Expert Professional Advice

Part of leadership is selecting the right message. Even if the politicians didn’t think of the campaign slogan, they had to approve the slogan that their campaign manager created. It is easy to look back and see that most of the messages are uninspiring messages of politicians, not leaders. And any messages with regard to prosperity, strength, and readiness were way off base because it showed the politician was blindsided by the realities of the national and global economic environment that would unfold by the end of 2008. They advertised their ignorance.
A review of 2008 campaign slogans:

Yes We Can (And he did! – most inspiring)

Country First (What? So out of touch! This was not a quality message… it failed to impart something meaningful or to suggest leadership ability. The people voting live in the same country, it’s a lot like writing in your daily planner “wake up/brush teeth” – or the message is screaming “vote for me because the representative from the other party wants to put the country second or third.” People first, moron!)

Solutions for America (Not good. It’s an advertisement that doesn’t inspire confidence – Billary)

Faith. Family. Freedom (Okay… freedom from what?)

True Strength for America’s Future (Good, but nobody was going to buy into government competence during economic upheaval.)

Tested. Ready. Now (Am I buying a battery? Giuliani, please, nobody is interested)

Tomorrow Begins Today! (Not good Mr. Edwards)

Security. Unity. Prosperity (Prosperity, for who?)

Hope for America (Good approach Mr. Paul)

Let the People Decide (Very good)

Because life doesn’t have to be so hard… the small changes that add up to a world of difference. The book is mostly a discussion of conversations that does not produce any significant insight. There are much better books out there… all the author does is discuss things that many other authors have already discussed and the presentation isn’t stellar. The book discusses things in typical self-help fashion but doesn’t really help. For example, chapter five – The most basic choice of all: It’s the decision we make every single day when we wake up about how to approach the day. Are we going to feel sorry for ourselves, or are we going to take responsibility for our own happiness? Are we going to look for what’s wrong and find it? Or are we going to look for what’s right and find that instead? Will we see problems or the opportunities? Will we be part of the problem or part of the solution? Will we be judgmental about life or accepting? The point the author makes is to change your attitude for a better life. That’s it. Nothing about the book will make a difference except a few interesting points: Chapter 14 – Focus on the blessings mentions an example the author heard about from a lady: She told me the day we met that she had devised an experiment to get rid of negativity. She wrote the words “Drop the negativity and focus on the blessings” on three-by-five index cards. She would carry one card in her purse, tape one to the visor in her car, and tape another to her refrigerator. Each time a negative thought crept into her mind, she would read the card.

Sometimes suffering provides a purpose… happiness seekers look for books, people and things external from themselves in order to provide a sense of joy, but whatever gained is easily lost because it’s not of substance. The Temporary-No expert book is a window into abandonment of false concerns, including false suffering, and a misguided notion of happiness.

Make a contract with yourself to do specific actions each week to improve your life – like exercising three times for at least thirty minutes per session – and rip up two dollars each time you fail to perform the action. The pain of literally ripping up money (not simply giving it away) helps offset the anticipated pain of performing difficult but worthwhile actions. Important: Make your list easily quantifiable – showing what you will do and for how long. Post it where you will always notice it – perhaps on your bathroom mirror or refrigerator door.

The concept of changing your thinking to change your life is not fully developed. When times are rough, emotionally, economically, and physically… there is no pleasant solution, this is where self-help fails because thinking positively and changing your thoughts with the expectation that the environment will change doesn’t work, and if you are already under duress any undertaking to find an answer germinates from a confused and divided mind. In order to prepare for activities, the military and athletes will drill, and use practice to address performance rather than thinking because thinking doesn’t handle situations well. If you don’t already have the life you desire, what reason is there to believe a book has the answer for you? Reducing your suffering may arise from realizing that having what you want doesn’t matter, maybe it never mattered, it was simply an attachment we developed and cultivated throughout life that hinders rather than helps achieve balance in our existence.

In the November 24^{th issue of Financial Week on page 9 is an article titled Change we can’t believe in. As the opinion in the article states, it’s anything but comforting to see some of the familiar faces on President-elect Obama’s economic team. The nation may not recover for a long time because the confidence of the people in government leadership is severely lacking. The article reviews the potential conflict of interest and it does appear that due to the history of the economic team members it would be better to select a new team that has a proven background in competency and integrity. The article states, “We are in a crisis of confidence in American capitalism. These aren’t the right people to re-instill its sense of honor. Many of them should be getting subpoenas as material witnesses right about now…”What I would add is that the greatest threat facing the nation is the greed, carelessness, and corruption of our own system. Things didn’t get worse by chance, anything significantly damaging could have been prevented, but when officials and the economic elite serve themselves rather than the people there must be a counterbalance to aid the public. The nation could easily recover if you put what may be roughly five thousand people in prison. Who are those people? Those responsible for fraud, negligence, and corruption, which includes lawyers, businessmen and elected officials, and while five thousand people is just a guess, it’s enough to immediately restore national and global confidence. But since leadership is lacking, no one has the guts to do it.}

The beauty of Buddhism is being repackaged and sold. Yes, it takes practice to stay in the moment of now to experience life and heal ourselves, but there is no substitute for practice, and buying books and audio material isn’t going to get you further along on the path. The seller’s offer is that with his personal guidance, you will learn how to break free from the illusion of separation from the outside world, and how to work with the accumulation of past suffering and remove its grip (and much more as the sales pitch goes). I’ll give you the secret, and it can be found in much better works (it can be found in books that are fifty years old or older), and that secret is: The feeling of separation is the source of anxiety in life. How have great literary works and teachers/students of existence answered the concept of separation? Love – but not love in the modern or popular sense; love as a state of giving to others, without limiting itself to those we know and like – love for all. Wherever this active form of love is, separation disappears or lessens. And as for dealing with the accumulation of suffering, that is nothing more than accepting that life offers us it, and so is a natural part of existence, while false suffering are the burdens that we place on ourselves that do not actually exist, other than the weight we give them in our mind. An interesting example of the futility of enhancing our presence and the joy of unraveling the simple act of being is found in the No Expert book.

The premise of the work, citing examples of Silicon Valley pioneers, is that wealth emanated from more than their extraordinary talent, it occurred due to the right opportunities at exactly the right time. I call that luck, that tells the greatest stories, and sociologists have written and spoken about this before, and anybody that understands statistics will relegate huge success to the bell curve… and rightly so. But the idea presented in the book that achievement at a high level is due to attitude over aptitude is incomplete – high achievers are at the end of the bell curve because they don’t follow conventional wisdom, nor do they strive to be normal because realistic people do not accomplish extraordinary things. If you like that idea, the best book to read is Overachievement. Outliers simply insists that cultural heritage, timing, persistence, and setting sights on the main chance are the determinants for success, which is fine, but lacks the punch to outright say that there is very little one can do, if anything, to manifest the kind of success that people wish for. Although some intelligence is necessary, beyond a certain level intellect doesn’t matter. What does make a difference is the 10,000 hours of practice it takes to get to the top in any field. If you believe 10,000 hours of practice is required to become one of the best in any field, at four hours a day of practice it will take almost seven years, and for those folks that can only devote two hours per day it will take almost fourteen years! That itself is the reason why it is almost impossible for people to achieve their great wishes of success, but even so, the book misses again because mastery doesn’t necessarily trump luck, and knowing when you must cash out. The ability to sell an idea is more closely linked to wealth than the ability to generate a promising idea.

Although consumer choice has expanded greatly, marketers do not know much about why we buy. And neither do most consumers. Consumers can make decisions within two seconds, so the author conducted an experiment of scanning the brains of over two thousand people from five countries and found that buyers deceive themselves about their true motives. The author stated that rituals help form emotional connections to products better than logos do. I say: We cannot avoid the lies we tell ourselves, it’s only when we understand these lies can marketers become more effective.