Maintain Your Standard Quotes

When you are able to maintain your own highest standards of integrity - regardless of what others may do - you are destined for greatness.

I have never seen a more sublime demonstration of the totalitarian mind, a mind which might be linked unto a system of gears where teeth have been filed off at random. Such snaggle-toothed thought machine, driven by a standard or even by a substandard libido, whirls with the jerky, noisy, gaudy pointlessness of a cuckoo clock in Hell. The boss G-man concluded wrongly that there were no teeth on the gears in the mind of Jones. 'You're completely crazy,' he said. Jones wasn't completely crazy. The dismaying thing about classic totalitarian mind is that any given gear, thought mutilated, will have at its circumference unbroken sequences of teeth that are immaculately maintained, that are exquisitely machined. Hence the cuckoo clock in Hell - keeping perfect time for eight minutes and twenty-three seconds, jumping ahead fourteen minutes, keeping perfect time for six seconds, jumping ahead two seconds, keeping perfect time for two hours and one second, then jumping ahead a year. The missing teeth, of course, are simple, obvious truths, truths available and comprehensible even to ten-year-olds, in most cases. The wilful filling off a gear teeth, the wilful doing without certain obvious pieces of information - That was how a household as contradictory as one composed of Jones, Father Keeley, Vice-Bundesfuehrer Krapptauer, and the Black Fuehrer could exist in relative harmony - That was how my father-in-law could contain in one mind an indifference toward slave women and love fora a blue vase - That was how Rudolf Hess, Commandant of Auschwitz, could alternate over the loudspeakers of Auschwitz great music and calls for corpse-carriers - That was how Nazi Germany sense no important difference between civilization and hydrophobia - That is the closest I can come to explaining the legions, the nations of lunatics I've seen in my time.

It’s imperative that writing consists of not living up to your own taste. Of leaving the world behind so you can hold fast to what’s strange inside; what’s unlit. A soreness. A neglected joy. The way forward is perhaps not maintaining a standard for accuracy but appraising what naturally heaps. Writing

If we are consistent in guiding our children in the right direction, and extend grace to them to be immature on the way to maturity then we will have the best chance of maintaining both our standards and a close relationship with our children.

Dropping cluster bombs from the air is not only less repugnant: it is somehow deemed, by Western people at least, to be morally superior,’ says British psychologist Jacqueline Rose. 'Why dying with your victim should be seen as a greater sin than saving yourself is unclear.'The colonial West had created a two-tier hierarchy that privileged itself at the expense of 'The Rest’. The Enlightenment had preached the equality of all human beings, yet Western policy in the developing world often adopted a double standard so that we failed to treat others as we would wish to be treated. Our focus on the nation seems to have made it hard for us to cultivate the global outlook that we need in our increasingly interrelated world. We must deplore any action that spills innocent blood or sows terror for its own sake. But we must also acknowledge and sincerely mourn the blood that we have shed in pursuit of national interests. Otherwise we can hardly defend ourselves against accusations of maintaining an 'arrogant silence’ in the face of others’ pain and of creating a world order in which some people’s lives are deemed more valuable than others

If you're unfortunate enough to lift some trifle or other, you're paraded on the square in front of the law courts like a freak. If you steal a million, you're pointed out in the salons as one of the Virtues. You pay thirty million to the Police and to the Law to maintain those moral standards there. A fine mess!

The problem with fiat is that simply maintaining the wealth you already own requires significant active management and expert decision-making. You need to develop expertise in portfolio allocation, risk management, stock and bond valuation, real estate markets, credit markets, global macro trends, national and international monetary policy, commodity markets, geopolitics, and many other arcane and highly specialized fields in order to make informed investment decisions that allow you to maintain the wealth you already earned. You effectively need to earn your money twice with fiat, once when you work for it, and once when you invest it to beat inflation. The simple gold coin saved you from all of this before fiat.

That night at the Brooklyn party, I was playing the girl who was in style, the girl a man like Nick wants: the Cool Girl. Men always say that as the defining compliment, don’t they? She’s a cool girl. Being the Cool Girl means I am a hot, brilliant, funny woman who adores football, poker, dirty jokes, and burping, who plays video games, drinks cheap beer, loves threesomes and anal sex, and jams hot dogs and hamburgers into her mouth like she’s hosting the world’s biggest culinary gang bang while somehow maintaining a size 2, because Cool Girls are above all hot. Hot and understanding. Cool Girls never get angry; they only smile in a chagrined, loving manner and let their men do whatever they want. Go ahead, shit on me, I don’t mind, I’m the Cool Girl. Men actually think this girl exists. Maybe they’re fooled because so many women are willing to pretend to be this girl. For a long time Cool Girl offended me. I used to see men—friends, coworkers, strangers—giddy over these awful pretender women, and I’d want to sit these men down and calmly say: You are not dating a woman, you are dating a woman who has watched too many movies written by socially awkward men who’d like to believe that this kind of woman exists and might kiss them. I’d want to grab the poor guy by his lapels or messenger bag and say: The bitch doesn’t really love chili dogs that much—no one loves chili dogs that much! And the Cool Girls are even more pathetic: They’re not even pretending to be the woman they want to be, they’re pretending to be the woman a man wants them to be. Oh, and if you’re not a Cool Girl, I beg you not to believe that your man doesn’t want the Cool Girl. It may be a slightly different version—maybe he’s a vegetarian, so Cool Girl loves seitan and is great with dogs; or maybe he’s a hipster artist, so Cool Girl is a tattooed, bespectacled nerd who loves comics. There are variations to the window dressing, but believe me, he wants Cool Girl, who is basically the girl who likes every fucking thing he likes and doesn’t ever complain. (How do you know you’re not Cool Girl? Because he says things like: “I like strong women.” If he says that to you, he will at some point fuck someone else. Because “I like strong women” is code for “I hate strong women.”) I waited patiently—years—for the pendulum to swing the other way, for men to start reading Jane Austen, learn how to knit, pretend to love cosmos, organize scrapbook parties, and make out with each other while we leer. And then we’d say, Yeah, he’s a Cool Guy. But it never happened. Instead, women across the nation colluded in our degradation! Pretty soon Cool Girl became the standard girl. Men believed she existed—she wasn’t just a dreamgirl one in a million. Every girl was supposed to be this girl, and if you weren’t, then there was something wrong with you. But it’s tempting to be Cool Girl. For someone like me, who likes to win, it’s tempting to want to be the girl every guy wants. When I met Nick, I knew immediately that was what he wanted, and for him, I guess I was willing to try. I will accept my portion of blame. The thing is, I was crazy about him at first. I found him perversely exotic, a good ole Missouri boy. He was so damn nice to be around. He teased things out in me that I didn’t know existed: a lightness, a humor, an ease. It was as if he hollowed me out and filled me with feathers. He helped me be Cool

Dropping cluster bombs from the air is not only less repugnant: it is somehow deemed, by Western people at least, to be morally superior,’ says British psychologist Jacqueline Rose. 'Why dying with your victim* should be seen as a greater sin than saving yourself is unclear.'The colonial West had created a two-tier hierarchy that privileged itself at the expense of 'The Rest’. The Enlightenment had preached the equality of all human beings, yet Western policy in the developing world often adopted a double standard so that we failed to treat others as we would wish to be treated. Our focus on the nation seems to have made it hard for us to cultivate the global outlook that we need in our increasingly interrelated world. We must deplore any action that spills innocent blood or sows terror for its own sake. But we must also acknowledge and sincerely mourn the blood that we have shed in pursuit of national interests. Otherwise we can hardly defend ourselves against accusations of maintaining an 'arrogant silence’ in the face of others’ pain and of creating a world order in which some people’s lives are deemed more valuable than others

The “German problem” after 1970 became how to keep up with the Germans in terms of efficiency and productivity. One way, as above, was to serially devalue, but that was beginning to hurt. The other way was to tie your currency to the deutsche mark and thereby make your price and inflation rate the same as the Germans, which it turned out would also hurt, but in a different way. The problem with keeping up with the Germans is that German industrial exports have the lowest price elasticities in the world. In plain English, Germany makes really great stuff that everyone wants and will pay more for in comparison to all the alternatives. So when you tie your currency to the deutsche mark, you are making a one-way bet that your industry can be as competitive as the Germans in terms of quality and price. That would be difficult enough if the deutsche mark hadn’t been undervalued for most of the postwar period and both German labor costs and inflation rates were lower than average, but unfortunately for everyone else, they were. That gave the German economy the advantage in producing less-than-great stuff too, thereby undercutting competitors in products lower down, as well as higher up the value-added chain. Add to this contemporary German wages, which have seen real declines over the 2000s, and you have an economy that is extremely hard to keep up with. On the other side of this one-way bet were the financial markets. They looked at less dynamic economies, such as the United Kingdom and Italy, that were tying themselves to the deutsche mark and saw a way to make money. The only way to maintain a currency peg is to either defend it with foreign exchange reserves or deflate your wages and prices to accommodate it. To defend a peg you need lots of foreign currency so that when your currency loses value (as it will if you are trying to keep up with the Germans), you can sell your foreign currency reserves and buy back your own currency to maintain the desired rate. But if the markets can figure out how much foreign currency you have in reserve, they can bet against you, force a devaluation of your currency, and pocket the difference between the peg and the new market value in a short sale. George Soros (and a lot of other hedge funds) famously did this to the European Exchange Rate Mechanism in 1992, blowing the United Kingdom and Italy out of the system. Soros could do this because he knew that there was no way the United Kingdom or Italy could be as competitive as Germany without serious price deflation to increase cost competitiveness, and that there would be only so much deflation and unemployment these countries could take before they either ran out of foreign exchange reserves or lost the next election. Indeed, the European Exchange Rate Mechanism was sometimes referred to as the European “Eternal Recession Mechanism,” such was its deflationary impact. In short, attempts to maintain an anti-inflationary currency peg fail because they are not credible on the following point: you cannot run a gold standard (where the only way to adjust is through internal deflation) in a democracy.

I therefore,  m a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to  n walk in a manner worthy of  o the calling to which you have been called, 2with all  p humility and  q gentleness, with  r patience,  s bearing with one another in love, 3eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in  t the bond of peace. 4There is  u one body and  v one Spirit—just as you were called to the one  w hope that belongs to your call— 5 x one Lord,  y one faith,  z one baptism, 6 a one God and Father of all,  b who is over all and through all and in all.

Brutality is boring. Over and over, hell night after hell night, the same old dumb, tedious, bestial routine: making men crawl; making men groan, hanging men from the bars; shoving men; slapping men; freezing men in the showers; running men into walls; displaying shackled fathers to their sons and sons to their fathers. And if it turned out that you'd been given the wrong man, when you were done making his life unforgettably small and nasty, you allowed him to be your janitor and pick up the other prisoners' trash. There was always another prisoner, and another. Faceless men under hoods: you stripped them of their clothes, you stripped them of their pride. There wasn't much more you could take away from them, but people are inventive: one night some soldiers took a razor to one of Saddam's former general in Tier 1A and shaved off his eyebrows. He was an old man. "He looked like a grandfather and seemed like a nice guy," Sabrina Harman said, and she had tried to console him, telling him he looked younger and slipping him a few cigarettes. Then she had to make him stand at attention facing a boom box blasting the rapper Eminem, singing about raping his mother, or committing arson, or sneering at suicides, something like that⁠—these were some of the best-selling songs in American history. "Eminem is pretty much torture all in himself, and if one person's getting tortured, everybody is, because that music's horrible," Harman said. The general maintained his bearing against the onslaught of noise. "He looked so sad," Harman said. "I felt so bad for the guy." In fact, she said, "Out of everything I saw, that's the worst." This seems implausible, or at least illogical, until you think about it. The MI block was a place where a dead guy was just a dead guy. And a guy hanging from a window frame or a guy forced to drag his nakedness over a wet concrete floor⁠—well, how could you relate to that, except maybe to take a picture? But a man who kept his chin up while you blasted him with rape anthems, and old man shorn of his eyebrows whose very presence made you think of his grandkids--you could let that get to you, especially if you had to share in his punishment: "Slut, you think I won't choke no whore / til the vocal cords don't work in her throat no more!..." or whatever the song was.

Dichotomous or black-and-white thinking can be dangerous and is often based on the premise of achieving perfection. It gives you only two alternatives, one of which is usually neither attainable or maintainable. The other then tends to be the black hole in which you inevitably fall after failing to get to the first. You set your sights so high, constantly chasing an ideal that you can grasp only moments at a time. When the standard for being okay is this lofty, you’re destined to feel lousy most of the time. And we know that when you feel lousy, you’re bound to end up going off the deep end in your eating behavior.

I mean, if you accept the framework that says totalitarian command economies have the right to make these decisions, and if the wage levels and working conditions are fixed facts, then we have to make choices within those assumptions. Then you can make an argument that poor people here ought to lose their jobs to even poorer people somewhere else... because that increases the economic pie, and it's the usual story. Why make those assumptions? There are other ways of dealing with the problem. Take, for example rich people here. Take those like me who are in the top few percent of the income ladder. We could cut back our luxurious lifestyles, pay proper taxes, there are all sorts of things. I'm not even talking about Bill Gates, but people who are reasonably privileged. Instead of imposing the burden on poor people here and saying "well, you poor people have to give up your jobs because even poorer people need them over there," we could say "okay, we rich people will give up some small part of our ludicrous luxury and use it to raise living standards and working conditions elsewhere, and to let them have enough capital to develop their own economy, their own means." Then the issue will not arise. But it's much more convenient to say that poor people here ought to pay the burden under the framework of command economies—totalitarianism. But, if you think it through, it makes sense and almost every social issue you think about—real ones, live ones, ones right on the table—has these properties. We don't have to accept and shouldn't accept the framework of domination of thought and attitude that only allows certain choices to be made... and those choices almost invariably come down to how to put the burden on the poor. That's class warfare. Even by real nice people like us who think it's good to help poor workers, but within a framework of class warfare that maintains privilege and transfers the burden to the poor. It's a matter of raising consciousness among very decent people.

All this to say, ADHD isn’t your fault. You aren’t selfish, reckless, or irresponsible by nature. Most people seem to have a double standard for chemical imbalances in the brain, as opposed to elsewhere in the body. One would not — we hope! — tell a person with Type I Diabetes to try harder because everyone’s blood sugar gets out of whack sometimes. We’d expect this person to maintain their condition with insulin and a healthy diet so they could live a normal life. Why would we expect someone with a chemical imbalance in the brain to correct it by sheer force of will when we don’t expect them to do it with their pancreas? The sooner you accept your ADHD as a part of your unique biology, not as a personal failing, the sooner you can begin to build a better life for yourself

Now let’s turn to the other extreme, to the doves. The leading dove was undoubtedly George Kennan, who headed the State Department planning staff until 1950, when he was replaced by Nitze—Kennan’s office, incidentally, was responsible for the Gehlen network. Kennan was one of the most intelligent and lucid of US planners, and a major figure in shaping the postwar world. His writings are an extremely interesting illustration of the dovish position. One document to look at if you want to understand your country is Policy Planning Study 23, written by Kennan for the State Department planning staff in 1948. Here’s some of what it says: We have about 50% of the world’s wealth but only 6.3% of its population....In this situation, we cannot fail to be the object of envy and resentment. Our real task in the coming period is to devise a pattern of relationships which will permit us to maintain this position of disparity....To do so, we will have to dispense with all sentimentality and daydreaming; and our attention will have to be concentrated everywhere on our immediate national objectives....We should cease to talk about vague and...unreal objectives such as human rights, the raising of the living standards, and democratization. The day is not far off when we are going to have to deal in straight power concepts. The less we are then hampered by idealistic slogans, the better. PPS 23 was, of course, a top-secret document. To pacify the public, it was necessary to trumpet the “idealistic slogans” (as is still being done constantly), but here planners were talking to one another.

The 1.2 billion members of the church are expected to conduct themselves according to the morals foisted upon them by said church, but those in the church’s power structure do not hold themselves to the same standards. They don’t view themselves as beholden to the same morality as their parishioners, because they know what those parishioners don’t—that the morality they peddle is not about good or bad, it’s about maintaining power and control. So even the clergy that weren’t sexually preying on kids were defending those who did and working hard to see that predator priests were spared from the negative consequences of their insidious transgressions. The mantra of the powerful has always been: 'We are the powerful and we can do as we please. You are the subjects and you will do as you’re told'.

I do not believe that one can maintain a situation in which a man toils and works a whole year, only to get a ludicrous salary, and another just sits down in a leather seat and gets enormous sums for it. This is a condition unworthy of man. [-] After all, there are two worlds which confront each other. And they are right when they say: “We can never reconcile ourselves to the National Socialist world.” For how could a narrow-minded capitalist possibly declare his agreement with my principles? It would be easier for the devil to go to church and take holy water. [-] This is the first state in our German history which, as a matter of principle, eliminated all social prejudice in the assignment of social positions, and this not only in civilian life. I myself am the best proof of that. I am not even an advocate; just think of what this means! And still I am your Fuhrer! [-] What was it that I asked of the outside world Nothing but the right of Germans to unite, and second, that what was taken away from them be restored. I asked for nothing which might have implied a loss for another people. How often have I offered my hand to them Immediately after my rise to power. For what does armament mean? It gobbles up so much manpower. And especially I who regard work as the decisive factor, I had wished to employ German manpower for other plans. And, my Volksgenossen, I believe it became common knowledge that I have plans of some substance, beautiful and great plans for my Volk. I have the ambition to make the German Volk rich, the German lands beautiful. I wish the standard of living of the individual to increase. I wish us to develop the most beautiful and best culture. I wish theater to be an enjoyment affordable for the entire Volk and not only for the upper ten thousand as in England. Beyond this, I wish the entirety of German culture to benefit the Volk. These were enormous plans which we possessed, and for their realization I needed manpower. Armament just takes men away. I made proposals to restrict armament. But all they did was laugh at me. [-] For it was quite clear: what was I before the World War? An unknown, nameless man. What was I during the War? A small, common soldier. I bore no responsibility for the World War. But who are the folk who lead England once again today The very same people who were already agitating before the World War. It is the same Churchill, who was already the vilest warmonger in the World War, and the late Chamberlain who agitated just as much then. And the whole audience (Korona) that belongs there, and naturally that people which always believes that with the trumpets of Jericho it can destroy the peoples: these are the old specters which have arisen once more! Adolf Hitler – speech to the workers of a Berlin December 10, 1940

When Benjamin Bloom studied his 120 world-class concert pianists, sculptors, swimmers, tennis players, mathematicians, and research neurologists, he found something fascinating. For most of them, their first teachers were incredibly warm and accepting. Not that they set low standards. Not at all, but they created an atmosphere of trust, not judgment. It was, “I’m going to teach you,” not “I’m going to judge your talent.” As you look at what Collins and Esquith demanded of their students—all their students—it’s almost shocking. When Collins expanded her school to include young children, she required that every four-year-old who started in September be reading by Christmas. And they all were. The three- and four-year-olds used a vocabulary book titled Vocabulary for the High School Student. The seven-year-olds were reading The Wall Street Journal. For older children, a discussion of Plato’s Republic led to discussions of de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America, Orwell’s Animal Farm, Machiavelli, and the Chicago city council. Her reading list for the late-grade-school children included The Complete Plays of Anton Chekhov, Physics Through Experiment, and The Canterbury Tales. Oh, and always Shakespeare. Even the boys who picked their teeth with switchblades, she says, loved Shakespeare and always begged for more. Yet Collins maintained an extremely nurturing atmosphere. A very strict and disciplined one, but a loving one. Realizing that her students were coming from teachers who made a career of telling them what was wrong with them, she quickly made known her complete commitment to them as her students and as people. Esquith bemoans the lowering of standards. Recently, he tells us, his school celebrated reading scores that were twenty points below the national average. Why? Because they were a point or two higher than the year before. “Maybe it’s important to look for the good and be optimistic,” he says, “but delusion is not the answer. Those who celebrate failure will not be around to help today’s students celebrate their jobs flipping burgers.… Someone has to tell children if they are behind, and lay out a plan of attack to help them catch up.” All of his fifth graders master a reading list that includes Of Mice and Men, Native Son, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, The Joy Luck Club, The Diary of Anne Frank, To Kill a Mockingbird, and A Separate Peace. Every one of his sixth graders passes an algebra final that would reduce most eighth and ninth graders to tears. But again, all is achieved in an atmosphere of affection and deep personal commitment to every student. “Challenge and nurture” describes DeLay’s approach, too. One of her former students expresses it this way: “That is part of Miss DeLay’s genius—to put people in the frame of mind where they can do their best.… Very few teachers can actually get you to your ultimate potential. Miss DeLay has that gift. She challenges you at the same time that you feel you are being nurtured.

The movement actually managed to succeed in lobbying for the passage of involuntary sterilization laws in thirty American states. This meant that the state could neuter people who fell below a particular IQ without their having any say in the matter. That each state eventually repealed the laws is a testament to common sense and compassion. That the laws existed in the first place is a frightening indication of how dangerously limited any standardized test is in calculating intelligence and the capacity to contribute to society. IQ tests can even be a matter of life and death. A criminal who commits a capital offense is not subject to the death penalty if his IQ is below seventy. However, IQ scores regularly rise over the course of a generation (by as much as twenty-five points), causing the scale to be reset every fifteen to twenty years to maintain a mean score of one hundred. Therefore, someone who commits a capital offense may be more likely to be put to death at the beginning of a cycle than at the end. That’s giving a single test an awful lot of responsibility. People can also improve their scores through study and practice. I read a case recently about a death row inmate who’d at that point spent ten years in jail on a life sentence (he wasn’t the trigger man, but he’d been involved in a robbery where someone died). During his incarceration, he took a series of courses. When retested, his IQ had risen more than ten points—suddenly making him eligible for execution.

She reported that a member of Churchill’s inner circle, whom she did not identify, “has been to me and told me there is a danger of your being generally disliked by your colleagues & subordinates because of your rough sarcastic & overbearing manner.” She assured her husband that the source of this complaint was “a devoted friend,” with no ax to grind. Churchill’s private secretaries, she wrote, seemed to have resolved simply to take it and shrug it off. “Higher up, if an idea is suggested (say at a conference) you are supposed to be so contemptuous that presently no ideas, good or bad, will be forthcoming.” Hearing this shocked and hurt her, she said, “because in all these years I have been accustomed to all those who have worked with & under you, loving you.” Seeking to explain the degradation in Churchill’s behavior, the devoted friend had said, “No doubt it’s the strain.” But it was not just the friend’s observations that drove Clementine to write her letter. “My Darling Winston,” she began, “—I must confess that I have noticed a deterioration in your manner; & you are not so kind as you used to be.” She cautioned that in possessing the power to give orders and to “sack anyone & everyone,” he was obliged to maintain a high standard of behavior—to “combine urbanity, kindness and if possible Olympic calm.” She reminded him that in the past he had been fond of quoting a French maxim, “On ne règne sur les âmes que par le calme,” meaning, essentially, “One leads by calm.” She

I want to say something here, a lot of times, each of us may have been guilty of labeling someone materialistic because they have a high standard or expectation from those they want to relate with or deal with. In our minds, we are pissed off. How can they elevate the standards so high, so high that we are excluded, it must be selfish of them and in fact wicked. They are saying that we are not fit to be their friends, etc, etc. We spend so much energy trying to analyse and sometimes even dare to dictate to others what standards they should keep and maintain so we can fit in, I think with respect, it is a flawed way of thinking about the situation. It is a manner of thinking about the situation that may never solve of problems, our inadequacy. The government may set standards and regulations about how we ought t conduct our affairs in the public, but it will hardly, rarely and barely concern itself with the regulation of personal and private life, except those private actions that have or bring about public consequences. As such, each one of us has the power to make Rules and Regulations for the Admission of Persons into our lives, it is not in your capacity to cry when someone chooses to set his as high as the Eiffel tower Finally, instead of dying of envy, jealousy or resulting in character assassination, what you may do is spend time climbing the ladder of life, that you may become relevant to those you wish to dine and wine with. This is the hard part and most of us will rather squirm and cry-fowl. The rules of the game was set by nature, quitting, is a choice too.

At first glance, professionalism tries to convince you it’s a neutral word, merely meant to signify a collection of behaviors, clothing, and norms “appropriate” for the workplace. We just ask that everyone be professional, the cis white men will say, smiles on their faces, as if they’re not asking for much. We try to maintain a professional office environment. But never has a word in the English language been so loaded with racism, sexism, heteronormativity, or trans exclusion. Whenever someone is telling you to “be professional,” they’re really saying, “be more like me.” If you’re black, “being professional” can often mean speaking differently, avoiding black cultural references, or not wearing natural hair. If you’re not American, “being professional” can mean abandoning your cultural dress for Western business clothes. If you’re not Christian, “being professional” can mean potentially removing your hijab to fit in, sitting by while your officemates ignore your need for kosher or halal food, sucking up the fact that your office puts up a giant Christmas tree every year. If you’re low-income or working class, “being professional” can mean spending money you don’t have on work clothes—“dressing nicely” for a job that may not pay enough for you to really afford to do so. If you’re a woman, “being professional” can mean navigating a veritable minefield of double standards. Show some skin, but don’t be a slut. Wear heels, but not too high, and not too low, either. Wear form-fitting clothes, but not too form-fitting. We offer maternity leave, but don’t “interrupt your career” by taking it. And if you’re trans like me, “being professional” can mean putting your identity away unless it conforms to dominant gender norms.

Body of Christ EPHESIANS 4 I therefore,  ma prisoner for the Lord, urge you to  nwalk in a manner worthy of  othe calling to which you have been called, 2with all  phumility and  qgentleness, with  rpatience,  sbearing with one another in love, 3eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in  tthe bond of peace. 4There is  uone body and  vone Spirit—just as you were called to the one  whope that belongs to your call— 5 xone Lord,  yone faith,  zone baptism, 6 aone God and Father of all,  bwho is over all and through all and in all. 7But  cgrace was given  dto each one of us  eaccording to the measure of Christ’s gift. 8Therefore it says, f“When he ascended on high  ghe led a host of captives, and he gave gifts to men.” [1] 9( hIn saying, “He ascended,” what does it mean but that he had also descended into  ithe lower regions, the earth? [2] 10He who descended is the one who also  jascended  kfar above all the heavens, that he might  lfill all things.) 11And  mhe gave the  napostles, the prophets, the  oevangelists, the  pshepherds [3] and teachers, [4] 12 qto equip the saints for the work of ministry, for  rbuilding up  sthe body of Christ, 13until we all attain to  tthe unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God,  uto mature manhood, [5] to the measure of the stature of  vthe fullness of Christ, 14so that we may no longer be children,  wtossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in  xdeceitful schemes. 15Rather,  yspeaking the truth in love, we are to  zgrow up in every way into him who is  athe head, into Christ, 16 bfrom whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped,  cwhen each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.

This once-proud country of ours is falling Into the hands of the wrong people,' said Jones. He nodded, and so did Father Keeley and the Black Fuehrer. 'And, before it gets back on the right track,' said Jones, 'some heads are going to roll.' I have never seen a more sublime demonstration of the totalitarian mind, a mind which might be likened unto a system of gears whose teeth have been filed off at random. Such a snaggle-toothed thought machine, driven by a standard or even a substandard libido, whirls with the jerky, noisy, gaudy pointlessness of a cuckoo clock in Hell. The boss G-man concluded wrongly that there were no teeth on the gears in the mind of Jones. 'You're completely crazy,' he said. Jones wasn't completely crazy. The dismaying thing about the classic totalitarian mind is that any given gear, though mutilated, will have at its circumference unbroken sequences of teeth that are immaculately maintained, that are exquisitely machined. Hence the cuckoo clock in Hell — keeping perfect time for eight minutes and thirty-three seconds, jumping ahead fourteen minutes, keeping perfect time for six seconds, jumping ahead two seconds, keeping perfect time for two hours and one second, then jumping ahead a year. The missing teeth, of course, are simple, obvious truths, truths available and comprehensible even to ten-year-olds, in most cases. The willful filing off of gear teeth, the willful doing without certain obvious pieces of information — That was how a household as contradictory as one composed of Jones, Father Keeley, Vice-Bundesfuebrer Krapptauer, and the Black Fuehrer could exist in relative harmony — That was how my father-in-law could contain in one mind an indifference toward slave women and love for a blue vase — That was how Rudolf Hoess, Commandant of Auschwitz, could alternate over the loudspeakers of Auschwitz great music and calls for corpse-carriers — That was how Nazi Germany could sense no important differences between civilization and hydrophobia —

The educational goal of self-esteem seems to habituate young people to work that lacks objective standards and revolves instead around group dynamics. When self-esteem is artificially generated, it becomes more easily manipulable, a product of social technique rather than a secure possession of one’s own based on accomplishments. Psychologists find a positive correlation between repeated praise and “shorter task persistence, more eye-checking with the teacher, and inflected speech such that answers have the intonation of questions.” 36 The more children are praised, the more they have a stake in maintaining the resulting image they have of themselves; children who are praised for being smart choose the easier alternative when given a new task. 37 They become risk-averse and dependent on others. The credential loving of college students is a natural response to such an education, and prepares them well for the absence of objective standards in the job markets they will enter; the validity of your self-assessment is known to you by the fact it has been dispensed by gatekeeping institutions. Prestigious fellowships, internships, and degrees become the standard of self-esteem. This is hardly an education for independence, intellectual adventurousness, or strong character. “If you don’t vent the drain pipe like this, sewage gases will seep up through the water in the toilet, and the house will stink of shit.” In the trades, a master offers his apprentice good reasons for acting in one way rather than another, the better to realize ends the goodness of which is readily apparent. The master has no need for a psychology of persuasion that will make the apprentice compliant to whatever purposes the master might dream up; those purposes are given and determinate. He does the same work as the apprentice, only better. He is able to explain what he does to the apprentice, because there are rational principles that govern it. Or he may explain little, and the learning proceeds by example and imitation. For the apprentice there is a progressive revelation of the reasonableness of the master’s actions. He may not know why things have to be done a certain way at first, and have to take it on faith, but the rationale becomes apparent as he gains experience. Teamwork doesn’t have this progressive character. It depends on group dynamics, which are inherently unstable and subject to manipulation. On a crew,

This once-proud country of ours is falling into the hands of the wrong people,” said Jones. He nodded, and so did Father Keeley and the Black Fuehrer. “And, before it gets back on the right track,” said Jones, “some heads are going to roll.” I have never seen a more sublime demonstration of the totalitarian mind, a mind which might be likened unto a system of gears whose teeth have been filed off at random. Such a snaggle-toothed thought machine, driven by a standard or even a substandard libido, whirls with the jerky, noisy, gaudy pointlessness of a cuckoo clock in Hell. The boss G-man concluded wrongly that there were no teeth on the gears in the mind of Jones. “You’re completely crazy,” he said. Jones wasn’t completely crazy. The dismaying thing about the classic totalitarian mind is that any given gear, though mutilated, will have at its circumference unbroken sequences of teeth that are immaculately maintained, that are exquisitely machined. Hence the cuckoo clock in Hell—keeping perfect time for eight minutes and thirty-three seconds, jumping ahead fourteen minutes, keeping perfect time for six seconds, jumping ahead two seconds, keeping perfect time for two hours and one second, then jumping ahead a year. The missing teeth, of course, are simple, obvious truths, truths available and comprehensible even to ten-year-olds, in most cases. The willful filing off of gear teeth, the willful doing without certain obvious pieces of information— That was how a household as contradictory as one composed of Jones, Father Keeley, Vice-Bundesfuehrer Krapptauer, and the Black Fuehrer could exist in relative harmony— That was how my father-in-law could contain in one mind an indifference toward slave women and love for a blue vase— That was how Rudolf Hoess, Commandant of Auschwitz, could alternate over the loudspeakers of Auschwitz great music and calls for corpse-carriers— That was how Nazi Germany could sense no important differences between civilization and hydrophobia— That is the closest I can come to explaining the legions, the nations of lunatics I’ve seen in my time. And for me to attempt such a mechanical explanation is perhaps a reflection of the father whose son I was. Am. When I pause to think about it, which is rarely, I am, after all, the son of an engineer. Since there is no one else to praise me, I will praise myself—will say that I have never tampered with a single tooth in my thought machine, such as it is. There are teeth missing, God knows—some I was born without, teeth that will never grow. And other teeth have been stripped by the clutchless shifts of history— But never have I willfully destroyed a tooth on a gear of my thinking machine. Never have I said to myself, “This fact I can do without.” Howard W. Campbell, Jr., praises himself. There’s life in the old boy yet! And, where there’s life— There is life.

Throughout the history of the church, Christians have tended to elevate the importance of one over the other. For the first 1,500 years of the church, singleness was considered the preferred state and the best way to serve Christ. Singles sat at the front of the church. Marrieds were sent to the back.4 Things changed after the Reformation in 1517, when single people were sent to the back and marrieds moved to the front — at least among Protestants.5 Scripture, however, refers to both statuses as weighty, meaningful vocations. We’ll spend more time on each later in the chapter, but here is a brief overview. Marrieds. This refers to a man and woman who form a one-flesh union through a covenantal vow — to God, to one another, and to the larger community — to permanently, freely, faithfully, and fruitfully love one another. Adam and Eve provide the clearest biblical model for this. As a one-flesh couple, they were called by God to take initiative to “be fruitful . . . fill the earth and subdue it” (Genesis 1:28). Singles. Scripture teaches that human beings are created for intimacy and connection with God, themselves, and one another. Marriage is one framework in which we work this out; singleness is another. While singleness may be voluntarily chosen or involuntarily imposed, temporary or long-term, a sudden event or a gradual unfolding, Christian singleness can be understood within two distinct callings: • Vowed celibates. These are individuals who make lifelong vows to remain single and maintain lifelong sexual abstinence as a means of living out their commitment to Christ. They do this freely in response to a God-given gift of grace (Matthew 19:12). Today, we are perhaps most familiar with vowed celibates as nuns and priests in the Roman Catholic or Orthodox Church. These celibates vow to forgo earthly marriage in order to participate more fully in the heavenly reality that is eternal union with Christ.6 • Dedicated celibates. These are singles who have not necessarily made a lifelong vow to remain single, but who choose to remain sexually abstinent for as long as they are single. Their commitment to celibacy is an expression of their commitment to Christ. Many desire to marry or are open to the possibility. They may have not yet met the right person or are postponing marriage to pursue a career or additional education. They may be single because of divorce or the death of a spouse. The apostle Paul acknowledges such dedicated celibates in his first letter to the church at Corinth (1 Corinthians 7). Understanding singleness and marriage as callings or vocations must inform our self-understanding and the outworking of our leadership. Our whole life as a leader is to bear witness to God’s love for the world. But we do so in different ways as marrieds or singles. Married couples bear witness to the depth of Christ’s love. Their vows focus and limit them to loving one person exclusively, permanently, and intimately. Singles — vowed or dedicated — bear witness to the breadth of Christ’s love. Because they are not limited by a vow to one person, they have more freedom and time to express the love of Christ to a broad range of people. Both marrieds and singles point to and reveal Christ’s love, but in different ways. Both need to learn from one another about these different aspects of Christ’s love. This may be a radically new concept for you, but stay with me. God intends this rich theological vision to inform our leadership in ways few of us may have considered. Before exploring the connections between leadership and marriage or singleness, it’s important to understand the way marriage and singleness are commonly understood in standard practice among leaders today.

Mr. Harappa,' the Angrez television interviewer is asking, 'many commentators would say, there is a widely-held view, some sectors of opinion maintain, your opponents allege, what would you say to the suggestion, that by some standards, from certain points of view, in a way, your style of government might be described as being perhaps, to some extent ... (...)

1. Winning too much: The need to win at all costs and in all situations—when it matters, when it doesn’t, and when it’s totally beside the point. 2. Adding too much value: The overwhelming desire to add our two cents to every discussion. 3. Passing judgment: The need to rate others and impose our standards on them. 4. Making destructive comments: The needless sarcasms and cutting remarks that we think make us sound sharp and witty. 5. Starting with “No,” “But,” or “However”: The overuse of these negative qualifiers which secretly say to everyone, “I’m right. You’re wrong.” 6. Telling the world how smart we are: The need to show people we’re smarter than they think we are. 7. Speaking when angry: Using emotional volatility as a management tool. 8. Negativity, or “Let me explain why that won’t work”: The need to share our negative thoughts even when we weren’t asked. 9. Withholding information: The refusal to share information in order to maintain an advantage over others. 10. Failing to give proper recognition: The inability to praise and reward. 11. Claiming credit that we don’t deserve: The most annoying way to overestimate our contribution to any success. 12. Making excuses: The need to reposition our annoying behavior as a permanent fixture so people excuse us for it. 13. Clinging to the past: The need to deflect blame away from ourselves and onto events and people from our past; a subset of blaming everyone else. 14. Playing favorites: Failing to see that we are treating someone unfairly. 15. Refusing to express regret: The inability to take responsibility for our actions, admit we’re wrong, or recognize how our actions affect others. 16. Not listening: The most passive-aggressive form of disrespect for colleagues. 17. Failing to express gratitude: The most basic form of bad manners. 18. Punishing the messenger: The misguided need to attack the innocent who are usually only trying to help us. 19. Passing the buck: The need to blame everyone but ourselves. 20. An excessive need to be “me”: Exalting our faults as virtues simply because they’re who we are.

The challenge of leveraging standards is in how they are used. Standards can be used in a transactional manner that maintains the status quo of student experience and achievement in schools, or they can be leveraged in a manner that transforms the roles of teachers and learners.

When you have the money- and "you" are a big, economically and culturally vital nation- you get more than just a higher standard of living for your citizens. You get power and influence, and a much-enhanced ability to act out. When the money drains out, you can maintain the edge in living standards of your citizens for a considerable time (as long as others are willing to hold your growing debt and pile interest payments on top). But you lose power, especially the power to ignore others, quite quickly, though hopefully, in quiet, nonconfrontational ways.And you lose influence- the ability to have your wishes, ideas, and folkways willingly accepted, eagerly copied, and absorbed into daily life by others.

March 17 The Worker’s Ruling Passion Wherefore we labour, that . . . we may be accepted of Him. 2 Corinthians 5:9 “Wherefore we labour. . . .” It is arduous work to keep the master ambition in front. It means holding one’s self to the high ideal year in and year out, not being ambitious to win souls or to establish churches or to have revivals, but being ambitious only to be “accepted of Him.” It is not lack of spiritual experience that leads to failure, but lack of labouring to keep the ideal right. Once a week at least take stock before God, and see whether you are keeping your life up to the standard He wishes. Paul is like a musician who does not heed the approval of the audience if he can catch the look of approval from his Master. Any ambition which is in the tiniest degree away from this central one of being “approved unto God” may end in our being castaways. Learn to discern where the ambition leads, and you will see why it is so necessary to live facing the Lord Jesus Christ. Paul says—Lest my body should make me take another line, I am constantly watching so that I may bring it into subjection and keep it under (see 1 Corinthians 9:27). I have to learn to relate everything to the master ambition, and to maintain it without any cessation. My worth to God in public is what I am in private. Is my master ambition to please Him and be acceptable to Him, or is it something less, no matter how noble?

Aspire higher to attain excellence in whatever you do. But be careful when you reach the peak, where the only way is the way downwards. Maintain your standard!

To Style: Always use a vent brush or pick for curly styles and a wire brush for straight styles. Avoid using standard hair brushes, as these brushes can create excessive tension, over-stretching the hair with abrasive strokes that may damage the hair. Think in reverse when brushing your wig. Start from the ends and work gradually toward the ends and work gradually toward the root area of the hairpiece. When using a wire pick work the curls from ends to root area as well. Styling is greatly enhanced between washings with Jacquelyn's Liquid Mousse. For curly or wavy styles, it is considered an essential styling tool. Just mousse, hand scrunch and pick the style into curls. On straight styles, mousse and brush lightly. Jacquelyn's Conditioners also are recommended to maintain your hairwear. To Restyle: To spot style, add mousse or gel and use electric rollers on a medium setting. Only hair directly in contact with rollers will be spot set. Remember never to use a curling iron with your wig. To completely restyle, we recommend taking your wig to a professional stylist. If you decide to restyle at home, going from curly to straight or vice versa, please read these guidelines. 1. Place wig securely on wig stand. Use electric rollers, regular rollers or pin curls. End papers are recommended with rollers or pin curls. 2. Removes tangles with a wig brush. 3. Using the same directional styling as on a human head of hair, pick up hair and wind on roller or curl, smoothing ends as you go. 4. Use a medium setting with electric rollers or hair dryer. With a hair blower, be sure to circulate medium heat evenly and continously, keeping about 12" from wig. 5. Allow hair to cool before removing rollers or pincurls. 6. Lightly backbrush or backcomb and tease up on areas desired. Brush style in place, using Jacquelyn's Liquid Mousse. Jacquelyn Wigs delivers the most natural and beautiful human hair wigs in the world. For over 40 years, we have consistently provided the highest quality of wigs in the industry at amazingly reasonable prices. To have a free consultation please call us or visit our website.

factory automation services Our company majorly dedicated to serving clients having biodiesel plants. Our company has more than 60 engineers who are highly experienced and proficient. Moreover, all our professionals are expertise in different niche such as electrical, process, application, project, mechanical, chemical, civil, structural and controls too. Our professionals do the best possible job to ensure a favorable outcome. For factory automation services, we build and maintain the biodiesel plant. In this context, our experts follow the biodiesel plant construction standards that include plant size determination, selecting an appropriate site, permitting, biodiesel plant engineering, determining your equipment needs, assistance which plant installation, quality and BQ-9000 considerations, plant start up and training, plant management and planning for the future.

Optimizing Performance Toward A Successful Fitness Guide Website Begins Now Fitness guide websites should be maintained carefully, and should be updated frequently. Stay open to the possibility of changing your approach to updating your exercise tips and information website. It can be quite easy to maintain your website if you check out our guidelines below. You should always aim to make the best exercise tips and information website that's possible even though perfection doesn't exist. Improvements could always be made, so look at your online site objectively from every angle to see where you can implement positive changes. Keep in mind, having a website up and running demands your time and attention. A site is a digital piece of art, so nurture your online site and show it the care and attention it deserves. Many company owners are not professional exercise tips and information website designers; if you are such an owner, don't hesitate to work with an expert to build a website for you. Express your vision clearly and make sure they've a detailed plan of what you want from the site. If you present them with this plan, they're going to have no reason to not give you the results you want. Hit the web and check out the newest sites that the designer has created. Make sure to align digital marketing campaigns with sales at your physical location to increase sales. When companies have both physical locations and an online store, customers have a tendency to shop with them more often. Streamline your store's branding by displaying your logo on all business signage, publicity, promotional ads, and your online presence, including social media. Customers prefer to do business with places where they know there's a face behind the exercise tips and information website. For your exercise tips and information website to be successful, you need to continuously manage it well and make certain that it is aesthetically pleasing. Weird fonts and color schemes as well as too many visuals are things that website designers want you to avoid. Meticulous proofreading is essential; be sure to catch every spelling and grammar mistake. The reputation of the site can be ruined if there are errors in spelling or grammar. The content displayed on your exercise tips and information website should correlate closely with your selected keywords. If you draw traffic to your site with keywords that do not truly represent your company's mission, products and services, your regular visitors rarely return. Your reputation is at stake with these decisions, so make sure what you offer and your keywords are closely connected. In order to be certain that you are using the best keywords for your site, have a professional website designer review your site and offer feedback. If your exercise tips and information website makes registration mandatory, it ought to be simple and hassle free. Requiring registration in order to make a purchase has become a standard business practice. Continuously offer the choice of enlistment, despite the fact that a few people may decide to not to do as such. Offer special perks to users who register, like releasing additional details about their orders. Farkas Health and Fitness For more Information, Visit us at: Health And Fitness Address: 3227 Coventry Court Gulfport, MS 39501 Phone: 228-242-9548

When it comes to investing, it’s critical not to “force it.” Markets will cycle. There will be times when you too feel “out of step” with the market, just as Buffett did in the late 1960s. You’ll find that during the late bull market mania of the Go-Go years, his standards remained firmly set, while the pressure to perform caused the standards of many of even the best around him to crumble. It’s hard not to cave your principles in at the top of the cycle when your value approach has apparently stopped working and everyone around you seems to be making money easily (that’s why so many people do it). However, it’s more often than not a “buy high, sell low” strategy. Buffett set his plan, established his standards, and then entered the fray, maintaining the courage of his convictions, come what may.

Life is a theatrical folly, a play of the great players and big dreamers set out on the biggest stage. Where improvisation dictates the mood. The contest for the lead is unabating when the cast is made up of those aiming high. Fortunately we don't all want the lead, for the dream of some is not to be the hero and face the challenges that accompany it, to maintain their prowess every day, to be ready to see off every pretender to their throne. We don't all want to be revolutionaries, we don't all want to be alone in the spotlight and have the eyes of the critical audience on us for a single minute, not feeling owed their fifteen minutes of fame. Some don't want to take to that vast stage alone and perform a monologue of Shakespearean proportions. Some recognise maybe that within leading roles, the most memorable characters, there is vulnerability and often the part is a tragic one. It is a stronger mind that recognises their part in the play of life, someone who knows that the lead part is not for them. Someone who supports the lead, wishes to journey with them and knows they will need a supporting cast. Someone who aims for contentment and lives a humble yet happy existence. The risk is for those who sets their standards too high and will never reach them. The reality is, we won't all achieve the same greatness in our lives, because our view of greatness differs between us. So on a personal level you must decide what role you wish to have, make it your own. Be the best you can by your standards, not anyone else's.

When they sin against You (for there is no man who does not sin) and You are angry with them and deliver them to an enemy, so that athey take them away captive to the land of the enemy, far off or near; 47if they btake thought in the land where they have been taken captive, and repent and make supplication to You in the land of those who have taken them captive, saying, ‘We have sinned and have committed iniquity, we have acted wickedly’; 48if they return to You with all their heart and with all their soul in the land of their enemies who have taken them captive, and pray to You toward their land which You have given to their fathers, the city which You have chosen, and the house which I have built for Your name; 49then hear their prayer and their supplication in heaven Your dwelling place, and maintain their ccause, 50and forgive Your people who have sinned against You and all their transgressions which they have transgressed against You, and make them objects of compassion before those who have taken them captive, that they may have compassion on them 51(for they are Your people and Your inheritance which You have brought forth from Egypt, from the midst of the iron furnace), 52that Your eyes may be open to the supplication of Your servant and to the

How do you report on a president who will look you in the eye and tell you something he knows is not true? How do you maintain standards of fairness and objectivity when reporting on somebody who has branded you a traitor to your own country?

Higher standards are hard to maintain. It requires the discipline to constantly talk about and remind everyone WHY the organization exists in the first place. It requires that everyone in the organization be held accountable to HOW you do things—to your values and guiding principles.

It is our constant endeavor to stand out as providers of unbiased health care and advice for you and your family’s clinical and cosmetic dermatology related needs. We have worked hard to acquire and periodically update the clinical skills that are essential to effectively prevent, diagnose, and treat all skin and hair-related ailments like acne scars and hair loss. The staff at the Garekar clinic has been handpicked to aid in the smooth deliverance of the therapies and also to provide the patients with a warm and courteous atmosphere at the clinic. Right from the time of inception, our skin clinic in Gurgaon has been equipped with only the state of the art technology like the ALMA Soprano PRO laser machine. This holds true to our notion that the skin clinic would adhere to strict quality guidelines from day one and no compromises would be made in inpatient care. Inception and Core Beliefs The initial concept of Garekars M.D. Dermatology Clinic evolved with our intention to deliver an outstanding experience to the people walking into a dermatology clinic. An experience that is the precise mix of clinical expertise and high service quality provided in a serene ambiance with the highest standards of hygiene. The treatment plans at the skin clinic are comprised of evidence-based and research-backed products and procedures that aid in regaining and maintaining healthy skin. Dermatologists and skin specialists in Gurgaon Dr. Siddharth Garekar & Dr. Gurveen Waraich Garekar are dermatologists in Gurgaon with 11+ years of experience in clinical and cosmetic treatments.

To Never Overpay . . . •​Develop a standardized valuation model of your own. •​Use your own estimates of sales and margins. •​Factor in anticipated cost savings, but not sales synergies. •​Value acquisitions conservatively and walk away if the deal becomes too rich. •​Don’t let the dealmakers negotiate the terms. •​Exercise final oversight, exploring the downsides and scuttling the deal if you risk overpaying. •​Maintain a great pipeline of potential deals so that no single deal seems like a must-have.

If you want your fridge freezer and your car, a nice house, and asphalt on the roads, and a health service, then thank the weapons business. Thank the war economy that drives us to this and thank [a major corporation]. [War] is good, good for England, and especially good for the economy. You deride the weapons business, but without it we would be a 10th rate country struggling to maintain a standard of living anywhere anywhere near that of our european neighbors.

Campaigns A “humble campaign” is very similar to Sean and Alan’s approach: launch a small campaign as your first project to learn the ropes, then launch a more ambitious project later. Humble campaigns aren’t meant to raise $100,000+ from thousands of backers, though. They have humble ambitions. Not only is this good for running the campaign itself, but it also gives you the opportunity to learn how to create and ship something without the pressure of thousands of backers. The other benefit of a humble campaign is that it’s not as all consuming as a big, complex project. You might actually get to sleep and eat on a regular schedule during a humble campaign. A prime example of a humble campaign is Michael Iachini’s light card game, Otters. In a postmortem blog post6 following his successful campaign ($5,321 raised from 246 backers), Michael outlined the five core elements of a humble campaign: • Low funding goal Keep the product simple and find a way to produce it in small print runs. • Paid graphic design Just because a campaign is humble doesn’t mean it shouldn’t look polished and professional. • Creative Commons art The cards in Otters feature photos of actual otters downloaded from Google Images using a filter for images that are available for reuse (even for commercial purposes, pending credit to the photographers). • Efficient marketing Instead of spending every waking hour on social media, Michael targeted specific reviewers and offered them prototype copies of Otters before the campaign. All he had to do during the campaign was share the reviews when they went live. • Limited expandability Michael offered exactly two stretch goals (compared with dozens for many other projects) and one add-on. In doing so, he intentionally limited the growth potential for the project. You might read this and wonder why you would want to run a humble campaign for $12K or $5K when you create something that could raise $100K. Aside from the standard cautionary tales about letting a project spiral out of control, maintaining a manageable project is like having a summer internship before jumping into a career at an unknown organization. It gives you the chance to poke around, experience the pros and cons firsthand, and make a few mistakes without jeopardizing your entire future.

A platform is a raised, level surface on which people or things can stand. A platform business works in just that way: it allows users—producers and consumers of goods, services, and content— to create, communicate, and consume value through the platform. Amazon, Apple’s App Store, eBay, Airbnb, Facebook, LinkedIn, Pay- Pal, YouTube, Uber, Wikipedia, Instagram, etsy, Twitter, Snapchat, Hotel Tonight, Salesforce, Kickstarter, and Alibaba are all platform businesses. While these businesses have done many impressive things, the most relevant to us is that they have created an oppor- tunity for anyone, even those with limited means, to share their thoughts, ideas, creativity, and creations with millions of people at a low cost. Today, if you create a product or have an idea, you can sell that product or share that idea with a substantial audience quickly and cost-effectively through these platforms. Not only that, but the platforms arguably give more power to individuals than corporations since they’re so efficient at identifying ulterior motives or lack of authenticity. The communities on these platforms, many of whom are millennials, know when they’re being sold to rather than shared with, and quickly eliminate those users from their con- sciousness (a/k/a their social media feeds). Now, smaller organizations and less prosperous individuals are able to sell to or share their products, services, or content with more targeted demographics of people. That’s exactly what the modern consumer desires: a more personalized, connected experience. For example, a Brooklyn handbag designer can sell her handbags to a select group of customers through one of the multitude of fashion or shopping platforms and create an ongoing dialogue with her audience through a communication platform such as Instagram. Or an independent filmmaker from Los Angeles can create a short film using a GoPro and the editing software on their Mac and then instantly share it with countless people through one of a dozen video platforms and get direct feedback. Or an author can write a book and sell it directly from his or her website and social channels to anyone who’s excited about it. The reaction to standardization and globalization has been enabled by these platforms. Customers can get what they want, from whomever they want, whenever they want it. It’s a revised and personalized version of globalization that allows us to maintain and enhance the cultural connections that create the meaning we crave in our lives.

It is illegal to portal anyone while they are under duress,I could lose my license if I were to do so." "You're going to lose a lot more than that if you don't tell me where my twin went," I said in a low, mean voice. "Mayling, please. I must insist that you allow me to be the bad cop," Gabriel said as I slid the dagger at my ankle out of its sheath. "I have never subscribed to the sexist belief that women have to be good cop," I said, twirling the dagger around one finger. "Nonetheless, you are far more suited to the good cop role," Gabriel insisted. "I'm going to have to go against popular opinion and side with Mei Ling on this," Savian said, watching us with a delighted twinkle in his eye. "She looks like she knows how to use that blade. What is that, a stiletto?" "Sicilian castrating knife," I said with a smile at the portal man. "She wins," Savian told Gabriel. "Er..." Jarilith said, his expression starting to slide into worry. "I am a wyvern! I can do far more to this man than merely remove his genitalia," Gabriel answered in an outraged tone, a little tendril of smoke emerging from between his lips as he spoke. "Eh..." Jarilith said, taking a step backward. "Hmm. He's a weaver," Savian said thoughtfully as he examined the portalist. "Those are immortal, aren't they? So he could survive a castration, but the question is would a dragon barbeque be enough to finish him off?" "Absolutely," Gabriel said. He smiled. It wasn't a nice smile. "Threatening a weaver is strictly prohibited by law," Jarilith said indignantly, but the fight had gone out of him. His gaze was flickering back and forth from Gabriel to Savian to the dagger I held casually. "I could have the watch on you for what you're saying!" "Oh, please," I said with a dramatic roll of my eyes. "Just about every thief taker in this hemisphere is after me. I've already been sentenced to banishment to the Akasha. You think one little murder is going to make that any worse? Not likely." Jarilith's eyes widened. "It's true," Savian said. "The price on her head has already gone over six figures." The color washed out of the portalist's face. "Erm..." "Mate," Gabriel said sternly. "I must insist that you refrain from slicing and dicing this man." Jarilith nodded quickly. "Listen to the dragon." "It is my place to destroy those who stand in your way," Gabriel continued, the pupils in his eyes narrowing as he turned to the now hastily backing away Jarilith. "Let's not lose our heads, here," the latter said in a rush. "I don't think it's your head the lady has in mind," Savian said as he looked pointedly at the portalist's crotch. Jarilith's hands hovered protectively over his fly. "Such an atrocity would constitute torture. You wouldn't do that to an innocent man, would you?" "What makes you think I'd stop at the castration?" I twirled the knife around my fingers again. "This little jobby fillets, as well." "She went to Paris," Jarilith said quickly as he dashed for a door to a back room. "Your portal is ready in room number three. Have a pleasant journey..." His voice trailed off as he bolted. I turned a frown on Gabriel. "You really wouldn't have let me be bad cop? I'm very good at it, as you can see." "I'm sorry," he said, his dimples belying the grave look he was trying to maintain.."Wyverns have some standards to maintain with their mates, and one of them is always being the bad cop.Although I do admit that you have a particularly effective manner. Would you really have castrated him to get the information about your twin?" "Would you really have burnt him to acrisp for not answering?" "Such a bloodthirsty little bird," he said fondly, giving my butt a little pinch. Savian stood still for a moment, giving us an odddisbelieving look before shaking his head and following. "You two are the strangest couple I've ever met. And I have to tell you-I've met some real weirdos

Finally, every society develops a system of aesthetic standards that get manifested in everything from decorative art, music, and dance to the architecture and planning of buildings and communities. There are many different ways we could examine artistic systems. One way of thinking about it is to observe the degree to which a society's aesthetics reflect clear lines and solid boundaries versus fluid ones. Many Western cultures favor clean, tight boundaries whereas many Eastern cultures prefer more fluid, indiscriminate lines. In most Western homes, kitchen drawers are organized so that forks are with forks and knives are with knives. The walls of a room are usually uniform in color, and when a creative shift in color does occur, it usually happens at a corner or along a straight line midway down the wall. Pictures are framed with straight edges, molding covers up seams in the wall, and lawns are edged to form a clear line between the sidewalk and the lawn. Why? Because we view life in terms of classifications, categories, and taxonomies. And cleanliness itself is largely defined by the degree of order that exists. It has little to do with sanitation and far more to do with whether things appear to be in their proper place. Maintaining boundaries is essential in the Western world; otherwise categories begin to disintegrate and chaos sets in.13 Most Americans want dandelion-free lawns and roads with clear lanes prescribing where to drive and where not to drive. Men wear ties to cover the adjoining fabric on the shirts that they put on before going to the symphony, where they listen to classical music based on a scale with seven notes and five half steps. Each note has a fixed pitch, defined in terms of the lengths of the sound waves it produces.14 A good performance occurs when the musicians hit the notes precisely. In contrast, many Eastern cultures have little concern in everyday life for sharp boundaries and uniform categories. Different colors of paint may be used at various places on the same wall. And the paint may well “spill” over onto the window glass and ceiling. Meals are a fascinating array of ingredients where food is best enjoyed when mixed together on your plate. Roads and driving patterns are flexible. The lanes ebb and flow as needed depending on the volume of traffic. In a place like Cambodia or Nigeria, the road space is available for whichever direction a vehicle needs it most, whatever the time of day. And people often meander along the road in their vehicles the same way they walk along a path. There are many other ways aesthetics between one place and another could be contrasted. But the important point is some basic understanding of how cultures differ within the realm of aesthetics. Soak in the local art of a place and chalk it up to informing your strategy for international business.

Thirteen Recurrent Domains of Human Concerns: Possible Breakdowns 1. BODY: health, sickness, injury, availability and unavailability for meetings and appointments. 2. PLAY or AESTHETICS: entertainment, recreation, art, and appreciation of art. 3. SOCIABILITY: opening new conversations, making new friends, maintaining friendships, breaking friendships, trusting what others say, establishing trust for yourself. 4. FAMILY: having children, education of children, marriage. 5. WORK: completing actions you have committed to take, doing your job. 6. EDUCATION: gaining competence, skill in some area. 7. CAREER: choosing a direction to take in life, choosing a career or profession to prepare for and follow. 8. MONEY or PRUDENCE: having sufficient money to support yourself, your salary, reputation among others you deal with. 9. MEMBERSHIP: participation in club, professional, organizational, or government institutions; gaining membership in societies, clubs, or other organizations; becoming a citizen. 10. WORLD: politics, the environment, other countries or cultures. 11. DIGNITY: self-respect, self-esteem, lack of self-esteem, conflicts between your standards of action and your actions. 12. SITUATION: disposition, temperament, outlook, emotions, judgments about “how things are going.” 13. SPIRITUALITY: philosophy, poetry, religion, humor (laughing about our nonacceptance of the facticity of life, not being burdened by it).

November 29 Lay down for yourself, at the outset, a certain stamp and type of character for yourself which you are to maintain whether you are by yourself or are meeting with people. Epictetus You may be thinking that it must be exhausting having to make all these decisions every day concerning what is right and what is wrong, as you walk the path of the warrior. But that is really not the way it is. The warrior does not have to mentally debate every issue that comes along to decide which action is right or wrong. The issue of how the warrior will live has already been decided. He has already set the standards that he will live by, and he knows what he stands for and what he will not stand for. These decisions have already been made. What the warriormust do on a daily basis isactually liveby the standards that he has set for himself. He knows what is right and what is wrong, and he knows that it is his duty to maintain his character and to have the courage to do what is right. His code is not for show. He doesn’t use it to impress people. It is his way of life. It is who he is. The warrior knows all of this. All that is left for him to do is to put all these things into action. Whether he is alone or with others, he must live up to his standards. He has determined the type of character that he wants for himself, and he knows in order to develop and maintain that character, he must make it a vital part of who he is, whether alone or with other people. Make a firm decision concerning how you will live your life, and stick to it. I decide what my character will be and I choose to be a warrior.

Finding a fine British International school can be a challenge if you live in a place like Dubai. Known as a melting pot of cultures, Dubai offers many choices when it comes to curriculum preferences. Digging the web for valuable options can leave in you bind as well. But, to find the right and affordable British school in Dubai you must have a clear picture of the options available. To make your work easier, here is a list to help you pick the best British curriculum school in Dubai. The best British International schools in Dubai Listed below are the top picks of English Schools in Dubai: The Winchester School This English school in Dubai is the right example of high-quality education at affordable rates. The Winchester School is an ideal pick as it maintains the desired level of British curriculum standards and has a KHDA rating as ‘good’. Admission: This school is fully inclusive for kids aged 1-13 and it conducts no entrance exam for foundation level. However, for other phases, necessary entrance tests are taken according to the standard. Also, admissions here do not follow the concept of waiting lists, which can depend on the vacant seats and disability criteria. Fees: AED 12,996- AED 22,996 Curriculum: National Curriculum of England-EYFS(Early Years Foundation Stage), IGCSE, International A-Level, and International AS Level. Location: The Gardens, Jebel Ali Village, Jebel Ali Contact: +971 (0)4 8820444, principal_win@gemsedu.com Website: The Winchester School - Jebel Ali GEMS Wellington Internation School GEMS Wellington Internation School is yet another renowned institute titled the best British curriculum school in Dubai. It has set a record of holding this title for nine years straight which reveals its commendable standards. Admission: For entrance into this school, an online registration process must be completed. A non-refundable fee of AED 500 is applicable for registration. Students of all gender and all stages can enroll in any class from Preschool to 12th Grade. Fees: AED 43,050- AED 93,658 Curriculum: GCSE, IB, IGCSE, BTEC, and IB DP Location: Al South Area Contact: +971 (0)4 3073000, reception_wis@gemsedu.com Website: Outstanding British School in Dubai - GEMS Wellington International School Dubai British School Dubai British School is yet another prestigious institute that is also a member of the ‘Taaleem’ group. It is also one of the first English schools to open and get a KHDA rating of ‘Outstanding’. Thus, it can be easily relied on to provide the curriculum of guaranteed quality. Admission: Here, the application here can be initiated by filling up an online form. Next, the verification requires documents such as copies of UAE Residence Visa, Identification card, Medical Form, Educational Psychologist’s reports, Vaccination report, and TC. Also, students of all genders and ages between 3-18 can apply here. Fees: AED 46,096- AED 69,145 Curriculum: UK National Curriculum, BTEC, GCSE, A LEVEL Location: Behind Spinneys, Springs Town Centre, near Jumeirah Islands. Contact: +971 (0)4 3619361 Website: Dubai British School Emirates Hills | Taaleem School Final takeaways The above-listed schools are some of the best English schools in Dubai that you can find. Apart from these, you can also check King’s School Dubai, Dubai College School, Dubai English Speaking School, etc. These offer the best British curriculum school in Dubai and can be the right picks for you. So, go on and find the right school for your kid.

Affordable Web Design Company in Delhi By EzeeOnline Ezeeonline.in has secured top position being the affordable web design company in Delhi. Today, wordpress is the best tool in terms of website designing. It powers more than 35% of the website on the internet. The websites built on WordPress are free, easy to use and comprise open source Content Management System (CMS). You can count us on WordPress website designing. Not only that, we also take charge of maintaining WordPress website. For larger companies, hiring full time technical resources are quite easy to maintain. Best Website Designing Company in Delhi However, for smaller companies, full time maintenance is really expensive. That’s where we try to carve our niche of Affordable Web Design Company. Handover your wordpress maintenance work to us, and we will take charge of WordPress website. Ezeeonline.in, the cheap web design company in Delhi, keeps eyes on your website. Notify in case of down and work on it again to make it Live. Web Development Company India So, if you are planning to use your website as one of the major marketing strategies, then approach ezeeonline.in. We make sure that we meet all the latest standards for projecting an enchanting image about your company. Web Development Company India Our Affordable Web Design Company in Delhi does not interfere with the quality. The loading speed of the website is always great. Consequently the aesthetic look of the website remains enchanting. Guess what! All within economical prices! As your brand is a startup or belongs to the low budged enterprise, we understand your pain. Hence, we offer affordable web design in Delhi; this will help you save cash for investing into operations services.

Is it possible to be a person of integrity while maintaining a radical bifurcation between one's outer and inner lives? And if that inner life should value, above all, rationality, free inquiry, and the right of us all to flourish to our fullest, then how can you keep silent as to the conclusions to which your rational free inquiry has brought you? How can you deny for yourself the right to flourish in the company of like-minded people who will not disapprove of you for subjecting your beliefs and actions to the standards of rational accountability? If you believe in the integrity of your conclusions then you must show them to the world, making the case for them not only by the arguments you hash out in the privacy of your own mind but by the life that you publicly lead.

Cleaning is the easiest, most affordable way to keep your house looking new. Our experienced staff passes a thorough background check and is trained to our highest standards. We can clean almost anything you need at your home and/or business. Roof Cleaning, House Washing, Concrete washing, Brick Cleaning, Fence Cleaning and much more. Our Pressure washing services are extremely effective while maintaining structural integrity. For Cincinnati pressure washing, give us a call today.

CNLC is a trusted provider for all your earth work needs like Excavation Calgary . We pride ourselves on quality and safety while maintaining a competitive price. We look forward to working with you in the future. At CNLC we take quality very seriously, we have checks and balances in place to make sure your job gets done right. We pride ourselves on exceeding your expectations as well as industry standards.

Food License Consultant A food license consultant is one type of bridge that can help you to issue your food license. There are many companies available that can help you to grow your business. They can guide your whole process and explain the fee structure and government fee and some legal documents. If you are looking for the best food license consultants in your city then you can visit our website. Here you can get many verified professionals. Here are some details about the food license which are listed below. What is Food License? What is Food License Registration? What are the types of FSSAI Licenses? What are the documents needed for Food License Registration? What is a food License (FSSAI License)? FSSAI stands for Food Safety Standards Authority of India, which is a statutory body established under the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare, Government of India. It has been established under the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006, which is related to food safety and regulation in India. A food license is responsible for protecting and promoting public health through regulation and supervision of food safety. Food License Registration A food license is required for every person who wants to start a food business, who can involve in any kind of business like manufacturing, processing, distribution, or sale of food products, etc. A food license consists of 14 digit license number, which can print on all the food packages item. It gives all information regarding the assembling and owner’s permit. The motive of registration is to make the food business operators more responsible that can maintain the quality of food products. Types Of FSSAI License There are different types of food licenses that can depend on the scale of business, and on the turnover provided by the business owner. The government issue different type of license based on the food business operator activity. The types if food licenses are as below: 1) FSSAI Basic Registration: The FSSAI basic license registration for those who have a small-scale business. If their turnover is less than 12 lakh then apply for basic registration. 2) FSSAI State License: The FSSAI State License registration for those who have medium-scale businesses. If their turnover is more than 12 Lakh or up to 20 crores. 3) FSSAI Central License: The FSSAI Central License registration for those who have large-scale businesses. If their turnover is more than 20 crores then it can apply for Central License. Document required for Food License Registration The food license registration document required for the proprietorship Concern or a single person 1) Rental Agreement 2) Pan Card 3) Two Photos 4) ID Proof The food license registration document required for the Partnership Firm 1) Pan Card of Partnership Firm 2) All partner’s Id and Address Proof 3) Two Photos of Each Partner 4) Rental Agreement The food license registration document required for Private Limited Company 1) Pan Card of Private Limited Company. 2) Incorporation Certificate of Private Limited Company. 3) All Director’s Id and Address Proof 4) Two Photos of Each Director. 5) Rental Agreement. Best FSSAI License Consultant in India We are a team of FSSAI Registration centers, helping business owners in the registration, and certification procedures all over India. If you have further queries or doubts, then please visit our website. Tags food license online, food license, fssai license, fssai license registration, fssai license registration online, fssai registration, fssai license fee, fssai license documents, food licensing, fssai renewal, fssai apply online, fssai online, fssai registration form, fssai license registration consultant, fssai license consultant, fssai consultant, food license consultant in Ahmedabad, Food license consultant in Delhi, Food license consultant in Mumbai, Food license consultant in Kolkata

It is here, through this discovery process of your development, that you will come to rediscover your True Self. To be your True Self means you do not worry about pleasing other people or living by someone else’s standards. You live as your natural self without compromise.

Seek clarity on who you want to be, how you want to interact with others, what you want, and what will bring you the greatest meaning. As every project or major initiative begins, you ask questions such as “What kind of person do I want to be while I’m doing this?” “How should I treat others?” “What are my intentions and objectives?” “What can I focus on that will bring me a sense of connection and fulfillment?” High performers ask these types of questions not only at the beginning of an endeavor but consistently throughout. They don’t just “get clarity” once and develop a mission statement that lasts the test of time; they consistently seek clarity again and again as times change and as they take on new projects or enter new social situations. This kind of routine self-monitoring is one of the hallmarks of their success. Generate energy so that you can maintain focus, effort, and wellbeing. To stay on your A game, you’ll need to actively care for your mental stamina, physical energy, and positive emotions in very specific ways. Raise the necessity for exceptional performance. This means actively tapping into the reasons you absolutely must perform well. This necessity is based on a mix of your internal standards (e.g., your identity, beliefs, values, or expectations for excellence) and external demands (e.g., social obligations, competition, public commitments, deadlines). It’s about always knowing your why and stoking that fire all the time so you feel the needed drive or pressure to get at it. Increase productivity in your primary field of interest. Specifically, focus on prolific quality output (PQO) in the area in which you want to be known and to drive impact. You’ll also have to minimize distractions (including opportunities) that steal your attention from creating PQO. Develop influence with those around you. It will make you better at getting people to believe in and support your efforts and ambitions. Unless you consciously develop a positive support network, major achievements over the long haul are all but impossible. Demonstrate courage by expressing your ideas, taking bold action, and standing up for yourself and others, even in the face of fear, uncertainty, threat, or changing conditions. Courage is not an occasional act, but a trait of choice and will.

Cobblestone pavements were an upgrade from dirt roads in ancient times. They were functional and lasted for ages. Cobblestone is derived from the word “cob” which means round and lumpy and refers to riverside cobbles that were first used to pave roads. The modern version of cobbles is available in natural stone materials, mainly in a small square format with standard thicknesses. The first cobblestones were taken from streambeds, not quarried and shaped like the ones we see today. The name “cobblestone” now refers to any natural stone paver, particularly the square shaped Belgian blocks. These are more uniform in size and shape and are simpler to install. The durability of a granite cobblestone paved surface is superior to that of nearly any other material, and the distinctive “old world” appeal it provides may add a lot of beauty and value to the home. Why Cobblestone Paving? Because cobblestones were easy to source, affordable, and easy to install, they gained popularity in Europe. These rounded stones were sourced from riverbeds and were very useful for roads. They were great for traction and decreasing muck and sludge on the roads because they were created by years of erosion through swift-moving rivers. Cobblestones are a popular option in the community of builders, architects, designers, and even with homeowners who prefer doing a DIY project. Cobblestones are durable First, they are sturdy, long-lasting stones that can withstand the test of time, as shown by the cobblestone streets throughout Europe. They are prone to extreme weathering processes, environmental changes, or high traffic. They are a naturally sturdy and robust building material that withstands wear and strain without chipping, scratching, or staining. Cobblestone suits a variety of project spaces Cobblestones are versatile and come in various colour options, which makes them suitable for an array of project requirements such as driveway, pathway, and other high traffic areas. Cobblestones enhance the look of your home and even raise its curb appeal. This will not only make your home more appealing and pleasurable, but it will also help it stand out from the rest of the houses in the neighbourhood, which adds to its overall value and makes it easier to sell. Cobblestones are easy to install Cobblestones are easy to install since they are generally supplied in mesh form. A set of cobblestones pasted on a silicone mesh. This mesh is easy to install and covers a larger surface area, saving men hours of installation time.  Cobblestones require low maintenance These cobblestone pavers are not only tough, but they are also quite simple to maintain. A quick wash every so often will keep them looking just as stunning as the day they were set. As additional maintenance, you may only need to reseal these pavers every now and then to keep them in good condition. For ages, these granite stones will retain their stunning appearance and colour with little work on your part.

Changing unrelenting standards 1. List the areas in which your standards may be unbalanced or unrelenting. 2. List the advantages of trying to meet these standards on a daily basis. 3. List the disadvantages of pushing so hard in these areas. 4. Try to conjure an image of what your life would be like without these pressures. 5. Understand the origins of your lifetrap. 6. Consider what the effects would be if you lowered your standards about 25 percent. 7. Try to quantify the time you devote to maintaining your standards. 8. Try to determine what reasonable standards are by getting a consensus or objective opinion from people who seem more balanced. 9. Gradually try to change your schedule or alter your behaviour in order to get your deeper needs met.

Sometimes they try to protect us from the harsher aspects of their lives.” Shea whirled around to face her, eyebrows up. “Their lives? Aren’t we bound to them? Haven’t they done something to irrevocably bind us to them so that there is no way to leave them? It isn’t just their lives. They brought us into this, and they have no right to arbitrarily decide what we can and can’t know.” Raven swept a hand through her blue-black hair. “I felt the same way for a long time.” She sighed. “The truth is, I still feel the same way. But we persist in judging them by our human standards. They are a different species of people altogether. They are predators and have a completely different view of right and wrong.” Raven shoved a hand through her hair, frowning as she did so. “I wanted to wait to have a baby. But Mikhail has been noticing differences in Gregori, and we both knew he needed some hope to continue. It worries me, though, because I still have such a hard time fitting into their world.” Shea crossed the room and sat on the bed beside Raven’s chair. She could hear the fear in the woman’s voice, and something in her instantly responded. “At least there are two of us now. We can gang up on them.” Raven laughed softly. “It’s such a fight all the time, maintaining any kind of control in my life with Mikhail. I have this feeling he’s only going to get worse with this pregnancy.” “And you’re obviously going to have the healer on your back,” Shea pointed out. “He’s more daunting than Jacques’ brother.” Raven sighed. “I wish I could say that wasn’t true, but he’s going to be horrible, really horrible.

You dont need to distance yourself from people who 1) Lie to you 2) disrespect you 3) Use you 4) Put you down.. You need to keep them near you to show: 1) To show resilience 2)To show emotional intelligence 3) To set boundaries 4) To be a positive influence on them. You need to keep them near you to show: 1) To show resilience( showcase your ability to withstand challenges and maintain your composure) 2)To show emotional intelligence(manage your emotions effectively, respond thoughtfully, and foster a more positive environment despite their negative behavior.) 3) To set boundaries (assert yourself and communicate your standards) 4) To be a positive influence on them. (By remaining in their orbit, you have the chance to be a positive influence on them. )

Scotch Whisky Single Malt: This Scotch can only contain malted barley and water, must be the product of one distillery and aged in wood for at least three years. However, single malts can contain a mix of different distillations, casks, and years. This allows brands like a twelve-year-old Glenlivet to maintain consistency and always taste the same, no matter when it’s bottled. Single Grain: Like single malt, this Scotch is a product of one distillery but can be made from other grains and/or unmalted barley. It is used mainly for blending and rarely sold on its own, though it is becoming more popular as whisky connoisseurship increases. Blended Malt: This style, consisting of a mix of single malts from different distilleries, is not common. Blended Grain: This style uses a mix of single grains from different distilleries and is also not common. Blended Scotch: The most popular style in the world, including nondistillery names such as Johnnie Walker (red, black, and blue), Chivas Regal, Dewar’s, Ballantine’s, Cutty Sark, and so on. These are blends of single malts and grain whiskies from different distilleries, sometimes dozens. Vintage Year: While there are really no “vintages” in the sense of better or worse harvests, as with wine, bottles with a year on the label can only contain whiskies made in that year. This will usually taste different from the same distillery’s standard single malt—different but not necessarily better or as good.

Man cannot survive except by gaining knowledge, and reason is his only means to gain it. Reason is the faculty that perceives, identifies and integrates the material provided by his senses. The task of his senses is to give him the evidence of existence, but the task of identifying it belongs to his reason; his senses tell him only that something is, but what it is must be learned by his mind. “All thinking is a process of identification and integration. Man perceives a blob of color; by integrating the evidence of his sight and his touch, he learns to identify it as a solid object; he learns to identify the object as a table; he learns that the table is made of wood; he learns that the wood consists of cells, that the cells consist of molecules, that the molecules consist of atoms. All through this process, the work of his mind consists of answers to a single question: What is it? His means to establish the truth of his answers is logic, and logic rests on the axiom that existence exists. Logic is the art of non-contradictory identification. A contradiction cannot exist. An atom is itself, and so is the universe; neither can contradict its own identity; nor can a part contradict the whole. No concept man forms is valid unless he integrates it without contradiction into the total sum of his knowledge. To arrive at a contradiction is to confess an error in one’s thinking; to maintain a contradiction is to abdicate one’s mind and to evict oneself from the realm of reality. “Reality is that which exists; the unreal does not exist; the unreal is merely that negation of existence which is the content of a human consciousness when it attempts to abandon reason. Truth is the recognition of reality; reason, man’s only means of knowledge, is his only standard of truth. “The most depraved sentence you can now utter is to ask: Whose reason? The answer is: Yours. No matter how vast your knowledge or how modest, it is your own mind that has to acquire it. It is only with your own knowledge that you can deal. It is only your own knowledge that you can claim to possess or ask others to consider. Your mind is your only judge of truth—and if others dissent from your verdict, reality is the court of final appeal. Nothing but a man’s mind can perform that complex, delicate, crucial process of identification which is thinking. Nothing can direct the process but his own judgment. Nothing can direct his judgment but his moral integrity.

When you want to be a woman, follow my advice. Speak in a thin, pretty voice. It has to be high-pitched. Try pushing it up into your nose. Cover your mouth when you laugh. Press down firmly and neatly when writing. Grow your hair to your shoulders. Curls are discouraged. Flap your wrists often. Show enthusiasm about grocery shopping and cooking. Beef up your cooking skills. Be unfailingly kind to others—especially men. Use your charm to get out of danger. Fall in love with a man. Eat very little. Even if you really want to finish it, leave some on your plate. Make sure you attain a slim figure and maintain it for your whole life. Play dumb, with no regard for your actual intelligence. Disparage your driving. Be chatty. Try your best to sincerely enjoy cleaning and doing laundry. Think of weakness as a virtue, and let your strength rot away. Wear makeup even in your dreams. Wear bright clothing. Conceal your sexual appetite, and take it to your grave. Become shyness incarnate. . . . There’s a fuckton more where that all comes from. I just couldn’t write it all down. To act the part of a woman, you’ve got to memorize a hefty script.

And four of the principles helped Amazon scale: •Maintain Your Culture •Focus on High Standards •Measure What Matters, Question What’s Measured, and Trust Your Gut •Believe It’s Always Day 1

TASK: KETTLEBELL SNATCH Condition: Snatch a kettlebell for repetitions with one arm and then the other. Standard: 1. All of the points that apply to the swing, (see pages 44-45) minus the requirement to keep a straight arm. 2. Pick up the kettlebell, swing it back between your legs, and snatch it overhead in one uninterrupted motion to a straight-arm lockout. The snatch. At the lockout, the arm must be level with the head or behind the head. 3. Catch the kettlebell softly without banging your forearm or jarring your elbow and shoulder. 4. At the lockout, the arm must be level with the head or behind the head. 5. Maintain the fixation for a second with the arm and legs straight and the feet and body stationary. 6. Lower the kettlebell between your legs in one loose, uninterrupted motion without touching the chest or the shoulder, and snatch again.

The advertising executive “straightened himself out” and regained his confidence within a short time, once he saw clearly that for several years he had been motivated by strong personal goals that he wanted to attain, including securing his present position. These goals, which were important to him, kept him on the track. However, once he got the promotion, he ceased to think in terms of what he wanted, but in terms of what others expected of him, or whether he was living up to other people’s goals and standards. He was like the skipper of a ship who had relinquished his hold upon the wheel, and hoped that he would drift in the right direction. He was like a mountain climber, who as long as he looked upward to the peak he wished to scale, felt and acted courageously and boldly. But when he got to the top, he felt there was nowhere else to go, and began to look down, and became afraid. He was now on the defensive, defending his present position, rather than acting like a goal-striver and going on the offensive to attain his goal. He regained control when he set himself new goals and began to think in terms of “What do I want out of this job? What do I want to achieve? Where do I want to go?” “Functionally, a man is somewhat like a bicycle,” I told him. “A bicycle maintains its poise and equilibrium only so long as it is going forward towards something. You have a good bicycle. Your trouble is you are trying to maintain your balance sitting still, with no place to go. It’s no wonder you feel shaky.

Some wealth planners say that you should aim to have at least the equivalent of your annual salary saved for retirement by the time you are thirty, three times that sum by the time you are forty, eight times by the time you are sixty, ten times by retirement, in order to maintain your standard of living. Someone used to all the perks of a £100,000 salary would need to have at least £1 million saved to not feel poorer in retirement.

Self-control, managing these disruptive feelings and impulses as best you can i.e. not letting them overtake your entire thinking. Trustworthiness, I touched on this within the self-awareness section but having a guide to maintain standards of integrity and honesty can be particularly important. Acting ethically and authentically will help a person to better self-regulate their emotions from the outset. Holding yourself to these high principled standards automatically eradicates most emotions of fear, guilt and general self loathing before they even arise making them much easier to manage if they do appear. Conscientiousness, i.e. the ability to take responsibility for your own actions and performance. Being held accountable for meeting the objective a person sets out for themselves and being organized and careful about their work. Adaptability, the ability to adapt and be flexible when emotions arise is also fairly critical. It will allow a person to more smoothly handle a situation, especially one of high pressure or shifting priorities. They will be able to adapt their responses and situational tactics to better fit a fluid environment. Innovation, this is more about being open and even seeking new and novel ideas. It’s about entertaining an original problem but exploring a variety of sources of information and even coming up with new ideas and fresh perspectives in thinking for solving current problems.

Most programmers have a built-in bias toward being cowboys rather than farmers. That is, when a problem arises, their first inclination is to “jump on their horse and ride off” to solve the problem single-handedly. They too often skip planning, and that results in one-off solutions that could have better leveraged standards, practices, and their team. You want your software development to be more like farming. Farmers are methodical in knowing the lay of the land, studying its current chemical makeup, planting, watering, weeding, and harvesting their crops. Software that is reliable, extensible, and maintainable is developed just as methodically.

Magnesium is the natural element your body uses to prevent excess calcium from entering these cells and to maintain normal blood pressure. Magnesium is indeed our natural calcium blocker. Dr. Sherry Rogers, a leading proponent of integrative medicine, has written extensively about magnesium’s benefits for disorders caused by abnormal muscle constriction. “In order for a muscle to contract, it needs calcium. In order to relax it needs magnesium.”11 Hypertension is one of the conditions for which Dr. Rogers uses magnesium. Magnesium is also necessary for the health of the endothelium, the tiny cells that form the thin inner lining of the blood vessels. Endothelial cells play an active role in prompting the smooth muscle cells to constrict or relax by producing substances such as prostacycline, thromboxane, and endothelin. Magnesium increases the endothelium’s production of prostacycline, which induces artery relaxation, and it inhibits the production of thromboxane and endothelin, which promotes artery constriction.12 Magnesium also directly influences the ability of cells to use potassium, which also induces artery relaxation. Dr. Mildred Seelig, one of the first pioneers of magnesium research, states, “Low potassium, by itself, can bring on high blood pressure. But even adequate potassium intake cannot normalize high blood pressure if magnesium is too low. Without enough magnesium (and potassium) in our bodies, we cannot expect normal blood pressure.”13 THE PROBLEM WITH THE STANDARD MEDICAL TREATMENT OF HYPERTENSION With the exception of the common cold, hypertension accounts for more visits to doctors in the United States than any other condition. Most often, the treatment recommended is some type of prescription drug. Sometimes these drugs are necessary, and there is no doubt their ability to lower blood pressure can prevent many of the severe complications of hypertension.

It is a fact of life in the America of the nineties that health food store clerks have replaced pharmacists as dispensers of practical advice to many sick people, especially those with difficult problems or ailments that do not respond well to conventional treatment. The change is another indicator of widespread disaffection with standard medicine.

Never be tempted to become an imitator of another. No one is better than you at being you. We all have something unique to give. Do not compare yourself with anyone else. Dare to maintain your uniqueness and divine originality. Set the standard, be an example, raise the bar—when you do, you give others permission to do the same.

I maintain that this binary distinction between bespoke and commoditized legal work is a false dichotomy and that legal services are in fact evolving through five different stages which I call bespoke, standardized, systematized, packaged, and commoditized,

Your Personal Economic Model One tool we use when discussing the best course of action to secure your financial future is the Personal Economic Model®. Just as a medical doctor would use an anatomical model to convey medical concepts, we use the following model to convey financial concepts. This model offers a visual representation of the way money flows through your hands. On the left, you will notice the Lifetime Capital Potential tank, which illustrates that the amount of money you will control during your lifetime is both large, as well as finite. Most people are shocked to see how much money can flow through their hands in their lifetime. Once earned, your money flows directly to the Tax Filter where the state and federal governments take tax dollars owed from your paycheck. The after tax dollars are then directed to either your Current Lifestyle or your Future Lifestyle. Your management of the Lifestyle Regulator determines where these dollars go. Regulating the cash flow between your current lifestyle desires and your future lifestyle requirements may be the most important financial decision you will ever make. Here’s why. Each and every dollar that is allowed to flow through to your Current Lifestyle is consumed and gone forever. The goal is to accumulate enough money in the Savings and Investment tanks so that when you retire, the dollars in those tanks can be used to pay for your future lifestyle requirements. Retirement planning seems hard for most people to do but it is not rocket science. The best position, position A, would be to have enough in the tanks so that you can live in the future like you live today adjusted for inflation and have your money last at least to your life expectancy. That’s a win, but the icing on the cake would be to accomplish that with little to no impact on your present standard of living, and that is exactly what we strive to help our clients to do. Working with us can help you with the following: Optimize the balance between your Current and Future Lifestyles Identify inefficiencies in your current personal economic model (where are you losing money) Design, implement, and execute a plan to secure your financial future Limit the impact on your Current Lifestyle dollars (maintain your current standard of living)

we have not managed to save the fifteen to twenty times our annual salaries financial experts tell us we’ll need to maintain our current standard of living in retirement.

place. With the world in turmoil, America has generally managed to honor its egalitarian principles and, though some people might disagree, to maintain the basic rights guaranteed to citizens in its founding documents. Freedom to worship as one pleases. Freedom to speak one’s mind. Freedom against unreasonable searches and seizures. Freedom to own a firearm. These are precious liberties, ones that are rare in the world. Freedom together with other promises--such as freedom of assembly and of the press–is standard nowhere else.

You don’t prosper by maintaining standards; you prosper by maintaining habits. You are what you are not because of what you did; but because of what you keep doing.

It is so important to cultivate a lifestyle that reflects the relationship you want to have with your ideal man. Set a standard for yourself that is true to who you are, the type of man you want to attract, and the lifestyle you want to have with him, then maintain it until it's deeply embedded in your DNA.

Part One—The Lipid Panel. Used to evaluate heart health, this panel comprises of four biological markers representing the four types of fat found in the blood—triglycerides, total cholesterol, high-density lipoprotein (HDL), and low-density lipoprotein (LDL). Two additional measures of cardiovascular health, homocysteine and c-reactive protein (CRP), may also be measured as part of a more comprehensive profile. These two labs are discussed in Part Six, “Optional Tests” (see page 8). •  Part Two—The Basic Metabolic Panel. The labs used to evaluate metabolism measure blood sugar regulation, electrolyte and fluid balance, and kidney function. Biomarkers included in this panel are glucose, calcium, sodium, potassium, blood urea nitrogen (BUN), and creatinine. •  Part Three—The Hepatic Function Panel. This panel determines how well your liver is functioning by measuring levels of different proteins produced and processed by the liver, like albumin and globulin, as well as liver enzymes. •  Part Four—The Complete Blood Count (CBC) Panel. The lab values measured in the complete blood count (CBC) panel include red blood cells, white blood cells, platelets, and hemoglobin. Maintaining healthy levels of these biomarkers affect your vitality and energy, immune system, and cardiovascular health. •  Part Five—Hormones. Although they are not always included in a routine blood test, hormones should be periodically tested, especially in aging adults. Hormones such as estrogen, testosterone, progesterone, DHEA, and prostate specific antigen (PSA) play an integral role in reproductive wellness and affect other aspects of health. Maintaining balanced levels can slow down the aging process, for instance. Hormones involved in metabolism, like the thyroid hormones and the stress hormone cortisol, are also discussed in this section. •  Part Six—Optional Tests. This final part of the book highlights four tests—homocysteine, c-reactive protein (CRP), vitamin D, and magnesium—that are not typically measured unless requested, or if a standard blood test shows an abnormality that requires a more in-depth analysis. These tests can provide a more complete picture of heart health, immunity, calcium absorption, blood sugar regulation, and a number of other vital processes.

Today the IPS’s Saul Landau maintains that David Phillips, because of his close association with then-CIA clandestine ops director Shackley and his role in the misinformation campaign surrounding Letelier’s death, most likely had prior knowledge that the assassination was coming down. “They could have stopped it,” Landau says. “Wouldn’t you think that any decent human being would have called Letelier and said, ‘Look, you’re a target, be careful.’ Their information was solid. Chilean agents traveling under the cover of another country’s passports was the standard operational procedure of Operation Condor’s earlier assassination attempts.

At Bridgewater, every employee has a believability score on a range of dimensions. In sports, statistics for every player’s performance history are public. In baseball, before you sign a player, you can look up his batting average, home runs, and steals; assess his strengths and weaknesses; and adjust accordingly. Dalio wanted Bridgewater to work the same way, so he created baseball cards that display statistics on every employee’s performance, which can be accessed by anyone at the company. If you’re about to interact with a few Bridgewater colleagues for the first time, you can see their track records on seventy-seven different dimensions of values, skills, and abilities in the areas of higher-level thinking, practical thinking, maintaining high standards, determination, open-mindedness yet assertiveness, and organization and reliability.

Retirement as a goal or final redemption is flawed for at least three solid reasons: a. It is predicated on the assumption that you dislike what you are doing during the most physically capable years of your life. This is a nonstarter—nothing can justify that sacrifice. b. Most people will never be able to retire and maintain even a hotdogs-for-dinner standard of living. Even one million is chump change in a world where traditional retirement could span 30 years and inflation lowers your purchasing power 2–4% per year. The math doesn’t work.3 The golden years become lower-middle-class life revisited. That’s a bittersweet ending. c. If the math does work, it means that you are one ambitious, hardworking machine. If that’s the case, guess what? One week into retirement, you’ll be so damn bored that you’ll want to stick bicycle spokes in your eyes. You’ll probably opt to look for a new job or start another company. Kinda defeats the purpose of waiting, doesn’t it?

I left, but not before I kissed your mother eight times on the lips. That’s what we do, and amid all this uncertainty and lack of normalcy, I think it’s important to maintain our standards.

Instead of a goal, an area of responsibility has a standard you’re trying to maintain.

The following rules are the fundamental differentiators to keep in mind throughout this book. 1. Retirement Is Worst-Case-Scenario Insurance. Retirement planning is like life insurance. It should be viewed as nothing more than a hedge against the absolute worst-case scenario: in this case, becoming physically incapable of working and needing a reservoir of capital to survive. Retirement as a goal or final redemption is flawed for at least three solid reasons: a. It is predicated on the assumption that you dislike what you are doing during the most physically capable years of your life. This is a nonstarter—nothing can justify that sacrifice. b. Most people will never be able to retire and maintain even a hotdogs-for-dinner standard of living. Even one million is chump change in a world where traditional retirement could span 30 years and inflation lowers your purchasing power 2–4% per year. The math doesn’t work.3 The golden years become lower-middle-class life revisited. That’s a bittersweet ending. c. If the math does work, it means that you are one ambitious, hardworking machine. If that’s the case, guess what? One week into retirement, you’ll be so damn bored that you’ll want to stick bicycle spokes in your eyes. You’ll probably opt to look for a new job or start another company. Kinda defeats the purpose of waiting, doesn’t it? I’m not saying don’t plan for the worst case—I have maxed out 401(k)s and IRAs I use primarily for tax purposes—but don’t mistake retirement for the goal.

How are you allowing people to take advantage of you? It’s your job to maintain the standard of how others treat you. After all, people are getting their cue from you as to what’s tolerable in your relationship with them. Tell them and show them how you want to be treated, and model what you want by treating yourself well.

Treatment We Allow from Others “People are always taking advantage of me.” I hear this frequently in my office. But are they? The real question is, How are you allowing people to take advantage of you? How are you allowing people to take advantage of you? It’s your job to maintain the standard of how others treat you. After all, people are getting their cue from you as to what’s tolerable in your relationship with them. Tell them and show them how you want to be treated, and model what you want by treating yourself well.

in retirement you’ll need 70 to 80 percent of your pre-tax, pre-retirement income. If you earn $100,000 per year, you’ll need $70,000 per year, at minimum, to maintain your standard of living. Personally, I’m aiming for 100 percent.

Plan B/Second Citizenship Without going into a long and boring economic analysis, first world countries have a sundry amount of structural problems that may make living and working in them no longer tenable.  And while it may be a tedious chore on par with creating a will or doing your taxes, it would pay for every man today to diversify into another country. This can be in the form of attaining a second citizenship, gaining permanent residency in another country, or simply having a piece of property overseas.  But the larger point is to be able to survive and maintain your standard of living in the case your home country collapses or simply becomes too hostile.  People will mock and scoff at this, thinking you're crazy.  And hopefully they're right.  Hopefully, you're just a crazy libertarian who reads too many economic reports and you're overly pessimistic.  But keep in mind these are the same people who said “housing only goes up” and that “dotcoms are the future” and that “any degree is a good degree” and “inflation is transitory.”  They are also the same people who said, “the Titanic can't sink!” and foolishly think their marriages will last until “death do them part.”  Be wise.  Invest the time in building a metaphorical life raft just in case the Titanic does sink.  You don't have to mention it to people, and to avoid ridicule you shouldn't.  But quietly investigate your genealogy, find out if you can get citizenship elsewhere, travel overseas, and make sure you have a sovereign life raft.