Psychopath - makes you think!

also interesting



Do you know people like this?

Selfish People

What do you think? (BTW - posted quite a few videos with this one)

• Are you totally and completely committed to the success of your business regardless of the personal price?
• Are you totally and completely committed to the success of your marriage regardless of the personal price?
• Are you absolutely beyond a shadow of a doubt committed to the achievement, success and well being of your business partner(s)?
• Are you absolutely beyond a shadow of a doubt committed to the achievement, success and well being of your spouse?

If no -

• keep your job
• stay single
• do not look for a partner,
• you are selfish and most any relationship of substance that you undertake baring growth on your part albeit business or personal is doomed to fail and the person you see in the mirror every morning is responsible – in fact do not be surprised is you have challenges even holding down a job!

Who came to your mind as you were reviewing this? Why?

Toxic People - Abusive Relationships

Please take the time to consider the thoughts here and if you do not want to consider the personal side of this then simply go to last video and give it some thought

Characteristics of potential partners to avoid (business, dating, friendship, or marriage)

"You can tell how much a person values and respects you (and themselves) by the degree they are willing to inconvenience themselves, be loyal to and respect you" - the late Lionel Spearman, Sr





While I am writing about business in general many of these are universal and can be used in your personal life also

Characteristics / Traits of people to avoid

• Liars
• Thieves
• Cheaters
• Seeks only playmates
• Never says thank you
• Never asks your opinion
• Never says you are right
• Never asks how can I help you
• Agree with you all of the time
• Tell you what you want to hear
• Their way is the only “right” way
• Never says I am sorry or I was wrong
• Avoids being in public or widely known
• Gets upset when no one can read their mind
• Assumes they know what is best for everyone
• Their own opinion is the only one that matters
• Nothing is ever their fault (excuse for everything)
• Never has anything constructive or positive to say
• Will add their opinion on any topic even if not asked
• Focuses on everything you or someone else did wrong
• Confuses objective observation with subjective opinions
• Achievements of others solicits a negative often critical reaction
• Pushes you away and blames you for not staying or claims you pushed them away
• Disrespectful (i.e. - cursing you, calling you stupid, yelling at or arguing with you)
• Is quick to tell you everything they have done good for others but never what they have done bad or wrong they learned from
• Manipulative (i.e. uses word tricks so instead of saying here is what I did wrong and need to work on instead say here is how it is their fault I did this)

Two simple real life examples:

• a person who you are dating cheats on you with someone else then blames you for not paying enough attention to them or the other person for tempting them
• a person you entrusted to run your business stole money then blamed it on you or some circumstance and never asked you for help

If you don’t make a total commitment to whatever you’re doing, then you start looking to bail out the first time the boat starts leaking. It’s tough enough getting that boat to shore with everybody rowing, let alone when a guy stands up and starts putting his life jacket on.- Lou Holtz

Make up your own mind

I remember so often my mother would lecture me about the people I used to associate with and date. To her credit she was right about the people I dated but wrong about the people I associated with and call friends. My mother and Aunt would lecture my late cousin Richard and I about dating beneath us and not being more discriminating about the people around us. However while I love mother there are issues best left unsaid as to why I did not head all of her suggestions. People who know me know I do not use the word love lightly and it is rare I say I love someone and people I respect have earned it over time.







My mother is a brilliant woman. I remember growing up she worked on her MS and though she never has done dissertation she has everything else she needs for a PhD. Watching her I learned you can approach life one of two ways – do what is easiest short term and pay for it long term, or do what is challenging short term to benefit long term.

That aside the benefit of not listening to everything my mother told me is that I have friends and associates ranging from age 15-80 who I respect and admire. My friend and associated bridge every gender, gender preference, ethnic group, profession and country and range from HS dropout to PhD and MDs. I know I can trust them and listen to their advice and believe me most of them will freely share it. I have couples who are now divorced that I am friends with both still because I refused to pick a side.

How did this happen – simple – I make up my own mind. I do not let someone else’s opinion or even my old baggage dictate who I associate with or who is my equal – in fact everyone starts and is spoken to as if there were my equal in all things and they by their words and actions decide if I am a person of value or not. For those who decided I was not of value the lesson learned was a person can hold you in no higher value than they do themselves and if they are not willing to sacrifice for themselves or respect themselves enough to challenge themselves to grow and change or prefer to meet the status quo and be entertained then they will not hold you in any higher value and often discard you as soon as you become inconvenient.

One of the things I do is listen very closely to what is being said and I ask

• How does what they are saying affect them?
• Does it make someone else look bad?
• Does it make someone else look good?
• Do they have a need to control others and tell them what to do and how best to do it?
• Do they have a superiority or inferiority complex?
• Are they telling me about someone to help me or so they do not have to share me?
• Does what they are saying benefit me or benefit them?

I also watch how they treat animals. children and people who can do nothing for them very closely!

I have learned that my friends were the ones who more often than not

• Tell/told me about the good things others (not themselves) are doing!
• Are quick to admit their failing and shortcoming!
• Do not place blame on others!
• Will say things that are sometimes upsetting to me!
• Tell me things for my own good which sometimes are to their own detriment!
• Are humble and listen!
• Are secure in who they are and the choices they made in life!
• Offer suggestions that usually revolve around how I can better respect the thoughts and opinion of others!
• Do not believe there is the best or only way nor have a great need to control others!
• Believe they have a full time job working on themselves!
• Often have experiences great loss or tragedy in their life!
• Are not vary materialistic (despite some of them being comfortable financially)!

In college I remember a young lady I dated. Her friend told her all kinds of bad things about me and what I was doing – she listened – what she never realized is that her so called friend did that so she would break up with me and once she did that same friend hit on me – so what was her motivation?

Some time more recently I had a good friend who told me you are pissing these people off, while what you are saying may be right and true you need to shut up and stay far away from them. Pissed me off. There was no benefit for his telling me that – I listened – those same people eventually self destructed but they did not take me with them.

Here are the questions for the day to ponder

• How secure are you with yourself?
• Are you willing to grow into the person you need to become to progress in life?
• Do you think for yourself?
• Do you let fear control you?
• Do you have an open or closed mind?
• Do you let the past cloud your present?
• Do you allow others to dictate your life choices?
• Do you make excuses to justify your not achieving?
• Do you rejoice in the achievements of others or do you wish It was you?
• Do you function within a comfort zone of what is familiar that you feel you can control?
• Do you look at the facts and make objective observations from which you draw conclusions based what repeated behaviors through first hand experience or do you make up your mind first and then quickly find the circumstance to let you say "see I was right!"

Why do I bring this up – because I have more than one friend/associate who blew me off and later came back to make peace with me because they followed the people who told them what they wanted to hear at the time and they paid a price (my friendship aside).

What I am hoping is that this will cause some of you to think and if nothing else not repeat my mistakes or theirs! Also I share this because if you want to be a business owner (an entrepreneur) you must if nothing else have your own mind and not be afraid to totally abandon your comfort zone!

Magical Thinking, Monsters and Religion

Normally I do not share my thoughts publicly on religion in any detail, however heard something today that inspired me to share some of my thoughts on this and other things.

First I will stat this is not an attempt to convert anyone rather it is meant as a point of discussion regardless of your personal faith or beliefs albeit Christian, Islam, Judaism, Buddhist, agnostic, atheist, etc.

I could go into detail regarding my beliefs on and in God, yet this singular clip


I believe religion serves many purposes none of which dilute it though some many argue.

• To provide us hope
• To teach us humility
• To form a sense of community and/or extended family
• To provide inspiration
• To develop one’s imagination
• To provide ethical (moral) boundaries
• To show that there consequence for our actions (positive and negative) by teaching us accountability and responsibility

Have you ever considered how many people believe in magical thinking?


I know people will say I do not think like that and yet how man times have you seem people who want something for nothing.

• They want a life without challenge
• They want income without labor
• They want to life and do as they please without accountability
• They want a relationship without commitment or work
• They want to be the center of attention and must always be right on everything and never apologize
• They want to be able to tell everyone else what they want or think and yet do not want to listen to or acknowledge anyone else’s views

Do you know any people like this?
Are there some things you wish to add?

This made me think about how we as a society deal with issues often and what our monsters say about us, our thoughts on society, how we deal with others and what their evolution says about us as a society:

• Vampires – the embodiment of creed and sexuality – beings that live at the expense of others who exist to influence, control and exploit others for their own benefit – they expend their life and derive pleasure by taking it from you (though of late because of how much green and sexuality have become a part of our society we have recast them into good and bad)
• Werewovles – the embodiment of abuse – being who go on a rampage when an event (full moon) triggers a transformation (again similar to vampires in their evolution)
• Aliens – the embodiment of our fear of people and things that do not look or think like we do (until late and still mostly so aliens were viewed as threats to life and livelihood, of late this is slowly changing as evident by Star Trek, Star Wars, Battle Star Galactica, Star Gate
• Mummies – the embodiment of confinement and restriction – so enamored in and with tradition that you are not able to live, talk or move freely

Lets for the sake of argument regardless of your belief system assume there is a Creator. Now lets say this being created the universe and all things in it. Here is where ego comes in – if such a being existed then how can you tell that being what you want them to do for you and then be angered when you do not get it and then you perform elaborate mental exercises to justify your decision to reject it because to embrace it would mean growth and change so you look for any possible excuse even if you have to manufacture them.

• When did growth become synonymous to pain?

Is it not true in nature an object (albeit a blade of grass, a tree, a bush, etc grows and reaches for the light to survive and that when it stops growing it dies?

These questions are for “Christians” only

• How many times have you prayed for wisdom ?
• How many times have you prayed for a life partner?
• How many times have you prayed for peace of mind?
• How many times have you prayer for something and then gotten upset or rejected?

Have you even stopped to consider:

• Situations were created to give you a to learn!
• Situations were created to give you a chance to respect, trust, to lead, to follow, to talk and to listen to someone different from but complimentary to you!
• Situation were created to help you grow and learn what is important to what to let go!
• Have you ever stopped to think you got what you needed and asked for and yet you were upset because it was not done your way and yet if what you wanted worked so well and if your way of doing things was so great then why did you ask for help? In each case you were given a chance to grow and change and rejected it!

Why?

Mental Health

This is a topic not discussed often - thought would put it out there for information and discussion:

Association and Peer Pressure

We are have grown to become the people we are because of peer pressure and other influences both internal and external. So often we look at peer pressure as a negative and dismiss it when this works in our behavior. Those people who had faith in us during our formative years were also a form of peer pressure. Their belief in us often caused us to push ourselves to achieve more than we would have without.

We are so often conditioned to focus on the negative and to criticize. How often have you been offered unsolicited advise on what is wrong or on how your idea or business will not work? How often have you instead received suggestions instead on how you can make it better because the idea is sound.

We must always be aware of how these can influence us and seek out those who enable us - not to live down to our lowest base urges or to embrace excuses - rather we should seek to align ourselves with people who challenge us to realize our potential.

Sometimes the fact is we are our own worst enemy and set ourselves up for failure. How often have you made decisions out of fear which set in motion a series of events that eventually lead to your demise? How often have you gotten some level of success and thrown caution to the wind as a result again setting yourself us for failure?

Allow me to use an example: Received an unsolicited email not too long ago of a woman seeking someone to date. In this she stated I am an educated woman with a quick whit and sarcastic tongue seeking a serious committed relationship with a mature man who knows how to treat a woman. As I read it I thought how ironic - she is seeking someone to treat her with dignity and respect who will edify and add value to her and yet she is stating that she more often than not is disrespectful and devalues the person she is involved with and wondered am I the only person that sees the disconnect and double standard in the message. Yet that too is my point - we see this behavior too in society of people wanting thing from others they are not willing to give themselves.

My point in this is simple - see out people who aspire to help you reach your potential and with whom you can do the same. Often in life we are surround by people who mean well but who in reality are devaluing us in an effort to empower themselves and do not realize it. When someone comes with an idea ask yourself what suggestions can I offer that will add value instead of telling them what they are doing wrong. Offer ideas on new or innovative ways of doing things and treat them with the respect you would wish to see in return. When you have a problem (barring ethical or moral issues) instead of focusing on the negative ask yourself what positive things does this relationship bring to the table. Am I better off for having known this person?

As the saying goes any fool can criticize and more often than not most fools do.Be wise and instead of being another part of the problem become a contributing part of the solution and be known as a person who adds value instead of one that leaves a path of destruction where ever they go.

Top 7 Psychological Defense Mechanisms

In every human being, intrapsychic conflicts are bound to occur, usually because of sexual and aggressive impulses and tension. Usually, (or maybe hopefully), these conflicts are resolved by themselves in a short amount of time; however sometimes this is not the case. Every now and then, our internal conflicts can last for long periods of times, and can potentially cause us great harm. Oftentimes anxiety can wear and tear at us, and should not be underestimated. Fortunately, our body has defense mechanisms to defend us from unpleasant emotions and feelings, such as anxiety. These are 7 of them:

1. Rationalization

Rationalization is something that every human being does, probably on a daily basis. Rationalization is defined as “Creating false but plausible excuses to justify unacceptable behavior.” An example of this would be a student stealing money from a wealthy friend of his, telling himself “Well he is rich, he can afford to lose it.”

2. Identification

Identification is defined as “Bolstering self-esteem by forming an imaginary or real alliance with some person or group.” This is a fairly common method of attempting to forget about ones troubles, happens fairly often, especially in insecure people. A person joining a sports team, fraternity, social clique or even subcultures are all examples of this.

3. Displacement

Displacement is defined as “Diverting emotional feelings (usually anger) from their original source to a substitute target.” This frequently occurs in families, where we often see the father getting mad at the mother. The mother then takes her anger out on her son, the son in turn yells at his little sister, the little sister kicks the dog, and the dog bites the cat. Another example would obviously be a boxer taking out his frustration on a punching bag or an opponent.

4. Projection

Projection is defined as “Attributing one’s own thoughts, feelings, or motives to another.” This characteristic is not uncommon, and we have probably all witnessed it. An angry man might accuse others of being hostile and antagonistic. Another example might be a con-artist might be under the impression that everyone else is trying to con him or her.

5. Regression

Regression is defined as “A reversion to immature patterns of behavior.” There are plenty of examples of this (and we all know a couple we are guilty of). One of the more obvious examples might be a teenager not allowed to go on a trip for spring break, so he or she might throw a temper tantrum and scream and cry at his or her parents. Conversely, a teenager might revert back to infant behavior to receive sympathy from his or her parents.

6. Reaction Formation

Reaction formation is one of the odder defense mechanisms, as it entails behaving completely contrary to how one truly feels. It is defined as “Behaving in a way that is exactly the opposite of one’s true feelings.” We see this all the time in relationships, where “I despise him” becomes “I love him.” Similarly, a boss might give an employee who he is frustrated with a raise.

7. Repression

Repression underlies all the others, and it is possibly the oddest of them all. Repression is defined by “Keeping distressing thoughts and feelings buried in the unconscious.” There has been much controversy over repressed memories, and many court cases as a result of this. A little girl’s memory of being molested when she was a toddler might become a repressed memory. The little girl will completely forget about this experience, until the memory might resurface years later. The trouble is, there have been various accounts of memories resurfacing that have no truth or bearing to them. Repressed memories then are unreliable and oftentimes untrue. Conversely; there have been several cases of repressed memories being accurate; one must simply take an account of a repressed memory with a grain of salt.

Sources: Weiten, Wayne. Psychology: Themes and Variations. Thomson Wadsworth.

source

No matter where you go there you are!

So often people fail to face their problems not accepting responsibility for the role they had in creating them – this is bad for a person but it is fatal for a business. Some call it insanity, how many people have you seen move from one location to another constantly complaining about the problems they have or the people they encounter. The problem is not the other people it is the person they see everyday when they look in the mirror. A person must change and accept responsibility to realize different results and so many are not willing to do this instead blaming everything and everyone else.

About two years ago I did a post – I will not repost it in full but will the highlights

There were two women looking for a place to live because they had each gotten a new job, they each drove through this little town and saw a man sitting on the porch. They each asked the man what kind of people live here and the man answered what kind of people live where you are now? The first woman spewed many negative things about the people where she is moving from and the man responded – you will find the same type of people here while the second had nothing but praise of where she lived and how much she will miss them – again the old man said you will find those same type of people here.

• How could he give the same answer to both women?
  
• How does this relate to business?
  

Your attitude often is the only factor in your success or failure because often what you are seeing is people reacting to your core nature. Worded differently you can Change, Grow or Die.

Growth comes in many forms – one need but look at our current financial crisis and see the results of being stagnant and maintaining a status quo. Think of it this way – what happens to water that sits over a long period of time – it goes bad. Granted the problem s with the financial industry are deeper as well as auto – business models and infrastructure is being used to do things it was not designed – a failed or flawed system no matter how much you want it to work will fail time and time again - same holds true with your mind (BTW – I am amazed the leadership is just now starting to figure out the bailout will not work and that change must occur!)

I know it seems like I am skipping around but really this is a variation on a theme being growth, change and namely continuing education. As a business owner it is important that you never stop learning and growing. This can take many forms both structured and informal however is not suggested, but required. Have you ever wondered why professional organizations make continuing education a part of the requirements to maintain active membership? Simple, to keep information fresh, to remind people of and reinforce the basics, to allow people the chance learn new and more effective ways to do things, and to educate their members on what does and does not work. In short to allow you to benefit from the knowledge and experience of others, to not take advantage of this is tantamount to suicide and will lead to a slow and agonizing death.

Where can you get this knowledge?

There are many places to look

• Internet websites
• Business books
• Business schools
• Colleges, Universities and tech schools
• Trade fairs
• And so many other sources

A desire to learn shows your clients you are willing to grown and become more. It is an indication that you as a business or a business owner are willing to do everything in your power to realize your potential and utilize all of the tools available.

Ok – pop quiz

• Question – How many of you think Sears is still just an appliance store?
  
• Answer – Sears (appliances), Sears Logistics Service, Allstate Insurance, Hertz Rent a Car, K-Mart, Real Estate, Orchard Hardware, The Discover Card, etc

Just a little food for thought!