Developing Killer Instincts

Good day peoples,

Everybody from your senile grandmother to your stupid dog has instincts. Everyone has that intuitive thing that gets them out of trouble and tells them what to do when their brains are telling them otherwise.


The difference between gut instincts and killer instincts is that you are born with one; the other is sharpened and perfected with time.

Guess which one is which.

Killer Instincts: Beyond Gut
So what are killer instincts? How do you know if you have them or not? Killer instincts don't refer to the ability to predict that Brazil will win the World Cup or that every Thursday fuel prices go up; it's the ability to correctly predict, through careful study of a situation and experience, the correct outcome of each and every scenario you face.

It can be predicting a guy's first move when you're in a fight, coming up with a product that sells more than water, bluffing the other guy just right in negotiations to maximize your end of the bargain, or knowing exactly which words will get you a free pass when your wife finds out about your mistress.

It's about rarely being wrong when interpreting and calculating the consequences of a situation. It's the innate ability some people have to always be on top of things. In business, it's often the difference between those who make it and those who don't. Killer instincts are your way of saying to Lady Luck, "Screw you, I don't need your help."

It's above and beyond the gut feelings we were all born with. It's much more than listening to the nervous feeling in your stomach. Those instincts, everyone has. A person with killer instincts sees an enemy where others don't see anything, a hotel and casino empire (Bugsy Siegel) where others see desert, and so on and so forth.

It's not only about getting out of a jam. It's about having vision, knowing when it's the right time to finish off an enemy, knowing when to freeze a  a stand-up guy because he's about to lose it all, anticipating what the other guy is going to do before he even gives it any thought, etc.

Killer instincts allow you to make the first move, think big and feel confident in your decisions even if you're going against a trend.

All right, you're convinced that you need to "refine" your gut feeling. Now what do you do?

Are you born with killer instincts?


No one comes out of their mother's womb with the instinctive ability to beat the stock market year after year. You are a product of your environment. Absolutely. But just like some people get all the women without even trying while the rest of us have to grow testicles the size of a walrus to even make a move, some guys have killer instincts even if they didn't spend a second of their lives "on the street."
These guys are always right on the money without trying too hard, but for most of us, it's life experience, screw ups and lots of pain that teach us not to touch a hot stove.

How much of a killer instinct you develop is up to you though. If you don't have your eyes open, if you keep making the same foolish mistakes, if you don't know how to assess situations properly, you're wasting your time reading this.

You are a fool and will always be a fool, so accept it and go back to having your mother breastfeed you.

So How Do You Go From Babbo the Clown to Sherlock Holmes?
First off, by being patient. Rome wasn't built in a day (I wasn't on that job). You can't skip steps here. Like getting over a broken heart, developing your instincts is going to require time, too much booze and regretting sleeping with Harriet The Itchy Whore.

The key is to be observant and vigilant. Be observant of your own life experiences, and especially others' experiences.

In my teenage years, I read about Mussolini, Machiavelli, Onassis, Joe Kennedy, and Al Capone. They taught me things I wouldn't otherwise have learned in 10 lifetimes. I've lived a modest life, how was I to know the ways of the elite and powerful? They lived among the sharpest, most conniving, most deceitful circle of sharks the world has ever known (of course, they weren't exactly angels themselves, but you have to respect their ability to survive in shark-infested waters). Through their mistakes and their ability to stay alive, I learned a lot. So learn from those around you.

You will quickly start to recognize patterns in human behavior and human psychology. When you're able to understand how the mind thinks, what greed does to people, which vulnerabilities expose a man, and what lies are used to cover incompetence, then your killer instincts will start to sharpen.

Learn from every conflict you face. Don't settle for solving the problem, use every situation to test your ability to recognize outcomes and opportunities. If you made a decision and the outcome wasn't what you wanted, don't just tell yourself, "Better luck next time." Look for what went wrong:

Did you say something you shouldn't have?
Did you bluff when you didn't have to?
Did you act desperate and reveal your cards?

Do the same when things go your way as well. Pay attention and learn from life, and you'll think you're Nostradamus.

I can always tell when a partna of mine is about to give me up on something just to cover his ass because the one time I got caught when somebody sold me out, I replayed that d*ckhead's every move going back a few months while I was stessing myself out for months on how that s*** happened. Without that kind of concentration and attention to detail I'd be doomed to repeat the same mistakes.

Minimize Mistakes
Other things you can do include becoming a master of reading body language, knowing when someone's lying and reading between the lines of what's being said. Always compare your instinctive response to the outcome to know if you should repeat your decision again.

Try to minimize your mistakes. Sometimes screwing up is the only way to learn in life, but if you can avoid stupidities on your way to "optimizing" your gut feelings, do it. Are you going to say, "No, I enjoy suffering and being a fool," when you don't have to? I thought so.

Watch your backs and keep your noses clean.

the audacious truth