The Age of Man and a Shift in Value

Two of the Mind Masters that I get teachings from are Stephen Covey and Igor Ledochowski. Most of the mind masters I have listened to had teachings that intersect one another. I am hoping to harness the best of each one's teachings, relate them to my life and understand how they affect ofther people. And hopefully improve myself and the people that suround me.

In both the "7 Habits of Highly Effective People" by Covey and "Money In Your Mind" seminar by Lodchowski, they talk about the topic of the ages of man. Lodchowski just enhances it more by relating it to the value exchange shifts in each age to highlight how the mindset of money came about. But his discussion did not go further to the Knowledge Worker age which Covey had covered. I'd like to contemplate on the value shift of this age today.

The age of man starts of with the HUNTER. A being that would hunt for his survival. Value is subject only to what he considers as his own needs. There is sone value on the hunted animal that they are fighting for as they need the prey to survive. But there is no exchange or trade in this age. Thus an objects importance is relative to how it's owner prizes it. At this point I believe that one's survival is the most valued necessity.

Then the hunter evolves into the FARMER, after much experience and dliberation. The Hunter realizes the effort of looking for, tracking, and then killing/catching prey. He eventually realizes that he can breed and he can plant. To the individual, a shift on how much he values his resources is starting to take place. Besides realizing that stock that he keeps is easier to access than hunting for it, he also realizes that this is a reasource that he can grow / breed, cultivate, and then harvest. He starts planning on for his future by consuming just what he needs, and re-investing the rest.

As man learns how to sow and reap, he also gets to realize that with the excess of what he is growing, he'd be able to barter goods with other people. He'd be able to exchange what value he has in return for items he regards to of same or more value. For example a sack of wheat that he has in excess, he can exchange for a leg of cow thst another person may have. And the person to whom had exchanged the sack of wheat can now exchange half a sack for a bowl of honey, and so on.

Similarly at this time as man begins to explore, he starts to discover items in nature that though cannot be cultivated or made many, can be harvested. These items which are hard to find and to cultivate are harnesses and made into trinkets which made them more valuable to people. Precious stones, hard to find shells, and other items shaped to attract became the new basis for bartering. Now a new level of value is set, and items which are hard to find or exhibit certain characteristics are now considered as precious. The trading process was further simplified as heads of state, emperors and chieftains moved towards making coins out of the precious metals and gave denomination value to each kind of coin created. This has become the start of how man perceived value to money.

Then during the time of the Crusades, when people had to travel long distances to the Holy Land, it had made travelling with people's money very risky. Just imagine travelling hundreds of miles with bags of gold and silver coins. The Knights Templar had conceptualized a process wherein people could deposit their coins in one of their keeps in one city and be issued a piece of parchment that can be authenticated by other Templars in other city keeps. And give the depositor the ability to withdraw the sane amount of money in any other city where a Templar keep is located. These "Founders of Banking" not only revolutionized business commerce through this process, this also led the way to trading with paper bills.

As man transitions from Farmer to INDUSRIAL age, governments have now come to standardize both bills and coin tokens to have equivalent values based on their precious metal reserves. And this is how we go about trading and bartering using paper bills and coins. This had hightened during the industrial age as we start to have the facilities and machines of molding and the technology of printing. Now when you come to think of it, the sack of wheat that we used to trade before is being traded off now via paper bills. And if you further think about it, it is actually us who put in the value to these bills. With this realization, we would be able to come to the deduction that to be able to earn these bills, there should be a value exchange that should take place. We now make use of paper bills as a representation of value, thus it is only right that to be able to earn more of these bills, we must be able to provide the most value.

Now besides the paradigm shift in the valuation of paper bills. Another important value shift during the industrial age is the technology of printing. The printing press had given man the power to not only write down texts of knowledge passed down from generation to generation, but gave man the facility to mass prosuce and distribute knowledge through books. Just imagine and compare as an example how the teachings of the Bible were spread through word of mouth only through gatherings. This compared to being able to print a thousand Bibles and these sent across for anyone to access. Value has now transitioned from how many you can make, to how intelligent you can make it.

Now in the KNOWLEDGE WORKER AGE, man puts weight to not just "how many" can be.made, but also to factors of how fast, how reliable, how efficient, how much improvement, and so on. The knowledge worker age brings us to individuals who specializes and brings forth value via the service that one provides. This had given a more defined individual state to people. We have doctors, lawyers, engineers, drivers, etc, each defined by their individual skills. And for each skill that a person puts forward, is the value that they provide to society.

This brings me to the thought of the next age we are transitioning to. An age defined by a new technology as with each age in the past. During the HUNTERS AGE, hunting tools and weapons, the FARMING AGE, farming tools, the INDUSTRIAL AGE, machines, and the KNOWLEDGE WORKER AGE, books and the printing press. Iam talking about the INTERNET AGE, and the internet. As compared to the time of the knowledge worker age wherein knowledge is regulated and spread based on a specific standard. The internet on the otherhand is a deregulated medium wherein any individual can contribute, and yet is left to each and every individual to decide if these contributions are legit.

In this age and time a degree can be earned online. Knowledge is spread and provided to all, but it does not really take into consideration the ramifications of this knowledge that is shared. Just imagine individuals who feel sick, would rather search online for the symptoms and a cure based on number of votes/likes as compared to seeking professional opinion. Similarly we have people interacting through social media more, as compared to face to face interaction. And with regards to money, just note its transition from paper bills to plastic cards (credit cards) to online points / tokens which are exchanged to virtual "stuff".

Ledochowski had argued that there is one thing that removes value from things and that is consumption. Becoming the hunter and consuming things without providing anything back in return. At this point I disagree as I have identified another process of devaluation. And this is creating a virtual counterpart and making people perceive these items as valuable. I do believe that we will be seeing the end of thr knowledge worker age soon. I just fear that the next age of man that we are moving into is becoming less and less human.

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Some Facts About Decisions Making and Willpower

An interesting article came out in the Business Insider  today which talks about things to note for about making decisions and willpower.  The article pointed out that in a global study  that was made, it was discovered that self control was the most prominent weakness by people. A separate study also suggest that willpower is a brain resource that will eventually get depleted as we make use of our decision making facilities.

1) Decisions should be made in the morning before your mental resources are depleted

2) Small decisions accumulate to deplete the resource

3) During the state of mental depletion, this is the time that people tend to make trade-offs

4) Glucose helps in making good decision

5) At an average people spend up to 4 times a day to resist desire.

6) The most successful people have developed routines and habits that help eliminate stress and conserve energy for important decisions.

7) Adequate Healthy Eating, Sleeping and Exercise is key to sound decision making.

8) Groups are made more intelligent because of women members of a group based on a study published on the Harvard Business Review.

9) Another article by the Harvard Business Review shows how important the unconscious is in making decisions ... so it is good to sleep on it.

10) Ask help, or run by your ideas with others to get a different point of view.

11) Once in a while there is value in making the wrong decisions, we learn from our mistakes.

12) Delegate the decision making process, or create dependencies that will force the decision automatically.

13) Accepting and educating ourselves towards the fact that right decision making is not a 100% full proof process / guarantee prepares us to engage it smarter.

14) Plan ahead and not procastinate helps in conserving mental energy.

Why We Should Avoid Floyd

Just finished watching the controversial win of Floyd Mayweather against Victor Ortiz. And it was really disappointing, verging on pathetic even. And people wonder why Floyd is still given fights? It is just sad that some people organizes fights based on boxers capacity to rack in crowds. And now the unsuspecting crowds are drawn in hoping to watch a fight worth their hard earned money, and they get a lemon of a fight.

These kinds of fight blemishes the institution that these fighters represents, and is a slap to the faces of the rest of the fighters in the past that held the institution up. As a consolation we have pre-fights even much more worth watching than the main event. But that's just it, supposedly, the main fight is why the spectators flock to and watch. And so if the promoters and the fight bodies continue to support such fights, we'd expect a decline in the over-all worth / value of this sport. A sport that is measured by each individual's capabilities is degraded to a mere form of entertainment that a lot of us would not appreciate.

In the Philippines we have a type of satirical play which we call "moro-moro" wherein the play usually depicts the fight between Christians and Muslims with the Christians always coming out as the victor, to prove superiority and dominance over the Muslim. And since the outcome of these plays are already predictable, we now have the term "moro-moo" coined for every "staged" event. I have now come to believe that Floyd Mayweather have mastered the art of "moro-moro". He had just presented a fight worth the level of moro-moro and I believe that by continuing to support him, he woild be doing the same for his next fights.

It is just the same with all other things that we would want to get rid off. If we dicontinue the use and support of or the use of, we would only expect a loss in interest of / value of this person. I still stand by the thought to totally avoid Floyd and just don't give him the benefit of a fight with Manny Pacquiao. Let him earn the right to fight and not us being drawn by all his tactics. With this kind of fights Floyd is not worth a cent. Unfortunately all he should be getting is what he has now, 50 Cent!

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I HAVE JUST DISCOVERED THE CONCEPT OF DUNBAR'S NUMBER

Dunbar's number - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar's_number

While watching BBC's special series about the Internet, I was introduced to the concept of Dunbar's number. The concept basically states that each individual can only maintain relations with 150 other individuals. So in effect, why do I have more people in the social networking sites that I am part of? In fact there is truth in the matter that in Facebook I interact with just a handful of people, in Twitter, a couple, and in Linkedin even fewer. The most interaction I had with social networks were already here in Google+ and that was because I started early with the platform. But I don't really interact much with the online community, except for people that I already know or I have interacted with face to face.

It's amazing that a decade ago, when the web was powered by dial-up modems and the means of social networking were chatrooms, there used to be a much used acronym in chat which was "IRL" or "in real life". This term I have now seldom seen used because it seems like "generation web" has already moved in to full life adaption of the web. We used to imagine and laugh at scenarios of life without electricity, and now the same goes true with imagining life without the web. We have now made the internet much a part of our daily lives that some people have even made it their means of living.

And yet do we believe that the value exchange for something instant compared for something worked for, for something virtual compared to something I could experience with all senses, Or for something free in exchange for us providing our identity out to strangers worth having the web? What comes to mind is how we people strive to make machines more human. But what if with all the data mining tools, the comprehension and suggestion engines, and the thought alteration algorithms, we are becoming more machines than humans. Ask yourselves, don't you feel the hesitation at the thought of becoming unplugged? How different is it from giving vacuum cleaners feelings and you trying to turn them off or remove their plug? Is this the "Ghost in the Machine"?

Well I do believe that we have comeby the power of the web as a great tool and technology. And like precious technologies before it, human choice and intelligence will be it's limits for it being used for good or for harm. Similarly it would be our freewill that would dictate how much of our lives will be taken up by the internet, and how much are we willing to give it in the future.

I am not sure if in the future I'd still be alive to witness physically being plugged in to the net, or applications that would allow me to surf in my sleep, or even I/O peripherals that would provide me the 360 degree sense experience. And I do believe that these are things that are laid out in our near future. But for now besides the web that assists me, i am content with knowing that I can have 150 true people in my life that I can interact with, hold my hands with, love with, and talk to with face to face in the comfort of my personal space. I intend to develop my emotional bank account with this people on the web or out of it. And how about you, do you have 150 friends or a thousand mouse clicks?

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The Value of 9-11

Today marks the tenth year of one of the most horrific events of our times.  The aftermath by which provided everyone of a clear picture of what it is to stare in the eyes of terror.  And for a lot of people, not event time can erase the pain and scars that this incident had brought to them.  I pray for each and every soul whose life was changed by this in one way or the other and hope that someday they would learn to eventually realize the reason of why this had happened. 

In one of the sessions in Igor Lechowski’s Money in your Mind Seminar, he had introduced the “Value Game” wherein participants are asked to find value in anything that they might come to think of.  From a simple item such as a piece of paper to an event such as the Tsunami that hit Japan.  This serves as an exercise for each individual to broaden their minds and shift their thinking into seeing the value of things that they encounter.  In line with commemorating September 11, I would like to put myself in the situation of playing the value game and provide you ten things I could think of as the value of 9-11.  I’ve listed them out below at no particular order.

Top 10 Things of Value Out of 9-11

1)  Heroism Reborn – each and every volunteer who risked their lives to save a fellowman gave us a picture of what a hero is.  Every individual involved in the fight against terror, is indeed a hero.  9-11 had taught us that we have the choice to go a heroes path and do our part.

2) That this did not happen to a less capable country. – I do not wish for this to happen to any country but just imagine if this had happened to a 3rd would country?  Would that country ever pick up itself as fast?

3)  The event led to learning and change – the changes brought about tighter security measures.  For every mistake that led to that fateful day to happen, the mistakes were identified and now remedied.

4) People have become more educated – people are now made aware of what is happening and what could happen.  People are given more options because of this.

5) Brought about freedom from internal oppression – Afghanistan and Iraq had their internal oppressors brought down as an effect of 9-11.  A similar sentiment now grows in other countries where people are now starting to become empowered to fight this kind of oppression.

6)  Brought emphasis to how each individual affects one another – one person was identified as the mastermind of 9-11 and became the poster-boy of terror.  Just imagine the effect this one person has.  This same concept applies for every positive an individual brings to this world.

7) Unity for a cause and not at a cost – People are now becoming more proactive and uniting to move towards a specific cause that would benefit all.  And not just let things to happen and act on a cost.

8)  Realization of a life borrowed and a life worth living.- that in a single day the life lost is so significant, we can only think that what He gave to us, He can take anytime.  So we must let every moment count and live as if it is our last.

9)  Rights, Race, Religion and Reasons – Several issues and topics has been presented as an outcome of 9-11.  Topics that touch one’s individuality and choice.  Each one of us are given freewill and choice.  And it is up to us to make the right choices.

10) Love Renewed – the point wherein all of us are most affected by this is because of our love for our fellowmen.  And sometimes it takes a great loss to realize the things that you love.

I have never wished for September 11 to happen, nor do I wish for it to occur again.  But it did happen, and our lives will be forever changed because of it.  But will we let ourselves forever suffer ,as what those who pushed for this to happen wanted to? Or do we understand that this event had happened and learn from the why’s of it?  For each and every person who is still in pain, my hopes and prayers go out to you.

“The phoenix hope, can wing her way through the desert skies, and still defying fortune's spite; revive from ashes and rise.” – Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (Spanish writer, author of the masterwork 'El quijote', 1547-1616)

Scarred People Are Beautiful

Let me share with you one of the stories that was relayed to us in a “Retreat” I ad attended a long time ago.  The story goes something like this:

Eversince I could remember, I’d open my eyes everyday and I find myself standing in the middle of this vast hayfield.  I do enjoy this peace and quiet,without a bother in the world.  Then one day out of nowhere, I see this old bloke standing in front of me.  He circled me as if he was looking for something that I had taken.  What made matters worst was he slid his cold rough hands across as if measuring how angry I would get.  And as if nothing happened, he walked away and vanished from my view. I had never felt more violated in my life.  How I wished I would never see that man again. 

Weeks passed since that encounter and I was enjoying my usual afternoon, when out of nowhere “Ouch what the F*CK!”. I felt a sharp thump on my backside, a pain that I had never felt before.  This was followed by another stab on the opposite side,  IT WAS THE MAN! He thumped a stab at me several times more at different directions.  Over and over again, he would just stop and pause to step back and view the damage that he was doing. I could not wipe away his grin from my mind.  He had the look of satisfaction from my demise.  And he continued with the hell he brought to me until I just saw darkness.

I woke up aching all over, as if I was rolled over by a boulder.  Each wound as painful as the other still aching in unison.  And as I look down I could not express the horror of seeing the rest of ME scattered on the ground.  Oh how I prayed that that be the last I see of the man.  Unfortunately it seemed I did not pray hard enough.  I could not imagine how sadistic a person can be.  Causing more wounds on top of fresh ones.  I hated the MAN for what he was doing.  I hated MYSELF for letting this happen.  I hated EVERYTHING!.  And still the man kept on.

The routine went on for days, as days went into weeks and weeks into months.  I was full of spite towards the man.  I did not know hom I was able to hate someone so much. But I did.  Everyday a new pain, as if he was not satisfied until he riddled every inch of my body with hurt.  And how I despised his grin, I wanted to knock that smug grin everytime he stopped to stare at his handiwork. I had started to accept my fate and let things be.  I would learn to accept the pain and hope that the man will get his fix, leave and let me be. 

Then one day as I was anticipating for the next blow to come, the man suddenly stopped.  He stepped away a few steps and starred.  I did not see the usual annoying grin that I usually see on him,but more a look and a smile of a person with a satisfied whim.  Could it be that he already has his fix and that he would let me be?  Oh please let this be the case.  And when I was just about to let down my guard, a thick wool cloth engulfed me.  I could feel that I was being lifted off the ground.  “No, no, NOOOOOO!!!”.

Wasn’t it enough that he had caused me pain for several months day in day out?  That he had to subject me to the most that I can bear? And now he had to move me away from the place that I had known as my home for the longest time.  When will he ever stop?” When will he stop terrorizing me? When will my scars heal?

We had travelled some great distance when I felt that I was being put down.  I had sensed that wherever he had brought me was different from the place that I have known all my life.  I could hear a mob of anxious people now.  “Oh is this the end of me?” I felt like each and every person was just waiting for the wool cloth to be removed for them to have a go at me. 

And as the wool cloth was lifted and as I anticipated the next set of jabs.  What happened was far from what I had expected.  The mob that I had though was there to finish me off was there staring back at me. Its so hard to describe the look in their eyes, but the nearest word would be “awestruck”.  I could hear the words, “beautiful”, “magnificent”, “inspiring”, “masterpiece” in the gaps as the crowd rang with applause as they looked at me in amazement. 

I was dumbstruck at what just happened, until in the not so far distance, two men carrying a full length mirror passed by in front of me and I stared back at the most beautiful marble statue anyone can lay their eyes on.  What used to be that thick slab of rock standing in the middle of the hayfield, is now a town’s centerpiece, showing what beauty is.  And I realized from that day on, that each and every scar that that man had left on me, is what had made me beautiful.

Go Through Life's Rules and Be Unfair

People has the tendency to think that the rich got where they are right now because they are not following the rules. Actually the rich got where they are because they indeed ARE following the rules. They have empowered themselves by learning and educating themselves on the rules of business and finance which most of us tend to neglect. When all common individuals have the obligation to pay their taxes, the rich has the know how to make themselves tax excempt. When all the rest are working their bottoms off to earn money, the rich knows how to make money work for them. And all of these things done under rules and legality. This is one of the realizations I have come by in my learning, but it is not enough for me to realize this. I have to absorb and dig further on the rules of life.

Another realization I have reached today is that eventhough life is running by a set of rules, it does not mean it has to fair. And life indeed should not be fair as fairness is just a frame of mind. Fairness is a concept wherein all parties are given an equal share of what is given regardless of the attitude each individual puts forward. But given that each individual has their own attitude towards life, it is only right that life must be unfair. One individual could work hard and educate himself more than the other individual whi just expects hand me outs. Similarly one individual could be percieved as providing mre value at less cost from ten people and yer get more, rather than one person getting a deal for more with just five people. And this does not mean that peole should be unethical or that they should take advantage of other people, because this concept of life being unfair means you have to treat people right and just.

I am ready to be guided by a set of rules and accept that life is indeed unfair for me to be as enterprising and as smart as I can be.

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Thank You For Today

A prayer to the Almighty as I start the day today. I thank You for another day and another chance to give my best. I thank You for allowing me to open my eyes and see the beautiful treasures who were sleeping beside me. For giving me my wonderful wife who gave me a massage last night to ease my body pains, and for these two little tykes who even at their most playful state still manages to relieve me of stress. This I am thankful for.

For my health, my well being, my ability to choose, and the air I breathe in, I thank You. I offer my day's activity all up to You. May you help me see the value in what I do and help me provide value in what I offer.

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Man in the Mirror

Went out on a date with the wife last night and watched a concert.  I wasn’t really a fan of Color Me Badd nor their partner group All-4-One, though I did enjoy the concert.  Found myself singing to familiar “old school” tunes and was amazed on how loud my wife can scream at each song that she knows.  I believe I made a big deposit to my emotional bank account because of that date.  And times like those are of the most value in a relationship. 

But surprisingly I got the most value when the two groups performed their encore song.  The concert was also a tribute to Michael Jackson and they had a segment wherein the two groups alternatively sang a medley of MJ songs.  For the group’s encore performance, they sang “Man in the Mirror”, a 1987 song by the King of Pop.  Though this is a relatively old and popular song, it was only last night that the lyrics really struck me and then realized how beautiful it’s message is.  And that message to me is all packed in the following line, “ Take a look at yourself and make that change”. 

Let me share the lyrics and video of the song with you:

“Man in the Mirror” Live Performance 1988 Grammy Awards–Michael Jackson

 

"Man In The Mirror"

I'm Gonna Make A Change, For Once In My Life
It's Gonna Feel Real Good, Gonna Make A Difference
Gonna Make It Right . . .
As I, Turn Up The Collar On My Favourite Winter Coat
This Wind Is Blowin' My Mind I See The Kids In The Street,With Not Enough To Eat
Who Am I, To Be Blind? Pretending Not To See
Their Needs A Summer's Disregard,
A Broken Bottle Top And A One Man's Soul

They Follow Each Other On
The Wind Ya' Know 'Cause They Got Nowhere
To Go That's Why I Want You To Know

I'm Starting With The Man In The Mirror
I'm Asking Him To Change His Ways
And No Message Could Have Been Any Clearer
If You Wanna Make The World A Better Place
(If You Wanna Make The World A Better Place)
Take A Look At Yourself, And Then Make A Change
(Take A Look At Yourself, And Then Make A Change)
(Na Na Na, Na Na Na, Na Na, Na Nah)

I've Been A Victim Of A Selfish Kind Of Love
It's Time That I Realize

That There Are Some With NoHome, Not A Nickel To Loan
Could It Be Really Me, Pretending That They're Not Alone?
A Willow Deeply Scarred,Somebody's Broken Heart
And A Washed-Out Dream (Washed-Out Dream)
They Follow The Pattern Of The Wind, Ya' See
Cause They Got No Place To Be
That's Why I'm Starting With Me (Starting With Me!)

I'm Starting With The Man In The Mirror (Ooh!)
I'm Asking Him To Change His Ways (Ooh!)
And No Message Could Have Been Any Clearer
If You Wanna Make The World A Better Place
(If You Wanna Make The World A Better Place)
Take A Look At Yourself And Then Make A Change
(Take A Look At Yourself And Then Make A Change)
I'm Starting With The Man In The Mirror (Ooh!)
I'm Asking Him To Change His Ways
(Change His Ways-Ooh!)
And No Message Could've Been Any Clearer
If You Wanna Make The World A Better Place
(If You Wanna Make The World A Better Place)
Take A Look At Yourself And Then Make That . . .
(Take A Look At Yourself And Then Make That . . .)
Change!

I'm Starting With The Man In The Mirror, (Man In The Mirror-Oh Yeah!)
I'm Asking Him To Change His Ways (Better Change!)
No Message Could Have Been Any Clearer
(If You Wanna Make The World A Better Place)
(Take A Look At Yourself And Then Make The Change)
(You Gotta Get It Right, While You Got The Time)
('Cause When You Close Your Heart)
You Can't Close Your . . .Your Mind!
(Then You Close Your . . . Mind!)
That Man, That Man, That Man, That Man
With That Man In The Mirror (Man In The Mirror, Oh Yeah!)
That Man, That Man, That Man
I'm Asking Him To Change His Ways (Better Change!)
You Know . . .That Man
No Message Could Have Been Any Clearer
If You Wanna Make The World A Better Place
(If You Wanna Make The World A Better Place)
Take A Look At Yourself And Then Make A Change
(Take A Look At Yourself And Then Make A Change)
Hoo! Hoo! Hoo! Hoo! Hoo!
Na Na Na, Na Na Na, Na Na, Na Nah (Oh Yeah!)
Gonna Feel Real Good Now!

Yeah Yeah! Yeah Yeah! Yeah Yeah!
Na Na Na, Na Na Na, Na Na, Na Nah (Ooooh . . .)
Oh No, No No . . .
I'm Gonna Make A Change It's Gonna Feel Real Good!
Come On! (Change . . .)
Just Lift Yourself You Know
You've Got To Stop It. Yourself!
(Yeah!-Make That Change!)
I've Got To Make That Change, Today! Hoo!
(Man In The Mirror)
You Got To You Got To Not Let Yourself . . . Brother . . .Hoo!
(Yeah!-Make That Change!) You Know-I've Got To Get
That Man, That Man . . . (Man In The Mirror)
You've Got To You've Got To Move! Come
On! Come On! You Got To . . .
Stand Up! Stand Up! Stand Up!
(Yeah-Make That Change) Stand Up And Lift
Yourself, Now! (Man In The Mirror) Hoo! Hoo! Hoo! Aaow!
(Yeah-Make That Change) Gonna Make That Change . . .
Come On! (Man In The Mirror)
You Know It! You Know It! You Know It! You Know . . .
(Change . . .) Make That Change.

(Lyrics via azlyrics)

Remember when you point a finger, you just have one finger pointing outwards and the rest pointing towards you.

My Son Knows the Value of Gratitude

Out of the simplest of examples, it brings me great pride to know that my 3 year old knows the concept of valuing gratitude at such a young age.  Everytime we are at the diner table he would use to start the meals through a simple prayer-chant he had learned in school which goes like this "Salamat, salamat sa pagkain, thank you for the food" which is the filipino and english statement of saying "thank you for the food".  I told him last night that I had another way of singing that, and I had chanted to him, "Salamat, salamat kay panganay, thank you for Iakob" which meant "thank you, thank you for my eldest" and Iakob being his name. He quickly replied a heartwarming, "Oh that's so nice Pappie". And that gave me a sense of value that cannot be exchanged for any riches in this world.

How many times have we showed our gratitude to those showing / providing value towards us?  A mere "welcome" or a simple acknowledment of their gratitude should be enough.  And if one might think that the highly eluding concept of showing "humility" by replying "oh it was nothing" or please "don't mention it" is the proper way to respond towards gratitude, then think again.  By saying that the effort you provided is "nothing" after someone had just acknowledged it isn't really a sign of humility, when you come to think of it, you devalue the sign of gratitude given to you.  A person who knows how to give should also know how to receive things in return in order to keep the value of what is received, or the value of what is exchanged.  All of us should learn the proper concepts of value exchange and how it is properly done.  

A mind master who discusses this in depth would be Igor Ledochowski (see http://igorledochowski.blogspot.com/ not the official blog) in his Money in your Mind course.  The underlying basis of the whole course is an emphasis on value exchange and how this mindset will bring a person towards financial freedom. 

I Write What I Learned

I constantly try to improve myself. Each of us are just a fraction of the potential that we really are. And this blog will serve as a journal as I traverse the great bounds of my life. This will serve as a way for me to share value, even if it is for one individual, or for a multitude. I do hope that as I share what I learn, I will be able to help others and give back, even without expecting anything in return.

I am still learning, and I still constantly seek mentors that would help me perfect my faults. To learn from my mistakes and be guided by the best of what mind masters teach. It would be nice to have other people walk with me in this path. Another reason for me to share and give value.

Walk with me and let us all enjoy what life has to offer.

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