today!

In addition to authoring Gorilla Mindset, Mike Cernovich produces and hosts the most successful mindset podcast on iTunes. You can learn more about Mike Cernovich, and obtain free supplemental reading materials and podcasts, at GorillaMindset.com .

Change Your Mindset, Change Your Life

Gorilla Mindset is a book for those who want more out of life. That more could be control over your emotions, a better relationship with your children, more money, better romances, a more rewarding career, or even freedom from anxiety and depression.

But theres a catch. To get more out of life you must get more out of yourself. You must take personal responsibility for your thoughts and emotions. You must stop blaming the system. The days of looking outside of yourself for answers are gone.

This goes against what weve all been taught. We are told that the secret to getting more out of life is to buy some new gadget or car or to drink beer or smoke cigarettes. One successful cigarette ad campaign proclaimed, Youve come a long way, babe, as if inhaling cancer represented a triumph of womens liberation and the apex of human freedom.

All of us have tried filling the void with material objects. We see something bright and shiny. Maybe its a new watch or new car or piece of jewelry. Something inside us says we are lacking, and if we make this purchase some need will be met.

That is all a lie. To get more out of life you must get more out of yourself. The hard work (and this is not a book of feel-good nothingness or validation) starts with you. The work is hard but it is also fulfilling.

This book teaches you how to get the most out of yourself. By the time you finish this book you will be on your way to total control of your thoughts, feelings, and emotions the building blocks to life. You will get more out of life by getting more out of yourself.

Who is Mike Cernovich?

This is a practical book on mindset. You want to know why it will work for you and, quite frankly, who the heck am I to tell you anything? Those are legitimate concerns. The techniques in Gorilla Mindset, while being research-backed, were first applied to my own life.

I grew up as a child on welfare. I had holes in my clothes. My parents were well-meaning and good people, but they had no concept of how to make or save money. They made mistakes and did the best they could, which is all you can expect from anyone.

Not only was I usually the poorest kid in school, I was also the fattest. I was naturally chubby and was picked on, ridiculed, and beaten up. I was afraid to walk home from school, as more often than not people would follow me. Id be called names and beaten up.

My dad told me to start taking martial arts, and he even started taking classes with me. I was not naturally athletic. I was clumsy and out of shape, and couldnt even do a single push-up. I hated martial arts classes and would have quit had my dad not been there taking classes with me. I went through the motions, but I had no natural talent or belief in myself.

One day a bully beat me up badly. It was humiliating. My sister had to pull my attacker off of me. I felt demoralized and powerless. We had a mattress in our garage. I went to the garage, laid down, and cried myself to sleep. When my dad came home from work, he opened the garage door, looked down at me with part pity and part contempt, and asked me one question that changed my life.

When are you going to get serious? Those words, coupled with the expression on his face, were a wake-up call for me. I made the decision right then and there: I would get serious. Very serious.

I would train until my body was exhausted and would hit the heavy bag until my knuckles bled. When I read in a martial arts magazine that Thai fighters do 10 rounds on the heavy bag, I decided to do the same. When I learned that Thai boxers would roll up magazines and hit their shins and legs to toughen themselves up, I did that as well.

I learned that when you consciously put in work, you will make progress. You might have terrible genetics, you might not have potential to be in the Olympics or win a UFC title, but you will improve.

I earned my black belt in Tae Kwon Do, boxed, and began beating up the bullies who had bullied me. I had a hair-trigger, and would even look for reasons to fight. But I was never happy, and my social skills were poor. I was awkward and weird. My mindset was based on vengeance rather than on exploration, connecting with people, or being happy.

At one point I was invited to attend a school lock-in at the YMCA with a bunch of other classmates. I was so wrapped up in fight mode that I put on Tiger Balm to keep my joints warm, lest someone decided to start a fight with me.

I also didnt perform well in school, with every teacher having the same line for my parents at PTA meetings: Michael is so smart. He does not live up to his potential.

It wasnt that I enjoyed getting into trouble, but I grew up in a poor neighborhood. Where I came from, getting good grades and doing homework wasnt the norm. Id get into fights, steal sandwiches from the local grocery store, and shoot out car windows with a BB gun (which was also stolen). When one of my acts of vandalism made the local newspaper, I clipped out the picture with pride.

To change my life, I had to change my own mindset. The need to do hood-rat things and the anger inside me had to be focused into something more productive. It took a lot of work, but I ended up going from a poor bullied fat kid without any money to a well-known lawyer, writer, and podcaster who travels the world. In most ways my success makes me laugh, as my life story is unbelievable.

And Im still working hard at improving every day. Sometimes when people say they like me or ask me for advice, its hard to understand why. There are days I still feel like the fat kid who was afraid to walk home from school. But here I am, successes, failures, and flaws in all their shame and glory. So maybe youll find that I have some advice to give. To begin with, I will ask you:

Isnt it time to get serious?

What is mindset?

The online encyclopedia that some people love and many people hate, Wikipedia, defines mindset as a set of assumptions, methods, or notations held by one or more people or groups of people that is so established that it creates a powerful incentive within these people or groups to continue to adopt or accept prior behaviors, choices, or tools.