Become all you can become by raising yourself higher on the Tree of Life

Life is pain. Anyone who says differently is lying

With some movies I ponder for years why I liked it.

One of these movies is The Princess Bride. Why do I love The Princess Bride? Why do I watch it a few times a year, especially when my energy level is low?

Because, for me, the movie is about persistence. It’s about working towards something remote and maybe even impossible, and yet…

There are a ton of amazing quotable sayings in that movie… here is one:

Buttercup: You mock my pain!
Man in Black: Life is pain, Highness. Anyone who says differently is selling something.

Continue reading “Life is pain. Anyone who says differently is lying”

How can I tell whether you likely voted for Trump?

What is the difference between someone who votes for the Republican nominee and the Democratic Party nominee

This is not the whole truth, there are lots of shades of gray, and yet, especially in the current elections, this is what I have observed on the people I had an opportunity to observe.

1. The less distinctions someone had the more likely they voted for Trump.Distinctions are the patterns smart, intelligent people use to navigate life, to produce results, to tell truth from falsehood.Trump voters are almost blank in this regard. No distinctions… black and white.
2. The less someone was willing, able or trust themselves to do anything for themselves other than scream bloody murder, the more likely they voted for Trump.
Continue reading “How can I tell whether you likely voted for Trump?”

Never practice surgery on your family and other lessons

Developing the habit of looking before you leap

You have habits, thought patterns, beliefs, practices that guarantee that your life will not change, especially won’t change for the better.

When you do a course, read a book, or talk to a coach, you want to do and change the most important thing about your life: drop 30 pounds, start a new business, or leave your husband. Continue reading “Never practice surgery on your family and other lessons”

Learn awareness, the strongest indicator of health, wealth, love, and happiness

Changeability, adaptability is the secret of living a consistently good life… but changeability and adaptability depend on awareness. As your awareness grows in the four pillars of the good life, so your success and the quality of your life…

By the way, did you notice I didn’t say “learn about awareness…” but that is what you read? Right?

In the old Forum program, the Forum Leader came in, screaming at us, poor unsuspecting brand new participants: For you Everything is the same as everything else … except not always.

It took me years to decipher that and see that it is true.
Continue reading “Learn awareness, the strongest indicator of health, wealth, love, and happiness”

You need to be astute to know when to pursue a goal and when to quit

My site gets a lot of hits… people looking to find out how they too could become astute…

Astute people are happier, wealthier, more popular than others.

Of course they are looking for a quick fix to what the opposite of astute is: blindness, unawareness, cluelessness, being a bumbling idiot, or not being able tell their elbow from their ass.

I am not talking down at anyone… I was looking at myself to come up with those opposites.

We are clueless some of the time, most of us: most of the time.
Continue reading “You need to be astute to know when to pursue a goal and when to quit”

When you’re suddenly in turmoil inside and say: Opportunity

I am in turmoil, right now. Inside. Have been for a few days… Since Sunday night…

Some people use milder language. They say they are out of sorts… Same thing.

What happens when you go from a relative cease-fire, stand-still, contentment, to a state of ‘what is going on? Why do I feel so bad?’ Continue reading “When you’re suddenly in turmoil inside and say: Opportunity”

How to use Charlie Munger quotes to get insight

“The iron rule of nature is: you get what you reward for. If you want ants to come, you put sugar on the floor.”
~ Charles T. Munger

Let’s reverse engineer this quote.

You could look at it straight… and see nothing.

You look at it in reverse, and a whole world opens up.
Continue reading “How to use Charlie Munger quotes to get insight”

Goals, path, intentionality, agenda, forcefulness, and Zen

I had an interesting insight this morning. I woke up with the wicked vertigo back… I moved my neck the wrong way in exercise class… And I didn’t experience the despair, and the urgent desire to fix it. Or will it away. I observed it, and the secondary symptoms that go with it.

I live a goal-less life.

I don’t get frustrated, I don’t get excited, I don’t push, I don’t force, I don’t rush. I don’t do things for a reason either.

I do what I do. Some are creative. Some are response. Some are maintenance of stuff. I read, I cook, I try to move my body, I reflect a lot. I notice the birds. I notice the trees. It’s very Zen.
Continue reading “Goals, path, intentionality, agenda, forcefulness, and Zen”

Can you become astute? And if you can… how?

This article deals with what it is that you need to become astute, or even just to become a candidate for me to activate astute as a DNA capacity for you…

One of the invaluable benefits I gained from the 67 steps is the idea to consider getting tired in the noonish hours a signal that it is time to lie down and read.

This midday break disrupts the societal pull to do the useful, the purposeful, the goal-oriented stuff… that makes us dull, dutiful, and lopsided… boring.

I have a timer that turns on the light in my bedroom at 5:30 am and then turns it off at 7 am. I wake up and get up during that time. Why such range? Why don’t I use a sound alarm that scares the light out of me?
Continue reading “Can you become astute? And if you can… how?”

Self-image: unless you see yourself doing it… you won’t do it.

Sounds simple, right? self-image means: how you see yourself… but nothing internal is as simple and as straight as that?

The way scientists, medical practitioners, diet-cults, pharmaceutical companies work is called linear reductionism… ¹ and it is a cognitive bias.

A cognitive bias refers to a systematic pattern of deviation from norm or rationality in judgment, whereby inferences about other people and situations may be drawn in an illogical fashion.

Illogical, inaccurate, leading you and everyone who is run by a cognitive bias to stupidity.

“For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.”
Continue reading “Self-image: unless you see yourself doing it… you won’t do it.”