Open Minded Realism

This article contains summarized notes that I have written for each CD in Tony Robbins’ “Personal Power” program (link) which I first listened to about 25 years ago.   Note that this article is not a substitute for listening to the actual program, but it is useful to periodically read it in order to help keep what was spoken about fresh in your mind.  

I have emphasized the text of the article in order to increase the speed and effectiveness of reviewing it.  I have put a spacer between the summarized information for each chapter, each of which is explained in detail on its own audio CD.  Each of the CDs in the program is between 30 minutes and 1 hour in length.  

Power is the ability to act.  

The four steps to success: 1. Know the outcome you want;   2. Take action;   3. Notice what is happening;   and 4. Modify your approach as necessary until you succeed.  

Forces which act like GRAVITY are counteracted when you apply your energy.

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The motivating forces of human nature are to AVOID PAIN and SEEK PLEASURE.   YOU MUST USE PAIN AND PLEASURE TO YOUR ADVANTAGE by controlling your focus and changing subconscious associations— otherwise pain and pleasure will use you .  

At every moment, WHATEVER YOU FOCUS YOUR ATTENTION ON IS WHAT IS MOST REAL TO YOU.  Therefore, IF YOU WANT TO CHANGE YOUR BEHAVIOR, you must take control of what you FOCUS on.  

PROCRASTINATION IS THE SILENT KILLER.   You should link not taking action to PAIN.  

For every disciplined effort there is a multiple reward.  

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What controls your life are the “meanings” that you associate to situations.  

“Neuroassociations” are the pain or pleasure that you subconsciously associate or “link” with situations that ultimately control your behavior.  In order to change your life, you must reprogram your neuroassociations.

YOUR DESTINY IN LIFE HAS FOUR PARTS: 1. Everything you THINK or DO is a cause set in motion (positive or negative);   2. Every one of your thoughts and actions is going to have an EFFECT or RESULT in your life;   3. Your results begin to “stack up” to take your life in a particular DIRECTION;   4. For every direction there is an ultimate DESTINATION or DESTINY.  

Your behavior will not change until you condition yourself to feel differently.  

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NEUROASSOCIATIVE CONDITIONING (NAC) is the science of controlling your behaviors through changing your subconscious associations with pain and pleasure.   The three fundamentals of NAC are 1. GETTING LEVERAGE— Recognizing a REASON to change;   2. INTERRUPTING THE ASSOCIATION— Such as creating an unexpected jolt of some kind for you to experience;   and 3. CONDITIONING A NEW EMPOWERING ASSOCIATION, AND REINFORCING IT WITH REPETITION.  

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Everything that humans do is simply an attempt to change the way they feel— to “change state.”  At every moment, what you do is powerfully shaped by the STATE you are in.  One of the most important things you can do to create power, joy, and happiness in your life is to learn to manage your states of mind, which can be accomplished using PHYSIOLOGY (Physical methods such as moving your body, breathing, and diet) as well as by CONTROLLING YOUR MENTAL FOCUS.  

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Using your MENTAL FOCUS, you can control WHAT you are picturing in your mind and HOW you are picturing it, which immediately changes your state.  

At every moment, HOW YOU EVALUATE THINGS (the questions that you subconsciously ask yourself) determines WHAT YOU ARE FOCUSING ON, which then determines your STATE— which then ultimately determines THE CIRCUMSTANCES OF YOUR LIFE.  Therefore the quality of your life is ultimately contingent upon THE QUALITY OF THE QUESTIONS THAT YOU ASK YOURSELF.  

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Your VALUES and BELIEFS are two forces that work together to consciously and unconsciously control your decisions that control the direction of your life.  

VALUES are emotional states that, based on life experience, you believe are the most important for you to experience (move toward) or avoid (move away from).  

Examples of “moving towards” values (pleasure values) are love, success, attraction, power, adventure, happiness, and security.   

Examples of “moving away from” values (what you want to avoid) and frustration, anger, depression, and physical pain.  

It is important to make the distinction between ENDS VALUES, which are emotions that drive all of our behaviors, and MEANS VALUES which are simply “vehicles” or “instruments” to achieve the ends values.  

“Means” values are for getting to a change state, for example a person wanting to have a family is a means to arrive at an emotion that they get out of it, or the STATE.  “Ends” values are the feelings and emotions you will have when getting to the change state.  

The key in life is to know what you are really after.  All decision making is nothing but VALUES CLARIFICATION— If you know what you value most, what you truly want most out of life, then you will find that you can make decisions much more effectively and rapidly.  

A BELIEF is a feeling of certainty about the meaning of something.  Your beliefs determine whether or not you feel like you are meeting your values— and they can either limit you or liberate you.  

Your BELIEFS have been subconsciously entrenched within you throughout your life through your experiences, and they can be either empowering to you or disempowering.  

There are two basic kinds of beliefs.  1. GLOBAL beliefs are generalizations: “Life is…”, “People are…”, “I am…”;  2. And CONDITIONAL beliefs are rules: “If this, then that.”  

Unhealthy LIMITING BELIEFS shut you down and immediately chain you to limitations.  

What you focus on is based on your VALUES.  

FOR ANY CIRCUMSTANCE, YOUR BRAIN FIRST EVALUATES THE EXPERIENCE.  First it looks at what VALUES are important in your life.  Then it looks at NEUROASSOCIATIONS.  For example: If someone values adventure, they would be drawn toward skydiving; or if someone values security, they would not be as drawn to skydiving.

If you know someone’s values, you can predict the overall direction of their life.   If you would swap values in a person, it would completely change their personality and life.  

If you take conscious control to change and optimize your VALUES and BELIEFS, you change your DESTINY, because you change what you are focusing on daily— creating a whole new set of CAUSES and EFFECTS.  

Before improving your values, you need to find out what they currently are.   If you have a list of your values, you know what you are focused on.  

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You can use NEUROASSOCIATIVE CONDITIONING (NAC) to help to change your BELIEFS.  

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You must set goals to move toward, and the PURPOSE of your goals is much more important than the planned outcome.   Setting a goal acknowledges to your conscious and subconscious mind that where you are is not where you want to be.   Whatever you focus on is what is real.   You can use pressure and dissatisfaction to your advantage.  

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People are not lazy, they just have impotent goals.   You must intensely visualize your goals to the point that you feel as if you have already achieved them.  

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Your consistent EMOTIONS shape your character and destiny.   If you are feeling any EMOTION on a consistent basis, it is the result of an internal RITUAL.  Your RITUALS consist of your habitual ways of looking at the world, thinking to yourself, and moving your body.  RITUALS are subconsciously fired off by stimulus from your environment (ANCHORS.)  

Procrastination is nothing but a ritual.  The easiest ways to deal with procrastinating is to “put it off” until later (“procrastinate the procrastinating”), and to condition yourself to know that not following through is more painful than following through.  

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Whenever you are in an intense emotional state, anything that consistently happens around you while you’re in the peak of that state gets associated with it.  This process is called ANCHORING.  

An example is hearing a particular song reminding you of a person or place from the past, where it is because you were hearing the song when you were in a peak emotional state.  

The behavior of Pavlov’s dogs drooling when they hear a bell that is rung before being given food is another example of anchoring.  

You can consciously ENTRENCH POSITIVE ANCHORS and COLLAPSE NEGATIVE ONES.  

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If you do not have enough money, it is likely because you have not conditioned yourself for wealth.  People often have seven “wealth wounds” which are unhealthy assumptions about money that cause people to cripple themselves financially.

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Sometimes people subconsciously associate pleasure with not having financial abundance, or they are frightened by the thought of having more money because it is “the unknown”— and thus they sabotage their ability to make money.   Their finances will not improve until they change their core beliefs about money and subconsciously link pain to not having it, as well as learning how to counter the “seven wealth wounds.”  

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Fear is an emotional state where your brain is activated to protect yourself in anticipation of pain.   People are often afraid of failure because they set themselves up with impossible rules for success, and they can eliminate such fear by realizing that nobody outside of themselves can label themselves as a failure.   Fear can also be eliminated by reprogramming neuroassociations associated with it.  

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Self-sabotage is stopping yourself from following through to avoid pain of some sort.   Such fear-based behavior can be reprogrammed by “interrupting the pattern” using “the erasure technique.”  

Self-confidence can be enhanced through physiology (PHYSICAL factors), controlling your mental focus, and improving your core beliefs which create positive momentum of the success cycle.  

The SUCCESS CYCLE is an important visualization of a circular chain of processes which RESULTS IN THE POSITIVE OR NEGATIVE QUALITY OF YOUR LIFE, as follows:  

BELIEFS (influence —>) POTENTIAL (influencing —>) ACTIONS (influencing —>) RESULTS [often including EXPERIENCES] (which then loop around to influence BELIEFS again —>)  

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Two things you can do immediately to improve your physical health are to understand the power of breathing and to eat water-rich foods such as fruits and vegetables.  

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Common challenges to relationships include people thinking of it as “the solution to their problems” and only taking from the relationship rather than giving, lack of spontaneity in the relationship, negative anchors being established in the relationship, and partners failing to meet each other’s needs.  

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The key to problem solving: 1. Control your focus;   2. Expect an answer;   3. Know what you want, try something, and notice if it is working;   4. Then change your approach if necessary.

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Common life paths of people are “The Dabbler”, “The Stresser”, and “The Master”.   It is “The Master” who finds true fulfillment in life by practicing the fundamentals that are taught in this program every day, and continuing to keep going when they hit a plateau.   Remember the key ideas: 1. Decide what you really want;   2. Develop a plan;   3. Take action;   4. Be flexible.  

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You can develop habits that stick with you by understanding how to ESTABLISH POSITIVE SUBCONSCIOUS ANCHORS, TAKE ADVANTAGE OF EXISTING POSITIVE ANCHORS and ELIMINATING NEGATIVE ONES— by reprogramming your anchors using the SWISH pattern method.  

Something you can do immediately to improve your physical and mental health is to understand the power of BREATHING.  

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There are four “CLASSES” of experiences:  

A Class 1 experience is something that: Feels good, is good for you, is good for others, and serves the greater good.   <— When these criteria exist, it is a “peak life experience.”  

A Class 2 experience is something that: Does NOT feel good, but is good for you, is good for others, and serves the greater good.   <— These are experiences that you often want to avoid but ultimately give you joy because they cause you to grow as a human being, and as you master them you become more fulfilled.  

A secret to being fulfilled is learning how to convert Class 2 experiences into Class 1 experiences.  

A Class 3 experience is something that: Feels good, is NOT good for you, is NOT good for others, and does NOT serve the greater good.   <— These are non-productive experiences that are indulged in too much, for example drinking too much alcohol, etc.  These experiences provide people with immediate pleasure but in the long term give them pain.

A Class 4 experience is something that: Does NOT feel good, is NOT good for you, is NOT good for others, and does NOT serve the greater good.   <— Starting smoking cigarettes for the first time is an example.  People often engage in these experiences out of peer pressure, conditioning, or old belief systems.  

All people have SIX BASIC NEEDS which can initially seem to be paradoxical, i.e. being in conflict with each other.   Serious problems can arise if you choose destructive “vehicles” to try to satisfy those needs.   But also you can choose to establish new patterns of fulfilling those needs that will move you rapidly toward life mastery.  

1. Certainty / Comfort  

2. Uncertainty / Variety   <— #1 and #2 must be balanced with each other.

3. Significance  

4. Connection / Love   <— #3 and #4 must be balanced with each other.

5. Growth  

6. Contribution   <— #5 and #6 must be balanced with each other.

This article contains summarized notes that I have written for each chapter of Stephen Covey’s book “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.”

Note that this article is not a substitute for reading the actual book, but it is useful to periodically read it in order to help keep what was spoken about fresh in your mind.  

I have emphasized the text in order to help increase the speed and effectiveness of reviewing it.  

Part One: PARADIGMS AND PRINCIPLES 

Chapter: INSIDE OUT 

In order to have “PRIMARY GREATNESS,” you must accurately understand the way things ACTUALLY ARE with you, and the ways things SHOULD BE with you. 

The HEALTHY PRINCIPLES of FAIRNESS, INTEGRITY and HONESTY, HUMAN DIGNITY, SERVICE, QUALITY and EXCELLENCE, POTENTIAL, GROWTH, PATIENCE, NURTURANCE, and ENCOURAGEMENT are universal to everyone, and they are key to being a good person. 

THE INSIDE-OUT APPROACH is to have PRIVATE victories precede PUBLIC victories, where making and keeping promises to ourselves precedes making promises to others. 

The principle of FAIRNESS:  Equality, respect, and justice in relationships, ensuring that all parties involved are treated justly and have equal opportunities. 

The principles of INTEGRITY and HONESTY:  Integrity involves having strong moral principles and consistently adhering to them, while honesty is the act of being truthful and free from deceit. 

The principle of HUMAN DIGNITY:  Every person has worth and deserves respect and ethical treatment. 

The principle of SERVICE:  Emphasizes the importance of serving and helping others with a focus on their needs, where the service is genuine and not driven by ulterior motives. 

The principles of QUALITY and EXCELLENCE:  Quality refers to the ability of a product or service to meet established standards and customer expectations, emphasizing consistency and reliability.  Excellence is a broader concept that focuses on achieving outstanding performance and continuous improvement, driven by motivation rather than just meeting external standards. 

The principle of POTENTIAL:  Considering and nurturing the best possible version of someone, rather than judging them based on their current circumstances or actions. 

The principle of GROWTH:  We should treat others as we wish to be treated. 

The principle of PATIENCE:  Tolerating delays, discomfort, or frustration without losing composure. 

The principle of NURTURANCE:  Caring for and supporting others, helping them grow and develop emotionally and socially. 

The principle of ENCOURAGEMENT:  Building one another up through positive words and actions, creating a supportive environment. 

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Chapter: THE SEVEN HABITS— AN OVERVIEW 

The Seven Habits are HABITS OF EFFECTIVENESS based on HEALTHY PRINCIPLES.  Effective HABITS of INTERNALIZED PRINCIPLES and PATTERNS OF BEHAVIOR are the intersection of KNOWLEDGE, SKILL, and DESIRE. 

KNOWLEDGE is “WHAT to do and why,” SKILL is “HOW to do it,” and DESIRE is “the MOTIVATION and want to do it.”  You must work in all three dimensions in order to create an effective habit. 

An important concept is a principle called the “P/PC Balance,” which is a paradigm of effectiveness based on a natural law of finding a crucial BALANCE OF FOCUS between WHAT is Produced (Product) and the CAPACITY to Produce (Production Capacity).  An example would be the fable of the goose that laid golden eggs, with the eggs being the product, and the goose being the production capacity.  True effectiveness is a function of a BALANCE of maintaining BOTH aspects. 

The “P/PC” concept applies EVERYWHERE, such as with PHYSICAL ASSETS like a lawnmower that requires upkeep, PERSONAL FINANCIAL ASSETS such as utilizing loans and earning power, and PERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS requiring give and take such as in marriages.  In ORGANIZATIONS it applies to PHYSICAL ASSETS such as making sure to maintain the equipment, and HUMAN ASSETS such as always treating your employees as well as you want them to treat your best customers. 

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Part Two: PRIVATE VICTORY 

Chapter: HABIT 1— BE PROACTIVE — Principles of Personal VISION  (Properly recognize what you actually have power to do and not do.) 

REACTIVE people are overly affected by circumstances in their environment, whereas PROACTIVE people take responsibility of their own lives and don’t blame circumstances, conditions, or conditioning for their behavior, and they also take initiative by recognizing their responsibility to make things happen. 

Some of the things within your CIRCLE OF CONCERN you HAVE control over, and the rest you DO NOT have control over.  You should visualize a circle within your Circle of Concern called the “Circle of INFLUENCE” which represents the aspects that you do have control over.  By determining which of the two circles is the focus of most of your time and energy, you can discover much about the degree of your PROACTIVITY.  Your focus is only effective if it is in your CIRCLE OF INFLUENCE. 

The problems you face fall into one of three areas: 1. DIRECT CONTROL (problems involving your OWN behavior);  2. INDIRECT CONTROL (problems involving OTHER PEOPLE’S behaviors);  or 3. NO CONTROL (problems you can do nothing about, such as your past or situational realities).  A PROACTIVE approach puts the first step in the solution to all three kinds of problems within your present CIRCLE OF INFLUENCE. 

At the heart of your CIRCLE OF INFLUENCE is your ability to make and keep COMMITMENTS and PROMISES to yourself and others, which is the essence of developing the basic HABITS OF EFFECTIVENESS. 

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Chapter: HABIT 2— BEGIN WITH THE END IN MIND — Principles of Personal LEADERSHIP  (Properly PLAN what you must do.) 

All things are created TWICE.  There’s the MENTAL or first creation, and the PHYSICAL or second creation.  HABIT 2 is based on principles of PERSONAL LEADERSHIP, which is the FIRST creation.  Leadership is not MANAGEMENT which is the SECOND creation that will be discussed in the next chapter.  LEADERSHIP is about making sure to be “doing the RIGHT things,” whereas MANAGEMENT is “doing those things properly.” 

The most fundamental aspect of HABIT 2 is to “begin with the end in mind” with all aspects of your life. 

Whatever is at the center of your life will be the source of your SECURITY, GUIDANCE, WISDOM, and POWER, which are INTERDEPENDENT with each other.  You can have much conscious control over your aspects of GUIDANCE and POWER. 

SECURITY is your sense of worth or self-esteem. 

GUIDANCE is your source of direction in life, your STANDARDS and PRINCIPLES. 

WISDOM is your perspective on life. 

POWER is your facility of the capacity to act, the STRENGTH and POTENCY to accomplish something, including your capacity to overcome embedded bad habits and to cultivate higher, more effective ones. 

When those four factors are present together, harmonized and enlivened by each other, they create a great force of a noble personality, a balanced character, a beautifully integrated individual. 

PRINCIPLES are fundamental truths that are universal to everyone and are tightly interwoven through the fabric of life. 

The ideal is to create ONE CLEAR CENTER from which you consistently derive a high degree of SECURITY, GUIDANCE, WISDOM, and POWER, empowering your proactivity and giving congruency and harmony to every part of your life (a center based on HEALTHY PRINCIPLES.) 

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Chapter: HABIT 3— PUT FIRST THINGS FIRST — Principles of Personal MANAGEMENT  (Effectively IMPLEMENT your plans.) 

HABIT 3 is the personal fruit, THE PRACTICAL FULFILLMENT OF HABITS 1 AND 2 THROUGH PRACTICING EFFECTIVE SELF-MANAGEMENT. 

HABIT 1 says “YOU’RE the programmer,” HABIT 2 says “WRITE the program,” and HABIT 3 says “Run the program, live the program.”  LIVING IT is primarily a function of your INDEPENDENT WILL, SELF-DISCIPLINE, INTEGRITY, and COMMITMENT. 

THE SUCCESSFUL PERSON HAS THE HABIT OF DOING THINGS THAT FAILURES DON’T LIKE TO DO.  They don’t necessarily like doing them either, but their disliking of it is subordinated to the strength of their purpose. 

PEOPLE CAN SPEND THEIR TIME FOUR DIFFERENT WAYS — QUADRANT I: “Urgent and Important” activities (The Zone of DEMAND);  QUADRANT II: “Not Urgent but Important” activities (The Zone of FULFILLMENT);  QUADRANT III: “Seemingly ‘urgent’, but not actually important” activities (The SHALLOW, SUPERFICIAL zone, the zone of DELUSION);  and QUADRANT IV: “Not Urgent and Not Important” activities (The Zone of DISTRACTION). 

QUADRANT I is dealing with tasks that are genuinely a CRISIS or PROBLEM that require your immediate attention.  Aspects of someone living too much of their life in QUADRANT I include: Being constantly stressed and burned out; Always needing to be putting out fires through crisis management. 

QUADRANT II (Things that are not urgent but are important — The Zone of FULFILLMENT) is the most ideal focus of your personal management.  It is dealing with things like building relationships, performing long-range planning and preparation, exercising your body, and performing preventative maintenance— all of the things that you need to do, but can be neglected because they aren’t “urgent.”  Aspects of living your life primarily in QUADRANT II include: Having VISION and PERSPECTIVE; Having BALANCE; Having DISCIPLINE; Having CONTROL; Thus needing to deal with crisis much less frequently. 

Aspects of someone living too much of their life in QUADRANT III (“Seemingly ‘urgent’, but not actually important”— The SHALLOW, SUPERFICIAL zone, the zone of DELUSION) include: Having a short-term focus; Often finding themself needing to do crisis management; Being obsessed with manipulating their reputation through behaving with a chameleon character; Seeing goals and plans as worthless; Feeling victimized; Feeling out of control; Having shallow or broken friendships. 

Aspects of someone living their life too much in QUADRANT IV (“NOT urgent and NOT important” — The Zone of DISTRACTION) include: Being totally irresponsible; Being fired from jobs; Being dependent on others or institutions for the basics in their life. 

Most people say that their main fault is LACK OF DISCIPLINE, but more likely it is their LACK OF PRIORITIES implanted in their hearts and minds.  If your priorities grow out of a PRINCIPLE center, a personal mission which is deeply planted in your heart and mind, you will then see QUADRANT II (“Not urgent but important” activities— the zone of FULFILLMENT) as a natural and exciting place to invest your time.  If you don’t have a bigger “yes” burning inside, it will be almost impossible to say “no” to Quadrant III or to the pleasure of escape to Quadrant IV. 

You accomplish all that you do through DELEGATION— either to your time or to other people.  When you delegate to your TIME, you should think “efficiency,” and when you delegate to OTHER PEOPLE, you should think “effectiveness.” 

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Part Three: PUBLIC VICTORY 

Chapter: PARADIGMS OF INTERDEPENDENCE  (Treat others well with genuinely healthy motivations.) 

Before moving into the area of “Public Victory,” it is important to realize that effective INTERdependence can only be built on a foundation of true INdependence.  A PRIVATE VICTORY must precede a PUBLIC VICTORY. 

You have to like yourself before you can like others.  Self-respect comes from dominion over your SELF, from true independence— which is the focus of Habits 1, 2, and 3. 

The most important ingredient that we put into any relationship is not what we say or do, but who we are. 

The EMOTIONAL BANK ACCOUNT is a metaphor that describes the amount of trust that has been built into a relationship, it is the feeling of safeness you have with another person.  You make deposits into an emotional bank account with somebody through your courtesy, kindness, honesty, and keeping your commitments.  This builds a subconscious reserve of trust which you likely will be able to call upon if you need it. 

THE SIX MAJOR DEPOSITS— There are six major deposits that build your emotional bank account with others: 1. Understanding the individual; 2. Attending to the little things; 3. Keeping commitments; 4. Clarifying expectations; 5. Showing personal integrity; and 6. Apologizing sincerely when you make a withdrawal. 

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Chapter: HABIT 4— THINK WIN / WIN — Principles of INTERPERSONAL LEADERSHIP  (It is healthy to seek mutual benefit in your interactions with others.) 

“WIN / WIN” is not a technique, it is a total philosophy of human interaction— It is one of six potential paradigms of interactions which are “WIN / WIN”, “WIN / LOSE”, “LOSE / WIN”, “LOSE / LOSE”, “WIN”, and “WIN / WIN OR NO DEAL.” 

WIN / WIN is a frame of mind that constantly seeks MUTUAL BENEFIT in human interactions.   There are three character traits essential to the WIN / WIN Paradigm: INTEGRITY, MATURITY, and ABUNDANCE MENTALITY.

WIN / LOSE is a paradigm of COMPETITION— such as managers being put in a race to win a trip to Bermuda.

LOSE / WIN is a paradigm of somebody having the mentality of a doormat.

LOSE / LOSE is what happens when two WIN / LOSE people interact— both will lose.

WIN is a mentality where it only matters to a person that they get what they want.

WIN / WIN OR NO DEAL is a paradigm where if both parties can’t find a solution that would benefit them both, they agree to disagree agreeably and don’t make a deal.

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Chapter: HABIT 5— SEEK FIRST TO UNDERSTAND, THEN TO BE UNDERSTOOD — Principles of Empathic Communication  (Genuinely listen to and consider what others have to say.) 

The single most important principle in the field of interpersonal relations is “Seek first to understand, then to be understood.” 

There are five levels of LISTENING listed by the amount of effectiveness: IGNORING, PRETENDING TO LISTEN, SELECTIVE LISTENING, ATTENTIVE LISTENING, and EMPATHIC LISTENING.  EMPATHIC LISTENING is listening to UNDERSTAND rather than only to reply. 

A key way to subconsciously show the listener that you are EMPATHETICALLY LISTENING to them is by REPHRASING THE CONTENT AND REFLECTING THE FEELING.

MATURITY means a balance between COURAGE and CONSIDERATION— Seeking to UNDERSTAND requires CONSIDERATION— seeking to BE UNDERSTOOD requires COURAGE.  WIN / WIN requires a high degree of both. 

When you present your ideas clearly, specifically, visually, and most important, contextually— in the context of deep understanding of your audience’s paradigms and concerns— you significantly increase the credibility of your ideas. 

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Part Four: RENEWAL 

Chapter: HABIT 7— SHARPEN THE SAW — Principles of Balanced Renewal  (Take time to develop the PRODUCTION CAPACITY in all areas of your life.) 

Covey explains an example of a woodcutter working for hours trying to cut down a tree, being exhausted doing it, but not stopping to sharpen his saw for a few minutes because it would distract him from his work, even though sharpening the saw would dramatically speed up his job. 

Habit 7 is similar to the woodcutter sharpening his saw— it surrounds all of the other habits on the Seven Habits paradigm because it is the habit that makes them possible. 

An important concept is a principle called the “P/PC Balance,” which is a paradigm of effectiveness based on a natural law of finding a crucial BALANCE OF FOCUS between WHAT is Produced (Product) and the CAPACITY to Produce (Production Capacity).  An example would be the fable of the goose that laid golden eggs, with the eggs being the product, and the goose being the production capacity.  True effectiveness is a function of a BALANCE of maintaining BOTH aspects. 

Habit 7 is personal P/C— Preserving and enhancing the greatest asset you have— you.  It is RENEWING the four dimensions of your nature— PHYSICAL, SPIRITUAL, MENTAL, and SOCIAL / EMOTIONAL.  The renewal is optimally effective when all four are dealt with in a wise and balanced way, where neglecting one area negatively impacts the rest. 

The PHYSICAL dimension involves effectively taking care your physical body— eating the right kind of food, getting sufficient rest and relaxation, and exercising on a regular basis. 

RENEWAL is the principle and the process that empowers your to move on an upward spiral of growth and change, of continuous improvement. 

To keep progressing, you must LEARN, COMMIT, and DO— and then LEARN, COMMIT, and DO again. 

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Chapter: INSIDE-OUT AGAIN  (Real change can only come from breaking out of your previous habits and paradigms.) 

Real change comes from the inside out— it only comes from striking the root— the fabric of your thought, your fundamental, essential paradigms which give definition to your character and create the lens through which you see the world. 

Building a character of total integrity and living a life of love and service that creates such unity is possible if IT BEGINS WITH YOUR DESIRE TO CENTER YOUR LIFE ON CORRECT PRINCIPLES, AND TO BREAK OUT OF THE PARADIGMS CREATED BY OTHER CENTERS AND COMFORT ZONES OF UNWORTHY HABITS. 

IF YOU START WITH YOUR DAILY PRIVATE VICTORIES AND WORK FROM THE INSIDE OUT, THE RESULTS WILL SURELY COME.  As you plant the seed and patiently weed and nourish it, you begin to feel the excitement of real growth and eventually taste the fruits of having a congruent and effective life. 

By centering your life on CORRECT PRINCIPLES and creating a balanced focus between DOING and INCREASING YOUR ABILITY TO DO, you become empowered in the task of creating an effective, useful, and peaceful life. 

I recently found a YouTube channel which contains videos that explain various types of affordable energy saving technologies that can be easily be added to people’s houses.

This is another example of how the political Establishment was never actually concerned about “global warming,” where in fact they’ve always actually been frightened of people finding out about how effective alternative energy technologies can be.  Their global warming scam was only an excuse for them to consolidate their corrupt control over populations at the international level under the guise of combating a “global” threat, where in fact the very last thing that they want is for people to learn how to become self-sufficient and independent.

Following are some selected videos:

“This $300 Tunnel COOLS Any Home 55°F FOREVER”

This video explains that a simple pipe buried in your yard can be used to cool your house essentially for free, due to the fact that the temperature a few feet underground always remains at about 55 degrees Fahrenheit, no matter what season of the year it is.

[Note: It would be interesting to know what the correlation is between the length of the pipe and the volume of air that it can cool per minute.

I think it would be ideal if both the beginning and the end of the pipe would be inside the house, in order to not allow humidity, pollen, and other pollutants in the air outside to enter the house.  For example, the pipe could run underground to the end of the yard, and then an elbow could attach to an adjacent underground pipe which would head back to the house.]

“This $300 Tunnel HEATS Any Home All Winter FOREVER…”

Interestingly, the same sort of underground pipe as in the previous video can be used for heating in many circumstances.

“This Chimney Cools Your Entire Home WITHOUT Electricity.  Why’d They Hide It?”

This is interesting technology which naturally utilizes the pressure differences between warm air and cool air.

“This $300 Sand Drum Heats Any Home All Winter.  Why Did They Erase It?”

This looks like a great way to store solar energy for heating, as long as it would be implemented in a way where there wouldn’t be any danger of it causing fires.

“The $7 Powder That Beats Your $3,000 AC Unit (Physics Explained)”

[Note: This is interesting, but I think it would be an eyesore if a lot of people in traditional suburban-type neighborhoods started painting their rooftops white or installing white roofing tile, assuming that they leave the color schemes of the rest of their houses as it was when they had a dark colored roof.

However, I would agree with making such rooftops white if they could be concealed with trellises, where that could also be combined with the use of solar sterling engines as I had detailed in this article.  But the sterling engines would actually cast shadows on most of the rooftops anyway, which would mostly negate the need for making the rooftops white in the first place.]

“This Forgotten NASA Insulation Trick Cuts AC Costs By 70% – They Stopped Teaching It In 1991”

This is another very inexpensive way to save a huge amount of energy.

The street artist Banksy has recently installed a cringe pro-Establishment “anti-patriotism” statue in central London, which had been installed overnight supposedly “without the consent” of the city.  The statue depicts a man who is blinded by the flag that he is carrying and stepping off of the precipice of its pedestal into the void. (link)

Banksy has actually always been a butt-kisser when it comes to the political Establishment.  In recent years he has also created other pro-Establishment artworks, where for example he made a mural depicting a judge beating a pro-open borders and pro-Islam rioter with his gavel, and he has made other artworks advocating for those same types of issues as well. (link)

However, his latest work is actually made relevant when the flag on it is made to be specific for the United Nations, where other types of relevant flags would also be for the European Union, the Democratic National Committee, or the Communist Party for example.

(I think the sculpture would also actually be relevant it was taken completely literally however, if it was considered to be a “white flag of surrender” for example.  But in any event it would certainly not be relevant if it was a flag of the United States.)

[Note: After a lot of prodding, I was able to create the above alternative image using Grok, but when I tried to refine it even more it started refusing to do so for some reason.  I wanted to make the UN logo fill the proportions of the entire flag exactly as if it was a real UN flag, where most of the logo would be concealed by its folds, but it wasn’t able to do that where it told me it was “trying” but constantly never returned any improvements after I spent a considerable amount of time attempting to do that, where it then usually said “Grok was unable to reply.  Something went wrong.”

Also I wasn’t even able to get Grok to recreate the above result again, even though I supplied the same sort of clear instructions that I originally had.  I wonder if it decided to start refusing or it was told to start refusing by moderators due to the political content.

In any event, while I was in the process of doing that and seeing all of the errors that it made on the way to the final image, I kept thinking about how utterly insane someone would have to be to ride in a car that is driven by AI!]

(Such maternity ward rooms don’t usually exist anymore.)

I made a comment in a Various News post a few months ago saying it would be ideal if more women had children every year rather than every two years, but since then I’ve been seeing information claiming that doing so results in a higher probability of complications with the births.  For example I saw AI saying:

“Women should wait at least a year between having children to reduce health risks for both themselves and their babies.  Short intervals between pregnancies can lead to complications such as preterm birth and maternal health issues.”

But I wonder if that is actually true.  I suspect that it is not actually, where instead I think the political Establishment has exaggerated or fabricated that claim in order to reduce the amount of births which occur, especially in the West.

I would be surprised if most women’s bodies would not able to heal enough to give birth at the same time a year later without problems, assuming they had previously given a standard birth without complications, they have been able to adequately rest during their pregnancy, and they have been eating healthy enough food.

A Mayo Clinic article says the following:

What are the risks of spacing pregnancies close together?

A pregnancy that starts within six months of a live birth has a higher risk of some health issues.  BUT IT’S NOT CLEAR FROM THE RESEARCH IF PREGNANCY SPACING IS THE CAUSE OF THESE CONCERNS. (emphasis added)  They include:

— A baby being born before the 37th week of pregnancy, also called premature birth.
— Low birth weight for the baby.
— A baby being born with a health concern.  These health concerns are called congenital disorders.  Or sometimes they may be called birth defects.

For pregnant people [(women)], a pregnancy that starts within six months of a live birth raises the risk of anemia.  In anemia, there isn’t enough healthy red blood cells or hemoglobin in the blood to carry oxygen to the body’s tissues.

What reason would there be for such health issues to occur, simply because a woman has become pregnant again soon or relatively soon after giving birth?  When a woman first becomes pregnant it does not start to heavily tax her body for many months, so I think it is suspicious that it is being suggested that women’s bodies are not capable of doing that, especially if they are receiving enough rest and making sure to be eating properly over the course of their pregnancy.  And wouldn’t women’s bodies have developed to naturally not be able to conceive soon after giving birth if there actually is a risk when doing so?  (But of course I realize that being pregnant and giving birth are usually a very physically strenuous process for women in any case.)

What most convinces me that such claims are illegitimate is because they don’t adequately explain “why” that would be case, such as for supposed birth defects that would occur.  For example the idea of “anemia” of the mother being be a factor seems ridiculous to me, where if for some reason a woman would happen to have that issue it would be a simple matter to counter it anyway.

I saw this article which cites a study which claims that short intervals between pregnancies creates greater risks for the health of older women while it creates greater risks for the children of younger women.  However I still doubt that correlation, at least for younger women, where I think it is likely that there are other factors causing the harm to the children in the study rather than the interval between the pregnancies.  For example women who have migrated from the third world tend to have children at a much higher rate and at much shorter intervals, so due to their presence in the study many other factors might actually be causing the problems.

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In a somewhat related issue, I noticed this horrifying CNN article which explains that an (evil) “American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists” organization is ridiculously “breaking with the CDC” and recommending that women take Covid-19 vaccines during their pregnancies!

Covid-19 vaccines are shown beyond any doubt to be useless and deadly, as is explained in numerous articles and videos in this article.

All of these articles should serve as an important reminder that YOU MUST ALWAYS BE SUSPICIOUS OF WHAT DOCTORS TELL YOU, where they and their representative associations often simply prescribe whatever the corrupt and malicious political Establishment tells them to do, even when it is contrary to the truth and to your health.

I often like the content that the Babylon Bee media outlet creates, but I disagree with this video that is typical of conservative satire that depicts veganism as being impractical and ridiculous.

Personally I’m not opposed to the consumption of animals, but I think they should be well-treated when they are raised, which is almost never the case as this video explains.  Also see this article which explains that the political Establishment only wants conservatives to “think” that they want to ban meat.

I think most people who are opposed to veganism would not be willing to personally mistreat an animal the way that it is usually mistreated when it is raised, for example.

There are other good reasons to be a vegan as well.  For example meat and dairy production creates a lot of pollution such as in the waterways (not counting the ridiculous claims of cows creating methane that supposedly contributes to supposed “global warming”), and the production of meat is wasteful due to animals requiring 12 times the amount of farmland that would be needed to otherwise grow crops that are eaten directly.  Other crops such as hemp could be grown instead.

And despite what the political Establishment wants people to think, it is healthy to be a vegan, as this video explains.

I’ve been a vegan for over 15 years, and I find it to be easy to do and it is healthy.  It is easy to be a vegan if you know what your options are.

This article explains the benefits of “raw veganism” which I also like, which is different than basic veganism.  I’ve been shifting more toward raw veganism once again.

Some of my favorite basic basic vegan cookbooks are “Real Vegetarian Thai,” “Caribbean Vegan,” and “Vegan Tacos: Authentic and Inspired.”

I don’t like most of the commercial “frankenfood” meat substitutes such as the “Beyond Meat” brand, which contains GMO ingredients.  (I believe that Burger King actually chose that brand for its veggie burgers in a “pro-meat conspiracy” because it is shunned by most most vegetarians due to it being GMO, and additionally vegetarians don’t want to eat those burgers because Burger King cooks them in the grease of meat hamburgers.)

This video shows an all-natural gourmet vegan burger that doesn’t contain GMO ingredients:

I like the taste of cheese, but I don’t really miss it because my recipes compensate for it.  And I can get cheese flavor using nutritional yeast, which is actually made from beets.

In any event I don’t miss drinking cow’s milk, since I think plant-based milks such as almond milk and hemp milk taste better anyway.

About the Yulin Dog Meat Festival in China

In a somewhat related matter, this Breitbart article says that Animal defenders are saying that China is still allowing the slaughter of dogs at the Yulin Dog Meat Festival.

I think it is interesting that Westerners often see eating dog meat as being inhumane while other types of domesticated animals also have similarly sophisticated personalities and they often suffer even more than such dogs likely do when they are raised for meat, such as pigs and chickens, etc.

[Note: In any event, I think consuming free-range animals is fine, but nonetheless I don’t want to post meat recipes on my websites, even if they would say “‘free range’ this and that” in the ingredients list because few people actually do that.  For example many people might consume free range meat every now and then as a token gesture such as at a barbecue or whatever, but otherwise they eat non-free range meat, especially because the prices of groceries are so high.  Also a lot of meat that is labeled as “free range” actually isn’t.  There are more than enough meat recipes on the internet already anyway.  I’m fine with posting other types of information however such as about the benefits of raising free-range animals for consumption.]

Image from Flikr.

This Russia Today article explains that Elon Musk is calling out Wikipedia for wasting an enormous proportion of its donations on woke DEI and “safety and inclusion” agendas, among other issues.

The article explains that Wikipedia receives 90% of its funding from donations, and in its 2023-2024 budget of $177 million, $50 million was spent on such woke agendas.

Other points talked about in the article:

— Musk wrote on X: “Stop donating to Wokepedia until they restore balance to their editing authority,” and he wrote that Wikipedia “sucks” for spending $50 million on DEI.

— Wikipedia claims it is “taking steps to address barriers to free knowledge caused by racial inequality, while also striving to close the gender gap and ensure equal representation of knowledge and people on the platform.”  They also claim that they seek to “defend our people and projects against disinformation and harmful government regulation” and other “external threats.”

— Elon Musk also called out Wikipedia in October for calling Donald Trump a “fascist,” where he said the site is controlled by far-left activists.

— Later that month Musk offered Wikipedia $1 billion if they would rename the site to be “Dickipedia” for at least a year.

— In 2023 Wikipedia’s co-founder Larry Sanger said that the platform is being used by US intelligence community as an instrument of “control,” and to further the agenda of left-liberal establishment.

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… All of that is depressing to hear.  I bet that angers many people who donate to it, and also people who contribute content to it.

I must admit that I find the website to be useful nonetheless.  Of course there is always a danger of its content being biased, but people should expect that because it is a wiki.  (And I do point out when I find issues with it.)

Other similar wikis also exist, and I will examine them more.  But I wouldn’t trust many of them to be much better and they likely don’t have as much content.

Following are links to the Wikipedia alternatives that are mentioned in this article:

Encyclopedia Britannica  (This does not seem to be a “wiki” however.)

Kiwix  (This is “downloader” for various wikis including Wikipedia, which could be useful.)

KnowledgePicker  (This seems to no longer be accepting new content, but its old content is still available as an archive.)

Oppia  (This didn’t work on my browser.)

Scholarpedia  (This one focuses on “academic” topics.)

Metapedia  (This one “focuses on culture, art, science, history, politics and philosophy.”)

World History Encyclopedia  (This one focuses on ancient history.  It is an NGO like Wikipedia, and it mainly focuses on providing information and content for teachers and students.)

Wikiless  (This is some sort of a custom Wikipedia front end that web developers can host themselves.  It says that it prevents Wikipedia from getting the IP address of the people who are searching it, and it is somehow “customizable” for individual users.  This article explains it more, and it gives a list of examples of its use.)

Wikispooks  (This one focuses on “conspiracy” related content.)

[Note I wrote this article a while ago.  I actually have a bit of a backlog of articles that I wrote but never got around to posting.  Many of them I didn’t post because I decided that they would distract from other new articles.]

I saw the movie Gladiator II recently, which I thought was well-made, but it did have issues such as with the fictional animals they fought and man-eating sharks being in the Colosseum for example.

The movie had corrupt twin brother emperors who were based on real emperors Geta & Caracalla, and they also incorporated aspects of madness into them as with the emperor Nero.  Nero was a homosexual however, but the filmmakers seemed to go out of their way to depict them as being heterosexuals despite their effeminate nature, where they weren’t even willing to just leave that up to speculation.

See a video that depicts how insane Nero was in this docudrama series.  (The documentary was previously available on YouTube but it is now on Amazon Prime.  The entire series is well-made, where each episode portrays a unique interesting aspect of ancient Rome.  Note that the written description for the video on the page is for a different video however.)

A “woke” movement actually exists claiming that “Nero wasn’t actually that bad,” however he definitely was bad.  Apparently he didn’t personally start the fire in Rome, but most of the other horrible things about him aren’t disputed.  But that doesn’t stop his proponents from claiming that he was “misunderstood” and some even ridiculously saying that he was “actually good.”

The issue with Nero being claimed to be “misunderstood” is another example of leftists attempting to do a “woke” re-writing of history, such as with Alexander the Great inaccurately being depicted as being a homosexual, (link) the Carthaginian general Hannibal being depicted as being black, (link and link) and the Crusades being depicted as Muslims being attacked by Europeans for no reason. (link and link)

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I also heard about the “gay comedy” superhero movie Deadpool and Wolverine, and I was surprised to hear that it was very popular and I was curious why.  So I saw it but I still can’t understand how it could have been so popular.  It is definitely a “gay” movie, and I just can’t imagine large crowds of heterosexual guys (or girls) lining up to see that.

The following are real promotional posters for the movie:

The movie was actually a “blockbuster,” supposedly grossing $1.338 billion worldwide, and it was the highest-grossing R-rated movie of all time!  Why?  Did activists somehow coordinate with each other and buy ten or twenty tickets each?  I just don’t believe it.

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Another movie that I think has suspiciously inexplicable aspects is “The Dark Knight” that was made in 2008, which was seemingly universally hailed by critics as being “one of the greatest movies of all time!” despite just being a run-of-the-mill action movie except for the fact that it was particularly violent.  Even to this day it is ranked among “the greatest of all movies.” (link and link)  For some reason an agenda seems to exist to make sure it is artificially praised and ranked in such a positive way.

It is interesting to think about the cultural differences in society in between 1920 and 1960, and then between 1985 and 2025— where both are 40 year differences, however the cultural changes that occurred in the latter 40 years are very slight even as technology has become much more advanced and more accessible by everyone.

For example the following music videos seem as modern today as they did in the 1980’s.  (Note that I don’t necessarily like some of those groups however.)

Popular Western culture such as music and movies hasn’t really changed much since the 80’s and 90’s, other than the ridiculous dysfunctional “wokeness” that the political Establishment has been recently trying to force onto everyone.  Actually the political Establishment has always exploited the popular culture for its own purposes however, starting even decades before the 80’s.

(Nonetheless I think a difference between now and then is many of the new popular music celebrities today aren’t as sophisticated or clever of musicians or songwriters, where I think the new music is generally much more one-dimensional and monotonous across songs, and the topics spoken about are more superficial and vapid.  I actually think that is also likely at the instructions of the political Establishment.)

In any event, the biggest factor in slowing the cultural changes has been the internet decentralizing and diffusing what defines everyone’s taste, where there is no longer a monolithic defining source through the broadcast media as was the case prior to the internet.

Nonetheless a downward shift in culture will more rapidly be occurring in the future as the political Establishment will not be letting up on its attacks on society with its intentionally harmful agendas.  See the weekly online show “You Can’t Stop Progress” that shows the current state of dysfunctional leftist culture.

Image from BigStockPhoto.

Mostly starting in September of 2024, a slew of articles has been published claiming that British people “don’t rinse the dirty soap off their dishes when washing them”— where they claim that instead it is customary in the UK for people to simply set the dishes on the drying rack with the soap still on them!

I believe this is some sort of a weird media hoax for a few reasons.  First of all because I can’t believe that anyone would not automatically quickly rinse the soap off their dishes before setting them on the rack, because it is effortless to do so and there is every reason to do it and no reason not to do it.  And also I don’t believe that such a ridiculous supposed phenomenon could not have been widely reported before.

I think this is another strange gaslighting campaign that is similar to the “Flat Earth Society,” or with the more recent situation of thousands of leftists seeming to pretend to be enamored with the United Healthcare CEO killer, as explained in this link.

For example, it was recently reported in these articles:

A November 29, 2024 House Digest article: “Is The British Dish Washing Trend Really Getting Your Dishes Clean?” (link)

A September 19, 2024 Apartment Therapy article: “I Discovered the British Way of Washing Dishes, and I’m Shocked” (link)

A September 12, 2024 Metro.Co.Uk article: “Americans are horrified by the ‘strange’ way Brits wash dishes” (link)

September 11, 2024 PopSugar article: “Is the ‘British Way’ of Washing Dishes Really So Bad?” (link)

September 11, 2024 Edinburg Live article: “Americans in stitches at how British people wash up – saying we get it wrong” (link) — (Note this article in a British media outlet even says in its title that “we” do it!  But I still don’t believe it though.)

I was able to find some older articles that mention it, but nonetheless I still don’t believe that it can be true:

This March 11, 2022 “Medium” article: “Why Brits Don’t Rinse Off Their Dishes” (link)

This 2014 “Straight Dope” article: “Do the British not rinse dishes after washing them?” (link)