Gary Patton's List: Business

• Webcast: Zenger Folkman's Extraordinary Strengths-Based Leadership Development System

  • What's sorely lacking in extant leadership materials and training is an integrated model that combines both "hard" management and "soft" leadership built on a base of solid research.
    
    This Webinar will put you on the right track.
    
    GaryFPatton (gfp '42™ 2012-09-20)

• All warfare is based on deception.

• Write the Perfect Craigslist Post

  • The author is foul-mouthed and uses a couple of references designed to appeal to the promiscuous crowd who advertise on CraigsList.
    
    If you can handle those two issues, you'll find some VERY helpful advice in this article.
    gfp (2012-05-14)
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• Remember when you were staring at the ceiling in elementary school, and the teacher asked you whether the answer was on the ceiling? Maybe it was.

  • You guys NEVER ever did that ...right? gfp (2011-10-04)
• One potentially appropriate therapy for procrastination lies in teaching something akin to time management
• it is desirable that not only that there should be an interval free from conscious thought on the particular problem concerned, but also that that interval should be so spent that nothing should interfere with the free working of the unconscious or partially unconscious processes of the mind. In those cases, the stage of incubation should include a large amount of actual mental relaxation"

  • Might it not have been more understandable for his readers for this academic to have simply said: "When you have a really difficult problem ...go to sleep!" Or: "Take a shower!" The latter usually works best for me. And to enhance the former, I keep a pad & pen on my bed-side table so I can jot down a quickie reminder, without really waking up, because I seldom can rember my brialliant idea in the morning? What do you do? gfp (2011-10-04)
• Helmholz described how new thoughts came to him: After previous investigation, "in all directions," .. " happy ideas come unexpectedly without effort, like an inspiration ... they have never come to me when my mind was fatigued, or when I was at my working table ... They came particularly readily during the slow ascent of wooded hills on a sunny day" (p. 91).

  • Athiestic scientists describe the event this way! Some call it 'serindipity' to similarily disguise the real source! I more accurately and unasamably call it what it is: GOD! gfp (2011-10-04)
• Einstein would "allow the subconscious to solve particularly tricky problems

  • Apropos my note above re 'serendipity', and contrary to common myth, Einstein was at best a diest late in life but not a Christian, according to those who knew him well. gfp (2011-10-04)
• They engage in the "preliminary period of conscious work which also precedes all fruitful unconscious labor" (Poincare, 1924).

  • Don't you just love academic writing? gfp (2011-10-04)
• Of course, the "illumination" that is the result of incubation needs to be followed by more conscious work. Ideas that arise as a result of incubation need to be evaluated (Smith, 1994);

  • Really? Duh!! gfp
• Incubation sometimes requires a very long break:
• can also occur with breaks of shorter duration.
• it can also happen in very short breaks, a few minutes or even moments.

  • God seldom works the same way ...every time! gfp
• I have found that these breaks work best when they are devoted to something fairly mindless: washing just a few dishes, filing just a few papers, or doing some light exercise.
• In fact, high achievers may actually take more time.
• perhaps some of the "non-stop" working was staring at the ceiling. If high achievers appear to accomplish tasks more quickly than others, I suspect it is only because they put in so much more time.¹

  • "Type "A' Personalities", please take note! (This is a note to myself!! :-) ) gfp

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• As remarkable as Steve Jobs is in countless ways—as a designer, an innovator, a (ruthless and demanding) leader—his most singular quality has been his ability to articulate a perfectly secular form of hope.
• Apple has done one thing almost no one else does: put the fruits of insanely complex engineering into accessible form.
• 1990s were the age of Microsoft, when geeks ruled the world
• death is very likely the single best invention of life. It's life's change agent; it clears out the old to make way for the new.

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• Do you know how important your homepage is?

  • The InfoGraphic below is a helpful way to answer this question for yourself. gfp

• his five-second rule: he puts a slide on a screen, removes it after five seconds, and then asks the viewer to describe the slide.
• Less is More,
• Whenever an image appears on any screen, the eyes of every member of every audience reflexively move to the screen to process the new image. The denser the image, the more processing the audiences need. At that very moment, they stop listening to the presenter. Nevertheless, most presenters continue speaking, further compounding the processing task. As a result, the audience shuts down. Game over.
• use television news programs as a role model
• a simple image composed of a picture and one or two words to serve as a headline for the story that the anchor person tells.

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• little is said about the one of the biggest addictions for the Western world - compulsive thinking.
• addiction is a habit that we cannot easily break through willpower, is something we do compulsively and is harmful to us, or to people around us
• it is a habit that is difficult to stop does harm.
• We have assigned our minds an aristocratic nobility so that our thinking often reigns supreme over our feelings and intuitions, which are often denied in the process.
• Thinking becomes harmful when it takes total control of our behavior - so we can't freely choose but feel compelled to act. In other words, conscious choice is absent.
• Anne Lamott quote: "My mind is like a bad neighborhood, I try not to go there alone."

  • The Apostle Paul agrees with Ms. Lamott, (1954- ) U.S. author. He suggests that we allow Holy Spirit to control that dangerous neighbourhood in Galatians 5:16-17 &25 <http://is.gd/qWtPyt> as well as 2 Corinthians 10:3-5 <http://is.gd/pqRshA>. gfp
• Mystics and spiritual teachers tell us about the trap that our egoic minds represent, and how our egoic thinking prevents us from having "the relationship of all relationships" that so many people yearn for.
• many if not most of people's problems stem from egoic thinking which leads to worry, anxiety, depression and fear.
• We are the most sedated society in the world
• Surrender to a Higher Power - "a power greater than ourselves" - was the answer created by the founders of A.A. along with a supportive community of fellow alcoholics who knew what it was like - who could identify with the hopelessness, fear, and powerlessness that went with the addiction.

• So how do we stop thinking? We can't stop all thinking but we'd be far healthier if we could end the compulsiveness and only engage with generative thinking - thinking that creates, explains, challenges and contributes to wisdom and understanding. Compulsiveness is the problem, not thinking itself.
  

    
• Einstein told us decades ago that we'd never solve our problems with the same consciousness that created them. The same thinking that made the messes cannot get us out of them. We have evolved to such a degree that we must surrender to a power greater than our egoic minds if we are to transcend the conditions we find undesirable - personally, organizationally and societally.
• mystic Robert Rabbin says, "we must live in the heart, not in the thinking mind."

  • Mr. Rabbin, a U.S. author & speaker, has a flagship program, "The 5 Principles of Authentic Living. He calls these his "Authenticity Accelerator". The priciples are powerfull. I agree and teach these five, key relationship approaches as well:
    1 Be Present
    2 Pay Attention
    3 Listen Deeply
    4 Speak Truthfully
    5 Act Creatively
    at http://www.authenticityaccelerator.com
    I disagree with Mr. Rensch, however, that Mr. Rabbin's work entitles him to the title given to the great mystics of the Middle Ages, like Catholic Priest John of the Cross and his mentor, the Catholic Nun, Teresa of Avalon! gfp

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• the Left has generally been conceded to have morality,   justice, and "idealism" on its side; the Conservative opposition   to the Left has largely been confined to the "impracticality"   of its ideals.
• by conceding the ethical   and the "ideal" to the Left they were doomed to long-run defeat.
• the stigma   of "impracticality" becomes less and less directly relevant.
• Never has   the virus of "practicality" been more widespread than in the United   States,
• It is rare indeed in the United States to find anyone, especially   any intellectual, challenging the beauty and goodness of the egalitarian   ideal.
• Economists are often caught in a value-judgment   bind – eager to make political pronouncements.
• the economist   has pretended to be the surrogate of "society" in the course of   making its value judgment.
• Whether the   economist boldly advances his own value judgments or whether he   presumes to reflect the values of "society," his immunity from   criticism has been remarkable nonetheless.
• we can   ponder Professor Due writing similarly on behalf of the "opinion   of society today" in the Germany of the 1930s with regard to the   social treatment of Jews.
• My point   so far has been twofold: (1) that it is not enough for an intellectual   or social scientist to proclaim his value judgments
• (2) that   the goal of equality has for too long been treated uncritically   and axiomatically as the ethical ideal.
• Let us proceed,   then, to a critique of the egalitarian ideal itself – should   equality be granted its current status as an unquestioned ethical   ideal?
• The common separation between theory and practice   is an artificial and fallacious one.
• this is true in ethics   as well as anything else. If an ethical ideal is inherently "impractical,"   that is, if it cannot work in practice, then it is a poor   ideal and should be discarded forthwith.
• What, in   fact, is "equality"?
• This means, of course,   that equality of all men – the egalitarian ideal –   can only be achieved if all men are precisely uniform, precisely   identical with respect to all of their attributes. The egalitarian   world would necessarily be a world of horror fiction – a   world of faceless and identical creatures, devoid of all individuality,   variety, or special creativity.
• The   year was 2081, and everybody was finally equal. They weren't only   equal before God and the law. They were equal every which way.   Nobody was smarter than anybody else. Nobody was better looking   than anybody else. Nobody was stronger or quicker than anybody   else. All this equality was due to the 211th, 212th, and 213th   Amendments to the Constitution, and to the unceasing vigilance   of agents of the United States Handicapper General.
• The horror   we all instinctively feel at these stories is the intuitive recognition   that men are not uniform, that the species, mankind, is   uniquely characterized by a high degree of variety, diversity,   differentiation; in short, inequality.
• An egalitarian society   can only hope to achieve its goals by totalitarian methods of   coercion;
• The great   fact of individual difference and variability (that is, inequality)   is evident from the long record of human experience; hence, the   general recognition of the antihuman nature of a world of coerced   uniformity.
• the "Iron Law   of Oligarchy" – the insight that, in every organization or   activity, a few (generally the most able and/or the most interested)   will end up as leaders, with the mass of the membership filling   the ranks of the followers.
• what Jefferson called a "natural aristocracy"
• The   age-old record of inequality seems to indicate that this variability   and diversity is rooted in the biological nature of man.
• their answer is that "culture" has been to blame; and since   they obviously hold that culture is a pure act of the will, then   the goal of changing the culture and inculcating society with   equality seems to be attainable.
• One favorite   egalitarian device is to attribute all such group-identifying   statements to obscure psychological drives.
• this latter propaganda   that may more accurately be called "brainwashing."
• Since egalitarians   begin with the a priori axiom that all people, and hence   all groups of peoples, are uniform and equal, it then follows   for them that any and all group differences in status, prestige,   or authority in society must be the result of unjust "oppression"   and irrational "discrimination."
• by virtue of delegates to previous conventions   falling below their quotal proportion of the population as a whole.   In particular, women, youth, blacks, Chicanos (or the so-called   Third World) were designated as having been oppressed; as a result,   the Democratic Party, under the guidance of egalitarian-quota   thinking, overrode the choices of the voters in order to compel   their due quotal representation of these particular groups.

  • This is the process by which elites in our society effected so-called "reverse discrimination" resulting in effective social engineering via human rights commission (sic) and judicial decisions by non-elected judges in both Canada & the U.S.
    The ultimate success of the egalitarian elitists came through the enactment of "Pay Equity" & "Employment Equity" laws in both countries.
    The names of these leveling laws ...egalitarianism run rampant... say it all!!
    gfp
• It is only commonsense biological   and social insight to realize that youths win their way into society   through a process of apprenticeship; youths know less and have   less experience than mature adults, and so it should be clear   why they tend to have less status and authority than their elders.

  • Boy, will this comment ever upset some Christians! The promotion of "youth advancement" by some egalitarians in churches across Canada & the U.S. has approached the level of idolatry in some instances, in my opinion!
    I find the crusade of the "youth cult" group very strange since their dogma is unBiblical and nowhere promoted in Scripture, that I can find. gfp
• Women are   another recently discovered "oppressed class,"
• faced with   this argument, the widening forces of "women's liberation" in   America again revert to the talismanic argument about "brainwashing"   by our "culture."
• The task of the liberationists   is to effect a revolution in the female condition by sheer will,   by the "raising of consciousness." If most women continue to cleave   to domestic concerns, this only reveals the "false consciousness"   that must be extirpated.
• The cry is that there are no, can be no, must be no biological   differences between the sexes; all historical or current differences   must be due to cultural brainwashing.
• In his brilliant refutation   of the women's liberationist Kate Millett, Irving Howe outlines   several important biological differences between the sexes, differences   important enough to have lasting social effects. They are: (1)   "the distinctive female experience of maternity" including what   the anthropologist Malinowski calls an "intimate and integral   connection with the child . . . associated with physiological   effects and strong emotions"; (2) "the hormonic components of   our bodies as these vary not only between the sexes but at different   ages within the sexes"; (3) "the varying possibilities for work   created by varying amounts of musculature and physical controls";   and (4) "the psychological consequences of different sexual postures   and possibilities," in particular the "fundamental distinction   between the active and passive sexual roles" as biologically determined   in men and women respectively.   <!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->  8  
• boys are innately more aggressive   than girls – and I mean aggressive in the broader sense,   not just as it implies fighting, but as it implies dominance and   initiative as well – and if this quality is one which underlies   the later growth of analytic thinking, then boys have an advantage   which girls...will find difficult to overcome.

  • Until very recently, the non-refuted argument was that this is the result of higher levels of testosterone in 'boys'.
    Medical researches have now seemingly proven that the testosterone levels of boys vs. girls is the same until puberty and then is only slightly higher in boys.
    So, Ms. Maccoby's reference to "innate differences" between the sexes needs some new exploration as to its causation.
    gfp
• For what   seems to trouble Miss Millett isn't merely the injustices women   have suffered or the discriminations to which they continue   to be subject. What troubles her most of all...is the sheer   existence of women. Miss Millett dislikes the psychobiological   distinctiveness of women, and she will go no further than to   recognize – what choice is there, alas? – the inescapable   differences of anatomy. She hates the perverse refusal of most   women to recognize the magnitude of their humiliation, the shameful   dependence they show in regard to (not very independent) men,   the maddening pleasures they even take in cooking dinners for   the "master group" and wiping the noses of their snotty brats.   Raging against the notion that such roles and attitudes are   biologically determined, since the very thought of the biological   seems to her a way of forever reducing women to subordinate   status, she nevertheless attributes to "culture" so staggering   a range of customs, outrages, and evils that this culture comes   to seem a force more immovable and ominous than biology itself.11
• If the   necessity for conventional reproduction of the species seemed   unfair to women, then let us transcend, via technology, "the   very organization of nature,"

  • "Might the adoption of children by lesbians who are "legally married couples" and the promotion of human reproduction by non-sexual cloning be aspects of a demoniacal promotion of a feminist revolt against "the very organization of nature"? ~ gfp '42™
• Another widening   rebellion against biological sex norms, as well as against natural   diversity, has been the recently growing call for bisexuality   by Left intellectuals. The avoidance of "rigid, stereotyped" heterosexuality   and the adoption of indiscriminate bisexuality is supposed to   expand consciousness, to eliminate "artificial" distinctions between   the sexes and to make all persons simply and unisexually "human."
• Once again, brainwashing by a dominant culture (in this case,   heterosexual) has supposedly oppressed a homosexual minority and   blocked off the uniformity and equality inherent in bisexuality.

  • Naturally, the liberal Left will rush to promote the adoption of a sexual perversity by 95-97% of humanity in the interest of a tiny minority of our population. (Polymorphous perversity is a psychoanalytic term used by Sigmund Freud for his perceived human ability to gain sexual gratification outside socially normative sexual behaviors.) Homosexuals have nowhere been proven by survey to represent more than 5% of society ...even in homosexual-promoting societies like those in northeastern Europe including Holland. gfp

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• Google+ is not a social network that directly competes with Facebook,   according Nikesh Arora, the company’s chief business officer.

  • BEWARE: One is wise to rememeber that potential evil can be practised even when it's commanded not to be ...even by the commanders!

• By   Emma Barnett, Digital Media Editor, Monaco

     

   

  11:30AM GMT 10 Nov 2011