Dave Moore Unleashed! - The Official Blog of David Moore

Actions speak...

noreply@blogger.com (Dave Moore) — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 22:09:00 +0000

...'Louder Than Words' is a great book by Joe Navarro.

Who is Joe Navarro??

Not many can say they were personally approached to join the FBI, but this is exactly what happened to Joe Navarro while he was working as a police officer at the tender age of 23. He accepted their offer and became one of the youngest agents ever to join the renowned investigative agency.

Joe spent the next 25 years at the FBI, working both as an agent and supervisor in the areas of counterintelligence and counterterrorism. Through his work he was able to study, refine and apply the science of non-verbal communications. His acumen in this field and his success as a spy-catcher, led Joe to begin training FBI agents and the intelligence community.
Retiring from the FBI in 2003, and meeting overwhelming demand for his notable insights into human behavior, Joe has dedicated himself to speaking and consulting with major corporations worldwide.
Today Joe is recognized as one of the world’s foremost authorities on reading non-verbal communications and he is regularly interviewed on programs such as NBC’s Today Show, Fox News, ABC’s Good Morning America, CBS’ Early Show, and for publications such as The Washington Post and Psychology Today.

Well, that's him.

The book I am talking about is called Louder Than Words.

According to Amazon: "International bestselling author and behaviour expert Joe Navarro helps you successfully navigate the business world by understanding what your boss and coworkers are really thinking. Why is it that some people have all the elements of success education, skills, integrity, motivation but can't seem to move from effectiveness to excellence in their careers? Behaviour expert Joe Navarro reveals the long-sought answer. Louder Than Words teaches how to master nonverbal intelligence, the ability to interpret and use nonverbal signals in poker terms, 'tells' in business to assess and influence others. Drawing on his decades in the behavioural sciences, Navarro shows how to use his simple yet powerful 'comfort/discomfort' model to decode what's really being said at meetings, interviews, negotiations, presentations, business meals, and more, including the casual exchanges that often impact decisions and reputations. Jump-start your career as you discover how to: Read body language to understand what clients, coworkers, interviewers, or interviewees are thinking, feeling, or intending, and discern nonverbal cues of concern, disagreement, or doubt even over the phone. Master the all-important first impression and use settings, seating, and gestures to inspire and captivate. Recognise habits that send the wrong message, from nail biting to wearing inappropriate attire and see what posture, work practices, workspaces, and even electronic habits say about people. Become culturally aware and gender-sensitive, from best handshake practices to personal space preferences. Learn what the 'comfort dividend' can do for you and your business. Explore how the concept of 'curbside appeal' applies to you and your business, and can mean the difference between average and exceptional. Use Louder Than Words to close the deal, keep your customers, secure new ones, and lead your company with confidence. For job seekers looking to stand out from the pack, this book is your get-back-to-work bible."
To me, it's a work of art. It's a very easy to read book which takes what some people would deem a difficult subject and turns it into something that anyone can understand.

There are countless observations and metaphors. He talks of the Nixon/ Kennedy debate which everyone listening on radio thought Nixon had won. The larger, TV viewing audience saw a different debate from what was heard.

It condences all of the information you need to be able to read the body language, facial expressions and non-verbal communication of everyone in any situation. You not only get a better understanding of what is REALLY going on but also, it allows you to get the upper hand in numerous day to day situations.

The subjects covered range from the fundamentals of nonverbal intelligence to applied nonverbal intelligence, and includes sections on how you look, how you are perceived and also how your organization is perceived.

Your code of dress is analysed (put those sports socks back in the drawer!) and also how you talk on the phone and what your desk looks like! He leaves no stone unturned.

This is not just a book for personal use. It can be applied in the corporate world and has thought provoking ideas that will make you re-evaluate how you are promoting and running your company.

Once you have read it, every time you look at someone you analyse them. You get to know the signs and the things NOT to do.

Warning!

Do NOT put your hands in your pockets

(unless you are getting your money out to buy this book!)

Joe Navarro can be found here:
Twitter: @navarrotells
Web: http://www.jnforensics.com/
Amazon: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Louder-Than-Words-Exceptional-Intelligence/dp/0061771392

Loci Mnemonics a la Hannibal Lecter

noreply@blogger.com (Dave Moore) — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 21:25:00 +0000

In the book (not the movie) Hannibal, Thomas Harris mentions Hannibal Lecters 'Memory Palace'. He goes on to describe the rooms, alcoves and recesses that house the memories of Hannibal and also the rooms that are locked, in other words the rooms he must not enter. Memories that have been locked away.

As mentioned in an earlier post, this method of memory is ancient and here is an overview I found of the Loci system for mnemonics.

Overview

The word 'loci', commonly pronounced as 'LOW sigh', comes from the Latin word meaning place or location. The Loci mnemonic system uses locations as memory aids. This technique involves associating items that you have to remember with places that are well known to you such as your house, neighborhood, or parts of your body.

Choosing a series of images
To use the Loci system you must first memorize a series of images of familiar locations in a natural logical order. It is easiest if you choose a location you are already familiar with and just decide on an order that you will use. This set of images is used each time you use the loci system.

It isn't important what images you choose as long as you can visualize them clearly and recall them easily. These images can be of your house — both elements of the outside yard in inside the house. You can also use elements from a walk through your neighborhood, parts of your body, parts of your car, or places from where you work.

You can further increase the number of locations by using different parts of each place — for example, the living room may be considered one place, and it may be further divided into things you find in your living room such as a TV, a window, a door, and a couch, each of which can be used as a location in your system. However, make sure you can recall each location as being distinct from the others.

Memorizing information with the Loci mnemonic system
After you have chosen a series of images from a familiar place you can then associate the items you want to remember with each image from the series. Make sure the associations are made using the proper visual memory principles.

To memorize even more information you can associate more than one item with each location. You could even apply the link or story techniques on each location.

Recalling information
Once the information you want to remember has been encoded it is easy to recall — just think through each location and recall the item associated with the corresponding image.

Improving on the technique
This system, like the link and story mnemonic systems, requires you step through each item even if you only want to access, say, the tenth item. One way to improve on this as discussed in Your Memory : How It Works and How to Improve It is to associate a unique image on every fifth location such as a hand with five fingers on the fifth location, a 10 dollar bill on the tenth location, and so on. This way, you can skip every five images until you get to the image you want.

A way to access an item at a specific numbered location in a list using the loci system is to combine it with the link system. For example, if you have 100 items, make a list of 10 items for each place in your loci system. To find item 64 on the list, traverse 6 items in your loci then 4 items in the link list there.

Advantages of the Loci mnemonic technique
The Loci system overcomes some of the drawbacks of the link and story mnemonic systems. With the link and story systems, if you forget one item you risk forgetting all subsequent items. The Loci system overcomes this problem because you can always skip to the next location if you forget the association at any location.

Applications of the Loci mnemonic technique
The Loci system can be used for the same things as the link and story mnemonic systems. However, the Loci system also lends itself to other applications. For example, the Loci system can be used to remember ideas that you can't write down at the time such as things you have to buy or remember to do. Just associate the idea to a location and access it later when the time is more appropriate. This requires that you access your loci system to see if there is something there you remembered, but usually we remember that we have to remember something, we just don't always remember what it is. You can get into the habit of reviewing your loci at key points during the day, such as in the morning and in the evening.

The Loci system idea can also be used to associate a memory with a specific location. For example, if it is important for you to remember to take something with you when you leave the house, associate the item with the front door. This way, when you next see your front door, you will think of the item you need to
take. The same idea works for remembering something as you are falling asleep. Just associate what you want to remember with brushing your teeth or some other aspect of your morning routine. This will increase the likelihood of remembering what you want the following morning.

Overcoming limitations
One of the problems with the Loci system is that interference can happen when using the same set of images for several lists. However, it is still less of a problem than if you tried to remember several lists of things without a system. Interference is less of a problem if the information is remembered for only a short time or if there is several days between remembering lists. Putting in a new list weakens the old list.

To reduce interference you can have different Loci systems and use each system for different kinds of information, different courses you are studying, or remembering things on different days of the week.

Another way to reduce interference is to use the link mnemonic system at each location of the Loci system. For any given location in the Loci system the item associated with the location will belong to one list, the second item, which can be linked to the first item, belongs to a second list. A third item can be linked to the second item for a third list, and so on.

POWER ANCHOR

noreply@blogger.com (Dave Moore) — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 00:16:00 +0000

Let's take a look at a powerful NLP technique you can use right now. I teach this one to people who are about to stand in front of groups and speak or who are going to be stepping on stage or who need a little boost.

Here's how it works…

Think of three times in your life when you felt very powerful and in control. Write them down (one sentence describing each). Now stand alone in a room.

Think of the first situation. Recall it in full color with sound and anything else that could make it real to you. At the moment when you feel fully back in that moment, slap your left bicep with your right hand and say, "Power!"

Do this with each of the three memories. Remember, you want to anchor the feelings by slapping your left bicep when you feel the memory at its most intense moment.

In NLP, this process is called stacking anchors.

Now that you have the anchor installed, you can fire it off as needed. The next time you are in a situation requiring confidence, slap your left bicep with your right hand and say, "Power!"

Just as sure as Pavlov's dogs salivated when they heard that bell, you will feel confidence surging through you!

Try not. Do, or do not. There is NO try! Do it! And enjoy!

The Memory Palace

noreply@blogger.com (Dave Moore) — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 22:45:00 +0000

Method of Loci - The Memory Palace

The method of loci (plural of Latin locus for place or location), also called the memory palace, is a mnemonic device introduced in ancient Roman rhetorical treatises (in the anonymous Rhetorica ad Herennium, Cicero's De Oratore, and Quintilian's Institutio oratoria). It relies on memorized spatial relationships to establish, order and recollect memorial content. The term is most often found in specialised works on psychology, neurobiology and memory, though it was used in the same general way at least as early as the first half of the nineteenth century in works on rhetoric, logic and philosophy.

The method of loci is also commonly called the mental walk. In basic terms, it is a method of memory enhancement which uses visualization to organize and recall information. Many memory contest champions claim to use this technique in order to recall faces, digits, and lists of words. These champions’ successes have little to do with brain structure or intelligence, but more to do with their technique of using regions of their brain that have to do with spatial learning. Those parts of the brain that contribute most significantly to this technique include the medial parietal cortex, retrosplenial cortex, and the right posterior hippocampus.
O'Keefe and Nadel refer to'the method of loci', an imaginal technique known to the ancient Greeks and Romans and described by Yates (1966) in her book The Art of Memory as well as by Luria (1969). In this technique the subject memorizes the layout of some building, or the arrangement of shops on a street, or any geographical entity which is composed of a number of discrete loci. When desiring to remember a set of items the subject literally 'walks' through these loci and commits an item to each one by forming an image between the item and any distinguishing feature of that locus. Retrieval of items is achieved by 'walking' through the loci, allowing the latter to activate the desired items. The efficacy of this technique has been well established (Ross and Lawrence 1968, Crovitz 1969, 1971, Briggs, Hawkins and Crovitz 1970, Lea 1975), as is the minimal interference seen with its use.

Applicability of the term
The designation is not used with strict consistency. In some cases it refers broadly to what is otherwise known as the art of memory, the origins of which are related, according to tradition, in the story of Simonides of Ceos and the collapsing banquet hall. For example, after relating the story of how Simonides relied on remembered seating arrangements to call to mind the faces of recently deceased guests, Steven M. Kosslyn remarks "[t]his insight led to the development of a technique the Greeks called the method of loci, which is a systematic way of improving one's memory by using imagery." Skoyles and Sagan indicate that "an ancient technique of memorization called Method of Loci, by which memories are referenced directly onto spatial maps" originated with the story of Simonides. Referring to mnemonic methods, Verlee Williams mentions, "One such strategy is the 'loci' method, which was developed by Simonides, a Greek poet of the fifth and sixth centuries BC" Loftus cites the foundation story of Simonides (more or less taken from Frances Yates) and describes some of the most basic aspects of the use of space in the art of memory. She states, "This particular mnemonic technique has come to be called the "method of loci". While place or position certainly figured prominently in ancient mnemonic techniques, no designation equivalent to "method of loci" was used exclusively to refer to mnemonic schemes relying upon space for organization.
In other cases the designation is generally consistent, but more specific: "The Method of Loci is a Mnemonic Device involving the creation of a Visual Map of one's house."

This term can be misleading: the ancient principles and techniques of the art of memory, hastily glossed in some of the works cited above, depended equally upon images and places. The designator "method of loci" does not convey the equal weight placed on both elements. Training in the art or arts of memory as a whole, as attested in classical antiquity, was far more inclusive and comprehensive in the treatment of this subject.

Spatial mnemonics and the hippocampusIn a classic study in cognitive neuroscience O'Keefe and Nadel proposed "that the hippocampus is the core of a neural memory system providing an objective spatial framework within which the items and events of an organism's experience are located and interrelated." This theory has generated considerable debate and further experiment. It has been noted that "[t]he hippocampus underpins our ability to navigate, to form and recollect memories, and to imagine future experiences. How activity across millions of hippocampal neurons supports these functions is a fundamental question in neuroscience, wherein the size, sparseness, and organization of the hippocampal neural code are debated."
"Using neuropsychological, structural, and functional brain imaging measures, we found that superior memory is not driven by exceptional intellectual ability or structural brain differences. Rather, we found that superior memorizers used a spatial learning strategy (the method of loci; Yates, 1966) while preferentially engaging brain regions critical for memory and for spatial memory in particular, including the hippocampus."

The "method of loci," as first described by Simonides (cf. Yates, 1966), is explicitly spatial. In this technique, subjects improve memory by putting to-be-remembered items into some place or spatial context. Retrieval is effected simply by "going" to that place in thought. Events occurring within separate contexts are efficiently recalled in those contexts and minimally confused between contexts, though the events themselves might be highly similar. The mental maps we have of our home town, our neighborhood, and our house are all examples of the kinds of spatial contexts within which events occur, can be coded internally, and can subsequently be effectively retrieved or recalled: Studies by Smith, Glenberg, and Bjork (1978) and Bellezza and Reddy (1978) indicate that the power of the method of loci might lie in its ability to take advantage of this natural state of affairs.

Parietal cortex and retrosplenial cortex contributions to spatial mnemonicsThe medial parietal cortex is most associated with encoding and retrieving of information. Patients who suffered from medial parietal cortex damage had troubles linking landmarks with certain locations. Many of these patients were unable to give or follow directions and often got lost.

The retrosplenial cortex is also greatly linked to memory and navigation. In Pothuzien HH’s study on the effects of selective granular retrosplenial cortex lesions in rats, the researcher found that damage to the retrosplenial cortex lead to impaired spatial learning abilities. Rats with damage to this area failed to recall which areas of the maze they had already visited, rarely explored different arms of the maze, almost never recalled the maze in future trials, and took longer to reach the end of the maze, as compared to rats with a fully working retrosplenial cortex.

The mental walk originated from the idea that you can best remember things that you are familiar with. Therefore, by associating a certain object with a familiar landmark, you increase your chances of remembering that object. Since the mental walk revolves around the idea of visualizing a familiar place and associating certain ideas or items with landmarks within that familiar place, the medial parietal cortex plays a huge role in this technique. Without the ability to mentally “walk” through a familiar route, this method cannot work.

Contemporary usageAll top memorisers today use the 'method of loci' to a greater or lesser degree. Contemporary memory competition was initiated in 1991 and introduced to the USA in 1997. Part of the competition requires committing to memory and recalling a sequence of digits, two-digit numbers, alphabetic letters, or playing cards. In a simple method of doing this, contestants, using various strategies well before competing, commit to long-term memory a unique vivid image associated with each item. They have also committed to long-term memory a familiar route with firmly established stop-points or loci. Then in the competition they need only deposit the image that they have associated with each item at the loci. To recall, they retrace the route, "stop" at each locus, and "observe" the image. They then translate this back to the associated item. Memory champions elaborate on this by combining images. Eight-time World Memory Champion Dominic O'Brien advocates this technique. His name for it is The Journey Method. The 2006 World Memory Champion, Clemens Mayer from Germany, used a 300-point-long journey through his house for his world record in "number half marathon", memorising 1040 random digits in a half hour. One individual has used the method of loci to memorise pi to 65,536 digits.

Using this technique a person with ordinary memorization capabilities, after establishing the route stop-points and committing the associated images to long-term memory, with less than an hour of practice, can remember the sequence of a shuffled deck of cards. The world record for this is held by Simon Reinhard at 21.90 seconds

The technique is taught as a metacognitive technique in learning to learn courses. It is generally applied to encoding the key ideas of a subject. Two approaches are:
1.Link the key ideas of a subject and then deep-learn those key ideas in relation to each other, and;

2.Think through the key ideas of a subject in depth, re-arrange the ideas in relation to an argument, then link the ideas to loci in good order.

It has been found that teaching such techniques as pure memorization methods often leads students towards surface learning only. Therefore, it has been recommended that the method of loci should be integrated thoroughly with deeper learning approaches.

A recent variation of the "method of loci" involves creating imaginary locations (houses, palaces, roads and cities) to which the same procedure is applied. It is accepted that there is a greater cost involved in the initial setup, but thereafter the performance is in line with the standard loci method. The purported advantage is to create towns and cities that each represent a topic or an area of study, thus offering an efficient filing of the information and an easy path for the regular review necessary for long term memory storage.

Something that is likely a reference to the "method of loci" techniques survives to this day in the common English phrases "in the first place", "in the second place", and so forth.

In popular culture, the technique is employed by the fictional serial killer Dr. Hannibal Lecter in Hannibal (1999) the third of a series of novels by American author Thomas Harris. In several passages in the book, Dr. Lecter is described as mentally walking through an elaborate memory palace to remember facts.

Example of usage of the method of loci/mental walk. During the mental walk, people remember lists of words by mentally walking a familiar route and associating these objects with specific landmarks on their route. An example of this would be to remember your grocery shopping list in a mental walk from your bedroom to kitchen in your house. Let's say the first item on your list was bread; then mentally you can place a loaf of bread on your bed. As you continue mentally walking you can place the next item, assume it is eggs, on your dresser. The mental walk continues like this as you place consecutive items along a familiar route that you walk. So when you are at the grocery store, you can then think about this walk and “see” what you placed at each location. In your head you will remember bread being on your bed, and eggs being on the dresser. This can continue for as many items as you want to place on your path as long as the route continues. The more dramatic the images, the more vivid the memory. For instance: instead of "bread", try to visualize a giant loaf of bread; instead of "eggs", imagine broken eggs all over the place.

John Assaraf - The Answer

noreply@blogger.com (Dave Moore) — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 18:39:00 +0000

I have read John Assarafs book, The Answer and I highly recommend it. Here is a very insightful interview from Success Magazine in 2010. Buy the book, The Answer, TODAY and read it!

John Assaraf is here: http://www.johnassaraf.com/

Success Magazine is here: http://www.successmagazine.com/

John Assaraf Has the Answer

How the self-proclaimed "Street Kid" took himself from the streets of Tel Aviv to entrepreneurial success.

K. Shelby Skrhak June 8, 2010

John Assaraf will tell you that achieving your goals and dreams is just a matter of believing you can and will do it. That’s how this New York Times best-selling author of The Answer took himself from the streets of Tel Aviv to the world stage of business and industry.

“Despite an early upbringing in war-ravaged Israel, where his childhood games were punctuated by gunshots and even bomb blasts, John turned away from the violence and ultimately created a life of incredible strength, contribution and love,” writes The Secret author Bob Proctor, in his foreword for Assaraf’s Having It All: Achieving Your Life’s Goals and Dreams.

When he was 8, Assaraf’s family fled the war-torn country for Montreal, where the outgoing boy went to work helping to support his family. While his friends were in class, Assaraf was often truant, delivering newspapers, picking up orders from the pharmacy or pressing clothes at the dry cleaner.

However, roaming the streets, Assaraf fell into a rough crowd of petty criminals, and found companionship and belonging in this small group of kids. “That’s where I got the nickname The Street Kid,” Assaraf says.
To help keep him out of trouble, his parents sent him to work at a Jewish community center across the street from their apartment. Assaraf grew to love the job, where he spent his evenings listening to rich and established gentlemen tell tales of their success. “They would talk about losing and making money, ill health, marital problems and infidelity, God, and a host of other things about which I could never hear enough,” Assaraf writes in Having It All: Achieving Your Life’s Goals and Dreams. “I learned that it was normal to have challenges, and that other families went through similar crises.”
This experience proved formative for Assaraf, who learned from these successful men and a string of other powerful mentors to develop his own strength and intuition.

Building Himself, Building a Fortune

Today a best-selling author, international speaker and featured expert on the critically acclaimed self-help film The Secret, Assaraf is no stranger to entrepreneurial success. With nothing but enthusiasm under his belt, he dove into a real estate career in the early 1980s—better known as a recession.

“Interest rates in the real estate market were 21 percent,” says Assaraf, who at age 19, made an impressive $30,000 in his first year selling real estate. The next year, he made $150,000. “I was young and naive and nobody told us that was not normal. I did well despite what was happening around me.”

Applying what he had learned in his early real estate career, Assaraf helped take RE/MAX of Indiana to more than 1,500 sales associates who generate more than $5 billion a year in sales.

Then, during the Internet boom, Assaraf developed the marketing and sales strategy that generated more than $30 million in revenue within 12 months for Bamboo.com. Bamboo then merged with IPEX and went on to become the world’s leading provider of imaging infrastructure for the Internet.

More recently, Assaraf founded OneCoach, a company that helps small-business owners and entrepreneurs grow their business revenues.

Assaraf, who’s built four multimillion-dollar companies in the last 20 years, says recessions like the one he experienced in the ’80s offer entrepreneurs opportunities to fix what’s broken and then promote the unique benefits of what they have to offer.

Starting June 28, John Assaraf will team with SUCCESS magazine for the six-week Entrepreneur Challenge to help would-be business owners take the next step and guide existing entrepreneurs in finding renewed inspiration. Based on the principles in his successful books, Having It All and The Answer, Assaraf will write twice-weekly blog posts to share the secrets of success as a business owner.

The Street Kid’s Tips for Success

Assaraf says business owners who enter entrepreneurial ventures with the right tools have what it takes to innovate, communicate and achieve business success in any economy.

1. Start with the right mindset. Assaraf says, when it comes to our mindsets, we’re often victims of conditioning and genetics. “The latest research suggests that 96 to 98 percent of all our thought patterns and behaviors are based on our conditioning,” he says.
When faced with negative circumstances, some people are conditioned to move forward despite them. They can go through turmoil and emerge successful. They see the world differently than those who allow outside circumstances to control their thinking. It’s important to realize you have no control over bad things happening, he says: “The only things we can control are our own thoughts and actions.”

2. Think of circumstances differently. Having the right mindset requires that entrepreneurs, in particular, not look at the recession as a reason for failure or lack of opportunity, but rather as a reason for innovation. The entrepreneur should ask the important question, Why is a particular business failing and how can I take a different approach to make it work?
“Whenever there is a recession, which I prefer to call a reorganization, innovation starts to happen. When innovation starts to happen, we start to think about different ways to serve the consumer’s needs,” Assaraf says. “That’s when you start to develop a brand around resolving the problem and creating products and services that people need during those tough times. Times that are challenging will actually bring out the weaknesses of the masses.”

3. Next step: Fill a need. Before launching any kind of marketing campaign for a new (or existing) business, ask this question first: Is there really a need in the marketplace for your product or service?
The adage, Build it and they will come, is 1970s and ’80s thinking, Assaraf says. Today, it’s, Find out what they want; then build it.
Once you build it, make people want it because of the experience, Assaraf adds. When filling a need, realize that the client experience is even more important than the product. A great example is Starbucks. Starbucks doesn’t sell coffee; Starbucks sells an experience. “That’s why they’re able to charge $4 for a $.10 cup of coffee,” he says.

4. Ask yourself, what makes you different? One of the most important elements of developing a successful marketing strategy is to understand what it is about your product or service that makes it unique. You can compete on quality, price or experience. Assaraf warns, however, that competing on price is often a losing battle. Rather, most business owners should look at how they can create a positive and memorable experience for their customers.
Entrepreneurs who do not find and promote a special niche will get lost in a crowded marketplace. “[If] they don’t know how to differentiate themselves from their competition, they become a commodity versus an experience. When you become a commodity, you will always be fighting on price. When you become an experience for people… they don’t compare your product or service to everybody else’s because the experience is so much greater than the product or service itself,” Assaraf says.

5. Clear the clutter. In this media-saturated world, your charge, says Assaraf, is to create a lasting impression on the consumer’s mind that differentiates you from everybody else.
One of Assaraf’s clients, a dentist, partnered with a local limousine company to provide transportation for teenage patients. The dentist absorbs the $25 it costs to pick up and bring home teenagers for their dental appointments. Marketing the time-saver to parents was a big hit, and students quickly spread the word about riding to the dentist’s office in a limo. A good marketing concept built on creating a memorable and positive experience, successful promotion and word-of-mouth led, in this case, to an explosion of business during the next 12 months.
“In today’s world, when we’re getting 50,000 messages a day, from… billboards, television, radio, e-mail, print, calls, etc., we have to differentiate ourselves. We have to do something that’s unique and different so that we stand out from everybody else who is yelling and screaming, ‘Pick me! Pick me!’ ” Assaraf says.

The Iron Lady - Movie Review

noreply@blogger.com (Dave Moore) — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 18:05:00 +0000

I saw the movie 'The Iron Lady' yesterday. I am glad that I did because I have waited to see this from the very first moment I heard that it was in production.

I have enormous respect for Margaret Thatcher (MT) and have read her memoirs. My only regret is that I have not met her...yet!

Although the movie is well made it isn't about MTs political history and achievements.
It is about old age, dementia and memories.

If you are looking for political intrigue, you will be disappointed.
But, if personal anguish is your idea of a great night at the movies then you will absolutely love this film.

I hit my twenties during the 80s. It was a great time of opportunity for people if they were willing to get up off their backsides and do something. We had the Yuppie, Loadsamoney, and a big bounce back from a crippling recession. Monopolies were gone and opportunity was everywhere. The clothes were...weird, and so were some of the haircuts but if you lived through it...you loved it. It was a time of Wall Street, Dealers, and mobile phones that looked like house bricks.

I also remember the strikes, the bags of rubbish on the streets because of dustmen strikes, the unions striking, the economy, the high unemployment, the IRA bombings, the riots. In fact, if you substitute Al Quaeda for IRA, it's not much different today.

If you had no idea of those times, and/or no experience of those things happening you would have left the cinema wondering WHY there were people throwing bags of rubbish onto the street, why people were banging their fists on MTs car and why (or maybe even who) blew up the Grand Hotel in Brighton during a Conservative party conference.

None of these events are explained. They are memory flashbacks in the movie, flashbacks by a woman who is remembering events in her past. She knows why they happened so the director/ writer thinks we do too and no explanation is needed.

The Falklands war is treated as a catalyst of power in MTs tenure as Prime Minister. Her decision and her order "Sink it!", when referring to the Belgrano, is a very exciting moment, played with great tension though, I am sure, the actual event took a lot more decisive thought than in the movie. The rationale, regarding the game of chess being played at sea with battleships as the chess pieces around the Falklands was not fully explained and the decision to sink the Belgrano could be seen in the movie as a gratuitous one. It most definitely was not.

The Director, Phillida Law (Mamma Mia), has described much of the film as a work of imagination. I would think 'lack' of imagination more the point.

This movie focuses on an elderly lady, wandering around her police protected, bullet proofed windowed, apartment in Chester Square, Belgravia, looking for her long dead husband Denis. He pops up in a pink turban, or walking like Charlie Chaplin. He is a ghost, or rather a figment of MTs imagination. He is used as a foil for MT to look back at a life full of decisions, strategies and challenges. It's fun but after a while, annoying.

Also no mention is made of his business acumen. Denis Thatcher, already a millionaire when he met and married MT, financed his wife's training as a barrister and a home in Chelsea; he also bought a large house in Lamberhurst, Kent in 1965. His firm employed 200 people by 1957, but he sold it to Castrol on 26 August 1965 after suffering a mild nervous breakdown in 1964. He received a seat on Castrol's parent board, which he maintained when Burmah Oil took it over in 1966. He retired from Burmah in June 1975, four months after his wife won the Conservative Party leadership election.In addition to being a director of Burmah, he was chairman of the Atlas Preservative Co, vice-chairman of Attwoods plc from 1983 to January 1994, a director of Quinton Hazell plc from 1968 to 1998 and a consultant to Amec plc and CSX Corp. He was also a non-executive director of Halfords in the mid-1980s. He calls himself a successful businessman in the movie but how many people know what he achieved? In the movie he is demoted to nothing more than the adult equivalent of a childs imaginary friend.

I can only com parethe performance by Leonardo de Caprio in Aviator, a movie about Howard Hughes, with the performance of Meryl Streep. De Caprio gives an outstanding performance and anyone like me with knowledge of Hughes can appreciate the portrayal by de Caprio and also be aware of the preparation it took to achieve the performance of a lifetime. To such an extent it is like watching secret home movie footage of Hughes.

Upon leaving the cinema one could only talk about how brilliant Hughes was, how weird he was, what a strange and damaged man he was, how achieved so much whilst suffering from OCD.

Here, with the Iron Lady, one comes away from the cinema talking of one thing only: Meryl Streeps performance. As amazing and spellbinding as it is, the performance is what is being talked about in bars and restaurants post movie and in the press.

But, what of the woman herself, the subject matter, Baroness Thatcher?

If you have only heard of MT at school you would not know of the power struggles, the political machinations, the feminist issues, the decisions, the speeches....
....Surprisingly no mention of "The Lady Is Not For Turning" or "The Mummy Returns"....
...because there is no substance or explanation of the key and iconic moments that were the make or break of her as Prime Minister.

This is a great movie to see if you know about MT and/or lived through the 80s.
If you know nothing about MT you will learn nothing about her from this movie apart from she became an MP, she became PM, she became old and forgetful.

Meryl Streep gives a performance that will undoubtedly lead to an oscar.

But, again, what of the subject matter herself?
For who she is, for who she was, for what she achieved...Margaret Thatcher deserves more than this. Much, much more.

Quoting Maggie

noreply@blogger.com (Dave Moore) — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 17:56:00 +0000

When Margaret Thatcher came to power in 1979, Britain was a dump, “the sick man of Europe” and on the brink of total economic collapse. When she left power in 1990, it was the one of the financial capitals of the world. She is associated with her political philosophy of Thatcherism, based on low taxation, low public spending, free markets and mass privatization. I, personally, love Margaret Thatcher for her honesty, bluntness, strength of character and her radicalism. Many others hate her, though, mainly on the left of politics who believed that she destroyed workers rights and slashed public spending. During her tenure she had to deal with mass unemployment, out of control inflation, endless strikes, a war with the Falklands and an attempted assassination by the IRA. In February 2007, she became the first British Prime Minister to be honoured with a statue in the House of Commons while still alive; a testament to her incredible legacy.

1. Pennies don’t fall from heaven – they have to be earned here on earth.

2. No one would remember the Good Samaritan if he’d only had good intentions; he had money as well.

3. Economics are the method; the object is to change the heart and soul.

4. My policies are based not on some economics theory, but on things I and millions like me were brought up with: an honest day’s work for an honest day’s pay; live within your means; put by a nest egg for a rainy day; pay your bills on time; support the police.

5. Defeat? I do not recognise the meaning of the word.

6. I, personally, have always voted for the death penalty because I believe that people who go out prepared to take the lives of other people forfeit their own right to live. I believe that the death penalty should be used only very rarely, but I believe that no-one should go out certain that no matter how cruel, how vicious, how hideous their murder, they themselves will not suffer the death penalty.

7. Socialists cry “Power to the people”, and raise the clenched fist as they say it. We all know what they really mean—power over people, power to the State.

8. There’s no such thing as society.

9. A man may climb Everest for himself, but at the summit he plants his country’s flag.

10. (to Conservative backbench MP John Whittingdale) The trouble with you, John, is that your spine does not reach your brain.

11. For every idealistic peacemaker willing to renounce his self-defence in favour of a weapons-free world, there is at least one warmaker anxious to exploit the other’s good intentions.

12. Constitutions have to be written on hearts, not just paper.

13. If you want something said, ask a man. If you want something done, ask a woman.

14. To me, consensus seems to be the process of abandoning all beliefs, principles, values and policies. So it is something in which no one believes and to which no one objects.

15. To wear your heart on your sleeve isn’t a very good plan; you should wear it inside, where it functions best.

16. Being powerful is like being a lady. If you have to tell people you are, you aren’t.

17. I am extraordinarily patient, provided I get my own way in the end.

18. If you want to cut your own throat, don’t come to me for a bandage.

19. There can be no liberty unless there is economic liberty.

20. I usually make up my mind about a man in ten seconds, and I very rarely change it.

21. It pays to know the enemy – not least because at some time you may have the opportunity to turn him into a friend.

22. It is not the creation of wealth that is wrong, but the love of money for its own sake.

23. I always cheer up immensely if an attack is particularly wounding because I think, well, if they attack one personally, it means they have not a single political argument left.

24. Popular capitalism is nothing less than a crusade to enfranchise the many in the economic life of the nation.

25. Imagine a Labour canvasser talking on the doorstep to those East German families when they settle in on freedom’s side of the wall. “You want to keep more of the money you earn? I’m afraid that’s very selfish. We shall want to tax that away. You want to own shares in your firm? We can’t have that. The state has to own your firm. You want to choose where to send your children to school? That’s very divisive. You’ll send your child where we tell you.”

Bonus: I don’t think there will be a woman Prime Minister in my lifetime. – BBC interview, 1973

Mayans? Schmayans!

noreply@blogger.com (Dave Moore) — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 19:04:00 +0000

2012 is the year the world ends.

2012 is the year the Mayans say it's going to be 'game over'.

Errm...

Actually:

2012 is a year of great opportunity.

Can you imagine believing the rubbish about the end of the world only to find that you sold your business and your home and spent all the money for nothing when, surprise, you wake up next morning and you are still here? And, what's more, so is everyone else?

It's New Years Day today. What are you doing?

LOST: One whole year. Last seen yesterday. Contains uncertainty, lazyness and no achievement. (could u place an ad like that? Be ashamed!! Be very ashamed)

The Mayans said the world will end in 2012. If it does,it does. But, if it doesn't? What condition will your life be in the day after? Plan ahead!

Do you wake up and say 'I can't wait to be mediocre today!'. I could tell you to get a life but why don't you just change the one you have?

Is watching TV tonight going to earn you money? Get you new clients? Expand your business? NO! So...Turn off the tube and get out your Notebook/ Planner!

If you are sitting there thinking 'Wow, a whole year ahead of me'? I guarantee you will soon be saying 'Where the hell did that year go?' And you will say that sooner than you think!

What are you doing today? Watching TV? Reading the paper? Sleeping? Get off your ass and make a to do list and put a deadline in there!

The Mayans were wrong.

This can be the best year ever if you make it so!

Go and do it. I am!

Happy New Year x

2012

noreply@blogger.com (Dave Moore) — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 01:31:00 +0000

A happy new year to you all.

May you get everything you wish for, attract, and manifest in 2012

David Moore

Jeremy Kyle and the Christmas Sell-Out

noreply@blogger.com (Dave Moore) — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 20:19:00 +0000

A new low was hit on the Jeremy Kyle show today. That actually takes some doing when you have a TV program filled with pikies, diddycoys, social security scroungers, numptys, liars, cheats, prostitutes, drug addicts, wife beaters, psychopaths, sociopaths, delinquents, illegal immigrants and cowards.

I am a pretty haphazard viewer of the show. If I am at home I watch it and laugh. Like catchphrases, Kyle has a few things he has to say in every show like:

Put something on the end of it! (audience applauds)
You're a disgrace Madam.
You're the daddy.
Are you working?
How are you gonna pay for the child?
I and every other tax payer is paying for your drink/ drugs/ child (delete as applicable)
You need a size ten up the backside.
A real father would WALK those ten miles every day.
Get off your backside and get a damn job.
You should have thought about that before you slept together.
You are a really nasty person.
You shut up, you shut up, you shut up, you listen.
Be quiet, instantly.
Oh, your getting angry now are you?
Get this off my stage.
You want to have a go at me now do you?

One thing amazed me more than anything. It was the fact that Kyle is angrier, ruder and more confrontational than his 'guests' yet he is affronted when anyone else gets angry. One rule for Kyle, one rule for everyone else. It's OK for him to behave like that but...not them.

The 'guests' have catch phrases too:

Basically.
Literally.
He/She/I turned around and said.
At the end of the day.

The belief here is that by sprinkling your sentences with 'literally' and 'basically' it gives the impression you have a large vocabulary or are more educated than you really are. Saying things like 'I was literally on the phone' or 'basically it was not me' gives a rather different impression. Basically, why would anyone, at the end of the day, turn around and literally say those things?

Or they repeat the question.
"Why did you send that text?"
"Why did I send that text?"
"YEEEEEESSSSSS!!!"

I know he is a reformed gambler.
I know he still has a fetish for licking his mobile phone.
I know he hates social networking.
But, what I didn't know about Kyle was how two faced he was!

Today, after a couple of days giving spa breaks to parents of disabled or ill children and toys to the children themselves he shot himself in the foot.

A few months ago there was a family on there, one of the many tattooed, pikie, inbred versions. The mother was a hooker, the daughters had been told that the man they thought was their father wasn't their father, and he, having heard he was one of about 5 potentials, decided to leave and met a woman and had a family with her. He had not had contact with the daughters for 15 years.

If people don't get in touch for 15 years, there is a reason. Whatever that reason is, it's their reason and no one elses. On the show they were arguing. So much in fact that the 'father' sat outside with his wife rather than confront the daughters and their hooker mother. At the end of the show, after Kyle had discovered that there had been no contact, the hooker was not working and was claiming benefits, the 'father' was not working and claiming benefits, after much shouting, screaming and jumping up and down by Kyle, the DNA proved that the 'father' was the father of the two girls.

Today, Kyle got them back. Not the hooker though. She had probably dusted off the handbag and was taking advantage of the last minute Christmas rush. The Father was back with the two daughters and they told the audience and Kyle how they were slowly rebuilding their lives and making up for time lost.

What happened next?

Kyle got two helpers out who brought on a child's scooter, thirty or so DVDs, a DVD player, a Nintendo Wii with games....WTF WTF WTF?

What happened to:

Are you working?
How are you gonna pay for that?
I and every other tax payer is paying for you
You need a size ten up the backside.
Get off your backside and get a damn job.

Jeremy Kyle you are a joke, the biggest joke of Christmas and every day of the year. You have really lost the plot.

When you consider the people up and down the country who cannot afford to put a meal on the table, or buy their kids presents, or even pay their bills...you reward a scumbag family that you humiliated and made the audience laugh at on a previous show with over £1500.00 worth of freebies.

When Kyles assistants wheeled out the freebies, the three pikies smiled, they looked eagerly at the scooter, DVDs, Wii with games and controllers, DVD player and all the other stuff and I could see one thing flashing through their minds. It wasn't gratitude. It wasn't humility. It wasn't thankfulness.

What was it that was flashing through their minds? It was this:

Time for a taste of your own medicine. You are a disgrace Kyle. Leave the TV screen instantly! Click!

You can be who you want to be

noreply@blogger.com (Dave Moore) — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 22:33:00 +0000

Are you done with all of your holiday shopping yet? I’m taking off Friday for Switzerland again. It has been a regular thing for a few years at Christmas. Wherever you’re going, I wish you a safe trip. And lots of great food, drink and good company!

What is on your Christmas list for Santa this year? No matter what you ask for, the one thing you really need to ensure that next year you get exactly what you want will NOT come from Santa. Nor will it come from anyone else!

It’s a gift you can only receive from yourself.

It’s something that none of us even think to put on a Gift List. How do you wrap a gift that makes it possible for you to be the person you want to be, so that you can do the things you want to do, that will let you live the life you want to live? Is there even such a gift? Is such a thing even possible?

YES. It does exist and it is possible. But it doesn’t come in the form of some program you get by attending a live event, an online webinar series, or from a product that has a bunch of CDs/ DVDs and a flashy workbook.

Thats the gift that “they” all want to give you. It's not the gift you need.

All these events, teleclasses, home-study programs and the like, are about teaching you STRATEGIES, giving you some sort of plan that basically involves not doing what you’re doing now and instead, doing what they tell you to do.

And you know as well as I do, that there’s a lot of vigilance, discipline and will power that has to go along with it, or you aren’t going to be able to stick to it. How well has that worked for you in the past?

You need more than just a resolution to be successful

Only a relatively tiny number of people succeed with these programs and strategies over the long term, because they run out of discipline, will power and never-ending vigilance. They go back to doing what they were doing before, because that’s who they are and that’s what who they are does.

And this is why those plans, programs and strategies don’t work.

Great… so what does work?

What works is becoming a person who easily and effortlessly acts and behaves in a way that supports achieving your goals, because that’s who you are. Once you become a person who naturally makes choices
that are aligned with whatever goals you’re seeking to achieve, you don’t need willpower and discipline any more. You’ll make the most effective choices, because that’s what feels instinctively right to you.

What’s on your wish list?

An ipad?
A piece of jewellery?
A new kitchen?
A new Car?
Maybe even a trip to some warm Caribbean island for a week!
A villa on a Greek island?

Or maybe you’re being more practical?

Lose 20 pounds.
Be more organized.
Break through the six-figure barrier into making seven figures.

And perhaps you know exactly what you need to do, or perhaps you’re still at the vague idea stage.

There is no shortage of people who have foolproof plans they guarantee will help you lose 20 pounds in 20 weeks eating whatever you want.
You can find 20-step teleseminar series that will teach you how to organizeyour home, your office and your life.
There are a myriad of programs that promise they have the secret that will enable you to create the right mindset for success.
There are a number of programs that promise to show you how, just by thinking about it, you can manifest or attract all manner of stuff into your life.

Why Don't These Strategies Work?

They don’t work because they’re STRATEGIES, they’re a plan, they’re another way of doing something that will hopefully be more effective than what you’re doing now.

But they all have the same premise:
1. Take Behavior A
2. Substitute it with Behavior B
3. You’ll supposedly get a better result.

That could work IF you can muster up the willpower and discipline to stick to it. But once you’re past that first rush of anticipation and excitement, it usually turns into a struggle, especially if you’re more comfortable with the way you’re accustomed to doing things. And whoosh! There goes that resolution out the window!

Great… so what does work?

What works is becoming a person who easily and effortlessly acts and behaves in a way that supports achieving your goals, because that’s who you are. Once you become a person who naturally makes choices that are aligned with whatever goals you’re seeking to achieve, you don’t need willpower and discipline any more. You’ll want to do the “right” things, because that’s what feels instinctively right... to you.

The Real Secret - My gift to you for 2012

noreply@blogger.com (Dave Moore) — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 20:44:00 +0000

First of all, I am sorry that I haven't written on here for a while. I have been checking this blog and my Twitter and Facebook feeds and I have been following many of you on those platforms online and via friends and clients. It has been avery changeable, happy, difficult, rewarding and eye opening year.

I am SO ready to begin a new year. I can't wait. Big changes in my personal and business life. Relocation. Expansion of business....so much to do and so much energy to make it happen!

Now the good news for you.....

It’s that time of year again!

Have you noticed that beginning in November, your Inbox fills up with all kinds of programs the sender claims “will make 2012 your best year ever!” Some of the ones I’ve received involve three day live events where they help you dig through your past and release all the limiting beliefs and negative self-talk that’s holding you back; another offers a “once-in-a-lifetime, special deal that will disappear at midnight” on a 36 CD program, complete with transcript, workbook and two live group calls, blah, blah, blah, work, work, work; and my favorite, the people who guarantee they will reveal how The Secret really works and how to make it work for you (which leads me to believe that the real secret to The Secret is all the people who making a ton of money from telling other people how to get it to work)

What all these programs have in common, is they’re all about telling you things you can do and actions you can take, that will somehow magically turn you into “a money-making magnet.” But at the end of the day, all these live events, these “secrets”, these CDs and workbooks fundamentally are, are strategies, strategies that will supposedly “release negative patterns that are holding you back”, “rewire your brain for success”, or some equally bogus hype.

Why is it that all these claims, promises and allegations don’t work?

It’s very simple: what these programs are all about is teaching you a method, a strategy whereby you take something you’re doing, stop doing it, and instead do something else. Like the bright, glossy, shiny CD/DVD program they’re selling you.

I have news for you! Replacing one behavior with another behavior is not going to change your life or make a long-term difference on how successful you are in 2012. Substituting doing something with not doing something is a STRATEGY, and will only work as long as you maintain the willpower, vigilance and discipline to continue to do that strategy.

So, what's the real secret?

The real secret to lasting success is;

Become a person who naturally and instinctively does whatever needs to be done to be successful.
Become a person who easily and effortlessly acts and behaves in a certain way because that’s who you are.
Don't use a strategy to fix what you’re doing or not doing. This won’t work because you’re still the same person you’ve always been, you’re just forcing yourself to act in a different manner.

And, that’s why you, and everyone else, inevitably fails and reverts back to doing what you always do.

You go back to being who you really are.

I know, it can be confusing, you might want to go back and read what the Real Secret is again.

My gift to you...

It actually is possible to become the person who makes the choices you’d really like to make and does the things you’d really like to do, so that you can achieve the success you really want to have. And it doesn’t involve dredging up the past or listening to dozens of CDs and filling out workbooks or flying across the country and spending thousands of dollars on a live event. You don’t need to develop your willpower, walk on fire or glass, be relentlessly vigilant or subject yourself to strict discipline for the rest of your life either.

What you do have to do is be willing to keep an open mind, and allow yourself to consider that something that sounds like the 21st century version of snake oil could actually work,

In addition to catching you up with what’s been going on and why I “fell off the face of the earth”, we’re: closing in on the New Year, and you, too, are probably getting a lot of emails from people who have products, on-line courses, are holding live events, etc. that promise to “make 2012 your best year ever!!”

I’m sure they have the best intentions, but…

What none of them seem to understand is that replacing one behavior with another behavior is a STRATEGY, and strategies like this only work as long as you have the willpower and the discipline to do them on a consistent basis.

For example, a diet is a strategy, making and prioritizing the next day’s To Do list is a strategy, only checking Twitter/ Facebook and your email twice a day at a predetermined time is a strategy – you get the picture? As long as you can make yourself do it, it works. And we all know that pretty much nobody is able to keep doing it for very long.

Great… so what does work?

What works is becoming the person who instinctively makes the choices you know you need to make to get you the results you’re looking to get. In other words, doing what needs to be done because that’s who you are.

Bob Proctor - The Terror Barrier

noreply@blogger.com (Dave Moore) — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 20:49:00 +0000

I got this email from my mentor, Bob Proctor, and I wanted to share it with you. Enjoy!

Hi Dave,

The first ten years of my life were spent in Owen Sound, Ontario. It's a small town a few hours north of Toronto. I can vividly remember spending the summer days with my family at Harrison Park where there was a really great swimming pool. I would watch as the older kids went up the ladder to either jump or dive off the high diving board. They were having a great time. Wanting to be accepted by the older kids, I too went up the ladder ... reluctantly, but I climbed it.

I will never forget the terror that gripped my mind and body when I looked down. Unfortunately, all the coaxing in the world wouldn't have been sufficient to get me to jump off that board! There was no way I could do it. Feeling defeated, I climbed back down the ladder trying desperately to hide my embarrassment.

That was the first time in my life that I can recall coming up against the Terror Barrier. Unfortunately, not only did I lose out on the excitement and thrill that would have been gained by jumping ... I also lost a little self-respect.

If you think back, you will probably be able to recall the first time you came face-to-face with the Terror Barrier. Did you step through it to freedom or back into safety, imprisoned by your own fears?

The Terror Barrier is a real entity

Now, I could waste a lot of breath telling you that the Terror Barrier is a figment as gauzy and hazy as the smoke from an extinguished campfire. But you'll tell me differently, because fear can feel like a very real entity. What you think in your head is often acted out in your body - when faced with their Terror Barrier, people will actually break out in a cold sweat, find themselves covered in sudden hives, and even feel their hearts palpitate. Your perception is your reality! That's how soundly your paradigms of "no" and "it can't be done" are grounded in your Mind. Your comfortable mind will do anything it can think of to back you away from the "danger" of the unknown, just as it had me backing down those diving-board stairs.

In James Allan's classic, "As A Man Thinketh," he mentioned that fear can kill a person faster than a speeding bullet. While coming up against your Terror Barrier might not kill you physically, it certainly kills something inside you - like it did that day I stood on the diving board.

How to be a wrecking ball on your own Terror Barrier

1. Bulldoze through it scared. That's right ... just keep marching, no matter how badly your feet want to stay rooted to the ground. Refuse to permit this negative demon to control you, your emotions ...your future.

2. Remember - the Terror Barrier rears its ugly head every time we attempt to make a major move in life into an area we have never traveled before. It's as natural as day and night. Where before you used to let it stop you cold, now you can simply shrug and tell yourself, "Oh, there it is again. Well! This must really mean something great to me!"

3. Then, further remind yourself that it might be an unknown, but the other side of that Terror Barrier will have you that much closer to your goal. I'd encourage you to fall in love with THAT feeling of accomplishment, get wrapped up in it! I often say that if your goal doesn't scare and excite you at the same time, you're going after the wrong goal!

Eleanor Roosevelt said, "You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You must do the thing you think you cannot do." That is excellent advice. By following her advice you will liberate yourself from the crippling emotional state that the Terror Barrier causes.

Do it scared. Begin to visualize yourself successfully being a wrecking ball on that Terror Barrier of yours. Mentally see yourself winning. Remember, perception IS reality!

The Movie In Your Mind

noreply@blogger.com (Dave Moore) — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 16:12:00 +0000

The Lion King is out in 3D. I saw the movie when it came out in 1994. I saw the Video. And then the DVD. When I was in Disneyland in Florida in 1998 we went to see the live show in the Animal Kingdom. I then saw the Stage Show in London. I have seen enough of the Lion King so I won't be bothering with the 3D version.

Isn't it amazing how often children watch the same DVD over and over again and never complain? They only complain if you don't let them watch it. How many times has the Lion King been in and out of your DVD player?

Now, I can watch a DVD again and again. Something like The Godfather, or the Hannibal Lecter movies or The Pink Panther movies. Perhaps your preference is Star Wars or Lord of the Rings? Whatever it is, we do it. And sometimes we see something, or understand something, that we didn't 'get' or that we missed the first or last time.

I am the same with books. They can be Clive Cussler thrillers or they can be books that are relevant to personal development, NLP, Hypnosis, Persuasion etc. Its just that SOMETIMES we read or see something that resonates more than before.

Unfortunately this is what some adults do with their days. I say unfortunately because they don't do it in a GOOD way. The majority of men and women play a movie in their mind. And they do this day after day, relentlessly focusing on past events, most of which are unpleasant and disturbing experiences. Arguments and fights. Bad experiences. Failures.

They get so good at it that they can remember entire arguments. THEN they rewrite it and imagine themselves saying things they hadn't and WINNING an argument they may have lost, or saying things they hadn't thought of at the time.

At some point they realise that this is having a negative effect on them so they then allow impressions of their current surroundings and recent results to dominate their thoughts.

If they contemplate the future then it is usually by worrying about it, or wishing that something better might come along.

Then they wonder why bad things keep happening to them, or why they never rise above the issues and obstacles in their lives.

People are free to think anything they want but I know one thing for sure. If you keep doing the same thing your results will never improve.

An image in your mind is the first stage of the creative process in life. From your imagination your visions and plans arise.

Napoleon Hill wrote, "You will never have a definite purpose in life; you will never have self confidence; you will never have initiative and leadership unless you first create these qualities in your imagination and see yourself in possession of them." He went on to say, "... imagination is the most marvelous, miraculous, inconceivably powerful force the world has ever known."

There is a concept called "Fantasy - Theory - Fact." The premise underlying this concept is that everything has its origination in the form of Fantasy, which some adventurous souls dare turn into a theory and then boldly turn into fact. Give this serious thought for a moment.

The idea of moon landings, communicating by email, traveling on jets, cellular phones or wearing synthetic garments was, a very short time ago, sheer fantasy. Today, they are considered commonplace.

Your marvelous mind has factors that you can, with little effort, develop to use to improve the quality of life, not just for yourself, but for anyone you choose. Imagination is one of those creative faculties. The individuals who were responsible for the conception and creation of the email, cell phones and any of the thousands of modern conveniences we enjoy today had a highly developed imagination.

Think of...
Walt Disney with animation.
Steve Jobs with Apple
Thomas Edison with Electricity.
Edmund Hilary with Mount Everest.

All of the above had one thing in common; Imagination. They saw it, they achieved it.

Fantasy - Theory - Fact.

Think of it. Figure it out. Do it.

They didn't listen to people who said they were mad, or wasting their time. They took no notice of the people who poured scorn on their ideas. They didn't listen to people who said 'that can't be done'.

Do you listen to people who are negative, energy vampire, MOOD HOOVERS?? Why? They don't know what they are talking about.
Do you get involved in arguments with people? Why? They don't know what they are talking about or what they are doing.
They have no positive interest in you so why do you assume that anything they say should make any difference to you?

These pioneers above; Disney, Jobs, Edison...they used their mental faculties to fantasize, to build wild and wonderful pictures in their mind. Then, holding their thought with their will, they watched their fantasy unfold into a theory and then into fact. They seemed to have an innate awareness that if they could visualize it, they could do it.

Use this power to let your mind play. Fantasize a much better life than you presently enjoy. Draft your future with imagination, ponder and calculate with intelligence and awareness, then knit it with care. Next, devise paths and find tools to help get you there.

Create a vision board. Construct a board containing all of the things you want to buy, achieve and experience. One by one, or in some cases all at once, you will be able to tick off each achievement.

Commit to reach those new goals. The only barrier separating you from your goal is ignorance - ignorance of how simple, and simply powerful, your mind really is.

Think those powerful things again and again.
Read the positive books again and again.
Watch the great stuff again and again.

Be a kid watching the Lion King again and again. Who knows? This time you may see something you missed last time ;-)

Guy Kawasaki - Lessons from Steve Jobs

noreply@blogger.com (Dave Moore) — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 11:36:00 +0000

What I Learned From Steve Jobs

Many people have explained what one can learn from Steve Jobs. But few, if any, of these people have been inside the tent and experienced first hand what it was like to work with him. I don’t want any lessons to be lost or forgotten, so here is my list of the top twelve lessons that I learned from Steve Jobs.

1.Experts are clueless.
Experts—journalists, analysts, consultants, bankers, and gurus can’t “do” so they “advise.” They can tell you what is wrong with your product, but they cannot make a great one. They can tell you how to sell something, but they cannot sell it themselves. They can tell you how to create great teams, but they only manage a secretary. For example, the experts told us that the two biggest shortcomings of Macintosh in the mid 1980s was the lack of a daisy-wheel printer driver and Lotus 1-2-3; another advice gem from the experts was to buy Compaq. Hear what experts say, but don’t always listen to them.

2.Customers cannot tell you what they need.
“Apple market research” is an oxymoron. The Apple focus group was the right hemisphere of Steve’s brain talking to the left one. If you ask customers what they want, they will tell you, “Better, faster, and cheaper”—that is, better sameness, not revolutionary change. They can only describe their desires in terms of what they are already using—around the time of the introduction of Macintosh, all people said they wanted was better, faster, and cheaper MS-DOS machines. The richest vein for tech startups is creating the product that you want to use—that’s what Steve and Woz did.

3.Jump to the next curve.
Big wins happen when you go beyond better sameness. The best daisy-wheel printer companies were introducing new fonts in more sizes. Apple introduced the next curve: laser printing. Think of ice harvesters, ice factories, and refrigerator companies. Ice 1.0, 2.0, and 3.0. Are you still harvesting ice during the winter from a frozen pond?

4.The biggest challenges beget best work.
I lived in fear that Steve would tell me that I, or my work, was crap. In public. This fear was a big challenge. Competing with IBM and then Microsoft was a big challenge. Changing the world was a big challenge. I, and Apple employees before me and after me, did their best work because we had to do our best work to meet the big challenges.

5.Design counts.
Steve drove people nuts with his design demands—some shades of black weren’t black enough. Mere mortals think that black is black, and that a trash can is a trash can. Steve was such a perfectionist—a perfectionist Beyond: Thunderdome—and lo and behold he was right: some people care about design and many people at least sense it. Maybe not everyone, but the important ones.

6.You can’t go wrong with big graphics and big fonts.
Take a look at Steve’s slides. The font is sixty points. There’s usually one big screenshot or graphic. Look at other tech speaker’s slides—even the ones who have seen Steve in action. The font is eight points, and there are no graphics. So many people say that Steve was the world’s greatest product introduction guy..don’t you wonder why more people don’t copy his style?

7.Changing your mind is a sign of intelligence.
When Apple first shipped the iPhone there was no such thing as apps. Apps, Steve decreed, were a bad thing because you never know what they could be doing to your phone. Safari web apps were the way to go until six months later when Steve decided, or someone convinced Steve, that apps were the way to go—but of course. Duh! Apple came a long way in a short time from Safari web apps to “there’s an app for that.”

8.“Value” is different from “price.”
Woe unto you if you decide everything based on price. Even more woe unto you if you compete solely on price. Price is not all that matters—what is important, at least to some people, is value. And value takes into account training, support, and the intrinsic joy of using the best tool that’s made. It’s pretty safe to say that no one buys Apple products because of their low price.

9.A players hire A+ players.
Actually, Steve believed that A players hire A players—that is people who are as good as they are. I refined this slightly—my theory is that A players hire people even better than themselves. It’s clear, though, that B players hire C players so they can feel superior to them, and C players hire D players. If you start hiring B players, expect what Steve called “the bozo explosion” to happen in your organization.

10.Real CEOs demo.
Steve Jobs could demo a pod, pad, phone, and Mac two to three times a year with millions of people watching, why is it that many CEOs call upon their vice-president of engineering to do a product demo? Maybe it’s to show that there’s a team effort in play. Maybe. It’s more likely that the CEO doesn’t understand what his/her company is making well enough to explain it. How pathetic is that?

11.Real CEOs ship.
For all his perfectionism, Steve could ship. Maybe the product wasn’t perfect every time, but it was almost always great enough to go. The lesson is that Steve wasn’t tinkering for the sake of tinkering—he had a goal: shipping and achieving worldwide domination of existing markets or creation of new markets. Apple is an engineering-centric company, not a research-centric one. Which would you rather be: Apple or Xerox PARC?

12.Marketing boils down to providing unique value.
Think of a 2 x 2 matrix. The vertical axis measures how your product differs from the competition. The horizontal axis measures the value of your product. Bottom right: valuable but not unique—you’ll have to compete on price. Top left: unique but not valuable—you’ll own a market that doesn’t exist. Bottom left: not unique and not value—you’re a bozo. Top right: unique and valuable—this is where you make margin, money, and history. For example, the iPod was unique and valuable because it was the only way to legally, inexpensively, and easily download music from the six biggest record labels.

Bonus: Some things need to be believed to be seen. When you are jumping curves, defying/ignoring the experts, facing off against big challenges, obsessing about design, and focusing on unique value, you will need to convince people to believe in what you are doing in order to see your efforts come to fruition. People needed to believe in Macintosh to see it become real. Ditto for iPod, iPhone, and iPad. Not everyone will believe—that’s okay. But the starting point of changing the world is changing a few minds. This is the greatest lesson of all that I learned from Steve.

Read more: http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2011/10/what-i-learned-from-steve-jobs.html#ixzz1ayJF4kpa

Spare Some Change!

noreply@blogger.com (Dave Moore) — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 10:46:00 +0000

"So how were the trains this morning? Only ten minutes till we start work. Do you want a coffee, oh by the way, did they land on the moon OK last night?"

I can imagine a conversation like that in any office around the world today if some country had sent a group of astronauts to the moon. Even if it was for the first time.

Why? Life has Changed.

Because there are no real surprises any more. Everything is so easy and accessible in this day and age it takes a lot to surprise people.

In 1969 people stayed up all around the world to watch the landings live on TV. Now life has changed, they probably wouldn't bother to watch, or wait until it was trending on Twitter.

Today, we live in a society that is abundant. I really don't care if you think; 'What's he talking about? We have a double dip recession!'

Take a look around London.
Take a look on the internet.
Millions of people are spending millions of pounds, dollars, euros on millions of things.

Look at the carrier bags being carried around Westfield, Oxford Street, Covent Garden, Knightsbridge or your local area. These people haven't been told we are in a recession.

A recession is the only thing they don't buy!

Do you really care about the economy? Why? Care about your OWN economy!

Our society is one of abundance. The money is out there.

Unfortunately, the knock on effect of all this is children. One of the reasons we have a lack of respect in this country is that the majority of people know the price of everything and the value of nothing. They go into debt because their children want top of the range electronic goods, from games stations to mobile phones.

Ten year olds with mobile phones? What the Phuq?

I can remember aspiring to achieve something or saving to buy something, and getting a real buzz out of owning something I had taken a while to save up and buy.

Now we just go and get credit and buy it.

Some of the stores sell out of toys and luxury goods at the start of December because the demand is so great.

Life has changed from a time when people worked hard to get something, children were grateful, people were grateful and the average person aspired to achieve things so that they could have a better life.

Technology is supposed to make life easier. We now find that automatic diallers make your life hell by making your phone ring with useless offers from automatons.
The computer says NO and you cant speak to a human being.
Everytime you call a company you have so many options to press and waiting time has grown that by the time you finally get through to a call center in India - not only do they not speak English and cant help, you have forgotten what you were calling about!

Life has changed, but not necessarily for the better.

When Daleks Attack

noreply@blogger.com (Dave Moore) — Sat, 15 Oct 2011 16:52:00 +0000

This image sent to me by Helen Allen reminded me of some very good times.

A fire extinguisher fired out of the Dalek gun makes it look like the real thing from Doctor Who.

Who would believe it was the third floor of a serviced office building in Nottingham.

What the other offices in the building thought we had no idea or interest.

We had a good time.

Me and Black n Gold

Me and Dalek in Black

Bruce and Dalek in Black

A useless O2 and the BlackBerry Crumble

noreply@blogger.com (Dave Moore) — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 20:23:00 +0000

The last three days have been very interesting. I was amazed at how many people had their lives SHATTERED by the failure of Research in Motion to put a lid on the problem affecting the BlackBerry.

I say shattered but in some instances it was akin to the Earth ending. I can understand businesses being effected but it was a real eye-opener to see the dejected, jaded, and confused staring at the little black plastic block in their hands.

I was one of them, at the start.

The situation did uncover something that had been hidden from me though. Just how stupid O2 customer service are.

They were 'unaware' of any problem up until Monday evening!

I had a remarkable exchange with 'Tony' at O2 on Monday afternoon when I called to enquire why I couldn't get Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn etc. It was unable to connect to the BlackBerry server!

He gave me a staggering piece of advice...

"Have you taken the sim card out and rubbed it on your trousers?"

I had to admit, that hadn't been my FIRST idea. I had assumed it was something a little more technical than that.

"No I haven't done that Tony and quite frankly I don't intend to!"

"Why not, it may work." He answered.

I then went on to ask how a quick rub on my jeans would 'free up' the BlackBerry service, which was the only function not operating on my phone. Was the sim card THAT clever to only take what it needed from a rub on my jeans?

"Tony, I am not going to take the sim card out and rub it on my jeans for one simple reason. When my Mac crashed, Apple didn't tell me to take the hard drive out and stick it up my Ass!"

"Er...."

"And another thing Tony, this is a problem with BlackBerry. It's not the phone."

I hung up and checked Twitter. There it was, BlackBerry was trending with various permutations of the name. It was obvious that there was a major problem. If only someone had told O2.

I tweeted the above exchange and copied the name @O2 into it.

I got this reply from O2 on Tuesday. Remember, this is in the MIDDLE of all the BlackBerry problems as it travelled around the world wiping out millions of phone systems:

@O2 O2 in the UK @mooreconsortium Doesn't necessarily has to be your trousers, could be any clean cloth. Did it resolve the issue or still persisting?

Guess what Sherlock? It IS still persiting! Tell me; Do you actually KNOW what is going on?

And what's with the grammar? ("Doesn't necessarily HAS to be...")

Still persisting? The problem was halfway to India at that point!! And it carried on travelling to the USA.

If that was the normal advice dispensed to every BlackBerry customer that called O2 then the static electricity generated by the millions of people throughout the EMEA when they rubbed their sim cards furiously on all manner of fabrics would be enough to trigger off a change in the Earths Orbit and set light to Europe!

Hey O2! Why not put a comment on the front page of your website informing that there is an issue or is it because it wasn't anything to do with you? Even a message on your Customer Service answerphone would be cool.

You know the one I mean. Its the one that gives you hundreds of options, asks you to enter your number, press this button, is this correct, enter your number again, is this correct, press one of these 8 options, enter your number and then, when you finally get through to a carbon based life-form, they ask you for the number of your phone!!!

Heres a quick tip when calling O2. When you hear that woman who sounds like she is smirking at you, press '0' and then again every time she says 'Sorry', THAT way you will go straight through to Customer Services...where your REAL problems will start!

After two days it was obvious that there was a major, MAJOR, problem at Research in Motion. It only rectified itself at 4am on Thursday morning. It was obvious as I was awoken by my Blackberry doing a very passable impersonation of R2D2 on speed.

I can't help thinking that if Steve Jobs had been alive he would have grasped the opportunity and sent a message to the thousands of people who were moaning on Twitter and all other networking sites about the loss of service, and made them a very quick offer for an iPhone. I can't help but think that BlackBerry, or Research in Motion (should that be MotionLESS?), would have lost an awful lot of customers in the blink of an eye.

I hate to suggest it but having had no real answer for the problem, well not one that is understandable to anyone without a science degree, is it possible that this picture is closer to the truth than we wish to believe?

Chairman Jobs

noreply@blogger.com (Dave Moore) — Sun, 09 Oct 2011 18:17:00 +0000

Steve Jobs was not the most considerate individual at Apple, and he had lots of ways to demonstrate that. One of the most obvious was his habit of parking in the handicapped spot of the parking lot - he seemed to think that the blue wheelchair symbol meant that the spot was reserved for the chairman.

Whenever you saw a big Mercedes parked in a handicapped space, you could be sure that it was Steve's car (actually, it was hard to be sure otherwise, since he also had a habit of removing his license plates). This sometimes caused him trouble, since unknown parties would occasionally retaliate by scratching the car with their keys.

Anyway, the story is that one day Apple executive Jean-Louis Gassee, who had recently transferred to Cupertino from Paris, had just parked his car and was walking toward the entrance of the main office at Apple when Steve buzzed by him in his silver Mercedes and pulled into the handicapped space near the front of the building.

As Steve walked brusquely past him, Jean-Louis was heard to declare, to no one in particular - "Oh, I never realized that those spaces were for the emotionally handicapped...".

One day in October 1983 I got a phone call at my desk at Apple from the Cupertino police department saying something like, "You reported that Mercedes parked in the handicapped space at your lot at Apple. Well, we sent a car out there but we can't really tow it away because the handicapped space is improperly designated."

I had no idea what he was talking about. A few hours later, I found out that Apple's other cofounder, Steve Wozniak, who was a prolific prankster, called up the Cupertino police and reported that a silver Mercedes was illegally parked in a handicapped space and told them the person reporting it was Andy Hertzfeld, giving them my phone number at work. I decided not to inform Apple's facilities department about the improperly marked space, just in case Woz decided to try it again.

Memories of Steve Jobs - Chris Taylor

noreply@blogger.com (Dave Moore) — Sun, 09 Oct 2011 17:56:00 +0000

It was a Saturday afternoon in Palo Alto, and I was having lunch with a friend in an Italian restaurant. Suddenly, Steve came in and ordered takeout. He was wearing a T-shirt and cut-off jeans, just another happy suburban dad.

He took his food and left, and as he walked down that beautiful leafy street, he stretched out his arms like an airplane — like he was flying into the sunshine.

For all the times I’ve seen him at the height of his powers on stage, and for all the sweat-inducing interviews, that is how I will remember Steve Jobs — completely confident and carefree, being just who he wanted to be, flying straight into the future.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Here’s how a typical press interview with Steve Jobs used to go in the early 2000s. You wouldn’t be immediately ushered into his presence; you would be passed from PR person to PR person, corridor to corridor, waiting at each step, until you reached the inner sanctum.

You would often pass a fellow journalist on his way out, looking white as a sheet and shaking his head like he’d gone ten rounds with Mike Tyson. You would mentally prepare your questions about the latest Apple product, knowing that Steve would bat them away like flies and say what he wanted to say.

And then there you were, with the man himself: black turtleneck, jeans, white trainers, spiky salt-and-pepper stubble, and those no-nonsense eyes that could look straight into your soul. You’d sputter out a question while he sipped from a bottle of Odwalla. Perhaps he would deign to answer politely, or perhaps he would interrupt: “that’s a stupid question. That’s not what we should be talking about.”

If you could survive twenty minutes of this without cracking, his demeanor would soften. If you were lucky, then just for a moment the mask would slip, and Steve would break into a broad smile. It was a grin that acknowledged the silliness of this interview game — and that you both loved playing your roles in it.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Always Passionate

As a technology writer for Time magazine in the 1990s and 2000s, I went through this routine a dozen times. It’s easy to forget, but back then an Apple product launch was not a huge deal. The company was seen as struggling, a distant second to Microsoft, even years after Jobs had retaken the helm. I had to fight for a single page on the launch of the iPod in 2001, for instance, at a time when the headlines were all about war and terror.

But Jobs was always compelling. He was the news. His enormous passion for a product was unrivaled in any industry, before or since. As long as I could convey him on the page, Steve as he really was, Apple stories were an easy sell for my editors.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Urgency of the Future

The more stories I did, the friendlier Steve got. He started calling me at home with story ideas and off-the-record information. He asked me to interview him on a video that would be broadcast at a Warner Music conference; this was when he was still trying to persuade the record labels to let him sell songs within iTunes.

I figured this meant we should start with a few softball questions about music in general, but Steve interrupted and got straight to the pitch: 99-cent MP3s would save the music industry. Of course, he was absolutely right, and of course, he got his way.

Here was a man who knew precisely what the future looked like, and had no patience for anyone or anything who got in the way. Not a second was to be wasted. The vision was too important. This is what he meant in that famous Stanford commencement speech: “your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life.”

iRIP - Steve Jobs

noreply@blogger.com (Dave Moore) — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 12:48:00 +0000

iRIP

I was very sad to hear of the death of Steve Jobs. It was inevitable, the writing was on the wall when he retired, when he started to look so very ill, when the rumours of his weight loss abounded but nothing prepares you for the shock when it finally happens.

It isn't often that the death of a CEO of a Company makes the Earth shake but this was one occasion.

I have read a lot about Steve Jobs. There have been numerous books about him and his Biography is published soon.

A friend of mine Cliff Mann, the CEO of Time4Change, http://www.t4c.org.uk/ posted a quote by Steve Jobs which struck me as one of the best pieces of advice you can give anyone in business.

"Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything - all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart." - Steve Jobs

Well, I dont think you have to be dying any time soon to take charge of your life but obviously Steve Jobs had other issues going on, his health was deteriorating rapidly through pancreatic cancer.

I hate the phrase "Today is the first day of the rest of your life". It's as if you have plenty of time to start again. You dont.

Consider my take on that.

What if today was the LAST day of your life? What then? I bet you could get a shed load of work done. I bet you could talk to a lot of people. I bet you could come up with so many plans and ideas you would have seen through IF ONLY...you had the time. You HAVE the time. Use it.

Steve Jobs changed the world. Through hard work, innovation, business acumen, customer service/ experience, technology and by just being Steve Jobs. How many other CEO's do you know of who do that? There are a few, there should be more.

Every Apple product is an experience. Just entering a store is an adventure. He made technology fun. From the technology itself right the way down to the packaging and how you open the box...it is an experience.

If you love Apple you know what I mean. If you hate Apple, you have to admit they made their competitors 'up' their game.

Steve Jobs did it his way. As he said once; "Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life." ~ Steve Jobs

iRIP

Bob Proctor Explains Paradigms

noreply@blogger.com (Dave Moore) — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 15:23:00 +0000

No more effort or energy is required in order to aim high in life, to demand abundance and prosperity, than is required to accept misery and poverty. You may even be aware of someone who has experienced a dramatic increase in their income, seeing them go from earning $25K or $30K a year … to $25K or $30K a month! I firmly believe that if you can earn $100,000, you can earn a million. The only difference between the two amounts lies in a person’s level of awareness. If and when quantum leaps of this nature take place, you can be assured that a serious paradigm shift that’s been made.

Paradigms – what are they?

Is it a buzzword for the information age? It very well may be a buzzword – but it’s one to be seriously considered. If you’re like most people, paradigms very likely are controlling every move you make. So, what are paradigms and why should we be concerned about how they affect our everyday lives? Well, paradigms are a multitude of habits. In most cases, these habits aren’t even originated by yourself, yet they guide every move you make. Paradigms affect the way you eat, the way you walk, even the way you talk. They govern your communication, your work habits, your successes and even your failures in life. It’s also important to know, that, for the most part, these paradigms are other people’s habits – yet they remain the guiding lights in your life.

In order to replace an old paradigm that doesn’t serve you (i.e., “I’ve never been able to make more than $40,000 a year), you must lay a new paradigm over that old one, ensuring that it’s sealed from “leaking through again. When you understand how to lay this floor, so to speak, you will expose yourself to a brand new world of power, possibility and promise.

Paradigms change you to the core

Organizational culture is founded on habits, work practices, attitudes, beliefs and expectations otherwise known as paradigms. Armed with paradigms, we approach and react to the world around us, interpreting what we see and experience according to our shared understandings and those culturally determined guidelines. A paradigm, in a sense, tells you that there is a game, what the game is, and how to play it successfully. A paradigm shift then, is a change to a new game, or a new set of rules. And when the rules change, your whole world can change.

Ideally, any changes to an organization should be implemented simultaneously with a change in attitude of the members. In other words, the people’s paradigms should be shifted at the same time the organization begins its transformation. It’s unfortunate that most of the organizations in the world are not preparing their people to make the personal paradigm shifts that are necessary. There are numerous individuals who lack the understanding required to adapt to the changes that are being forced upon them.

Think of how the world has changed. There are hundreds of thousands of people walking the street today who went to school, worked hard, studied long hours, graduated at the top of their class, secured employment with a major blue-chip company and bought into the promise that just about every major corporation offered: “If you give us loyalty, we will give you security.”

Twenty years later, as these loyal and misguided individuals stood proudly near the top of their corporate ladder, shouldering responsibility for big mortgages and small children, the corporate paradigm shifted. The ladder was yanked out from underneath them and they found themselves standing on the street, bruised, demoralized, unemployed and in a state of total shock.

Now, I know most people would say, “The problem is the corporation’s lack of loyalty” … but this is not the case. A job doesn’t owe you anything. People work at a job or for an employer in a mutual sort of relationship, but that doesn’t mean that one or the other party is utterly responsible for the other party’s livelihood. Ninety-some percent of the population keeps getting the same results—year in, year out!

This is as true for students in school as it is for the person in business. If there is an improvement in the performance of most people, it’s generally minimal—just a blip on the screen and not enough to make any substantial difference in a person’s life-style.

Is there a problem? An enormous problem! It’s called paradigms.

Paradigms can be likened to a program that has been installed in your brain. But you can change that software! The same infinite power flows to and through each one of us, and if we had been taught to develop our higher faculties in the first place, we would understand how and why all things are possible.

You are going to be delighted to learn that just changing a very small part of the old paradigm can make an enormous difference in the results you can enjoy in every area of your life.

Think of the areas in your life that money affects. Imagine shifting your paradigm there to substantially increase your income before year’s end. If you have difficulty meeting people and you alter the paradigm so that it’s easy and enjoyable to meet people, this could have quite an impact on your life.

These are just two examples of hundreds that could be done in YOUR life. Today!

There will be no permanent change in your life until the paradigm has been changed. Choose one or two limiting ideas that are part of your paradigm and replace them with ideas that represent freedom to you. Consciously keep those new thoughts in your head, and act as if those thoughts are already embedded in the foundation of your life. Before you know it – you life will begin to change – and dramatically!

You Can't Take 'Now' For An Answer

noreply@blogger.com (Dave Moore) — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 22:42:00 +0000

What are you afraid of?

Why are you putting things off?

Why are you delaying decisions, delaying calls and delaying talking to that 'difficult' person?

The definition of a Procrastinator is; Someone who can't take NOW for an answer?

Are you one of those people who thinks "Why put off until tomorrow what you can put off until the day after?"

You're a Procrastinator!

Procrastination is a killer. It can kill achievement, business, personal development, quality of life. You name it, procrastination, or delaying your decision or action, can be the difference between success and failure. No grey area.

This scenario is so common...

You get a parking ticket. £60. Three weeks to pay. You put it on a table in the hallway with the intention of pying it 'when I get around to it'!

Three weeks later you remember the fine and realise that you have one day left to pay before it increases to £80. You are busy next day, but not busy enough not to take time and pay the fine. You decide that it is only another £20 so you will pay it 'when I get around to it'!.

The next thing you know you have a bill for £180 and a further £300 to get your car back from the carpound

What happened? What happened was that you were 'doing' procrastination.

You 'do' procrastination. Just like you 'do' happy, sad, excited and confused.

Kick that procrastination into touch.

Why put off until tomorrow what you can do RIGHT NOW!

"The wealth you are seeking right now, the millions you are seeking, whatever wealth amount you are seeking: It's hiding under what you are afraid to do!" - Dr Joe Vitale http://www.mrfire.com/

Are You The Business? Bad Luck!

noreply@blogger.com (Dave Moore) — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 20:12:00 +0000

In the world of personal development most of the companies rely on the main person.

Otherwise known as...

The face of the company.
The owner.
The person who writes the programs.
The person who delivers the training.
The person people want to see, hear or be trained by.

I have that challenge.

Many other companies have that challenge.

I know what you are thinking; "You say that like it's a bad thing!"

It is.

Not now...but in the future.

If you have a company and you are considering selling it, retiring and hoping it will continue, or even considering floating it...bad news.

You are the Company. People are buying you.

You need to take yourself out of your business.

You need to remove yourself from the daily running of your business.

Why? Because otherwise you will remain a vital element of the company and you will never be able to sell it without you going along as part of the package. You need to delegate all your tasks within the company to other people, so that the business can function effectively on its own without you being involved.

Your business will never be able to grow beyond what you can physically do yourself.

A buyer will only want to buy the business if you come along with it. Your plan to spend your time on a yacht sipping champagne has been well and truly scuppered. You are now an employee (albeit a very well paid one).

If you can teach what you do to a like minded person who works for you, do so. You must ensure that the business is capable of continuing while you take time out.

If your business is like this, do it now; I am.

If it's a new business you are starting then look closely at your business model and make sure it is scalable.
In other words, can it grow without you being there?

If the answer is no, it's a non starter. Think of a new idea.

The Thoughts of the Dragon

noreply@blogger.com (Dave Moore) — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 21:51:00 +0000

Firstly, a big thanks to my friend Steve Drake for jogging my memory of this fine book by a great man.

Steve is a top rate Martial Artist as you will find if you click HERE.

Bruce Lee was not only the most influential and greatest Martial Artist who ever lived but he studied Philosophy and Psychology and his writings have been published in a series of books and this one Striking Thoughts - Wisdom for Daily Living is my favourite of them all.

A post on Steve's Facebook page reminded me to flick through the pages again. I have read this book over ten times since I bought it two years ago. Each time I read something I have read before but because of my mindset I read into it differently and the meaning comes alive.

For example:

Bruce Lee on Motivation:.....

Your Mind Determines the Effect.
It is not what happens in our life that is important, it's how we react to what happens.

That quote is just one of thousands that hit home. It was written long before the well known NLP phrase, Nothing in life has any meaning except the meaning you give it.
And again:.....
Become what you think.
What you habitually think largely determines what you will ultimately become.

This is the sales mantra, Fake It until you Make It!

It is also very closely linked with the Positive Mental Atitude teachings of Napoleon Hill, Bob Proctor etc....but this is Positive Mental Attitude training from Bruce Lee.

Wisdom like this is on every page:.....
•"Remember, I am no teacher; I can merely be a signpost for a traveler who is lost"
•"The ideal teacher - not 'what' to think, but 'how' to think.
•"Defeat simply tells me that something is wrong in my doing - it is a path to success and truth"
•"Where method is, freedom is not"

Four superb lessons are these:.....
1.Take my words and do with them what you will. Your milage may vary..
2.Observe and explore my process, not my content.
3.Failure is not only to be expected, but welcomed and even celebrated.
4.If you didn't hear me the first time, reread 1, 2, & 3!!

I would recommend anyone in personal development to grab a copy of this fine book. And check out Steve Drakes website too. Click the link above or HERE.