1.The Story of Chelm Justice

Eons ago, there is a small town named Chelm somewhere in Europe. To bring order in the city, the people of Chelm elect an impartial judge. One day, filled with rage, the town cobbler kills one of his customers.

The cobbler is bought up in front of the judge who sentences him to die by hanging. This is really bad news for the town. One townsman gains courage to stand up and speak: “If Your Honor pleases, you have sentenced to death the town cobbler! He’s the only one we’ve got. If you hang him who will mend our shoes?”

“Who! Who?” cry all the other townsmen in Chelm together.

The judge thinks for a while, nods in agreement and reconsiders his verdict. “Good people of Chelm,” he says, “What you say is true. Since we have only one cobbler it would be a great wrong against the community to let him die. As there are two roofers in the town, let one of them be hanged instead!”

Action Summary:

• Be unique.

2. Michael Jordan vs Joe Kleine

Michael Jordan of Chicago Bulls Slam Dunking the Ball

Its 1996 and Chicago Bulls wins the NBA basketball championship.

• Michael Jordan earns $80 million that year (including endorsement deals).
• Joe Kleine – a player on the bench of the same winning Chicago Bulls team – makes a total of $272,250 that year.

Same winning team. But a difference of a whooping 293:1 in their earnings!

Action Summary:

• Be the best at what you do.  Because the difference between #1 and #2 is growing wider in all the fields!

(But what if you aren’t the best in your field? Read on…)

3. Boring Dennis Rodman vs Exciting Dennis Rodman

Dennis Rodman – another basketball player – plays for LA Lakers.  For years, he puts up impressive rebounding numbers on the scoreboard.  But yet he goes totally unnoticed.  And does not making his millions.

He is definitely no Michael Jordan.  Nowhere as good.  And nowhere as popular!

But one day, Dennis changes all that.  No he doesn’t magically become as good as Jordan.  But he colours his hair red!  The only basketball player to do so!

Dennis Rodman: Before & After. Black boring hair hid him in the pack. Red exciting hair made him rich and famous!

He colours his hair red and everyone starts noticing him.  The media start following him.  Pretty soon – he becomes very popular.  And earns millions of dollars worth endorsement deals! And also attracts the attention of Carmen Electra!

Still nowhere near as rich as Michael Jordan.  But he does a lot better than before!

Just because he took the courage to do something different, something unique and stand out from amongst the crowd!

Action Summary:

• Create your own personality.
• Do something bold and outrageous.  Something whacky.  To stand out from the crowd.

4. Manufacturing a Hit Car

Henry Ford’s Model-T that makes him the richest person in the world

Many folks mistakenly believe that Henry Ford invented automobiles.  But that is far from truth.  When Henry Ford started the Ford Motor Company, there are 14 other car manufacturers in the state of Michigan.  And 87 car manufacturers in the whole of USA!  Very stiff competition.

But while all the other 87 car manufacturers are trying to learn from each other to advance their field, Henry Ford takes a different approach.  He goes outside his industry to find ideas.

And an idea he finds from the meat packing industry!

Henry studies the Chicago meat packing industry to see how their productivity is so high.  And learns that each worker only does one specific narrow task. Workers don’t move. They stand in their station. And a pulley system is used to move the meat from one working station to the next where the worker would do his one specific task efficiently.

Henry Ford copies this assembly line system for the manufacturing of cars too. And revolutionizes the automobile industry – becoming the richest person living in the process too!

Action Summary:

• Look outside your field of interest. Most revolutionary ideas come from merging 2 fields.
• Copy hit ideas from other industries.

5. Manufacturing a Hit Comic

Kevin Eastman is brainstorming with his friend Peter Laird about comics in 1983.

While brainstorming, they ask a question: what could they do to improve their chances of coming up with a hit comic? And the solution they come up with is ingenious!

They start counting their inspirations.

1. Cerebus the Aardvark is a surprising cult comic of the time. Its about a pig superhero who drinks and cusses. But is very smart. Misfit animal superhero.

2. Ronin by Frank Miller is also a hit comic of the time. Ninja movies are doing well too. Ninjas.

3. Daredevil is another hit comic. It’s about a blind mutant whose other senses are heightened beyond normal human ability because of radio active exposure. Mutants.

4. The New Mutants is another comic they are inspired by. It’s about teenage mutant superheroes undergoing training.  Teenage mutants.

Eastman and Laird mix all of these 4 inspirations together. And come up with teenage mutant ninja misfit animals undergoing training.

They come up with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles!  Which becomes a huge hit!

Leads to:

Cerebus the Aardvark + Ronin + Daredevil + The New Mutants = Inspiration for the hit comic Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Action Summary:

• Mix 3-4 hot trends and create your own hit.
• “Copy from one, it’s plagiarism; copy from two, it’s research.” – Wilson Mizner

###

Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird took a loan to publish the first issue of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. But they didn’t just sit and wait for the sales to roll in.  Instead, they took massive action and sent out 180 press kits to all the media stations!

Action Summary:

• Even hit products require backup from marketing.  Your product may be awesome.  But if no one knows about it, how will it ever become a hit?

7

In the 17th century, it is à la mode for scholars to attempt to outdo the ancient masters by scrawling brilliant commentaries in the margins of ancient works. The French lawyer Pierre de Fermat happily adopts this habit, writing mathematical theorems and proofs in the margins of ancient texts or on lone scraps of paper. Fermat describes these theorems in letters to his friends, without bothering to include the proof he claimed to have worked out. Fermat thus earns the reputation of an amateur mathematician who gives even Descartes a run for his money. Most of his theorems are eventually proven — or disproven — when his friends manage to pull together proofs Fermat left scribbled on scraps of paper and book margins.

Fermat becomes most famous, however, for a certain scribble left in the margin of a book that none of his friends could find the proof for. In this scribble, Fermat claims to have proven that a certain equation referred to by Greek philosopher Diophantus in the book Arithmetica had no solutions, and that he has found “a truly marvelous demonstration of this proposition which this margin is too narrow to contain.”

The Curiosity and Audacity of Being Ten Years Old

Over 300 years later, 10-year-old Andrew Wiles is combing the stacks at his local Cambridge library in search of new math problems to solve. The problems he tackles at school aren’t difficult enough to quench his thirst. Stumbling upon Eric Temple Bell’s The Last Problem, Andrew discovers the centuries-old enigma known as Fermat’s Last Theorem. Undeterred by the failure of many before him to prove this great mystery, Andrew nurtures an obsession with the theorem throughout his teenage years, and into college.

Forgetting About It

Wiles finishes school and became a researcher. He decides it’s time to take a break on the theorum. The tools he had at hand were 130 years old; what if the tools he needed were not even invented yet? Fermat’s Last Theorem remaines a fixture in the back of Wiles’s mind, but he decides to wait until the time is right.

Serendiptity and Determination

Eleven years later, the right time comes on a seemingly ordinary evening over a glass of iced tea. Wiles’s friend mentions that another mathematician has proved a connection between the modern Taniyama-Shimura problem and Fermat’s Last Theorem. Armed with a contemporary problem that held the key to his ancient one, Wiles goes back to work. For seven years, he works in secrecy and isolation, telling no one but his wife of the work that consumes him.

He describes his experience:

“You enter the first room of the mansion and it’s completely dark. You stumble around bumping into the furniture but gradually you learn where each piece of furniture is. Finally, after six months or so, you find the light switch, you turn it on, and suddenly it’s all illuminated. You can see exactly where you were. Then you move into the next room and spend another six months in the dark. So each of these breakthroughs, while sometimes they’re momentary, sometimes over a period of a day or two, they are the culmination of, and couldn’t exist without, the many months of stumbling around in the dark that precede them.”

A Final Solution

One morning in 1993, Wiles is alone in the house, leafing through a research paper. A single sentence abruptly seizes his attention, a sentence that refers to a 19th-century construction. Wiles spends the rest of the morning and most of the afternoon entwining this construction into the last stage of his proof. At tea time, he goes downstairs and explains to his wife Nada why he missed lunch: he has finally solved Fermat’s Last Theorem.

Wiles presents the lengthy proof to a level of fanfare and celebration quite unusual for a mathematical problem. However, a slight error in a pivotal part of the argument is soon revealed, and Wiles goes back to work. This time, he enlists help from Cambridge mathematician Richard Taylor to untangle and rectify the error.

The Final Solution

A year later, Wiles presents an error-free, 150-page proof.

Many have speculated whether this could be the proof that Fermat was “unable” to fit in the margin of his book. Alas, no one will ever know for sure whether Fermat had really devised a proof — but we can be certain that he did not take the same route as Andrew Wiles. Wiles’s techniques had simply not been invented in the 17th century.

Action Summary:

• Trying to outdo the old masters is all well and good, but it will take curiosity, audacity, serendipity, and determination.
• Dedication and perseverance are crucial to accomplishing impressive feats, but patience is valuable too when the time is not yet right.
• The final solution is not always the Final Solution. When you’re almost there, don’t give up.
• Sometimes we can’t go it alone; enlisting the help of others may be the move that takes you to the next level.

###
Picture of Andrew Wiles is copyright C. J. Mozzochi, Princeton N.J. Used by permission.

This post is by creative writer Zoë Westhof. Explore writing, innovation, choice, and change at Zoë’s blog, Essential Prose

6

“When spiders’ webs unite they can tie up a lion”
~ Ethiopian proverb

The World’s First Criminal Hacker

In 1967 a New York banker hacks into his employer’s computer system. He installs a computer programme that shaves tiny amounts of money off customer interest payments and pays them into his own account. Each amount stolen is a fraction of a penny.

In a few years, the banker has amassed over $200,000.

The Most Powerful Force in the Universe (According to Albert Einstein)

Put money in a bank account and after 12 months you’ll be paid interest on that money. Wait another year, and you’ll be paid interest again. This second year’s interest is paid on the money you originally deposited, as well as on the interest you earned in year one. The interest that’s paid on interest is compound interest. It’s tiny to begin with, but over time it builds momentum and keeps your investment growing at a faster and faster rate.

“The most powerful force in the universe is compound interest.”
~ Albert Einstein

Here’s the power of compound interest. If you invest $100 per month between the ages of 20 and 29, then leave the investment to grow until you reach age 60, you’ll end up with more money than someone who invests $100 per month between the ages of 30 and 59.

Saving $1 Billion in Penny Coins

In 2004, Bank of America hires a research firm to work out how they can get more people to open bank accounts, and more money deposited in these accounts. Professional sociologists and psychologists are sent out to observe the every day behaviour of Bank of America’s target customers.

The researchers see that when most people go shopping, they get home and put any coins left over from the shopping in a jar. Over time, people collect this money and put it in a bank account, use it as kid’s pocket money, or give it to charity.

Noticing this almost universal behaviour, Bank of America launches a new account called ‘Keep the Change’. Every time a Keep the Change account holder goes shopping with their BoA debit card, the purchase is rounded up to the nearest dollar and put into the shopper’s savings account. BoA adds 100% to the total for the first three months, and 5% to the total thereafter.

The account proved hugely popular with 99% customer retention.

Since the 2004 launch, ‘Keep the Change’ customers have put aside their spare pennies to save more than $1 billion.

An Encyclopedia Written by Millions

2001. Wikipedia launches with fewer than 100 articles. Over the next 12 months, 50,000 people visit the site – fewer than 150 per day. However, visitors are intrigued by the idea that they can create and edit articles on the site. A high proportion of visitors contribute, either by submitting a new entry or updating current articles.

By early 2002, the article count reaches 20,000. In 2003, this has grown to 100,000 articles.

July 2006. Wikipedia is now growing so fast that it is physically impossible for a single person to read through all the updates and new articles, even if they did so at 600 words per minute, 24 hours per day, every day.

Today Wikipedia hosts over 5 million articles in more than 100 languages. Tens of millions of people visit every day, making over 500,000 daily edits.

Kaizen

Kaizen is Japanese for “continuous improvement”. It’s not just a word, but a philosophy of getting big things done in tiny steps.

In our instant gratification culture, we expect everything right now. We do not expect to have to work at things. We look at a masterpiece of art, or an innovative new business, and we are stunned, as if it had happened overnight.

“Little things add up to a big thing if you have enough little things. Given enough time, the steady drip-drop of water becomes an ocean. Given enough time, small regular deposits become a small fortune.”
~ Ian Newby-Clark

Action Summary

“Do not fear going slowly; only fear standing still.”
~ Chinese proverb

5

Most potential entrepreneurs dream of breakthrough businesses all their lives and never get started. On the other hand, those who have listened to their intuition often wish they took the plunge earlier.

When surveyed, entrepreneurs say 29 is the ideal age to start a business. The average age that entrepreneurs actually start a business is 35. They wish they’d started earlier.

There’s no perfect age to start living your dreams. Being too young or too old is no excuse. The perfect time to start is right now.

These people did.

Nola Ochs – The Energizer Student

1972. Nola Ochs is widowed on her wheat farm in the town of Jetmore, Kansas (population 1000). She tends to her farm with the help of her children. In 1978, she realises she wants more from life. Age 68, she signs up for a tennis class at the nearest community college.

Years pass. Nola works full-time on her farm and occasionally drives into town to attend a class. After ten years studying everything from agribusiness to the Bible, she’s told that she is one class away from an associates degree. All she must do is complete college algebra.

With an associates degree she is pleased but not fulfilled. College algebra will not be the end of her scholarly career. Several years later she decides to make the two hour trek to Fort Hays State University. Enrolling at age 94, she lacks only 30 class hours to earn a bachelor’s degree. In May 2007, at 95, she becomes the world’s oldest college graduate.

Is it time to sit back and enjoy the framed diploma on the farmhouse wall? Not yet. She’s started a Masters Degree.

Cliff Burgess – The Marathon Man

1993. Cliff Burgess is 55. He’s tired of his potbelly and vows to start walking.

Cliff hits the pavement in his suburban Texas town. A walk around the block turns into twice around the block. Walking feels good, but he knows he can pick up some speed. The weight starts to come off as he signs up for 5km and 10km races. In less than a year, he enters in the San Antonio marathon thinking of it as a training run in preparation for his first marathon – 42km (26.2 miles). He feels good during the race, and he crosses the finish line faster than expected.

Averaging 15 marathons per year, he completes his 100th marathon six years later at the age of 62.

Reaching 100 marathons isn’t the final goal. His running gives him an excuse to travel the world to add to his marathon list. He finds himself in Finland, France, Romania, China, Argentina, Brazil, 25 other countries, and nearly all of the 50 states of the USA in a record 15 years.

At age 70, he’s at Marathon #226 and counting. One of his finest highlights is qualifying multiple times for the runner’s dream: a bib number in the Boston Marathon. In April 2009, he will travel to Boston, Massachusetts for the fourth time to take part yet again in all the running glory.

“Nothing happens unless first we dream.”
~ Carl Sandburg

Action summary

• There’s never a perfect age to live your dreams. The perfect age is right now.
• Make your goal known. Travel one step at a time.
• Keep your dream alive. Long-term goals exist because they take a long time.
• Success and determination are intimate siblings. Talent is merely success’s distant cousin.

4

In the 1960’s space race NASA invests billions of dollars in new technologies that will make American astronauts  first on the moon.

One important technology is a pen; the astronauts must record their findings. Ordinary pens can’t function in zero gravity (ink needs gravitational pull to move from pen to page), so over $1 million is invested designing a specialist space pen that works in weightless conditions.

At the same time, the Russians are also spending billions on space technology.  However, when it comes to writing in space, they decide to save money for more important research and opt for a simpler, cheaper solution.  They look around them for an answer that already exists, and they don’t have to look far.

Russian astronauts use a pencil.

NASA failed to remember this lesson.  As frustrated NASA scientists re-discovered recently, great ideas don’t have to come at great expense.  It’s often the cheapest solutions that work best.

“Our greatest lack is not money for any undertaking, but rather ideas.”
~ Robert H. Schuller

How to Measure Climate Change with Children’s Toys

NASA scientists want to find out whether melted glacial ice from the Arctic ends up in the ocean.  Installing their most sophisticated probes, they wait for data.  No data comes.  The probes are refusing to share their discoveries.

America’s space agency, one of the most well-funded scientific research groups in the world, has tried their best technology to solve a problem, and failed.

A meeting is held to find another way to collect the data.  Having exhausted every possible solution from their usual box of scientific tricks, the researchers must radically transform their approach.

Idea after idea is talked through, analysed, and rejected.  Then one scientist who has been sitting deep in thought whilst the others argue, speaks up:

“We could use rubber ducks.”

The room erupts with laughter.  Has he lost his mind?

The speaker’s face remains serious, and the laughter stutters to a halt.  He explains his idea, and after much deliberation, rubber ducks are accepted as the ideal solution.

The NASA scientists decide to put numbered rubber ducks on the melting glacial ice, with contact details and the promise of a reward attached.  If the rubber ducks are found floating out at sea, it is obvious that melted glacial ice ends up in the ocean.  If the rubber ducks are discovered in pools of melted ice between piles of snow, then it’s clear that melted glacial ice remains in the Arctic.

The rubber duck solution was backwards to NASA’s usual approach.  The scientists were stuck in the habit of solving problems by researching more advanced technology.  Before they came up with a solution, they were forced to realised that in following a well trodden path, they were looking for ideas in the wrong places.

“Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.”
~ Robert Frost

How to Destroy the Profit-Margins of Bicycle Thieves

In the UK, a bike is stolen every 71 seconds.  Bike makers know this. They also know that the fear of bike theft makes people think twice before buying a bike.  So they research more effective locks and chains.

The problem is that the strongest locks are the most expensive to make.  People buying bikes want strong but cheap locks.

Engineering student Phil Bridge approaches the problem backwards and comes up with a wacky but highly effective solution. Instead of designing a shiny-new superlock, make it unprofitable for thieves to steal.  Make the bikes very, very cheap.

Costing $25 brand new, and just $5 for a replacement frame, Phil’s bike is almost worthless and completely pointless to steal.  The low price is possible because the bike is made from recycled waterproof cardboard.

Action Summary

• The greatest ideas are often the simplest and cheapest, but not the most obvious.
• Key to being a good idea maker is creating ideas for which you have access to the necessary resources.
• When your usual problem-solving approach fails, turn the problem upside down, inside out , and back to front.

###

American pen maker Paul Fisher spent $1 million developing a space pen that works in a vacuum, with no gravity, and at temperatures as high as 150°C and as low as -120°C.  The pen does not burn even in a 100% oxygen atmosphere.

NASA astronauts started using the pen in 1967.  Russian astronauts adopted the pen in 1969.

4

Are you up for a personal experiment? Don’t worry; it’s a very easy experiment.

All you have to do is take a look around you and count all the things in blue you can see. Could be the jeans you are wearing, a pen, maybe the colour of your chair, the water cooler… count as many things as you can. Done? Now try to remember them while we take a slight detour…

The Detour

In 1953, a survey was conducted with the graduating class of Yale. The question in the survey?

“Do you write down your goals?”

The response showed that only 4% people wrote down their goals.

In 1973, 20 years after the initial survey, the researchers track down the surviving members of the class of ’53 to see how successful they were. And what they found astounded them. 4% people who wrote down their goals were worth more than the other 96% put together!

The research showed that writing down goals work like magic. But why does it work?

For the answer, let’s get back to our little experiment…

Back to the Experiment

Remember all the blue things you counted around you in your room? Are you ready to narrate them one by one?

Ok – now, without turning around, can you start naming the “brown” things you saw around your room 2 minutes ago?

If you are like most people and don’t have photographic memory, you won’t be able to name more than 2-3 brown things. But you’ll be able to name 8-10 blue things.

How come? Because before you turned around, you had a goal of counting blue things. And your mind was focused on counting blue things – not brown things. It filtered out all the brown things.

Writing down goals is nothing but a filtering device for your brain. You will focus more on the things you’ve written down as your goals. And you will jump on them when they present themselves as opportunities.

Action Summary:

• Write down your goals – monthly as well as long term goals – and you’ll achieve them.

• Read your goals list every day to help your brain focus better.

4

In January 2004 Vegas magician-comedian Mac King stages the world’s largest ever game of telephone. To the first of over 600 players King whispers the words “Mac King is a comedy magic genius”. One hour and 614 whispers round the auditorium later, the final player whispers back to King the phrase he has heard: “Macaroni cantaloupe knows the future”.

On the stage, one of Mac’s security guards stood handcuffed to a locked case. Inside the case is King’s predicted result for the telephone game. A representative from Guinness World Records opens the case to find King’s prediction which is ’shockingly close to accurate’.

King is asked how he’d guessed right. “Magic,” he replies.

When rumours, ideas and even true stories pass from person to person, they gain a momentum and life force of their own. Once released into the world, ideas can take on new forms and meanings that their original creator never intended.

Most of us don’t have the magic touch to guess how this will happen or what changes will occur. Because of this, it can be difficult to tell when rumours are based on truth or falsehood.

Three true stories, one of European war reporters in WWI, one of an English pirate, and one of Canadian gold prospectors, illustrate this perfectly.

Rumour # 1: War Reporters

One morning during the First World War, people across Germany wake up to the news that the city of Antwerp in Belgium has been conquered. Readers of the Kolnische Zeitung newspaper are greeted with the headline: “Upon proclamation of the fall of the city of Antwerp, bells were rung” – explaining the celebration church bells they’d heard across Germany the day before.

French newspaper Le Matin writes their report based upon the Kolnische Zeitung headline. Le Matin’s article claims: “According to the Kolnische Zeitung, Antwerp’s clergy was forced to ring the church bells when the fortress was taken.”

The London Times repeats the report from Le Matin: “According to Le Matin, taking its information from Koln, priests in Belgium who refused to ring church bells upon the fall of Antwerp was removed from office.”

A fourth report in Italy takes its information from the London Times. Italian newspaper Corriere de la Sera claims: “According to the Times, citing information from Koln (via Paris), the unfortunate priests who refused to ring the church bells when Antwerp was taken were condemned to hard labour.”

Le Matin then follows up their initial report with an update: “According to information reported by the Corriere de la Sera, (via Koln and London), it has been confirmed that Antwerp’s barbaric conquerors punished unfortunate priests for heroically refusing to ring church bells by hanging them in the bells head down like human gongs.”

Unintentional misreading and deliberate misreporting led to stories that failed to even remotely resemble the truth.

Rumour #2 The Pirate

In the early 18th century, Captain Avery has a notorious reputation as a fearsome pirate who sails the high seas and plunders any ship that crosses his path. The renowned pirate historian Charles Johnson writes that Avery “made a great noise in the world and was looked upon to be a person of great consequence”. So famous is Avery that a playwright made a stage show so that all of England could relive his pirating adventures.

Rumours spread that Avery has married the Great Mogul’s daughter after capturing the ship she was sailing on. He is now royalty in India, master of a squadron of ships.

The truth is, Avery dies penniless in south west England without even enough money to buy himself a coffin.

It is true that Avery had once robbed a Mogul ship of diamonds and gold, although not that of the Great Mogul’s daughter. He also robs his crew of their share of the plunder, and runs away to America to spend his fortune. However, he can not sell the diamonds or gold to anyone for fear of being exposed as a pirate. He moves to England where he asks merchants to help him sell the treasure. The merchants give him a small deposit for everything he owns, saying they would send more money once they make a sale.

Avery never receives a penny more.

“The merchants were as good pirates on land as Avery was at sea”, writes Johnson.

Whilst all of England believes Avery is living the lavish life of a prince in India, he is actually dying the death of a starving pauper, homeless in his homeland.

Rumour # 3: The Gold-Diggers

In 1994 a small Canadian gold prospecting company called Bre-X announces a major discovery in the Indonesian rainforests on the Island of Borneo. Bre-X buys the land, and reports on the find get bigger and bigger, until it is the biggest area of unmined gold in the world.

North American newspapers continually report on the huge money to be made buying stock in Bre-X. Everyone wants to invest – retired people, financial gurus, even whole Canadian towns. Shares in the company, originally sold for a penny each, soars to almost $300.

As expectations crescendo to their highest point, the rainforests are exposed as barren. There is no gold there. Bre-X shares are worthless, and investors lose billions.

How To Never Be A Victim Of Rumours

What can be done to prevent our own lives following the fates of Captain Avery and Bre-X? How can we avoid being swept up in the momentum of rumour?

The answer is simple. But not easy. You need to have the discipline and the guts to follow your own path. And to swim against the current popular opinion.

“Never forget that only dead fish swim with the stream.” – Malcolm Muggeridge

The World’s Richest Man

It is 2008, the year of the great credit crunch. Warren Buffett, for the first time in his 77 years, is crowned the world’s richest man, now worth $62 billion.

How does Buffett reach this position? His whole life, he swims against the flow of rumours, widely accepted assumptions, and common knowledge.

At the age of 21, against the advice of his college tutor and his father, Buffett gets a job on Wall Street. Having the strength of character to know his own mind serves Buffett well for the rest of his life.

Buffet routinely buys stocks when others are selling and the market is in a pessimistic frenzy.

Buffett is one of the few people to see the risks of buying and selling derivatives during the early 21st century boom times. In 2003 he warns that derivatives are “weapons of financial mass destruction”.

Avoiding derivatives means that when the financial mass destruction finally arrives in the fall of 2008, Buffett has the money available to go against the flow yet again. Whilst the wisdom of the market is ’sell sell sell’, Buffett goes against widespread opinion and invests $5 billion of his fortune in Goldman Sachs. Buffett buys shares in the troubled bank at a rock bottom price, and negotiates a return on his investment ten times that of the ordinary shareholder.

Action Summary:

• Whenever reputations or ideas are spread as rumour, there is a danger of playing the telephone game.

• Question everything, especially if no-one else is asking questions.

• To be truly original, go against the flow.

• Build your own reputation based on your unique truth.

This above post is written by the awesome story teller and always fun play-maker – David Masters

3

“Everything that is rewarded grows.”

India had been strafed and divided with the caste system since centuries. The society is divided into 4 sections.

• Brahmins are the teachers and the priests.
• Kshatriyas are the warriors.
• Vaishyas are the merchants.
• And Shudras are the agriculturists and service providers.

The caste system is hereditary. So who you are depends on who your father is. If you are born in a Shudra family, you couldn’t join the army.

Dalits are a sub-part of Shudras. They are the folks who do all the unwanted jobs like cleaning the streets. They are the people who become the “untouchables.” If someone touches a Dalit, he is expected to go and have a bath immediately. (This may have started out as a means to prevent diseases from spreading and becoming epidemic as Dalits had the worst jobs. But the act of not touching sank its roots deeper until the Indian society broke down.)

Soon, Dalits are banned from being educated or entering places of worship! Thousands of Dalits suffer from centuries of poor treatment. This mistreatment persists even after the caste system is abolished in India.

Indian Constitution Seeks to Change Things

And so, when India gains its independence in 1947, the leaders decide to make things right.

The folks who frame the Indian constitution believe that Dalits are historically oppressed and denied respect and equal opportunity in the society. The quickest way to help them achieve equal status in the society is by educating them.

But many of these Dalits can’t even afford education. So the Indian Government decides to create a schedule caste and schedule tribe quota. 22.5% of all the seats in Government schools and colleges should be reserved for these Dalits. They are to be educated for free!

Situation After 61 Years

After 61 years of independence and quota education system, you would think that there wouldn’t be any person claiming himself to be a Dalit left in India today – right?

But things haven’t worked out that way.

Instead of their numbers going down, their numbers have actually steadily increased every year since independence and gone way up!

In 1991, there are 150 million Indians who claim themselves to be of the schedule caste quota. In 2001, the number rises up to 230 million Indians!

2. Why You Can’t Eradicate Poverty By Giving Away Money

Eradicating poverty from the world is a good goal to have. But cutting cheques and providing special favours to the poorest people of the society doesn’t work in eradicating poverty at all!

In fact, all it’ll do is make people find ways in making sure they don’t get too rich – so that they can take advantage of the free welfare cheques and free education!

Because everything that is rewarded grows… if you reward poverty, how can you expect it to wither away?

3. The Smart Charity Philosophy

4. Give a Man a Fish…

“Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man how to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.” – Chinese Proverb.

Your job is to teach a man how to fish only when he is willing* to learn. And when he is willing to pay the price to learn.

*But how to build the desire in the hearts of poverty ridden people to raise their hands? To become willing to learn? To become willing to pay the price when they are already poor?

5. The English Experiment to Eradicate Poverty

A millennium ago, England is a small inconsequential island of barbarians, misfits, castoffs and losers. They are no where on the map in world affairs.

But that starts changing because of one Welsh monk: Geoffrey of Monmouth.

To instill pride in his countrymen, Geoffrey writes the book “The History of the Kings of Britain” that chronicles the lives of various British kings spanning close to 2000 years before 7 AD.

In it he narrates how Brutus – a descendant of the Trojan hero Aeneas (of Homer’s Illiad) first settles in Britain. And how Ceasar himself invades Britain. Geoffrey also tells us the tales of King Lear and Cymbeline and a few other Kings.

But perhaps the most well known part of his book is, he tells us the story of the rise and fall of King Arthur.

Then in early 15th century, Thomas Malory – a convict who is rotting in a prison in England – resurrects a few of these stories and writes “LeMorte D’Arthur” – the story of King Arthur and his noble knights of the roundtable!

At the same time, Gutenberg invents his printing press. And because of the printing press, LeMorte D’Arthur spreads and becomes a widely read book!

Soon, the little island of misfits, barbarians and losers start seeing themselves in a new light. They start seeing themselves as coming from a nation with a glorious history.

And then they start making some changes so that their reality reflects their history. They build one of the finest navies in the world. They invent the steam engine. And go on to conquer the world!

But here is the twist: not a word written by Geoffrey of Monmouth – who started the King Arthur craze – is true!

People will change themselves if they believe that they can. If they believe that someone in their position has already achieved great feats.

6. The Rich vs Poor Insight

“Rich people have large libraries, poor people have large TV’s.”
– Dan Kennedy

Give the poor people heroes they can look up to. And they will model after these heroes and change their lives!

Tell them rags-to-riches stories. And they will surprise you by rising out of poverty in record time!

Gift just one autobiographical rags-to-riches book to just one poor person to read. And see how his life changes.

Action Summary:

• The worst thing you can do to eradicate poverty is start giving the poor people free rides.

• The best thing you can do to eradicate poverty is make the poor people believe that there were others in their situation that rose above poverty, worked hard and are rich today.

• Give the poor people heroes. Tell them rags-to-riches stories. These stories will satisfy their hunger a lot more effectively than any free food programs. Because these stories will empower the poor people to earn their own food instead of relying on charity.

• Gift just one autobiographical book to one poor person today.

###

The Bangladeshi Experiment to Eradicate Poverty

Muhammad Yunus has perhaps done more to eradicate poverty than anyone else in the world. He started an organization in Bangladesh that gave out loans to poor people who wanted to start their own businesses. But he banded the people who wanted loans into groups. So that the group can motivate the members to work harder. And the group can create peer pressure on the members to pay back the loan on time.

Because of this idea of giving out mico-loans to groups, Yunus’s bank had a 98% rate of loan payback (better than most banks out there)!

Today, Kiva has made the concept of mico-loans a lot easier. You can loan money to poor people with business ideas online. These lenders will send you email updates on their progress. And pay the loan back within 6-12 months.

2

1. The Benefits of Sacrifice

Sacrifice is a 9 letter word that has a negative connotation. People hear sacrifice and they cringe. But there have been very few people who have succeeded without sacrificing.

So lets turn sacrifice’s negative connotation upside down on its head and come up with a positive definition.

“Sacrifice = giving up a thing of less value to gain a thing of higher value.” – Paul Lemberg

Most people are unwilling to sacrifice. They don’t want to pay in advance. They don’t want to move out of their comfort zones and take risks.

But to succeed, you’ve got to sacrifice and put in the work “before” it is needed. You’ve got to dig the well before you get thirsty.

2. Cows vs Humans

Did you know that calves (baby cows) start walking within 2-4 hours of their birth?

Most people are surprised to learn that cows start walking so soon after birth while humans take 8-9-10 months to start walking after birth!

Humans are the only mammals that remain at the mercy of others for such a long time after birth.

But how can that be if we humans are the smartest mammals in the world?

The Human Sacrifice for Smartness

Because our cerebrums are bigger, we have to be pushed out and given birth “before” we have fully grown and can protect ourselves.

But because of these same bigger cerebrums, we humans grow on to be smarter than any other animal.

We gave up early protection for future progress!

3. The Marshmallow Experiment

In 1960, Walter Mischel of Stanford University conducts a long term behavioral experiment on pre-school kids. He brings the kids one by one in a boring little plain room and gives them a choice:

“You can have this marshmallow right now. But if you wait while I run an errand, you can have two marshmallows when I get back.” And then Walter leaves the room for 20 minutes.

Do you know how tormenting it is for energy filled kids to sit in a dull room with nothing to do but a marshmallow in sight? Some kids grab the marshmallow as soon as Walter is out of the room. Some last for a few minutes before giving in to boredom and temptation. But a few kids are determined to wait it out. They cover their eyes. They sing to themselves. They play with their imaginary friends. Some even try to fall asleep.

When Walter comes back in, he dutifully gives 2 marshmallows to these kids. But the experiment doesn’t end there. Walter then waits patiently till these kids hit high school. And he then goes back to continue his experiment.

He surveys the children’s parents and teachers. And finds that the four-year-olds who had the fortitude to hold out for the second marshmallow grew up to be better adjusted, more popular, confident and dependable teenagers. On the other hand, the kids who had given in to temptation were more likely to be lonely, irritable, shied away from challenges and easily buckled under stress.

When the students in the two groups took the Scholastic Aptitude Test, the kids who didn’t go for instant gratification scored an average of 210 points higher too!

Kids who gave up instant gratification did better in the future!

4. Leveraging a Well

Ram & Shyam are two entrepreneurs both living in a town where the nearest well is 10 miles away.

Ram sees an opportunity. And charges people to get their water for them. He starts earning money from day 1.

Shyam sees an opportunity too. But he doesn’t do what Ram does. And doesn’t spend time going back and forth everyday. Instead, he sacrifices money that can be earned today to build a pipeline. When the pipeline is built, Ram is out of business.

Action Summary:

• Don’t go for instant gratification. Give up things of little value today to achieve your big goals tomorrow.

• Surefire way to become successful is to pay in advance.

• Think pipeline. Create systems.

###

Cows may not be as smart as us humans. But did you know that they have a sixth sense that we lack? Yes its true. Cows can predict when its going to rain. They do this by detecting falling atmospheric pressure (falling pressure affects their digestive system). Before rain storms, they will start finding safe shelters.

If you liked this article, can you please vote for it on Digg & StumbleUpon? Thank You!

1

How did Napoleon Bonaparte Build an Empire?

Napoleon Bonaparte has carved his name in the history books. Some say he was a masterful soldier. Some say he was a very charismatic statesman. Others say he was the best strategist who ever lived. Yes, he is all of that. But he became “Napoleon the Great” only because of one of his tactics. He created and ruled an empire only because of one secret.

Baubles.

He gave away baubles. What are baubles you ask?

Baubles are small ornaments that have little monetary value. But they have great emotional value attached to them. Napoleon gave Baubles to his soldiers when they achieved a notable feat.

Giving baubles as rewards is the single most important tactic that helped Napoleon establish a humongous empire. This tactic achieved 2 things:

1. Made his soldiers fight harder to earn more baubles.

2. Made his soldiers loyal to him.

Give bonuses and rewards to consumers and you‘ll soon build a business empire too. The consumers will buy your products for the bonuses. And they will stay loyal to you if you provide bonus goodies every so often.

Now that you know that baubles = bonuses and rewards, let us see what kind of baubles should we give away and how to give them away for the best results.

2. E. Joseph Cossman reveals the type of baubles you should give away

E Joseph Cossman is a marketing legend. Wall street journal calls him: “The Messiah of the free enterprise system.” He made more than 1 million dollars through mail order. What‘s more, he wrote a book about it (How I made $1,000,000 in mail order – And you can too!), which became a classic. Yet even he sometimes had trouble selling products.

How did Cossman Sell These Spud Guns?

One time, Cossman starts selling spud guns. Spud guns are little toy guns that use potatoes as bullets. You simply dig the barrel of the spud gun into the potato and when you pull it out, a small piece of potato would stay in the barrel.

Cossman sells the spud guns through grocery stores with some success. But he wants to make a lot of money fast. He knows from experience that giving bonuses boosts sales. So he convinces the grocery store owners to buy his spud guns in huge quantities at a discount rate. The grocery owners can then give away the spud guns for free as a bonus when people buy a bag of potatoes, driving the sales of potatoes up.

Unfortunately, the bonus tactic doesn’t work. The groceries don’t sell more potatoes. And the owners ae not pleased with Cossman, from whom they had to buy the spud guns that are now sitting in the stock room gathering dust.

So Cossman tries one more tactic. He convinces the owners to reverse the bonus tactic. For every spud gun people buy, they would receive 1 bag of potatoes for free.

The entire “spud guns + potatoes“ package still sells for the same amount of money. But by reversing the product and the bonus, the sales of spud guns and potatoes go through the roof!

Cossman shows that giving a bonus with your product can indeed boost sales because a bonus provides one more reason to people to buy your product.

But the bonus has to be something that people want. People didn’t want the spud guns. So they didn’t buy potatoes for a free spud gun. But they did want potatoes. And they bought lots of spud guns for a free bag of potatoes.

3. Psychologist Priya Raghubir reveals what kind of baubles you should not give away

Does the Value of the Pearls Change when they are a Bonus?

Priya Raghubir is a social psychologist and a published writer. One day, she decides to observe how people value bonuses on products.

She gathers 2 groups of people to take part in an experiment. The people aren’t told what the experiment is about. One group is given a catalog that features liquor as the target product and a pearl bracelet as a bonus gift. And the group members are then asked to evaluate the desirability and the value of the bonus: the pearl bracelet.

The other group is given a catalog that has the main target product as the pearl bracelet. There are no bonuses. The group members are then asked to evaluate the desirability and the value of the bracelet.

The findings reveal some amazing insight. The second group value the bracelet a lot more than the first group. Their desire to get their hands on the bracelet is also more.

Peoples valuation of the bracelet lowers when it is bundled as a bonus!

Even though bonuses might make more people buy your products, people will perceive the bonus product itself to be of low value. So it might be a good idea to not to offer your own products as a bonus and instead offer some one else‘s products as the bonus.

4. Waiters show how to give away baubles

How Can Waiters Earn More Tips?

Most waiters have it tough. They earn minimum wages. And they would be under the poverty line if they wouldn’t earn enough in tips. Many experiments have been conducted to see what increases the amount of tips a waiter receives.

Cornell University’s hospitality department conducts one such experiment. The researchers try to determine how rewarding the diners at the end of the meal affects the tips.

The researchers findings surprise them:

• When the diners are given one single candy after the meal, the waiters receive a healthy tip of 15.1%

• When the diners are given a bigger reward: two candies after the meal, the waiters receive 19% in tips.

• But when the diners are initially given one candy and then spontaneously offered another candy just before they pay their bills, the waiters receive a whooping 23% in tips!

In both the 2nd and 3rd case, only two candies are given to the diner. But the way they are given increases the tips by an awesome 4%!

The experiment shows that the bigger the reward the better the client response.

And the response can be even better when you surprise the clients with a reward.

Action summary:

• Give away bonuses and rewards (baubles) to make people buy your products over your competitors.

• Give away only those bonuses that the consumers really want.

• Give away some one else‘s products that compliment your own as a bonus.

• Surprise your clients with bonuses from time to time to make them buy more products from you and become loyal to you.

If you liked this article, can you please vote for it on Digg & StumbleUpon? Thank You!

8