1. A child reared without clear boundaries has little chance of success. Limits are necessary to give purpose, direction and structure to life. The fool swims in a boundless sea of opportunity and finally drowns because of his failure to latch onto a specific purpose. He tries to own the sea while the wise man selects a single purpose (opportunity/goal) and then pursue it with all his heart. The wise man understands the power of commitment and focused thought and is well rewarded.
2. A defeated person becomes indifferent about his fate. He finally stops feeling ashamed or sorry. He stops resisting and fighting to reclaim his dignity. The wise is very aware that passive behaviour could make him act like a dog with a broken spirit. Our parks are filled with defeated individuals that tragically accepted their fate in life.
3. A desperate or worried person displays the tendency to cling to anything or anyone that displays even slight compassion. A true warrior understands that this behaviour will eventually exhaust the person that he clings to. A champion never makes panic decisions or choices. He lives in the moment and knows that his winter season will pass like so many times before and make way for a brand new summer.
4. A few moments of indiscretion could become a burden that you might haunt you for the rest of your life. The need for instant gratification is usually at the root of most of our less spectacular choices. Any choice that we make can be compared to the pull of a trigger on a gun. Once the bullet leaves the barrel it cannot be recalled.
5. A good friend is like a good investment. To make good longterm friends be a friend. Friends become a shield in troubled times. Friendship is not a one-sided deal. There are people that claim that they are your friends, but they are often just stranger exploiting you. Several of the friends you make during your lifetime will stick a knife in your back the first time your friendship is really tested.
6. A grievance poisons your mind and chains you to the past. It leaves you bitter and twisted. Everyday of your life you chose between grievances and freedom. You must make up your mind if you want “pain” or “joy” or the “old” or the “new”. When you choose to go for freedom then learning the art of letting go becomes a top priority. When you have mastered the art of letting go of your history you begin to predominantly live in the now.
7. A man that cannot find enough compassion in his heart to forgive is a fool. We all make mistakes, but the fool continues trying to convince everybody that he is flawless. When you master the art of forgiveness you enter a safe harbour and gain peace of mind.
8. A man that is mature, fair and respectable is worth more than precious jewellery. Everybody respects maturity and predictability. Wisdom only comes to those that are slow to anger and careful in their judgement.
9. A man that lacks self-esteem needs titles and certificates to justify his position in life. A man at peace with who he is does not need the constant blessing or praise of others. Never allow a person’s title or position to intimidate or dominate you. See yourself on equal footing with others. Do not allow a person to intimidate you with his pedigree or current superior vantage point.
10. A man with willpower always has the best chance of coming out on top. The main reason why people fail is not because they do not have the skills and know-how, but because they lack the willpower. A person without willpower and determination always ends up the slave of those that do.
Rene
(from my book – PORTABLE LIFE SKILLS WISDOM GUIDE)
Assist people to achieve what they really desire if you want to make friends for life, become awfully rich or become very popular. Our expectation and hope drives us forward and helps us to overcome serious setbacks.
Attempt to make the right and best choice on a moment-to-moment basis. If you are going to wait for the perfect moment or until you have all the data, you might never make up your mind. Remember that your in-basket will still be full even on the day you die.
Attitude plays a vital role in everything you do. A poor attitude can never produce good results. A poor attitude is at the root of most failures. A poor attitude caused more marriages to fail and relationships to break down than all the other reasons put together.
Avoid head on confrontations or disputes if you can. There are usually no winners in such ego driven fights. The urge to win is sometimes so strong that it clouds our mind and judgment. An obsession by both parties to win usually lead to a major loss for at least one of the parties.
Avoid people that have the tendency to make their problem yours. By appearing helpless or lost, they con you into taking ownership of their problems. You are not a garbage truck that are contracted to remove everybody’s garbage (problems).
Avoid people that promise you the world, but do little. When you rely on an “empty promise” person, he will cause you endless problems. Good advice is to do things yourself if you want to make sure that they are taken care of.
Avoid saying things that could make people feel idiotic or inferior. It might give you a short-term ego boost, but in the long run, you will create an army of enemies that would love to even the score.
Avoid the misconception that people want to hear what is right and just. They want to be fed what they feel suits their current purpose. Give people what they want and you will be richly rewarded. When you help people to achieve their own objectives, they are usually more susceptible to yours.
Balance and decency is in during periods of success. When instant gratification becomes our main objective, we rapidly slide into the abyss of failure and discomfort. The wise man mastered the art of projecting himself into others’ shoes. When you act in a fair and responsible manner you enhance your chances of success many fold.
Be careful and remain grounded when you are faced with obsessive driven individuals. These individuals tend to exaggerate and amplify things in an attempt to buy your support. Certain politicians, clergy and conmen are experts at the art of mass hypnosis. When you are in the presence of passion driven individuals you need to question, probe and take nothing for granted. If you do you will do it at your peril.
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Now I am going to share with you some strategies that you can use to change your self image. They are going to have enormous impacts on your life if you apply them.
The two strategies that I am going to share with you are some of the best things that I have learned in my entire life so far. They really CAN change your life. I want to emphasize their effectiveness is because most people don’t think they can get much value out of a FREE report. But I promise you that as long as you practice what I am going to tell you…
You will get more value out of this report than what you can get from those $5,000 GURU seminars.
I learned both of these strategies from a man that I really admire, Joe Karbo. The book of his that I read is already out of print, it was published in the 1970s. The two strategies are “DAILY DECLARATION” and “SUPER SUGGESTION”. Let’s get right into these.
Two of the most powerful strategies for changing your
Inadequate Self Image and live your fullest potential.
1. THE DAILY DECLARATION TECHNIQUE
The reason that we have an inadequate self image is because of our past conditionings, we have a feeling that we are no-good, and we are not worth of the things that we desire. What “daily declaration” does is to give you new conditioning of self-worth and condition yourself to believe what you want can be yours.
This is similar to affirmation, but much more powerful and much more effective. Here are the steps to help you setup your own daily declarations.
STEP ONE: List every thing that you need Suggestions: New furniture Bills paid Medical insurance New suit Write down everything you need…
STEP TWO: List every thing that you want Suggestions: $1,000,000 in the bank A $500,000 house Rolls Royce 6 month trip around the world Write down everything you want…
REMEMBER: DON’T limit yourself, write EVERYTHING that you truly want.
STEP THREE: List the personal qualities you need or want Suggestions: Ability to concentrate Ability to finish what I start Creativity To be friendly to others Personal confidence Write down every personal quality that you need or want…
STEP FOUR: Turn lists into goals Write all your three lists in the form of goals. Here is Joe Karbo’s check list for writing goals.
1. Do you really want it? 2. Does this goal contradict any other goal I am setting? 3. Any problem with goal cooperation? (would your family be against your goals) 4. Is it positive rather than negative? 5. Is it expressed in total detail? 6. Is it realistic? 7. Is this goal high enough? 8. Am I including the personality factors necessary to goal achievement? 9. Is each goal stated as though already accomplished?
Use this checklist to help you write your goals. Your possible goals will look like this…
Tangible goal: I live in a $500,000 house. Intangible goal: I am calm and cheerful, I share my inner peace and happiness with others.
Then you are ready for “Daily Declaration”
Each morning:
1. Immediately upon awakening, read your list of goals as you prepared. READ ALOUD, if this is not possible, then move your lips as you read silently. This is IMPORTANT. 2. After reading each goal, pause, and visualize in your mind your goals already accomplished.
Each evening:
Just before you go to sleep, repeat the morning process.
That is all you need to do to use the daily declaration to change your self image. As an added bonus, all the goals that you have written down for your daily declaration will come true.
CAUTIONS: 1. Don’t tell anyone about your goals. The minute you start telling others, the energy that you’ve build up is gone. 2. You must do it daily, if you miss a day, the effectiveness will drop dramatically.
Words that turn a man on trigger a specific response in him, both physically and emotionally. What matters to most guys is that his sexual prowess is validated.
He wants to know that you love what he’s doing and that his masculinity is arousing you. There is an almost universal male archetype of the strong sex-god rock star who is able to magically seduce and satisfy women.
Yes, even your brainiac math whiz-type has a fantasy of being THAT guy. When you say these phrases, it’s like you’ve crawled right into his sexual imagination.
Here are a few phrases you can say to him can give him that feeling of sex-god rock star he craves.
You feel so incredible.
Or you can fill in the blank with any kind of adjective there: amazing, big, good, fantastic, hard, huge, awesome. Add in the f-word for a more explicit effect. You get the idea. When you are having intercourse, telling him just how great he feels to you is the ultimate compliment. This validates his prowess and physicality in real-time.
Don’t stop!
It could be any command really: harder, right there, give it to me. Again, feel free to add in curse words and explicit language. Giving him a command during sex to keep doing exactly what he’s doing to you is confident and hot. It’s hot because it shows him just how much you are enjoying it. Men say the number one thing they love during sex is an enthusiastic partner!
I can’t get enough of you OR I’m so turned on by you.
This phrase speaks to his ability to arouse you. That he turns you into a sex-hungry vixen who wants his body all the time. Is that an exaggeration? Sure. But think about how often we unwittingly turn our partners away because we are tired, or have a headache, or just aren’t in the mood. This doesn’t mean you have to be ready to go at it 24/7. However, when you feed his ego that he has the ability to drive you wild with desire you make him feel amazing, especially when you say this phrase outside of the bedroom. The idea that his woman is distracted in the middle of the day by sexy thoughts of him?
Who really have the say and authority in your life (world)? Who is and have been creating your life experiences since early childhood up to now? Many of us have been playing the role of a victim for so many years that we are unable to recall who allocated this (victim) role to us. The question that we need to answer is, “Who is really in charge of your life and your world?” It is important to remember that everyone is a creator in his/her own right. Everyone is thus the ruler of their own world and circumstances. It is vital to understand that it is unacceptable to allow anyone to impose his/her ideas, will and creations on to us and our world. This is how we became the slave of those that enforce their will (scripts) on us and took over our domain.
Innovation Quotes of some of the leaders in investing, business, and finance. Includes quotes about Innovation, being innovative and how innovators work.
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The number one benefit of information technology is that it empowers people to do what they want to do. It lets people be creative. It lets people be productive. It lets people learn things they didn’t think they could learn before, and so in a sense it is all about potential.
The lifeblood of our business is that R&D spend. There’s nothing that flows through a pipe or down a wire or anything else. We have to continuously create new innovation that lets people do something they didn’t think they could do the day before. Steve Ballmer – Technology – Innovation – Products
We can believe that we know where the world should go. But unless we’re in touch with our customers, our model of the world can diverge from reality. There’s no substitute for innovation, of course, but innovation is no substitute for being in touch, either. Steve Ballmer – Innovation – Customers – Belief
Eliminating the tax breaks is not going to keep jobs here in America. We’ve got to make it more attractive to have jobs here in America and for corporations to be here. You’ve got to take the burden off the corporations with a health care system that’s universal, so we’re not at a competitive disadvantage. You’ve got to have a better education system to provide for the highest-tech jobs that we educate our folks for, so we’re not importing 400,000 computer engineers to work in Silicon Valley. And you’ve got to deal with the innovation and infrastructure needs in this country.. tunnels, bridges, etc… which we haven’t done to make us more competitive. Joe Biden – Economy – Taxes – America – Jobs – Companies – Health – Education– Silicon Valley – Innovation
As we go forward, I hope we’re going to continue to use technology to make really big differences in how people live and work. Sergey Brin – Technology – Work – Innovation
Obviously everyone wants to be successful, but I want to be looked back on as being very innovative, very trusted and ethical and ultimately making a big difference in the world. Sergey Brin – Success – Innovation – Truth
Renewable energy is proven technology, the price is dropping, the rest of the world is going that way, that’s where our investment should be going as well. Bob Brown – Technology – Innovation
Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we. George Bushism – America – Funny – Innovation
The Internet is based on a layered, end-to-end model that allows people at each level of the network to innovate free of any central control. By placing intelligence at the edges rather than control in the middle of the network, the Internet has created a platform for innovation. Vinton Cerf – Internet – Innovation
They say a year in the Internet business is like a dog year.. equivalent to seven years in a regular person’s life. In other words, it’s evolving fast and faster. Vinton Cerf – Internet – Business – Innovation
This is the nature of genius, to be able to grasp the knowable even when noone else recognizes that it is present. Deepak Chopra – Instinct – Knowledge – Innovation
The winner is the chef who takes the same ingredients as everyone else and produces the best results. Edward de Bono – Success – Innovation
Well, when you’re trying to create things that are new, you have to be prepared to be on the edge of risk. Michael Eisner – Innovation
When you’re the first person whose beliefs are different from what everyone else believes, you’re basically saying, “I’m right, and everyone else is wrong.” That’s a very unpleasant position to be in. It’s at once exhilarating and at the same time an invitation to be attacked. Larry Ellison – Innovation – Belief – Change
It’s fascinating as we continue to innovate and lead the way in both the application space and the database space. In the very beginning, people said you couldn’t make relational databases fast enough to be commercially viable. I thought we could, and we were the first to do it. But we took tremendous abuse until IBM said, “Oh yeah, this stuff is good.” Larry Ellison – Innovation – Leadership
The real source of wealth and capital in this new era is not material things.. it is the human mind, the human spirit, the human imagination, and our faith in the future. Steve Forbes – Rich – Spirit – Innovation
We are always saying to ourself.. we have to innovate. We got to come up with that breakthrough. In fact, the way software works.. so long as you are using your existing software.. you don’t pay us anything at all. So we’re only paid for breakthroughs. Bill Gates – Products – Technology – Customers – Innovative
I have always loved the competitive forces in this business. You know I certainly have meetings where I spur people on by saying, “Hey, we can do better than this. How come we are not out ahead on that?” Thats what keeps my job one of the most interesting in the world. Bill Gates – Internet – Innovative – Improvement – Competition – Encouragement
It’s not that I’m deliberately trying to shock people all the time. I’m just doing things that are obvious to me. It’s because the public doesn’t understand my way of thinking that they get surprised. Takafumi Horie – Thinking – Innovation
To turn really interesting ideas and fledgling technologies into a company that can continue to innovate for years, it requires a lot of disciplines. Steve Jobs – Skill – Technology – Innovation
Ralph Lauren has always stood for providing quality products, creating worlds and inviting people to take part in our dream. We were the innovators of lifestyle advertisements that tell a story and the first to create stores that encourage customers to participate in that lifestyle. Ralph Lauren – Products – Fashion – Dreams – Retailing – Quality – Creating –Innovation – Advertising – Encouragement – Customers
In my experience, in the real-estate business past success stories are generally not applicable to new situations. We must continually reinvent ourselves, responding to changing times with innovative new business models. Akira Mori – Real Estate – Success – Change – Innovation – Business
By using vertical space more effectively, you not only make more room for greenery but shorter commutes also mean less pressure on CO2 emission problems and by freeing up time now spent on unproductive commuter trains, people would have more options in their lives. Minoru Mori – Real Estate – Innovation – Society – Environmental
An enterprising person is one who comes across a pile of scrap metal and sees the making of a wonderful sculpture. An enterprising person is one who drives through an old decrepit part of town and sees a new housing development. An enterprising person is one who sees opportunity in all areas of life. Jim Rohn – Optimistic – Innovation – Business Opportunity – Life
We don’t have a traditional strategy process, planning process like you’d find in traditional technical companies. It allows Google to innovate very, very quickly, which I think is a real strength of the company. Eric Schmidt – Technology – Companies – Planning – Innovation
Vision is perhaps our greatest strength.. it has kept us alive to the power and continuity of thought through the centuries, it makes us peer into the future and lends shape to the unknown.
It is not the thing believed in that brings an answer to man’s prayer; the answer to prayer results when the individual’s subconscious mind responds to the mental picture or thought in his mind. The law of life is the law of belief, and belief could be summed up briefly as a thought in your mind. As a man thinks, feels, and believes, so is the condition of his mind, body, and circumstances. – Joseph Murphy, “The Power of Your Subconscious Mind”
Free Ebook Download: “The Power of Your Subconscious Mind” by Joseph Murphy
Today’s free Success Manual ebook download is one of the more popular books to delve into the hidden powers inherent in us all – if only we learn to use them – the appropriately titled, “The Power of Your Subconscious Mind” by Dr. Joseph Murphy. This book is another classic and offers real, practical subconscious power plays and master move techniques to employ in all aspects of your life, and in particular, towards achieving Success and Wealth.
Infinite riches are all around you if you will open your mental eyes and behold the treasure house of infinity within you. There is a gold mine within you from which you can extract everything you need to live life gloriously, joyously, and abundantly.
Free Success Ebook: “The Power of Your Subconscious Mind” by Joseph Murphy SUCCESS MANUAL STRATEGIST EDITION 2010
If you simply want to view this ebook reference within your web browser, simply left click the link and your web browser should open the file using a PDF file plugin. You may download the file for viewing offline in your PDF viewer by right-clicking (control-click on a Macintosh) on the following link, then choosing the option that allows you to save or download the item (depending on the browser, this option will be labeled, “Save Target As,” “Save Link Target As,” “Download Link to Disk,” “Download Linked File As,” etc.) to directly download this file to your computer. You can then open the file using your PDF viewer, such as Adobe Acrobat Reader or any other number of PDF file viewers.Adobe Acrobat Reader may be downloaded at no cost by clicking here.
Everything in life has its own natural cycle. Even the best things in life finally served it purpose. Know when to quit. Even the best wave also finally runs its course and crashes on the rocks. Wise people understand this principle and make full use of the summer or growth periods of their lives. The less informed lives as if there are no seasons and his storerooms are always empty.
Everything in life has it peaks and declines. Wisdom is to know when to ride the wave and when to get out of the game. The fool stubbornly clings to things long after their expiry dates. There is a time to join and a time to walk away in life. Wisdom is to know when to accept and when to reject.
Everything in life works in cycles. You need to detect when a project or relationship is busy moving into a winter or dormant period. The fool invests in stocks that are ready to enter its winter period. The less informed projects a cold, winter personality and expects people to respond to him in a warm friendly manner. If you are prepared to pay the price in full and invest the time, money and effort needed you can move almost anything from a winter period into a summer or growth period.
Express and show your appreciation more often and see what enormous difference it can make in the lives of people. The rumour that has been around that appreciation cannot be experienced when you become older or when your hair turns grey is just an urban legend. You never grow too old, rich or fat to enjoy and appreciation. It is something that you obtain free of charge and that will not bankrupt you if you hand it out in generously proportions. You can freely use this powerful tool on parents, gardeners, strangers and even intimate friends.
Failure and success also have an expiry date. Keep this in mind while you are playing the game of life. Even your worst failures will also finally end. Think back how the most difficult periods in your life is nothing more than a faded memory.
Failure can often be traced to a lack of priorities. If you fail to set priorities in any area of your life you are setting yourself up for failure in such areas.
Failure can only hurt you if you make a conscious choice to view it as a disaster and not a lesson. Once you labelled failure with the “disaster” or “failure” label, it begins to erode your soul. Champions never create or facilitate these failure monsters in their minds. They know that they hold the key to its power in their hands. They never view any failure or mistake as final and irreversible.
When someone is acting suspiciously at an airport, subway station or other public space, how can law enforcement officers determine whether he’s up to no good?
The ability to effectively detect deception is crucial to public safety, particularly in the wake of renewed threats against the U.S. following the killing of Osama bin Laden.
UCLA professor of psychology R. Edward Geiselman has been studying these questions for years and has taught investigative interviewing techniques to detectives and intelligence officers from the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security, the Marines, the Los Angeles police and sheriff’s departments, and numerous international agencies.
He and three former UCLA undergraduates – Sandra Elmgren, Chris Green and Ida Rystad – analyzed some 60 studies on detecting deception and have conducted original research on the subject. They present their findings and their guidance for how to conduct effective training programs for detecting deception in the current issue of the American Journal of Forensic Psychiatry, which is published this week.
Geiselman and his colleagues have identified several indicators that a person is being deceptive. The more reliable red flags that indicate deceit, Geiselman said, include:
When questioned, deceptive people generally want to say as little as possible. Geiselman initially thought they would tell an elaborate story, but the vast majority give only the bare-bones. Studies with college students, as well as prisoners, show this. Geiselman’s investigative interviewing techniques are designed to get people to talk.
• Although deceptive people do not say much, they tend to spontaneously give a justification for what little they are saying, without being prompted.
• They tend to repeat questions before answering them, perhaps to give themselves time to concoct an answer.
• They often monitor the listener’s reaction to what they are saying. “They try to read you to see if you are buying their story,” Geiselman said.
• They often initially slow down their speech because they have to create their story and monitor your reaction, and when they have it straight “will spew it out faster,” Geiselman said. Truthful people are not bothered if they speak slowly, but deceptive people often think slowing their speech down may look suspicious. “Truthful people will not dramatically alter their speech rate within a single sentence,” he said.
• They tend to use sentence fragments more frequently than truthful people; often, they will start an answer, back up and not complete the sentence.
• They are more likely to press their lips when asked a sensitive question and are more likely to play with their hair or engage in other “grooming” behaviors. Gesturing toward one’s self with the hands tends to be a sign of deception; gesturing outwardly is not.
• Truthful people, if challenged about details, will often deny that they are lying and explain even more, while deceptive people generally will not provide more specifics.
• When asked a difficult question, truthful people will often look away because the question requires concentration, while dishonest people will look away only briefly, if at all, unless it is a question that should require intense concentration.
If dishonest people try to mask these normal reactions to lying, they would be even more obvious, Geiselman said. Among the techniques he teaches to enable detectives to tell the truth from lies are:
Have people tell their story backwards, starting at the end and systematically working their way back. Instruct them to be as complete and detailed as they can. This technique, part of a “cognitive interview” Geiselman co-developed with Ronald Fisher, a former UCLA psychologist now at Florida International University, “increases the cognitive load to push them over the edge.” A deceptive person, even a “professional liar,” is “under a heavy cognitive load” as he tries to stick to his story while monitoring your reaction.
• Ask open-ended questions to get them to provide as many details and as much complete information as possible (“Can you tell me more about…?” “Tell me exactly…”). First ask general questions, and only then get more specific.
• Don’t interrupt, let them talk and use silent pauses to encourage them to talk.
If someone in an airport or other public space is behaving suspiciously and when approached exhibits a majority of the more reliable red flags, Geiselman recommends pulling him or her aside for more questioning. If there are only one or two red flags, he would probably let them go.
Geiselman tested techniques for telling the truth from deception with hundreds of UCLA students, and the studies he and his co-authors analyzed involved thousands of people.
Detecting deception is difficult, Geiselman said, but training programs can be effective. Programs must be extensive, with an education phase followed by numerous video examples, and a phase in which those being trained judge video clips and simulate real-world interviewing. Training should be conducted on multiple days over a period of a week or two.
“People can learn to perform better at detecting deception,” Geiselman said. “However, police departments usually do not provide more than a day of training for their detectives, if that, and the available research shows that you can’t improve much in just a day.”
When Geiselman conducted training with Marine intelligence officers, he found that they were impressively accurate in detecting deception even before the training began. In contrast, the average college student is only 53 percent accurate without training, and with abbreviated training, “we often make them worse,” he said.
“Without training, many people think they can detect deception, but their perceptions are unrelated to their actual ability. Quick, inadequate training sessions lead people to over-analyze and to do worse than if they go with their gut reactions.”
Geiselman is currently developing a training program that he hopes will effectively compress the learning curve and thus will serve to replicate years of experience.
The cognitive interview that Geiselman and Fisher developed works well with both criminal suspects and eyewitnesses of crimes. Geiselman thinks these techniques are likely to work in non-crime settings as well, but said additional research should be done in this area.
In the next year, Geiselman plans to teach police detectives techniques for investigative interviewing and spotting deception through the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Rural Policing Institute for underserved police departments. He says this will be a perfect fit for him because he comes from Culver, Ind., a small town that has fewer residents than UCLA has psychology majors.
Later this month, Geiselman will travel to Hong Kong to provide training in investigative interviewing to the Independent Commission Against Corruption.
An instructional course Geiselman taught on investigative interviewing before the second Iraq war resulted in cognitive interviewing techniques that were used to interdict some insurgent activity in Iraq, perhaps saving many lives, he was later informed.
Geiselman also has worked with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department on effective techniques for interviewing children who may have been molested and has interviewed crime victims for police departments around the country in murder cases gone cold. His research has been funded by the U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
Scientists in US have found a link between aggressive behaviour and sexual arousal.
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Violent behaviour in mice has been tracked to neurons within a part of the brain associated with sex.
Researchers discovered that sex and violence are intertwined in mice. A tiny patch of cells buried deep within a male”s brain determines whether it fights or mates, and there is good reason to believe humans possess a similar circuit.
The study shows that when these neurons are quieted, mice ignore intruding males they would otherwise attack.
Yet when the cells are activated, mice assault inanimate objects, and even females they ought to court.
“We really don”t know which part of the brain went wrong in those mice. Consequently it”s tough to make sense of that behaviour,” says Dayu Lin, a neuroscientist now at New York University and an author of the study, who began searching for the seat of aggression in mice while working with David Anderson at the California Institute of Technology inPasadena.
As part of the study, the researchers exposed male mice to consecutive encounters with other intruding male and female mice.
They then examined the brain areas activated by the encounters by labelling brain cells with a fluorescent tag that can distinguish recently active neurons. Surprisingly, neurons within a region called the ventromedial hypothalamus (VMH) snapped into action during fights – but also during sex.
Perplexed, the team implanted male mice withelectrodes capable of measuring single cells in this area of the brain and watched what happened when mice fought or mated. Most of the neurons fired specifically during sex or bouts of violence, but a handful fired during both of these seemingly opposing behaviours.
The researchers next infected neurons in this region with a virus that inserts a gene that renders them responsive to blue light – a technique called optogenetics. With an optic fibre implanted into the brains of these mice, Lin and Anderson could fire these neurons on command.
When they did so, male mice wasted little time attacking other intruding males. Activating neurons in the aggression centre also provoked assaults on castrated males, whom males would usually ignore, as well as anesthetized animals and even an inflated laboratory glove.
Switching on these neurons also drove males to attack females – but only up to a point. When males first encountered a female, activating the neurons sent them into attack mode. However, if sex had already ensued, the researchers could not elicit the mice to attack.
“It”s kind of in its own world. It doesn”t listen to anything else,” Lin says. However, activating the aggression circuit post-coitus provoked a swift attack on the female.
Quieting the aggression centre also stopped mice from acting on violent urges. Animals expressing a gene in these cells that silences them didn”t attack intruding males, at though their sexual appetites remained.
Lin and Anderson hypothesize that the entanglement of brain circuits involved in sex and violence could help mice to respond appropriately to intruders, whether male or female.
They suggest that the neurons activated by sex suppress the urge to lash out against an unknown female.
This grandfather of all people-skills books was first published in 1937. It was an overnight hit, eventually selling 15 million copies. How to Win Friends and Influence People is just as useful today as it was when it was first published, because Dale Carnegie had an understanding of human nature that will never be outdated. Financial success, Carnegie believed, is due 15 percent to professional knowledge and 85 percent to “the ability to express ideas, to assume leadership, and to arouse enthusiasm among people.” He teaches these skills through underlying principles of dealing with people so that they feel important and appreciated. He also emphasizes fundamental techniques for handling people without making them feel manipulated. Carnegie says you can make someone want to do what you want them to by seeing the situation from the other person’s point of view and “arousing in the other person an eager want.” You learn how to make people like you, win people over to your way of thinking, and change people without causing offence or arousing resentment. For instance, “let the other person feel that the idea is his or hers,” and “talk about your own mistakes before criticizing the other person.” Carnegie illustrates his points with anecdotes of historical figures, leaders of the business world, and everyday folks.
The first self-help book I ever read was “How to win friends and influence people” by Dale Carnegie. I just finished school and was looking for an inspirational book in a tiny, poorly stocked book store in Windhoek in Namibia. I came across Dale Carnegie’s book in the scant selection of books on a shelf right at the back of this dusty store. I unashamedly admit today that although this was the first “motivational” book that I ever owned when it still remains one of the top ten books I ever read when it came to practical advice regarding people skills. Many of you might have read the book or still have a copy on a shelf in your library. I would suggest that you read it again. It will refresh your memory on one of the most important principles when it comes to compassion. It will remind you that you can make more progress in all areas of your life if you develop a sincere interest in others. Dale indicates in this book that you can make more friends in two months by developing an awareness of the interests of others than you could achieve in two years using any other method.
We live in small boxes today surrounded by massive walls to keep intruders out that might dare to enter our comfort zones. We shout at each other over these walls and only on very rare occasions lower our draw bridge and venture out or invite anyone into our domain. Most of us go around with our defence shield up and remain on guard twenty four hours a day. The political climate that we live and work in might also have something to do with this unhealthy behaviour. We need to open up and become more vulnerable if we want to escape the deadly ruts that many of us fell in over the years. Some of us feel lonely and need friends, companionship and fun, but we often forgo on these desires because of our fears and warped self-interest. Everything revolves around us and our own dreams, desires and choices. We look at life, people and places through a self-interest one way mirrors. Our interests always come first and the interests of others never really feature at all. We have this “What is in it for me” attitudes that fail to address the needs of anyone else.
When last did you manage to get yourself out of the way long enough to listen and experience any human being, family member or friend with an open mind? Many of us developed a sick habit of judging everyone. We endlessly scan people for flaws or potential threats. We fail to listen to them when they talk. We listen to the first few words of their sentences and then jump to conclusions. We look at people through eyes that fail to see the pain or desperation in them. We listen to what people say and fail to read the subliminal call for help that they are possibly to proud or ashamed to express. Do we care enough to really hear what our partner or children are telling us? Are we alert enough to feel the emotions of the person that we are communicating with? I think we all of us might have some work to do when it comes to mastering the art of putting the interest of others first.
When last did you compliment anyone on anything? We as parents tend to only give attention to our children when they are sick or when they did something wrong. We as partners only become interested enough when our relationships begin to fall apart. We fail to notice the cracks and peeling paint in our relationships. We are so busy with our own agendas, self-interests and objectives that the pain and frustration experienced by our partner bounces off our egotistical shield. Can you see what major difference a shift in attention can make in your life? Can you accept that life is not only about you and your plans and goals? Can you understand that the formula for success is that your success if virtually guaranteed if you help enough other people to achieve their own goals and dreams?
So I suggest that you shut up the next time anyone talk to you and listen carefully what is said and what is not expressed verbally. God supplied you with two ears and one mouth. You must listen more and talk less. Put yourself in others’ shoes and ask yourself if you really know the story of the person that you are talking to. Stop jumping to conclusions and stop judging people on hearsay and second hand data. Stop forcing people to communicate to you through their history. Start each day with a new clean slate. We have so many prejudices and perceptions about everything that is cast in stone that it became impossible to see thing as they are in the moment. Set yourself free by putting the interest of others first for a while.
People have long dreamt of living in paradise, but for most it’s somewhere just out of reach. Billionaire Sir. Richard Branson has tried to do the impossible and create Utopia on his 74 acre private island called Necker, which is located in the middle of the Caribbean Sea. Enjoying this garden of Eden comes at a price, one weeks stay costs over £280,000. This is the story of the guests who come to stay on the island and those that serve them, working tirelessly to sell the Caribbean dream. They have to battle to keep nature at bay and attend to the guests every whim.
Explain to your children that it takes courage to admit faults, mistakes and poor choices. It is not a weakness to admit that you made a mistake or failed completing something successfully. Making mistakes is a part of our learning process. It is a false notion that admitting mistakes will lower the image that other hold of you. Understand that mistakes are part of life and not the false perception of perfection. The freedom brought about by the courage you display will remove the false perception that you need to live up to a specific universal standard. Mistakes are our teachers that teach us via our mistakes and poor judgement. Nobody that ever walked this earth never made mistakes or achieved perfect grades all the time.
If you attempt to hide your mistakes people will sooner or later stop believing in you. Mistakes almost always come out and tarnish the credibility of the mistake maker. Telling it like it is might initially be uncomfortable and painful, but your honesty will at the same time earn the respect and admiration of those you work and play with. Admitting mistakes set you free while hiding behind lies turn you into a person that will have to continue to tell lies in an attempt to protect what you hope people think of you
PARENTS
Make it easy for your children to tell the truth. It you blow a fuse or induce fear and guilt you will force your child to hide and camouflage his/her mistakes.
Fall down seven times. Stand up eight. (Japanese proverb.)
Resilience is one of the greatest survival skills. It helps you both psychologically and physically in the long-run. While it can’t make your problems go away, it can help you endure any sort of hardship – like traumatic events, loss, illness, disaster, the death of a loved one, or any other setback or challenge.
Resilience is about enlisting your inner strengths, and harnessing your healthy coping mechanisms, so that you keep functioning without getting over-anxious, depressed, overwhelmed or apathetic.
Here are 8 tips to help you learn how to bounce back when some misfortune strikes, or when you are faced with a challenge:
Maintain your hopefulness. Even though the picture may look grim for now, think back to all the challenges that you have encountered and overcome in your life so far, to gain hope and optimism that a solution will be found and remember that any wound, no matter how big it seems right now, will heal in time.
Learn to be more stoical about life. Accept that unwanted events, sudden changes in circumstances are a part of life, and instead of clinging to your belief of how things “ought to be” learn to adapt, tolerate and even welcome your problems. Sometimes, problems are teachers and help us grow and become hardier and wiser.
Take some distance from the event, misfortune or challenge and try to view it as happening to someone else. How would you help that person cope? What would you advise him/her to do? Follow your own advice. There are many angles from which you can view a situation. Taking some distance, becoming an observer rather than a participant may give you the strength but also the problem-solving resources to overcome your challenge. Resilience requires flexibility, not holding onto rigidly to only one point of view.
Reach out to your friends or other support groups. You don’t have to go it alone. A friend’s advice, help or even willing ear or shoulder to cry on may help you re-organize better your inner resources. Feeling connected helps empower people in times of hardship. Offering help to others does the same. Help others in need, you will get empowered as much as they!
Take appropriate action.You don’t have to know the whole solution, you don’t have to examine all the parameters before you take some action in a positive direction. Small steps can help you greatly to feel that you are gaining control of the situation. Play it by ear for a while, test what works and what doesn’t.
Remember to laugh. Every challenge, every misfortune has its comical side. Use humor to lighten up. Think of how comedians can describe a tragic situation in ways that make you laugh. It’s a great coping mechanism, a relaxing break from serious thinking, worrying or grieving.
Don’t neglect yourself. Take good care of your nutrition, sleep, and home environment. Create relaxation time, see friends, do things that please you, like relaxing hobbies, or going to the gym.
Maintain your vision and sense of purpose. Setbacks create havoc, sometimes, emotional upheaval and tend to require all of our attention. We tend to obsess about our problem, as if it’s the only thing going on in our lives. It’s good to continue to keep in mind your long-term personal goals, visions, the things that make your life meaningful and focus back on all these areas that provided joy, hope and a sense of accomplishment before the upsetting event. It will help create a sense of balance in your life.
Finally, remember that “this too shall pass”. Repeating this often to yourself will have a soothing and healing effect and boost your resilience.
Being exceptional at something is often attributed to one’s genetics. Talent is passed down from parents, grandparents, it seems, whether that’s musical or artistic skill, being good with numbers or a dab-hand with a pipette. No doubt there are significant genetic factors involved, but there are almost certainly environmental factors in the mix too. Perhaps the two work synergistically so that expression of unique genes allows a talent to develop well if it is suitably nurtured.
However, some researchers believe that talent is learned and earned through extended and intense practice of a skill rather than being an innate expression of genes that would otherwise lie dormant. This notion is nowhere more succinctly encapsulated than in the 10,000 hours rule posited by psychologist Anders Ericsson of Florida State University, and made famous by author Malcolm Gladwell in his book “Outliers”.
In essence Ericsson’s theory suggests that sufficient practice in a particular skill can take anyone to the level of proficiency equivalent to that heard in the playing of a top concert pianist. Gladwell wholeheartedly encompasses this notion pointing out that great sportspeople, business leaders and performers all got their 10,000 hours practice in their particular art early in life. This helped them to excel precociously, allowing them to shine while their duller contemporaries were still grappling with the basics.
Gladwell cites the 10,000 hours The Beatles played in Hamburg, between 1960 and 1964. This opportunity gave them something few musicians had at the time leading to their ultimate greatness as musicians and song writers. He cites Microsoft founder Bill Gates. Gates is an examplar partly because he had access to a computer in 1968 at the age of 13 and spent 10,000 hours programming before the vast majority of his peers even knew what a computer was. There are 10,000-hour concert pianists, violin virtuosi, artists, and synthetic chemists too.
I’ve been writing professionally for more than two decades and playing guitar since age 12. Now, I’m not claiming to be concert level in either writing or guitar playing, but surely I’ve passed my 10,000 hours. My readers and listeners might suggest I still need another 10,000, and Ericsson might agree because the 10,000-hour rule is not what it seems.
“I might emphasize how deliberate practice is different from just doing or engaging in activities in the domain,” he told me. “I might disagree with some of Gladwell’s examples as they do not all of them illustrate sustained focus on deliberate practice.” He added that, “In music, people do not seem to win international competitions with less than 25,000 hours of solitary practice; most of that deliberate.” So, Erricson’s own rule is that thousands of hours of dedicated “practice”, and not simply everyday doing of an activity, is the important point.
10,000 hours is about 90 minutes practice every day for twenty years. Which might explain why the average piano-learning child doesn’t make it to concert level. Three hours a day gets you there within a decade, so start at age 10 and you’re done before you leave your teens. Unfortunately, passing the 10,000 hour point exactly is not going to be a skills tipping point. Learning and expertise are gradual processes, skills evolve with practice, talent grows. There will be a vast range of time periods over which each individual reaches their peak of proficiency, their concert level you might say, in whatever field.
Indeed, Ericsson confirmed that 10,000 hours isn’t necessarily enough for some skills. “I tend to emphasize that if there are some people who are gifted even they need to put in 10,000 hours in many domains, like music, which leads one to question what would happen if any motivated person embarked on that path,” he told me. Could anyone become highly talented simply through achieved thousands of hours of dedicated practice? This brings us full circle to the nature versus nurture argument…unfortunately.
Perhaps scientifically speaking, 10,000 hours is purely a metaphor for “lots of practice”. If you want to achieve “concert level” whether at the piano or at the laboratory bench, 10,000 hours is going to get you close to that goal. That’s a lot of practice whichever way you play.
DOWNLOAD AT THE LINK BELOW – GIVE YOUR FRIEND A GIFT THAT CONTINUE GIVING. PROVIDE HIM/HER WITH THE DOWNLOAD LINK TO THIS LIFE CHANGING SUPPORT SYSTEM. IDEAL WHEN DOWNLOADED ONTO YOUR MOBILE PHONE
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EXAMPLE OF A WISDOM FILE
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A good friend is like a good investment. To make good long-term friends be a friend. Friends become a shield in troubled times. Friendship is not a one-sided deal. There are people that claim that they are your friends, but they are often just stranger exploiting you. Several of the friends you make during your lifetime will stick a knife in your back the first time your friendship is really tested.
Working with clients every day has made us realize that so many of us have problems with having healthy boundaries, setting limits and saying no. Here’s an article from Barbara about some of the ways in which you can take better care of yourself by having healthy boundaries and setting limits. Enjoy!
“Good ways to say no, disagree and set limits
by best selling author – Barbara Berger
I’ve discovered that it’s usually possible to say no, set limits and disagree with other people if you can say it in the right way. (Unless of course the other person is drunk, violent or out of control. Then the best thing you can do is remove yourself from the situation as fast as possible.)
But in general, many of our problems in communicating with other people in ordinary, everyday situations arise from the fact that we never learned how to communicate in a good way and be assertive. When you learn to do this, you will find it’s much easier to disagree with other people, say no, take good care of yourself, and set limits.
So how does this work?
Whenever someone comes at your with their stuff, here’s a good way to deal with them. You reply with sentences that are made up of two parts. In the first part of the sentence, you acknowledge that you heard the other person and in the second part of the sentence, you deliver your response. So your reply goes something like:
– I can understand that you feel that way – and this is really not something for me.
– Yes I can relate to what you’re saying – and I’m really not interested.
– Thank you for thinking of me – and no thanks.
This is a skilful way to deal with whatever people are saying or asking because you begin by acknowledging that you hear them and that you understand what they’re saying (and even appreciate their concern). And then once you let the person know that, you can come with your response which is your no or your disagreement or you setting limits.
Here are some more examples:
Example one:
Other person: “Barbara, we’re really counting on your coming to our little get-together on Friday. It will be good for you to get out and meet some new people.”
My response: “Thank you so much for thinking of me and I can’t make it that evening.”
Other person: “But Barbara, we’re counting on your coming.”
My response: “I really appreciate you’re thinking of me and I can’t come that evening.”
If the person keeps on, you just keep repeating what you said. Sooner or later the other person will give up.
Example two:
Other person: “Barbara, I think you should take that job, it would be good for you.”
My response: “Yes I can relate to what you’re saying and it’s simply not for me.”
Other person: “But Barbara, can’t you see what a great job opportunity this would be for you. You could learn so much.”
My response: “Yes thank you for thinking of me and it’s simply not for me.”
When you take care of yourself assertively in this way, it’s good to remember the other person probably won’t agree with you and doesn’t have to. Being assertive doesn’t have anything to do with winning arguments or being right. Being assertive is about expressing your point of view and taking care of yourself. It’s not about winning and losing. So be willing to hear and acknowledge the other person’s point of view (“you could be right”) and then clearly state your own position (“and it’s not for me”). When you have stated your position, don’t expect the other person to agree with you. He or she probably won’t. In fact expect the other person to argue with you or ask you again for whatever they are trying to convince you of. Again, when you have heard what they say, you can just repeat your own position or point of view again, kindly but firmly. You don’t have to come up with new explanations or arguments, just repeat what you said before. “Thank you so much for thinking of me, I really appreciate it, and I can’t come Friday evening.” Just stay in your own business and repeat your own position. Remember – you are responsible for your feelings and opinions about the matter. The other person is responsible for his or her feelings and opinions about the matter. Each person has a right to his/her feelings and opinions. You don’t have to justify, offer explanations or find excuses for your choices, opinions, beliefs or behaviour (You might want to explain but the important point to remember is that you don’t have to. You have the right to be you!)
So to summarize, here are the main points to keep in mind:
– State your position as clearly as you can.
– Be kind but firm.
– Don’t expect the other person to agree with you.
– Be willing to hear the other person’s point of view.
– Don’t be afraid to repeat yourself, kindly but firmly.
– Don’t attack or criticize the other person.
– Stay in your own business.
– You are responsible for your feelings about the matter.
– The other person is responsible for his/her feelings about the matter.
– You don’t need to offer explanations or excuses for your choices, opinions or behaviour.
– Show the other person you hear them and understand what they are saying.
– Don’t make the other person wrong just because he/she doesn’t agree with you.
– Don’t make yourself wrong (or criticize or excuse yourself).
Here are some more some more good ways to acknowledge the other person’s point of view while maintaining your own rights, position, and point of view. You can say things like:
– I can understand that you feel that way and in my experience, I find that…
– You could be right and I prefer to do it this way….
– I can understand your point of view and I would rather not …
– I really appreciate your feelings (point of view) in this matter and I still…
– I am inclined to agree with you and I am going to decline your kind offer…
– I sympathize with you and I would rather…
– I appreciate your thinking of me and the answer is no.
And finally, learning to say no, set limits and be assertive like this takes practice. It’s not something one learns in a day or two, it really does take practice. In the beginning, it can often help to write things down so you can remind yourself of what you want to say when you know you’re going to be talking to someone you have difficulty saying no to.
And for beginners, when someone comes at you and catches you off guard with a request and you’re not sure how to respond – another good technique is to ask for a “time out”. So to go back to example one, here’s how a “time-out” works:
Example one:
Other person: “Barbara, we’re really counting on your coming to our little get-together on Friday. It will be good for you to get out and meet some new people.”
My response: “I really appreciate your thinking of me; let me look at my calendar and I’ll get back to you tomorrow.”
Other person: “But Barbara, we’re counting on your coming.”
My response: “I really appreciate you’re thinking of me and I’ll get back to you tomorrow.”
By postponing your response in this way, you give yourself time to plan how to deal with the situation assertively when you call back and respond.
Barbara talks about taking better care of yourself on Reality Spirituality radio
You can also hear Barbara talking about how we can take better care of ourselves on Rebecca Norrington’s talk show from Los Angeles.
The feeling of personal power is key in all interpersonal relationships. Many people are not very clear about what assertiveness is and how it differs from aggressiveness. One main difference is that aggressiveness is about power over other people, while assertiveness is about being able to assert our rights and stand up for our thoughts and feelings while respecting the rights, thoughts and feelings of others.
Passive people habitually submit to other people’s dominance play, do not have clear boundaries, and are constantly being invaded by others. They tend to avoid conflict by not expressing their thoughts and feelings, avoid any sort of confrontations even when their basic rights are involved, which leaves them feeling – and being – victimized. At the same time, anger builds up in them, so when they do speak up, they tend to do it in an aggressive, attacking and blaming way rather than a constructive, solution-oriented, assertive way.
Aggressive people, on the other hand, attempt to impose their will on others, do not respect other people’s boundaries and are invasive and coercive. Aggressive people may get their way with some people at first, but in the long-run they alienate others, create a lot of stress in their social, family and work environment, experience a lot of failures in all interpersonal relationships and end up having no social support and feeling isolated and victimized themselves.
Somewhere in the middle stands assertiveness which is a way of communicating and behaving that respects the rights of all relationship partners. Assertiveness requires honesty, directness, self-confidence, knowing what your rights are and being able to defend them in positive, constructive ways. Learning to act more assertively will increase your sense of efficacy, of having an impact on your environment, your chances of having honest, straight-forward relationships, your chances of getting your needs met, will improve your ability to make your own decisions and get more satisfaction out of life.
Assertiveness is based on two important traits: relatively good self-confidence and good communication skills.
Self-confidence is built through our experience of effectiveness in the world. This effectiveness can be measured in many areas of experience, like academic or professional achievement, physical or athletic abilities, social and personal relationships, etc. Self-confidence is built from the inside out, meaning that we don’t expect others to provide us with self-confidence but we build it by giving ourselves credit for our strengths, virtues and accomplishments.
Good communication skills involve being a good listener as well being a good speaker and being able to appraise a situation in a cool-headed, non-defensive or fearful manner. Assertive communicators have developed some specific skills for standing up and speaking up for themselves. They have fewer conflicts in their dealings with others, and their needs are more frequently met, so they feel happier and more in control of life situations. Most people desiring to become more assertive start from a passive behavioral baseline and require quite a bit of practice in assertive communication skills before they can see any change in the power balance between them and other people. So start slowly in the beginning, and gradually practice more and more assertive communication skills.
Here are a few tips on what communication skills you need to develop and practice:
Maintain eye contact when you are in a conversation. This way you communicate a self-confident and honest message.
Be specific and direct about what you want, think or feel. Practice making statements like “I want to..”, or “I think…”. Learn to say “no”.
Use your body language to emphasize your words. When making a demand or a request, stand up straight and speak in a loud and clear voice.
Don’t get personal or over-emotional when you feel your rights are being violated. Comment on the person’s behavior rather than attacking the person.
Use “I” statements, instead of “you” statements that sound like accusations. Feel free to say, “I don’t like it when you yell at me” or “I don’t appreciate not being treated fairly”. Asserting yourself this way balances the power between you and the other person. Once you comment on the inappropriate behavior, don’t forget to request the more appropriate behavior that you would like to take its place, like, “I would like you to be on time when we have a date”.
Learn to reward people for positive behavior and establish a positive cooperative spirit in all interpersonal relationships.
Choose the right time and the right place for resolving issues, making sure that the other person is emotionally willing to start a conversation. Otherwise, whatever you have to say may be forgotten or overlooked.
Express your opinions honestly and do not hesitate to have a different opinion from that of other people even if those people are significant to you or in a position of authority – you still are entitled to your own opinions. “Own” your message, acknowledging that you opinion comes from your own perception of the situation, and your own frame of reference. If no agreement can be found that respects the opinion of both parties, then you can “agree to disagree” on the specific issue.
Practice leadership skills like making overtures to other people, offering positive suggestions to peers and colleagues in a positive, friendly, cooperative spirit, and supporting your own opinions, suggestions and proposals with clear and convincing arguments.
Ask for feedback. Encourage others to be clear, direct and specific in their feedback to you. This way, many misunderstandings in the conversation can be easily resolved and you also convey the message that you equally respect the opinion, feelings and rights of others as much as you respect your own.
Reward yourself every time you manage to overcome your fears and habitual passive reactions and are able to formulate an assertive response, regardless of its effect on the other person or the situation.
The important thing is that you keep practicing and reinforcing your assertive communication skills, rather than your initial effectiveness. It may be a new way of communicating for you, so it may take some time before it feels natural, but the more you practice your assertive communication skills, the more confidence you will gain and you will find out that not only is it really easy, but it’s also very effective.
Wish you were better/smarter/stronger/faster? Sure, hard work helps, but the truth is, your self perception may be getting in the way.
We all form our own realities, and those realities aren’t perfect. Your self perception can be very limiting, and shaking up your notion of the world can do wonders for your productivity, creativity, and happiness. Here’s how to recalibrate your reality.
Remember the last time you lost confidence after your boss was disappointed in your work – or maybe you were stood up by a friend? You second-guessed yourself after that, and ultimately your work or personal life suffered.
The idea behind recalibrating your reality is pretty simple. When you get locked into a view of the world you get stuck in routines and you lose sight of different viewpoints. Recalibrating that view can help you solve problems, win arguments, and even be happier.
But how do we actually do it? We’ll take a look at a few of the different methods you can use to recalibrate your perception of the world and yourself, but first, we have to understand how we perceive the world to begin with.
The Basics of How We Perceive the World
READ MORE AT THE LINK BELOW – STUNNING AND LIFE CHANGING
Hint: don’t read this article if you are offended by the F-word 😉
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In my life, I have given a fuck about many people and many things. I have also not given a fuck about many people and many things. And those fucks I have not given have made all the difference.
People often say the key to confidence and success in life is to simply “not give a fuck.” Indeed, we often refer to the strongest, most admirable people we know in terms of their lack of fucks given. Like “Oh, look at Susie working weekends again, she doesn’t give a fuck.” Or “Did you hear that Tom called the company president an asshole and still got a raise anyway? Holy shit, that dude does not give a fuck.” Or “Jason got up and ended his date with Cindy after 20 minutes. He said he wasn’t going to listen to her bullshit anymore. Man, that guy does not give a fuck.”
Chances are you know somebody in your life who, at one time or another, did not give a fuck and went on to accomplish amazing feats. Perhaps there was a time in your life where you simply did not give a fuck and excelled to some extraordinary heights. I know for myself, quitting my day job in finance after only six weeks and telling my boss that I was going to start selling dating advice online ranks pretty high up there in my own “didn’t give a fuck” hall of fame. Same with deciding to sell most of my possessions and move to South America. Fucks given? None. Just went and did it.
Now, while not giving a fuck may seem simple on the surface, it’s a whole new bag of burritos under the hood. I don’t even know what that sentence means, but I don’t give a fuck. A bag of burritos sounds awesome, so let’s just go with it.
The point is, most of us struggle throughout our lives by giving too many fucks in situations where fucks do not deserve to be given. We give a fuck about the rude gas station attendant who gave us too many nickels. We give a fuck when a show we liked was canceled on TV. We give a fuck when our coworkers don’t bother asking us about our awesome weekend. We give a fuck when it’s raining and we were supposed to go jogging in the morning.
Fucks given everywhere. Strewn about like seeds in mother-fucking spring time. And for what purpose? For what reason? Convenience? Easy comforts? A pat on the fucking back maybe?
This is the problem, my friend.
Because when we give too many fucks, when we choose to give a fuck about everything, then we feel as though we are perpetually entitled to feel comfortable and happy at all times, that’s when life fucks us.
Indeed, the ability to reserve our fucks for only the most fuckworthy of situations would surely make life a hell of a lot easier. Failure would be less terrifying. Rejection less painful. Unpleasant necessities more pleasant and the unsavory shit sandwiches a little bit more savory. I mean, if we could only give a few less fucks, or a few more consciously-directed fucks, then life would feel pretty fucking easy.
What we don’t realize is that there is a fine art of non-fuck-giving. People aren’t just born not giving a fuck. In fact, we’re born giving way too many fucks. Ever watch a kid cry his eyes out because his hat is the wrong shade of blue? Exactly. Fuck that kid.
Developing the ability to control and manage the fucks you give is the essence of strength and integrity. We must craft and hone our lack of fuckery over the course of years and decades. Like a fine wine, our fucks must age into a fine vintage, only uncorked and given on the most special fucking occasions.
This may sound easy. But it is not. Most of us, most of the time, get sucked in by life’s mean trivialities, steamrolled by its unimportant dramas; we live and die by the sidenotes and distractions and vicissitudes that suck the fucks out of us like Sasha Grey in the middle of a gangbang.
This is no way to live, man. So stop fucking around. Get your fucks together. And here, allow me to fucking show you.
SUBTLETY #1: Not giving a Fuck does not mean being indifferent; It means being comfortable with being different
This is misguided. There’s absolutely nothing admirable or confident about indifference. People who are indifferent are lame and scared. They’re couch potatoes and internet trolls. In fact, indifferent people often attempt to be indifferent because in reality they actually give too many fucks. They are afraid of the world and the repercussions of their own choices. Therefore, they make none. They hide in a grey emotionless pit of their own making, self-absorbed and self-pitied, perpetually distracting themselves from this unfortunate thing demanding their time and energy called life.When most people envision giving no fucks whatsoever, they envision a kind of perfect and serene indifference to everything, a calm that weathers all storms.
My mother was recently screwed out of a large chunk of money by a close friend of hers. Had I been indifferent, I would have shrugged my shoulders, sipped some mocha and downloaded another season of The Wire. Sorry mom.
But instead, I was indignant. I was pissed off. I said, “No, screw that mom, we’re going to lawyer the fuck up and go after this asshole. Why? Because I don’t give a fuck. I will ruin this guy’s life if I have to.”
This illustrates the first subtlety about not giving a fuck. When we say, “Damn, watch out, Mark Manson just don’t give a fuck,” we don’t mean that Mark Manson doesn’t care about anything; on the contrary, what we mean is that Mark Manson doesn’t care about adversity in the face of his goals, he doesn’t care about pissing some people off to do what he feels is right or important or noble. What we mean is that Mark Manson is the type of guy who would write about himself in third person and use the word ‘fuck’ in an article 127 different times just because he thought it was the right thing to do. He just doesn’t give a fuck.
This is what is so admirable — no, not me, dumbass — the overcoming adversity stuff. The staring failure in the face and shoving your middle finger back at it. The people who don’t give a fuck about adversity or failure or embarrassing themselves or shitting the bed a few times. The people who just laugh and then do it anyway. Because they know it’s right. They know it’s more important than them and their own feelings and their own pride and their own needs. They say “Fuck it,” not to everything in life, but rather they say “Fuck it” to everything unimportant in life. They reserve their fucks for what truly fucking matters. Friends. Family. Purpose. Burritos. And an occasional lawsuit or two. And because of that, because they reserve their fucks for only the big things, the important things, people give a fuck about them in return.
SUBTLETY #2: To not give a Fuck about adversity, you must first give a Fuck about something more important than adversity
Eric Hoffer once wrote: “A man is likely to mind his own business when it is worth minding. When it is not, he takes his mind off his own meaningless affairs by minding other people’s business.”
The problem with people who hand out fucks like ice cream at a goddamn summer camp is that they don’t have anything more fuckworthy to dedicate their fucks to.
Think for a second. You’re at a grocery store. And there’s an elderly lady screaming at the cashier, berating him for not accepting her 30-cent coupon. Why does this lady give a fuck? It’s just 30 cents.
Well, I’ll tell you why. That old lady probably doesn’t have anything better to do with her days than to sit at home cutting out coupons all morning. She’s old and lonely. Her kids are dickheads and never visit. She hasn’t had sex in over 30 years. Her pension is on its last legs and she’s probably going to die in a diaper thinking she’s in Candyland. She can’t fart without extreme lower back pain. She can’t even watch TV for more than 15 minutes without falling asleep or forgetting the main plotline.
So she snips coupons. That’s all she’s got. It’s her and her damn coupons. All day, every day. It’s all she can give a fuck about because there is nothing else to give a fuck about. And so when that pimply-faced 17-year-old cashier refuses to accept one of them, when he defends his cash register’s purity the way knights used to defend maidens’ virginities, you can damn well bet granny is going to erupt and verbally hulk smash his fucking face in. Eighty years of fucks will rain down all at once, like a fiery hailstorm of “Back in my day” and “People used to show more respect” stories, boring the world around her to tears in her creaking and wobbly voice.
If you find yourself consistently giving too many fucks about trivial shit that bothers you — your ex-girlfriend’s new Facebook picture, how quickly the batteries die in the TV remote, missing out on yet another 2-for-1 sale on hand sanitizer — chances are you don’t have much going on in your life to give a legitimate fuck about. And that’s your real problem. Not the hand sanitizer.
In life, our fucks must be spent on something. There really is no such thing as not giving a fuck. The question is simply how we each choose to allot our fucks. You only get a limited amount of fucks to give over your lifetime, so you must spend them with care. As my father used to say, “Fucks don’t grow on trees, Mark.” OK, he never actually said that. But fuck it, pretend like he did. The point is that fucks have to be earned and then invested wisely. Fucks are cultivated like a beautiful fucking garden, where if you fuck shit up and the fucks get fucked, then you’ve fucking fucked your fucks all the fuck up.
SUBTLETY #3: We all have a limited number of Fucks to give; Pay attention to where and who you give them to
As we get older, we gain experience and begin to notice that most of these things have little lasting impact on our lives. Those people’s opinions we cared about so much before have long been removed from our lives. We’ve found the love we need and so those embarrassing romantic rejections cease to mean much anymore. We realize how little people pay attention to the superficial details about us and we focus on doing things more for ourselves rather than for others.When we’re young, we have tons of energy. Everything is new and exciting. And everything seems to matter so much. Therefore, we give tons of fucks. We give a fuck about everything and everyone — about what people are saying about us, about whether that cute boy/girl called us back or not, about whether our socks match or not or what color our birthday balloon is.
Essentially, we become more selective about the fucks we’re willing to give. This is something called ‘maturity.’ It’s nice, you should try it sometime. Maturity is what happens when one learns to only give a fuck about what’s truly fuckworthy. As Bunk Moreland said in The Wire (which, fuck you, I still downloaded it) to his partner Detective McNulty: “That’s what you get for giving a fuck when it wasn’t your turn to give a fuck.”
Then, as we grow older and enter middle age, something else begins to change. Our energy levels drop. Our identities solidify. We know who we are and we no longer have a desire to change what now seems inevitable in our lives.
And in a strange way, this is liberating. We no longer need to give a fuck about everything. Life is just what it is. We accept it, warts and all. We realize that we’re never going to cure cancer or go to the moon or feel Jennifer Aniston’s tits. And that’s OK. Life fucking goes on. We now reserve our ever-dwindling fucks only for the most truly fuckworthy parts of our lives: our families, our best friends, our golf swing. And to our astonishment, this is enough. This simplification actually makes us really fucking happy.
Then somehow, one day, much later, we wake up and we’re old. And along with our gum lines and our sex drive, our ability to give a fuck has receded to the point of non-existence. In the twilight of our days, we carry out a paradoxical existence where we no longer have the energy to give a fuck about the big things in life, and instead we must dedicate the few fucks we have left to the simple and mundane yet increasingly difficult aspects of our lives: where to eat lunch, doctors appointments for our creaky joints, 30-cent discounts at the supermarket, and driving without drifting to sleep and killing a parking lot full of orphans. You know, practical concerns.
Then one day, on our deathbed, (hopefully) surrounded by the people we gave the majority of our fucks to throughout our life, and those few who still give a fuck about us, with a silent gasp we will gently let our last fuck go. Through the tears and the gently fading beeps of the heart monitor and the ever-dimming fluorescence encapsulating us in its divine hospital halo, we drift into some unknowable and unfuckable place.
One rainy afternoon an inspired 15-year old boy named John Goddard sat down at his kitchen table in Los Angeles and wrote three words at the top of a yellow pad, “My Life List.” Under that heading he wrote down 127 goals.
These were not simple or easy goals. They included climbing the world’s major mountains, exploring from source to mouth the longest rivers of the world, piloting the world’s fastest aircraft, running a mile in five minutes and reading the entire Encyclopedia Britannica.
Now, a generation later, he has accomplished 109 of these quests, and has logged an impressive list of records in achieving them.
Everyday you make a thousand choices. You choose what to wear, where to go, who to meet, what to eat and what to do. MOST IMPORTANT OF ALL, YOU decide WHAT TO THINK. One thing is sure and that is that your day will not be better than your thoughts. ...................
Just close your eyes for a moment and see if you can visualise this open toolbox and if you can see the hundreds of tools that are neatly placed in this toolbox. Now look if you can see the maker’s name on these tools. The creator of these tools (thoughts and perceptions) is you. You created thousands of thoughts and perceptions (tools) about everything since your childhood. ..................
When confronted with any situation or problem you reach into this toolbox and take out what you think the most appropriate tool would be and then attempt to fix the problem. It is estimated that your mind thinks at least 2,500 thoughts an hour. Every thought that you think is a tool (perception) that you have that you imagine would work best under specific circumstances. This thought process continues day and night and will do so for the rest of your life. .....................................
I am convinced that we think ourselves to a standstill. We never stop playing with these tools in our toolbox and can hardly ever really relax for a while. If we are not faced with a problem or task that needs completion we still continue to take out these tools and mentally rehears and contemplate how we will use them should something that we fear become a reality. ............................
We are forever thinking and scheming and never become still and tranquil inside. Our bodies might seem relaxed, but deep inside our heads this thought process continues churning around. What I am most worried about is that most of the tools that you have in your toolbox are very old and outdated. .......................
Many of the opportunities, problems and obstructions that you face daily cannot be repaired while you are using old and outdated tools. If you take a modern mechanic’s toolbox and you place the toolbox of a mechanic of fifty years ago next to it you will find that there are major discrepancies. When you are confronted with something that needs repair and you do not have the right tool for the task at hand it can be very frustrating. We usually improvise and try using some other tools and hope that it will also get the job done. ........................
When you are faced with a problem you need to select the right tool for the task at hand. If you do not have the tool in your toolbox it can complicate your life. What most people seem to ignore is that it is sometimes better not to reach for your toolbox when faced with a problem. Sometimes you need time to pass or need to leave the problem with its rightful owner. How well you use your tools is usually reflected in the world you see around you. What would you do if you were faced with any or all of the following? .........................
You get a flat tire on your way to an important customer or meeting. You can fall apart, develop a migraine and think that life is against you or you can take out the right tools (patience and reality) and take care of the problem in a relaxed manner. ........................
You have been working on the computer for hours and suddenly lose all your work. You can drop dead with a heart attack; think that God hates you or you can take out the right tool (sanity and reality) and begin over and this time remember to make a backup of your work. ....................
A lover or wife possibly cheated on you. You can go crazy and get an assassin to take out the potential threat to your relationship, think that you are a failure or you can take out the right tool (no fear of loss) and get on with your life. .......................
When you have the right tools in your toolbox it makes life a lot easier. The choices we make are vital in our lives. The more quality choices we make during any given day the higher the probability of success and peace of mind. ................
I suggest that you equip your toolbox with the best tools you can lay your hands on. It is important to upgrade if you discover that one of your tools are outdated or that a more modern version is available. How would you react if your TV packed up and a technician that obviously knows very little about electronics arrived at your house with only a sledgehammer and a few other primitive tools in his toolbox? I am sure that you will send him away and find someone better qualified and equipped for the task. .....................
You might sometimes be like this incompetent and poorly equipped technician indicated above if you do not often update your tools (thoughts) in your toolbox. You can also have all the right tools in your toolbox and never use them because you are afraid that you might make a mistake. ..................
You must remember that happiness and success is always just one thought (tool) away. You should remember when you find it difficult to cope with something that one new tool (thought) could change your life. One fresh thought and one new idea can change your life from pain and suffering to success and peace of mind. ........................
You are today what you were programmed with yesterday. The choices that you make on a moment-to-moment basis decide your fate and future. You can never feel or perform better than the ongoing thoughts and feelings that you allow to occupy your mind! .......................
The mistake we make is that most of us live our lives on a reactive basis. We start and complete our day in a reactive state of being. Something comes to our attention via our five senses or via a thought in our mind. We automatically slip into the “role” that we created for ourselves many moons ago. We act, react and experience the same feelings and emotions that we embedded with our scrip at its inception. We do exactly the same when new stimuli push the previous “drama” off the stage in our minds. We sustain this reactive mode of thinking until we finally go to bed at night. Most of our days are made up of a tapestry of “roles” that we played in our own colorful way. It is important to understand that nothing is going to change until we do something different. We cannot repeat the same old recipes and expect a different outcome. ....................
You can use the “Portable Life Skills Wisdom” book to develop a range of appropriate scripts that you can use when you are faced with a problem or project that need your attention. You will if you apply the scripts in this book find that you no longer run your life on a reactive basis. The new scripts will help you to live your life in the moment. You will become more realistic. You will treat each event on its own merit. How do you do this? ......................
The Process ....................
Read the first message in your book. Write it down if at all possible. It will assist you to absorb the data provided. Now sit back and close your eyes and visualize how you will apply the specific message in the various areas of your life. See yourself on the screen of your mind using the message in all your day-to-day activities. It is important to attempt to feel and experience the benefits that this new mode of thinking will bring into your life. Do this for ten minutes. Then open your eyes and begin to apply the wisdom on all occasions where appropriate in your activities on that given day. ...........................
Proceed to do the same with second message etc. in your book tomorrow. You will upload almost a thousand powerful recipes if you sustain the process indicated above. You can in less than three years upload a powerful “tool” system that will serve you for the rest of your life. This can be a life changing experience if you apply it daily. You will discover that the ten minutes you invest daily will upload countless new strategies into your subconscious computer. Build a successful and happy life. The key however is action. You can have the best tools available to man and still fail if you don’t use them daily. Wishing you the very best with this endeavor. .............................
Daily Support System (This Blog) ................
You not only have the massive key ideas in the book that you can use when appropriate you also receive daily posts on a wide range of subjects that will expand this system to a level never offered before. Visit this blog daily for fresh new ideas with a sprinkle of historical wisdom that stood the test of time. ..........................
Rene
PORTABLE LIFE SKILLS DAILY WISDOM GUIDE 