Do you know why so many ‘gifted’ children go on to produce mediocre results with their ‘gifts’? How many times have you heard someone say, “I’m a talented guy, why can’t I achieve results like him? How did someone with such average intelligence, average looks, and average ability, become so successful?” 

Vince Lombardi, a man with average looks, average intelligence, and average athletic ability, became one of the most successful coaches in history, and his wisdom debunks many common beliefs about competition, giftedness, success, self-improvement, and personal growth.  

One of the most unassuming, average guys from my High School went on to make over $100 million dollars. Actually, today he’s pretty good looking guy, but back then there were dozens of people who were smarter, more charismatic, better looking, or better athletes. How did it happen? How is he different?

Another person from my High School is one of the smartest and best looking people I have ever known and has done little with her life but complain about how ’stupid’ everyone is and she wonders why the ’stupid’ people seem to be so much happier and wealthier than her. She talks about how it must be a conspiracy or blind luck. She says most people are too shallow to understand her intelligence. She has an IQ over 170 and can’t understand why people won’t simply pay her six figures for her brilliance. You can see the problem, but she is blind to it. Why? How did this happen to someone who was given a major advantage in life? I’ll explore that in this post.

Vince Lombardi’s formula for being #1 is simple and it doesn’t require high intelligence, good looks, or world-class talent. But remember, we often confuse simple with easy. Simple is not easy. For example, losing weight is simple, but it can be extraordinarily difficult. Ask any computer programmer who has developed a simple solution and he will testify that complex solutions are far easier to create than simple ones. Complexity is the sanctuary of the novice, and simplicity is the revelation of a genius. So when people tell you to keep it simple, they are asking you to think like a genius.

Read Vince Lombardi’s speech on what it takes to be #1, and you’ll see his formula. Winning is a habit. Winning attracts more winning and unfortunately so does losing.

So how do we develop the Vince Lombardi habit of winning?

Develop a Strong Head
To have a strong head you need to have a disciplined mind. Everything ever accomplished by a human being began as a thought. This isn’t magic. It’s an undeniable fact. Set your goals, focus your thoughts, visualize the outcome, document the details, and make it a habit, because good habits are the foundation of all accomplishment. But it does require much more than thought alone.

Develop a Big Heart
Immerse your focused, habitual, and obsessive thoughts with positive emotion. Mix your burning desires with faith, love, determination, gratitude, and persistence. This is what my son calls Sha-hand-show-bo. This is how you keep going even when you want to quit. This gives you the ability to reach down inside yourself, when you don’t think you have anything left to give, and find the energy to persist. Emotional stamina separates winners from quitters.

Learn to Love Competition
Another way to say this is… be courageous. In all endeavors, on your way to the top, there are people who will scoff at you, impugn you, and when they become threatened, they will try to stomp you out. Getting to the top means knocking someone else out of #1. Some people don’t want to hear this, but it’s true.

Many people are confused about competition. They think of those who will do anything to win. Lying, cheating, and stealing isn’t winning, it’s corruption. Winning is being the best not the worst, so don’t confuse being a winner with being a crook.

Some people say creativity is constructive and competition is destructive, but there is a flaw in this logic - if you create something new which disrupts and challenges the existing order, you are competing whether you like it or not. Creative new solutions must compete with existing paradigms for attention and resources much like web 2.0 is challenging the old media. Do not be fooled into thinking you can create something valuable for others without competing - you can’t. If you aren’t competing for someone’s dollars, you are at least competing for their time and attention.

Evolution occurs from the competitive selection of all things, which are in a state of constant change, recreating and reinventing themselves to become better than what came before them. Change is the new replacing the old. Competition is the means of determining which change is best. Competition is necessary to grow, so to avoid competition is to avoid growth.

Learn to Love Discipline
Self-discipline is critical to success, happiness, and personal freedom. How happy and free is the undisciplined irresponsible person? The answer seems obvious doesn’t it? There is no freedom without responsibility and there is no success without self-discipline.

Does that sound too black and white? Look at the areas where you need to grow. Be honest with yourself. Are they areas where you lack discipline?

How does this affect the ‘gifted and talented?’

Many of you fit into a group, which the education establishment has labeled ‘gifted.’ Labeling someone ‘gifted’ is dangerous because it breeds arrogance. An arrogance which hurts the ‘gifted’ and keeps them from reaching their potential.

I’ve spent decades around under-achieving ‘gifted’ individuals. These folks had two major traits that kept them from succeeding:

1. Without effort, thought, or training, they simply knew the answers to difficult problems. Many of their peers had to work hard, pay attention, and build academic discipline to solve problems. But for many gifted students, it was effortless.
2. When they didn’t understand something intuitively, learning it was easy, requiring only 1-3 iterations to achieve mastery, while their peers required 10+ iterations. Learning the same material required far less studying for the gifted learner.

Dr. Bertie Kingore makes similar observations in her essay about the differences between the high-achiever, the gifted learner, and the creative thinker.

So the danger is this…
Many ‘gifted’ kids don’t learn self-discipline because they don’t need to. Learning is too easy. I’ve seen the same thing happen to gifted athletes.

During a staff meeting at work, I asked a bunch of co-workers a question, which generated looks that seemed to question my sanity…

Is a straight A student really successful? Are they really getting a good education? If they never fail, what have they learned about themselves?

A few people seemed horrified that I was suggesting that an A student could be a failure.

But this is what I was getting at…
If a student pushed herself as hard as she could to achieve top grades, I’d say yes, she is on the road to success. However, if she is getting top grades with little effort, she is being cheated and set up for failure in the future because she doesn’t know her limits. She’s never pushed them. She hasn’t developed the self-discipline necessary to succeed at something difficult. So she develops a habit of doing just enough to get by, and later her peers blow past her in every measure of happiness and success. It’s the classic tortoise and the hare story.

Let me leave you with something I’ve discovered about what truly makes me happy. I spent years coasting, doing less than I was capable of, under the false belief that talking it easy would result in happiness. Coasting became a habit. But it never resulted in happiness. In my late twenties I discovered that pushing myself to my limits resulted in far more happiness than taking it easy (I know, I’m a slow learner). Today when I find myself falling into depression or self-destructive thinking, I know what the problem is… I’m coasting, I’m not pushing hard, and I’m not growing.

The universal Law of Growth states ‘that which is not growing is dying.’ So every time I start to slip, I know why. It’s because I have stopped growing and it is time to push myself hard to learn something new, to solve more problems, or to help other people.

And you know what…

It works every time.

(FYI – I’m a Green Bay Packers fan and I love Lombardi. Go Pack! Beat the Giants on Sunday! Let’s bring home lucky #13!)

Tell me what you think? I’d like to know.

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I want to let you know that while I haven’t posted since December this blog is still alive and I am currently working on several posts. A co-worker told me today that I had better post something soon or people might start thinking I went AWOL. I decided I needed to take a break from blogging and reasses my goals. Christine’s online business is growing larger and faster than we had planned (that’s a real good thing), the boys need a lot of attention, and Ergotron has some very cool things planned for 2008, so blogging has slipped to about #4 on my priority list. So stay tuned, I haven’t gone away, I love to write, and there is more coming in 2008.

A variety of topics continue to capture my attention, personal growth, financial growth, libertarian politics, and storytelling. I am considering creating two more blogs. This blog will be my personal blog and be dedicated to personal and financial growth, a new blog with political stuff (I feel like I bore many of you with my political rants), and a third blog where I can publish short stories.

I’d be grateful for any feedback on the possibility of three blogs. I have serious reservations about trying to maintain three sites.

*******

On a very important side note…

Can anyone out there help me?

Do you work for Amazon or know anyone who works for Amazon? Particularly the Amazon Alliance?

I’d sure like to talk to someone from Amazon about a simple misunderstanding that has been almost impossible to resolve due to automation and I know it would be resolved if I talked to the right person.

I appreciate any help.

The wisdom in this essay is life changing.

Some of you know it intimately. Some of you read it once and forgot it. Some of you were forced to read it in school,  just skimmed it, and it didn’t sink in. And some of you have never read it (tragic). So I have condensed this essay into what I believe are his most poignant entries, in the hope that you will read it right now. It is one of the most powerful personal development essays ever written.

While it is well over one hundred years old, you will find Emerson’s insight and wisdom timeless. It is uncanny how closely his message relates to current culture and events.

Change yourself and change the world.

Self-Reliance by Ralph Waldo Emerson (condensed)

To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart, is true for all men- that is genius.

…always the inmost becomes the outmost…

A man should learn to detect and watch that gleam of light which flashes across his mind from within… he dismisses without notice his own thought, because it is his. In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts: they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty… tomorrow a stranger will say with masterly good sense precisely what we have thought and felt all the time, and we shall be forced to take with shame our own opinion from another.

We but half express ourselves, and we are ashamed of that divine idea which each of us represents.

God will not have his work made manifest by cowards.

Trust thyself… let us advance and advance on Chaos and the Dark.

Do not think the youth has no force because he cannot speak to you and me… it is that very lump of bashfulness and phlegm which for weeks has done nothing but eat when you were by, that now rolls out these words like bell-strokes… he will know how to make us seniors very unnecessary.

An immortal youth…would utter opinions on all passing affairs which… would sink like darts into the ear of men, and put them in fear.

Society everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of every one of its members.

The virtue in most request is conformity. Self-reliance is its aversion. It loves not realities and creators, but names and customs.

Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist.

Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of you own mind. Absolve you to yourself, and you shall have the suffrage of the world.

No law can be sacred to me but that of my nature. Good and bad are but names very readily transferable to that or this; the only right is what is after my constitution, the only wrong what is against it.

I am ashamed to think how easily we capitulate to badges and names, to large societies and dead institutions.

I ought to go upright and speak the rude truth in all ways.

Your goodness must have some edge to it - else it is none.

Do not tell me, as a good man did today, of my obligation to put all poor men in good situations.

My life is not an apology, but a life.

I cannot consent to pay for a privilege where I have intrinsic right.

What I must do is all that concerns me, not what people think.

You will always find those who think they know what is your duty better than you know it.

The great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.

If you maintain a dead church, contribute to a dead Bible society, vote with a great party either for the Government or against it, spread your table like base housekeepers - under all these screens I have difficulty to detect the precise man you are. But do your work, and I shall know you. Do your work, and you shall reinforce yourself.

Nature is not slow to equip us in the prison uniform of the party to which we adhere.

For non-conformity the world whips you with its displeasure.

The other terror that scares us from self-trust is our consistency; a reverence for our past act or word, because the eyes of others have no other data for computing our orbit than our past acts, and we are loath to disappoint them.

Why drag about this monstrous corpse of your memory.

Live ever in a new day. Trust your emotion.

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do… if you would be a man, speak what you think today in words as hard as cannon balls, and tomorrow speak what tomorrow thinks in hard words again, though it may contradict everything you said today.

Misunderstood! It is a right fool’s word. Is it so bad then to be misunderstood? Pythogras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood.

No man can violate his nature.

Let me record day by day my honest thought without prospect of retrospect.

We pass for what we are. Character teaches above our wills. Men imagine that they communicate their virtue or vice only by overt actions and do not see that virtue and vice emit a breath every moment.

You genuine action will explain your other genuine actions. Your conformity explains nothing. Act singly, and what you have already done singly, will justify you now. Greatness appears to the future.

Do right now… the force of character in cumulative.

I hope in these days we have heard the last of conformity and consistency.

Let us bow and apologize never more. A great man is coming to eat at my house. I do not wish to please him: I wish that he should wish to please me. I will stand here for humanity, and though I would make it kind, I would make it true. Let us affront and reprimand the smooth mediocrity and squalid contentment of the times, and hurl in the face of custom, and trade, and office, the fact which is the upshot of all history, that there is a great responsible Thinker and Actor moving wherever moves a man; that a true man belongs to no other time or place, but is the center of things. Where he is, there is nature.

Let a man then know his worth.

That source, at once the essence of genius, of virtue, and of life, which we call Spontaneity or Instinct. We denote this primary wisdom as Intuition, whilst all later teachings are tuitions. In that deep force, the last fact behind which analysis cannot go, all things find their common origin. For, the sense of being which in calm hours rises, we know not how, in the soul, is not diverse from things, from space, from light, from time, from man, but one with them, and proceeds obviously from the same source whence their life and being also proceed. We first share the life by which things exist, and afterwards see them as appearances in nature, and forget that we have shared their cause. Here is the fountain of action and of thought. Here are the lungs of that inspiration which giveth man wisdom, and which cannot be denied without impiety and atheism. We lie in the lap of immense intelligence, which makes us receivers of its truth and organs of its activity. When we discern justice, when we discern truth, we do nothing of ourselves, but allow a passage to its beams.

Every man discriminates between the voluntary acts of his mind, and his involuntary perceptions, and knows that to his involuntary perceptions a perfect faith is due. He may err in the expression of them, but he knows that these things are so, like day and night, not to be disputed.

If I see a trait, my children will see it after me, and in course of time, all mankind, — although it may chance that no one has seen it before me. For my perception of it is as much a fact as the sun.

It must be that when God speaketh he should communicate, not one thing, but all things.

Whenever a mind is simple, and receives a divine wisdom, old things pass away, — means, teachers, texts, temples fall.

In the universal miracle, petty and particular miracles disappear.

Is the acorn better than the oak which is its fullness and completion? Is the parent better than the child into whom he has cast his ripened being? Whence, then, this worship of the past? The centuries are conspirators against the sanity and authority of the soul. Time and space are but physiological colors which the eye makes, but the soul is light; where it is, is day; where it was, is night.

Man is timid and apologetic; he is no longer upright; he dares not say ‘I think,’ ‘I am,’ but quotes some saint or sage. He is ashamed before the blade of grass or the blowing rose. These roses under my window make no reference to former roses or to better ones; they are for what they are.

But man postpones or remembers; he does not live in the present, but with reverted eye laments the past, or, heedless of the riches that surround him, stands on tiptoe to foresee the future. He cannot be happy and strong until he too lives with nature in the present, above time.

If we live truly, we shall see truly. It is as easy for the strong man to be strong, as it is for the weak to be weak.

When a man lives with God, his voice shall be as sweet as the murmur of the brook and the rustle of the corn.

All that we say is the far-off remembering of the intuition.

Life only avails, not the having lived. Power ceases in the instant of repose; it resides in the moment of transition from a past to a new state, in the shooting of the gulf, in the darting to an aim. This one fact the world hates, that the soul becomes; for that for ever degrades the past, turns all riches to poverty, all reputation to a shame, confounds the saint with the rogue.

To talk of reliance is a poor external way of speaking. Speak rather of that which relies, because it works and is. Who has more obedience than I masters me.

But now we are a mob. Man does not stand in awe of man, nor is his genius admonished to stay at home, to put itself in communication with the internal ocean, but it goes abroad to beg a cup of water of the urns of other men.

Why should we assume the faults of our friend, or wife, or father, or child, because they sit around our hearth, or are said to have the same blood? All men have my blood, and I have all men’s.

The power men possess to annoy me, I give them by a weak curiosity. No man can come near me but through my act.

I obey no law less than the eternal law.

I must be myself. I cannot break myself any longer for you, or you. If you can love me for what I am, we shall be the happier. If you cannot, I will still seek to deserve that you should. I will not hide my tastes or aversions. I will so trust that what is deep is holy, that I will do strongly before the sun and moon whatever inly rejoices me, and the heart appoints.

It is alike your interest, and mine, and all men’s, however long we have dwelt in lies, to live in truth.

You will soon love what is dictated by your nature as well as mine, and, if we follow the truth, it will bring us out safe at last.

I cannot sell my liberty and my power.

All persons have their moments of reason, when they look out into the region of absolute truth.

We are afraid of truth, afraid of fortune, afraid of death, and afraid of each other. Our age yields no great and perfect persons. We want men and women who shall renovate life and our social state, but we see that most natures are insolvent, cannot satisfy their own wants, have an ambition out of all proportion to their practical force, and do lean and beg day and night continually.

If our young men miscarry in their first enterprises, they lose all heart. If the young merchant fails, men say he is ruined. If the finest genius studies at one of our colleges, and is not installed in an office within one year afterwards in the cities or suburbs of Boston or New York, it seems to his friends and to himself that he is right in being disheartened, and in complaining the rest of his life. A sturdy lad from New Hampshire or Vermont, who in turn tries all the professions, who teams it, farms it, peddles, keeps a school, preaches, edits a newspaper, goes to Congress, buys a township, and so forth, in successive years, and always, like a cat, falls on his feet, is worth a hundred of these city dolls. He walks abreast with his days, and feels no shame in not ’studying a profession,’ for he does not postpone his life, but lives already. He has not one chance, but a hundred chances.

With the exercise of self-trust, new powers shall appear.

It is easy to see that a greater self-reliance must work a revolution in all the offices and relations of men; in their religion; in their education; in their pursuits; their modes of living; their association; in their property; in their speculative views.

As soon as the man is at one with God, he will not beg.

Another sort of false prayers are our regrets. Discontent is the want of self-reliance: it is infirmity of will. Regret calamities, if you can thereby help the sufferer; if not, attend your own work, and already the evil begins to be repaired.

The secret of fortune is joy in our hands. Welcome evermore to gods and men is the self-helping man. For him all doors are flung wide… our love goes out to him and embraces him, because he did not need it.

My giant goes with me wherever I go.

Traveling is a fool’s paradise.

The intellect is vagabond, and our system of education fosters restlessness. Our minds travel when our bodies are forced to stay at home. We imitate; and what is imitation but the traveling of the mind?

Insist on yourself; never imitate. Your own gift you can present every moment with the cumulative force of a whole life’s cultivation.

That which each can do best, none but his Maker can teach him. No man yet knows what it is, nor can, till that person has exhibited it. Where is the master who could have taught Shakespeare? Where is the master who could have instructed Franklin, or Washington.

The great man imitates in the original crisis when he performs a great act, I will tell him who else than himself can teach him. Shakspeare will never be made by the study of Shakespeare. Do that which is assigned you, and you cannot hope too much or dare too much.

All men plume themselves on the improvement of society, and no man improves.

Society never advances. It recedes as fast on one side as it gains on the other. It undergoes continual changes; it is barbarous, it is civilized, it is christianized, it is rich, it is scientific; but this change is not amelioration. For every thing that is given, something is taken.

The civilized man has built a coach, but has lost the use of his feet. He is supported on crutches, but lacks so much support of muscle.

In Christendom where is the Christian?

Society is a wave. The wave moves onward, but the water of which it is composed does not. The same particle does not rise from the valley to the ridge. Its unity is only phenomenal. The persons who make up a nation to-day, next year die, and their experience with them.

And so the reliance on Property, including the reliance on governments which protect it, is the want of self-reliance.

Men have looked away from themselves and at things so long…they have come to esteem…civil institutions as guards of property, and they deprecate assaults on these, because they feel them to be assaults on property. They measure their esteem of each other by what each has, and not by what each is.

But that which a man is does always by necessity acquire, and what the man acquires is living property, which does not wait the beck of rulers, or mobs, or revolutions, or fire, or storm, or bankruptcies, but perpetually renews itself wherever the man breathes. “Thy lot or portion of life,” said the Caliph Ali, “is seeking after thee; therefore be at rest from seeking after it.”

Our dependence on these foreign goods leads us to our slavish respect for numbers.

He who knows that power is inborn, that he is weak because he has looked for good out of him and elsewhere, and so perceiving, throws himself unhesitatingly on his thought, instantly rights himself, stands in the erect position, commands his limbs, works miracles; just as a man who stands on his feet is stronger than a man who stands on his head.

So use all that is called Fortune. Most men gamble with her, and gain all, and lose all, as her wheel rolls. But do thou leave as unlawful these winnings, and deal with Cause and Effect, the chancellors of God. In the Will work and acquire, and thou hast chained the wheel of Chance, and shalt sit hereafter out of fear from her rotations. A political victory, a rise of rents, the recovery of your sick, or the return of your absent friend, or some other favorable event, raises your spirits, and you think good days are preparing for you. Do not believe it.

Nothing can bring you peace but yourself. Nothing can bring you peace but the triumph of principles.

A co-worker recently said something which made me realize how important little things can be. I told him this short story the day before Thanksgiving:

When I was in my teens, I did a little stint working for a snow removal company in Bloomington Minnesota. One Thanksgiving Eve we had a blizzard and the snow continued into Thanksgiving morning. A friend and I spent 14 hours shoveling snow that Thanksgiving. I’ll never forget it. I sold my Thanksgiving Day for $104.00. But at the time, I thought it was a great deal. I probably spent the money on Metallica records and Budweiser.

My co-worker said, “You might have missed dinner, but I bet some of the people whose sidewalks you shoveled gave you a little holiday cheer.”

I said, “When I left that morning, my mother wasn’t happy that I was going to miss Thanksgiving dinner, and she was concerned about what I was going to eat because all the stores and restaurants were closed. I was in a hurry and grabbed a bag of Christmas candy and I remember her saying that she was sure someone would share food with us. I haven’t thought about it in 20 years, but you know what? I remember I thought they would too, but no one offered us a thing, not even a cup of coffee. All I ate that day was that bag of Christmas candy, which I shared with the other guy. I saw people in their homes and they saw me too. Some people waited inside their cars for me to clear the snow and then hurried by us carrying food into the house. Not one person even said Happy Thanksgiving. I thought people would be happy and generous on Thanksgiving and I was surprised how cold they were.”

When I got home I mentioned the story to Christine, and she was surprised no one offered us anything. She said if someone were shoveling our steps on Thanksgiving Day, she’d invite them in and offer them something.

I think she’d do it. I would too. And I think you would too. But I have to ask… We say we would, but are we paying attention when the opportunity arises? Do we pay attention to the people who do things for us every day? People that do small things for us around the holidays?

These thoughts spurred another memory.

A year or two earlier, I worked at Bloomington Speedy Car Wash, the place where all the heavy metal burnouts worked. We worked there because we could smoke cigarettes on the job and wear our hair long. Thanksgiving Eve and Christmas Eve were the two busiest days of the year. The cars lined up for blocks. When I started, I wanted to work those days, because I thought the customers would be happy and generous on the holidays. The exact opposite was true. The closer we were to a holiday, the cheaper and angrier customers became. Few people smiled, no one tipped, and hardly anyone said Merry Christmas. Christmas Eve was the worst.

Back then, I was jaded and pretty anti-social about mainstream society. But even I was surprised how self-centered people were around the holidays. It reinforced my belief that we live in a thoughtless, selfish, uncaring society. A belief that nobody really gives a shit about anybody else, even on Thanksgiving, so why should I? I’m sure you can imagine the consequences of such a belief.

I don’t hold the same sentiments today. I think most people do care about the people around them, but they just get caught up in their own plans, and if they stopped for a minute and paid attention to the people around them, they’d act differently, they’d be more generous and thoughtful.

You can be the one person who makes a difference.

So I hope this doesn’t sound too preachy, but I am going to ask you to do something.

This holiday season remember the people around you, smile, say Merry Christmas, give a little extra on the tip, tip people you don’t normally tip (The car wash gal, the cook, the Starbucks guy), leave a gift for the garbage man, the recycling guy, your kid’s teacher, drop a few bucks in the Salvation Army can, tip the postman, find a way to let people know you value them, be generous, and if you own a business, give out a holiday bonus.

Your actions can help change someone else’s worldview. That’s how the world will change, one person at a time, one interaction at time, and one act of kindness at a time.

As busy as we all are during the holidays, let’s take the time to be good to one another. It is the little things that change people. Imagine, if one person offered us a cup of coffee on Thanksgiving Day 1986, this would be a different story.

This year, be that person.

You may be deceived if you trust too much, but you will live in torment if you don’t trust enough. Frank Crane - Historian and Sociologist.

If you are anything like me, you’ve been screwed over and learned a lot the hard way. You’ve built street smarts which have served you well. Some ‘normal’ people may even say that your skepticism borders on paranoia. But you justify it with real examples of people trying abuse you or rip you off and your ‘eyes in the back of your head’ have saved you on numerous occasions.

Now maybe you’re in a new environment, you are off the streets, out of a dysfunctional family, or ended an abusive relationship, and now you need to build new relationships, find business connections, help your community, nurture your family and the skills that served you so well in the past… are… well… pretty much worthless.

To succeed in this new environment you need to expand the radius of trust around yourself. A radius of believability, safety, and compassion. 

Here are 20 ways you can expand your trust radius: 

1. Write down the names of the people you absolutely trust. If your list is long, you can stop reading now. If your name is the only one on the list, you need to read this post.
2. Suspend your own position and gain understanding. Be open and never rigid. When someone challenges your view of life, business, politics, religion, or any other deeply held value or belief, listen and consider what they are saying. Let the other person know that you value their contribution. Defensiveness destroys trust and communication.
3. Admit your mistakes. Everyone knows how important this is, but few of us practice it. We tend to dig our own graves repeating our mistakes. We tend to defend all of our decisions simply because they are ours. But when you decide to think, act, or feel a particular way and aren’t getting the results you desire it is time to look for the mistakes you are making. Sometimes the mistakes are obvious and we deny them. Other times we need to dig deep down within ourselves to find them. But when we do find them, we must admit them and and make a conscious effort to correct them if we want to build trusting relationships.
4. Admit your fears (at least to yourself).  Do you know what many of us do when we are afraid? We get angry. In most cultures fear is considered a weakness and we’ve learned to convert it to anger. For some reason, anger is more socially acceptable than fear, especially for men. Did you know that some of the most violent men, at their core, are nothing more than frightened little boys who are masking it with anger? A quick way to destroy trust is to direct anger at someone else. The next time you feel angry at someone, ask yourself why. What’s really under the surface? Is it fear? Fear of competition? Fear of inadequacy? Fear of economic loss? Fear of emotional loss? Insecurity? Most of us never confront and admit our underlying fears which destroy trust.
5. Use authentic words. Have you ever heard people who sound scripted? The obvious example is a politician spewing platitudes and cliche. I’ll never forget how robotic Al Gore sounded during the 2000 campaign. When I hear a politician speak, I think, “Will you say something in your own freaking words for once!” If you’ve been in a few corporate meetings, you’ve probably heard something like this, ”robust technologies which will create a paradigm shift utilizing synergies between disparate global systems streamlining processes and measuring real-time global metrics creating agile competitive decision making strategies.” Don’t be that guy. Unless you’re a professional actor, use your own words or you’ll sound like a phony. Authenticity builds trust, phoniness destroys it.
6. When someone shares deep feelings or crazy ideas don’t judge them. Have you ever come up with a crazy idea during a brainstorming session? So crazy you were afraid to mention it? Did you mention it? If you did, you probably don’t need to work on this. If you didn’t, you probably do. Are you too quick to shoot down other people’s ideas because they seem far out? People thought Galileo, Copernicus, Tesla, and Fred Smith were nuts. A lot of great ideas sounded crazy at first. If you learn to tone down your inner judge, you will find that you will begin to trust yourself and your own original ideas. The next time you hear yourself thinking, that’s nuts, or when you get uncomfortable because you sense deep emotion, stop and ask yourself why. If you are honest with yourself you’ll probably learn things about yourself you’ve never known before.
7. Never intentionally hurt someone. People usually do this with spoken words intended to discredit someone. Other times they do it in vengeance. Some even call it justice. Intentionally hurting other people will never satisfy your emotional needs; it will only deepen your wounds. If you have a conscience, you will carry guilt and lose trust in your own judgement. If others learn of your attacks (even if they are verbal) the distrust will spread. The reasons you see so few people of integrity in politics are: people of integrity do not want others attacked in their name and they do not wish to have their families smeared. Debate ideas, but don’t smear people.
8. Keep agreements, commitments, and promises. Do this both in the spirit and the letter of the agreement and people will put their trust in you. People will defend you because they know you mean what you say. Do not make agreements, commitments, and promises lightly. Do not make ones you don’t intend to honor. Don’t make them with deceptive loopholes and language. Do and mean what you say.
9. Have faith in those you choose to associate with. Have faith that your spouse, children, co-workers, friends, employees, and neighbors will make good decisions even when you are not present. If you don’t trust them, they won’t trust you.
10. Embrace differences. We fear and distrust the things we do not understand. Many times we don’t understand something because it is unusual, foreign, or new. It could be a different language, different values, different style, different music, or a different lifestyle. But if you embrace differences, you will learn to accept and trust others as they are and more often than not they will return your trust.
11. Embrace disagreement. But do it in a honest ethical intelligent way. Don’t be a ‘yes’ man and don’t expect anyone else to be one either. Your willingness to accept disagreement shows others that you trust them and care about finding the best solution. It shows that you know they are trying to find the best solution too. Look at disagreements as an opportunity to learn something new. Your willingness to embrace disagreement will show others you value their ideas and opinions even when you may not agree. People will feel safe discussing important issues with you.
12. Act in the best interest of others. It doesn’t matter if you are in sales or in programming, if the first thing you think about when delivering your services or product is the end user or the customer, you will build loyalty and trust. Your commitment to the best interest of someone else will show in your work. On a personal level, if you are a spouse or a parent and you act with the best interest of your family members in mind, your relationship with them will grow and strengthen. A sure way to destroy trust is to consistently act in a selfish manner.
13. Be willing to ask others for help. We all need other people. We can’t go it completely alone because we can’t know and do everything that needs to be done. Some of us (I have been one) believe asking for help is a weakness. It isn’t. If you learn when and who to ask for help, it will become one of your greatest strengths.
14. Listen to and consider criticism. This is hard for most of us, but if you trust that others only criticize when they believe you can do better, you will become less defensive and expand your radius of trust. There is always something to be learned from criticism, warranted and unwarranted. Consider it, accept it or reject it and move on.
15. Give direct, specific, non-punishing feedback. Indirect non specific feedback which feels like punishment will cause others to suspect your motives. They won’t feel safe in your presence, but if instead, you are direct and specific they will grow to trust your feedback. For example, if an employee published a poor quality photo on your website, tell them directly that you expect better content, be specific about your standards and give them examples. Follow up by trusting them to have higher expectations next time and give them another chance to get it right.
16. Tell people you trust them. I’m not telling you to lie. I’m saying, when you trust others, tell them so. I recall a neighbor giving me the code to her security system, allowing me to enter her home while her family was on vacation so I could borrow some medicine for my son. She specifically said, “Steve, don’t worry about it. I trust you.” I was surprised how good her words felt. Sometimes we don’t realize the value of kind words.
17. Have open free flowing dialogue. Never try to dominate a conversation. Listen to what others are saying, give them time to talk, don’t interrupt, and when they are ready to end the conversation, let it end. People will be more likely to engage you in conversation because they know you are listening and attentive to their cues. Free-flowing dialogue encourages communication and builds trust. No one likes to be dominated.
18. Accept people for who they are. Never demand they play a particular role. I see parents try to make athletes out kids who have little interest in sports. Other parents try to make mathematicians out of kids who would rather be writing music. Managers try to force people to play roles or learn skills that do not suit them. Lack of acceptance for people, their interests, and their strengths destroys trust. Actors play roles, real people live their lives. Unless you are a film director, don’t expect people to be anyone except who they are.
19. Practice Trust. If you struggle with trust, try trusting someone with something that will do little harm if they disappoint you. Loan someone a tool or a few dollars. Let someone else, maybe the waiter, recommend something at a restaurant. If you always drive, let someone else drive for a change. The more you practice, the more you will trust. Just like building physical strength, building trust requires exercise.
20. Sit down when you interact with people. Sitting shows that you are giving people your full attention and time. Standing, pacing, checking your watch sends the message that you don’t value the interaction and that you want it to end as soon as possible. Sitting down and actively listening builds trust.

In a recent post, Rick Cockrum asked the question, Can You Spell Bibliophile? Rick, thanks for the question. 

My love affair with books goes back to my earliest memories. I can’t imagine a world without real tangible books you can hold in your hands.

Books are my DOC (Drug of Choice)

I cherish my memories of…

Sitting next to my mother, wafts of coffee and chocolate drifting through the air, while she read The Hiding Place aloud.

Long subarctic North Dakota nights, howling winds, swirling snow crystals sliding across the windows, and my mother’s voice reading me The Emancipation of Robert Sadler.

The Fargo Public Library where I sat alone on the floor with a pile of books for hours, lost in other worlds.

As a schoolboy, being left alone for entire afternoons at B. Dalton Booksellers in West Acres Mall. I could have gone to the arcade or the toy store but I didn’t. Instead I read.

Skipping school and spending the day alone reading at the public library.

Today, I’d say we have between 5,000 and 10,000 books in our house, most of which are for sale. I live in a book store and it is a dream come true.

******

I’m going to take this meme in a different direction and just tell you what I have been reading over the last month or so and then list some of my all time favorite authors.

Essays and Poems by Ralph Waldo Emerson.
I keep a copy of this book on my night stand and I read passages nightly.

The Psychology of Selling by Brian Tracy
This explores why people buy and how to sell to them. Brian says that all buying is emotional and every good salesman knows it. I concur. He also states that you never lose a deal on price. I disagree. I just watched a large deal come down to price. The salesman from the ‘expensive’ company performed as Brian Tracy coaches and he lost the deal on price. This book is worth the read because there is a lot to learn from it, but Tracy is dead wrong on price because price is the most emotional issue surrounding a purchasing decision. People think price is a simple unemotional math calculation, but it isn’t. If it was, all salaries in a corporation would be published on the corporate intranet, because after all, they are just numbers, right? But they aren’t published because people get emotional about the price they are getting paid for their labor. It is the same with all transactions. Most people use money to value themselves and others. If they didn’t, they wouldn’t care how much money they made relative to others. Differences over money results in more divorces than any other conflict, which should tell you something about our relationship with money. Our relationship with money is very similar to our relationship to sex. The wrong price can make people feel angry, hurt, insulted, afraid, or foolish. The right price can make people feel smart, happy, courageous, or wealthy. Have you ever been happy with a product until you found out someone else got a lower price? Then how did you feel?

Naked Conversations by Robert Scoble
This is the Bible on corporate business blogging by the best in the business. This book gives us a look inside the borg and how blogging helped Microsoft turn its image around. Robert Scoble is an inspiration. He beat the odds and won with integrity, innovation, and courage.

I Am Alive and You Are Dead: A Journey into the Mind of Philip K. Dick by Emmanuel Carrerre
Philip Dick had an amazing mind; the kind that fascinates me. A mind that breaks the patterns of our mass media, government educated consciousness. I expected a fair impartial account of Philip Dick’s life, but some of Carrerre’s prose reads more like fiction than biography. He tells some accounts as though he witnessed them as an omnipresent consciousness, using details he couldn’t have known, like Philip Dick’s thoughts, which makes me suspect of Carrerre’s objectivity. The real “Dickheads” don’t like this book. I’m not a “Dickhead” but I am still suspect of Carrerre’s account. Nevertheless, I enjoyed the work and Emmanuel’s prose is among the best in the business.

Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand by Leonard Peikoff
The best three paragraphs I’ve read this year are from this book:

This purpose entails three and only three governmental functions. In Ayn Rand’s statement, these are: the police to protect men from criminals – the armed services to protect men from foreign invaders – the law courts to settle disputes among men according to objective laws. Any additional function would have to involve the government initiating force against innocent citizens. Such a government acts not as man’s protector, but as a criminal.

Government is inherently negative. The power of force is the power of destruction, not of creation, and it must be used accordingly, i.e. , only to destroy destruction. For a society to inject this power into any creative realm, spiritual or material, is a lethal contradiction: it is the attempt to use death as a means of sustaining life.

The above means, first of all, that the state must not intervene in the intellectual and moral life of its citizens. It has not standards to uphold and no benefits to confer in regard to education, literature, art, science, sex (if adult and voluntary), or philosophy. Its function is to protect freedom not truth or virtue.

Leonard translates Ayn’s philosophy into layman’s terms. I like how he brings much of her philosophy into the post Soviet world and uses the demise of international socialism/communism as an example of Ayn’s philosophy. At the root, our economic and social problems come from too much central management, not too little. Many people see a social or economic problem and think the government should solve it. This book illustrates the folly of this thinking. The forced government solution will either make the problem worse or create a larger “blowback” from somewhere else.

******

A few of my favorite authors: Thoreau, Emerson, Twain, Orwell, Huxley, Rand, and Hill.

I was digging through some boxes of old stuff, and I noticed something fascinating… Something that provoked a question about life that I’ve never asked before.

I stumbled upon my old report cards. After each subject was a space for a short comment. Every report card from 2nd thru 12th grade had two words describing my performance - WASTES TIME.

So I guess my teachers thought I wasted a lot of time. Looking back I suppose they were right - for me school was a waste of time.

But then I thought… Maybe I’m wrong… Maybe they were wrong too… I’ve never thought it through… I’ve never asked myself the question…

What exactly is a waste of time?

I’ve heard people say video games are a waste of time. I disagree. Video games can be the best of times.

A woman told me that she didn’t want to go to the lake with her boyfriend anymore because it was a waste of time. All he did was sit at the end of the dock with his cousin lighting bottle rockets and drinking beer. It sounds fun to me. I could spend a weekend that way.

As long as I can remember, I’ve always thought sleeping was a waste of time - a third of your life doing nothing.

My mother told me, that when I was a kid, I thought eating was a waste of time.

My two-year-old thinks going potty is a waste of time.

Some people say working hard and losing is a waste of time. Funny, I’ve learned more losing than I’ve ever learned winning.

The establishment said voting for Jesse Ventura was a waste of time because he couldn’t win. In retrospect, maybe it was a waste of time because he did win. But there is a lot to learn from his wasted time in office.

The hyper-scheduled nature of today’s world seems like a waste of time to me. I avoid scheduling my life as much as possible. When my calendar is full it seems like I have no time.

For the last month I have been trying to schedule two hours of unstructured play for my son and his best friend from school and we still haven’t found a time that works. The realization that we can’t find two hours for our 5-year-olds to play together without scheduling it several months in advance saddens me.

Which got me thinking… maybe all the time we spend trying to get everything done is the real waste of time, unless what we really enjoy is getting things done.

Do you ever stop and think… Why am I doing all this stuff?

Do you ever feel like your sole purpose in life is crossing things off lists and maintaining your calendar?

Maybe if you aren’t enjoying yourself, all your time is wasted. All that time we spend bored, frightened, angry, in a hurry, or unhappy, isn’t that the real waste of time?

For me, the time I value, is the time I have free after everything is done. The time I can spend reading, writing, playing games, walking in the woods, lighting a campfire, canoeing, or conversing with interesting people, all with carefree spontaneity.

Wasted time is relative, isn’t it?

Maybe that’s why my teachers all said I wasted time, because if I spent my time doing what I thought was valuable, I wasn’t doing what they thought was valuable. So I wasn’t really wasting anyone’s time, they just thought I was, because they didn’t take the time to understand what I valued.

Tell me what you think? I’d like to know.

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Are children today getting enough contact with the natural world? Do they still dig in the dirt, build forts, and observe the animals frolic in the trees? Do you remember the hours of fun you had in the woods with just a stick and your imagination? With all of our technology and entertainment it is easy for children to miss out on the natural outdoor free play that studies show is critical for developing creativity. 

Parents sometimes let their kids outside. But is it enough to just be outside? Isn’t it sometimes…well…a little…plastic? It’s better than nothing, but this playground stands in sharp contrast to what I am about to share with you.

Early this fall, at the University of Minnesota Arboretum, we discovered “under the oak,” a natural place for children. If you get a chance, visit it. It’s wonderful. We need more places like this.

When you approach the area you’ll see this sign reminding us about how important it is for children to have free time to develop in nature:

The massive oak tree beyond the sign looks like this. 

Here is a close up of the “Toad Abode” 

Under the tree, kids can build and play in natural tunnels… 

And forts… Watch Out! Ya might get poked with a stick! Don’t tell the safety nazis. 

Someone built this cool fort… Check out the canvas roof… 

I don’t think that stick was meant to be a weapon… but… well… boys will be boys.

This is the view from the inside.

You can build your own canvas tent… 

Or set up shop and pretend you’re a little entrepreneur… 

Or set the table. But my son wanted to make little paths out of the plates. 

Until he found something more interesting. 

We had hours of fun under that old oak tree… 

In the background of this photo you can see some cornstalks. That’s a garden with sunflowers and vegetables and other plants, where the kids are encouraged to touch everything. 

Next to the garden is a green house with a variety of things we can’t grow in Minnesota like cacti and citrus fruit. Again, the kids are encouraged to touch everything, even the cacti - ouch! 

I wish we had a playground like this in every neighborhood. Maybe… someday. Until then, I’m grateful we have this one. 

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This post is part of the Season of Gratitude at the Balanced Life Center.

As many of you know, I used to be active in the Republican Party but when they talked about small government and liberty, their actions told a different story. Today, Republican leaders have grown the American government to an unprecedented size and are stripping us of our civil liberties at a frightening pace. While they still talk about small limited government, there isn’t a sliver of evidence that the current Republican leadership has any intention of reducing the size of government. I gave up on them and vowed to never support another small government phony.

But I still cared deeply about personal freedom. I cared about the future of America and the world. The political animal inside of me didn’t die. So I looked for a new political home. I knew there were hundreds of thousands maybe even millions of others just like me. Most of us stayed home on election day 2006 and the Democrats took back the U.S. House and the U.S. Senate. The change of congressional power made little difference. After the 2006 election, congressional approval reached an all-time low of 14%. 

Until very recently, I planned to sit out 2008 as well.

Several months ago, I first heard about this long shot running for President, Ron Paul. But I didn’t think much of him. I’ve heard too many hollow promises before.

• Then I heard his principled positions during the debates.
• Then I heard he raised 5 million dollars in the 3^rd quarter.
• Then I heard he has refused his congressional pension plan on principle. Refusing one of most generous pension plans in the world, worth millions.
• Then I learned that over the past 30 years he has voted for human freedom and liberty, never flip-flopping.
• Then I heard lobbyists don’t even bother knocking on his door, because they know he isn’t for sale. 
• Then I heard he is the top choice of US Military personnel. The troops have raised more money for him than any other candidate.

But I was still on the fence.

Then, last week, as Christine and I were watching Ron Paul on YouTube, I said to her, “This guy is the perfect candidate. I’ve never seen a guy this good. But I don’t want to get excited. He can’t win.”

She looked at me with the look. A look that says, quit talking like a fool - I thought you were smarter than that. And then she said, “Why not? Get excited. What an opportunity. Finally a guy we can vote for.” 

So with that kick in the ass, I jumped off the apathy fence and landed in Ron Paul Country.

The next day I went to Ronpaul2008.com and donated $100.00.

Two days later, I called Marianne Stebbins, his Minnesota campaign chair and volunteered to be a precinct captain.

A few days later I went to the Ron Paul Campaign headquarters and got a few bumper stickers and a lawn sign. That’s where I bumped into a Minneapolis Star Tribune reporter. He noticed that I was an outsider, that I had just stopped in off the street with my family and asked for campaign material. When he asked me why I was interested in Ron Paul I said, “For me it’s simple, he is the only honest ethical man running for president. Not only that, I like most of his ideas. Did you know George W Bush has outspent LBJ? Hillary won’t be any better. If you asked me three weeks ago, I wouldn’t have thought I’d be standing here saying this, but it’s true, Ron Paul has cured my apathy. For me Ron Paul is the only candidate worth voting for.”

The day before, at work, I walked back to the shipping dock to talk to the guys about Ron Paul. When I mentioned him, they already knew about him. They agreed that he had a great message, but everyone said, “He can’t win.”

Thinking about that, I paused a minute, and said this, “If we keep telling each other this, we’ll never elect a decent candidate. If we don’t believe an honest man can win, someone with good ideas, we’ll never get an intelligent honest president. We’ll keep getting the same corrupt power hungry clones. We have to believe we deserve better than Bush, Giuliani, Romney, and Hillary Clinton. Do you like any of these candidates? I can’t believe anybody likes these guys. But for some reason we believe they are the only ones who can win. But it isn’t true. We get to decide who wins, not the media. Ron Paul is the best candidate for president I have seen in my lifetime. This is the guy we’ve been looking for. Don’t let the opportunity slip away because you don’t believe he can win. He can win, but it is up to us to believe it. The pundits said Jesse Ventura couldn’t win and he did win. It was guys like you that elected him. Ron Paul is ten times the man Jesse Ventura is. Don’t let this opportunity slip away.”

I don’t know if my little speech changed any minds. These guys are seriously jaded. And you know what? I don’t blame them.

Jesse Ventura was a major disappointment, but he showed us what was possible if you can turn out the young, the disaffected, and the apathetic.

A guy at work who has never voted in his life is on fire for Ron Paul. If the 30-40% of Americans who do not vote, voted, it would turn the political world on its head.

I have a brother in northern Minnesota who I would describe as liberal (in the American sense of the word). He’s into organic farming, alternative medicine, eastern philosophy, anti-corporatism, and a myriad of environmental and health related issues. When I talked to his wife this weekend (he was in the middle of BF North Dakota helping to ease a housing shortage) she said my brother had been researching Dr. Paul and he didn’t care if Dr. Paul was a Republican, he was seriously considering supporting him because something has to be done, the government has gotten completely out of control, and they’ve got to start listening to us. If my brother is supporting him, something big is happening.

So right now I’m telling everyone about a grass roots effort to get people to give Ron Paul a $100.00 donation on November 5^th 2007. The goal is to get 100,000 people to donate $100.00 at ronpaul2008.com on November 5th. The result will be 10 million dollars in a single day, which would be an unprecedented event in the history of political fund raising. If we pull this off, the mainstream media could no longer ignore us. The best way to send a message right now is to vote with your dollars. Christine and I will donate $100.00 each on November 5^th.  You can register at this website to pledge your support for this event. But don’t feel you must register to participate. I haven’t registered, and I know a dozen people who have not registered that will be participating. The important thing to remember is to give what you can on the 5^th of November. I will post a reminder on 11-5-07.

Dr. Paul will be on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno tonight 10-30-07. It is a great opportunity to see him.

I want my regular readers to know that this blog will not become a ”Ron Paul site.” But I may post occasional stories about my involvement in his campaign.

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Do you feel your energy fade after you see all the negative news about our world? Headlines that seem to say things are getting worse everyday. Some common headlines I see are about how the poor are getting poorer, the middle class is losing ground, and that there is less opportunity today than in the past. But is it true?

This weekend, as my 2 and 5 year old sons were tearing around my parents kitchen howling in glee, one of them grabbed the tablecloth shattering the centerpiece on the floor. As we were cleaning up the mess my dad said, “things sure are safer today”.

“Safer tablecloths?” I asked.

“No, when I was their age the center piece on our table was a kerosene lamp. If I’d grabbed the cloth and dumped the lamp the house could have burned down.” he said.

“Why didn’t you just use a light bulb?” I asked.

“We didn’t have electricity or running water. We used an outhouse, you had nowhere else to go, even when it was 20 below zero, except the chamber pot. When I was really little, maybe 4 or 5, my biggest fear was falling down the outhouse hole.” he said.

“When did you get electricity and running water? I asked.

“We got running water and electricity when I was 11, between 4th and 5th grade, when we moved into the city because my mom couldn’t make any money on the farm. We didn’t own the farm. My grandpa lost his farm in ‘34, so my dad rented the place. Dad inhaled poison gas during the war and it damaged his lungs. When he got home everything was fine for a while but it eventually caught up with him. He was hospitalized in the VA for two years and mom couldn’t make the farm work. The farmland was pretty poor, so we moved into town.” he said.

“How ’bout you mom?” I asked.

“My dad had a good government job and we lived in the city. We didn’t live on a farm like your father so we had running water and electricity as long as I can remember. I guess when I was born the house didn’t have running water or electricity, but I don’t remember it. Most small towns didn’t have running water in those days, so a lot of my relatives had an outhouse and an outdoor hand pump.” she said.

“I don’t think they had residential water in Ashby Minnesota until the late 50s or early 60s. You had to get water at a community pump.” my dad said. 

“You lived in a damp dark old basement. It wasn’t very nice was it?” my dad said to my mother.

“My sister and I lived down there off and on until we moved out. My mother sometimes had to rent out our rooms to make ends meet. I hated it in the basement because the bugs ate holes in my clothes. I had to work at the dime store to buy all my clothes. I was fortunate to have that job, my dad knew the owner. Up until Jr. High my mother hand made my clothes, but after that I was on my own. I worked and bought my clothes myself and when the bugs ate holes in them it was frustrating.” she said.

“Did either of you consider yourself poor?” I asked.

“No, I had everything I needed. We had more than most people I knew. We weren’t poor.” my mom said.

“When I was young, we had a farm so we never went hungry. We were better off than most. Nobody had any money. My aunt Annie Larson had nothing. Hardly any furniture. She had nine kids. Her husband delivered everyone of them himself, at home, in the farm house.” my dad said.

“So you didn’t have electricity, running water, your parents rented out your bedroom to strangers just to make ends meet, you lived in a damp dark basement where the bugs ate holes in your clothes, and you didn’t consider that poverty?”

“No”, they replied together.

“So you considered yourselves middle class?”

“Yes, I suppose. We struggled sometimes, but we had what we needed. We were like most other people. No one had much money, it’s fair to say we were middle of the road.” my dad said.

*********

I’m sure my parents told me this story many times of over the years. But I didn’t hear it until this weekend. It never sunk in. And if you think their social and moral environment were better, it wasn’t. Life could be very abusive and ugly, but in those days, no one talked about those things. But that’s for another post.

Cars, phones, running water, central heating, air conditioning, televisions, radios, prepared food, ready made clothing, comfortable mattresses, access to education, libraries, and sewer systems are just few of the luxuries many self-described middle class Americans didn’t have until the very recent past. Today, most of the poor people in this country have all these things and more. We do indeed have a high, high standard of living and it is still rising. Don’t let naysayers tell you things were better in the past, they weren’t. Even healthcare is far better than it was 20,30, or 40 years ago, even for the poor. Many of the procedures and medications routinely provided to medicare recipients were not available in the 50s and 60s. Only in a few pockets around the world (North Korea and Zimbabwe) are things actually getting economically worse. We live in times of vast prosperity.

A respected economics professor told me that she has stopped using the word necessity, because she tired of arguing with people about the definition of necessity. She said most Americans will argue that cars, TVs, and air conditioners are necessities. Some even argued that $25,000 fertility treatments are a necessity, but when one man argued, in all seriousness, that cable television was a necessity, she dropped necessities from her lexicon. She now states unequivocally that there are no necessities because 99% of her students cannot comprehend actual necessity.  

Are things like cars, healthcare, housing, and education becoming more expensive in real dollars? Yes. But that’s because we expect so much more. Few people want a 1955 car, 1955 medical care, a 1955 house, or a 1955 education. They wouldn’t live up to our high expectations and if someone were to provide them today as they were then they’d be prosecuted for malpractice, negligence, or worse.

I am grateful to be alive today - grateful to have access to limitless opportunity, information, products, and services - all luxuries previous generations couldn’t have imagined.

When some negative piece of disinformation slips past your defenses telling you how rotten everything is becoming, return to this and read it again and be grateful for the luxuries you have. You are living in the best of times and they are only getting better.

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This post is part of the Season of Gratitude at the Balanced Life Center.