Anyone who suggests that you are a victim of others, is trying to victimize you.  Attempting to convince you that the outcome of your life is solely the result of the actions of others is actually an attempt to trick you to give up your power of self-determination and independence so that they may the take it from you and determine the direction of your life instead.

The difference between my warning and those who would make you their victims is that if you do give in to their persuasion, you are responsible for doing so, not the persuader.  I’ve debated similar points to this before, and it continues to be a belief I hold stronger and stronger with time.

Eleanor Roosevelt said “Nobody can make you feel inferior without your consent.” I would expand that to “Nobody one can make you a victim without your consent.”

Next time someone tells you that it is some 3rd party’s fault that you are in the place you are in, and that you should join them in doing something about it, run the other direction.  They are not concerned with acting in your best interests, but are instead concerned with you acting in their best interests.

History is full of examples of individuals rising to power based on the platform of a scapegoat, and convincing the populace that they were not responsible for their plight, but that this scapegoat has caused them this harm.  The most classic example that comes to mind is Hitler and the Jews in Germany, but it doesn’t stop there.  Witch-hunts and mobs are the result of when individuals give up their right to make right choices.

Well, that is enough for now, but I will most likely write on this again.  What do you think?  Have you seen this before?

If you follow the pink dos with your eyes, then nothing too exciting.

If you focus on the black + in the middle, you will probably see a green dot that replaces the pink dot that disappears.  This is a negative afterimage effect (neon green being the compliment to pink).  I’ve seen similar illusions before.

Then the really cool effect is if you focus on the black + long enough, all the pink dots will disapear, and you will just see the green dot spinning around the circle.  If you move your eyes, then the pink dots will come back though.

Your eyes will see all this from the same animation.  The animation doesn’t change.  You might ask yourself what else gets distorted in your life when you are focused on one thing?  Do other things tend to disapear?  When is that a good thing?  When is it not?

Here is my results:

You are an Interpersonal Thinker
		Interpersonal thinkers: Like to think about other people, and try to understand them Recognise differences between individuals and appreciate that different people have different perspectives Make an effort to cultivate effective relationships with family, friends and colleagues
Like interpersonal thinkers, Leonardo had lots of friends and contacts, and was a popular figure at the Italian court.		Other Interpersonal thinkers include Winston Churchill, Mother Teresa, William ShakespeareCareers which suit Interpersonal thinkers include Politician, Psychologist, Nurse, Counsellor, Teacher

You can also view all the different thinking styles.

Why?

I would want a high EQ.  That would make it easy to surround myself with people who know more then me (people with a high IQ and low EQ).  My high EQ would allow me to know if they were being honest with me when they gave me advice and answered my questions.  In exchange I would help them connect with others who have specialized knowledge in other areas.

It isn’t WHAT you know, but WHO you know.  I would know all the people who had all the answers, and they would want to share those answers with me.

Thanks to Tricia Ho in Australia for the question via LinkedIn.

“Practice until you get it right. Then practice until you can’t get it wrong.”

Don’t know who it is by though. I’ll research that. . .

I am also a fan of the differentiation that practice doesn’t make perfect, it makes permanent. Perfect practice makes perfect results, while imperfect practice makes imperfect results. So always improve your practice.

Talk about a catch-all expression. This proverb can refer to leadership, nuclear deals, taking a stand — or not, and judo. But, as you might expect, the notion of “What you do means more than what you say” predates modern American culture. The 16th-century French writer Michel de Montaigne, who is generally credited with inventing the essay, proclaimed, “Saying is one thing and doing is another.” And before him, St. Francis of Assisi, who embodied this principle, is widely credited with saying, “Preach the gospel at all times. Use words if necessary.”

The present English version of this proverb might date to 1736, but versions of this wisdom are found in many languages and lands, even ancient Greece. Precisely who first said it may be lost to time, but it’s a little more certain who first published it on on American shores. In his 1692 book Will and Doom, Gersham Bulkeley wrote, “Actions are more significant than words.”

• How do you know you are not upside down and gravity isn’t really pulling you up?
• Have you ever been your imagination?
• Have you ever exceeded your imagination?

Of course part of me wants to give a simple answer, but then I realized that these questions are not looking for an answer, but consideration.  Much like the sound of one hand clapping.

I remember a question I always wondered, which these questions reminded me of, is how do we know that what I see as red everyone else sees as red?  Couldn’t we all see different colors?  What I see as red you see as blue, but we both learned that apples are what we call red, so you call blue red.  Of course if this is true then neither of us see real red or real blue.

So what do you see?

All the time I would hear people saying that there was unlimited wealth. This seemed to be an incongruency since I know that in the United States the federal reserve controls how much money is in circulation. Of course there is credit and other ways of paying off debt, but when it is all said in done, there is a very large, but finite amount of money available. I couldn’t see how anyone could say there was unlimited (infinite) wealth, since money was finite and limited.

Then it occurred to me. There may be a limited amount of money (cash, funds, credit, gold, notes, real estate, etc.) but that money is only useful to those who posses it when they spend it – exchanging it for a good or service. All the money in the world is of no value if there is no where to spend it. Even if they are getting credit against equity they own, they are exchanging money. In fact, I bet the total wealth available trades hands quite frequently. All the markets (stock, currency, commodities, real estate, etc.) are designed to speculate and make money directly from these exchanges.

That left me with the question, how many times in a fixed amount of time (say my lifetime) can a fixed amount of money trade hands? While this is probably technically a finite amount, for all intents and purposes it is infinite. So if it can change hands an infinite amount of times, is there any reason to think my hands can’t be in the mix? Not only is it practical to think that my hands would be included, but if it changed hands an infinite number of times, it is illogical to think it wouldn’t spend some time in my hands. It would have to, if I let it.

In order for this system to work I would need to be willing to spend the money that came into my possession, so that it could go into someone else’s possession. In fact, I could end up spending the same money multiple times. So if all the money in the world came into my possession only once, and I spent it all how I saw fit so long as I spent it all in that fixed amount of time (my life time, since I can’t take it with me when I go), would I be wealthy? HECK YEAH I WOULD! Monetarily speaking I would be wealthier then Bill Gates!

Of course the missing piece here is value. Money is traded for value. Actually, it is traded for perceived value. So, if I want to have all the money in the world at my disposal to spend then I need to make an offer that is perceived as valuable to someone who as money to spend. They I must provide a way for them to trade their money for my value. Sounds pretty simple to me.

Now this may seem really basic to some, but I guess there is a matter of knowing something in your head, and then really finally getting it in your core. I am pretty excited now!

“A thief believes everyone steals.” A cheater believes everyone cheats

This is so true. When I was in Boy Scouts there was this one guy who always stole everyone’s food on camping trips. We will call him Larry.

There was one week long trip where we set up a base camp, and then back-packed in further for a couple days. Since the backpack trip was shorter you were only to bring what you needed. Well, Larry decided to take all his supplies since he didn’t trust anyone. We all figured our food was safe since Larry was going on the hike. Well, Larry‘s pack weighed a whole lot more then everyone elses, so he whined, moaned, cried and complained the whole time. The Scout Master ended up carrying his pack for him.

When we got to our camp Larry‘s solution was to eat all his food so he wouldn’t have to carry it back out. Then he starved the rest of the week. It was really funny. I doubt think he learned his lesson though.

“It’s not that I’m so smart, it’s just that I stay with problems longer.”

-Albert Einstein

That is the whole beauty of linear and creative thinking. Most people look for the first answer they can find – which may be that there is no answer. Creative geniuses keep coming up with answers and new ways to think about the problem until they have a breakthrough.

I don’t remember if it was Cracking Creativity or somewhere else that I read that Einstein and other creative geniuses got their major breakthroughs in a flash, but only after investing a large amount of effort into finding new ways to think about the problem. Most people think they labored on slowing finding a solution, but in fact the solution was not built piece by piece, but came all at once.