“
Get Off The Scale!
You are beautiful. Your beauty, just like your capacity for life, happiness, and success, is immeasurable. Day after day, countless people across the globe get on a scale in search of validation of beauty and social acceptance.
Get off the scale! I have yet to see a scale that can tell you how enchanting your eyes are. I have yet to see a scale that can show you how wonderful your hair looks when the sun shines its glorious rays on it. I have yet to see a scale that can thank you for your compassion, sense of humor, and contagious smile. Get off the scale because I have yet to see one that can admire you for your perseverance when challenged in life.
It’s true, the scale can only give you a numerical reflection of your relationship with gravity. That’s it. It cannot measure beauty, talent, purpose, life force, possibility, strength, or love. Don’t give the scale more power than it has earned. Take note of the number, then get off the scale and live your life. You are beautiful!
”
”
Steve Maraboli (Life, the Truth, and Being Free)
“
Your complaints, your drama, your victim mentality, your whining, your blaming, and all of your excuses have NEVER gotten you even a single step closer to your goals or dreams. Let go of your nonsense. Let go of the delusion that you DESERVE better and go EARN it! Today is a new day!
”
”
Steve Maraboli (Unapologetically You: Reflections on Life and the Human Experience)
“
No matter how old you are now. You are never too young or too old for success or going after what you want. Here’s a short list of people who accomplished great things at different ages
1) Helen Keller, at the age of 19 months, became deaf and blind. But that didn’t stop her. She was the first deaf and blind person to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree.
2) Mozart was already competent on keyboard and violin; he composed from the age of 5.
3) Shirley Temple was 6 when she became a movie star on “Bright Eyes.”
4) Anne Frank was 12 when she wrote the diary of Anne Frank.
5) Magnus Carlsen became a chess Grandmaster at the age of 13.
6) Nadia Comăneci was a gymnast from Romania that scored seven perfect 10.0 and won three gold medals at the Olympics at age 14.
7) Tenzin Gyatso was formally recognized as the 14th Dalai Lama in November 1950, at the age of 15.
8) Pele, a soccer superstar, was 17 years old when he won the world cup in 1958 with Brazil.
9) Elvis was a superstar by age 19.
10) John Lennon was 20 years and Paul Mcartney was 18 when the Beatles had their first concert in 1961.
11) Jesse Owens was 22 when he won 4 gold medals in Berlin 1936.
12) Beethoven was a piano virtuoso by age 23
13) Issac Newton wrote Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica at age 24
14) Roger Bannister was 25 when he broke the 4 minute mile record
15) Albert Einstein was 26 when he wrote the theory of relativity
16) Lance E. Armstrong was 27 when he won the tour de France
17) Michelangelo created two of the greatest sculptures “David” and “Pieta” by age 28
18) Alexander the Great, by age 29, had created one of the largest empires of the ancient world
19) J.K. Rowling was 30 years old when she finished the first manuscript of Harry Potter
20) Amelia Earhart was 31 years old when she became the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean
21) Oprah was 32 when she started her talk show, which has become the highest-rated program of its kind
22) Edmund Hillary was 33 when he became the first man to reach Mount Everest
23) Martin Luther King Jr. was 34 when he wrote the speech “I Have a Dream."
24) Marie Curie was 35 years old when she got nominated for a Nobel Prize in Physics
25) The Wright brothers, Orville (32) and Wilbur (36) invented and built the world's first successful airplane and making the first controlled, powered and sustained heavier-than-air human flight
26) Vincent Van Gogh was 37 when he died virtually unknown, yet his paintings today are worth millions.
27) Neil Armstrong was 38 when he became the first man to set foot on the moon.
28) Mark Twain was 40 when he wrote "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer", and 49 years old when he wrote "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn"
29) Christopher Columbus was 41 when he discovered the Americas
30) Rosa Parks was 42 when she refused to obey the bus driver’s order to give up her seat to make room for a white passenger
31) John F. Kennedy was 43 years old when he became President of the United States
32) Henry Ford Was 45 when the Ford T came out.
33) Suzanne Collins was 46 when she wrote "The Hunger Games"
34) Charles Darwin was 50 years old when his book On the Origin of Species came out.
35) Leonardo Da Vinci was 51 years old when he painted the Mona Lisa.
36) Abraham Lincoln was 52 when he became president.
37) Ray Kroc Was 53 when he bought the McDonalds Franchise and took it to unprecedented levels.
38) Dr. Seuss was 54 when he wrote "The Cat in the Hat".
40) Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger III was 57 years old when he successfully ditched US Airways Flight 1549 in the Hudson River in 2009. All of the 155 passengers aboard the aircraft survived
41) Colonel Harland Sanders was 61 when he started the KFC Franchise
42) J.R.R Tolkien was 62 when the Lord of the Ring books came out
43) Ronald Reagan was 69 when he became President of the US
44) Jack Lalane at age 70 handcuffed, shackled, towed 70 rowboats
45) Nelson Mandela was 76 when he became President
”
”
Pablo
“
Let me tell you about love, that silly word you believe is about whether you like somebody or whether somebody likes you or whether you can put up with somebody in order to get something or someplace you want or you believe it has to do with how your body responds to another body like robins or bison or maybe you believe love is how forces or nature or luck is benign to you in particular not maiming or killing you but if so doing it for your own good. Love is none of that. There is nothing in nature like it. Not in robins or bison or in the banging tails of your hunting dogs and not in blossoms or suckling foal. Love is divine only and difficult always. If you think it is easy you are a fool. If you think it is natural you are blind. It is a learned application without reason or motive except that it is God. You do not deserve love regardless of the suffering you have endured. You do not deserve love because somebody did you wrong. You do not deserve love just because you want it. You can only earn - by practice and careful contemplations - the right to express it and you have to learn how to accept it. Which is to say you have to earn God. You have to practice God. You have to think God-carefully. And if you are a good and diligent student you may secure the right to show love. Love is not a gift. It is a diploma. A diploma conferring certain privileges: the privilege of expressing love and the privilege of receiving it. How do you know you have graduated? You don't. What you do know is that you are human and therefore educable, and therefore capable of learning how to learn, and therefore interesting to God, who is interested only in Himself which is to say He is interested only in love. Do you understand me? God is not interested in you. He is interested in love and the bliss it brings to those who understand and share the interest. Couples that enter the sacrament of marriage and are not prepared to go the distance or are not willing to get right with the real love of God cannot thrive. They may cleave together like robins or gulls or anything else that mates for life. But if they eschew this mighty course, at the moment when all are judged for the disposition of their eternal lives, their cleaving won't mean a thing. God bless the pure and holy. Amen.
”
”
Toni Morrison (Paradise (Beloved Trilogy, #3))
“
A flower earns its honor in the dirt.
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”
Matshona Dhliwayo
“
The prettiest flowers earn their honor in the ugliest dirt.
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”
Matshona Dhliwayo
“
When we mentally give a person, place, or point in time more credit than ourselves, we create a fictitious ceiling. A restriction over the expectations that we have over our own performance in that moment. We get tense. We focus on the outcome instead of the activity and we miss the doing of the deed. We either think the world depends on the result or it's too good to be true. But it doesn't and it isn't. And it's not our right to believe it does or is.
Don't create imaginary constraints. A leading role, a blue ribbon, a winning score, a great idea, the love of our life, euphoric bliss... Who are we to think we don't deserve these fortunes when they're in our grasp? Who are we to think we haven't earned them?
If we stay and process within ourselves, in the joy of the doing, we will never choke at the finish line. Why? Because we're not thinking of the finish line. We're not looking at the clock. We’re not watching ourselves on the Jumbotron performing. We are performing in real time where the approach is the destination.
”
”
Matthew McConaughey (Greenlights)
“
There are only two ways to influence human behavior: you can manipulate it or you can inspire it.
Very few people or companies can clearly articulate WHY they do WHAT they do. By WHY I mean your purpose, cause or belief - WHY does your company exist? WHY do you get out of bed every morning? And WHY should anyone care?
People don’t buy WHAT you do, they buy WHY you do it.
We are drawn to leaders and organizations that are good at communicating what they believe. Their ability to make us feel like we belong, to make us feel special, safe and not alone is part of what gives them the ability to inspire us.
For values or guiding principles to be truly effective they have to be verbs. It’s not “integrity,” it’s “always do the right thing.” It’s not “innovation,” it’s “look at the problem from a different angle.” Articulating our values as verbs gives us a clear idea - we have a clear idea of how to act in any situation.
Happy employees ensure happy customers. And happy customers ensure happy shareholders—in that order.
Leading is not the same as being the leader. Being the leader means you hold the highest rank, either by earning it, good fortune or navigating internal politics. Leading, however, means that others willingly follow you—not because they have to, not because they are paid to, but because they want to.
You don’t hire for skills, you hire for attitude. You can always teach skills.
Great companies don’t hire skilled people and motivate them, they hire already motivated people and inspire them. People are either motivated or they are not. Unless you give motivated people something to believe in, something bigger than their job to work toward, they will motivate themselves to find a new job and you’ll be stuck with whoever’s left.
Trust is maintained when values and beliefs are actively managed. If companies do not actively work to keep clarity, discipline and consistency in balance, then trust starts to break down.
All organizations start with WHY, but only the great ones keep their WHY clear year after year.
”
”
Simon Sinek (Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action)
“
Get to know two things about a man. How he earns his money and how he spends it. You will then have the clue to his character. You will have a searchlight that shows up the inmost recesses of his soul. You know all you need to know about his standards, his motives, his driving desires, his real religion.
”
”
Robert J. McCracken
“
You don't need to work hard to earn an empire; there is an army of slaves to do it for you.
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”
Bangambiki Habyarimana (Pearls Of Eternity)
“
Wisdom is knowing the right thing to do and doing it at the right time to get the desired result. It is also the correct application of knowledge.
”
”
Patience Johnson (Why Does an Orderly God Allow Disorder)
“
Respect can only be given to those who have earned it by working for it.
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”
Habeeb Akande
“
I don't beg for those things which can be earned.
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”
Amit Kalantri
“
A diamond earns its sparkle from the pressure it endures.
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”
Matshona Dhliwayo
“
As you grow old, if you don't earn some money or inspiration out of your hobby, you will stop pursuing your hobby.
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”
Amit Kalantri
“
The self-esteem one acquires and a well-earned feeling of one's strength are the only consolation in this world. Income, after all, most brutes have that.
”
”
Paul Gauguin (The Writings of a Savage)
“
The more grotesque your boss's pay and the less he has do to earn it, the bigger the motivation for you to work with the aim of being promoted to what he has.
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”
Tim Harford (The Logic of Life: The Rational Economics of an Irrational World)
“
A man with wisdom will always have a solution no matter how big his challenges may be. Wisdom makes you a problem solver.
”
”
Patience Johnson (Why Does an Orderly God Allow Disorder)
“
The talents of these individuals were more highly motivated by a desire to learn, as opposed to a desire to earn. Which is what you find in your society at this point in time, as you define it.
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”
Dolores Cannon (The Convoluted Universe - Book One)
“
Listen to learn. Learn to earn!
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”
Rob Liano
“
No kind of social system can make you more happier and secure than your own money.
”
”
Amit Kalantri
“
Never ever forget that you enlisted in the ranks – you weren’t press ganged or drafted. Nobody owes you anything – least of all respect for your work – until you’ve earned it with what you put on the page.
”
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T.F. Rigelhof
“
School does not make people, it is learning that makes people great, that is why you see first class students fail and poor. The world is not ruled by those who went to school, it is ruled by those who learn everyday.
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Patience Johnson (Why Does an Orderly God Allow Disorder)
“
Your age doesn't earn you respect, your behavior does.
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Sanjeev Himachali
“
Wisdom cannot be bought from the walmart, it can only come from the Holy Spirit of God.
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Patience Johnson (Why Does an Orderly God Allow Disorder)
“
It does not take the striking pose of a high-fashion model or the strict stance of someone in uniform to earn respect and admiration.
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Cindy Ann Peterson (My Style, My Way: Top Experts Reveal How to Create Yours Today)
“
There are too many stars in the sky and none of them is overshadowing the other. Don't let anybody be a threat to your growth.
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Patience Johnson (Why Does an Orderly God Allow Disorder)
“
Even with fasting and prayers you still need wisdom. At the root of every great accomplishment is wisdom. In all your getting get wisdom first.
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”
Patience Johnson (Why Does an Orderly God Allow Disorder)
“
If your expenditure brings you poverty, then you may call yourself a poor but the world will call you a fool.
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Amit Kalantri
“
Be happy when you work, thankful when you earn, cautious when you spend, shrewd when you save, and charitable when you give.
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Matshona Dhliwayo
“
If you yearn to learn, you’ll learn to earn.
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Israelmore Ayivor (Become a Better You)
“
Ordinary men earns responsibility towards their family, extraordinary men earns duty towards their nation.
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Amit Kalantri
“
if you spend more than you earn, it simply means that you might be having a serious problem which may be even mental
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Anath Lee Wales (your life can be changed.: the true guide to become a change maker!)
“
Earned money brings you security, borrowed money gets you slavery.
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Amit Kalantri
“
Rainbows earn their brightest colors in the storm.
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Matshona Dhliwayo
“
No man's advice can change you unless you speak to yourself. Bible school or seminars can't change you, going to church can't change you except you decide to change.
Psalm 139:23 - 24
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Patience Johnson (Why Does an Orderly God Allow Disorder)
“
In a world pulsating with so much information, the only information that you need is the stuff that will lead you straight to your own soul. Think of this: Most of the information that is fed to you, is motivated by the desire to earn money. Forget what the magazines say, what the forums say, what all the experts say. Your soul does not need to be spoon-fed with stuff it doesn't need. Your soul needs to be seen and found, and what leads you to that, is the only information that you need.
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”
C. JoyBell C.
“
It is worth recalling here that the injudicious use of rewards and praise can be pressure tactics no less than verbal or physical coercion. As we have seen, there are three dangers with motivating by means of reward and praise. First, they feed the anxiety that not the person but the desired achievement is what is valued by the parent. They directly reinforce the insecurity of the ADD child. Second, since children can sense the parents’ will pushing them, even if under benign disguises such as gifts or warm words, counterwill will be strengthened. Third, praise and reward will themselves become the goal, at the expense of the child’s interest in the actual process of what he is doing. Children thus motivated will sooner or later learn to get by with the least amount of effort necessary to earn the praise or the reward. Short cuts and cheating often follow. Accepting
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Gabor Maté (Scattered: How Attention Deficit Disorder Originates and What You Can Do About It)
“
Sure we all need money but what do you really focus on? It is a matter of the heart. If your thoughts are on material and worldly things, no good fruits can come out of it.
Seek the kingdom of God first and the other things shall be added unto you not vice versa.
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Patience Johnson (Why Does an Orderly God Allow Disorder)
“
A rainbow earns its colors in the storm.
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Matshona Dhliwayo
“
If want to become a person with vision, get back and reconnect to your source.
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Patience Johnson (Why Does an Orderly God Allow Disorder)
“
In politics no permanent friends, no permanent enemies but permanent interest.
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Patience Johnson (Why Does an Orderly God Allow Disorder)
“
Wisdom is the mother of solutions. You cannot upgrade in wisdom and lack solutions and you cannot have a wisdom and be stranded in any challenge you face.
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Patience Johnson (Why Does an Orderly God Allow Disorder)
“
A lot of people pray for power, house, financial breakthrough, wealth etc. But only few ask God for wisdom. There are so many great power pack man and women of God who lack wisdom.
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Patience Johnson (Why Does an Orderly God Allow Disorder)
“
You cannot occupy a proper place on earth without wisdom. It is the principal thing you must have.
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Patience Johnson (Why Does an Orderly God Allow Disorder)
“
There is no gift of principles, you must apply them if you want to move forward.
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Patience Johnson (Why Does an Orderly God Allow Disorder)
“
Earn your crown by overcoming your crosses.
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Matshona Dhliwayo
“
A star earns the right to shine the day it is born.
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Matshona Dhliwayo
“
Life is not about how much you are earning, life is about how you are living.
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Sujit Meher
“
A lily earns its beauty in ugly waters.
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Matshona Dhliwayo
“
Stars earn their brightest colors in the dark.
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”
Matshona Dhliwayo
“
A leader’s role isn’t only to motivate and uplift; sometimes it’s to earn the trust of your team by being human with them.
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”
Will Guidara (Unreasonable Hospitality: The Remarkable Power of Giving People More Than They Expect)
“
By unlinking your money motivation from anger, fear, and the need to prove yourself, you can install new links for earning your money through purpose, contribution, and joy.
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”
T. Harv Eker (Secrets of the Millionaire Mind: Mastering the Inner Game of Wealth)
“
Don’t demand respect; earn it. Don’t expect loyalty; build it.
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”
Zack Friedman (The Lemonade Life: How to Fuel Success, Create Happiness, and Conquer Anything)
“
learn—because it’s not the knowledge itself that’s as important as showing that you have the generic ability to learn and complete schoolwork. Signaling also explains the sheepskin effect, where actually earning a diploma is more valuable than the individual years of learning that went into it—because employers prefer workers who stick around and finish what they start.
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Kevin Simler (The Elephant in the Brain: Hidden Motives in Everyday Life)
“
Act Like a Success, Think Like a Success lets you know that it is not good enough to simply exist. Life is more than wading through a lifeless job, earning a gold watch, and cashing in your 401(k). Your life has to be more than just waiting for the right opportunity to come along and find you. Your life has to be more than just marking time watching others achieve success. The words in this book will motivate you to get the most out of your life by using something that you already have—your gift.
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”
Steve Harvey (Act Like a Success, Think Like a Success: Discovering Your Gift and the Way to Life's Riches)
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A lot can be changed in a span of a year. A thousand lives can be moulded, a lot many lessons can be learnt and life can show its unpredictability. Even so, one year is enough to prove to yourself that you are worth the struggle that you undertake just to reap a momentary fruit of that labour. If fighting a new fight keeps us motivated each year, so be it. Here is wishing every fighter, struggling to make a break and succeed in life a memorable New Year. Do what you do best and don't trade your passion for fame but rather earn the fame through your passion. May your fight be fruitful this year and your name engraved in hearts of horde in the form of your work.
A Happy New Year to all my well wishers, peers, friends, colleagues, acquaintances and readers. May your year be blessed with good fortune and health with added wealth.
My message this New Year is that in a world full of possibilities never limit yourself to the sky for what is sky when there is endless darkness beyond to lighten up. Take care.
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Adhish Mazumder
“
The first step in trying to get along with other people is to realize that each is doing what he wants to do. Examine his actions, uncover the motives for his acts, find out why he wants to do as he does. And, as we’ll see further along, this will give you the opportunity to earn his respect and cooperation to an extent that others can never obtain.
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Harry Browne (The Secret of Selling Anything)
“
In the United States I saw how the market liberates the individual and allows people to be free to make personal choices. But the biggest drawback was that the market always pushes things to the side of the powerful. I thought the poor should be able to take advantage of the system in order to improve their lot.
Grameen is a private-sector self-help bank, and as its members gain personal wealth they acquire water-pumps, latrines, housing, education, access to health care, and so on.
Another way to achieve this is to let abusiness earn profit that is then txed by the government, and the tax can be used to provide services to the poor. But in practice it never works that way. In real life, taxes only pay for a government bureaucracy that collects the tax and provides little or nothing to the poor. And since most government bureaucracies are not profit motivated, they have little incentive to increase their efficiency. In fact, they have a disincentive: governments often cannot cut social services without a public outcry, so the behemoth continues, blind and inefficient, year after year.
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Muhammad Yunus (Banker to the Poor: Micro-Lending and the Battle Against World Poverty)
“
They cover
Those they want;
Themselves of course
And other criminals
Like them;
They sell an idealized lie
To earn something
And they throw
The others:
The innocents;
The pure;
The vulnerable;
The different;
They are not justice:
They are a clique
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Jazalyn (vViIrRuUsS: I Never Forget)
“
Of course, the starting point for any discussion of motivation in the workplace is a simple fact of life: People have to earn a living. Salary, contract payments, some benefits, a few perks are what I call “baseline rewards.” If someone’s baseline rewards aren’t adequate or equitable, her focus will be on the unfairness of her situation and the anxiety of her circumstance. You’ll get neither the predictability of extrinsic motivation nor the weirdness of intrinsic motivation. You’ll get very little motivation at all. The best use of money as a motivator is to pay people enough to take the issue of money off the table.
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Daniel H. Pink (Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us)
“
You build a confident: "Can Do Attitude," by practicing to be excellent. Since you earn success by being determined, higher willpower is earned. Be the best. Raise yourself to excellence, by writing your goals and working hard on them. Drive yourself to success.
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Mark F. LaMoure
“
The motives behind scientism are culturally significant. They have been mixed, as usual: genuine curiosity in search of truth; the rage for certainty and for unity; and the snobbish desire to earn the label scientist when that became a high social and intellectual rank. But these efforts, even though vain, have not been without harm, to the inventors and to the world at large. The "findings" have inspired policies affecting daily life that were enforced with the same absolute assurance as earlier ones based on religion. At the same time, the workers in the realm of intuition, the gifted finessers - artists, moralists, philosophers, historians, political theorists, and theologians - were either diverted from their proper task, while others were looking on them with disdain as dabblers in the suburbs of Truth.
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Jacques Barzun (From Dawn to Decadence: 500 Years of Western Cultural Life, 1500 to the Present)
“
If you want to see the beauty of any fish, throw it into the water, you will see how best it can swim because that is its source. Do you want to see the beauty in you? Don't look in the mirror, don't put on makeups, no jewelleries or expensive designer clothes, just go back and reconnect to your source and I bet, the best of you will show up. Until you return back to God, your best won't come out because He is your source.
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Patience Johnson (Why Does an Orderly God Allow Disorder)
“
Though neither happiness nor respect are worth anything, because unless both are coming from the truest motives, they are simply deceits. A successful man earns the respect of the world never mind what is the state of his mind, or his manner of earning. So what is the good of such respect, and how happy will such a man be in himself? And if he is what passes for happy, such a state is lower than the self-content of the meanest animal.
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Richard Llewellyn (How Green Was My Valley)
“
Several researchers have found that companies that spend the most time offering guidance on quarterly earnings deliver significantly lower long-term growth rates than companies that offer guidance less frequently. (One reason: The earnings-obsessed companies typically invest less in research and development.)
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Daniel H. Pink (Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us)
“
I’m a writer because, at an early age, I became convinced it was the one thing I could do to earn people’s respect. It’s true in the process I learned to love words and ideas and these days I actually like to get lost in the writing process. But the early fuel, the early motivation, was all about becoming a person worth loving.
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Donald Miller (Scary Close: Dropping the Act and Acquiring a Taste for True Intimacy)
“
You can play in shallow waters, but it is in the deep end where one earns his strength.
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Matshona Dhliwayo
“
A warrior earns his medals from the battles he endures.
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Matshona Dhliwayo
“
We are so much distracted nowadays. There is so much distractions in the world today call it internet, media, football matches etc. but don't let it consume you.
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Patience Johnson (Why Does an Orderly God Allow Disorder)
“
The devil comes to steal, kill and destroy and his followers do the same. Be watchful and keep that in mind.
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Patience Johnson (Why Does an Orderly God Allow Disorder)
“
People with vision sees opportunity where there is problem. They see money not problem.
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Patience Johnson (Why Does an Orderly God Allow Disorder)
“
Blind minds are worst than blind eyes. That you have eyes does not mean that you have vision. Visionaries do not look they see whlie people look.
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Patience Johnson (Why Does an Orderly God Allow Disorder)
“
You cannot use another man's leg to run your race. Wives stop waiting for your husbands to do everything. For God's sake make an impact. Nobody is a threat to your development.
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Patience Johnson (Why Does an Orderly God Allow Disorder)
“
I am the most important person to me. I am the most important person in the entire universe to me. I am the centre of my own universe.
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Patience Johnson (Why Does an Orderly God Allow Disorder)
“
Negative prophecies are reversible. The Lord reveals to conquer. You are created to reverse any negative with your prayers and the word of God.
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Patience Johnson (Why Does an Orderly God Allow Disorder)
“
Ideally, the end of extrinsically applied education should be the start of an education that is motivated intrinsically. At that point the goal of studying is no longer to make the grade, earn a diploma, and find a good job. Rather, it is to understand what is happening around one, to develop a personally meaningful sense of what one’s experience is all about.
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Mihály Csíkszentmihályi (Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience)
“
We shouldn't let our envy of distinguished masters of the arts distract us from the wonder of how each of us gets new ideas. Perhaps we hold on to our superstitions about creativity in order to make our own deficiencies seem more excusable. For when we tell ourselves that masterful abilities are simply unexplainable, we're also comforting ourselves by saying that those superheroes come endowed with all the qualities we don't possess. Our failures are therefore no fault of our own, nor are those heroes' virtues to their credit, either. If it isn't learned, it isn't earned.
When we actually meet the heroes whom our culture views as great, we don't find any singular propensities––only combinations of ingredients quite common in themselves. Most of these heroes are intensely motivated, but so are many other people. They're usually very proficient in some field--but in itself we simply call this craftmanship or expertise. They often have enough self-confidence to stand up to the scorn of peers--but in itself, we might just call that stubbornness. They surely think of things in some novel ways, but so does everyone from time to time. And as for what we call "intelligence", my view is that each person who can speak coherently already has the better part of what our heroes have. Then what makes genius appear to stand apart, if we each have most of what it takes?
I suspect that genius needs one thing more: in order to accumulate outstanding qualities, one needs unusually effective ways to learn. It's not enough to learn a lot; one also has to manage what one learns. Those masters have, beneath the surface of their mastery, some special knacks of "higher-order" expertise, which help them organize and apply the things they learn. It is those hidden tricks of mental management that produce the systems that create those works of genius. Why do certain people learn so many more and better skills? These all-important differences could begin with early accidents. One child works out clever ways to arrange some blocks in rows and stacks; a second child plays at rearranging how it thinks. Everyone can praise the first child's castles and towers, but no one can see what the second child has done, and one may even get the false impression of a lack of industry. But if the second child persists in seeking better ways to learn, this can lead to silent growth in which some better ways to learn may lead to better ways to learn to learn. Then, later, we'll observe an awesome, qualitative change, with no apparent cause--and give to it some empty name like talent, aptitude, or gift.
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Marvin Minsky (The Society of Mind)
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The motivation for taking on debt is to buy assets or claims rising in price. Over the past half-century the aim of financial investment has been less to earn profits on tangible capital investment than to generate “capital” gains (most of which take the form of debt-leveraged land prices, not industrial capital). Annual price gains for property, stocks and bonds far outstrip the reported real estate rents, corporate profits and disposable personal income after paying for essential non-discretionary spending, headed by FIRE [Finance, Insurance, Real Estate]-sector charges.
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Michael Hudson (The Bubble and Beyond)
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Faith is never connected to safe. There is no faith without tension. For a rubber band to function to it's elasticity, it has to experience a tension. Saints of God who has no tension has no function.
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Patience Johnson (Why Does an Orderly God Allow Disorder)
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David Lawrence, founder of US News & World Report, warned, "Confiscation of wealth may satisfy the vengeful in us. It may sooth a retaliatory spirit. But it is the path of national suicide...There must always be the reward motive. To many people it is but another way to set goals of human ambition...When government kills the opportunity to earn, it sounds the death knell of the opportunity to serve.
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Jim Powell (FDR's Folly: How Roosevelt and His New Deal Prolonged the Great Depression)
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Even in times of today, when one does not feel the need to go out of one's way for someone else, there are people who would. There are people who would be good to someone, share a smile with someone, care for someone and actually help someone, despite knowing that their act of kindness would be reciprocated with looks and feelings of suspicion. These are the people so sure of their selfless motives, their act of kindness that in their hearts they know, eventually, around some corner, some day their smile would be returned with a smile and their kindness will earn them kindness and acceptance in return.
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Arti Honrao
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Poor means when we lack things in our lives. There are two types of poverty. ...those that need food and shelter and those that need God in their lives. We are called to service to help both group of people as much as we can.
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Patience Johnson (Why Does an Orderly God Allow Disorder)
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Jim Rohn quote: “You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.”4 Don’t believe me? Let me drop some science. Dr. David McClelland, renowned social psychologist, Harvard professor, and author, studied human motivation for more than thirty years. As discussed in chapter 3, he found that “95 percent of your success or failure in life is determined by the people with whom you habitually associate.” Ninety-five percent, my friend.
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Rachel Rodgers (We Should All Be Millionaires: A Woman’s Guide to Earning More, Building Wealth, and Gaining Economic Power)
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Approachable people . . .
1. Use body language to their advantage.
2. Are open-minded to new people and new experiences.
3. Encourage others to feel better about themselves.
4. Are willing to be told not what they want to hear, but what they need to hear.
5. Provide an inviting aura that is warm and comforting.
6. Realize that authenticity and transparency earn trust.
7. Intuitively tune into the feelings and needs of others.
8. Are emotionally steady and respond appropriately when they sense awkwardness or discomfort in others.
9. Radiate happiness and curbs cynicism.
10. Provide a safe environment for others to express themselves.
11. Make others feel valued and appreciated.
12. Listen and consider other people’s viewpoints and opinions.
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Susan C. Young (The Art of Body Language: 8 Ways to Optimize Non-Verbal Communication for Positive Impact (The Art of First Impressions for Positive Impact, #3))
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We seek to be holy as God is holy as a joyful act of gratitude. We never seek holiness as a means to earn God’s favor or to avoid his displeasure. We have his favor, and his pleasure rests upon us. The motive of sanctification is joy. Joy is both our motive and our reward.
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Jen Wilkin (In His Image: 10 Ways God Calls Us to Reflect His Character)
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Atheism is the default position in any scientific inquiry, just as a-quarkism or a-neutrinoism was. That is, any entity has to earn its admission into a scientific account either via direct evidence for its existence or because it plays some fundamental explanatory role. Before the theoretical need for neutrinos was appreciated (to preserve the conservation of energy) and then later experimental detection was made, they were not part of the accepted physical account of the world. To say physicists in 1900 were 'agnostic' about neutrinos sounds wrong: they just did not believe there were such things.
As yet, there is no direct experimental evidence of a deity, and in order for the postulation of a deity to play an explanatory role there would have to be a lot of detail about how it would act. If, as you have suggested, we are not “good judges of how the deity would behave,” then such an unknown and unpredictable deity cannot provide good explanatory grounds for any phenomenon. The problem with the 'minimal view' is that in trying to be as vague as possible about the nature and motivation of the deity, the hypothesis loses any explanatory force, and so cannot be admitted on scientific grounds. Of course, as the example of quarks and neutrinos shows, scientific accounts change in response to new data and new theory. The default position can be overcome.
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Tim Maudlin
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There are many stories and accounts about the winners of lotteries who
are jubilant when they win, but whose lives descend into a nightmare
after acquiring that unearned money. (No challenge, no skill.) Thelottery looks like "the answer" to people because they associate money
with pleasure. But the true enjoyment of money comes in part from the
earning of it, which involves skill and challenge.
Watching television is usually done for pleasure. That's why so few
people can remember (or make use of) any of the 30 hours of television
they have watched in the past week.
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Steve Chandler
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Parent and Teacher Actions: 1. Ask children what their role models would do. Children feel free to take initiative when they look at problems through the eyes of originals. Ask children what they would like to improve in their family or school. Then have them identify a real person or fictional character they admire for being unusually creative and inventive. What would that person do in this situation? 2. Link good behaviors to moral character. Many parents and teachers praise helpful actions, but children are more generous when they’re commended for being helpful people—it becomes part of their identity. If you see a child do something good, try saying, “You’re a good person because you ___.” Children are also more ethical when they’re asked to be moral people—they want to earn the identity. If you want a child to share a toy, instead of asking, “Will you share?” ask, “Will you be a sharer?” 3. Explain how bad behaviors have consequences for others. When children misbehave, help them see how their actions hurt other people. “How do you think this made her feel?” As they consider the negative impact on others, children begin to feel empathy and guilt, which strengthens their motivation to right the wrong—and to avoid the action in the future. 4. Emphasize values over rules. Rules set limits that teach children to adopt a fixed view of the world. Values encourage children to internalize principles for themselves. When you talk about standards, like the parents of the Holocaust rescuers, describe why certain ideals matter to you and ask children why they’re important. 5. Create novel niches for children to pursue. Just as laterborns sought out more original niches when conventional ones were closed to them, there are ways to help children carve out niches. One of my favorite techniques is the Jigsaw Classroom: bring students together for a group project, and assign each of them a unique part. For example, when writing a book report on Eleanor Roosevelt’s life, one student worked on her childhood, another on her teenage years, and a third on her role in the women’s movement. Research shows that this reduces prejudice—children learn to value each other’s distinctive strengths. It can also give them the space to consider original ideas instead of falling victim to groupthink. To further enhance the opportunity for novel thinking, ask children to consider a different frame of reference. How would Roosevelt’s childhood have been different if she grew up in China? What battles would she have chosen to fight there?
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Adam M. Grant (Originals: How Non-Conformists Move the World)
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If you were to love, love not for the lust that you yearn but the rather the pain that you earn with it. Remember though that the ones who brave the pain are eternally bound in Cupid's chain. It is these chains that many of us fear. The fear of losing the freedom of choosing for self. The fear of placing the needs of our better halves before our own. The fear is understandable for history has taught us to despise and the society has given us the chance to entice. However, if you were to pause and think ever about - love - then do remember that the chain which upon acceptance binds you in amour is the same which upon rejection arrests us to an ague called lonesome depression. Few survive in love, but fewer without it.
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Adhish Mazumder
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Yes I have done it all. Tested the shallow waters, swam through the dangerous tides, met strangers, seen friends turn strangers, taken risks to achieve my goals, persevered to out do myself each time, rose high, fell hard, learned to climb, learned to dream and in dreaming learned to relate to reality.
I have earned respect, achieved things very young, believed in my potential, questioned it too but through it all I have never stopped to aspire. I am a human and I must adapt to the changing seasons, learn new skills and master them all.
Now as I stand and look up, I see a heap of laurels yet to achieve and chest of mysteries yet to resolve. I am not one in the crowd. I'll forever be the one whom they could never be
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Adhish Mazumder
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Even though it may look like the wicked is gaining ground, God is still in control. We need to pray for our nations, pray for others, pray for forgiveness and mercy over people. We need to love no matter who we are talking to, whether they are Atheist, Moslems, Lesbians, Homosexuals or Pagans. We need to love them and share the love of God with them and not judge and see if we can rebuild our broken nations.
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Patience Johnson (Why Does an Orderly God Allow Disorder)
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Understand something people, we will be hated by many in the name of Christ, ridiculed, mocked, stoned, slaughtered. We will be fined, jailed and killed for our love for Christ. You are supposed to see better with your eyes today, how close this is happening, just prepare your heart and soul to be braver than Peter and not deny Christ in the moment your life might be in jeopardy for Him and what you believe. Apostle Pauls says to live is Christ to die is gain.
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Patience Johnson (Why Does an Orderly God Allow Disorder)
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Loss aversion refers to the relative strength of two motives: we are driven more strongly to avoid losses than to achieve gains. A reference point is sometimes the status quo, but it can also be a goal in the future: not achieving a goal is a loss, exceeding the goal is a gain. As we might expect from negativity dominance, the two motives are not equally powerful. The aversion to the failure of not reaching the goal is much stronger than the desire to exceed it. People often adopt short-term goals that they strive to achieve but not necessarily to exceed. They are likely to reduce their efforts when they have reached an immediate goal, with results that sometimes violate economic logic. New York cabdrivers, for example, may have a target income for the month or the year, but the goal that controls their effort is typically a daily target of earnings. Of course, the daily goal is much easier to achieve (and exceed) on some days than on others. On rainy days, a New York cab never remains free for long, and the driver quickly achieves his target; not so in pleasant weather, when cabs often waste time cruising the streets looking for fares. Economic logic implies that cabdrivers should work many hours on rainy days and treat themselves to some leisure on mild days, when they can “buy” leisure at a lower price. The logic of loss aversion suggests the opposite: drivers who have a fixed daily target will work many more hours when the pickings are slim and go home early when rain-drenched customers are begging to be taken somewhere.
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Daniel Kahneman (Thinking, Fast and Slow)
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Paul was an attorney. And this was what his as yet brief career in the law had done to his brain. He was comforted by minutiae. His mortal fears could be assuaged only by an encyclopedic command of detail. Paul was a professional builder of narratives. He was a teller of concise tales. His work was to take a series of isolated events and, shearing from them their dross, craft from them a progression. The morning’s discrete images—a routine labor, a clumsy error, a grasping arm, a crowded street, a spark of fire, a blood-speckled child, a dripping corpse—could be assembled into a story. There would be a beginning, a middle, and an end. Stories reach conclusions, and then they go away. Such is their desperately needed magic. That day’s story, once told in his mind, could be wrapped up, put aside, and recalled only when necessary. The properly assembled narrative would guard his mind from the terror of raw memory. Even a true story is a fiction, Paul knew. It is the comforting tool we use to organize the chaotic world around us into something comprehensible. It is the cognitive machine that separates the wheat of emotion from the chaff of sensation. The real world is overfull with incidents, brimming over with occurrences. In our stories, we disregard most of them until clear reason and motivation emerge. Every story is an invention, a technological device not unlike the very one that on that morning had seared a man’s skin from his bones. A good story could be put to no less dangerous a purpose. As an attorney, the tales that Paul told were moral ones. There existed, in his narratives, only the injured and their abusers. The slandered and the liars. The swindled and the thieves. Paul constructed these characters painstakingly until the righteousness of his plaintiff—or his defendant—became overwhelming. It was not the job of a litigator to determine facts; it was his job to construct a story from those facts by which a clear moral conclusion would be unavoidable. That was the business of Paul’s stories: to present an undeniable view of the world. And then to vanish, once the world had been so organized and a profit fairly earned.
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Graham Moore (The Last Days of Night)
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Walter came from a strong line of self-motivated, determined folk: not grand, not high-society, but no-nonsense, family-minded, go-getters. His grandfather had been Samuel Smiles, who, in 1859, authored the original motivational book, titled Self-Help. It was a landmark work, and an instant bestseller, even outselling Charles Darwin’s The Origin of Species when it was first launched.
Samuel’s book Self-Help also made plain the mantra that hard work and perseverance were the keys to personal progress. At a time in Victorian society where, as an Englishman, the world was your oyster if you had the get-up-and-go to make things happen, his book Self-Help struck a chord. It became the ultimate Victorian how-to guide, empowering the everyday person to reach for the sky. And at its heart it said that nobility is not a birthright but is defined by our actions. It laid bare the simple but unspoken secrets for living a meaningful, fulfilling life, and it defined a gentleman in terms of character not blood type.
Riches and rank have no necessary connection with genuine gentlemanly qualities.
The poor man with a rich spirit is in all ways superior to the rich man with a poor spirit.
To borrow St. Paul’s words, the former is as “having nothing, yet possessing all things,” while the other, though possessing all things, has nothing.
Only the poor in spirit are really poor. He who has lost all, but retains his courage, cheerfulness, hope, virtue, and self-respect, is still rich.
These were revolutionary words to Victorian, aristocratic, class-ridden England. To drive the point home (and no doubt prick a few hereditary aristocratic egos along the way), Samuel made the point again that being a gentleman is something that has to be earned: “There is no free pass to greatness.
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Bear Grylls (Mud, Sweat and Tears)
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Fifteen years ago, a business manager from the United States came to Plum Village to visit me. His conscience was troubled because he was the head of a firm that designed atomic bombs. I listened as he expressed his concerns. I knew if I advised him to quit his job, another person would only replace him. If he were to quit, he might help himself, but he would not help his company, society, or country. I urged him to remain the director of his firm, to bring mindfulness into his daily work, and to use his position to communicate his concerns and doubts about the production of atomic bombs.
In the Sutra on Happiness, the Buddha says it is great fortune to have an occupation that allows us to be happy, to help others, and to generate compassion and understanding in this world. Those in the helping professions have occupations that give them this wonderful opportunity. Yet many social workers, physicians, and therapists work in a way that does not cultivate their compassion, instead doing their job only to earn money. If the bomb designer practises and does his work with mindfulness, his job can still nourish his compassion and in some way allow him to help others. He can still influence his government and fellow citizens by bringing greater awareness to the situation. He can give the whole nation an opportunity to question the necessity of bomb production.
Many people who are wealthy, powerful, and important in business, politics, and entertainment are not happy. They are seeking empty things - wealth, fame, power, sex - and in the process they are destroying themselves and those around them. In Plum Village, we have organised retreats for businesspeople. We see that they have many problems and suffer just as others do, sometimes even more. We see that their wealth allows them to live in comfortable conditions, yet they still suffer a great deal.
Some businesspeople, even those who have persuaded themselves that their work is very important, feel empty in their occupation. They provide employment to many people in their factories, newspapers, insurance firms, and supermarket chains, yet their financial success is an empty happiness because it is not motivated by understanding or compassion. Caught up in their small world of profit and loss, they are unaware of the suffering and poverty in the world. When we are not int ouch with this larger reality, we will lack the compassion we need to nourish and guide us to happiness.
Once you begin to realise your interconnectedness with others, your interbeing, you begin to see how your actions affect you and all other life. You begin to question your way of living, to look with new eyes at the quality of your relationships and the way you work. You begin to see, 'I have to earn a living, yes, but I want to earn a living mindfully. I want to try to select a vocation not harmful to others and to the natural world, one that does not misuse resources.'
Entire companies can also adopt this way of thinking. Companies have the right to pursue economic growth, but not at the expense of other life. They should respect the life and integrity of people, animals, plants and minerals. Do not invest your time or money in companies that deprive others of their lives, that operate in a way that exploits people or animals, and destroys nature.
Businesspeople who visit Plum Village often find that getting in touch with the suffering of others and cultivating understanding brings them happiness. They practise like Anathapindika, a successful businessman who lived at the time of the Buddha, who with the practise of mindfulness throughout his life did everything he could to help the poor and sick people in his homeland.
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Thich Nhat Hanh (Creating True Peace: Ending Violence in Yourself, Your Family, Your Community, and the World)
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But as a Puerto Rican woman, she belonged to not one but two minority groups. New research suggests that her double minority status may have amplified the costs and the benefits of speaking up. Management researcher Ashleigh Rosette, who is African American, noticed that she was treated differently when she led assertively than were both white women and black men. Working with colleagues, she found that double minority group members faced double jeopardy. When black women failed, they were evaluated much more harshly than black men and white leaders of both sexes. They didn’t fit the stereotype of leaders as black or as female, and they shouldered an unfair share of the blame for mistakes. For double minorities, Rosette’s team pointed out, failure is not an option. Interestingly, though, Rosette and her colleagues found that when black women acted dominantly, they didn’t face the same penalties as white women and black men. As double minorities, black women defy categories. Because people don’t know which stereotypes to apply to them, they have greater flexibility to act “black” or “female” without violating stereotypes. But this only holds true when there’s clear evidence of their competence. For minority-group members, it’s particularly important to earn status before exercising power. By quietly advancing the agenda of putting intelligence online as part of her job, Carmen Medina was able to build up successes without attracting too much attention. “I was able to fly under the radar,” she says. “Nobody really noticed what I was doing, and I was making headway by iterating to make us more of a publish-when-ready organization. It was almost like a backyard experiment. I pretty much proceeded unfettered.” Once Medina had accumulated enough wins, she started speaking up again—and this time, people were ready to listen. Rosette has discovered that when women climb to the top and it’s clear that they’re in the driver’s seat, people recognize that since they’ve overcome prejudice and double standards, they must be unusually motivated and talented. But what happens when voice falls on deaf ears?
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Adam M. Grant (Originals: How Non-Conformists Move the World)
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What is a “pyramid?” I grew up in real estate my entire life. My father built one of the largest real estate brokerage companies on the East Coast in the 1970s, before selling it to Merrill Lynch. When my brother and I graduated from college, we both joined him in building a new real estate company. I went into sales and into opening a few offices, while my older brother went into management of the company. In sales, I was able to create a six-figure income. I worked 60+ hours a week in such pursuit. My brother worked hard too, but not in the same fashion. He focused on opening offices and recruiting others to become agents to sell houses for him. My brother never listed and sold a single house in his career, yet he out-earned me 10-to-1. He made millions because he earned a cut of every commission from all the houses his 1,000+ agents sold. He worked smarter, while I worked harder. I guess he was at the top of the “pyramid.” Is this legal? Should he be allowed to earn more than any of the agents who worked so hard selling homes? I imagine everyone will agree that being a real estate broker is totally legal. Those who are smart, willing to take the financial risk of overhead, and up for the challenge of recruiting good agents, are the ones who get to live a life benefitting from leveraged Income. So how is Network Marketing any different? I submit to you that I found it to be a step better. One day, a friend shared with me how he was earning the same income I was, but that he was doing so from home without the overhead, employees, insurance, stress, and being subject to market conditions. He was doing so in a network marketing business. At first I refuted him by denouncements that he was in a pyramid scheme. He asked me to explain why. I shared that he was earning money off the backs of others he recruited into his downline, not from his own efforts. He replied, “Do you mean like your family earns money off the backs of the real estate agents in your company?” I froze, and anyone who knows me knows how quick-witted I normally am. Then he said, “Who is working smarter, you or your dad and brother?” Now I was mad. Not at him, but at myself. That was my light bulb moment. I had been closed-minded and it was costing me. That was the birth of my enlightenment, and I began to enter and study this network marketing profession. Let me explain why I found it to be a step better. My research led me to learn why this business model made so much sense for a company that wanted a cost-effective way to bring a product to market. Instead of spending millions in traditional media ad buys, which has a declining effectiveness, companies are opting to employ the network marketing model. In doing so, the company only incurs marketing cost if and when a sale is made. They get an army of word-of-mouth salespeople using the most effective way of influencing buying decisions, who only get paid for performance. No salaries, only commissions. But what is also employed is a high sense of motivation, wherein these salespeople can be building a business of their own and not just be salespeople. If they choose to recruit others and teach them how to sell the product or service, they can earn override income just like the broker in a real estate company does. So now they see life through a different lens, as a business owner waking up each day excited about the future they are building for themselves. They are not salespeople; they are business owners.
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Brian Carruthers (Building an Empire:The Most Complete Blueprint to Building a Massive Network Marketing Business)
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A drone is often preferred for missions that are too "dull, dirty, or dangerous" for manned aircraft.”
PROLOGUE
The graffiti was in Spanish, neon colors highlighting the varicose cracks in the wall. It smelled of urine and pot. The front door was metal with four bolt locks and the windows were frosted glass, embedded with chicken wire. They swung out and up like big fake eye-lashes held up with a notched adjustment bar.
This was a factory building on the near west side of Cleveland in an industrial area on the Cuyahoga River known in Ohio as The Flats.
First a sweatshop garment factory, then a warehouse for imported cheeses then a crack den for teenage potheads. It was now headquarters for Magic Slim, the only pimp in Cleveland with his own film studio and training facility.
Her name was Cosita, she was eighteen looking like fourteen. One of nine children from El Chorillo. a dangerous poverty stricken barrio on the outskirts of Panama City. Her brother, Javier, had been snatched from the streets six months ago, he was thirteen and beautiful.
Cosita had a high school education but earned here degree on the streets of Panama.
Interpol, the world's largest international police organization, had recruited Cosita at seventeen. She was smart, street savvy, motivated and very pretty. Just what Interpol was looking for.
Cosita would become a Drone!
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Nick Hahn