Hi
You may not of read Robert Kiyosaki’s Conspiracy of the Rich see www.conspiracyoftherich.com .

If not I suggest that you do so. Reading it does make one wonder (even question) the extent to which cabals of the rich and powerful are prepared to go to increase their wealth and control. Its seems really to much of a stretch.

However, its fascinating to see the way the drama of Climate Change is playing out, who are the major players and beneficiaries.

‘The Profits of Doom’, in the 22 July 2010 issue of the influential British news weekly, the Times Higher Education, moves the debate on man-made climate change on from increasingly sterile scientific disputes this week, and places it firmly in the political arena.

British-academics-put-global-warming-into-a-new-political-perspective

The term “bootleggers and Baptists” is used to describe situations where groups with opposite moral aims collaborate. Sonja Boehmer-Christiansen, emeritus reader in geography at the University of Hull, and Aynsley Kellow, professor of government at the University of Tasmania, have discussed in their work many examples of Bootleggers donning their black Baptist gowns in the sphere of energy politics.

• Canada, with a nuclear industry to promote, happily backed a Kyoto protocol that made nuclear power “clean” again. After Kyoto, an estimated US$50 billion has been made from the replacement of old Soviet reactors in Eastern European countries
• Japan is energy poor, but since it was paying five times the market price to mine its own coal, it (like the UK and Germany) had a multibillion-dollar annual incentive to campaign for laws limiting its own coal industry
• And when the US, in a rare display of internationalism, pushed through laws to ban chlorofluorocarbons globally (the Montreal Protocol, the provisions of which came into force in 1989), its concern about holes in the ozone layer fitted very comfortably with its control of all the key patents for the replacements.

Cohen traces the origins of the whole ‘climate change phenomenon’ back to a handful of rich Western economies. the political requirements of the UK and Germany to dismantle their coal industries, supported by Canada and Sweden with their nuclear interests, and the lukewarm support of the US itself, interested mainly in creating new financial markets in emissions trading. Oil companies, despite being misleadingly presented as ‘opponents’ of the Climate Change agenda, are in fact one of the big winners.

Together, the article argues, all these rich countries have been working to create binding global rules on CO2 emissions as a way of locking in their economic advantages – a profoundly unethical aim.

Cohen gives particular examples of how support for Climate Change is dodgy ethics, pointing out that:

• wind power is an efficient way of taking money from poor people to give to the rich – and a totally inefficient way to make electricity;
• solar power puts poor people in developing countries at risk of ‘a toxic time bomb’;
• and that biofuels not only result in loss of rainforest habitats but put up the price of basic foodstuffs for people without cars or even electricity in countries like India.

Makes you think.

I guess there is little we, as individuals, can do to counter the juggernauts – the only way forwards I can see is to strive for personal freedom and independence, to have the personal wealth to be insulated from the wheeling and dealing at the government and commercial level.

To take a quote from the book Noble House – to develop your “Drop Dead Money” (viz sufficient wealth at you can tell the world to back off, to be able to easily weather ant regulatory imposts etc.
Effectively to join them if you can’t beat them.

The alternative is to continue in a JOB, trading your time for a diminishing amount of real money, to go down with the Shrinking Middle Class. Not my choice.

One way you can follow me is – www.navig8.biz

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Ever have a disagreement with someone only to later learn that it was based totally and completely on a misunderstanding? If you’re like most of us, your answer is a definite “Yes!” Let’s look at why this is, as well as a method you can use to overcome it, making your level of communication far more effective.

Whenever speaking on the topic of what I call, “Winning Without Intimidation” — mastering the art of positive persuasion — I begin with an explanation of an extremely important concept; “Beliefs.”

I define a “belief” as: “the truth as one understands the truth to be.”

What exactly does that mean?

Truth itself is fact. It is neutral, without feeling. It is neither good nor bad…it just is. It may be viewed as good or bad depending upon the context, situation and people involved. For example, the truth is that gravity works. That manifests as good when keeping you from floating thousands of feet into the air against your wishes.  It could be interpreted as rather bad when falling out of a six-story building.*

Viewing most interpersonal situations as good or bad, however, isn’t always that easy. Making it even more difficult is that determining the “goodness” or “badness” of any specific event or situation falls to a very subjective part of ourselves known as our Belief System.**

Our basic belief system is formed at a very young age. Many psychiatrists state that age as four years though I suspect the process begins even earlier! Our belief system is first given to us by our family and then finely chiseled by our environment, associations and life experiences. Once formed, our basic beliefs are extremely difficult (though certainly not impossible) to change because they operate primarily on an unconscious level. And, the unconscious rules. And, it rules without most of us even being aware that it rules!

A very somber example: someone grows up witnessing a very abusive relationship between his or her parents. This abuse may have been physical, verbal, emotional, or any combination of the above. Needless to say, it was a “bad” situation in which to grow up.

In all likelihood, the person who grew up in that environment believes, on a conscious level, that situation was “bad.” And yet, why does it happen so often – certainly more often than not – that throughout their life, that person will go from one “bad” relationship to another?

Because – plain and simply – their Belief System says that is the “truth” regarding how relationships are! As mentioned earlier, a belief is the truth as YOU understand the truth to be, regarding the way life is. On an unconscious level, that person will continually steer their way to their truth, according to their belief system.

A lighter example is a disagreement I had with someone many years ago. He was thinking about moving to this area and asked if a particular home a Realtor told him about over the phone was near the ocean. I said, “No, it’s pretty far away.” So he told the Realtor he wasn’t interested. When he and his wife arrived they asked me to show them the home just so they could see it. Upon viewing it he said, “I thought you told me it wasn’t near the ocean!”

Me: It isn’t!
Him: It is, too!
Me: No, it isn’t!
Him: Yes, it is!
(No, neither of us stuck out our tongue at the other and went “nyah, nyah”)

Let’s analyze this: The “truth” is that home was seven miles from the ocean. I, living in Jupiter, Florida and two blocks from the ocean, feel that seven miles is far away. He, being from the midwest, feels seven HUNDRED miles from the ocean isn’t too far away. I’d say our mis-communication had something to do with our belief systems. Yes, we are still friends. Why did neither of us think to mention the exact number of miles? I dunno.

In both business and personal relationships, when conflicts arise, the typical belief system is “For me to win, they need to lose.” Or, “If I want a bigger piece of pie, I need to take his or her slice.”

The Winning Without Intimidation (and, for that matter, the Go-Giver) Belief System says, “For me to win, I need to also help the other person win, or at least help them to feel good about the situation and themselves.” And, “If I want a bigger slice of pie, I’ll get together with him or her and bake a bigger pie” (which I have no clue how to do but you get my point).

In other words, “Both people win.”

So let’s look at an effective way to work with “Beliefs” in practically any type of situation in order to ensure that both you and the other person come out winners.

First, when in confrontation with a person you may be finding difficult to get along with, ask yourself four questions:

#1 How is my personal belief system distorting the actual truth of the situation?

#2 How is his or her personal belief system distorting the actual truth of the situation?

#3 What questions can I ask this person that will clarify my understanding of their version of the truth (their Belief System)?

#4 What information can I give that will help them clarify their understanding of my version of the truth (my Belief System)?

As the saying goes, within conflict between two or more people, there are generally three truths; their truth, the other person’s truth, and the actual truth (really, those first two truths are actually beliefs).

Through questions, as well as a caring exchange of information, the real truth can usually be discovered, generating understanding, peace, and respect. This leads to results in alignment with the Winning Without Intimidation and Go-Giver Belief Systems in which both people win.

—–

* The use of the words “good” and “bad” are used for easier reading (and, really, on my part, easier writing) since one could say that even “good and bad” are simply concepts. Spiritually  speaking, one might say that nothing is bad, because everything happens for a reason and, ultimately for the good (ahhh, there is that “bad and good” again. See what I mean?) . On a serious note, this is not to make light of any personal tragedies that simply cannot be explained on a human level.

**While there are many excellent books that explore the topic of Belief Systems on a much deeper level than we did in this article, two that I highly recommend are Psycho-Cybernetics by Dr. Maxwell Maltz and The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz. I’ve found both to be invaluable in my personal growth.

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1. Income falls at Pre-Paid Legal Services 3rd Quarter
2. Pre-Paid Legal: Great Business Model, Few Competitors
3. Pre-Paid Legal cancels its stock buy-back plan

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In the previous article we saw that, whether it’s a family, organizational, sales, or other important matter, when you are about to take part in an important conversation, be sure that all parties involved have the time and willingness to participate.

If you don’t, then the most likely result is that you either won’t have their undivided attention regarding the issue or, when they need to go, they will, and the situation will be left unresolved. And, picking up the conversation exactly where you left off and with the same momentum is much easier said than done, if it ever resumes at all.

Important: Before the conversation or meeting ever begins, be sure all parties are committed to the process, and for the amount of time it has been agreed upon.

Gently create agreement for sufficient time. How?

1. Ask for it. If this is a family or group, you might say,  “I’d like for us to discuss _______ and I believe it’s going to take up to 45 minutes. Do you have 45 minutes that you can dedicate without feeling pressed for time?”

If it’s a boss, it might be, “Ms. Thomas, I need to discuss an important issue. Could we take about 17 minutes? That’s about how much time I believe we’ll need.” (Hint: the more specific the number you use, the greater the chances are for agreement. 17 minutes is actually even better than 15 because, while 15 can appear to be a number picked out of thin air, 17 sounds as though every minute has been reasoned out and has a purpose.)

2. Be able to work around a curve ball. Ms. Thomas says, “I really only have a couple minutes until my next meeting, but please go ahead. I’m sure I’ll be able to help with whatever the problem might be.”

Here’s where you need to both use the right words, and say them in the correct way.

You: I appreciate that, Ms. Thomas. Thank you so much. Actually, I know I’ll need about 15-17 minutes. Could we re-schedule for when you have a bit more time?

Ms. Thomas: Really, I’d prefer we discuss it now. I’m sure it’ll be okay.

You: I appreciate that so much. This is something that’s really more than a two-minute conversation, though, and the last thing I want to do is waste two minutes of your time when I know that won’t be enough. If we could, may I schedule a 17-minute block with your admin, Pat?

Yes, we used the word “I’ several times. In this case, it’s important to utilize an I Message because you want to take the responsibility for needing more time as opposed to putting it on them with a “You Message” which could make them feel defensive and be more inclined to insist on a “now” conversation.

Key: Just like when having to graciously say “no” to a request, it’s vital to maintain inner strength and to respond in a way that communicates you are honoring that person, even though you are not giving in to them.

Use the same basic principle as the above whenever you need to make sure there is enough time for the conversation to be an effective one. Just remember that if you allow yourself to get sucked in to a conversation when the proper amount of time has not been allocated for its success, you might as well not even bother. The results will most likely be the same anyway.

Understanding that will help you to remain strong yet tactful in order to obtain the agreement of time you need.

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Yesterday by chance I came across two separate references to Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

1. Polls trending the wrong way for Labor
2. Philip Stott: Global Warming: the Death of a Grand Narrative

The articles suggested that Maslow’s hierarchy holds that before people worry about health, education and the environment they want to be secure with basic requirements for survival – economic security and personal safety. And that as these basics are undermined (by the Global Financial Situation) priority for these “luxuries” falls away.

This provoked me to research Maslow’s model. Basically this defines five successive levels on needs/requirements, which are -

1. Biological and Physiological needs – air, food, drink, shelter, warmth, sex, sleep, etc.
2. Safety needs – protection from elements, security, order, law, limits, stability, etc.
3. Belongingness and Love needs – work group, family, affection, relationships, etc.
4. Esteem needs – self-esteem, achievement, mastery, independence, status, dominance, prestige, managerial responsibility, etc.
5. Self-Actualization needs – realising personal potential, self-fulfillment, seeking personal growth and peak experiences.

Each of us is motivated by needs. Our most basic needs are inborn, having evolved over tens of thousands of years. Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs helps to explain how these needs motivate us all.

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs states that we must satisfy each need in turn, starting with the first, which deals with the most obvious needs for survival itself.

Only when the lower order needs of physical and emotional well-being are satisfied are we concerned with the higher order needs of influence and personal development.

Conversely, if the things that satisfy our lower order needs are swept away, we are no longer concerned about the maintenance of our higher order needs.
www.businessballs.com/maslow.htm

In the light of the above, its instructive to apply this model to ones business and personal situation. It may well be time to review the nature of ones business, specifically -

1. have the needs of your customer based changed over the last couple of years.
   Maybe the interest/demand in lifestyle products, wellness, education, entertainment etc have been replaced by a need for extra income and

2. have your needs (your why) subtly changed without your recognition, maybe youe lifestyle goles have become more a case of re-enforcing your basic financial situation, insuring stability in income etc, or maybe changing you focus to be able to provide more help to others as their circumstances erode.

Be interested in your comments.

PS I’m interested in the suggestion that personal development follows success it does not appear to be the driver, which many Gurus suggest, in advocating personal development are the route to success. It would seem that is driven more by need than design. Over to you.

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The following is something I’ve found to make a dramatic difference in my life, especially in the area of communication which, by and large, I believe accounts for about 90 percent of all effectiveness:

When you are about to take part in an important conversation, be sure that all parties have the time and willingness to participate.

This sounds both simple and self-evident, yet is a crucial element often overlooked and downright ignored.

Consider the following…

You: Do you have some time to talk? It’s kind of important.

They: I’ve got a little bit of time but have to head out in a little while. What do you need?

You: Oh, that’s okay. I’ll wait until you have more time.

They: No, really, go ahead; I’m fine. What’s up?

So, confident you have his attention, you begin. But, you notice that as you’re speaking he — every so often — looks at his watch. And, his engagement level is sort of low. And, he’s  beginning to unconsciously shuffle some papers and, eventually, he provides a very hurried and unsatisfying response to whatever it was you wanted to discuss, assuring you that he gets the point and blah blah blah.

But he didn’t. And you most likely regret having had this very abridged conversation.

Whether holding a family meeting or having a very necessary one-on-one discussion with a family member; whether needing to speak with your boss about an important issue, having a staff conference or setting an appointment with a sales prospect (on the phone or in person), establish that the time is there and available.

If not, the chances are close to excellent that the results…will not be excellent.

In Part 2, let’s see how we can gently create agreement for sufficient time.

Meanwhile, what has been your experience regarding today’s topic?

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In lieu of a catchy opening line, a hammer-blow of a chart. The median duration of unemployment is, today, more than double what's it been at any point in the last half-century, at 6 months and counting. It's what you might call the dwindling of the American Dream.

Reviving the ghost of the great John Maynard Keynes, economists from Paul Krugman, to Brad DeLong, to Martin Wolf, to Bruce Bartlett, are chalking up a jobless recovery to a lack of aggregate demand. I'd like to advance a suggestion: it's not just the quantity of demand that's problematic — it's also the quality of demand.

So let's talk about jobs — how they're created, and, conversely, how they vanish. Here's a company that caught my eye this week. Knights Apparel, top supplier of clothing to universities, is pioneering a factory called Alta Gracia where workers earn a living wage — 3.5x the minimum wage, to be precise. In an industry premised on rock-bottom pricing, that's an awesomely courageous move that rocks the status quo.

So will it succeed? Maybe, maybe not. Here's the bigger point. Knights is far from the first proponent of higher wages. One of its pioneers? None other than card-carrying communist...Henry Ford. Most know him for making cars, but in fact, he innovated something much bigger than a mere product: the institution of the "job" as we know it today. Not only did this radical innovator institute perhaps one of the first minimum wages, he did it while cutting working hours. Working 40 hours a week for at least a minimum wage? It's a fixture of American society today.

Surprised? Yet, Ford explicitly said that if he paid his workers above the norm, and gave them more leisure time, not only would he gain greater commitment and dedication, in a industry marked by quick turnover — but, more importantly, he'd also spark more, better demand for novel relatively expensive durable goods, like cars, amongst a still relatively poor middle class.

So one might raise their eyebrows, then, and reasonably wonder whether it's American preferences that are killing the American dream. If America has changed so much that what Henry Ford thought was eminently practical is now seen as hopelessly naive — well, then perhaps it's not just bankers, bonuses, and bailouts that are really behind the Great Crash.

Here's what I mean by that. Every time I buy something from your local big-box retailer, it's not that, as protectionists and "patriots" often claim, that I'm destroying an American job. In fact, it's worse: I just might be helping stamp out the idea that there should be jobs as we know them.
Consider: the bulk of that stuff is made, when we cut through the triumphant rhetoric of globalization, by people who are "sub(sub-sub)-contractors," enjoying few, if any, of the benefits we associate with "jobs" — security, tenure, benefits, labor standards, etc. And, of course, when those privileges are gained, production is simply moved to countries, regions, and cities where they haven't been.

Low quality demand, then, means that we buy cheap, but the price is invisibly steep: it ignites a global race to the bottom, what a complexity economist might call a dynamic equilibrium of negative consumption externalities, consumption that results not just in joblessness but a loss in the quality of jobs. The quality of a job is sparked by higher quality demand; or, valuing more than just the dollar price of a thing, but also its human and social impact. When we have low-quality demand, we have low-quality jobs. When we value McDonalds, the result is McJobs.

A living wage is a small, halting — and perhaps even thoroughly misguided — step in a great reset of those self-destructive preferences. Yet a step it nonetheless is.

Contrast it, then, with what you might call high-quality demand. Every so often, I take my own step, in a little experiment I started about a year ago: I buy specific items in my own little budget from a (preferably local) artisan — made with love, care, and respect — but which cost 20-30% more.

Now, my friends, folks, and colleagues seeing only the cost differential, think I'm going a little nuts. Here's what they don't see: that I'm deliberately attempting to see if I can also factor in a different set of benefits: the benefit I enjoy from helping support something and someone I actually care about, the benefits of having a trusted, ongoing relationship with them, instead of merely mutely, anonymously consuming mass-made "product."

Now, maybe I'm just a soft-hearted fool. But my little experiment is changing how, what, and where I buy — and what kinds of benefits I enjoy. In short, my preferences are changing radically: I do enjoy the stuff above, and often, I enjoy it more than the generic, disconnected, alienating stuff I used to "consume." I'm learning to value not just the financial cost of stuff, but, more deeply, its often-invisible, yet still very real, human and social benefits. I suspect that if we are to create tomorrow's jobs, it will require a sea change in preferences.

Note, here, a key nuance. Shifting jobs to lower-wage countries is a tremendous boon to the impoverished. But it would be an even bigger boon if it weren't a double whammy: if, sneakily, we didn't also denude jobs of quality as they were shifted overseas; if the wage differential itself was enough, instead of exploiting a lack of governance and legislation as well; if that which makes a job more than just mere work didn't get, ever so conveniently, lost in translation.

Were that not to have happened already, people around the globe might have had more to spend, and more time to invest in spending it, with less risk — and so perhaps the global economy's problem of aggregate quantity of demand might currently be less severe. As Ford presciently saw a century ago: "well-managed business pays high wages and sells at low prices. Its workmen have the leisure to enjoy life and the wherewithal with which to finance that enjoyment."

Yet, even that depends on a more fundamental cause: higher quality demand. Because to generate higher wages, more leisure, better standards, work that affords space for passion, care, and respect — to offer that to, well one another — we might just have to learn to value the human, natural, and social more, first.

Perhaps this post, like my little experiment, seems idealistic — even naïve — to some of you. And that's the real point. What Keynes and Ford understood that seems to have been lost in the race to hypercapitalism, is this: it's an interdependent world. And in such a world, tracing — and then turning — the ever-more complex, spiralling effects of feedback is what matters. Call it, if you like, by a much older name: wisdom.

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The first three parts of this series on follow-up have discussed:

#1 The personalized notecard

#2 Value-based information

#3 The scratch pad

And, each of these are extremely effective in building an ongoing relationship in which you communicate that your goal is to provide value.

This Video Brief, however, provides — perhaps — the most important and effective thing you can do in order to win their hearts, as well as their direct business and referrals. This, in a way that genuinely and authentically allows you to be an asset of value to their lives.

Go through your entire list of contacts, prospects, customers, clients and referral sources and begin to put today’s action idea into play. And, even better than all the new business and referrals you’ll obtain as a result…will be the great feeling you’ll obtain by providing some truly exceptional value to the lives of lots and lots of people along the way.

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Recently, on the Facebook Go-Givers Sell More “Like” page, I posted the following paraphrase from the book:

Perhaps the greatest secret of ultra-successful selling is understanding: “It’s not about you — it’s about them.”

One of the reader responses was from Michael Fisher, who wrote:

You got that right.

I learned this a long time ago from an incredibly successful salesman in Manhattan. I used to watch him walk the halls of all these companies and stop people and ask them “How’s your wife Karen doing? Did she enjoy her trip back home?”

It was incredible – not only for the number of people he knew, but also the details he knew about them – and asked about them. They loved him because he showed a sincere interest in them.

He also happened to make a bunch of money in the process. We went into these companies competing against some of the largest companies in our industry and he won the contract in a huge majority of the cases. If only we could bottle that… Wait, you just did – Thank you Bob Burg and John David Mann!”

I love what Michael wrote. And, the thing is, this is not rare. These stories abound. Please keep in mind that the key regarding the mega-success of the salesman Michael referred to was his sincerity. He wasn’t trying to manipulate these people; he truly cared about them … and they knew it!

As Sam told Joe in the first book, “All things being equal, people will do business with and refer business to those people they know, like and trust.” And there’s no better, quicker or more effective way to elicit those feelings toward you in others than by genuinely focusing on them.

Thank you, Michael, for sharing that terrific example.

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