Wise and Just Ideas in a Chaotic World

Nobody wants to fail. Judge Posner discusses how to get the passion to succeed, even when evidence seems to indicate you are a failure. This is the first in a series of audios extemporaneously produced a few years’ back.

Are you a complainer and a whiner? Whenever something goes south in your life do you find blame in others? When a merchant rips you off, do you say “That S.O.B. is going to pay for this!”?  When a natural disaster or tragedy happens to you, do you sit and sob for years? Are you always saying “I didn’t do anything?” when others are angry with you? Do you wallow in self-pity because others have money and you don’t? Do you still blame mom and dad for your adult shortcomings?

Ouch! Reality hurts….at first. But the sooner each of us takes responsibility for our results and outcomes, the sooner we can claim our “proper” place in the scheme of things. Unfortunately, until that time, we will continue to frame our lives as being the victim of circumstances and unfairness, and we will continue to fail or come up short in all we attempt to do.

Here is a stark reality to chew on:  Most people don’t care about you and your outcomes. And if you don’t care, you will sink into obscurity and not a soul with miss you. Maybe you are already experiencing that.

Let’s move from pain to gain, shall we?

Here are ten empowering activities you can start today, so that you can reclaim autonomy over your life and its results:

1) Find a new road or neighborhood to explore. This activity will enable you to see life from another perspective – that of the neighbor.
2) Find a book on your own bookshelf that you bought months or years ago because you thought it would be useful but never bothered to read. Finally put those hidden word treasures to use!
3) Find a book on your same bookshelf that you have read and were touched by some time in the past. Read through it again and begin to understand how the words have changed in meaning as you have changed over the years.
4) Spend a whole day asking only questions and listening. See if that activity doesn’t make you exceedingly more popular and hugely wiser. If you can do it one day, do it each day.
5) Smile until it doesn’t hurt. This activity is guaranteed to make others much more receptive to you, what you say, and what you want.
6) Hold your tongue when you are angry or when you are cock-sure you are right about something. The most dominating people in the world understand the power of keeping their emotions in check when a crisis arises or tension mounts. Try using this affirmation all day long: “I am cooler than a cucumber.”
7) Walk tall and briskly. If you are slumped over and shuffling, your mind follows your posture and gait. People don’t follow sluggish underachievers; they look for a source of energy and inspiration every time!
Start to believe that you are worth at least a million dollars…because you are. The difference in life results is often a matter of making a plan and working it through. How many well-meaning plans have you shelved in the past years?
9) Think now, and leave the past and the future alone. What can you do right now, this moment, to start taking control of your destiny? Put down the cigarette or éclair? Attend a seminar in your field? Converse with a long-neglected wife or child? The possibilities for starting are infinite.
10) Clean up the clutter in your life and paint the walls. No need for explanation. If you are multi-tasking you more than likely have too many loose ends standing in the way of your success.

Congratulations. You have taken ten steps toward mastery. Just keep walking steadily and you’ll get there…eventually. In fact, if you are taking these ten steps you are already there. Double congratulations.

I confess: Money IS important.

One of the first ways to attract it is to wonder how it could help you in your life to do all the altruistic things you claim you would do if you had some.

A second way to attract it is to imagine money as a scorecard of how excellent you are becoming in your work and in your character.

A third way to attract it is to reflect upon the people and situations in your life which caused you to have a distaste for it or to mistrust those who do have an abundance of it.

Mind you, I have been conflicted about money for most of my life, and I was always dreaming up reasons why I shouldn’t or couldn’t have it, or why others should not.

Literally and figuratively, money became something I got – like a lottery win – rather than something I earned by meticulously designing and executing a plan.

The Internet is for many of us the first chance to earn enough money to live out our dreams rather than to surf them away. There are so many people becoming fabulously wealthy online, and yes, many more who are pissing their money into the wind.

Even for negative people holding a limiting belief system about the green stuff, the possibilities are astronomically in your favor of building an ethical, residual income using the Internet. I am speaking of an income which can easily surpass the the minuscule wages you presently earn from your nine-to-five drudgery.

I fervently believe that there are many earnest people online, teaching others to become independently wealthy SOHOs, who truly believe in you and your worthiness. Yes, they do and will make money through selling their products and collecting consulting fees, but the bottom line is that they can introduce you to the tools and strategies which will bring to you an exponential return on investment over time.

My pledge to everyone I touch is to separate the hypsters from the marketers who deeply care about your success in addition to their own. Unfortunately, the former group largely outnumber the latter. Due diligence in choosing who to listen to and who to buy from is an absolutely necessary for online success.

Many marketers will sell you software and ideas which may be sound and useful for an advanced netrepreneur, but for you, a relative beginner, the same tools will sit idly on your desktop screen collecting cyberdust.

For example, keyword or Google Adsense software tools are totally worthless until and unless you can at least make a simple, operable webpage. Yet the unscrupulous marketer will use a takeaway sales strategy to create an immediate need for you, a relative beginner, to purchase this or that tool. Little by little you become frustrated and totally cynical about all net marketers and their intentions.

Professional marketers should feel good about making money by providing powerful information, strategies and services with a smile. They should be overwhelming concerned with bringing true value to the marketplace. Embedding an affiliate link for a product you endorse is not unethical or bush-league, if the product or service is relevant to a discussion, has been reviewed by the embedder, and, when possible, comes from a highly trusted source.

In conclusion, money is neutral. When you provide value to the marketplace, you usually will attract more of it. If you have more of it, you have more chance to effect the world for the better. To get more of it, you must first make a decision to want some and to stop living day to day on a survival level.

Frankly, I support George Bernard Shaw when he said, “Lack of money is the root of all evil.”

Overcome your ambivalence towards it and you will most definitely thrive. It is your right and duty to claim money for a job well done.

Not all of us were born into wealthy and happy families.  A fair number of us never felt loved or appreciated as children or young adults.  Many of us never learned to love and nurture or to accept love and nurturing.  A sizable number of us have made some bad life choices which have led to divorce, firing or even a prison sentence.  The economy must also be added to our customized “blame” formula of reasons and excuses for our failures and shortcomings.  And don’t forget the politicians, the greedy capitalists, the conniving relative who got an inheritance you thought was in the bag, or the friend who stole your lover.  We have all been jilted, tilted and wilted.

When you get tired of listing everyone and everything that has gone wrong and will go south in you life, I’m ready to talk with you.  My first paragraph is a rough road map of most of my life.  Yet there was something still stirring in me as I reached my forties.   Unsuccessful in every meaningful way to me, I secretly dreamed of being a hero and standing before a million people in love.  That something whispered to me that I am resilient, extremely intelligent and on the verge of greatness.  Some called my dreams delusions of grandeur.

Nothing in my world seemed to justify my hopes and aspirations for greatness.  Now I am in my fifties, 90 pounds lighter and fit.  Everyday I am writing and trying to touch lives with honesty, hope and action.  At 56 years old next week, I want to stand before you and say that life ain’t over until you stop trying.  I want to stand before you and say you are special – maybe spectacular – and nobody or nothing is standing in your path other than your own shadow of doubt.

With great reverence for the uniqueness and divinity in you, please accept my ten-step formula for finally standing tall and throwing away the crutches of failure and despair:

1) Read or learn to read.  Anything and everything you assimilate can stimulate your mind and put you into a problem-solving trance.

2) Walk on the other side of the street.  This activity will help to give you a new set of eyes.

3) Look to the heavens three times a day.  Rejoice that you are alive, that a day has been granted to you, and that the heavens, just like your life, are expansive and breathtaking.

4) Respect people by letting them finish their thoughts.  The quickest way to isolation is to be a dominant, know-it-all who chops off other people’s sentences and imposes your values and viewpoints in order to look smart and intelligent.

5) Find the lesson rather than dwell on the failure or failing.  To dwell means to live in a time warp which leaves you powerless and unable to make necessary adjustments for success.  Be aware of this trap and avoid it at all costs.

6) Breathe.  Hello?  Most of us are shallow breathers.  We don’t bring in sufficient oxygen to the brain for maximum alertness.  Breathe deeply…and deep thoughts and revolutionary concepts will appear from within and without.

7) Refrain from eating foods which make you sluggish and provide scant nutrition.  Would you pour sugar into your car’s gas tank?   Methinks not.  Put high octane food into your body.  I call it the 80-20 formula, eighty percent water-based foods and twenty percent healthy, solid foods of any variety.

Try one new activity every week.  If you can’t draw, start today.  If you can’t build a website, get on it.  If you can’t find a mate, ask someone for dinner.  Open your world to the delicious realm of possibilities.

9) Keep a diary of your accomplishments, your thoughts, your doubts, and your dreams.  Watch yourself grow from day to day.

10) Write down your goals in very specific terms.  If a pilot says he wants to go to North America, that’s a start.  But if he doesn’t have a destination, he will likely crash.  Goals are the road signs as we march toward our divine purpose on this planet.  Trust me, you do have a special purpose waiting to be discovered.

There has not been a day in my adult life when I felt comfortable supporting police sting operations. They are often fraught with abuse of power and violate the intent of law.

Most laws and law enforcement officials in the United States spend trashy tax dollars creating a criminal class and then trapping many many innocuous victims whose sole crime is being human and flawed.

The American prison system is disgusting and criminal. No arrested and untried person should ever be stuffed into a small cubicle with more than one other person. I speak from experience. For nearly two weeks before my release and subsequent acquittal from the King County Jail in Seattle many years ago I was forced to sleep inches from the base of a toilet with four others in the holding cell.

The reason why those cells are jam-packed is because American laws are meant to entrap rather than protect their citizens. Drunk driving kills, yet we allow bartenders to serve until the patron pukes. Drinking gets a wink, unless we kill someone in our car or in a drunken rage.

Marijuana possessors, on the other hand, can be sent to jail for twenty years for mere possession, although statistics clearly prove that a) marijuana does not lead to stronger, more lethal drug usage nor violence even remotely approaching that of the arbitrarily legal drug of alcohol and b) marijuana overwhelmingly tends to make a person more passive and less likely to commit a crime other than smoking the stuff or sharing it with some friends.

Prostitution – the oldest trade in the world – is also demonized when it should be made legal and regulated. The “criminal” once again may be flawed or desperate to put food on the table, yet if fornicating pays the bills, that means one less welfare mother or vagabond. The pimp is unnecessary when we stop creating laws that cover up the inability of the government to take care of those unable to do so. Quite often the law enforcer or legislator is or has participated himself in the illegal solicitation of sex.

The tragedy of 2001 also brought out a series of abusive laws which entrapped people who happen to have the wrong skin color or country of origin. The Bush Administration and law enforcement officials horrifically violated the human rights of countless innocents under the pretense of homeland security. The abuses at Abu Ghraib Prison in Iraq were just a continuation of the excesses of law enforcement officials in the United States domestically and through proxies throughout the world.

This is all about the Gotcha gestapo mentality which is all too prevalent in the United States and countries which follow America by creating zillions of totally unnecessary laws which put flawed yet harmless individuals behind bars. These imprisoned people – perhaps eighty percent of them – pose no threat to society other than being guilty of stupidity or carelessness.

Laws should only be made to protect us from thieves and violent individuals who act out their aggression. Everything else should be forgivable, and mandatory counseling or community work encouraged over jail time. Putting non-violent people in jail creates a new, totally unnecessary flock of angry, aggressive people wanting to exact revenge on an unforgiving, gotcha society.

Paying taxes is another pet for the gotcha gestapo.  The codes are so complex and so lengthy that the poor and middle class alike cannot afford to understand their legal rights and obligations. The tax authorities audit us for the gotchas and then fine us like hardened criminals or put us behind bars so that we will become like them.

In a world that preaches the Sunday gospel of Christ and redemption, why is it that we want to entrap each other because we don’t like what others do or don’t do. We wave our Bibles around as a just cause for human rights abuse and penning law after law that reflect our moral upbringing and current mores, yet does nothing about getting the violent sickos off the streets.

Ayn Rand was right 50 years ago when she wrote: “There’s no way to rule innocent men. The only power government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren’t enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws.”

Let us finally evolve from preying on the weak. We want to balance budgets more than balance laws. My sense is that 80 percent of the laws on the books should be reduced to a book of common sense. The gotchas are for primitive people.

From the time we are able to talk, we unconsciously want to impress others with our superiority.  Men especially love to compete.  They want to run faster, drive better cars and get laid with more regularity than the next Joe.

And that’s where so many people – secretly humiliated by braggarts – begin to develop defense mechanism of inadequacy.  I can remember when I was sixteen there was this eighteen-year-old braggart, Fred, who always talked about is felatio with a woman I never met.  Regardless of whether or not he had actually done what he said, I, a virgin, had to nervously laugh at his alleged exploits and behave as if I knew what he was talking about intimately.

Feelings of inadequacy shook me to the bone.  I wondered how he got laid and had women crawling to be on top of or underneath him.  But I was too embarrassed to ask him how he attracted women and got them to disrobe voluntarily.  My fears haunted me until my late twenties.  I never became a Don Juan, nor was that in my DNA.

Not too long ago, I reread Napolean Hill’s “Think and Grow Rich.”  In one chapter he implied that to become rich you must have or develop sex appeal.  No wonder, I surmised, it was so difficult for me to accumulate wealth.  Napolean Hill,  as a young man, was clearly verile and extremely handsome.  He probably didn’t have to work at being sexy and verile; everyone just assumed he was and treated him as such.  His self-confidence soared.

When people are unquestionably handsome or pretty, they attract people without effort.  In attracting others, they build self-confidence – sometimes ungrounded – that they can seduce anyone at anytime…and they usually can!  On the surface of it, life does seem quite unfair.

Most of the world’s wealth is controlled by less than five percent of the people on this planet.  There is no scientific way to verify this, but I would guess that ninety percent of the five percent are sexually attractive either through looks or endowment or inheritance.  The remainder struggle mightily to find the confidence to believe in their own self worth.  They have to manufacture sexiness through becoming mavens or artisans in some field.  Most don’t have the perseverance to rise above the rabble.

A great majority of people secretly wonder why they don’t have sex appeal.  They dress for success and buy cars and toys beyond their means because they feel like naked eunuchs or hags inside and want to cover up their inadequacies.  What they often attract is not success and wealth, but a cheap imitation of it.  They are frauds and know deep down inside – if they dare take a moment to reflect – that they feel sexually inadequate and frustrated despite outward appearances.

In writing this raw piece I hope to wake up people to the naked truth.  The first step in changing for the better is to admit rather than cover up our inadequacies.

The ninety percent of us without natural gifts and talents and money must learn to challenge the more verile and sensual to a duel of the heart.  That is where each of us with less natural endowment can win against the beautiful-looking and silver-spooned crowd.

“Out of difficulties grow miracles”

~Jean De La Bruyere~

Just a few days ago I had a galling situation with my new doctor.  As some of you may know, a few months ago I had angioplasty surgery and had a stent put in my aortic artery.

Since that time my life habits have been exemplary, and as a result my weight has decreased by close to 12 kilograms without starvation and my blood pressure was 110 over 66 the other day.

When I had my worst moment – prior to surgery – I had been fortunate to be in the right place (with a good friend).  He knew a hospital and could pull strings so that I could be admitted as an emergency patient.  Equally fortunate was that I was met by a young, aggressive, knowledgeable doctor who spoke English very well.

The operation and recovery went smoothly.  My rapport with the doctor was good, probably because I knew that my lifestyle in the previous year sucked and that I had to get back on the straight and narrow.  He could sense my determination.

Then the bombshell came  .My cardiologist told me he was changing hospitals and would no longer be able to treat me.  He recommended that I switch to a Japanese military hospital in my area, and he wrote his letter of introduction to be submitted to the new hospital along with my record of illness.

When I met with the new physician a few days ago, he said in somewhat halting English that “I understand your case well.”

I immediately bristled at that presumption.  I said to the doctor:  “You know nothing about me.  I am not a laboratory specimen.  I have spirit and a will to recover and thrive – not just survive on a regiment of pills.”

He was taken aback by my controlled anger, but he shouldn’t have  been.  If we are sick, it is because our thoughts are sick.  I am not a statistic, nor are you.  We all have the ability to thrive and, at times, participate in miracles.

My favored cardiologist was on my recovery team.  The new doctor, unfortunately, was on my survival team.  The previous doctor – seeing how I had mastered my eating and was gradually increasing my exercise level – wanted to do some CT scans to test the amount of oxygen in my blood after moderate exercise.  The new doctor said that that wouldn’t be necessary for at least six months.

Now I am not saying that a person with a heart condition should throw caution to the wind, but I am saying that a resilient human spirit can create miracles.  Cancers can go into remission and hearts can inexplicably regenerate when our attitudes are in the right place.

At the end of the Second World War and just before the inauguration of the United Nations, a significant though obscure book was published called “The Anatomy of Peace.”  The author, Emery Reves, proposed that the reason for war was the illegitimate rule of illegitimate states which distorted freedoms.

Reves said:

“In the middle of the Twentieth Century, we are living in an era of absolute political feudalism in which the nation-states have assumed exactly the same roles as were assumed by the feudal barons a thousand years ago…..There is nothing kings, emperors or tyrants ever did to their subjects that nation-states are not doing today.”

While it can be said that colonialism and blatant hegemony came to a relative end when the Berlin Wall came down and glasnost spread to Eastern Europe, in reality the United States in particular has continued to justify hegemony in the false name of democracy.  Other countries give America a complicit wink because the United States – at least until recently – was the catalyst to world economic growth.

But world growth really means that a few nations control most of the wealth and another few get a trickle down effect which helps a few within those developing nations to become rich while many continue live in squalor or substandard conditions devoid of any dignity.

Sovereign states by their very nature  can only concern themselves with the welfare of other sovereign states in so far as those nations buy the goods and services we want to sell and we buy the goods and services they have to offer.

This is a purely economic pact between sovereign nations and, in general, when poorer, resource-poor nations violate international law, the western world doesn’t usually give hoot unless there is an outcry which could lead to the defeat or ouster of the ruling elite.  Then the leaders will posture and take a band aid action to quell the violence and silence the critics.

If I sound cynical it is because for 58 years I have watched history repeat itself.  The strong nations subjugate the poorer ones, steal natural resources and then leave the looted conquered lands to warlords and Machiavellian dictators and scoundrels.  Somalia is a blatant case in point.

The only solution to insure that the continued flow of oil and the ecological salvation of the planet is to relinquish the arbitrary borders between people and ideas.  We must not let the hegemony of the United States and its allies continue just because the leaders of these nations can sound benevolent.  History has proven again and again, they are not the sheep but the wolf in sheep’s clothing.

We cannot rest in peace as long as almost half the world — over three billion people — live on less than $2.50 a day.  They are the pirates of Somalia who have chosen terror as the only way to balance the economic playing field.  Sovereignty is a disease which can only react to war, poverty and tyranny when the economic interest of the sovereign nation is in jeopardy.

The sovereign nations of the world have become an anachronistic reminder that the anatomy of peace can only be achieved when a large portion of the world’s population can participate in the technological advancement of an elite few nations.

Every day I communicate with people from all corners of the globe and although at times we can misinterpret each others’ intentions, with each passing day we are learning that we are all brothers and that no king, no president, no dictator has a right or duty to group us and box us off from each other.

President Reagan got it right in words if not deeds when he said:  “Information is the oxygen of the modern age.  It seeps through the walls topped by barbed wire, it wafts across the electrified borders.”

It is time to prove the late President was right.  Let all of our people go.

Think about how many times in the last few years you started a sentence of lament with statements such as “If only I had more money, I would…” or “If I had access to a good graphic designer, my website would draw thousands more people.”

These are laments of people who choose to go it alone against their best interest. Everything to them is expensive, risky or both. They have been burned or disappointed in past efforts to cooperate or partner, and they’ll be damned if that is ever going to happen again. They are damned by such notions.

Here’s another problem that many strugglers have. Those with money want to meet in fancy restaurants or venues costing $50 to $100 to participate. They claim that such prohibition keeps the lukewarm failures from joining in. Quality, they crow, wants to attract proven quality.

I am going to get right in your collective face, if the previous paragraph refers to your thinking. There is a principle called the 80-20 principle. Simply stated it means that 80 percent of your success will come in relation to 20 percent of the people you do business with. Twenty percent of a sales force, for example, will earn eighty percent of the commissions, and twenty percent of those top 20 percent will earn 80 percent of the income in that elite group.

People who buy into this theory claim that it is incontrovertible. Thus, they conclude, you should focus only on the top achievers if you want to succeed yourself. This idea is bogus along with another popular notion espoused in the marketing world that “Ninety percent of all Americans over sixty-five years old are either dead or dead broke.

Here’s the truth: According to the 2007 U.S. Census Bureau, 9.7% of all people ages 65 and older, live in poverty. Be careful about what you gobble up!

Where do these people pull these numbers from? Many of them state, “Statistics tell us…” Friends, we are not statistics, nor can anyone conveniently paint all people with that broad stroke. To the least of our specie, we want to succeed and deserve a better chance than the 80-20 or dead broke bullshit!!

Understand that people who want you to spend money will often use whatever psychological triggers they can create. And I won’t tell you that that trick is inherently evil because it isn’t. The truth marker is whether the product or service or opportunity can meet or exceed expectations.

In a noisy world of over-information and contradictory facts, there needs to be away out of this life-sapping jungle…and there is.

Legendary rocker, lyricist and poet, Bob Dylan, tells us how:

“A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and goes to bed at night and in between does what he wants to do.”

Life is not a dress rehearsal. Postponing your dreams and buying into another’s will bring you down their path under their terms. You will earn whatever they determine you deserve. Believe me when I tell you that your worth to them is fickle indeed.

A far wiser path is to do what makes you happy and under your terms of engagement, not the boss’s version of you. You have power and boundless opportunity the minute you realize that your chains and limits do not exist and never have.

What’s the point of this message?

I want to have the best and I want everyone in my world to have the best as well. The people I want to work with will act as a family, as a guild, as a resource, as a counselor and as a friend. Our goal is to cut through the din of BS hype marketing and instead provide exemplary services and prouducts which customers and associates can use for profit and prosperity.

I myself feel doubly blessed as an artist and musician and capitalist to be living in such an exciting time of history.

This is an economically challenging time yes, but there is so much opportunity!

Here’s a crazy thought — let’s motivate, educate and support the poor to become successful, instead of forcing the successful to be “enablers” of the poor — which results in them staying poor.

I completely agree that we are heading into a life and business-changing era. The Internet is enabling passionate entrepreneurs to achieve success on their terms. I am excited to be both a witness and participant in the upcoming era.

For the past year, I have been working on promoting imagination and imaginative ways of working with my clients. Interdependence has also been a massive theme. I truly believe in the opportunity of this time and that all of us with an entrepreneurial spirit can combine to help  the world recover.

We all know the entrepreneurial spirit is what differentiates this country from most in the world.

I am grateful that I am not alone in this view of the world’s recovery coming out of the courageous revolutionaries of the modern age call “The Entrepreneur”.

I predict that we will see the greatest expansion of entrpreneurship the world has ever seen, as people rediscover the independence, challenge, and (yes) personal and spiritual development that self-employment inherently creates.

I am an eternal optimist, and I believe in our ability, when working interdependently, to make this world much better than it is.

It is time for the Entrepreneur to take our rightful place, to take responsibility for the future and be recognized and encouraged (and rewarded) for our contributions. Government, get out of our way and let us show you how it’s done! Long Live the Age of the Entrepreneur!

While most of the world stews about the state of the economy, the usual small group of winners is collaborating with each other. They are carving up the economic turkey for years to come regardless of whether certain human beings having money are spending it or whether an undefined set of persons are quietly accumulating capital and looking for highly profitable investment avenues.

The mindset of the entrepreneur is what is called the Ant Philosophy. That style of thinking insures that no matter how formidable the obstacles to success may be, there is a way to the finish line. Ants have been known to eat their collective way through a rock or even a boulder; humans should have at least that same doggedness.

In a recent post about the state and fate of the entrepreneur, outstandingly successful online marketer, Alex Mandossian, stated that the recent economic downturn has brought about transcendence for the entrepreneur.

“Here’s a summary of the way I see the 3 epochs of Entrepreneurship:

• First Epoch (1755 – 1945): Entrepreneurial Independence
• Second Epoch (1945 – 2010): Entrepreneurial Dependence
• Third Epoch (2010 – Future): Entrepreneurial Interdependence

I believe that next year (2010), and possibly even this year, the global economy is going to be driven by the cheerful expectancy of the Entrepreneurial Interdependence mindset.

Interdependence is dramatically different than “dependence” and even “independence.” Interdependence is the state or a dynamic of being mutually responsible to and sharing a common set of principles with others.”

It’s interesting that I have been sharing that similar concept with my subscribers for a few years and it has fallen on deaf ears. I guess many of my readers/subscribers believe in the lone wolf style. They often write to me about their product or service and how they want to sell it in Japan.

When I write about my bold ideas and the need to collaborate, they see me as talking about my pet project rather than theirs. Quite the contrary is true. If all or many of the people on my list began to think of what and how they can contribute to a Mastermind – skills, knowledge and passion – then the combination of our efforts would produce dramatic results.

For instance, let us assume Mr. Entrepreneur X wants to sell scented candles in Japan. Typically, he would approach either a large or small importer of such vanities by email or in a formal letter of introduction by snail mail. Of course, he gets no response because Japanese seldom answer unsolicited mail, even if it seems to be a chance for business. Then that business person approaches JETRO – which is a good starting point! – but eventually Mr. Entrepreneur X is going to have to face the music.

The music is that

· There are no free rides. You will most likely have to find a go-between and that will cost you money without a sure return on investment.

· You will have to find a translator and eventually an interpreter to make things go smoothly and to protect your vested interest.

Far too many people contacting me want something for nothing. “Tell me where to find the proper supplier,” they demand. “Hand me a list of such and such corporations selling X,” says another flippantly. “Find an investor for my hydroelectric project in the Ivory Coast,” says still another irritatingly.

Such business demands often make me feel like people don’t appreciate that the Success in Japan Directory and weekly newsletter are loaded with ammunition for their efforts.

I know that most of my readers are being flooded with information and alleged opportunities, so deleting almost everything that floods your email inbox becomes a matter of fact.

Other readers think, “I know everything he is writing. I can’t learn anything from what he sends.” Horse races are won by a nose. That nose, in a racing circumstance, is better training. In most businesses it is that one overlooked tidbit that all but a few miss in their hectic rush to the office and then the grave.

Friends, let me make it clear that I am not a smashing success on most levels in my life. But I am curious and somewhat intelligent (with effort) in many areas of wisdom and know-how. I want to share and help as many people as I can to understand the need to embrace Alex Mandossian’s Third Epoch and then act upon it.

Mr. X Entrepreneur needs to develop a network of ambitious people inside and outside of his industry or trade, if he hopes to sell more than a few widgets irregularly to demanding and unreliable customer bases.

Moreover, he or she also must have a sales funnel system which can be adapted or retooled according to prevailing market conditions. He or she must have backup products and services, in case their initial offerings meet a cool reception.

Mr. X Entrepreneur must immediately stop thinking that he doesn’t need any help. The most powerful people in the past, present and the future world utilize outsourcing to do their marketing, their public relations, their web design, their trade endeavors, and whatever other skills they lack or they deem unworthy of their time.

The activities you engage in regularly reflect your potential net worth. If you spend a majority of time answering email inquiries personally, then your hourly worth is often – though not always – equivalent to an experienced clerk. Though your title may be president or manager, your potential is limited to that of an indentured servant.

As I write this message, the economic climate is bleak indeed. The news is always about people losing – and the inference is that you will be next. Feeding your mind in such a negative manner day after day – or letting others feed you with that crap – and before long you no longer want to get up and test your limits.

The only way to break the chains of slavery is to build a network of people who can cooperate, assist, joint venture, and add input to your effort and help you see the blind spots that are holding you back from high and lasting achievement.

To Be Continued