Most men speak of their mothers as angels, and in that regard I guess I’m not unique. Some would probably argue that my mother was not unique either, that she was merely one of millions of moms from the greatest generation.
Modern-day feminists would have been horrified by Mom’s lifestyle. Her day-to-day world consisted primarily of cooking, shopping, keeping her home running smoothly, and, above all, taking care of her children. I think she just assumed that these were the most important things in every woman’s life.
On August 11, 1991, Jack Pugsley was in the passenger seat, sound asleep, in the wee hours of the morning. Unfortunately, the driver of the car fell asleep as well, and the next thing Jack remembered was waking up in the hospital with a broken neck. His injury was a fraction of an inch from causing his death.
The thought that I could have lost such a dear friend was unsettling to me, and I was relieved that he ultimately recovered and continued to share his unique insights into life and economics with so many of his friends and subscribers to his various publications.
I almost felt intimidated into believing I had an obligation to write about a subject that has had me yawning a lot lately: Libya. In fact, Libya has made it to my exclusive remote-control mute list, which consists of people and subjects that are so boring, so stupid, or so distasteful to me that I hit the mute button as soon as they appear on my TV screen. On The O’Reilly Factor, for example, I instantly mute out Alan Colmes, Bernard Goldberg, and the so-called body language expert, Tonya Reiman.
That said, I thought I’d give you a little relief from the Muammar Gaddafi saga and share some personal memories with you.
When you’re in a seemingly impossible situation, one of the most important but least understood tools you can employ to turn things around is detachment. There are many things from which you can detach yourself, and one of the most important is the habit of judging people, actions, and circumstances as being right or wrong, good or bad.
As Deepak Chopra says in The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success, when you are constantly classifying, labeling, and evaluating, you “create a lot of turbulence in your internal dialogue.” The more internal bickering that takes place, the less time and room (in your mind) you have for constructive thinking. Read Full Article
Amidst all the insanity and meaningless chatter that overwhelms us each day, every so often the Conscious Universal Power Source cuts us a break and hooks us up to nature’s Sanity-Support System. We have little control over when the blessed intervention will take place, how often it will occur, or what its components may be.
In my book Action! Nothing Happens Until Something Moves, I describe one such experience I had on a beautiful sunny day in November, when I was still in my mid-twenties. I was driving on the Grand Central Parkway on my way to JFK International Airport, and my mind was exploding with a thousand and one thoughts about all aspects of my life. Read Full Article
The recent string of celebrity deaths reminds us of the fragility of life and makes us feel grateful to be alive. But don’t we always feel grateful to be alive? Or is that merely a platitude? Do we really need to keep reminding ourselves to appreciate what we have? Dr. Robert A. Emmons thinks so.
In his book Thanks!: How the New Science of Gratitude Can Make You Happier, he discusses his study of what he calls the “gratitude condition.” He found that people who counted their blessings on a daily basis were 25 percent happier than those who did not, and they were more optimistic about the future. Read Full Article
As the 2008 Libertarian Vice Presidential nominee and a frequent guest on Fox News and Fox Business, many of you already know that I believe in the libertarian ideals of dramatically lower spending and taxes, radically cutting the size, scope, and power of government, and increasing economic and personal freedoms for all citizens. Read Full Article
Finally, the trees are back —my trees. The trees have once again shut off the outside world from my veranda. Almost makes me feel a modern-day Thoreau. Of course, he couldn’t see a golf course in the distance. Read Full Article
As you can imagine, I receive an incredible amount of e-mail from people who share their woes with me — particularly during these bad economic times. And while I can’t answer all of them, I do try to read each and every one. Read Full Article
One of the many things I regret not having enough time for is watching good movies. I emphasize the word good to differentiate from most of the celluloid sewage that comes off the Hollywood production line — the 90+ percent of films whose only purpose seem to be to dull viewers’ minds with over-the-top violence, sex, profanity, and anti-Western propaganda.
Some movies are so good that you feel compelled to watch them again every ten years or so. The Graduate, one of the greatest “cult” films of all time, is one that falls into the once-every-ten-years category for me. And last weekend, I’m happy to say that I took the time to watch it. Once again, it did not disappoint. Read Full Article
At least once or twice a week, I meet someone, or see someone on television, who really inspires me. A few weeks ago, my inspiration came from a remarkable, upbeat young woman by the name of Cara Fortunato.
I met Cara at a high school where my son was playing in a tournament. After his game, he and I happened to pass the open door to her office and saw that she was watching a college game on television. We asked if she would mind if we joined her. Read Full Article
As I said at the end of Part I of this article, Dr. Richard Restak, author of The New Brain, maintains that a transformation of the brain can be achieved through sheer determination. Which begs the question: What if your brain isn’t wired to be determined?
This is where one’s experiences and environment come into play. For example, notwithstanding imbecilic arguments to the contrary, what you see and hear around you (such as in movies and on television) has a huge impact on how and what you think about all day long. When people – and children, in particular – see violence, “alternative lifestyles,” and explicit sex on the screen, or hear it by listening to rap-crap, the power of suggestion is planted with each repetition.
So-called intelligence is plastic, because scientific research has shown that experiences cause neuronal circuits to form and become more dense. Therefore, no matter what your age, the more you exercise your brain, the higher the density of the neurons in your frontal cortex – which makes you more “intelligent.” (“General intelligence” is believed to be directly related to the amount of gray matter in the frontal lobes of the brain.)
You and I have heard this repeatedly phrased in laymen’s terms as “Use it or lose it.” The less I write, the more difficult writing becomes. The more I write, the more easily the words fly off the keyboard. From whence comes the definition of a writer as: “A writer is someone who writes. Not now and then, but every day.” The substance of this philosophy is true whatever your profession may be.
The corollary to the “C” Student/”A” Student Theory might well be stated as: In a majority of cases, a student with “A” intelligence who is unwilling to put forth a reasonable amount of effort is likely to achieve “C” results. To me, then, intelligence has more to do with how close you come to performing at your maximum capacity than it does with IQ.
Finally, it’s important to recognize that native intelligence is not nearly as important as such traits as social skills, the ability to persuade, and the willingness to take action. Our universities are overflowing with top-heavy frontal-cortex types who would surely be lost in the real world (i.e., the world beyond the ivy-covered gates guarding a weird mixture of academic pinheads and illiterate semi-pro athletes).
There’s no question that whoever came up with the term “personal best” definitely was on to something. It’s not what you have, but what you do with what you have. No matter how old you are, no matter what your financial condition may be, and no matter how many bad experiences you may have had in your past, it’s never too late to become “smarter.”
You should make a conscious and continuous effort to push your plastic brain to the limit – and beyond – until the day you breathe your last breath. The human brain is the most powerful collection of atoms on earth, but it requires constant exercise.
And what if you’re not motivated to exercise your brain? Good news: You possess an all-powerful trait known as “free will.” Because of free will, you can force yourself to take action, and that action will get the atoms in your plastic brain vibrating at ever-higher rates of speed. And that, in turn, will produce motivation. I guarantee it.
Cognitive science is the study of the brain mechanisms responsible for an individual’s thoughts, moods, decisions, and actions. Cognition refers to everything that takes place in an individual’s brain that helps him understand the world around him. To accomplish such an understanding involves such mental processes as concentration, memory, conceptualization, creativity, and emotions.
In his book The New Brain, Dr. Richard Restak uses the term “plasticity of the new brain” to refer to the capacity of the brain to transform itself. This is an incredibly exciting notion, and one that has endless positive ramifications.
Until recently, it was generally believed that the brain’s plasticity peaked out at young adulthood, if not earlier. But researchers now believe the brain is subject to transformation throughout life, which is why Restak appropriately refers to it as a “lifetime work in progress.”
Now that I’ve become a born-again behavioral modificationist, this makes perfect sense to me. When I was a Freudian laymanologist, I assumed that genetics and childhood experiences set everything in stone. It wasn’t until the headmaster at my son’s school told me that he had based his entire career on his belief in behavioral modification that I allowed myself to consider its merits.
That, in turn, led to my reading Reality Therapy, which I wrote about in a previous two-part article. The essence of that book is that no matter what happened to you in your childhood, no amount of rehashing the past can ever change it. On the other hand, by focusing on being a responsible adult today, you can change the way you feel about yourself, and about life, in the present.
Thus, whether you want to learn a foreign language, how to play tennis, or the techniques for writing good ad copy, you first have to make changes in your brain. And the key to making such changes is repetition, which I have written about many times in the past.
Repetition makes repeated impressions on your brain, but there’s a catch: If the repetitions are wrong (e.g., swinging a golf club incorrectly), you are not going to excel at the skill you have targeted. From whence comes the worn-out but true observation that only an insane person would continue to repeat the same thing over and over again and expect to achieve different results.
Which brings yet another question to the fore: If you continue to get negative results, should you invoke persistence … or is it more sane just to give up and move on to something else? The answer is that you definitely should be persistent, but, based on what you have learned through your experiences, you should try a different methodology.
Restak’s main point is that regardless of how much of success is due to genetics and how much is due to practice, the level of success one achieves is based on the plasticity of the brain. My take on this can be summed up in what I call the “C” Student/”A” Student Theory, which something that seems self-evident to me: In a majority of cases, a student with “C” intelligence who is willing to put forth the required effort can achieve “A” results.
I know this from firsthand experience, because I went from a 0.8 average in college to a 4.0 after a stint in the army. My military experience was so unpleasant that it made an indelible impression on my brain, which in turn caused me to become highly motivated to get good grades.
In other words, my brain’s plasticity made it possible for me to transform my view of the world. It was a cerebral transformation that opened my eyes to the reality that there is more to life than girls, booze, and playing poker. Once I redirected my energy from such trivial pursuits to studying every waking moment that I wasn’t in class, I was able to achieve “A’s” – even in such difficult subjects as physics and organic chemistry.
The plasticity of the brain is why you can accomplish great things without being born with superior intelligence or natural talent. And Dr. Restak maintains that a transformation of the brain can be achieved by sheer determination.
Fair enough, but that begs the question: What if your brain isn’t wired to be determined? We’ll take a look at the answer to that question in Part II of this article.
I received a large number of e-mails in response to my two articles on the impossible dream, and many of the comments prompted me to go into the subject a bit further. Primarily, I want to emphasize that when you’re in a seemingly impossible situation, one of the most important but least understood tools you can employ to turn things around is detachment. Read Full Article
Let’s start today by considering three options you would have had if, like Viktor Frankl in the 1940s, you had found yourself in a Nazi concentration camp. Read Full Article
A reader recently sent me an e-mail in which he lamented about his “impossible situation.” I guess it’s all in the eyes of the beholder, because to me it appeared that his was an impossible situation with a lot of possibilities.
So what, exactly, is an “impossible situation?” More specifically, what does “impossible” really mean? Is it impossible to make a mountain move simply by having faith? That’s quite a challenge. If anyone could do it, it would probably be that Star Wars guy, Yoda. But I don’t know of anyone outside of Hollywood who’s mastered such extraordinary mind power.
I ended Part I of this article by pointing out that trees are reborn each spring, live to the fullest in the summer, enter the twilight of their lives in the fall … then, finally, they seemingly die. But, in truth, the trees merely hibernate. It’s more like recycling than death — part of the circle of life.
Death is but an illusion. And not just for trees in the winter. When a human being dies, he, too, is recycled. Not one atom of his body is lost. The atoms are simply rearranged when the soul moves on. How are they rearranged? It’s not our job to figure that out. The Conscious Universal Power Source has it covered. As Deepak Chopra put it in his book Life After Death:
When I was much younger, I thought of myself as the man in Neil Diamond’s song “Crunchy Granola Suite”: “And like a man with a tiger outside his gate, he not only couldn’t relax but he couldn’t relate.” Happily, my tiger doesn’t come around nearly as much anymore. I’m still pretty much of a recluse, but I am no longer alone. I have the trees … the wind … the sky … to keep me company. Life provides challenges — and life goes on.
Throughout much of my life, I paid little attention to the miracles that surrounded me. I was too busy thinking about business and money … too busy being annoyed by annoying people. Nature and I were perfect strangers. The tiger was always there … relentlessly pacing back and forth outside my gate. I concentrated on him so much that I had no time to think about the real world – the world that matters.
Amidst all the insanity and meaningless chatter that overwhelms us each day, every so often the Conscious Universal Power Source cuts us a break and hooks us up to nature’s Sanity-Support System. We have little control over when the blessed intervention will take place, how often it will occur, or what its components may be. Read Full Article
The New Year signals the start of a five-month period that I like to think of as the Window-of-Opportunity Sprint. If you’re serious about accomplishing great things this year, you’d be wise to come out of the starting gate fast on January 2 — and keep going at full speed through at least the end of May.
If you don’t make major strides toward achieving your goals from January through May, you’re going to be playing catch-up the remainder of the year. Once June arrives and the kids are out of school, most people go into their summer swoon. That’s when it seems as though everyone you need to talk to has left for Europe, Disneyworld, or a Caribbean cruise for two or three weeks. It can be maddening for those who choose to work year round.
I have often said that a football game is a microcosm of life. There’s an ebb and flow to every game, with each team experiencing its share of adversity. These adversities include such things as fumbles, interceptions, bad calls by the officials, injuries, and “shanked” punts.
In the National Football League, the teams are so evenly matched that the main determinant in separating the winners from the losers is how well players and coaches handle adversity. Responding positively to adversity is a sign of character, a term talked about incessantly by coaches, players, sportscasters, and fans alike.
This being December 25, I thought it would be appropriate to pen a few words about Christmas. For starters, Christmas is a good time to put aside our diversities and celebrate what we have in common with one another. More than 80 percent of Americans are Christians, while Jews comprise slightly more than 2 percent.
Yet, notwithstanding the disparity in numbers, Christians and Jews are forever joined at the spiritual hip as a result of their commonality. Jesus Christ was born a Jew, practiced and preached Orthodox Judaism throughout his life, and died a Jew. Further, Christians throughout history have always believed in the Old Testament (i.e., the Jewish Bible).
College football rivalries such as Army-Navy, Texas-Oklahoma, and Ohio State-Michigan involve much more than just games. They are bigger-than-life spectacles. So it was a big deal for my teenage son when I took him to what is arguably the greatest rivalry in college football, the Ohio State-Michigan game.
Usually when I take my son to a sporting event, I don’t care all that much who wins. Being genetically programmed to be a social observer, I just enjoy the festive atmosphere and overall experience of the occasion.
Americans love to throw around the term “hero.”They not only ascribe the word to illiterate athletes, but to people who happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, as well.
An extreme example of the latter would be the infamous Iran-hostage “crisis” that ended after 444 days on January 20, 1981. With Kim Jong Il’s best friend, Jimmy Carter, spending more than a year trying to remove his thumb from his left nostril, Iran’s version of Crazy Guggenheim — Ayatollah Khomeini — had things pretty much his way.
