This page is an
archive of the posts that I have written on My Philosophies
November 23, 2007
God Bless America
I don't know if this is accurate or embellished rhetoric, but in any case, I thought it had a good message, so I'm re-posting it here.
When in England at a fairly large conference, Colin Powell was asked by the Archbishop of Canterbury if our plans for Iraq were just an example of 'empire building' by George Bush.
He answered by saying, "Over the years, the United States has sent many of its fine young men and women into great peril to fight for freedom beyond our borders. The only amount of land we have ever asked for in return is enough to bury those that did not return."
It became very quiet in the room.
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Then there was a conference in France where a number of international engineers were taking part, including French and American. During a break one of the French engineers came back into the room saying "Have you heard the latest dumb stunt Bush has done? He has sent an aircraft carrier to Indonesia to help the tsunami victims. What does he intended to do, bomb them?"
A Boeing engineer stood up and replied quietly: "Our carriers have three hospitals on board that can treat several hundred people; they are nuclear powered and can supply emergency electrical power to shore facilities; they have three cafeterias with the capacity to feed 3,000 people three meals a day, they can produce several thousand gallons of fresh water from sea water each day, and they carry half a dozen helicopters for use in transporting victims and injured to and from their flight deck.. We have eleven such ships; how many does France have?"
Once again, dead silence.
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A U.S. Navy Admiral was attending a naval conference that included Admirals from the U.S., English, Canadian, Australian and French Navies. At a cocktail reception, he found himself standing with a large group of Officers that included personnel from most of those countries. Everyone was chatting away in English as they sipped their drinks but a French admiral suddenly complained that, 'whereas Europeans learn many languages, Americans learn only English.' He then asked, 'Why is it that we always have to speak English in these conferences rather than speaking French?'
Without hesitating, the American Admiral replied 'Maybe it's because the Brits, Canadians, Aussies and Americans arranged it so you wouldn't have to speak German.'
You could have heard a pin drop!
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It's time we all quit apologizing to the rest of the world for our greatness, take pride in being an American in the greatest country in the history of civilization.
Then let's roll up our sleeves and go to work on the problems we do have:
immigration, health care, energy, etc.
It won't be easy, but worthwhile things seldom are.
Joel Comm's Thoughts on MLM (Multi-Level-Marketing)
Joel Comm made a post on his blog about MLM (Multi-Level Marketing), and I responded to his post with the comments below by talking about my own experiences in MLM with Pre-Paid Legaland offering some advice to people (for whatever it's worth).
I saw this on OneMan'sBlog today, and thought I would re-post it, as it gave me a lot of confidence and encouragement for all the various things I do...
In short, this quote let me know that it's okay that I do so many things.
That's comforting in a funny sort of way, and definitely good to have reinforced.
Someone I know and had a fair level of respect for sent me an email which is below. The email included a video (also below), and I felt that I had to respond to her.
I'm really amazed that an educated person (who again, I thought of as a rational and kind individual), would send out what she sent to me.
So I've posted my response here and would love anyone's thoughts on it.
Dear XXXXX,
While the video is scary, the comments that came with are scarier.
I'm not talking about the director's comments either.
The thinking which leads educated individuals to categorize an entire group of people as a certain way ("Walking time-bombs" and mentally unstable) is what always has (and always will) lead to global warfare. In this case, it's "Muslims". In Vietnam it was the "Gooks", in the 1950's it was the "Commies", in 1945 it was the "Japs", in 1938 it was the "Krauters"(Germans).)
If you look at what people said about each of these groups during the time periods leading up to major wars, you will find your comments match, almost word for word, what people said, in gross generalization, about each of those groups.
It takes about 60-65 years to heal the damage that is done by the kind of thinking which says "ALL people from "X" group are "X"."
Today, our world view is that Germans are friendly and that the Japanese are hard working people. In another 5-10 years (we're already starting to see it), we will welcome of China (and Chinese Communist ideals) as necessary and even helpful, after that (and after the U.S. become involved in some kind of war with the northern part) a reuniting of Korea, and in about 20-25 years, Vietnam will become a major tourist location. People will come back to America saying what a nice place Vietnam was because of the hospitable nature of the Vietnamese.
While the video was scary (I saw it the first time about two years ago), what is more scary is that an entire culture of highly educated people are slipping back into a pattern of categorizing and mentally convicting an entire culture, based on nothing more than some limited experience and lots of news coverage.
Impressed would be an understatement. This video has a lot to say from a lot of different perspectives. I really like that the professor who produced this video has taken a philosophical approach to web 2.0
Here's a man, Bill Shannon, who decided that he wasn't going to let his circumstances dictate what he was capable of.
His crutch became the very thing that will propel him to be an incredible inspiration to the thousands who will see his video.
He dictated what he was capable of, and his circumstances conformed to his desires.
Can we all learn to do the same in our lives?
Make the decision today. Find what works for you - Kevin Fanter says it this way.
"I am the voice. I will lead, not follow."
Make a choice today.
Force your circumstances to conform to your desires!
Be a Bill Shannon to the people who will see your example. Live a powerful life, be strong in your convictions, and you will help others to move their lives to new places because of who you are for them.
For visitors to my blog, I have a question for you. What do you believe opportunity is?
Mark Joyner has posted this comic on his blog today, and I absolutely love it... It says so much about how philosophies create the people who build the kind of world in which we live.
This past weekend, we had the SuperBowl. And it was interesting. Two teams no one expected to be there, duking it out, finding out who was the team with more ability to show Mettle on one of America's two national holidays made up exclusively for marketers (the other coming up on February 14th).
At halftime, the Rolling Stones performed. And while the performance, in my book, was about a 6 of 10, as far as Superbowl halftime shows goes, there was an interesting conversation at the Superbowl Party I was at. It went something like:
"I wonder how many times he has sung this song and how sick he must be of singing this song."
the response:
"I don't know, I think with all the money he's getting paid, he can't really be sick of it, can he?"
A response:
"I think he should just hang it up."
A response:
"I think it's great that they're still able to get out there and do it! That's awesome!"
"Yah, but even an attractive hooker has a day when she's just not attractive anymore and should put away her boots."
I thought it quite interesting that two days after I wrote the posting about the dream (unwrapping presents) I'm fighting voices, which are telling me not to unwrap presents...
This morning, right before I woke up with the alarm for a Monday morning mastermind meeting, I was having a dream.
In my dream, my alarm went off. So I shut off the alarm, got up, and went into the office, which is across the hall from my bedroom (which was pretty accurate in my dream). As I walked into the office, I noticed that there were presents all around me. It was so amazing!
There were presents of of all shapes and sizes, most of them being in gift bags of all colors and sizes. I realized that my office was larger (than it actually is), and the entire room was actually filled with presents.
As I turned to go back into the bedroom to tell Carrie, I realized that there were presents all around me. Everywhere I looked, there were presents.
I'm not an Eminem fan. In fact, I really don't have any opinion on Eminem, because I have never met him. But, he has a song that I have heard frequently... and I like the song, but I got to thinking about the lyrics, and I don't think I agree with the message at all.
It goes like this: "You better lose yourself in the music, the moment, you better never let it go. You only get one shot, do not miss your chance to blow, this opportunity comes once in a lifetime."
And Eminem is, of course, not the only one promoting this kind of a philosophy. Our entire American society is based around the idea that you have to pay attention, because you may miss the opportunity of a lifetime.
I can't imagine anyone going through life, an entire lifetime, and not hearing Jim Rohn. I've linked to his site above, but I got this audio series from a business associate last night, and I am just so totally blown away by it. It's called "Take Charge of Your Life - The Winner's Seminar" (which, admittedly, is a less-than-adequate title for what is a great series. Saying that gives it a VERY Stuart Smalley feel).
I can not imagine not getting this training.
Now Mr. Rohn has no idea I exist, but his words have already impacted my life in a huge amazing way, and that was before I started listening to this audio series.
Just totally amazing.
Here's some excerpts from the first two CD's...
Everything you need is within reach.
Now's the time to fix the next ten years.
Are you reading the books that are going to get you where you want to be in the next 5 years?
You can't succeed by yourself.
Make rest a necessity, not an objective.
The goal of life:
Make measurable Progress in Reasonable time.
Lifestyle is figuring ways to live uniquely.
Happiness is not an accident, it's an art.
Being successful is not doing extraordinary things. It's doing ordinary things extraordinarily well.
When what you say is the tip of the iceberg of what you know, that's when communication becomes powerful
An explanation of the convoluted mess that will likely become World War 3
I'm going to go out on a little limb here and offer an explanation for world war three. I know it might seem a bit premature, but 12 year economic theory dictates that the United States must be involved in another major global conflict, no later than 2013.
So here's a theory for how it begins. Remember, it's just a theory, and I really hope I'm wrong. But as you go through it, think about it… If you hated America, wouldn't this be a good way you would (and could) try to bring about its demise?
My work in the field of Identity Theft has led me to believe that because Americans' information is so readily available and easily hacked, and is used for so many things in our lives, that it is the best and most vulnerable place for a large-scale attack from a small group of like-minded individuals looking to change the world.
Sometime around late 2010, or early 2011, using the "shock and awe" method, a network of hackers from all over the world will use the Chinese, Iranian, or North Korean computer network infrastructure to attack not only the Department of Defense, but also financial institutions (i.e. your bank), the Medical Information Bureau, the Department of Motor Vehicles, the Department of Homeland Security, other private and governmental systems, and even the Social Security System.
This will create headaches in the American way of doing things that we can't even begin to imagine. People will receive the wrong medications in hospital stays, driver's licenses will be revoked, or become non-existent, bank accounts will temporarily cease to exist (i.e. your money), etc. etc. etc.
We will, as a nation, recover relatively quickly, as we did after September 11. Hopefully most Americans will have woken up to the idea that they really do need a Plan for Identity Theft Protection.
We will recover relatively quickly as a nation, but individual horror stories will abound. Many people will lose money in ways they hadn't even though they could (as on September 11), some will lose their lives (due to mix-ups and confusion), and some will take their own lives over the financial obligations, responsibilities, outstanding debts, etc. etc. (not probably dramatically, but people will tell it later that it was dramatic). We will recover, because that's who we are.
But, the masses of the American public will watch their televisions for clues as to what's going on, and will hear bits and pieces of sensationalized information.
Reporter: "Late Breaking news from so-and-so technology expert shows that there was an extreme spike in the Internet traffic coming from computers originating in China… In house, we have Mr. John Doe Technology, to tell us about what this could mean."
Mr. John Doe Technology: "Well, because of my background, and blah, blah, blah, I think that it is quite possible that the Chinese government could have created this attack as a way of trying to assert their… blah, blah, blah…"
Reporter: "But isn't your background in technology?"
Mr. John Doe Technology: "Well, yes, it technically is, but while I am here, I think I will expand my level of knowledge to include military strategy… because… well… it makes me sound more important, y'know, and it makes me more credible, and makes it more relevant that you chose me for this segment of the news."
Americans will hear conflicting theories on why their money disappeared from their bank accounts for two weeks, and why Grandma, who was known to be allergic to Penicillin, was treated with Penicillinduring her last visit to the hospital and nearly died, because her medical records were confused with someone else's.
