Anybody who reads this blog much at all knows I really like Simon Black's site, www.sovereignman.com. He's a traveler, an entrepreneur, a global patriot and a good writer. His recent post (currently on the 'top' at his site) is another one about one of his favorite countries, Chile.
This time he's talking about is geographical and climatological diversity. It's a good read.
He also makes some other comments that about Amerika and Obama. Of course people like me and people like Simon.....we don't like Mr. the Great Deceiver at all. But Simon had some literally creative and colorful words to describe Mr. Is-He-or-Isn't He's recent antics.
"The entire concept of today’s “career politician” is based on the idea that constituents exist to support them, not the other way around."
"politicians make things worse, not better. The sooner people take matters into their own hands and declare their economic independence, the better off they’ll be."
"The United States government is not the center of the universe that it thinks it is… and perhaps the most telling sign was the market’s next-day reaction: flat, dollar decline. They have no credibility with anyone but themselves."
Simon also comments on the life and work styles made possible by the internet and other tools. I totally agree with his opinion there. Simon is one of a growing number of people who are proving it's possible to enjoy life under 'multiple flags'. I'm all for it too.
Any of you guys out there who've ever wondered about meeting a nice Filipina girl for the purpose, probably, of marriage.....you'll find this interesting.
First of all....a little background.
I've long thought that Filipina girls were pretty. Of course, to be honest, there's pretty girls pretty much everywhere. But on the other hand, I think it is safe to make a general statement that certain ethinc and/or national groups do tend to exhibit certain unique characteristics. And it's..."'different strokes for different folks", right?
I mean, some guys are partial to black chicks, some guys like fat chicks, some guys like Latinas, some.....etc., etc.
And some guys like'em all. But there's no denying (and I DID check the spelling on that word) that more and more US and Western guys are 'looking abroad' for romance.
This interesting article by Jennifer Gosse on www.namechk.com asks "How do you distinguish yourself in an increasingly hostile job economy
and a burgeoning global workplace?"
The answer?
Your “best self”- your personal brand
– needs to become visible in social media.
Did you know that they're building, and selling, more multi-million dollar yachts now than ever before?
It's true. And what's also true is that somebody has to 'crew' those pretty little things! Somebody needs to be deck hands, cooks, waiters, mechanics, and a whole host of other job titles that I'm not even aware of.
Why couldn't it be you?
Getting a job on a yacht, as explained on www.getajobonayacht.com is another one of those dream jobs that continues to thrive whether economies are good or bad. I think it sounds like something worth looking into.
I just found this video, among many, on YouTube. If you check it out, lemme know what it's like.
P.S. You can Google "how to get a job on a yacht" and find lots of sites on the subject. And 'no'..I don't think this girl is very attractive.
I'm reading an interesting article right now about being thrifty. It's called:
How to
Afford Anything
It's by a guy named Ken Rockwell and his website is at http://www.kenrockwell.com. I'm not even finished with it yet but he's got a lot of interesting things to say. One of them that makes a lot of sense to me is this:
Don't Worry About What
You Own
Rule one: How rich
you are is determined by how much money you have, not by what you own. What you own is how
much money you've given away to others! Once you've bought this junk,
you no longer have your money.
I think that's really choice wisdom.Don't you wish the jerkwads in Washington, D.C. thought that way?
I'll always remember when I read the novel by Ayn Rand, "Atlas Shrugged". I thought it was very good. Further, I remember one guy. Sorta one of the antagonists in the plot. His name was Albert Tooey (I think I'm right on that).
The thing that fascintated me about Albert Tooey was how he consciously manipulated people. For his own purposes of course.
And.....I've realized from my use of the internet in recent years how easy it is for individuals and companies to create hugh, grandiose, seemingly noble auras and images of themselves which often times are not the complete picture. In Hollywood and the business world that's called 'public relations(PR)'.
While I don't think that conscious efforts to generate good PR are necessarily a bad thing, I do think that we (and I do include myself in this group) oftentimes take the surface appearance of things too much on faith.
One such thing, or person, who I think very possibly is more (or 'less'....depending on how you look at it) than their public persona is Oprah Winfrey. I've heard in the past that Oprah has some beliefs that are, to say the least, not fundamentally Christian but rather more on the 'fringe'. Here's an interesting video I found tonight on Youtube. (Am I surprised? No.)
I'll give you another two examples in my experiences of why I'm sorta anti-guru:
I lived in Houston, TX. from about 1980 until I came over here to Korea in 2007. During that time I had a lot of ups and downs. One of the jobs I had was working for a motivation speaker. I'll just call him "Thomas Ashly".
I was a sales person for him. What I'd do is find people to come to his seminars. I'd get a commision based on my sales.
I should also mention that one of the reasons I was fairly successful doing that was because of my prior experience with a company which, far as I know, still exists today up in Waco, TX....Success Motivation Institute(SMI). I've got a story about them too.
But to continue with the story around Mr. Ashley:
Basically, as I got to know the guy I eventually realized what a shyster he was. Behind the facade he created, his life was a mess. I came to suspect that he wasn't even using his real name. But one thing he was extremely good at....(like Albert Tooey).
He really knew how to get 'inside' people's mind and discover what motivated them and turn it around to get what he wanted. He was a real expert at that type of manifulation. But his own life turned out to be a situation of staying constantly just one step ahead of people who were after him because of how he'd jilted them out of their money with his grandiose plans and schemes.
I'd sit back and watch his effect on our 'students'....many of whom seemed (perhaps coincidentally or perhaps not) to be women. He really had many of them mesmerized. Sorta like Jim Jones.
But I knew better.
The other experience I had within that industry that had a lasting effect on me was my 2 years with SMI.
SMI is one of the earliest succesful companies in the 'personal motivation' business. Their particular niche was the programs, i.e. casette tapes and workbooks, that they sold through an international network of franchaisees (i.e. "Distributors" or dealers). My introduction to them was when I went to work, as a salesman, for one of their Distributors in Amarillo, TX.
Their programs actually were (and probably still are) very good. I never had any complaints about the quality of their product. It was only what I later learned about how their sales operations worked, 'behind closed doors' that, that changed my opinion of them. And of the industry.
I was very successful in the field as a salesperson. I was, to a large degree, a 'product of the product'. I'm sure a lot of that stuff I absorbed is still with me today. However, in another sense, I probably went through a metamorphasis somewhat similar to WWII German General Paulos who was captured in the Battle of Stalingrad.
General Paulos went from being a confirmed, committed Nazi to being totally anti-Hitler and spent the rest of his life, in Russia and later from with East Germany writing about how Hitler had let him down and how he'd (Paulos) realized how fatally flawed the Nazi philosophy was....etc., etc.
But I digress..........
Point is, as a result of my success with SMI as a field salesperson, I had the chance to go to the home office, in Waco, and work as something called a Field Director(FD...I think that's what it was called). As an FD my job was to take the leads we got and sell them a franchaise, as an SMI Distributor. At that time the 'distributorship' was selling for about $11,000.
While it's true that some of the people we sold those distributorships too were willing buyers, it's also true that the majority of them had no idea what they were really getting into. We, as FD's, were trained to obfuscate their purchasing decision by giving misleading facts, advice, paper shuffling, and outright lies. But we justified it with the rationale that there was a higher purpose involved...ie.. that the most important thing was our mission of 'motivating people to their full potential' and building the distributor network, etc.
We thought we were working toward a 'higher good'. It was only later that I began to question whether we, or anybody, really has the right to do that for somebody else. I now tend to thing the answer is, for adult to adult relationships at least.....'no'.
And that, finaly, brings me around to why I think this video about Ophah Winfrey is interesting.
How many people worship her and take anything and everything she says as 'gospel'?
The answer?
Too many!
I think many of us, including perhaps myself, tend to take life too serious. I mean....what is it anyway? How long does it last?
No matter what we do....whether we become an Oprah Winfrey or a Joe Lunchbucket...does it really matter in the longer, eternal run?
I wonder. And I might never find out but I suspect the answer is 'no'.
But I damn sure don't think I can blindly trust anybody else to 'give' me the answer. Certainly not Oprah Winfrey. Or 99% of the other supposed 'gurus' out there.
Recent Comments