A friend of ours told us how when he was first coming out of the depths of  ’self-help’ over-consumption, over 20 years ago, he came across a wise old man.

The man, who felt his plight — the almost uncontrollable desire to study and immerse himself in the secrets of the universe and metaphysical philosophy — picked him up, figuratively, by the back of his shirt and said:

“Unless you’re actually honest and open enough to accept what is happening… or more like  what isn’t happening for you in YOUR life… how can you possibly do anything about it?”

You see, our friend was so caught up in his own knowledge — his own fascination of on-the-fringe science and guru psycho-babble — that somehow, some way, he got removed from himself. He withdrew from the ‘world’ for several years. And, as he told us, he just felt his inner-world WAS actually his REAL world.

But, as a balanced, conscious, grounded mind will readily recognize: nothing stalls self-awareness, proper action, and real-world results more than DENIAL.

We’ve talked about this, and other such head-shaking, come-on-get-real-man, misguided self-help practices before. Actually, many times on this blog over the past 2 years.

But, we decided it’s about time to ramp it up a tad.  Our friend, you see, was lucky enough to find somebody who brought him out of the clouds. As his mentor once told him:

“Many New Agers are not only stricken with poverty consciousness. They stay there because they spend more time working their own shit out than actually producing anything of substance. They are basically in a holding pattern above the airport, refusing to land.”

But, some, we know — just based off our own support tickets and blog comments over the years — may not be so fortunate.

This FREE 25-page report is our way of
helping you see the other side of the story

( Click the link above to access it )

AFTER you read it, be sure to come back here and leave your comments below.

Until we write again…

Your Partners In The Quest For
Living a Life Without Limits,

* * *

If you missed the INTRODUCTION to our Hidden Heroes series, or haven’t read about Hidden Heroes #1 thru #4, click here. Otherwise, continue below to read about Hero #5…

We’ve heard from a lot of people, especially in the metaphysical community, who think it’s spiritually correct to say, “I don’t watch TV.”

They’re often the same people who say, “I don’t watch, listen to or read the news because it’s all just a bunch of negative stuff.”

Well, if you’re expecting negativity, guess what you get? (Yes, that’s LOA 101, so I’m not going to insult you by telling you the answer!)

However, if you’re confident enough in your own self-discipline, as Barry and I are, not only can you watch TV without getting sucked into any traps, but you can get some great learning experiences:

1. Learn to decipher fact, not only from fiction that’s presented as fiction, but from fiction that’s presented as fact.

2. Discover how layered facts make up truth.

3. Get exposed to empowering and inspirational stories or human triumph and goodwill that you never would have experienced otherwise.

One of the shows we used to watch was Donnie Deutsch’s The Big Idea on CNBC. It gave inspirational profiles of people who made it in business, just because they saw a need, figured “there has to be a better way to do this,” and made it happen.

Well, the show was put on hiatus last year, because the network figured that trying to inspire people with stories of how anyone can start a Fortune 500 business wasn’t really believable in the current economy, when many are just trying to get by. Sliding ratings made them think they were right, although it would have been nice to see a revamped version of people making it despite the economy. After all, fortunes and successes are not just lost in bad times, they’re also created.

But now Donnie’s hosting a new CNBC show — or, rather, a prime-time special, for now — called The Entrepreneurs. Unlike The Big Idea, which featured all kinds of ventures, The Entrepreneurs seems to be focusing on those with a drive to make a difference, rather than just make a buck.

One of the two stories featured on the first episode, which Barry and I watched last night (and I admit, I did so with tears in my eyes), was the tale of TOMS Shoes…

You may have heard of TOMS before, but we never had. And without knowing anything else but that the company was featured on a Donnie Deutsch show, you could reasonably be wondering why on earth we’d pick the founder to be our next Hidden Hero.

What’s so “hidden” about a shoe company, right?

What’s so “heroic” about a guy who runs that shoe company?

And, come to think of it, what’s so emotionally provocative about the whole thing that it could make me cry?

Well, the story begins back a few years, after young entrepreneur Blake Mycoskie appeared on another show we like to watch, The Amazing Race. The reason we watch that one is it shows teamwork, human emotion, strength, drive, and karma in action. You can learn a lot about yourself by watching how others compete and react to adverse situations.

Blake and his sister, Paige, competed as a team in the second season of the show, and missed out on the million-dollar prize by only four minutes.

Can you imagine being four minutes away from being a millionaire, and not getting it? Ouch! Big letdown for some people! Heck, I’m sure lots of folks would spend the rest of their lives wallowing in self-pity over that. But Blake didn’t.

Instead, he was inspired to launch his third entrepreneurial venture, teaming up with Larry Namer, co-founder of the E! Entertainment Network, and Kay Koplovitz, former CEO of the USA Network, to create a cable TV specialty channel called Reality 24/7. Approaching it like a renegade with a passion, Blake was able to raise $2 million in start-up funds from venture capitalists and other former reality TV stars… but he created such a buzz that Rupert Murdoch decided to do the idea himself, which forced Reality 24/7 out of the picture.

But wait… let’s take a step back. What were his first two businesses?

In university, he started EZ Laundry, a door-to-door service aimed at fellow college students who didn’t have time to, or didn’t want to, wash their own clothes. After growing the company to serve seven colleges in the Southwest, with 40 employees and 8 trucks, Blake sold it to his business partner.

Then he went to Nashville, and created an outdoor media company that was inspired by the huge billboards in Hollywood. He aimed it at the Music City’s top country stars, and went about selling his ad space with a rogue attitude. Like with his next project, Reality 24/7, he caught the eye of a big player in the industry; soon Clear Channel came knocking, and bought the rest of Blake’s billboards in Nashville and Dallas.

Businesses four and five were created in Los Angeles. First he teamed up with TrafficSchool.com to create DriversEdDirect, a hands-on driver training school with hip instructors and hybrid cars. To help promote that company, he created Closer Marketing Group, a marketing firm specializing in viral marketing and brand development.

And business number six… well, that brings us to TOMS.

While competing in The Amazing Race, Blake got to see some incredible countries for the first time, but didn’t get a chance to experience the culture, so he wanted to go back. Always an adventurer at heart, he took what was supposed to be “just a vacation” to South America in 2006.

In Argentina, he met up with some people who were trying to raise money to get shoes for local children who couldn’t afford them. Blake tagged along, and was deeply impacted by the sight of poverty-stricken kids with cuts, scrapes and serious infections on their feet — the result of walking around the harsh landscape without any shoes.

While there, he discovered the Alpargata, a cheaply-made traditional shoe with rope soles that had been worn by farmers in Argentina for the past 100 years. The two experiences sparked an idea, and he returned to Los Angeles with 10 pairs of the shoes in his bag. He started telling people his idea, and was met with negative feedback at every step.

A UCLA professor he hired as a consultant told him he would need a million dollars to start the company and make it viable. Too bad he didn’t win that prize in The Amazing Race… but Blake didn’t care.

Fabric makers only sold cloth in 1,000-meter minimum orders, but Blake convinced one to sell him 10 meters at a time. He found one manufacturer in Argentina that believed in him enough to make a shoe inspired by the Alpargata, but with a much higher-quality construction, and that allowed him to accomplish his unique goal.

The company motto is “Make life more comfortable,” and the idea behind it is simple: for each pair of shoes he sells, Blake gives a pair to a needy child.

Yup, that’s right… one-for-one. You buy a pair of TOMS, and a kid who needs shoes gets a pair of TOMS. Now they’re running around with fashionable, comfortable shoes instead of injured bare feet.

It started as a project to put shoes on the feet of 250 kids from Argentina, but it soon grew way past that initial milestone.

After selling the first 10,000 pairs of shoes from his Venice apartment — some thanks to a shoe store that liked his mission, others due to write-ups in fashion magazines, and over 2,000 because of a single feature in the Sunday LA Times — Blake went back to Argentina with his family, friends and TOMS staff to make the first TOMS Shoe Drop of another 10,000 pairs.

People told him he was crazy. They said it could never work. They said he’d never make a profit by giving away a pair of shoes for every one sold, especially if the price was going to be reasonable.

But Blake refused to listen to the naysayers.

And it gets even better…

“Shoe Drop” doesn’t mean just dropping off shoes, as the name implies. It involves the team fitting and placing shoes, with their own hands, onto needy kids’ feet. Now, any customer who wants to help can go along and do that, too.

Watch this moving video of that first Shoe Drop:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kt3BQQ6dQaQ[/youtube]

TOMS is no longer run out of Blake’s apartment. They now have a 6,000 square foot studio and close to 20 full-time employees.

But at the heart of TOMS, it’s not just your average product-exchanged-for-profit endeavor.

Blake didn’t start this business with dollar signs in his eyes. He started it because it touched his heart when he met kids who didn’t have, and desperately needed, something that he took for granted: shoes.

As he told ConversantLife.com, when asked how he moved from awareness to action, “I had an emotional connection to the children I met in Argentina in 2006. I felt a responsibility to act on it. I realized I could incorporate giving into a business and knew that it could succeed.”

But why shoes, when the majority of charities for third-world children focus on food or medical care?

Because most kids in developing countries grow up barefoot, even though walking is their primary means of transportation. They walk for miles to get water, food, shelter, and medical help. They walk while doing chores, and they walk while playing. This puts them at risk for the leading cause of disease in developing countries: soil-transmitted parasites that get into skin through open sores. Feet that don’t have shoes get more cuts and sores, and eventually risk being amputated.

Shoes allow children to walk greater distances, more safely, and therefore help them with the food, the medical care, and even education, since local schools often require students to wear shoes.

Shoes provide preventative care so those kids don’t have to get corrective care later.

Shoes give the opportunity for a quality of life they wouldn’t otherwise have.

And it’s not just third-world countries anymore. The first Shoe Drops were in countries like Argentina, Ethiopia and South Africa, but people kept asking, “What about kids in the US?” After Blake thoroughly researched the situation, Hurricane Katrina victims in four school districts got TOMS shoes last year.

As of August, 2009, TOMS has given over 150,000 pairs of shoes to kids in need, in more than 15 countries, and those numbers continue to grow.

And that’s why, sitting on the couch with Barry last night and watching the story of TOMS, created by Blake Mycoskie for all the right reasons, I had tears running down my face.

Full disclosure: it doesn’t take a lot to make me cry. I cry at movies and TV shows all the time, both for the sad parts, and the triumphant parts. This, again, was a mixture of both: tears of sadness for the kids with no shoes, as I imagined our one-year-old son using his new-found walking skills to stagger barefoot over rough, rocky ground; and tears of joy for what Blake was doing with TOMS.

But… I’m hoping this story might move you, even if you don’t have water-works flowing as freely as mine.

So who’s Tom?

There is no Tom. The brand name “TOMS” references that these are “shoes for TOMORROW.”

Expanding on what Wimpy from the Popeye cartoons used to say, “I’d gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today,” this takes things to the next level of social conscience with the concept of, “I’ll gladly give a child shoes on Tuesday when you buy a pair today.” (Okay, it takes a few months between each Shoe Drop, but you get the picture!)

While now I would still consider TOMS to be a hidden gem (hence Blake being eligible as a Hidden Hero), I think that with the help of the media — including shows like The Entrepreneurs, and maybe even our humble little blog here — the word could get out in a much bigger way, helping many more kids, and snowballing every year.

If you still think that TV and other media are bad, and not worth your time, consider this:

Without TV, newspapers and magazines covering Blake’s story, and celebrity endorsements from actors and musicians, TOMS would never have sold the number of shoes they have to this day. As a result, there never would have been so many kids who had formerly been running around with cracked and bleeding feet, now able to wear comfortable shoes for the first time in their life.

The headline could be, Mass Media Helps Hero Save Children’s Feet.

And that wouldn’t be a stretch, or any amount of hype, at all.

To help Blake’s mission, purchase your own pair of TOMS at TOMSshoes.com. Heck, if you’re a fashionista, shoe lover, or just want to lend a… um, foot… buy several pairs in different colors! They have an affiliate program, but we didn’t sign up, because we don’t want to take away any of their profit… we want TOMS to be able to continue to help kids for decades to come.

Want to help even more? Host a Style Your Sole party, and you could put shoes on the feet of 25 or more kids, while you have fun with friends and showcase everyone’s creativity. We’ll call that Shoes Without Limits…

And if you want to volunteer to help with Shoe Drops, visit FriendsOfTOMS.org.

Your Partner in the Quest For
Living a Life Without Limits,

Back in June, we asked our readers if institutionalized-thinking is created through formal education. Or, to say it another way:  does education, through the traditional University and College-level experience, steer students to operate within defined boundaries?

We figured it was a good question to ask. With the world these days looking like it’s full of a bunch of sheep, who don’t question, confront, or effect change outside the molds of what society created for them, we wanted to know what our community thought about this important subject.

Well, we beckoned, and the passionate, substantive thoughts came a-running. You can read those thoughts by looking at the comments of that post here.

It was obvious to us that there are many, many folks out there who who wanted a reason — a forum, a tribe, a community of like-minded, inquisitive people — to VOICE their thoughts about one of the most important subjects that the world-at-large should be tackling right now: the intellectual, social, and emotional unbridled growth of today’s children.

So, when one of our distant mentors had some uncommon things to say about this, we knew we had to pass his thoughts on, too.

Read on… we think, even if you don’t agree with all of it, it SHOULD spark an emotion or creative idea here and there.

Guest Article: Doug Casey On Education

Interviewed by Louis James, Editor, International Speculator

L: Doug, in our recent conversation on global warming, you made some critical remarks about modern education. I know that wasn’t mere drive-by disparagement – can you tell us why you’re so hard on teachers today?

Doug: Sure. Since the school season started recently, it’s probably a good time to talk about schools and education.

L: School season? Is there a bag limit on how many schools you can take down?

Doug: [Laughs] Well, I think that most of the money that’s spent on so-called education is, if not wasted, definitely misallocated.

There was a book written a few years ago called something like All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten. I have to admit I never read the book, but the title resonated with me – I think there’s a lot of truth behind the notion. To me it implies that a person should have absorbed basic ethical values, and an understanding how to relate to other people and animals, by the time he’s six years old. Those are the most important things anyone can learn, and should be the first things one learns. But it doesn’t seem any institution, and fairly few parents, think to teach them.

But the first thing to do is to ask: What is education?

L: Okay, I’ll bite. What is it?

- Continued -

Doug: Education is the process of learning how to perceive and analyze reality correctly. That would include subjects like ethics, science, history, and important literature.

L: What about logic? You’d have to include logic.

Doug: Yes, definitely. All things of that nature. The ancients developed the idea of liberal arts, which had a different meaning to them than our current usage. The root of “liberal” is “liber,” meaning free. So the liberal arts were subjects that a free man – as opposed to a slave, or a menial – was assumed to be acquainted with. They were divided into the arts and the sciences. The idea was, these things gave you the tools of thought and the building blocks of culture. They were distinct from the mechanical arts – which were means of earning a living. You’d learn the mechanical arts as an apprentice.

Put it this way. The quality of a person can be determined by how he relates to three critical verbs: Be, Do, and Have. The classical liberal arts show you how to “be” – they help form your essence, your character, your will. The mechanical arts show you how to “do”; they are important, but really are just acquired skills. As a consequence of what you are, and what you can do, you “have” – acquire goods and money and reputation.

But it seems pretty clear that most people have the sequence totally backward. They want the “have” part, the material goods, but they don’t understand it flows as a consequence of being something and having the ability to do something. Having things is trivial. It’s why trailer park trash will win a million-dollar lottery and wind up back on the dole a year later.

I fear that most of what kids get today, whether in grade school, high school, college, or post-grad, is not education. It’s training.

Entirely apart from that, it seems to me that most institutions degrade as time passes. They naturally and inevitably become constipated, concrete-bound, and corrupt. That certainly appears to have happened to education in the U.S., and probably most other countries.

I’m sure you’ve seen that eighth-grade test from 1895 that’s been floating around the Internet for some years. Snopes.com has a go at debunking it, but they don’t claim the test isn’t real, and it does cover a lot of basic stuff few people today know anything about. What every educated person should know may change from age to age, but the basics of thinking, and its application to language, science, etc. are enduring. And there are certain minimums of knowledge that everyone should have. The U.S. education system is not delivering these basics, which are the tools for living.

Training is different. Training is rote learning with a view towards productive behavior in the future. It’s what you’d learn on the job, as an apprentice laborer. This would cover most high school and college courses, which are not designed to produce educated young people but useful employees, ready to enter the labor force. But they don’t even do that well.

I’ll go further. Most schools today are state schools, or if they are not state schools, they teach state-approved curricula. There’s an implicit orientation to train the kids to be good little cogs in the wheel, as in obedient subjects, and as opposed to independent thinkers and citizens. That’s probably the most important reason not to send your kids to a state school.

Homeschooling is a great alternative, though so many homeschoolers are religious fanatics, they’ve given the whole idea an unfortunate and undeserved aura of nuttiness. And in my view, filling your kids’ heads with all sorts of religious superstition is no better than filling their heads with statist superstition. What they need is a classical education in the liberal arts – starting in grade school.

L: Do you really think homeschooling has such a bad reputation? Aren’t homeschooled kids burning up the track at the spelling bees, geography bees, etc.?

Doug: Perhaps it depends on which circles you travel in. You homeschool, and you’re not religious, so maybe you see things differently. But my sense is that the media portrayal tends to emphasize the religious homeschoolers, and perhaps rightly so, since they constitute (I believe) the majority of homeschoolers.

But I’ll give you a good reason to favor homeschooling, regardless of who most homeschoolers are. I had a good enough time in school and I generally enjoyed the social interaction with the other kids. But it was a misallocation of my time; there’s little of value you can learn from other kids. It’s simply a bad idea to put your kids in an environment where they spend most of the day associating with young yahoos, many or most of whom have a lot of bad habits. The average school is full of unrefined young chimpanzees. Sure, kids need to learn how to work together and socialize, but school is not the only, and certainly not the best, place to do that.

Another reason is that every class, like a group traveling together, tends to move at the pace of the slowest kids in the group. An environment tailored for the lowest common denominator bores the smart kids to tears – or trouble. I was perpetually bored and distracted by the “one size fits all” program of my schools.

It’s the same in college, which was an even more serious misallocation of four years of my time – and a bunch of my parents’ money. And it’s much worse today, in either current or constant dollars.

Like most of my friends, I’d end up cutting a lot of classes, because I’d stayed up too late the night before. When I did go to class, I’d fall asleep half the time. And even fully awake, my mind would wander and I wouldn’t take good notes, so then I wouldn’t bother reading the notes. Of course you learn stuff, but I think it’s mostly through osmosis. Entirely apart from the fact that the profs varied greatly in quality.

Most people go to college today because they actually think someone is going to give them an education, when in fact, an education is something you have to give yourself.

You absolutely do not need a college to do that. The old saw about “Those who can, do, and those who can’t, teach” is all too true. Professors can’t educate anyone, though a few of the good ones can help motivated students educate themselves. But the college business is now structured like a manufacturing business; Aristotle and Seneca wouldn’t know what to make of it.

L: My Webster’s dictionary says the word educate has two roots: e-, “out;” and ducere, “lead, draw, or bring.” In other words, to draw out, or bring out what’s in the student’s ability to grasp and remember – not to cram whatever the teacher thinks is important into the student’s head.

Doug: That’s what “education” today fails to do – and why it’s such a waste of money. There is no point at all in going to a college today, unless you’re looking to learn a trade. Or, perhaps, because the people you meet in college might be of some future benefit to you. In other words, it’s pointless unless it’s Harvard, Princeton, Yale, or the like. Because of the classes? No. It’s because the kids that go to such schools are the most intelligent and ambitious “up and comers” – so the connections you make and the patina you get at these places can open a lot of doors.

But if you look closely, the very best and brightest – people like Bill Gates or Steven Jobs – drop out, or don’t even go.

I would suggest that a parent thinking of allocating $40,000 to $50,000 per year for four years of college education instead grubstake their kid with that same money. You could even make it a fraction of that, to be put into actually doing something, like starting a business or trying out different investment strategies, and get a lot more experience and knowledge for your kid as a result.

You certainly don’t need a college to gain knowledge. For example, there’s an outfit called The Teaching Company that hires the very best professors in the world in all sorts of subjects to deliver superb audio courses. I listen to these things all the time in the car. I watch the ones that have important visual components on my computer, and I can go back and repeat anything I don’t understand clearly – when my mind is receptive to it. It’s much more effective than going to college would be, and it’s vastly cheaper. Superior in every possible respect.

Another thing I’d do if I had a college-age kid is plan out a travel schedule. He’d have to spend at least a month in a dozen countries and report on what he does there. Travel may be the single best type of education, at least if done with a method and an objective.

There are many ways to get an education besides going to college – and going to a second-rate, third-rate, or community college is a complete waste of time and money. It serves no useful purpose whatsoever.

L: I’ve long thought similarly about what we call a “liberal arts education” today. Paying lots of money to read literature with friends seems patently silly, and to have someone tell you what some long-dead artist really meant seems arrogant to boot. But there are also things like physics, chemistry, and medicine. When I was a physics major at RPI, I was glad to have all sorts of laboratories and machine shops at my disposal – stuff I could never have built in my backyard…

Doug: I totally agree with you on that. Aside from the patina and connections I’ve been talking about, there are two valid reasons for going to a university. One is to study a hard science. You can still learn these on your own, but you’re right; it helps a lot to have the labs and so forth. That’s worth paying for.

The second reason is if you need a piece of paper that shows you’ve jumped through hoops other people recognize. In other words, if you’re going into a trade, like doctoring, lawyering, or engineering, for which you need a certificate in order to be able to hang a shingle without getting arrested, that’s okay because it’s necessary.

Well, maybe not for lawyering – we have entirely too many lawyers in the world today. They’ve turned from expert helpers to parasites at considerable risk of overwhelming the host body.

Another degree I would strongly advise anyone against getting is an MBA, which has, regrettably, become a very fashionable degree. In our shop, if anyone applies for a job, an MBA is an active strike against them. They’d have to come up with a really good explanation for why they spent all that money and two years of extra time to get something that serves no useful purpose whatsoever.

It’s amazing, when you stop and think about it. The professors who teach MBA courses are not successful business people out making millions in the economy – they’re academics! Successful business people with proven track records wouldn’t work for their wages. These academics have no hands-on experience and are teaching theories, most of which are based on completely phony and fallacious economics.

Don’t get conned into this gross misallocation of time and money. An MBA is worse than useless. Only a fool would rather have one than the $100,000, the lost income, and the two years of lost time and experience it costs.

L: I guess that explains how I got this job, with no relevant papers.

Doug: Of course – you’re not a dog or a horse, for cryin’ out loud. We don’t need pedigree papers to identify talent we can see.

L: Another example in which training is desirable, and not a corruption of education, would be the military schools. Generals like rote, conditioned behaviors.

Doug: They do indeed. And soldiers need to learn practical skills, deeply ingrained, that can keep them alive under very difficult circumstances. Military academies are like advanced trade schools.

I very nearly went to West Point. The only reason I didn’t is because I went to a four-year military boarding high school. In those days, military boarding schools were rather gruesome. I decided that I’d had quite enough of shining shoes, marching in squares, and saying “Yes, Sir!” to people I had no respect for.

L: Is that why you’re an anarchist, Doug – was your response to that training to go as far in the opposite direction as you could go?

Doug: [Laughs] Well, let’s not say that I have a problem with authority. I just have a problem with people telling me what to do.

L: [Laughs] Okay, well, I get the criticism of higher education, and I see the broad strokes of your proposed alternative educational strategy, but what about younger children? You seem to be saying that the very idea of the classroom is a bad one, public or private.

Doug: As a matter of fact, when I got out of college in 1968, I needed a job – and I got one: teaching sixth grade in Hobart, Indiana – the heart of Blues Brothers country. I only did it for one semester, but one thing really impressed me deeply: most of my co-workers were complete morons. They were people Jay Leno would feature on his Jay-Walking videos if he’d ever met them. They had so little knowledge of the world and anything that matters, I was embarrassed to be called a teacher.

There are exceptional teachers, of course, but by and large, they are not the best and the brightest, they’re losers. I wouldn’t want to expose my progeny, if I had any, to a random collection of people who want to be government employees imprisoning kids for six hours a day.

L: Does that apply to private schools as well?

Doug: As I said, I went to a private military high school. Were my teachers any better than others? I suspect they were – but can’t prove it. I’m sure they are at some places, like Exeter Academy in New Hampshire, that pay more and probably attract a better grade of teacher. But if anything is worth doing, it’s worth doing well, and in education, that means doing it yourself. Which means read, read, read.

L: So, your general view is that homeschooling is the way to go for younger children?

Doug: Exactly. Though I’m sure you’ll sympathize with me when I say that I think toddlers ought to grow up for a couple years with wolves, so they can toughen up a bit and learn some survival skills. Kids are way overprotected these days. They are so isolated and insulated from reality, it’s totally counterproductive. Sadly, it’s hard to find a good wolf today.

So it’s homeschool, then college only for technical trades and for the advantages of an Ivy League pedigree. For most people, just reading books and then going out into the real world and doing stuff is way smarter, cheaper, and more productive. The difference between a properly educated kid, and one subjected to conventional training, is the difference between the Arnold Schwarzenegger character and the Danny DeVito character in the movie Twins.

And for God’s sake, don’t send your kids to business school. Better they should try some real businesses instead. Whether they succeed or fail, they’ll learn much more.

L: But this would unemploy hundreds of thousands of people in the education business, who, according to you, are ill equipped for productive work. It doesn’t sound like a politically viable reform plan, Doug.

Doug: The ones who are any good would rise to the occasion and do something better with their time. And those who are not… well, we need people to clean toilets and sweep streets. At least they’d be away from our kids.

And all this dead weight is expensive. I understand that the per-pupil cost of public schooling in the U.S. is running $10,000 to $12,000 per year. And college is $40,000 to $50,000 per year. There’s no reason, no excuse, for it to cost so much.

Teachers who are any good could do as they did in ancient Greece and Rome, and solicit students. They could teach in their houses, or in rented facilities, and compete with each other. They’d have every incentive to strive for the lowest-cost and highest-quality service – and they’d make more money, because most of the money spent on so-called education these days goes to administration and overhead. Not towards getting superstar teachers.

L: I can imagine a future in which the best teachers are celebrities, rich superstars. People would compete for spots in their classes. What would someone with a real passion for astrophysics pay to be able to study with Stephen Hawking?

Doug: That’s exactly what I mean. And instead of having reason to conform, as teachers do now, being members of unions, they’d have reason to excel. Unions have a well-established interest in making sure no one stands above the average, so they foment a culture that guarantees mediocrity. The whole educational system in the U.S. needs to be flushed.

Unfortunately, just the opposite is happening. The Obama people want to give everyone a college education, probably including really useful mandatory courses in Gender Studies, Global Warming, and Marxist Economic Theory. Why stop there? Everyone ought to have a post-grad education as well.

L: Like Luna, in Woody Allen’s Sleeper, who has a Ph.D. in oral sex?

Doug: Yes. It’s insane. It’s another sign that the whole system in the U.S., not just education, is upside down and overdue for collapse.

L: There’s no reforming such an entrenched system, supported by such powerful unions and a population that believes it can and should be fixed. On the other hand, the education system in the U.S. is such a dismal failure, people are opting out their kids in droves. So, with reality-reality vs. political reality, it could actually collapse. Maybe there is hope for a future in which there’s real education, simply because the old system implodes and disappears.

Doug: It could happen. The U.S. Department of Education should be abolished. The National Education Association building in Washington DC should be boarded up or dynamited. No, better yet, cleaned out and sold on the market, so some entrepreneur can put it to some useful business purpose.

L: It could be turned into a brothel. It would be more honest.

Doug: It would – you’d actually get value for your money.

L: Investment implications?

Doug: I expect I’ll expand on this theme in this month’s Casey Report, with an examination of publicly traded online universities. They represent an interesting trend. And our newest letter, Casey’s Extraordinary Technology, is written by Alex Daley, who is something of a polymath. He has deep expertise in all areas of technology, as well as lots of practical experience in venture capital. I think he’s got a lot to say about the implications of the continuing – and accelerating – computer revolution on education. But we truly try to make all our publications educational. We don’t just tout investments. We think it’s critical our readers understand why we think something – not just take our word for it.

L: And when you can understand why something is happening, and pick out predictable trends, there are opportunities to profit. Understood. Okay, well, thanks for another interesting talk.

Doug: My pleasure.

♦  ♦  ♦

Doug Casey is a best-selling author and chairman of Casey Research, LLC., publishers of Casey’s International Speculator.

Doug is one of close to 50 renegade, international investors that we follow on a consistent basis. We also have an in-house network of “investment investigators” who scour the world for most valuable ideas, resources, opinions, and opportunities.

Collectively, we sift through many ideas, resources, and insights about politics, economics, worldwide currency news, real estate trends, emerging markets, inflation / deflation indicators, privacy and personal asset protection, futures and options trading, and unique business news.

Through our LWL Wealth Vault, you can see the filtered part. In other words, it’s where we archive our best assessments of the most viable, easy, and hassle-free unconventional passive-income opportunities, cash-flow strategies, and wealth-generation programs across the globe.

Learn the DETAILS here…

It can be a crazy world out there at times — a world driven by crowd-thinking, political correctness,  and philosophical nonsense that is bombarding you to “fit in.”

If it’s not conservative religious groups trying to regulate and control morality, it’s human rights activists going overboard to the point of trumping common sense.

Because of time-worn social norms, meddling governmental regulations, protectionist mindsets and victim-driven thinking, it’s NOT easy to fight the peer pressure to fit into a mold that isn’t YOU.

Is the world missing the real you because you’ve been conditioned to play it safe?

That’s not something we need to expand on any more than just asking that question.

Because, here’s something you can do to find out:

LISTEN to the song, from 3 Doors Down, via the video below. Close your eyes (you really don’t need to watch the Shrek clips, as it’s not the images that really matter). Feel the energy of the words. And, when listening to the song, in a quiet place, just ask yourself:

“Is it okay that I fight to ‘be myself’, even if others don’t approve?”

Only you can really know for sure.

♦  ♦  ♦

For another version — the official Let Me Be Myself Music video — watch at YouTube

Let us know what you think about today’s post or, at least, how
you’ve personally conquered being yourself…. by commenting below:

Every day at approximately the same time, Konan eats his lunch in his high chair. While I feed him at the edge of the kitchen, Barry is busy working away in his office, which takes up a good portion of where our Den, which is right next to our dining room.

So, obviously, we’re only about 20 feet away.

And since Konan really likes music while he eats — he’ll bop his head from side to side and drum on his table tray to make sure we know it — Barry plays him music from Yahoo’s Adult Alternative music station (hey, come on, ya think it has to be nursery rhymes and lullabies all the time?)

Yesterday during this time, a song came on that not only caused Konan to clap, drum his tray and “sing” along with me, but it gave me reason to pause and think, too.

The lyrics were a great reminder about how we should just let the petty stuff roll off our backs, and focus on the good in any relationship.

That’s not to say that we should ignore or repress the “downs” on the roller coaster ride of life, and only focus on the “ups”… it means that when the “downs” get us down, we can remember the “ups” to help us understand the amazing gift that we have, and that another up is coming, just a little bit further along the track.

Yeah, I know, you might be thinking, “Yes, Heather, I get that: always look on the bright side of life!”

But that’s not exactly the point. That, again, would be repressing the “dark” side of life.

– Cont’d –

The thing is, you can’t ride the roller coaster WITHOUT going down as well as up. We’ve talked about this many times: the yin and yang that keeps life in perfect balance.

And that’s why, when Barry found this video that goes with the song we heard, it made it even more perfect.

See, the imagery shows both sides of the coin, and that’s the best way to honor a healthy, ever-growing relationship.

Having a relationship that’s “happy,” we realize, doesn’t mean all walks in the park, and smelling the roses, as nice as those things are.

After all, how can we know how amazing those moments are without experiencing the opposite from time to time?

We would end up in a boring, stale relationship with no passion or excitement one way or the other. Trust me, I know… before Barry, I was there for many years.

So if you’re in a relationship — or want to be — watch this video, alone or with your partner, to honor the connection you have:

♦  ♦  ♦

But even though highs and lows are to be expected, there are still tweaks and improvements you can make to ensure that the highs are the best experiences of your lives, and the lows aren’t so devastating that they take the focus off what you have together.

Susie and Otto Collins are married partners who have been through very trying times in other marriages, and found their soulmates in each other.

They also discovered that soulmates can have issues, too.

And unlike many relationship teachers, they don’t sugar-coat reality and look at the world through rose-colored glasses. They have a grounded way of approaching life and love, and they balance physical and metaphysical techniques to make sure you get results.

Barry and I have both individually interviewed them, and had private conversations with them. They’ve always impressed us with what they do, and we can vouch for their approach, teachings, passion about making a difference, and ability to over-deliver with high-quality, informative content about all aspects of relationships.

Whatever your relationship challenges are — and if you’re in a relationship, chances are you have some challenges — Otto and Susie can help.

Take yours to the next level by tackling your biggest stumbling blocks here…

Finally the little guy gets the last laugh.

Yeah, as he prepares for his final onslaught of the human race in his super secret underground cave, we can just hear the rambunctious runt talking to himself:

“Mwooooo haaaa haaaaa…. what brilliance, what brilliance, I say. Everybody, all my life, has underestimated me. The drug giant who picked me to ’seed’ the deadly, gonna-rip-your-head-off Swine Virus was just pure genius. Ahhhh, this is gonna be fun. I knew my day would come.”

And, truly, Fellow Explorers, that’s about the level of attention span (very short) and sincerity (not much) that we here at LWL have been giving this crazy media-distorted Swine Flu (H1N1) situation.

Yet, since school is back in session and winter is approaching, this thing is making some major headlines again.

So, in our typical common-sense, let’s-just-get-@#$%^&!-real-already fashion, we’re gonna do our part to help out with the BIG PICTURE and some “alternative” research.

So, look, we see and hear the fear-mongering as much as you do.

Let’s see… we’ve got the questionable World Health Organization (WHO) calling it a Level 6 “pandemic” and the Obama administration making its own over-the-top dire predictions.

They said half of all Americans could eventually become infected with the virus.  Some 1.8 million could need hospitalization.  And, deaths from H1N1 could number 30,000 to 90,000 people (about double the number of deaths from seasonal flu).

Okay, so what gives?…

– Cont’d –

> Is this the same scare-them-shitless campaign that aired in 1976, just dressed differently?

> Was the “infected pigs” story, in April ‘09, just a ruse? And, one not well thought out at that, since it’s now called H1NI (maybe them thar farmers pitched a big enough fit ’cause no one was buying pork)?

> Is swine flu is just a new subtype (H1N1) of the common flu virus called Influenza A, which is the standard — and ever-changing — flu bug that gets spread around every winter and fall? Is it widespread now because people have no immunity to it?

> Do you basically either get it, and acquire immunity, or get a vaccine to get immunity?

Ah, the questions…  the nitty-gritty details — details, schmee-tails.  Yup, the news about this imposing and looming mad-piggy pandemic is unsettling, isn’t it?

So, instead of us “digging deep” for answers about this topic (after all, it’s not something we’re personally fascinated  with… one of our prime criteria for writing about, endorsing and creating things around here),  allow us to just say this:

Give the mainstream news hype and sensationalist reporting around the Swine Flu about as much respect as you would a family member who continually tried shoving “Jesus propaganda” down your throat (even after telling her/him “No, thanks!”)

In other words, we’re not going to give you our typical convictatory opinion about  the WHY and WHAT of this potential health-scare. After all, we’re not licensed health practitioners, nor do we claim to have an inside-track to Wilbur and his lab.

But, what we can tell you is that we tend to lean towards being a very holisitic, free-thinking, contrarian (let’s-roll-over-this-old-rug-and-inspect-the-other-side), self-reliant family.

We would advise you as well to not take something at face value, just because it’s reported on a new medium that’s been around awhile.  And, remember,  “authority” figures, especially those that act as the face of governmental policies, can often be more misinformed that the average Joe or Jane who just has an intense curiosity for finding the “truth”.

And the truth lies just under the surface of hype, rhetoric and propaganda.

We can tell you that one such “truth” is that this vaccine is linked to a fatal nerve disease. Plus, the last time people were vaccinated for swine flu, the vaccine killed more people than the flu did.

So, for some more “alternative” information about your health, vaccines, and this hybrid sorta flu virus, we leave you today with these links:

How to Protect Yourself Naturally From Renegade Viruses:
http://www.lwlurl.com/swine/mercola.html

Operation Fax To Stop The Vax:
http://www.lwlurl.com/swine/jig.html

10 Things You’re Not Supposed To Know About The Swine Flu Vaccine: http://www.lwlurl.com/swine/10things.html

Until we write again…

Your Partners In The Quest For
Living a Life Without Limits,

* * *

How To Turn $60 Into $65,000  Using Interviews

( Above link tells the fascinating real-life story )

As you know by now, we do our part (it’s a pleasure, really) to provoke thought… often, more by sharing the absurdities of life rather than the gloss-covered mind-tricks and media-fed ideologies that you’re exposed to every day.

Our stance is simple: the more honest, open, and accepting you are to what IS happening, regardless of its taste, look, or smell, the more empowered you are to do something about it.

Lucille Ball once said that knowing what you can NOT do is more important than knowing what you can do.

And, the reason she said it is because she also recognized that self-awareness is rare. Or, its counterpart big sister, “denial,” isn’t!

When we ask coaching clients of ours why they keep believing something about themselves (as in, “I know I’m a good networker,” or “Hey, no doubt, I’m one of the best at asking good questions?”) that isn’t true (the ‘results’ or ‘evidence’ they produce lets us know that), it’s usually for one of two reasons:

( Click the “continue reading” link to see what those reasons are )

– Cont’d –

#1) Somebody once told them they ARE what they say they ARE, so they latched onto an “identity” that is bigger than themselves. Think about it… how many people do you know who continue to do what they do, even in a very ho-hum, monotonous way, because the self-importance of what they do over-shadows the results they actually produce… either for themselves or others?

#2) They take a cliquish phrase like, “Believe and You Will Achieve” and butcher the hell out of it, by actually living in a “dream world,” crafted out of a feel-good movement that says “nothing can stop you if you want it bad enough.” And ya know what, that’s true, very true… to a point. Yet, at some conscious, cognitive level, the person needs to rip off his/her rose-colored glasses and quit pretending. They need to give themselves a timeframe to “accomplish” something, then stop, be okay with not achieving it (temporary failure), and move the hell on.

Novelist Iris Murdock says we live in a fantasy world of illusion, and that the great task in life is to find reality.

Yes, Dear Iris, at the risk of sounding jaded or mean, it is indeed time to put a lid on the whole self-absorbed I create my reality BS and turn our attention to something much bigger:

 ( The punchline to come after this short sponsor advertisement )

 

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 How we relate, sync-up, and harmonize with “outside things” — as in the world-at-large around us. We either really make solid connections with people of substance, or we don’t. And, the secret to that (the one most won’t recognize) is that you’ve gotta know what the ’standards’ are for yourself in the first place.

We either strip away labels that keep a leash around our ability to discover new things and break free from normalcy, or we don’t.

It’s not about being a democrat or republican. It’s not about just being a life coach, a raw foods expert, a marketer, or a namaste-yielding crusader of love and peace.

Heck, it’s not about being identified as a “mother-in-law” either. Unless, of course, you’re so insecure that you think you ARE the person who ‘fits the bill’ and therefore can’t even take a joke.

A New York comedian is being sued by her mother-in-law for telling mother-in-law jokes. Ruth Zafrin says comic Sunda Croonquist’s stand-up routine is “malicious, intentional, and based on her hatred towards her.” Croonquist often jokes that Zafrin finds her mixed-race background alarming.

See, it’s about thickening up your skin, not taking your self-imposed identity or societal label too seriously.

It’s about common sense!

Recently, fellow contrarian-thinker Doug Casey was saying how he thinks it’s a pity that the average guy or gal (the non-professional comedian that’s not on stage) has to “outsource” his sense of humor. Meaning, about the only people who can say politically incorrect things today are comedians.

A Minnesota man is facing up to 90 days in jail for swearing in public. Lucas Wilcox, 19, cursed at police officers who had just ticketed him for underage drinking at a party, and was promptly found in violation of an 1887 ordinance that prohibits the use of “any obscene language”’ in public places.

Folks, it was just words… if you can’t swear at an over-zealous police officer, spending more time prowling college parties than on the street chasing down hard-core criminals, then who the @#$% can you swear at, without being put in jail for 90 days?

Doug adds:

“And… where does this lead us? Will you need to get a license to say funny things? (not that cursing is funny. Yet, I bet it was for the frat brothers listening to it). It’s part of the increasingly corrosive atmosphere in America that you have to watch not only what you say, but whom you say it to, and who might overhear what you are saying. We really are entering the era of Thought Crime and Double-Think.”

A Missouri high school has banned the school’s marching band from wearing T-shirts that depict brass instruments evolving into one another. The “Brass Evolutions” shirt, based on the classic ascent-of-man image, drew complaints from religious conservative parents. “If the shirts had said ‘Brass Resurrections‚’ and had a picture of Jesus on the cross, we would have done the same thing,” said a school official.

Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight! So, the point of banning the shirts was what, then?

Yup, only in America!

One of the few places on earth the sheeple (the masses) praise and identify with medocrity and struggle, and condemn excellence and over-achievement…

For a some more head-shaking evidence, read Heather’s post:

“Boomhauer Goes To Vegas”

Your Partner in the Quest For
Living a Life Without Limits,

Last summer, Barry and I were looking for a couple of room dividers for the house we were about to move into, because the living room was one big open space, and we wanted to section off a corner. We saw a pair we liked, but the price was a little steep, so we figured we’d see what else we could find first.

“Alright, we might be back,” Barry said to the salesman who was hovering around.

The salesman, with a desperate look on his face, reached out to shake Barry’s hand, and with the other hand produced a business card. “Think of me when you need any kind of furniture,” he said. “This is how I feed my family, you know.”  The statement was said with dejected sincerity, not out of friendly jest.

Barry and I both almost gagged as we exchanged looks and hightailed it to the exit. “What da hell… ya gotta be kidding me,” he said as soon as we were outside.

“This is how I feed my family? Buy from me, not for the quality of what I offer, but because you feel sorry for me?” I scoffed.

“What complete and utter victimitis thinking,” Barry added. “A total turn-off to a potential customer. It’s just one step above standing on the street corner with a sign and a tin cup, begging for spare change.”

You might be thinking, “Well, that’s a rare example of someone with a sales job who just doesn’t understand the concept of value-for-value, or quid pro quo.”

The sad thing is, we’ve seen a lot more of it than you’d expect lately.

== Cont’d = =

Alright, yeah, I understand. Times are tough, and some people are feeling desperate. Desperate times call for desperate measures, and all that stuff, right?

The thing is, universal laws don’t change based on the economy. Value is always given for value received, no matter what. Thinking, feeling and acting like a victim will always make you a victim, no matter what. And hanging in your comfort zone will always make you uncomfortably comfortable (read “stuck in a rut”), no matter what.

Right off the top of my head, I can think of two people that we used to work with pretty closely who figure playing it safe, or even playing the pity card, is the way to go.

One recently wrote a blog post where he claimed he was going to be bold and daring, and write things he’d never written before. What he ended up doing was complaining about how his life is really in the dumps, despite having always told people how great he’s doing. He wrote about his health problems, and his money problems, and his family problems, and mentioned how he needed to sell some of his products to pay the rent.

Yikes. That wasn’t bold and daring, it was pitiful. If he needed to sell some stuff to pay the rent, he should have focused on the amazing value he offered the customer, not the incredible lack he was experiencing. Apparently he, like the salesman at the furniture store, figured people would buy from him because they felt sorry for him.

The other person feels a need to constantly be cranking out feel-good quotes and snippets of universal lessons. He figures it inspires people — and he may be right — but it’s a hollow, temporary inspiration.

See, inspiration is not the same as motivation. Being inspired can motivate people… but a good swift kick in the rear end can, too.

And that takes us back to the comfort zone. Inspirational words keep many people sitting on their big plush comfort-zone couch. Some get inspired enough to get up and do something, but most don’t. However, if you dump that person off the couch and tell him what he’s doing to keep his butt glued in place — and how he can break free — you’re more likely to see some real results.

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If you watch America’s Got Talent, you’ll understand this analogy. Nine times out of ten, Piers Morgan will have something constructive to say to the performers. He’ll tell them what he liked, what he didn’t like, and why. He’ll point them in right direction to improve their act, and often they’ll come back with something way better than they ever could have come up with on their own.

It’s the equivalent of dumping them off their comfort-zone couch and telling them how to move ahead and achieve greatness.

David Hasselhoff, on the other hand, rarely has anything constructive to say, unless he’s parroting what the other judges have already commented on. The rest of the time, it’s “That was fantastic!” “You were terrific!” and “That’s what this show is all about!”

It’s the equivalent of reading them hollow, Pollyanna-ish inspirational quotes that do nothing but make them feel better in the moment… and give them validation to stay in their comfort zone.

Sharon Osborne kind of floats between the two, sometimes offering feedback of value, and sometimes gushing like David, depending on how “harsh” (read “right on”) Piers has already been.

It’s kind of like she’s operating a safety net… she’ll be honest if she’s the first to give feedback, but she’ll over-praise if she’s not, just so nobody feels too bad. If they do, they might decide to “jump” (figuratively) off the stage, and she’d be there to catch them.

This safety-net mentality is holding many people back, every day. One of my in-laws has no ambition, and staggers along at the level of status quo, because she figures there will always be a government program or family member to lend her a hand and hold out the safety net for her.

Another in-law is a tall, young, beautiful girl who had the opportunity a decade ago to go to New York and be a model and actor. She loves show biz — she directs and stars in community theater plays all the time — but she chose to turn her back on an exciting career she would have adored because her family convinced her to play it safe, and stay small… snuggled up on her comfort-zone couch.

And the very show I just mentioned — America’s Got Talent — proves again and again that people are fascinated with the underdog.

Even Piers turns to mush when it happens. First it was Susan Boyle on Britain’s Got Talent. Yes, she had a beautiful singing voice. But people loved her because she looked frumpy, and even started an uproar when she got a makeover. They wanted to feel that she was as “ordinary” as them, so they could, on the one hand, live vicariously through her… but on the other hand, keep her on her comfort-zone couch.

It’s like they’re saying, “Hey, lady, you show the world what you’ve got… but don’t become unattainable. We want to see you singing karaoke at the pub again next week!”

When all the attention caused her to have a nervous breakdown, I swear I heard some people quietly cheering that she would, in fact, stay just like them for awhile longer… suffering, but staying curled up nicely on that couch.

Now it’s all about Grandma Lee. She’s a 75-year-old comedian who has a few snicker-worthy jokes, but she’s just not laugh-out-loud funny. She’s in the finals of America’s Got Talent, not because of her talent — it doesn’t come close to any of the other finalists, or even a lot of the people who didn’t make it — but because she’s another underdog.

And nobody — not Piers, not Sharon, not the media, not anybody else I’ve heard — will give her constructive criticism. They just tell her she’s great… because, after all, she’s a grandmother who looks like Moe from The Three Stooges. How can you, or anyone for that matter, possibly say anything “bad” about her?

Just like everyone was afraid to say anything “bad” about Susan Boyle, as long as she didn’t stop being an underdog who was afraid of success (which is what kept her on that darned couch for so long in the first place).

It’s probably what the victimitis salesman and marketer at the top of this article were trying to do. “I’m an underdog, so you’ll help me, right?” Except that people support underdogs emotionally, not necessarily financially.

As far as offering them some advice goes… contrary to popular belief, constructive criticism is not “bad”. If done right, it’s constructive — hence the name. And constructive is helpful.

Unfortunately, most people see “criticism” of any sort as “confrontational”. And most people think confrontation is “bad” because it ruffles feathers.

Here’s what personal development writer Robert Ringer, whose tagline is A Voice of Sanity in an Insane World™, has to say about that:

I’ve always felt that the saddest way to go through life would be to never even make a ripple. Whether it’s Al Gore or George Bush, Michael Moore or Jerry Falwell, the Dalai Lama or Rupert Murdoch, they all have one thing in common:

They make ripples. In fact, they make big ripples.

And so should you if you want to live life as opposed to just passing through on your way to the grave. When you get up every morning, the first thing you should do is ask yourself if you did anything yesterday to make a ripple. Even more important, ask yourself what you can do to make a ripple today.

All great achievements begin in the mind. Thinking about ripples leads to making ripples. Don’t fear being different. Don’t fear offending people who get their noses out of joint because they don’t like what you say or do. Don’t fear downside consequences to the point where you can’t bring yourself to take action.

Above all, don’t fear making big ripples. Do things that no one has ever done before. Shock your competitors. Leapfrog over the pack.

Making ripples, or ruffling feathers, is a great way to make sure that not everybody will be pleased by what you do.

But so what? That’s why they say, “You can’t please all of the people all of the time.”

Ruffling feathers doesn’t mean going out and seeing who you can upset or make angry. It means being straight, direct, and doing it for all the right reasons: to teach what you know, and help those who can’t see the forest, because they’re stuck sitting in their comfortable little nest, looking at their own little tree.

Ruffling feathers allows you to fly to great heights, because it means you’re adding value to the world.

So go ahead and fly.

Your Partner in the Quest For
Living a Life Without Limits,

Wealth (as in the “physical” tangible kind) starts just as much, or more, from the outside-in, as it does from the inside-out… actually, we’ll lay it on the line here and just say, “way more.”

Yeah, we know it’s customary and cool to say things like: Your inner world creates your outer world. And, if the slate were totally clean, with no outside experiences to color it, that actually COULD be true.

Yet, the human brain — especially the way it retains the results, or lack of, from past experiences — doesn’t operate in a vacuum. Rather, it’s exposed to tons of stimuli through the five senses that feed it.

In other words, after so many consistent and successive uses of ‘inner world’ education and application, believe it or not, we humans do eventually “get it.” But “getting it” doesn’t mean “having it.”

Let’s explore some more…

- Cont’d -

You see, the people who still preach wealth being an inside job, like just flourishing that little dazzler on you makes them feel exalted in ‘wealthdom wisdom,’ usually don’t have the “outside” part figured out.

There are many false-wealth gurus out there who, well… guess what… make their tangible “physical” wealth by selling courses and books that keep re-perpetuating the myth that optimism, self-love, vibration, body chakras, mantra chanting, and wealth rocks are what it takes. Meaning, these fakers rarely (or just don’t at all) include the grounded, hands-on, practical application, steps, and procedures that MUST BE acted on TOO.

Think about a productive field. Leave it alone, instead of working your ass off with back breaking work, and last year’s bountiful harvest is only a dream away. Weeds of all kinds will sprout and germinate in the exact spot that produced so much grain. Same with water. An unused well becomes unclean and toxic.

So, guess what… same with real-world, rock-solid financial wealth (nope, we ain’t talking airy-fairy philosophical “wealth is more than money” BS here):

Mindset, motivational movies, dream boards, and abstract, theoretical metaphysical philosophy ONLY goes so far.

And, if you’ve spent months and years basking in its bubbly warmth, it might go far enough… as long as you make it (or allow it to) do that..

Yep, the universe loathes “learning stagnation,” and that’s precisely what you’re part of if (emphasis on if) you’re NOT spending time DOING what you know.

That’s precisely what Tony Robbins said in a recent video we’re about to show you… well, in his own, less abrasive way.

You know, our financial life, we’ll tell you with utmost conviction, is always on an upward trend AFTER we catch ourselves in the act of excessive “learning”… and stop it.

Meaning, like anybody who is open-minded, gets jazzed by new and exciting things, and reads about recently discovered things, it’s easy to get caught up in ‘consuming’ that news. It’s easy to talk a good game with a prospective partner.

It’s easy to pretend we’re productive in passionate “learning” activity.

So, things can be down one moment in the financial arena for us. But, it’s not that hard to pick it back up when we FOCUS our efforts on serving others by CREATING information that helps our readers get unstuck from programmed memes, and cajoles them to go forth and experience results in whatever they wish to accomplish.

Here’s how our friend and fellow information publisher, Marlon Sanders, put it:

“Get real. Honestly. Aren’t we both adults here? Aren’t you aware that the path to success lies in producing and promoting and not magic? Cavemen believed in magic. In third world countries, where books and education are lacking, people believe in magic.

“But you aren’t a caveman, you have books and the Internet, and you’re in charge of educating yourself.

“So cut the crap, forget the magic, and get your assets busy producing and promoting. And if you don’t want to do that, keep your day job and seduce yourself into believing that your job is about something OTHER than producing and promoting, which of course it isn’t.”

So, hopefully, by now, you “get” that we’re saying this:

While “wealth” (the tangible, monetary kind) STARTS with proper mindset, conscious awareness, and metaphysical conditioning, that activity, by itself, does NOT produce it.

Recently, a very well-known, seasoned teacher of higher-learning — one with many books under her belt; somebody who’s been on stage with some of the big-name luminaries you know — Tweeted the following:

“You must learn to trust that there is a greater future waiting.”

And, Barry re-Tweeted it… but, of course, he couldn’t do that without adding the following to the re-Tweet:

“Trust is accelerated with ‘exploration’ and ‘action’ however.”

When it comes to e-marketing and online publishing, we explore all the state-of-the-art strategies, know who is actually doing what they teach, and… yeah, we readily know the value in LEARNING from them.

And once we learn, we implement the strategies, and then usually stick that learning on our bookshelf.

As to why, we repeat: once the brain “gets” something, it really gets ingrained in there. Like when you were a teenager and wanted to learn how to drive a car. Your dad could give you the owner’s manual and tell you all about the ins and outs and philosophy and rules behind it ’till he was blue in the face, but until you got behind the wheel, turned the key in the ignition, and put it into drive, it didn’t all come together.

Now you can almost do it in your sleep, right? (But of course, you don’t!)

The point is, as Tony Robbins talks about, doing your inner mind work is a start… but only a start. Figuring out a strategy to follow is part of that. But then it’s time to DO the strategy you just spent so much energy figuring out.

Yup, you’ve gotta pull your weeds to grow your grain. But as time goes on, less and less weeding is required, because you’ve conditioned your soil.

So if you’re ready to start doing that, and bringing in the amounts of dough that Tony talks about (or, well, even a fraction of that would be cool, right?) then watch this video now, and grab your free DVD:

www.LWLurl.com/DVD

]]> http://www.lwlworldwide.com/blog/wealth-is-not-an-inside-job/feed/ 0 http://www.lwlworldwide.com/blog/wealth-is-not-an-inside-job/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/LifeWithoutLimits/~3/mTYWJuQiSJA/ http://www.lwlworldwide.com/blog/reach-for-the-stars-or-stay-in-a-rut/#comments Sun, 30 Aug 2009 18:57:23 +0000 Heather Vale Goss http://www.lwlworldwide.com/blog/?p=1345 We like watching America’s Got Talent because it showcases people who are dedicated to grooming their gifts, giving value to the world, and trying to achieve what they want to do.

It’s easy to say you want something… but much harder to follow through.

And as a goalsetting expert we once interviewed said, “Behavior doesn’t lie.”

Too many people say they want to lose weight, but eat junk while they sit on the couch. They say they want to make more money, but shy away from every opportunity to do so. They say they want to follow a passion, but put it on the back burner to pursue “someday”.

Ask them why, and they’ll always have a reason. Or… should we say “an excuse”? Because no matter how reasonable a reason seems to be, if it prevents someone from doing what they say they want to do, it just means they’re not walking their talk.

Yeah, sure, talk is cheap… and action is gold.

It takes a lot of personal investment to do something that inspires others. And many people just don’t want to put any skin in the game, in case it gets hurt.

But that’s like refusing to love in case it one day dwindles, refusing to create in case it gets critiqued, or refusing to laugh if someday tears will come instead.

We especially paid attention to a local boy, from Grants Pass, Oregon, who recently wowed the crowd at AGT. His name is Hairo Torres, and he says, “if you don’t try, you’ll never know.”

Here he is performing in the quarter-finals, with an act that got him put through to the next round:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNTKbHn8Yl0[/youtube]

He reminds us of another local guy, who’s just as talented… with one big difference.

He refuses to try, because it might mean getting out of his comfort zone. He can entertain his friends till the cows come home, but not a bigger audience.

He focuses on what could go wrong, rather than what can go right.

What about you? Which would you rather be?

The one who reaches for the stars… and might hit the moon?

Or the one who stays in your comfort zone… digging deeper and deeper ruts?

You can shine, or be covered in dirt. It’s all up to you.

Your Partner in the Quest For
Living a Life Without Limits,