Marty Floyd’s Weblog

‘Progress is due to the unreasonable person.
The reasonable person seeks to adjust to the world. The unreasonable person seeks to change it’. Shaw

http://www.thinkingmanagers.com/prewp/pwmani203

• Jack Welch created spectacular value at General Electric: How to create the culture and management behaviours that make for and maximise market leadership.

• Bill Gates built Microsoft into the enabling force of the software revolution: How to exploit your own vision of the future by taking tough, powerful decisions in the present.

• Andy Grove drove Intel to become a magnificent microprocessor machine: How to optimise the pay-offs from dynamic advantages - and from reacting to near-total failure.

• Warren Buffett created the greatest fortune ever derived from straight investment

• Peter Drucker created the genre of management writing and changed the way managers manage: How to master the crucial difference between the Efficient (good) and the Effective (critical).

• Stephen R Covey sold 10 million copies of The Seven Secrets of Highly Effective People: How to succeed in business by helping yourself to help other people to enjoy lasting success.

• Tom Peters sold 7 million copies of In Search of Excellence: How to keep pace with today’s changes in management that make performance fast, free and furiously good.

• Charles Handy has changed the way we think about management and society: How to transcend the traditional organisation and manager with better ways of life and thought.

I have read the above people and they have affected me personally.

On another personal note I have a birthday today September 23. As a lot of people do as they “age” I started to go down memory lane. I looked at early pictures trying to “feel” the time when I got my “Davy Crockett” hat or my dog, bullet, or my first real girlfriend, or my first car. Then I started thinking about love, family, and work.
I have an appointment tomorrow to go over the sixteen medicines I take and review information from my twelve doctors with my DO.

I have spent the last week organizing the information for this visit especially areas that bother me most. Mental, polyneuropathy, poor balance, digestive processing are all equally disturbing. Some information follows:

My doctors explained my situation regarding affects of age, quality of life and expectations based on the genetics passed on from the “family tree”.

I was told that to some extent I could modify the affects of genetics by focusing on environmental aspects of living.

I tried to follow the above diagram but it became a little fuzzy so that appeared to look like the next picture.

The underlying information is that I am “pre” disposed to diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol and triglycerides, stroke, heart attack, mental conditions, a pot belly, cataracts, skin problems, like stucco keratosis, pattern baldness, graying hair, nervous system or hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA axis) problems, neuroendocrinology, the inability to extract nutrients (process vitamins and minerals critical for health/maintenance) and last, but not least, the fact that hypothalamic development and response to an acute stressor is determined by pre-pubertal stress in early life.

Affects of age, quality of life and expectations based on genetic disposition are not on my mind on this birthday. I have a whole lot of reflecting and peace(full) THINKING to do. I also have a lot of gratitude for all the good stuff on this birthday.  

Happy Birthday to me…..Have a nice day.

What difference does it make whether it is 97 degrees or 108 degrees when the normal temperature is 85 degrees? Not much is my thought. Heat is heat no matter whether you think of a cool breeze or an actual swim. It is still hot.

Another question: What is the difference between Chapter 13 bankruptcy and Chapter 7 bankruptcy? Not much if you are at a point where you have to say you can no longer maintain your financial stability. Bankrupt is bankrupt whether you think of a cool breeze or an actual swim. It is still financial collapse.

It is somewhat odd to me that there is almost 10 percent of the American working population not working and Washington is trying to bail people out by offering to give them up to $4500 for the car they have. In return they can get a new car. Can they pay it off? Will they lose their job? Is the government looking 7 to 10 years ahead, 20 years ahead? I think not. 

How will my children and their children come to terms with the decisions that cost them so much that it is very hard to imagine? 

Another topic that is hard to grasp is the idea that the government is looking to provide a “dignified way” for end-of-life choices. Does everyone think this is alright? Did they not so long ago think it terrible that there was a “Dr. K”? So much so that he went to jail for assisting. I don’t even want to bring up faith, family, religion or other human attributes.

I read the other day that scientists have spotted a tightly formed galaxy that is traveling a million miles an hour. None of them thought much about the fact that it was traveling at that speed. After all it was over thirteen billion miles away from Earth. 

Another topic that I thought was in this type of category is coffee. I read that tests have concluded that coffee can actually reverse Alzheimer’s. I remember not so long ago my doctor said “do not drink coffee because it will probably kill you.” Coffee was called the most used “drug” in the world. Now here is yet another example of a heat index if you will.

Time has a way of turning, of changing. Maybe that is why there are so many songs, written material and photographs on the topic.

All you have to do is look at photos of times past to see how quickly change occurs. Whether you look at photos of your youth, your children’s youth or extended family the picture becomes the same. Time is time!  

So the point of this is that most things really are relative. It is the person that makes the difference. Our unique self is different than any other, yet positive attitude makes many the same.

May 2009, Memorial Day, is a good time for reflection. In this post I am referring to a post I made in 2007 mostly about technology. I also discussed the consumer situation that was going on in America.

Obama is the hot topic these days. A president articulate in speech and good at planning to get “immediate, correct” quick and popular results.

There was also a mountain of bank, finance, corporate, and personal greed and failure.

The financial solution seemed to be bailout, poor decisions, and “criminal” action.

My 2007 post also mentioned a then hard to believe credit card debt.

United States consumers have an eight trillion dollar ($8,000,000,000,000) credit card debt!

So here we are today having heard of “stimulus” plans to help the consumer economic situation.

Hear I am today with my credit card companies (those same banking bailout recipients) reducing my ability to plan the best way to help myself get my finances under control. After agreement on my limit and rate interest things have now changed.

Now I receive letters stating “due to the economic situation” my limit has been reduced and my minimum payment must go up, as well as, my percentage rate has been increased.

What kind of “relief” is this? No negotiation, and in some cases, causing problems when paying for something and being told the card has been rejected.

The worst I have had happen is that my interest has been raised and it applies to my current balance, as well as, any new purchases! But wait, they also are going to start charging an extra one percent on the balance. I thought that purchases were made at a given percentage. How can they now say that I have to pay more that I paid originally. Especially if it were a sale item that helped me and the seller by moving money around (helping the economy).

Was it not our federal government that started the “credit card capability”? Is it like us carrying an ever increasing federal deficit? Is it like social security that was not supposed to ever go higher that two percent? Is it like the government?

United States consumers have an eight trillion dollar ($8,000,000,000,000) credit card debt! I still find that figure unreal. Our federal government is adding some three trillion dollars to our debt. How are we consumers going to keep up with this when there is an approximately ten percent of us unemployed right now.It seems to me that the boat (US) is definitely headed into an uncharted journey that will possibly go down in the history of the world as a once powerful nation where anyone could succeed with ingenuity, hard work, and a government that supported all people.

I remember reading once that to find the real problem or the source of it is to ask why five times.

Why did this happen? What happened? What could I have done to circumvent the event? What can I learn from this to go foreword in my life’s journey?

Why did I think that the answer required five “why” questions and did the previous paragraph change my thinking?

Perhaps there is another way to approach the problem. Seek counsel!

Easter 2009 is extra special this year.

A depressed world economy, many more unemployed, foreclosures, lost financial security and savings. Sounds pretty bleak.

However these events do not have any effect on the essence of man.

Christ died for us as unpure beings so that our “sins” could be washed away and not remembered ever.

Amasing thoughts that the “essential” us is never broken by the physical world. Being unaffected is not that hard to do. You only have to believe, only give up the “me” life.

Happy Easter.
 

Obama won the bid for president. The stock market fell below 9000. Microsoft lost $24 billion in capitalization in 17 days. Several insurance and banking concerns had to have federal bailouts. Some more than once.

They say it will probably take four to five years to even out. That is a pretty hard thing to imagine for the average “Joe”. Many lost their retirement savings from stock management funds. Many lost their jobs.

How can we ever repay the debt we have incurred?

All you can do is double your efforts to keep yourself afloat and try to help those you can.

The mismanagement that caused this situation will not go away. The people who caused most of the problems will be the biggest losers.

Even if they get big compensation packages they will be in dire straights with knowing they caused so much grief and  hardship. Our part is easy. We just forgive the transgressors and move on with our lives. Forgiving can be pretty hard with the holidays coming but the purpose of these “holidays” is to realize what we do have and be thankful.

Check your ATTITUDE

Then 
———-

I was sent the bulk of this as a “read this” and decide whether you want to delete it or share it.
Obviously I want to share it and add some of my thoughts to it.

READ THIS

LET IT REALLY SINK IN

John is the kind of guy you love to hate.  He is always in a good mood and always has something positive to say.  When someone would ask him how he was doing, he would reply, ‘If I were any better, I would be twins!’

He was a natural motivator.

If an employee was having a bad day, John was there telling the employee how to look on the positive side of the situation.

Seeing this style really made me curious, so one day I went up and asked him, ‘I don’t get it!’

‘You can’t be a positive person all of the time.  How do you do it?’

He replied, ‘Each morning I wake up and say to myself, you have two choices today. You can choose to be in a good mood or…you can choose to be in a bad mood

I choose to be in a good mood.’

Each time something bad happens, I can choose to be a victim or…I can choose to learn from it.  I choose to learn from it.

Every time someone comes to me complaining, I can choose to accept their complaining or…I can point out the positive side of life.  I choose the positive side of life.

‘Yeah, right, it’s not that easy,’ I protested.

‘Yes, it is,’ he said. ‘Life is all about choices.  When you cut away all the junk, every situation is a choice. You choose how you react to situations.  You choose how people affect your mood.

You choose to be in a good mood or bad mood. The bottom line:  It’s your choice how you live your life.’

I reflected on what he said.  Soon hereafter, I left the Tower Industry to start my own business. We lost touch, but I often thought about him when I made a choice about life instead of reacting to it.

Several years later, I heard that he was involved in a serious accident, falling some 60 feet from a communications tower.

After 18 hours of surgery and weeks of intensive care, he was released from the hospital with rods placed in his back.

I saw him about six months after the accident.

When I asked him how he was, he replied, ‘If I were any better, I’d be twins…Wanna see my scars?’

I declined to see his wounds, but I did ask him what had gone through his mind as the accident took place.

‘The first thing that went through my mind was the well-being of my soon-to-be born daughter,’ he replied. ‘Then, as I lay on the ground, I remembered that I had two choices:  I could choose to live or…I could choose to die. I chose to live.’

‘Weren’t you scared?  Did you lose consciousness?’  I asked.

He continued, ‘…the paramedics were great.

They kept telling me I was going to be fine. But when they wheeled me into the ER and I saw the expressions on the faces of the doctors and nurses, I got really scared. In their eyes, I read ‘he’s a dead man’.  I knew I needed to take action.’

‘What did you do?’ I asked.

‘Well, there was a big burly nurse shouting questions at me,’ said John.  ’She asked if I was allergic to anything ‘Yes, I replied.’ The doctors and nurses stopped working as they waited for my reply.  I took a deep breath and yelled, ‘Gravity”.

Over their laughter, I told them, ‘I am choosing to live.  Operate on me as if I am alive, not dead.’

He lived, thanks to the skill of his doctors, but also because of his amazing attitude…I learned from him that every day we have the choice to live fully.

Attitude, after all, is everything.

Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.’ Matthew 6:34.

After all today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday.

I learned from a “much read” Bible, “There’s a Spiritual Solution to Every Problem” by Wayne W. Dyer and another book titled “Think and Grow Rich”.

You have some choices now if you want to make them:

01. Get a Bible; use it
02. Get Wayne Dyer’s book; use it
03. Get this book (Think and Grow Rich) from me on 17 rules; use it
04. Go read my other blog articles

Express your self by sitting quietly, clearing your mind of all your thought chatter (”meditate” as Deepak Chopra says), then listen to your Anima (animus, Eros, Logos and soul-image). Check your Attitude (readiness of the psyche to act or react in a certain way, based on the underlying psychological orientation). Use your basic psychological functions: Thinking, Feeling, Sensation and Intuitive Types. The whole psychology of an individual is his habitual ATTITUDE! Be a better friend, adapt, and forget about ego as possible. Energy, motion, and soul can accomplish so much.

Stand above the crowd! Express who you really are, not what you can accumulate materialistically.

——————

The Giants won the Super Bowl last night by upsetting the previously undefeated Patriots!

Reportedly 1.5 million people were expected to call in sick today. If the average income of these people was $20.oo per hour, the cost of this practice would cost $30,000,000 per hour or $240,000,000 for the day in lost productivity!

Now everyone knows we don’t work eight hours a day. But practically speaking if the same math were used with my experience factor of .67%, then we still lost about $160,000,000 in productivity. The general population will have to bear the burden of this expense by paying a higher price for consumer goods and services.

Many companies do not pay for single day sick leave usage without a doctor’s note. After all it really is a medical benefit, not a right of extra time off from work.

The average 30 second commercial ad cost for the Super Bowl was $2,700,000. “Not a lot of money” is what I have heard regarding the expense as a percentage of “advertising budget” for the companies that did advertise. But, then again, we the consumer pay for those costs too.

So on this day, 2-4-2008, I am a little in awe that we don’t seem to have a big problem with some spiralling costs. I’ll bet a lot of people do not know that the company that has recently become the largest profit taker of any company in U.S. history for a quarterly and annual profit ( $11.7 billion, $40.6 billion respectively) is Exxon Mobil. Exxon Mobil produces about 3 percent of the world’s oil and had sales of $404.5 billion for 2007!

I think that I have written enough this morning after Super Bowl. I am going back to bed and dream of sawbucks or gold dust or the next Super Something.

I have experienced stress that I could not seem to shake or “self talk” my way out of that seemed to have no end.

Every turn seemed to be more burden. I finally reached a point where I just felt that there was nothing left in me to fight with anymore. The mental and physical exhaustion reached what is called a “break point”.

I sat in the dark and started to pray. The prayer went something like this. “Why has this terrible situation come to pass? What could I possibly have done to deserve to be here? God, if this is a test, hear me now that I can not go any further. If this is a test I have reached my end. I now turn to you and say please intercede on my behalf.”

Sounds like a pretty low point to experience, right? Well it was. When you feel there is nothing left, that you have no more to endure, that is when you have to turn the situation over to a higher authority.

It was a fairly lengthy process for me. I lost my wife and son, my home, my job and myself all within a short time frame. At that point I cried out “dear God if this is a test I have had all I can bear.” I had done no wrong, had not hurt anyone, had not broken any laws either to man nor God.

I am sure countless numbers of people have had this “experience” and it would test the mind and spirit of the strongest person. Climbing out of the funk is almost unbearable.

At this juncture there is nothing that even makes a “moment of peace” possible. The only way thru the process is in a fog. One day becomes many and somewhere in the fog you accept the circumstances. You come to a place where you realize it really is not about you as an ego. It is about the spirit, the right purpose. It is about the rationalization that everything is either caused by natural selection or accidental occurrence.

The pain and potential growth from it are only possible by the higher spirit. At this juncture you realize that any “plan” you devise for the future must include a few basic concepts. You have to fix the primary purpose for living, you have to devise tasks that can become the goals that you strive for every day on your journey. You have to become a “present minded” person.

So you make your plans, you write them down, you work your plan! You also build a new life. You can write the “book of life” that you want. You recognize, relate, assimilate and apply what you know and what you want at this point in life.

You can not take everything that happens personally. Now you know that you can only control what you think about, what you focus on, and how you live your life. The natural disasters will continue, accidents will happen, and the world will evolve, change and be replaced at some point. 

Make the best of where you are. Think positive thoughts. Be kind to yourself. Rest when you are tired. Be active, exercise, live each day. Watch what you eat and how much you eat. Most of all, realize that you control the world of your inner mind and can make it a paradise! Give of yourself when you can and be happy.

Here we are again counting down the 25 days til Christmas. The big items this year Wii, iPhone, flat screen/plasma TV, Sony game systems, Xbox. Those are just in the electronics category!

There are other big things in the countdown that will be hugh in 2008 like buying up bandwidth frequencies, industry mergers/takeovers by players like Google, IBM, Microsoft.

“The Joneses” are getting pretty hard to keep up with for the growing “lower class” wage earners. Then again, we earn 10-20 times as much as workers in many countries for the same jobs. Maybe it is getting to be time to take a hard look at vanity, what we want to become. Human-KIND is my vote on what we should want to become!

Entertainment and Information, still the big ticket items that involve almost everyone. Ever wonder why there is such a small profit margin on staples like groceries, yet high profits are taken on discretionary items. Real or imagined, supply and demand continues.