CLICK HERE FOR AUDIO VERSION-Necessary Times-Freethinkingtools.com
Without frugality none can be rich, and with it very few would be poor. -Samuel Johnson (1709-1784), English author, well know for his Dictionary of the English Language, published in 1755.
This week I watched the story of a Wisconsin family severely effected by the closing of the local General Motors plant. The father had lost his job at the plant, and with not many other great opportunities in clear view, the family was reduced financially to surviving on the $36,000 salary of the wife, employed by the Girl Scouts. Talk about your All-American “apple pie” story!
The angle of the expose’ was that of the family’s three boys and how the parents might not to be able to afford putting the boys in the local baseball league. Although the cost of $1,500 for the year for all three to participate now represented a large portion of the family’s income, they remained resolute in their desire to make it happen.
The father expressed that, although he was a formerly skilled factory employee, he was not beyond rolling up his sleeves and doing whatever it would take to survive. The mother’s determination seemed even greater as she expressed that she would simply “find a way”. The solution included no longer going to restaurants to eat and hand-me-down clothes for the boys would become the staple; oh, and of course no ”travel team” baseball anymore!
The story’s seemingly happy ending was that the boys did indeed get to play baseball, yet there was a much greater story evolving that we’re seeing more often during this recessionary period of 2009. It’s almost like witnessing the silent majority starting an even more quiet revolution!
CLICK HERE FOR AUDIO VERSION-Smelling Salts-Freethinkingtools.com
The extent of your consciousness is limited only by your ability to love and to embrace with your love the space around you, and all that it contains. -Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821), military and political leader of France who dominated continental Europe through a series of military victories.
There was a time when I was a young, aspiring businessman and had the opportunity to shadow some supposed experienced mentors during company visits. In particular, I used to cringe as I watched and listened to one of my associates during business meetings.
The intent of these visits was to interest the subject entrepreneur in considering our services. In one meeting, within minutes, I realized that my mentor was not hearing anything the other guy was saying, not understanding at all what was important to him. Instead my guy was on a rant all about himself and our company.
The thought screaming in my head was “make a connection with this guy!”, “listen to what he’s saying first and then respond!” At times I tried to interject in a supportive way without overstepping my bounds and embarrassing the associate, yet ultimately, it was clear not only to me but also to the entrepreneur that this guy was definitely not conscious of what was happening.
How does that happen? How does a relatively smart business guy, who did have a successful track record, simply miss the boat? If this had been a softball game, the associate would have struck out swinging at pitches a novice should have hit.
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Low self esteem is like driving through life with your hand-break on. -Maxwell Maltz (1899-1975), plastic surgeon, self image expert, and author of The New Psycho-Cybernetics.
According to expert Nathaniel Branden, the definition of self-esteem is the disposition to experience oneself as competent to cope with the basic challenges of life and as worthy of happiness. Yet the part that is most interesting to me is the first component, which is our ability or lack there of, to see ourselves as intelligent enough to survive.
In today’s world we are obsessed with fear and it’s causes…fear of heights, fear of public speaking, fear of creepy crawlers and all things that go bump in the night! However, there it is right in the definition of self esteem itself…the greatest fear of all…perhaps the root of fear itself…it’s our own self concept of whether we are able, or not, to handle the challenges that life offers up!
Think about it…how do you feel when you are faced with a new task, a new way of doing things…do you feel the panic well up inside of you, the frustration that says, ”Why do you have to change now that you have finally become comfortable with the status quo?” Just when you were enjoying your coma, life shows up and throws a monkey wrench in the well-oiled machine!
So that begs the question…why are we so locked in fear? Well perhaps Branden has in fact figured it out…low self-esteem. Maybe now you feel your defense mechanism rising up and you argue that of course you don’t have low self-esteem, look how much you have accomplished. Yet the argument really is founded in how you deal with any and all challenges regardless of your success in some.
CLICK HERE FOR AUDIO VERSION-Personality Checkup-Freethinkingtools.com
Cause you’ve got personality, walk – personality, talk - personality, smile – personality, charm-personality, love personality. -Lloyd Price (1933-), singer, songwriter.
One thing that amazes me is that we can go through life and never really know ourselves that well. I mean short of a Psychology 101 class, no one seems to really take the time to help us figure out how we are wired…why we behave the way we do…why we react the way we do and most importantly why we deal with challenges, especially involving other people the way we do!
The frustration we cause each other is really the bain of our existence, the main stumbling block to a better life. After all, don’t you agree that those people that learn the secrets to getting along with others really do live a more peaceful life? Even though there are those that would rather escape to the confines of the wilderness and contemplate nature by talking to trees, the majority of people still yearn for the love and attention of others so we better figure this out.
So how do the well-adjusted do their thing…why do they always seem so agreeable, so non-argumentative? The answer may be as easy as they know themselves really well, which in turn allows them to adapt more easily. So how do they figure themselves out…have they found some wise, old guru meditating at the top of a hill that shares with them the great secrets or life or is it much less complicated than that?
For me the pathway to enlightenment came the first time I was introduced to a very simple personality profile test.Really nothing complicated at all, rather a basic quadrant that divides us up into one of four types. The first a “D”…the dominant driven type; the second an “I”, the natural salesperson, the sharply dressed; the third an “S”, those that crave steadiness and finally the “C”, those that crave compliance and detail.
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Once we make a choice or take a stand, we will encounter personal and interpersonal pressures to behave consistently with that commitment. Robert Cialdini (1945-), social psychologist and professor, best know for his top selling book on persuasion, Influence.
Have you ever entered into a situation with a preconceived notion or set of beliefs that you felt unwilling to compromise on, regardless of what your counter part said or did? This might have been any type of situation like a sales or business negotiation, a discussion with a spouse, a barter with your kids…and no matter what happens you are just not going to budge on your position!
Why this happens to all of us is easily explained by the law of consistency! Human beings are guided by many laws but this one has to be one of the most illogical and actually bizarre laws when broken down. Psychologist Robert Cialdini in his book, Influence, highlights the fact that once a decision has been made, it becomes very important to be consistent with that decision rather than second guess or even be open to other options. He references a study that revealed that once people had chosen a horse to bet on at the track, they then felt much more confident that their choice of horse had a great chance of winning!
So what is happening here? Why do we feel so compelled to be consistent with our decisions even if they appear erroneous once we are faced with new evidence? Cialdini offers one simple argument that it’s just easier to be consistent with the original choice because it requires no additional thought…we can just turn back to that decision and roll comfortably along. Wow…are we really that lazy -minded that right or wrong we simply lock into one train of thought and give up any further effort? Unbelievable, but maybe exactly why we seem to have such poor communication.
