Phd Achievement Quotes

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If want to succeed, you must work to overcome the obstacles on your path.
Lailah Gifty Akita
If there's no challenge in your life, then there's no enjoyment in your life.
David Tian
People with autism don't need wheelchairs, artifical legs, or a guide dog. Their prosthesis is people,' says Ruth Christ Sullivan, Ph.D., a founder of the Autism Society of America (ASA), and I could agree with her more. Having good direct support staff in your loved one's life is what makes the difference between a good life and a dismal one.
Chantal Sicile-Kira (A Full Life with Autism: From Learning to Forming Relationships to Achieving Independence)
Great achievers see failure as a stepping stone to success.
Godwin Elendu Ph.D
When you want something so badly, shift your mindset from your idea of how you will get it, to which ways are available and what it will take.
Dr. Jacinta Mpalyenkana, PhD, MBA
An extreme representative of this view is Ted Kaczynski, infamously known as the Unabomber. Kaczynski was a child prodigy who enrolled at Harvard at 16. He went on to get a PhD in math and become a professor at UC Berkeley. But you’ve only ever heard of him because of the 17-year terror campaign he waged with pipe bombs against professors, technologists, and businesspeople. In late 1995, the authorities didn’t know who or where the Unabomber was. The biggest clue was a 35,000-word manifesto that Kaczynski had written and anonymously mailed to the press. The FBI asked some prominent newspapers to publish it, hoping for a break in the case. It worked: Kaczynski’s brother recognized his writing style and turned him in. You might expect that writing style to have shown obvious signs of insanity, but the manifesto is eerily cogent. Kaczynski claimed that in order to be happy, every individual “needs to have goals whose attainment requires effort, and needs to succeed in attaining at least some of his goals.” He divided human goals into three groups: 1. Goals that can be satisfied with minimal effort; 2. Goals that can be satisfied with serious effort; and 3. Goals that cannot be satisfied, no matter how much effort one makes. This is the classic trichotomy of the easy, the hard, and the impossible. Kaczynski argued that modern people are depressed because all the world’s hard problems have already been solved. What’s left to do is either easy or impossible, and pursuing those tasks is deeply unsatisfying. What you can do, even a child can do; what you can’t do, even Einstein couldn’t have done. So Kaczynski’s idea was to destroy existing institutions, get rid of all technology, and let people start over and work on hard problems anew. Kaczynski’s methods were crazy, but his loss of faith in the technological frontier is all around us. Consider the trivial but revealing hallmarks of urban hipsterdom: faux vintage photography, the handlebar mustache, and vinyl record players all hark back to an earlier time when people were still optimistic about the future. If everything worth doing has already been done, you may as well feign an allergy to achievement and become a barista.
Peter Thiel
It is clear that Dr. Brown understands that 'command and control leadership' creates even more conflict and that only through open and trustful and honest delegation and empowering, tension is avoidable and team spirit and cohesiveness is achieved..." Alberto DeFeo, Ph.D. (Law) Chief Administrative Officer of Lake Country and Adjunct Professor of University of Northern British Columbia
Asa Don Brown (Interpersonal Skills in the Workplace, Finding Solutions that Work)
Our challenge as adults is to develop a strong voice that is uniquely our own, a voice that reflects our deepest values and convictions. Once we are comfortable within that voice, we can bring it to our most important relationships. We can choose to move to the center of a difficult conversation--or we can let it go. We can speak--or decide not to. Whatever we choose, we can head back to the sandbox with clarity, wisdom, and intention. By doing so, we can strengthen the self and our connections, and have the best chance of achieving happiness during our time with each other.
Harriet Lerner (The Dance of Connection: How to Talk to Someone When You're Mad, Hurt, Scared, Frustrated, Insulted, Betrayed, or Desperate)
It wasn’t until I got to the law firm that things started hitting me. First, the people around me seemed pretty unhappy. You can go to any corporate law firm and see dozens of people whose satisfaction with their jobs is below average. The work was entirely uninspiring. We were for the most part grease on a wheel, helping shepherd transactions along; it was detail-intensive and often quite dull. Only years later did I realize what our economic purpose was: if a transaction was large enough, you had to pay a team of people to pore over documents into the wee hours to make sure nothing went wrong. I had zero attachment to my clients—not unusual, given that I was the last rung down on the ladder, and most of the time I only had a faint idea of who my clients were. Someone above me at the firm would give me a task, and I’d do it. I also kind of thought that being a corporate lawyer would help me with the ladies. Not so much, just so you know. It was true that I was getting paid a lot for a twenty-four-year-old with almost no experience. I made more than my father, who has a PhD in physics and had generated dozens of patents for IBM over the years. It seemed kind of ridiculous to me; what the heck had I done to deserve that kind of money? As you can tell, not a whole lot. That didn’t keep my colleagues from pitching a fit if the lawyers across the street were making one dollar more than we were. Most worrisome of all, my brain started to rewire itself after only the first few months. I was adapting. I started spotting issues in offering memoranda. My ten-thousand-yard unblinking document review stare got better and better. Holy cow, I thought—if I don’t leave soon, I’m going to become good at this and wind up doing it for a long time. My experience is a tiny data point in a much bigger problem.
Andrew Yang (Smart People Should Build Things: How to Restore Our Culture of Achievement, Build a Path for Entrepreneurs, and Create New Jobs in America)
In 1979, Christopher Connolly cofounded a psychology consultancy in the United Kingdom to help high achievers (initially athletes, but then others) perform at their best. Over the years, Connolly became curious about why some professionals floundered outside a narrow expertise, while others were remarkably adept at expanding their careers—moving from playing in a world-class orchestra, for example, to running one. Thirty years after he started, Connolly returned to school to do a PhD investigating that very question, under Fernand Gobet, the psychologist and chess international master. Connolly’s primary finding was that early in their careers, those who later made successful transitions had broader training and kept multiple “career streams” open even as they pursued a primary specialty. They “traveled on an eight-lane highway,” he wrote, rather than down a single-lane one-way street. They had range. The successful adapters were excellent at taking knowledge from one pursuit and applying it creatively to another, and at avoiding cognitive entrenchment. They employed what Hogarth called a “circuit breaker.” They drew on outside experiences and analogies to interrupt their inclination toward a previous solution that may no longer work. Their skill was in avoiding the same old patterns. In the wicked world, with ill-defined challenges and few rigid rules, range can be a life hack. Pretending the world is like golf and chess is comforting. It makes for a tidy kind-world message, and some very compelling books. The rest of this one will begin where those end—in a place where the popular sport is Martian tennis, with a view into how the modern world became so wicked in the first place.
David Epstein (Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World)
the “10,000 hour rule.” The rule states that ten thousand hours of practice is required to achieve the level of world class mastery in anything. It seems that it takes the brain this long to assimilate all that it needs to know to achieve true mastery. Time on task is the number one predictor of academic success also. Those at the top of the success list spend the most time on task or goals. Those at the bottom spend the least amount of time on task. It’s that simple.  Again, persistence is the difference that makes a difference.
Michael Moss (From G.E.D. to Ph.D. Success Power Principles)
They found that the crowd assembled around Innocentive was able to solve forty-nine of them, for a success rate of nearly 30 percent. They also found that people whose expertise was far away from the apparent domain of the problem were more likely to submit winning solutions. In other words, it seemed to actually help a solver to be ‘marginal’—to have education, training, and experience that were not obviously relevant for the problem. Jeppesen and Lakhani provide vivid examples of this: [There were] different winning solutions to the same scientific challenge of identifying a food-grade polymer delivery system by an aerospace physicist, a small agribusiness owner, a transdermal drug delivery specialist, and an industrial scientist. . . . All four submissions successfully achieved the required challenge objectives with differing scientific mechanisms. . . . [Another case involved] an R&D lab that, even after consulting with internal and external specialists, did not understand the toxicological significance of a particular pathology that had been observed in an ongoing research program. . . . It was eventually solved, using methods common in her field, by a scientist with a Ph.D. in protein crystallography who would not normally be exposed to toxicology problems or solve such problems on a routine basis.
Erik Brynjolfsson (The Second Machine Age: Work, Progress, and Prosperity in a Time of Brilliant Technologies)
I’m a firm believer that the path of discomfort offers us so much more than comfort ever has. Discomfort may very well be the most powerful change agent we have in our arsenal for becoming all that we can be—- and achieving the kind of success in life that we want. —Marc Schoen, PH.D, Your Survival Instinct is Killing You (2013)
E. Oberle (Outhouse to Penthouse: Discovering Courage Within)
Parents never you make church and studying the word of God optional for your children. If they are in your house, get them up, teach them the word of God, the greatest awards, PhD or achievements any child could have is to grow up in the word of God. I and my family are living witness and it is extending to our third generation.
Patience Johnson (Why Does an Orderly God Allow Disorder)
He was an ardent pragmatist who cared more about achieving compelling results than demonstrating theoretical “interestingness” for the sake of appearing scholarly.
Philip J. Guo (The Ph.D. Grind: A Ph.D. Student Memoir)
His head was so intellectual that I thought he achieved a PhD in giving head.
Jessica N. Watkins ((Love, Sex, Lies - Part 2) Love Hangover)
The scariest part of discovering that you have the power to change your life, is not doubting if you can do what it takes to achieve your goals: it is the realization that you are now responsible, and there’s nothing out of yourself to blame.
Jacinta Mpalyenkana
I am still enjoying the success.
Lailah Gifty Akita
The professor might need to go through several rounds of student failures and dropouts before one set of students eventually succeeds. Sometimes that might take two years, sometimes five years, or sometimes even ten years to achieve. Many projects last longer than individual Ph.D. student “lifetimes.” But as long as the original vision is realized and published, then the project is considered a success.
Philip J. Guo (The Ph.D. Grind: A Ph.D. Student Memoir)
Education is the foundation for your future, STEM education is the leveller for all to be successful in the future needs of humanity.  To achieve equality in STEM we need to remind all that education is the common focus and drive.
Ian R. McAndrew, PhD
You are always in the right place and at the right time. Accept it and embrace as it is a springboard to achieving your dreams
Ana García (Inspirational Quotes: Practical Spirituality 1)
Cloak of Green, Elaine Dewar asked Maurice Strong why he didn’t enter politics to achieve his goal of causing the collapse of the industrialized nations. He said
Tim Ball (Human Caused Global Warming)
Love is a foundation of an authentic power. If we follow the path of love, we will acquire everything that we want, and we will achieve everything that we desire...
Snezhana Djambazova -Popordanoska MD, PhD
Thomas Sowell was born in North Carolina and grew up in Harlem. He moved out from home at an early age and did not finish high school. After a few tough years … read morehe joined the Marine Corps and became a photographer in the Korean War. After leaving the service, Sowell entered Harvard University, worked a part-time job as a photographer and studied the science that would become his passion and profession: economics. Sowell received his bachelor’s degree in economics (magna cum laude) from Harvard in 1958. He went on to receive his master’s in economics from Columbia University in 1959, and a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Chicago in 1968. In the early ’60s, Sowell held jobs as an economist with the Department of Labor and AT&T. But his real interest was in teaching and scholarship. In 1965, at Cornell University, Sowell began the first of many professorships. His other teaching assignments have included Rutgers, Amherst, Brandeis and the UCLA. In addition, Sowell was project director at the Urban Institute, 1972-1974; a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University, 1976–77; and was an adjunct scholar of the American Enterprise Institute, 1975-76. Dr. Sowell has published a large volume of writing, much of which is considered ground-breaking. His has written over 30 books and hundreds of articles and essays. His work covers a wide range of topics, Including: classic economic theory, judicial activism, social policy, ethnicity, civil rights, education, and the history of ideas to name only a few. Sowell has earned international acclaim for his unmatched reputation for academic integrity. His scholarship places him as one of the greatest thinkers of the second half of the twenty century. Thomas Sowell began contributing to newspapers in the late ’70s, and he became a nationally syndicated newspaper columnist 1984. Sowell has brought common sense economic thinking to the masses by his ability to write for the general public with a voice that get to the heart of issues in plain English. Today his columns appear in more than 150 newspapers. In 2003, Thomas Sowell received the Bradley Prize for intellectual achievement. Sowell was awarded the National Humanities Medal in 2002. In 1990, he won the prestigious Francis Boyer Award, presented by The American Enterprise Institute. Currently, Thomas Sowell is the Rose and Milton Friedman Senior Fellow on Public Policy at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California. —Dean Kalahar
Dean Kalahar (The Best of Thomas Sowell)
When you doubt that you won’t achieve your goals, you also believe that you are not worthy of those goals.
Dr. Jacinta Mpalyenkana, Ph.D, MBA
Kimberly Olson, PhD, is the creator of The Goal Digger Girl, where she serves female entrepreneurs by teaching them simple systems and online
Kimberly Olson (The Art of Self-Discipline: Beat Procrastination, Break Bad Habits, and Achieve Your Goals)
Ambition gives you direction and purpose, but any ambition worth pursuing will not be immediately achievable. It takes time, persistence and patience to develop the required skills.
James Hayton (PhD: An uncommon guide to research, writing & PhD life)
Identify Your Strengths With Strengths Finder 2.0 One tool that can help you remember your achievements is the ‘Strengths Finder’ "assessment. The father of Strengths Psychology, Donald O. Clifton, Ph.D, along with Tom Rath and a team of scientists at The Gallup Organization, created StrengthsFinder. You can take this assessment by purchasing the Strengths Finder 2.0 book. The value of SF 2.0 is that it helps you understand your unique strengths. Once you have this knowledge, you can review past activities and understand what these strengths enabled you to do. Here’s what I mean, in the paragraphs below, I’ve listed some of the strengths identified by my Strengths Finder assessment and accomplishments where these strengths were used. “You can see repercussions more clearly than others can.” In a prior role, I witnessed products being implemented in the sales system at breakneck speed. While quick implementation seemed good, I knew speed increased the likelihood of revenue impacting errors. I conducted an audit and uncovered a misconfigured product. While the customer had paid for the product, the revenue had never been recognized. As a result of my work, we were able to add another $7.2 million that went straight to the bottom line. “You automatically pinpoint trends, notice problems, or identify opportunities many people overlook.” At my former employer, leadership did not audit certain product manager decisions. On my own initiative, I instituted an auditing process. This led to the discovery that one product manager’s decisions cost the company more than $5M. “Because of your strengths, you can reconfigure factual information or data in ways that reveal trends, raise issues, identify opportunities, or offer solutions.” In a former position, product managers were responsible for driving revenue, yet there was no revenue reporting at the product level. After researching the issue, I found a report used to process monthly journal entries which when reconfigured, provided product managers with monthly product revenue. “You entertain ideas about the best ways to…increase productivity.” A few years back, I was trained by the former Operations Manager when I took on that role. After examining the tasks, I found I could reduce the time to perform the role by 66%. As a result, I was able to tell my Director I could take on some of the responsibilities of the two managers she had to let go. “You entertain ideas about the best ways to…solve a problem.” About twenty years ago I worked for a division where legacy systems were being replaced by a new company-wide ERP system. When I discovered no one had budgeted for training in my department, I took it upon myself to identify how to extract the data my department needed to perform its role, documented those learnings and that became the basis for a two day training class. “Sorting through lots of information rarely intimidates you. You welcome the abundance of information. Like a detective, you sort through it and identify key pieces of evidence. Following these leads, you bring the big picture into view.” I am listing these strengths to help you see the value of taking the Strengths Finder Assessment.
Clark Finnical
It is no accident that the primary motive, the hidden agenda in any relationship, is the yearning to return. It is the cardinal's project, the Eden project, the professed aim of the Romantic poets, the yearning for the Beloved. It is essentially a religious search, as attested to by the etymology of the word "religion," from Latin religare, to tie back to, reconnect with. Consciousness is achieved only through the loss of the Other, and the perception that the Other is truly Other.
James Hollis
In 1968 at the age of 17 years, I started my migration journey to Karachi, leaving my mother, brothers, and sisters for my literary fondness and higher study. I achieved a Bachelor of Arts from Sindh University, Hyderabad, and a Master of Arts and a Law degree from Karachi University. I started my Ph.D. under the guidance of Dr. Aslam Farrukhi. I couldn't complete it, and in 1978, at the age of 26, I migrated to the Netherlands to face The Prisoner Of The Hague; you can read it on Google Book.com in Urdu. The pic that someone so much liked, whom I have loved since the age of eleven; she was ten years older than me, but love does not care about such things. Unfortunately, my destiny brought me to Europe; I betrayed her that I feel and think; she never married and died. I have a gift, a handkerchief that she gave me in 1962, which I always keep with me wherever I go. After six-decade, I saw someone when I was editing an article about her in 2011, with the same features, height, and smile, but unfortunately, this time, she was too young. Surprisingly, whenever I searched my name on Google, I saw her pic displayed with my pics; I clicked the text alongside the pic, not relevant, and the pic went disappeared but not from my heart.
Ehsan Sehgal
In order to achieve flow, that thing has to be CHALLENGING enough to occupy your whole brain. All of your capacities. So you're fully immersed in that activity. [...] A lot of people are doing things that they don't enjoy in the moment and they're not finding it challenging or fulfilling in a good way. It might be so challenging or so hard that they give up, or they don't know what they're doing, or they're just bored [because it's not challenging enough]. Those are all going to be unfulfilling achievement activities. [...] In order to get that intrinsic enjoyment of the activity it has to have, built into it, baked into the activity... it has to be challenging enough. [...] Growing itself is enjoyable [because it's challenging].
David Tian
Those who don't overcommit, who undercommit, who just focus on one or two things, those one or two things become magnified so they become these big heavy, pressure-filled things. And those conditions can lead to procrastination. Overcommitting takes the pressure off those one or two things because now the pressure is on doing ALL the things. A counterintuitive hack there.
David Tian
There are many interpretations of the word “mindfulness.” Its most common interpretation involves the use of meditation. But mindfulness includes many other aspects. One is contemplation. Being mindfully aware may sound difficult at first, but it’s not. Nor is it something we have to work hard to achieve. Mindful awareness is simply paying attention to what is happening now. In doing nothing other than living in the moment for a few minutes, we can let thoughts and feelings come and go without holding on to them or judging them. In doing so, we build the muscles of concentration, observation, and relaxation all at the same time. This is different from thinking, in which we often judge each moment on what has been or what could be. I sometimes call it mind-full awareness because the mind is full of nothing but a gentle focus on the breath. It is the direct opposite to being mind-less. Mindlessness is when we are on autopilot and not paying attention to the present moment. We’ve all been there. We sometimes feel as though we are sleepwalking through our lives. Minutes, hours, even days can go by that we don’t fully recall because we don’t feel aware of what is happening. By sitting and mindfully breathing for ten minutes a day, in as little as eight weeks you strengthen the part of the prefrontal cortex involved in generating positive feelings and diminish the part that generates negative ones. —Richard Davidson, PhD Sometimes in mindlessness we find ourselves reacting automatically in negative ways—lashing out or saying things we later regret. We ask ourselves, “Why did I do that?” or “Who was in charge of my mouth?” It doesn’t have to be this way. We all have the ability to become more present. First we have to truly believe it is possible. Then we create the intention. The more we tune in to our own thoughts and feelings, the more choices we give ourselves in terms of our responses. The key to all these mindful practices is to keep going and not be overcritical of ourselves. Whenever we become aware that our minds have wandered from our practice, we just gently refocus. Learning expert Tim Gallwey calls this “awareness without judgment” and claims that it is one of the greatest tools for learning in what he describes as the “inner game.” The more we reinforce this message, the more we improve our own focus—and the more we help our children accept that they can make mistakes without being overcritical of themselves. One
Goldie Hawn (10 Mindful Minutes: Giving Our Children--and Ourselves--the Social and Emotional Skills to Reduce St ress and Anxiety for Healthier, Happy Lives)
There is no magic except that which lives within you!
Peter Francis, Ph.D.
If my mind can conceive it and my heart can believe it, I know I can achieve it.
Achille Wealth (JOE DISPENZA & DEEPAK CHOPRA THE 7 UNIVERSAL LAWS OF PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT: Access the wisdom codes to reprogram your brain to manifest abundance in all areas of your life)
You perform any surgery today, Dr. Millet?” The grin faded and then reappeared. He was like a used car salesman. Or a politician. Yes, a politician. The thought of which sent me off in a whole other direction. “You well know, Mr. Jones, that I am not a medical doctor. But I can assure you, I worked just as hard to achieve my PhD.” “Coal miners work hard. PhDs get cardigans to ward off the chill in the library.
A.J. Stewart (Offside (A Miami Jones Case, #2))
How Long Will It Take? You can’t blame people for wanting instant results. Time is money, and quickness, especially quick OODA loops, is good. But when it comes to adopting maneuver conflict / Boyd’s principles to your business, there is a lot to be learned and a lot to be done. Consider that: •   According to its principle creator, Taiichi Ohno, it took 28 years (1945-1973) to create and install the Toyota Production System, which is maneuver conflict applied to manufacturing. •   It takes roughly 15 years of experience—and recognition as a leader in one’s technical field—to qualify as a susha (development manager) for a new Toyota vehicle.150 •   Studies of people regarded as the top experts in a number of fields suggest that they practice about four hours a day, virtually every day, for 10 years before they achieve a recognized level of mastery.151 •   It takes a minimum of 8 years beyond a bachelor’s degree to train a surgeon (4 years medical school and 4 or more years of residency.) •   It takes four to six years on the average beyond a bachelor’s degree to complete a Ph.D. •   It takes three years or so to earn a black belt (first degree) in the martial arts and four to six years beyond that to earn third degree, assuming you are in good physical condition to begin with. •   It takes a bare minimum of five years military service to qualify for the Special Forces “Green Beret” (minimum rank of corporal / captain with airborne qualification, then a 1-2 year highly rigorous and selective training program.) •   It takes three years to achieve proficiency as a first level leader in an infantry unit—a squad leader.152 It is no less difficult to learn to fashion an elite, highly competitive company. Yet for some reason, otherwise intelligent people sometimes feel they should be able to attend a three-day seminar and return home experts in maneuver conflict as applied to business. An intensive orientation session may get you started, but successful leaders study their art for years—Patton, Rommel, and Grant were all known for the intensity with which they studied military history and current campaigns. Then-LTC David Hackworth had commanded 10 other units before taking over the 4th Battalion, 39th Infantry in Vietnam in 1969, as he described in Steel My Soldiers’ Hearts. You may also recall the scene in We Were Soldiers where LTC Hal Moore unloaded armfuls of strategy and history books as he was moving into his quarters at Ft. Benning. At that point, he had been in the Army 20 years and had commanded at every level from platoon to battalion.
Chet Richards (Certain to Win: The Strategy of John Boyd, Applied to Business)
CUBBY ORDERED an express food delivery in the morning.  It cost extra, but he wasn’t worried about money.  His parents had left him well-off.  How well-off he didn’t know, never having inquired into the matter.  Month by month, year by year, a firm of accountants took his money to clubs on Wall Street where investments of easy virtue lounged.  At least that was how Cubby understood it.  It was a kind of escort service for money, though how the escorts reproduced was a mystery to him.  The same accountants handled his insurance, his tax and now his senior security.  His parents had set up the system when he was in college because they wanted him to concentrate on his studies. And Cubby had concentrated.  He graduated summa cum laude at Harvard, achieving a Ph.D. with a dissertation on synchronized flashing in fireflies. (This little-known phenomenon occurs in the mountains of Tennessee.  It is the insect equivalent of a rock concert.  The male fireflies show up around 8:30 p.m., flashing on and off, watching one another to get the tempo right.  The females, hot little groupies that they are, observe from the ground.  By 9 p.m. the males are flashing in unison and the females go wild.)
Nancy Farmer (A New Year's Tale)
Don't wait to be perfect in order to start. Starting on your dreams in itself is a grand move in perfection.
Jacinta Mpalyenkana
INPUTS: Stated succinctly, what is the clear and compelling purpose for the system? OUTPUTS: What are the meaningful outcomes you are committed to achieving? FEEDBACK: To what degree does your feedback process allow you to manage the inputs and improve the outputs on a consistent basis? In what ways has your “systems intelligence” grown?
Mike Morrison (Systems Thinking Made Easy: A Toyota-Inspired Lean Leadership Lesson (12-minute Leadership Lessons by Mike Morrison, Ph.D. Book 1))
Intellectual Fascism – 1/3 If fascism is defined as the arbitrary belief that individuals possessing certain traits (such as those who are white, Aryan, or male) are intrinsically superior to individuals possessing certain other traits (such as those who are black, Jewish, or female), and that therefore the "superior" individuals should have distinct politico-social privileges, then the vast majority of (American) liberals and so called antifascists are actually intellectual fascists. In fact, the more politico-economically liberal our citizens are, the more intellectually fascistic they often tend to be. Intellectual fascism - in accordance with the above definition - is the arbitrary belief that individuals possessing certain traits (such as those who are intelligent, cultured, artistic, creative, or achieving) are intrinsically superior to individuals possessing certain other traits (such as those who are stupid, uncultured, unartistic, uncreative, or unachieving). The reason why the belief of the intellectual fascist, like that of the politico-social fascist, is arbitrary is simple: there is no objective evidence to support it. At bottom, it is based on value judgements or prejudices which are definitional in character and are not empirically validatable, nor is it falsifiable. It is a value chosen by a group of prejudiced people - and not necessarily by a majority. This is not to deny that verifiable differences exist among various individuals. They certainly do. Blacks, in some ways, are different from whites; short people do differ from tall ones; stupid individuals can be separated from bright ones. Anyone who denies this, whatever his or her good intentions, is simply not accepting reality. Human differences, moreover, usually have their distinct advantages. Under tropical conditions, the darkly pigmented blacks seem to fare better than do the lightly pigmented whites. At the same time, many blacks and fewer whites become afflicted with sickle-cell anaemia. When it comes to playing basketball, tall men are generally superior to short ones. But as jockeys and coxswains, the undersized have their day. For designing and operating electric computers, a plethora of gray matter is a vital necessity; for driving a car for long distances, it is likely to prove a real handicap. Let us face the fact, then, that under certain conditions some human traits are more advantageous - or "better" - than some other traits. Whether we approve the fact or not, they are. All people, in today's world, may be created free, but they certainly are not created equal. Granting that this is so, the important question is: Does the possession of a specific advantageous endowment make an individual a better human? Or more concretely: Does the fact that someone is an excellent athlete, artist, author, or achiever make him or her a better person? Consciously or unconsciously, both the "politico-social" and the "intellectual fascist" say yes to these questions. This is gruesomely clear when we consider politico-social or lower-order fascists. For they honestly and openly not only tell themselves and the world that being white, Aryan, or male, or a member of the state-supported party is a grand and glorious thing; but, simultaneously, they just as honestly and openly admit that they despise, loathe, consider as scum of the earth individuals who are not so fortunate as to be in these select categories. Lower-order fascists at least have the conscious courage of their own convictions. Not so, alas, intellectual or higher-order fascists. For they almost invariably pride themselves on their liberality, humanitarianism, and lack of arbitrary prejudice against certain classes of people. But underneath, just because they have no insight into their fascistic beliefs, they are often more vicious, in their social effects, than their lower-order counterparts.
Albert Ellis
Intellectual Fascism – 2/3 Take, by way of illustration, two well-educated, presumably liberal, intelligent people in our culture who are arguing with each other about some point. What, out of irritation and disgust, is one likely to call the other? A "filthy black," a "dirty Jew bastard," or a "black-eyed runt"? Heavens, no. But a "stupid idiot," a "nincompoop," a "misinformed numbskull"? By all means, yes. And will the note of venom, of utter despisement that is in the detractor's voice, be any different from that in the voice of the out-and-out fascist with his racial, religious, and political epithets? Honestly, now: will it? Suppose the individual against whom a well-educated, presumably liberal, intelligent person aims scorn actually is stupid, or misinformed. Is this a crime? Should he, perforce, curl up and die because he is so afflicted? Is she an utterly worthless, valueless blackguard for not possessing the degree of intelligence and knowledge that her detractor thinks she should possess? And yet - let us be ruthlessly honest with ourselves, now! - isn't this exactly what the presumably liberal person is saying and implying - that the individual whose traits she dislikes doesn't deserve to live? Isn't this what we (for it is not hard to recognize our own image here, is it?) frequently are alleging when we argue with, criticize, and judge others in our everyday living? The facts, in regard to higher-order fascism, are just as clear as those in regard to lower-order prejudice. For just as everyone in our society cannot be, except through the process of arbitrary genocide or "eugenic" elimination, Aryan, or tall, or white, so cannot everyone be bright, or artistically talented, or successful in some profession. In fact, even if we deliberately bred only higher intelligent and artistically endowed individuals to each other, and forced the rest of the human race to die off, we still would be far from obtaining a race of universal achievers: since, by definition, topflight achievement can only be attained by a relatively few leaders in most fields of endeavour, and is a "relative" rather than an "absolute" possibility. The implicit goals of intellectual fascism, then, are, at least in today's world, impractical and utopian. Everyone cannot be endowed with artistic or intellectual genius; only a small minority can be. And if we demand that all be in that minority, to what are we automatically condemning those who clearly cannot be? Obviously: to being blamed and despised for their "deficiencies"; to being lower-class citizens; to having self-hatred and minimal self-acceptance. Even this, however, hardly plumbs the inherent viciousness of intellectual fascism. For whereas lower-order or politico-economic fascism at least serves as a form of neurotic defensiveness for those who uphold its tenets, higher-order fascism fails to provide such defences and actually destroys them. Thus, politico-social fascists believe that others are to be despised for not having certain "desirable" traits - but that they are not to be applauded for having them. From a psychological standpoint, they compensate for their own underlying feelings of inadequacy by insisting that they are super-adequate and those who are not like them are subhumans. Intellectual Fascists start out with a similar assumption but more often than not get blown to bits by their own homemade explosives. For although they can at first assume that they are bright, talented, and potentially achieving, they must eventually prove that they are. Because, in the last analysis, they tend to define talent and intelligence in terms of concrete achievement, and because outstanding achievement in our society is mathematically restricted to a few, they rarely can have real confidence in their own possession of the values they have "arbitrarily deified".
Albert Ellis
Intellectual Fascism – 3/3 To make matters still worse, intellectual fascist frequently demand of themselves, as well as others, perfect competence and universal achievement. If they are excellent mathematicians or dancers, they demand that they be the most accomplished. If they are outstanding scientists or manufacturers, they also must be first-rate painters or writers. If they are fine poets, they not only need to be the finest, but likewise must be great lovers, drawing room wits, and political experts. Naturally, only being human, they fail at many or most of these ventures. And then - O, poetic justice! - they apply to themselves the same excoriations and despisements that they apply to others when they fail to be universal geniuses. However righteous their denials, therefore - and even though readers who be now are not squirming with guilt are probably screaming with indignation, I will determinedly continue - the typical politico-social "liberals" of our day are fascistic in several significant ways. For they arbitrarily define certain human traits as "good" or "superior"; they automatically exclude most others from any possibility of achieving their "good" standards; they scorn, combat, and in many ways persecute those who do not live up to these capricious goals; and finally, in most instances they more or less fail to live up to their own definitional standards and bring down neurotic self-pity and blame on their own heads. .... What is the alternative? Assuming that intellectual fascism exists on a wide scale today, and that it does enormous harm and little good to people's relations with themselves and others, what philosophy of living are they to set up in its place? Surely, you may well ask, I am not suggesting an uncritical, sentimental equalitarianism, whereunder everyone would fully accept and hobnob with everyone else and where no one would attempt to excel or perfect himself at anything? No, I am not. On the contrary, significant human differences (as well as sameness) exists; and they add much variety and zest to living; and that one human may sensibly cultivate the company of another just because this other is different from, and perhaps in certain respects superior to, others. At the same time, "one's worth as a human being is not to be measured in terms of one's popularity, success, achievement, intelligence, or any other such trait, but solely in terms of one's Humanity".
Albert Ellis
If you can infuse faith in mentally creating real pictures of whom you will be when you achieve a desired goal, this visualized identity of yourself will work magic in transforming the current you into itself
Jacent Mpalyenkana
During EMDR, both the protocol and the bilateral stimulation contribute to the simultaneous activation of previously disconnected elements of neural, mental, and interpersonal processes. This simultaneous activation then primes the system to achieve new levels of integration.
Francine Shapiro PhD EMDR
People engage in a lot of self-deception,” she said with a firm grip on his arm to keep her balance. “They have this need to write books and get a PhD and become professors and noted intellectuals. But almost everyone’s mediocre. They’re intelligent enough to recognize genius and excellence, and with a bit of luck they may achieve something above average themselves. But the vast majority of people are middling. And they don’t want to accept that. Instead, they buy houses and build patios and have children, which serves as a watertight alibi. I never got to write that book, they say. Because I have the house and the patio and the children to take care of. And besides, they like it just fine at work. Next summer, they’re going on an extended vacation to France. They say they love to read, but how much do they really read? A book a month, if that. They say they wish they had more time to read. They say they wish they had more time to write. That they would love to write that book, but time. There’s not enough time.
Lydia Sandgren (Collected Works: A Novel)