Real Game: The Art of Reframing

Reframing is one of those unordinary words. You don’t see it a lot and it’s very rarely said. The concept of it is very important.

Reframing is considered an NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) technique. But to be quite honest, I learned this concept from the days of Hustling on the streets. We didn’t call it reframing, we just called it, “Not worrying about bulls@#t!”

Some people make reframing synonymous with “positive thinking”.  Although it can be similar, reframing is really just a change of perspective on a person, problem, event or situation.

This is a powerful tool when it comes to using Uncommon Sense.

When you’re taking a picture, the lens will only capture what it “sees”. Everything else that is not in the frame doesn’t exist in that picture. It wasn’t “seen” by it and therefore it wasn’t captured.

Now let’s look at how this concept applies to reframing.

When you reframe, you are looking at everything but only concentrating on the picture. What you want to “capture”.

What are you “capturing”? Whatever is to your long-term benefit. The rest, 9 times out of 10, isn’t that important.

Let’s look at a real life example:

Many friendships and business “associations” can be torn apart or hit a rough patch when it comes to money. If someone borrows money from you and they fail to give it back, you will most likely take this personal and be upset. This is just disrespectful after all, isn’t it?

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Me, Back in My Old Hustler Days

Here’s the reframe:

For whatever amount of money you lent that person, you now know their character. You know they aren’t a person of their word. So, if you continue with this person in your life, you know that they cannot be trusted with money.

Life lessoned learned for a sacrifice of a few dollars. The situation could have been worse. That money was actually an investment.

Here’s a personal real life example:

I used to have a Hustle partner. He went by the name, New York. We ran our mobile routes together and watched each other’s backs. He was a real Player and I dare anyone to tell me he’s wasn’t. Anyway…

So these other Hustlers were slickly trying to move into one of our “spots” (sales territory). New York and I didn’t make too much of it, we were extremely well known. Our reputations were “Game Tight”. The majority of the money was coming to us regardless. In essence, they were wasting their time.

Now although we let this violation pass, over time it became a disturbance. They attracted wayyy too much attention; the wrong kind of attention. The store owners and managers in the area began to ask them to leave. And in typical Square fashion, they felt it was wrong to ask them to leave and not ask us to leave. So they did. Ahhh… the mind’s of Squares…

So we left the “spot” alone for a couple weeks.

“What!?” I can hear you saying this to yourself. “You let those other Hustlers run you out of your own spot and mess with your money?”

Stay with me – this is how a Hustler thinks.

Here’s the reframe:

By leaving the "spot" temporarily we showed ultimate respect to those that asked us to leave. And you know what this did when we went back? It made us trustworthy and increased our respect. This of course expanded our Game (maybe I’ll make a post about this concept another day).

In fact, when a similar incident happened a few months later, instead of asking all of us to leave, they came to New York and I and asked us to handle the situation.

And you know we did. Uncommon Sense rules once again.

How does handling a situation benefit you in the long-term? If you can consistently answer that question, you will have mastered the art of reframing.

Stop worrying about so much bulls@#t - it's a waste of time and energy. Until next time.

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