Gorilla Mindset Video Seminar Review
On the 9th of April 2016, the latest in a series of Mike Cernovich’s Gorilla Mindset Seminars was held in San Francisco. The seminar was filmed as part of the footage for the upcoming documentary Silenced: Our War on Free Speech and was made available to subscribers to Cernovich’s site Danger and Play.
Being a subscriber and fan of Gorilla Mindset, I was pleased to be sent a link to the video seminar. Keep reading to see what I thought….
The seminar broadly built on the main themes of the book focusing on:
- How metaphors embedded in language shape how you view yourself and the world
- Deep breathing techniques to improve focus and intensity
- Every chapter of Gorilla Mindset is separate yet connected
- Proper posture in standing, walking, and working
- Self-talk and language patterns
During the seminar, Cernovich was standing in front of a whiteboard with the main themes of Gorilla Mindset arranged in a circle. Throughout the seminar, he emphasised how they were all linked together and played off one another. This is something I noticed in reading the book however I had never considered the cyclical nature of the main themes before.
Mike Cernovich’s Gorilla Mindset Techniques are from His Own Experiences
Over and over, Cernovich emphasises how the Gorilla Mindset techniques were taken directly from his own experience. At one stage he encourages the audience to consider how they felt in going to the seminar to illustrate the power of self-talk. He uses his own anxieties and hang-ups of public speaking and going to similar events to show the self-talk techniques can be used in real life.
Connecting this with framing – a way of changing your perspective on challenges and setbacks – and improving mood works well. Being able to control and even get rid of bad moods is one of the most valuable outcomes of reading Gorilla Mindset. “You can literally brainwash yourself.” He says.
How Cernovich Uses Audience Participation in His Seminars
Impressively, Cernovich encourages a high level of audience participation – always a risk at these types of events. However the attendees come across as engaged and enthusiastic.
The audience took an active part in the seminar, practicing posture exercises, breathing and even being asked to recount the colour of their partner’s eyes.
The session finished with a Q and A session which wasn’t part of the film.
(Demonstrating posture exercises at the Gorilla Mindset Seminar)
Closing Thoughts on the Gorilla Mindset Seminar
The seminar added a lot to the central themes of the Gorilla Mindset book and audio course. Seeing how the themes work and link together was helpful as was understanding more of the background on how Cernovich has developed them over time using his own experiences.
P.S. You can read my full review of Gorilla Mindset by Mike Cernovich here.
Update: Since I wrote this, Mike has made the full seminar available to everyone. Check it out here:
This Seminar was great. It really helped me to understand this whole process of visualization better and it made some things clearer than they were before and mind you I read Gorilla Mindset a few times so it was kinda surprising how much value I got out of that thing. Anyway great Summary Neil!
Hi Timo, thanks for commenting. Yes I was surprised how beneficial it was given how I’ve read the book so many times. Hopefully people will watch it or download the MP3 version if they haven’t seen it already.
The Q&A session revolved more around Cernovich’s other projects (Danger and Play, Silenced, marketing strategy, upcoming books, etc.). So if you weren’t there in person you didn’t miss out on additional Gorilla Mindset material. Just another 20 minutes of raw Mike goodness.
Say what you will about the man, he is generous with his time, and holds nothing back.
Hi Jon, great to hear and glad you made it along. Also good to hear I didn’t miss too much from the Q and A sessions.
Good review Neil. I watched the seminar as well.
The thing that I like about Mike is how he talks about his flaws and strengths.
Thanks Dylan. Yes, his honesty is one of the first things that struck me when I read Gorilla Mindset for the first time. I could really identify with his struggles of being bullied and being a chubby kid.