Table of Content

Chapter One—Adoption

Chapter Two—Daddy, how do you know?

Chapter Three—Why are you Alive

Chapter Four—It is easy to be great in America

Chapter Five--Your mind and people’s around you, your environment makes you

One: Epistemology  

            Two: Historical materialism

Chapter Six— The Four Dynamics

            One: Life plan

            Two: Self-concept

            Three: Adaptation

            Four: Present

Chapter Seven—Panic and Fear, do not be afraid

Chapter Eight— You make mistakes; you are not a mistake

Chapter Nine—Get an education!

Chapter Ten—Self-actualization

Chapter Eleven—Sex and Relationships

Chapter Twelve— Commandments

Chapter Thirteen— Why everyone goes to Heaven

Chapter Fourteen—Chance’s “Deli Salami”

Chapter One: Adoption

         Marina and I were married in 1993, and in 1997 we decided it was time to have a child. It didn't happen, so we went to a baby doctor. We were going to have artificial insemination.  I thought this would be an easy process--just put the egg and sperm together and voila: instant baby.

         This is not how it works.  There are shots, cycles and surgery.  Your mother began taking shots and her legs became black, blue and yellow.

         Before the surgery the doctor wanted us to go to the hospital and get a special shot for your mother at midnight.  

         That midnight we were having a Holiday Celebration to celebrate the year we had at Beverly Hills BMW, where I was the General Manager, and all of the commitment everyone put forth to make it a great year in 1998.

         I introduced the "Gung Ho" awards, and almost everyone from the firm showed up at the Doubletree Hotel on Wilshire Boulevard, which is where the event was being held.

         It was a spectacular event that we had planned for some time, and I was honored that the CFO and COO of the parent company were coming to participate in the evening.  The company was relatively new, and there was not a long corporate history.

         However, your mother and I had to sneak out of the party just before midnight and run to the hospital, where she was to receive a shot for surgery the next day.  I was hoping the CFO and COO, along with the other people joining in the celebration, wouldn’t notice the host was leaving. This was going to be a tricky move.
  
         The evening was a success; almost everyone from the organization came that night decked out to celebrate our success over the last year.

         We had a picture studio set up so everyone got his or her picture taken with a significant other or a friend they brought, and the food was terrific.  We had a DJ and the place began to rock, with over 250 people in attendance.

         The COO of the company, Robert, was a good sport; my two finance managers were both women, over 6 feet tall. Both had long, dark hair and great figures, with fabulous smiles and all of the right moves. They had the nickname of the Twin Towers. Both Alice and Betty, my finance managers, surrounded Robert and danced with him as the night wore on.  Everyone was all smiles and laughing at the sight of Alice and Betty grooving with the COO. My plan was to keep Robert occupied with my young, beautiful finance managers.  It’s not something I am very proud of, but the plan seemed to be working.

         The CFO was a very smart and brilliant woman, and as terrific as she was with a balance sheet, she also looked terrific in an evening gown.

         I danced with the CFO, June, and so did many of the staff.  My plan to keep the COO and CFO busy was working so far.  Everyone was having a very good time, and there was not a lot of formality, which can often accompany an event of this type.  I was hoping the party would keep everyone busy while Marina and I left.
  
         At a little before midnight, Marina and I snuck out of the award celebration, because our doctor wanted Marina to have a shot before artificial insemination the next day, as our quest for a baby was being ramped up.  

         We went to the Century City Hospital only a few miles away, the nurse gave Marina the shot, and we returned to party to say good night to our guests.  I know--why at midnight?  Only the doctor knows, but it had to do something with cycle time. The doctor wanted to perform the operation in the afternoon, as opposed to the middle of the night.  Maybe it was just a way to see how committed we were.  Trust me, Marina was committed. That night we could have been scheduled for a trip to the moon, and Marina would still have found a nurse to give her this shot.  There was no holding back for anything.

         We got back to the party after having been gone for only 15 or 20 minutes, just in time to start saying good night to our guests.  No one missed us except one associate, who was helping plan and execute the affair.  It was perfect.

         We were confident this would produce a baby--you--and we had made our getaway and return with no one noticing. Now we said goodbye to our guests and thanked them for a great year. 
 
         Unfortunately, we went through this process a few more times in our attempt to have a baby.  It did not work out.  I was tired of seeing Marina in pain  because of the shots and surgeries, so I suggested we look into adopting a baby.  

         Marina found a lawyer and we began the adoption process, which was also long, expensive and intrusive in our lives.

         We did not know how the adoption process works, so I was amazed to find out just how simultaneously organized and unorganized it is.  Our attorney helped us find the people who would be checking us out to make sure we would be good parents.  From FBI checks to meeting with psychologists to make sure we were solid citizens, we passed with flying fingerprints.  Now any law agency can find the two of us.

         But the most fascinating part of the process was that we were told to get an 800 number and advertise in “Penny Saver, throw-away” newspapers across the country.  I told Marina we were wasting our money

         To my surprise and shock, the calls started to roll in from people from around the country, young people who were pregnant and wanted to give up their child for adoption to people who would be able to take care of it.  First of all, I was amazed at the number of calls we got.  Now I thought this would be a slam-dunk.  Nope; it appeared that these young mothers had special thoughts.

         One young mother hung up on Marina because she didn’t like the name of our cat, Cookie.  Other mothers thought we were too old or didn’t look right after looking at our picture.  This went on for a year; on many nights Marina was reduced to tears by our lack of progress.

         Finally, in 1999, we found a birth mother, Monica, who agreed that the cat was OK; we were not too old; we had enough money; we had the right hair color; we were the right height, religion, race, and creed for us to adopt her child; and off we went to Denver to meet her.

         We met our birth mother at a hotel where she came to meet us with her sister, who lived in Denver.  The next couple of days went well. She was about four months pregnant.  We had passed the interview process that lasted two days.  Hooray for us: we were qualified by a 20 year old mother-to-be who didn’t use birth control with her boyfriend and who didn’t have enough money to go to the doctor to make sure the child was healthy during the pregnancy.  She barely had a high school education and couldn’t find a job.  This was a high point in my life. I was blessed.

          Now we went back to LA to the lawyer to start the process.  I was overwhelmed at how things were shaping up. 

         We agreed to pay medical bills and the standard legal fees, etc.  We agreed that Monica and her boyfriend would come to LA a couple of weeks before the baby was to be born, where we would take care of lodging and have our doctor deliver the baby.

         Marina took the couple all over LA, sightseeing and getting to know them better.  Marina was worn out when Good Friday arrived and Monica went to the hospital to have the baby.

         I actually took the day off and we waited all day, until 8.30 pm, when my son Chance arrived.

         Marina was beside herself. There were tears and laughter. Marina watched as the baby was being born, and we were concerned the doctor, Steve, would not arrive in time.  The nurse was a pro and calmed Monica and Marina down.  Doctor Steve arrived and everything went well.

         I was given the baby and was asked to cut the umbilical cord.  If I had a thought in my brain at the moment, I would have asked Doctor Steve if this wasn’t what I was paying him for.

         But I didn’t. I could not believe the miracle I had just witnessed.

         My son, Chance Everett Jones, had arrived on Good Friday in the year 2000.

         Chance was given to Monica to hold for a short time, and then he was whisked off to the baby ward.

         We visited our son in the baby ward on our way to Monica’s room.  You were small, pink, and very beautiful in our eyes.  Marina couldn’t talk and just held on to me.

         After several years of trying to have a child, Marina and I were about to become parents.  For some reason, though, I had a bad feeling bringing the baby home was not going to be as easy as we thought.

         I was sent out for pizza for everyone at 10 pm in my new role as the errand boy. I was used to being the third wheel, and now I realized that I was about to become the mule that carried everything around.  I am sure many fathers have felt the same thing, but it was OK with me, I could handle the responsibility. My new job didn’t require much brain power, but I found out it required street smarts.

         I found a pizza place that was just closing, because I couldn’t find a place that was open on this Good Friday. As I drove into the parking lot, I saw the lights shut off. I knocked on the door, and a man and lady came to the door and told me they had just closed, it being Good Friday. I held up a twenty and they opened the pizza joint back up. From the powers in heaven, I got a couple of pizzas to take back to the hospital. 

         I did this all sober, but I kept thinking of cocktail hour as I slugged through the streets trying to find a pizza place that was open on Good Friday.  Monica was insistent on having a cheese pizza. 

         Marina and I shared pizza with the birth mother and her boyfriend. 

         We went back home and arrived about midnight.  We were sober, but because the emotional stress we were having with the birth parents, I felt that if there was ever a time to have a drink, now was that time.  We were too spent after this day to even have a night-cap and went straight to bed.

         I knew Monica was having second doubts about giving up the child.  I couldn’t share these feelings with Marina because I knew she was spent and exhausted, and to share this feeling with her at the time would have only added fuel to fire.

         The next day we spent at the hospital with our son and his birth parents.  There were many tears, and I knew this was not good.  The nurses were exceptionally kind and spent a lot of time with Monica, discussing her decision to give up her child. After another emotionally brutal day, we came home and crashed.

         The next day was Easter; we came to take Chance home.  Before we got to the hospital, we stopped at a deli and had a little breakfast, and after breakfast Marina I went to the drugstore to pick up more supplies. On a whim, I bought a stuffed yellow Easter bunny that Chance still has today. Chance named this bunny with an Easter egg-colored scarf around his neck Sunshine.  Chance still goes to bed with Sunshine today.

         This was to be quite emotional on many levels Marina had made sure we had all of the necessary equipment to take home our 8-pound bouncing baby boy—in fact, we had the necessary supplies for the next decade for our infant.  Marina likes to be stocked up for any emergency, being from the Soviet Union, where supplies were not always readily available.

         Monica, the birth mother, was reluctant to let the baby go. She was having second thoughts about keeping the baby, and Marina, you could tell, was very emotional.  There were many tears and a very emotional conversation about the baby going home with us and Monica and her boyfriend going back to the apartment we had rented for them.  This was not a surprise to me, and my antennae went further up.

         Finally the time came. There were tears. I put Chance into the car seat and away we went.

         Marina was my front seat driver’s side, telling me what to do with the baby on board.  I smiled and drove on to the house that was going to have a new baby.

         When we got home, I got Chance into living room, and he started crying.  There was a lot of crying going on this weekend from everyone but me.  But I was going to get ready to start crying.  Why is there no football in the spring?

         Marina declared more supplies were needed and she was going to get them.  She left, and Chance and I were alone together for the first time on Easter Sunday.  Father and son time had begun.

         Chance finally fell asleep in his bassinet on the couch, and I thought maybe, just maybe, I would get some quality time alone, just to feel happy that there was a sleeping baby in the house and one chapter of my life was coming to an end and a new chapter--parenting duty--was just beginning.  I had a lot of ideas that would be trashed as reality clashed with fantasy.  But that is to come.

         Holy smokes, I was a father!  I was just beginning to fall asleep next to the baby when the pounding on the front door began.  The people parade to see Chance had begun, and Chance woke up and started crying.  Already, my plans were starting to crumble, and I started thinking now would be a good time for me to cry.

         Chance was to sleep in our bedroom for the next few months, in his bassinet.  On Monday I went back to work. A week went by with relative quiet...if having an infant in your house qualifies as any type of quiet.

         Friday about 2pm, I got the call: Monica had changed her mind and wanted to keep the child.   Marina was at her mother’s, with the baby, hysterical.  I couldn’t understand what she was saying, but I finally got it.  So I saddled up and went to grandmother’s house, where I found my bride in tears on the bed with Chance. I could hardly understand what she was saying.  Marina is a very beautiful woman, but she looked like toast lying on the bed next to Chance.  Her eyes were puffy and raw, her nose was red from running, her hair was a tangled mess and she kept blubbering. 

         Monica was supposed to sign a document which would make Chance ours until the final adoption.  She had told the counselor of the State of California she did not want to sign the papers.

         Negotiations started to take place between the State of California, Monica, and myself.  Monica continued to say she did not want to the sign the papers and wanted more time to think about giving up Chance.

         These were two young children whose parents did not know of the pregnancy, because Monica was afraid of what their religious parents would feel about a baby out of wedlock. 

         Monica had been hiding at her sister’s, telling her parents she was looking for a job in Denver, but now that the baby was born, she was feeling different.  She felt she could face her parents with the truth.

         These two kids without a nickel to their name, who had lied for the last several months about the baby to come, had no place to take the baby and raise him.

         My wife had become physically and mentally ill over the back and forth of whether we were going to keep the baby or not.   We finally ironed out that Monica could not take care of the baby, and Monica signed a day later with the State of California, making Chance ours.

         Chance was now our child--the final adoption took place at the Edmund Edelman Children’s Courthouse in Monterey Park

         Chance Everett Jones was now the latest in the Jones line and the first child I was challenged to bring up.  I had it all wrong: Chance was about to give me the education.  All I can do is share with him some ideas he might take with him as he takes his own journey through life. 

         We commit to do the best of our ability and then the chips fall where they may. 

         I believe that while your genes take you somewhere in life, your environment will prove your success or failure, level of happiness, and whether you have a good life or a bad life.  The education was about to begin.

Chapter Two: Daddy, how do you know?

         Over the years, Chance, my son has asked me the following question at least once a day: “Daddy, how do you know?”

         And of course, the answer varies depending on the subject, from highly scientific answers to “because I am your father”--a highly unsatisfactory answer, but one that seems to slip out of my month.

         I don’t know all the answers, but chances are, no one really does.  We use our experience, our environment, and our education in trying to come up with answers we believe will be correct.  My mind changes the more I grow older and am willing to open my mind to new ideas and concepts. 

         I have developed some concepts that I used in my philosophy company that I started some years back.  While there is not a big demand for philosophy companies, there is a place for philosophy in the world; after all we live by our ideas and beliefs, wrong or right.

         In this book I will write about people who still think the world is flat, we have not gone to the moon and other ideas people cling to that would seem absurd to most of us.  Maybe the world is flat, but I don’t think so.

         In our world today, our knowledge is growing so fast people cannot keep up, and because of this people feel over their heads much of the time.

         Having a child has changed my life and my knowledge; I am trying to take care of Chance and raise him to the best of my ability.

         Marina, my bride, and I asked for it, and we got it: Chance is not ours because of chance. 

         “Daddy, how do you know?” (See above)

         Chance was born in the year 2000, my first and only child. I was born in 1951.  I am writing this book so Chance will have words and thoughts to live by, in case I am not around to continue his education in the world.  Perhaps someone else might find these words to be beneficial. 

         Like any father, I would like to see my son successful in life.  I am trying to give him an education which will help him develop into a successful man himself.

         Chance and I were watching TV close to bedtime and I was flicking the channels to see what was on while trying to convince Chance that it was time to go to bed. I saw a show on CNBC titled “The Millionaire Inside.”  I gave Chance two choices: watch the show or go to bed. Since the show started at 9pm, past his bedtime, he chose watching the show while mildly protesting, ”Why this show, Daddy?”

  I replied, “Maybe you could learn something about the world.”

         Chance fell asleep halfway through the show, but the thing I noticed most was that there was no concrete direction: follow your dreams, be happy with what you are doing, have the desire to be a millionaire, have the right thinking, think like you are rich, and then you will be rich.  I grew up in a very modest household in the Mid-West and know there are concrete things which need to be done to be successful.

         Success is not being a billionaire. Although money is important in life, it is not the end all, be all.  Success is the accomplishment of something that is important to you.

         The Axioms

         Axioms are truths we accept.  I have four for my son Chance.  Of course, if you don’t believe in these four truths, then the end comes here. Let’s examine these axioms and see if they make sense.

         Our number one axiom is you have to believe in yourself.  If you don’t believe in yourself, who else will?  So to be successful, our first axiom is to believe in you.  And believe me when I say that I am just like you--I haven’t always believed in myself, either, but then I must make a mental correction within myself.  I am subject to the same emotions and feelings as everyone else.  I am not Superman, although I had a Superman costume as a small lad and used to jump around the couch, pretending I could fly.  Your Grandmother did not like me jumping around on the couch: imagine that, as Marina and I ask Chance not to jump around on our furniture. 

         It would seem children are children, and the parenting function remains the same in some degree from generation to generation. 

         However, the world is changing rapidly, and what we knew 200 years ago has changed dramatically from what we know today.  So while the same, parenting and living in this world has become different, although many of us prefer to stay in our cocoon of the past, in our comfort zones.

         Being an older parent, I thought if I didn’t use the word no, Chance would not know the word, so as he grew to the age of two, Chance would not use this word as many children I have been around do.

         I became a champion of the multiple no as Chance started to crawl.  “No,no,no,no,no” would just flow from my mouth, even though I had taken a pledge not to use the word.

         That did not mean I felt I had become a bad parent or failed because I had pledged not to use the word no, and now was an expert with the word no.  I just came into a reality I had not had before, bringing up a child and trying to protect him from himself. 

         This is true in life: as we get older we find ourselves in different situations which may change our thinking or beliefs.  I did not lose the belief in myself and think I was not going to be a good parent. I am willing to believe in myself, as you should believe in yourself.

         There are going to be realities we face in our lives which change us, bring us to a different place. We learn from them and need to continue to believe ourselves--after all, if we don’t believe in ourselves, who will?

         Turn around, click your heels three times and say, “I believe, I believe, I believe, in myself.”

         Our second axiom is you must have a life plan and have values, character, and goals. Values, character, and goals are to be your life plan.  At the end of the day, people will know you by your word and what you do.  Will people say you have a good character or a bad character?  Do you have good values as perceived by other people?  Can you do deals by a handshake?

         However, I must caution you, my young son, it is an unfortunate fact: you must get everything in writing.  You must have sterling character, but you must be aware many people do not have character and you must protect yourself by having everything in writing. 

         So our second axiom is that you must have sterling character and a life plan (that I will describe in detail later), but beware of people that don’t have a life plan, or don’t have a good character, and get everything in writing.  We do not lie, steal, or cheat.  I have been bad and made poor choices and have not followed this axiom in my youth, and it has hurt me in life.  There is less pain in this world having character, than not.  I know that if you were standing next to me, I would know the right thing from the wrong thing, and I have tried to teach you by example what the right thing is and what the wrong thing is.  I am not here to tell anyone what is right or wrong, but I have a sense that most Americans know the difference in everyday life.

         Our third axiom is America is great.  You have freedoms in America most people don’t have around the world.  Many of your relatives have died and fought for your freedoms, Chance. Freedom is not free and you must guard the freedom of America and have America in your heart.  Your mother and I have traveled to many foreign countries, and as you know, your mother lived in the USSR until she was 16. 

         As I was growing up in the ‘50s and ‘60s, the USSR was the great enemy. 

         I grew up in the small town of LaPorte, Indiana, made up of mostly Protestant and Catholics.  There was not a lot of diversity in the small Indiana town of about 25,000.  This was in the period of the cold war, and we were told the Russians had the bomb, so we had to always remember to be on the alert for Communists and the threat to our lives from the evil empire.

         We were told in case of nuclear attack from the Russians, we were to hide under our desks at school.  (And while not said, kiss our little tushies good bye.)  Senator Joe McCarthy was finding Communists under every bed in America; black ball lists were made of many innocent Americans.

         People’s careers and home lives were torn apart by the thought these people would destroy America by thinking differently from someone else, like Senator Joe McCarthy.  It was like a modern day version of burning witches at the stake.  It was a crazy time in America and around the world, with tensions between the East and West. 

         Much has changed as time marches on; we gain different perspectives on the world.  Through the communication network which has exploded in the last hundred-fifty-ten years, we have all learned more about diversity and the people around us.

         If you had told your Grandmother and Grandfather Jones from the small town of LaPorte, Indiana, I would grow up to marry a Russian Jew, I believe they both would have fainted.  Who knew?

         I am quite positive there were no Russians in LaPorte, and there were no synagogues.  I don’t remember a bagel and smear in my childhood, although it’s one of my favorite foods today.  

         I am very grateful for the diversity that you, Chance, have in your life growing up in Los Angeles.

         There is no doubt America is a great country that allows you the freedom to be successful. This is not true in over half of the world, where you cannot live a life of freedom.  Many countries want you to conform, but in America you can live your dreams--or not.  The choice will be up to you.

         You must be aware these freedoms can be taken away unless the public stands up and allows freedom to ring in America.

         I believe that you must defend diversity, and diversity will not harm you in America.  America has been called the great melting pot of the world.  Would we be here today, in this history without diversity? You need to have tolerance to different ideas and people.  I believe America is great.

         Our fourth axiom: choose your friends carefully.  Do you have friends that are losers, or are not right for your life? As hard as this is, you must move away. You can still love them, but from a distance. 

         I know you will have a soft spot in your heart, and will not want to do this; I know I have broken this axiom myself, but you must move on--it will be better for you. Do not stay with people that will drag you down, for you will suffer. 

         You must choose your friends carefully and make sure they are of the same mind and character as I hope you will be.  This does not mean they have to look like you, but shouldn’t the people around you have an open mind to what the world is and might be?  Shouldn’t people you associate with have an open mind, a like mind of character, tolerance and many of the concepts we are going to be examining in this book? 

         You need to think for yourself, make choices that are thought out by you, not someone else.  This is the best freedom America will give you--the choice to think for yourself.

         Being in the wrong peer group can be devastating.  

         You must beware of the dream killers.  These can be people that don’t want you to get hurt or disappointed, so they will try to kill your dreams so you won’t get hurt or disappointed.  Your mother and father could be in this category, but we promise to very careful so as not to kill your dreams in life.

         Some dream killers are afraid if you achieve your dreams or goals you will no longer want to be with them. They are afraid you will leave them behind if you become successful.

         Gain what you want first and make sure the people around you are the right people. In your youth, don’t get tangled into relationships which will not be good for you. First and foremost, get an education, and get experience in the world.

         People who have closed minds are the ones you must be suspect about--what they are thinking and what direction they may want you to go.   A closed mind, as we shall see later, is an indication of a lower order of the development of the mind.

         Our purpose in life is to grow--physically, mentally, emotionally and spirituality.  To have people around us that would constrict this growth hampers our success.  Success is achieving something that is important to you in your life.

         In America you will have the chance to live some of your dreams. Perhaps not all of them will come true, but in America you never know--if you stay focused you can achieve a lot, maybe even become President, if that is something you would like to do.

         You need to choose the people around you carefully.

Chapter Three: Why are you Alive

         Chance, this book is for you.  It is my advice on how a man should live life in this century.  Many people will not agree on the advice that I am about to give you; you may not agree on the advice I am about to give you, but give it consideration as you make decisions in your life.

         I had you later in life, and I believe this has been a good thing for both you and me.  You have kept me young, and I have been able to give you things not possible when I was younger.

         I have been able to throw the football to you, and you are still learning to catch.

         We have been to many places I would not have been able to take you when I was young and struggling with my career.

         I have more patience than when I was young, and I am a little smarter as I am just south of my 60’s.

         You will not have to struggle as much as I have had to, unless you decide that is a path you want to take.

         When you ask me, “Daddy, how do you know?” the answers I give you are from my experience and continuing education and curiosity about life.  It is about never knowing it all, and always looking for more, because sweetheart, there is more.

         You will be about as happy as you make up your mind to be.  You will be as successful as you are willing to work and use your brain.

         Don’t let other people tell you what to believe; they may be wrong or right, but you have to use your own mind as you turn into a young man.

         I love you.

         I care for you and your mother very much, so I am going to give you advice you may not immediately see the value in.  My father gave me advice, and some I took and some I left behind. The choice will be yours.

         When you and your mother came into my life, I was in my later 40s and 50s.  And this, my son, was not a bad thing.

         We want you to finish college and do what you want as a man.  To finish college simply means you were able to buckle down, show some character, and display some values your mother and I think are important for you.  It is easier to be successful in life as an educated man. 

         You are my only son, my favorite son, someone that I love with all of my heart.

         Your mental process in your life is going to expand.  It is part of being a human being to grow.

         You will think you know something only to find out you do not know. 

         People have beliefs, you will have beliefs and some of these beliefs will be true, some false.

         When we find out what we believed is not true, we harbor ill will and feel foolish, so sometimes we will believe something that is not true, so we don’t feel bad about ourselves.

         Doctors are educated; they go to school for many years.  They graduate several times before they become a doctor by a person of the “Who Said’s.”

         You are running into the “Who Said’s” now.  I, the “Who Said of the greatest magnitude,” have been in school and I know through my education that this is a truth you need to know. 

         People will say the “Who Said’s” know. Well maybe they do, maybe they don’t know.

         A professor, a teacher, may say I will bestow on you a piece of paper that says today you can do this, when yesterday, you couldn’t. 

         You see, this man has become a “Who Said.”  I am certified by the great state of my mind and the other minds around me that I know what I am talking about and have convinced my peers I know what I am talking about.  You might ask a professor, politician, leader of the “Who Said’s”, “How do you know?” 

         “Daddy, how do you know” is not just limited to me, but the people around you.

         Now, this is not such a bad thing, to question people around you so you can examine the ideas around you. I would say it is absolutely necessary--you have to examine the world you live in and continually evaluate what it is you are doing or believing.

         George Washington was a great man, a great leader, our Nation’s first President and an American revolutionary leader.  George died in December 1799 at age 67, from possible loss of blood. 

         George wasn’t feeling good and called his doctors (yes, more than one) to see why he wasn’t feeling well.  Modern doctors believe George could have died from epiglottitis, swelling of the windpipe.

         Or since he was bled with leaches as part of his treatment to get better, it was believed the nearly 5 pints of blood that were taken from George as part of his treatment did the trick and killed him.

         George was being bled with leeches by his doctors, the most highly regarded of the “Who Said’s” at the time.

         Just over 200 years ago, some of the most educated people in our world, the cream of the “Who Said’s” thought putting leaches on people and letting them suck the blood out of you was a way to get better and recover from feeling bad (depression) or a common cold.

         Pretty wild--only 200 years ago we used this treatment on people. Do you think anyone uses this treatment today?  Would you like to have this treatment done to you?

         How do we come up with our beliefs? 

         Our minds are fabulous things. As we observe our world, our brains are videotaping the things we see, feel, touch, hear, and taste, just like on film. 

         Because the information we come into contact with every day is voluminous, we can’t absorb everything, so we have to choose what we want to remember.  We select what we want, as our video recorder is going at full speed all day, and dreams at night, which we think are real, are also part of this mountain of data thrown at us every day.

         We decide what we want to believe and what we decide not to believe.  This is not a neutral process.  This is true of everyone.  We select what we want to believe.  In life people are teaching you what they believe is correct, even though in the future it may prove to be incorrect.

         Because there is so much information-- and more coming at us every day--when you become a man, the information in the world may double every 72 hours.

         The Dean of the University of Southern California School of Business, Yash P. Gutpa, looked at our past acquisition of knowledge and our future acquisition. 

         According to Professor Gutpa, a “Who Said,” of the highest magnitude, from 1600 to 1850 our knowledge of the world doubled.  From 1850 to 1950 our knowledge of the world doubled again.  From 1950 to 1975 our knowledge of the world doubled yet again.  From 1975 to 2000 knowledge of the world doubled again.  According to the professor, the people on this planet will have their knowledge doubled every 72 hours by 2050.  You will only be 50, yet you will have more knowledge in front of you than the rest of history every three days.

         When will this knowledge stop?  Can we as people stop knowledge from happening?

         Certainly a lot of people, for different reasons, would like our knowledge to stop.  Many people would like to believe the world is not changing, and they feel comfortable in a no-growth relationship. 

         Many people from around the world would like to believe the past is the correct way to live, so this “historical materialism” of the world and societies moving forward, whether we want the world societies to or not, is at odds with many people who seek power in keeping the old ways in check.  We will discuss this “historical materialism” forward progress later, but people and societies move on.

         People were burnt alive at the stake for being convicted of the crime of being a witch from the early 1300s to nearly 1800, less than 250 years ago, which does not sound like a lot of time in history.

         Today Muslim punishments include beheading and stoning a person to death for violation of religious laws.  These punishments are done in public as a way to deter future violations. 

         Our belief systems are extremely strong-- how do we get these beliefs?

As we observe our day, our video camcorder brains record everything we see, hear, feel, touch, taste, everything we experience--there is so much. We select what we want, and push any other knowledge, thoughts,  and advertising into the deep recesses of our minds.  People around us will encourage us to think one way or the other. 

We decide what to keep in our minds and we add meanings to the information we decide to keep.

We see a mountain and think God created it. 

We see a mountain and think the earth created it in an explosion. 

We see a mountain and think ice glaciers created it. 

We see a mountain and think a volcano created it.

Because the mountain is great, we may assume it will be there forever. 

There are people that will tell you one of these ideas are correct or wrong.  How do they know?  They pick one so then the others would be false.

We draw conclusions from what we decide we should believe.

We adopt these conclusions as our beliefs.

We take action on what we believe.

Some of what we believe we have learned from other people; perhaps we have had an epiphany ourselves.  Maybe Madison Avenue advertising has convinced us we need to have or be something other than what we are now.

As we get older, more and more of our beliefs become what I call hardwired.  We get into habits from our beliefs and this is what guides us in our actions on a daily basis.

Not all hardwiring is bad; if we had to relearn everything every day, we wouldn’t get anything done.

If I had to learn typing every day, before I could write, I wouldn’t get a lot done.  Believe me, some of my friends don’t think I can type, or that what I do type is anything useful--dream killers on the prowl.  

If I had to think about getting dressed in the morning, driving to work, a hundred other things in life we just learn and do, it would be crisis every day. 

I have a friend who told me the other day he had moved into a new house about a month ago. He had finished a long day at work, and ended up driving to his old home.  As he got to his old home, he drove into the driveway before realizing he didn’t live there anymore.

Sometimes you need to reprogram your hardwiring; as useful as it can be, it can also be a burden.  

However, ideas like politics, religion, and social models are things that can become hard wired in you, also.  So you may accept these ideas and beliefs without ever questioning them.

Remember President Washington being bled to death?

Beware of your mental model.

It doesn’t hurt to examine what you believe from time to time, and over a course of a lifetime, your ideas and beliefs will change. 

This is a normal part of growing.  Overcoming some of these ideas and beliefs will be hard, because of your hardwiring.  It is difficult for people to replace one belief with another, because you believe!

Robert Kegan, a professor at Harvard, came up with five orders of mental development in human beings.

 Each mental order is an examination of how you think, what you believe and what you perceive society thinks and believes around you. 

From the lowest to the highest order of mental development is where we all start.

The beginning.

Mental order number one is being a young child. Children see things as magic and mystery.  Children cannot distinguish between what is real and not.  I should have probably never let you watch TV as a young child, because you didn’t know if what was on the TV was real or not.

  Your mother used to get mad at me for letting you watch things that were not appropriate for you at your age, because you couldn’t distinguish if what was on the TV was true or just Hollywood.  So everything is my fault for allowing you to watch TV, when you should not have.  (The news was included in Marina’s what not to watch-- you could be tainted by a Republican or Democrat.) 

I hope what could be my biggest crime is now behind us.

Someone reads or tells you a scary story, and as a young child, you cannot tell the difference in what is true or not.  Disney used to scare the bejesus out of me as a young child.  No one told my parents or grandparents or Disney that children didn’t know the difference between reality and fiction.  I thought the wicked witches of Disney were real; no wonder people burned them.

Mental order number two sets in as teenagers.  Teenagers and young adults discover many things remain constant: some beliefs and the physical world around us remain constant.  The sun comes up every day in the morning, and the sun goes down every night.  We learn there are certain patterns we know are going to be consistent.

We learn certain actions are going to be met with positive or negative repercussions.

   Teenagers and young adults are generally self-centered, and see others as barriers or helpers in attaining their desires.  Teenagers tend to rebel against parents and teachers.  With limited experience, they believe they know the answers to life.

Teenagers don’t break the rules because they may get caught.  They think they know everything; they may think instead they are misunderstood, but in general can be selfish, and are looking out for only themselves. 

At my father’s funeral I met an old friend I had not seen in many years. He was blessed with three teenagers.  At the reception after the service, we were getting into our “cups” and Bob kept saying he was the dumbest person in his household.  His teenagers knew everything.  I think this is probably an isolated event in families in America; on the other hand, maybe not.

Hollywood has made movies about this order of mental development; one would be the famous film “Rebel Without a Cause,”  starring James Dean and Natalie Wood.

As we move into adulthood, (Kagen’s third order) we move out of being self-centered and take into account other people’s feelings. 

We have through our belief system decided if we are political, religious, what cultural, what societal norms we believe and belong in, and what rules we are going to adopt.  (Usually the laws of our local society.)

 As adults we would welcome other people’s ideas, whether we accept them or not as a part of our lifestyle.  And as adults we would accept a “board of directors” in our lives.

We can be devoted to something that is greater than our own need.  We can be selfless and willing to help other people 

As adults we are looking for consensus among the people we interact with. 

As adults we can feel “over our head” much of the time and have self-image problems because we don’t think we might be good enough or know enough.  We gravitate toward leadership because we are not quite sure ourselves.  We have self-doubt much of the time.

As adults, we have internalized different systems of meaning.  We choose a religion, we choose a political ideal, and we choose values.  Often the values we choose are what we were brought up in by our families and our society.  We give up the rebel and assimilate into society.

We choose a career, or maybe careers; religion, and politics choose us or we choose them.  We have strong feelings about our life and what is right and wrong. 

We welcome a board of directors in life.  We follow, sometimes we lead.  We become devoted to what we have around us.

We take into account other people’s feelings.  And many of us will be devoted to something other than our own needs.

As adults we are looking for consensus. As adults we have to navigate around people who have different ideas and different ideologies and institutions we don’t believe in but which exist because others believe.  We have internal and mental conflicts because of the environment we are in; not everyone is going to believe what we believe, and that makes us uncomfortable.  But as adults, we block out, or tolerate other beliefs and ideas not our own.

Being an adult in the third stage of development, according to Kagen, is not a personality flaw, it is not a result of low mental power, but a point we have in our development as we grow in life.

As adults we can feel limited when there is conflict among different ideologies, people or even institutions.

We have to deal with institutions like the IRS, or some government agency or private agency, like your medical insurance:  the Can’t Fight City Hall syndrome.  We feel small and unimportant.  We feel hopelessness, and fear.

Kagen calls this stage of adult life, which most of us enter into, not a “personality flaw” but simply a point on the development continuum.  And many of us stay in this mental stage most of our lives.

This is one purpose in life, to grow through the continuums of these orders and mental models.

This is the fun, the challenge: the need to push forward to achieve self-satisfaction in the journey.  Not looking for the end, but the challenge from growth happening every day.

Why are we on earth?

From observation, I would say our purpose is to grow.  We grow physically, we grow mentally, we grow emotionally, and we grow spiritually.

So our purpose is growth.

Kagen talks about an adult stage of life, but to the professor there are two other stages of mental orders we can achieve.

Kagen’s fourth order of adult is someone who can examine and mediate through various rule systems and opinions.  They see themselves as “Chairman of the Board.”  They have a set of internal rules, values and character they live by.  They are self-governing.  They feel empathy for others and take their wishes, and opinions into consideration when making decisions.  These people are self-motivated and have self-evaluation. 

Self-evaluation is key to this mental order. We can independently, from a distance, look at different ideas and see what they are about, without condemning or confirming these ideas as true or false.  We can suspend our beliefs to examine other beliefs.

 It takes time and it takes someone who can understand the limits of the internal system within themselves to grow to the fourth order. 

People in the fifth order are not likely to look at things as either black or white, but with many shades of grey.  They can manage the tensions of opposites within their own mental models. 

They would not necessarily have a board of directors, but would consider systems, thoughts, and ideas outside of their internal systems.  They would be able to internalize a wide field of alternatives. 

These people, by their nature, and maturity, would be slow to judge.  Kagen says he rarely sees the fifth order in anyone under 50 years old.

Because our knowledge is growing at such a rapid rate, we are living longer, and have more communication, our world is actually creating more people in the 4^th and 5^th order of adults.

Chance, you are going to have more opportunity in your life because of growth of the human mind and advancement in knowledge and communication.

But like all of us, you are going to have to grow through these development stages.  If you know what these mental orders are, it is easier to navigate through them.

America is one of the countries in the world where you are able to grow and move forward in this self-development.

Chapter Four: It is easy to be great in America

It is easy to be great in America, because you have opportunity.  Just 200 years ago and further back in history, if I were a blacksmith, you would most likely be a blacksmith.  If I were a peasant, you would be a peasant.  Whatever your father was, you would become.

It is not that way anymore; you can be anything you want to be.  While all of your goals and wishes might not come true, you don’t have to be your father.  You can study, learn, grow and develop into something you want to be.

We have gone through periods in our history that allow us this freedom and growth.

In the beginning we believed things because we did not have the knowledge to believe otherwise.  Our leaders gave us what we should think, and we thought it for the most part. 

We believed the world was flat, and the earth revolved around the sun.

We believed not long ago that using leeches to extract blood would cure us of disease. 

In 1899 Mr. Charles Duell, the commissioner of the U.S. Patents said, “Everything that has been invented, has been invented.” He said we should close the Patent office down to save the taxpayers money.

Since 1899, a lot of things have been invented.  Things your grandmother has seen since she was born in 1908:  cars, highways, television sets, computers, search engines--and this is just the beginning. Inventions are going to be coming at us faster and faster as our world knowledge continues to increase.  No longer will people be uninformed if they choose, because of technology and the communication options these channels create.  Ideas continue to spread, whether leaders want them to or not.  Technology communication will continue to expand and broaden and invade our minds with new concepts and ideas.

People are attracted to new inventions and technologies.  Your Great-Grandfather Everett was a gadget freak. Everett would bring home gadgets all of the time.  He was fascinated by new inventions, even though at that time it might be a machine peeling carrots, or a radio with numbered station dials.  He was the first on his block to have this thing called an automobile.

It is easy to be great in America, because a significant amount of people don’t read books after high school.  The average American that does read, only reads one or two books a year.  The average American family only makes $45,000 a year.  The average American cannot run around the block. 

Yet this is significantly more than a large portion of the rest of the world.  In many places there are no books, there are no economic possibilities like you in America have.

We live in a special place in the world and should recognize what we have to work with in creating a special life. 

How easy is it to be great in America?  Read more than a few books a year, make more than $45,000 a year, and run around the block a couple times, and you become more than average.

Only about 7% of Americans make more than $75,000 a year.  If earning money, keeping your mind alive with reading, and running around the block make you great, it should be easy for you to achieve whatever you would like to achieve.

It is easy to be great in America.

Chapter Five: Your mind and people around you--your environment makes you.

Your mind is special; it is the only mind that thinks like you.  I believe everyone’s mind is special, just like snowflakes--every snowflake is different, so is your mind different from everyone else’s.   This is OK. 

We want to blend in, be like someone, or everyone else.  We often want to be different, but the same.  This is because we want to belong. 

We need other people in our lives.  And being the same or different from other people allows us to choose the people we want to spend time with in our lives.

We all want a sense of belonging, and aligning our ideology with others can give a sense of being with someone who cares about us, like a family feeling. Maybe I should be like the athletic star or the pop star.  We want to be popular.  How do we get to be popular and belong in a certain group?  We want to be the same as others, so we blend in with a certain group.

We now get bombarded with commercial messages on how to be popular, how to look successful, how to be part of the “in” crowd.  On estimate the average American gets 3000 commercial messages a day in one form or another.  I don’t remember most of the messages of yesterday, but my video camera in the brain picked them up.

So we select what we want, and push the rest back into our brain somewhere, perhaps in the sub-conscious recesses of our brains.

How we believe.  We observe the world around us, and because the mind is like a video camera recording everything, we cannot keep all of the data in our memory banks to use on a daily basis.  We store all of this data in our brains.

From this selection we add meanings to what we have selected and observed.  I select from a day I remember seeing a religious symbol, and because I saw this symbol I am moved, so I convert to this religion or  decide my religion is just fine.  So we draw conclusions from what we select, and we also add meanings.

And then, most importantly, we make assumptions, whether those assumptions are true or not.  We believe ourselves, and take personal actions on these beliefs. Maybe we will decide to change or not to change, to keep our religious faith, our political and social values, based on our assumptions.

Do you think these assumptions, conclusions and beliefs are correct? 

Do we need to explore our beliefs and see if they are correct and up to date?  Can we be a person in the 4^th or 5^th order of mental development to examine our assumptions, conclusions, and beliefs?

This is the science of epistemology, the difference between knowing something is true and believing something is true.

How do you know that something is true, with all of the change and knowledge exploding in our world?

We have to be aware something we believe now could later be false.  How do we deal with something we thought was true, that now is proven to be false?  Can we make a law that says this belief will now be true and all ideas that oppose this belief are now false?  Can you go to jail for not believing correctly?

Not just worldly issues--the Sun does not revolve around the Earth, the Earth is not flat--but also personal issues--I thought someone loved me, and now I know they do not.  I thought I could trust this person and now I know I cannot.

We grow, we accept, we expand our knowledge of the things around us.

I am a member of the “Magic Castle” in Hollywood. I have been taking you there since you were a baby.  As you have grown up, your Uncle, also a member of the “Magic Castle,” has taught you magic tricks.  These tricks seem real and are very entertaining.  But are they real?  No, they are tricks that look real.  People are fooled by the magic; in life are we not fooled by politicians, religious leaders, community organizers, bosses, and people we trust?

Two magicians, Penn and Teller, have a TV show called, “Bullshit,” and they look for the truth in people and ideas. (This is another program you are not allowed to watch until you get much older, but as you grow up I am sure you will be able to find these shows on DVD or whatever it is called then.)

Examining ideas is a good thing; it is what you will be doing as you grow into the 4^th and 5^th orders of human mental development.

Experts, the “Who Said’s” of the world, may not have knowledge that is the truth.  And remember, the truth changes. 

It is not a bad thing, it is just a thing you must remember, and epistemology is the ongoing search between what is real and what is a belief.

Historical Materialism.  

Aristotle was a Greek Philosopher who came up with an idea called the dialectic.  The concept was easy: when two opposites were exposed there was always a middle that could be discovered.

Hegel, a German Philosopher used the dialectic to show how societies had opposites and progressed forward as a result of this historical materialism. 

It is easy to see different societies and how humanity has moved forward in time.

Traditionalism is a word to describe what society was like in the recent past.  It looks like the third order of the adult.

If you are part of a group, society, political order you are required to have a like mind.  You are required to put the group ahead of your own self.  The people in the group will have some common denominator, live in the same place, and do the same things.  They will have the same religion, politics, and nationality. 

You will have leaders talk about the group’s ideologies.  People look for their leaders to have the answers, not have the answers themselves.  The third order wants order and answers.

 Leaders will want to raise the children of a society, give children the ideas leaders want to promote.  Leaders will move to create society’s infrastructures, hospitals, jobs, even thoughts that are supposed to be thought And create wars against people who do not share the same values, or who have natural resources needed to keep the infrastructure working. 

Members of this society are looking for leaders they feel will take care of them.  The ideas can change based on what is happening in society, the leaders can change, but there is always some kind of leadership in control of the structure of society.

In earlier times moving from one place to another was hard. Transportation was limited.  By foot, boat, horse, the number of miles you could travel in a day were very limited.  People bloomed where they were planted, as your Great-Grandmother would say.  Ideas traveling from other people were very limited.  Societies had, in effect, a natural wall around them. 

Modernism--where we are and where we are going--what do we have in store for us?

With the invention of the motor vehicle, trains and planes, society was able to move more rapidly over greater distances in a short amount of time, putting strains on traditional society.  People moved, and as a result society became more diverse.  You were no longer tied down to a single place.  Technology and communication began having an impact on how we thought and felt. Radio waves were commercialized, the invention of television.  The World Wide Web gave people more ways to have information and communication, true or false.

People stopped trusting leaders as much as in the past.  Leaders became harder to identify, employers talked about “owning your work.”  As people became more independent, more educated with different ideas, they began questioning what their lives meant. 

There were no “self-help” books before the early 1900s.  The first self-help book was by an American, Napoleon Hill--“The Laws of Success.”  While truly ground breaking at the time, it is probably not a book the average person looking for something to understand their life would now read.

Technology, information, and education began to change and challenge the traditional society.  People are looking for answers and often not finding them, or will latch on to an idea, only to discard it when a new idea comes along that looks shinier and brighter.

Disappointment comes more often with our leaders, our employers, and our society.  We often feel “over our heads.”  What should we do, whom do we trust?  Is this all there is to life?  We look for uncomplicated answers to extremely difficult situations.  We do not like to be on our own.  It is difficult to chart our own path, to think for ourselves. 

In today’s society, many countries would like to close off information and technology because it threatens their leadership ability.  Leaders don’t want people to think independently, or have different ideas that could change the society they lead.  Yet time marches on, communication moves forward, technology increases the different ideas and concepts will continue to move forward through different forms of communication.  The World Wide Web continues to provide information that is increasingly hard to stop or control.

In today’s world many people feel alienated. They don’t know what the truth is or who is telling the truth and who is not.  Does a truth even exist?  What and why are we getting worked up about something that may not make any difference a decade from now? 

How do we best make decisions, and the decisions we make--how did we come to them?  We have less focus on tradition, the old ways are no longer important as we move forward in this global connection which continues to get stronger, despite efforts to stop or curb these technologies and ideas.  Pressure is put on leadership, and the old ways slowly fade away to make room for new ideas less comforting.

 People want to stay in their comfort zones, but are being forced out; as a result the collective consciousness of people of the world changes and many leaders want to stifle this unenviable march forward.     

Life after World War Two is different compared to the ‘60s.  In the ‘50s there was “Leave it Beaver;”  in the ‘60s, “Free Love.”

The ‘60s “Free Love” gave way to the ‘70s “Disco Fever.”

The ‘80s were the “Material Girls.”

The ‘90s were the decade of cell phones and the Internet.

At the beginning of the 21^st Century, search engines were making newspapers and libraries an option.  E-mail made personal communication instant.

You could write a book about each decade, as things move faster and faster with technology, science and communications.

While decades may change, look at how centuries change.  What was a person’s life like 500 years ago compared to today?  Is 500 years such a long time ago in history?

Two very entertaining reads about 500 years ago are Ken Follett’s books “The Pillars of the Earth” and “World Without End.”  How would modern people survive in a world of 500 years ago?

How far have we come since 500 years ago, how far have we come in just 100 years, where will we be in another 100 or 500 years? 

500 years ago we were Pilgrims and Puritans.  200 years ago we became revolutionaries, idealists; we fought a Civil War in America.

We overcame a Great Depression and fought World Wars less than a hundred years ago.

After the World Wars, Baby Boomers have changed how we see the world and our connection in the world.

And now you, Chance, will be part of the Generation Y.

From Pilgrims to Generation Y in 500 years!

Society changes much faster today than in the past.  Today, in the 21^st century, we are going to find technology and communication improve and move faster into our world and beliefs.

Wrong or right, some people cling to beliefs and don’t change their mental model. But society does change, beliefs change as a part of the largest whole.  The world beliefs change as time marches forward.  You, my son, should be aware of this fact.

People do not like change even if it is good.  People stay in jobs, marriages, charities, personal relationships, because people do not want to change. 

I am not saying that you should change because of change, but you need to be aware of it, so you can make a choice to change with the part of your life that is going to be ever-changing. 

Jobs change, bosses in those jobs change, and you need to be aware of the change so you can make a choice to change with the job if you so choose.

Marriage changes; you need to be aware if you decide to get married that the relationship is going to change and you are going to have to change with it.

Personal relationships change, you are going to change, everything around you is going to change and you will have to make choices to change with the growth around you.

We have talked about change, choices, your self-image, mental models, attitude, risk, and a life plan. 

Now is the time to look at the “Forward Wheel.”

Chapter Six: The Four Dynamics

The Four Dynamics make up what I call the Forward Wheel.  The Wheel is a circle you can move forward to have a better life.

Concepts necessary in today’s world to help deal with this fast moving society.

The Forward Wheel has four components to help you move forward in life: The Present, Adaptation, Self-concept, and Life Plan.  These concepts work together to keep you on a path of success.

There are many pitfalls in life, and things don’t go the way you would want.  OK, focus on something or some things you would want. 

These dynamics, perhaps attributes, allow you to focus on what it is you would like now and in the future.  But even more importantly, who you want to be? 

Isn’t it important to control who you are, just as much as where you would like to be?

Do we control who we want to be, or are we like the blacksmith whose son becomes the blacksmith?  You do not have to be like your father, if you so choose, but someone of your own creation, your own thoughts and discoveries.

Your Grandmother had a needlepoint that hung above the sink in our home in LaPorte that read, “Work out your own salvation.”

This Forward Wheel helps you to develop your own thinking and move from the third order of an adult into the fourth and fifth orders of an adult.   

Why would this Forward Wheel move you into the 4^th and 5^th stages of mental development? Because the wheel helps you examine your beliefs. 

I call these 4 concepts Dynamics, because when used together they will create powerful energy and movement driving intellectual, physical, emotional, and spiritual forces.

Let’s look at one spoke in the Forward Wheel, the present.  The present is comprised of the dynamics of attitude and risk. 

When do we learn to control our attitude or not?  As a child, do you learn controlling your attitude, or do you just have it, positive or negative?

Chance will tell me one day he misses school; the next day he hates it.  Can children control their attitude; do they understand what a powerful thing an attitude is?  Of course not, it is something people have to learn and develop.

How about teenagers--can they control their attitude; as adults do we control our attitude?  Or does our attitude control us?

It would seem like a simple thing, an easy concept to understand: we need to control our attitude.  But it is not so easy.  We get hit, bombarded every day by different things having a huge impact on our attitude.

The teacher does something we don’t like; the boss makes a decision and we don’t agree.  We see an ad for something we can’t afford and we pine for that something.  The people around us are negative.

We have a great idea, and a dream killer gives us all of the reasons it will never work.

So we need to have a system, a mechanism we can fall back on to keep us moving forward, and to regain a positive attitude. 

Do you know someone who knows the sky is falling every day?  Do we know people who are afraid and fear something bad happening all of the time?

All four dynamics, as you will see, are important to keep us moving forward; you can’t just use one because one dynamic is not enough to keep us moving forward on the wheel.

One very successful self-help master, Anthony Robbins, will tell you “just do it,” and he gets millions for saying this.

Well, just do what?

If improving, moving forward in your life was only that simple.

Just having a positive attitude is a good thing, but it doesn’t do everything; it is just a part of your journey to success.

Do you know anyone with a negative attitude that is successful--would this not be the exception to the rule?

Having a positive attitude is thinking you can do something as opposed to thinking you can’t do something.

Henry Ford said, “If you think you can, you might, if you think you can’t, you won’t.”

Positive attitude is not about happy, but I think I can as opposed to I think I can’t.

A person with a positive attitude will take more risks, because they think they can. 

How do you get and keep a positive attitude? 

You have to rely on the other Dynamics.

Do you have a life plan? A life plan is one of the other Four Dynamics linked together.  Do you have goals, values, and character you want to model your life toward?

Can you see how having a life plan would help you keep a positive attitude?  Or a positive attitude having an impact on your life plan?

Five hundred, three hundred, one hundred years ago was a life plan as important as it is today?  No, you were what your father was--no need to plan.

Stephen Covey would have you create a vision, set goals, then plan weekly and daily. It is not enough. 

How about your self-concept?  Your self-image and mental model of the world--if that is incorrect or negative how will that impact your life plan and your attitude?  Are you adaptable to change and able to make choices when change arrives?  Do we freeze when change happens and are not able to make a choice?  If we think and work with all of the Dynamics, would we be better prepared in life?

How much different is our mental model today than just a few hundred years ago, and what will it be like in the future?  How would our mental model affect our self-image of what we think about ourselves today?

How about your adaptability, as we define it, your ability to look at change and make choices about the change you are going to have as society moves forward on this “historical materialist” march, ever changing the landscape of who we are in the total collective?

Can you see how all of these Dynamics influence your world?  And how all of these Dynamics work with one another?

This is not a simple formula, a one-sentence mantra you can shout and it will make you better.  This Forward Wheel is a plan you can use to be better at anything you want to be.

Ah, if I could only get Chance to embrace this concept.  I can see into his future: we will be talking a lot about the Forward Wheel concept.

Chance does not have the ability now or in the foreseeable future to grab on to these concepts to balance life.  Many adults do not have this ability either: the ones that are firmly entrenched in the third order of adulthood, and would like to keep things the same as in the past and to stay in their comfort zone, head down in the sand, thinking the past is such a wonderful thing. I want to stay where I am, I don’t want to change.  It is comfortable for me to stay in the world I know.

If you will embrace these Four Dynamics, you can increase success. 

Success, as we define the concept, is about doing something that is important to you, for you to be able to grow in life physically, mentally, emotionally, and spirituality. 

I am still amazed at some of the things that people believe.

How about the “Flat Earth Society”? They are easily found on Google; apparently the “Flat Earth Society” believes in search engines.  A quote from the mission statement of the “Flat Earth Society”:

“Enter the Flat Earth Society. For over five hundred years humanity has believed the "round Earth" teachings of Efimovich (Christopher Columbus) and his followers. But all hope is not lost. For through all that time, a small but diligent band of individuals have preserved the knowledge of our planet's true shape. And now, after centuries in the Dark Ages, we believe that mankind as a whole is once again ready to embrace the truth that has forever been the Flat Earth Society. Using whatever means are deemed necessary and relying heavily on a callous disregard for the lives and well-being of our members, we have slowly but steadily been spreading the news.

“But why? Why do we say the Earth is flat, when the vast majority says otherwise? Because we know the truth.”

How does the Flat Earth Society know the truth--do you believe this is the truth?  The Flat Earth Society says it knows the truth and is waiting for everyone to realize their truth, the Earth is flat.

OK, if this were your mental model, what would this mental model do to your self-image?  Would you be able to take a plane? Would you take a cruise?  What else would you believe?  Martians live under our seas waiting to take over soon?

As the world and our knowledge of the world expand we have different concepts from the past, we can cling to the past, but wouldn’t we get left behind in life?  Won’t we miss some great things in life?

Without opening our minds to the wonders of knowledge, do we not give up a part of our future success?  From this one example, should we not be examining what we believe to be true or not?  Ok, not many people still believe the world is flat, I think. What else do we believe today that might be suspect?

 Would you be in a minority if you do not want any technical progress in the world?  What is the truth?  Would you know it if it bumped you on the head?  Could you lead an effective life?

Our mental models affect us positively, and negatively.

This is epistemology, the science of what is knowledge and what is belief, that creates our mental models of the world and who we are inside of ourselves--our self-image.

Steven Dutch of the University of Wisconsin has stated that 20% of the American public thinks we did not go to the moon. 

According to CBS news, between 7% and 9% of the American public still believes Elvis Presley is alive.  (He isn’t?)

These are silly things, maybe, but what about more important ideas that can affect your mental model, which will affect your self-image?

Mental models are things we believe to be true, whether something is true or not.  We believe our beliefs. 

It becomes difficult to replace one belief with another, because we have to discard one belief, which we believe to be true, and replace it with another belief we have to accept as true.

It is rare for someone to convert from one religion to another, because you have to replace all of the beliefs in your belief system, with, in most cases, an entirely different system of beliefs. 

Scientist believe the Earth to be about 4 to 4.5 million years old.  Could it be younger, or could it be older?  We might find evidence not yet found, that the Earth could be younger or older. 

Mostly scientists have determined the Earth to be this old by the discovery of rocks and fossils, and scientists have used certain tests to determine the age of these rocks and fossils.  Scientists can be wrong, of course, but do we believe the Earth is millions of years old, or maybe just 6,000 years old?

 (I mean, doesn’t anyone watch the Discovery channel?)

In Petersburg, Kentucky, at the Creation Museum, you can see how the world is only 6,000 years old, because the founders believe in the allegories of the Bible as being fact.

The Creation Museum invites people to the truth, and find faith for only 19.95 for adults, and 9.95 for children. 

I found one opinion poll on the Internet that suggests a large percentage of Americans agree all humans were created by one stroke of God and reject the scientific evolution theory that all human beings have a common ancestor.

If you have these very real beliefs, whether you believe in evolution or God’s creation, can you see how hard it is to replace one belief with another? 

The systems of beliefs you hold are very hard to change, because now you have to believe something else, and your self-image doesn’t want you to be wrong.

This is one reason why there is so little conversion from one religion to another.

We talked about mental models and how we got our beliefs earlier, so if our mental model of ourselves is we are stupid, how would that affect our self-image?  Our self-image could be, I can’t do something because I know I am stupid.  Or why try? The Earth is going to be destroyed soon anyway; the end is coming.

We hold on to mental models in part so our self-image will not be damaged.

What we believe is central to how we perceive ourselves and how we manage our life.

So what I believe is we have to take care of ourselves, educate ourselves, be open to different possibilities--take an inventory check of our mental models, our self-image, our choices, change, attitude, risks, goals, values, and character. 

And do not force our ideas or concepts on others, as they should not force their ideas and concepts on us.

Tolerance is part of obtaining the 4^th order in mental growth.

I believe ,and there is historical proof,  that societies grow--some faster, some slower and that people who cling on tradition do only himself or herself a disservice by not opening the mind to other possibilities. 

Of course, leaders do not want societies to grow beyond their leadership, or traditions.  They want to continue to be in power, so they need you to believe in a system or believe in certain values.

I would encourage you to try using the Four Dynamics and see if you cannot control your life and success by making better choices for you.

As I unfold these things to my child, it seems like it will take a while for him to get it.  But that’s OK; we have a lifetime.

The Forward Wheel lets you look at your present, see possible adaptation, examine your self-concept and make a life plan. 

These are four foundations will help you examine your life, to see if you are the person you want to be, or are you heading in the right direction for you?

Bad things happen in life, good things happen in life--would you not want to examine this concept of the Four Dynamics, no matter what you believe in, as a way of helping you become more successful, obtaining more goals and moving forward in life?

Can you see how these concepts are interrelated: your positive attitude, your self-image, your mental models, change and choice, and your goals, values and character?

Chapter Seven: Panic and fear, do not be afraid

Why do we panic and why do we have fear?  Some of what we fear and what causes panic is what we believe, that pesky mental model again.

There are over 300 million people living in the US of A; of these 300 million, about 2,500,000 will die this year.  You have less than 0.008 of a percent chance of dying.  Those are great odds.  That means waking up in the morning is just about a certainty.  If you are over the age of one and under 73 years of age, your chances of dying are much less.

OK, so now you know you are not going to die--what’s the problem?

We worry about the wrong things.

We worry and have fear about things that are probably not going to happen.  This worry and fear takes up a lot of our valuable time when we could be doing something else, like checking up on our Four Dynamics.

We worry and have fears over the Avian Flu, which according the World Health Organization has killed 216 people in the world, none in America.  We worry about mad cow disease in America: at the end of 2006, there were 0 deaths. 

Heart disease killed almost 700,000--a better reason to stop eating so much red meat? Cancer killed 550,000 people--a good reason to stop smoking? Stroke killed 150,000--a good reason to get a little exercise?  Disease killed almost 2.400.000 Americans, while accidents killed a little over 100,000 out of the 2.500,000 who died in America last year.

So that means the chance you will die by accident is 0.0003%.  Yet we fear we are going to die from an accident or some outside disaster--say, a Dinosaur eating us for dinner. 

I would suggest you fear you are going to be alive tomorrow, not die.  Get ready to pay the rent. 

So most of us are not going to die by accident--why do we dread these fears? 

The top six fears that we have about dying:

         Airplane crashes are number one: almost 10% of Americans are afraid of dying in an airplane crash.  The chances of dying in an airplane crash are so small you can’t make sense out of it statistically. 

         Chance and I spent the summer together and we flew a few places to visit. It seems that when we would fly before this year, he loved going to the airport and getting on a plane to go somewhere; this year he told me he was afraid of flying.  What happened between last year and this year which changed his mental model of flying? 

         What used to be an exciting experience was now one filled with some sort of dread.  Once on the airplane, he was fine and wanted to sit next to the window so he could look out at the sky, and see the Earth 30,000 feet below.  Looking down at 30,000 feet plus, five miles in the sky, would seem to me a lot scarier than getting on the plane at ground level.

         The rational thoughts that flying is a relatively safe activity were clouded in his mind.  He has been watching the TV news; I am in the doghouse again.

         So I went to work on his mental model and tried to find out why this change had occurred: he couldn’t tell me.

         So somewhere as Chance was videotaping his life in his mind something snuck in and he kept somewhere in his brain flying was no longer as safe and fun as in the past.

         Shark attacks, number two--don’t go in the water and you should be fine.  If you do go in the water, the chances a shark will eat you are zero in 264.1 million.

         On one of my college breaks I went to the Florida Keys.   Some of the Keys (islands) are close to each other, and I am a very good swimmer, so I swam from one island to another.  At the time I was wearing a necklace, and as I got out of the water coming back from the island I swam to, everyone came up to me and told me that wearing something shiny would attract sharks and I was lucky I was not attacked.  Well, thanks for telling me after the swim rather than before.  But now I know the truth: not likely.   I could probably dress up as a clown, be a one-man band with underwater instruments and not attract a shark as I swam in the Florida waters.  I might get a shark to take a little bite, but almost zero chance that I will be eaten.  Thank you, Steven Spielberg, for the movie “Jaws.”

         Being murdered, number three--you are more likely to poison yourself by mistake, which is still not very likely.  But what is on the front page of newspapers and on the TV news? Murder and mayhem in society.   Lock your doors, anyway.

         Falling to death, number four--not very likely. Have you ever fallen out of your bed?  Did you survive?  Unless you are going to throw yourself off a bridge, a mountain, or a skyscraper and even then you have a chance of surviving.  Twelve hundred people have been reported as jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge as of 2003, and twenty are reported as having survived.

         Terrorist Attack--since 9/11 this has become number five in the list of fears we believe are going to get us.  There is a one in 9.3 million chance of that happening to you.

         We all remember the disaster in America on 9/11, when terrorists struck the Twin Towers; it was horrible and tragic.  When JFK got shot, I can still remember where I was and what I was doing at the time.  It seems that when we have a national tragedy strike we remember where we were and what we were doing.

         In LA we saw the news that morning and I will never forget that day in my life. 

         Marina turned on the TV in the morning and all of a sudden I saw these horrible images on TV; at first I thought it was movie--this really couldn’t be happening!

         I was stunned.

         I was scheduled to have a morning meeting in Santa Monica, not far from the house, in one of what we call skyscrapers in LA.  We were to have the meeting on the 40^th floor. 

         I finished getting dressed and headed for the meeting, listening to the horrible disaster as it was unfolding this unforgettable day.

         As I pulled into the building, things seemed to be normal; the security people knew me by sight and up I went into the elevators to the top floor.

         When I got there, only one other person; David, showed up for the meeting, out of a group of about 30. 

         We met in a room which had a very impressive view of Los Angeles and the Pacific Ocean.  You could see downtown from where we were, a view that is always astonishing to me.  It was a perfect Southern California day.  The sky and the ocean were blue, and there was no haze--you could see the downtown buildings very clearly.

          We got a call soon after David and I arrived to tell us the meeting was cancelled; people were afraid of additional terrorist attacks in LA.  And someone said they were afraid the building we were in could be a target.

         David and I look at each other and shrugged and went off to work at our various locations.

         When I got to my store, I realized how many people were afraid and called to let me know they would not be in for work.

         I ran an automobile store in east Beverly Hills.  I thought to myself, the terrorists are not going to attack an automobile dealership on Wilshire Boulevard any time soon.  On 9/12 I got calls from people who said they were not coming in again.  They were afraid of additional terrorist attacks.  I would be more afraid of unhappy consumers.   

         Marina and I went on a pilgrimage to New York to see what the site of the Twin Towers looked like after such a horrific tragedy.  I remember getting out of the cab and looking at what was left of such magnificent buildings. 

         I was stunned by the crater of the massive footprint of what once was a towering structure.

         More amazing was how little damage seemed to be done to the buildings around the tower.  I expected the buildings around the Towers would be destroyed, but this was not the case.  It seemed like there was very little damage compared to what I had expected.

         I tried to think about how the airplanes crashed into the buildings and how the buildings must have melted into the hole, falling on top of themselves as they must have melted quickly to create the scene we were seeing this November morning.

         How the people who died that day must have had the ultimate terror happen in their lives and the people they loved.

         Many streets surrounded the towers, and we were struck by the ashes that appeared to paint every building for blocks with black and grey from top to bottom.  It was stunning: the painted ash running down the sides of the buildings for literally miles.

         Without actually seeing the site, I don’t think you could understand what had happened September 11^th, even seeing the site, I am not quite sure I understood.

         We had lunch and walked around the area for a few more hours, contemplating who and why someone would be so angry as give up their lives to destroy and kill so many innocent people. 

         How much hate did these people have to do such a horrific thing?  What kind of mental model did these people have, what kind of a life plan did these people have they could take their own lives and the lives of others in such a brutal tragedy?

         As we finished lunch we noticed how crowded the area was, with people taking the same pilgrimage, people moving in the hustle of New York City, reclaiming their lives.  The Americans we saw there this day were brave and proud. 

         As we got into a taxi to take the ride home, we knew we were proud to be Americans.

         You cannot be afraid, but you should always remember how lucky we are to live in America.  Your ancestors had a fighting and pioneer spirit you share with them today.

         Natural disaster, earthquakes, tornadoes, hurricanes, floods, storms, heat, cold--your chance of going thumbs up in one of these is one in 3,357.

         We were in Sherman Oaks, California when the Northridge earthquake struck in the early morning.  I had been in earthquakes before, but nothing like this morning.

         We were asleep, and I woke up to sensations of shaking.  I knew instinctively a big earthquake was happening.

         One of the myths is to get under something right away, or get into a doorway.  It is much better to get next to something so if something falls it won’t be as likely to crush you.

         Remember the example of us as kids, getting under our desks in case of nuclear attack in the ‘50s. You are far more likely to get crushed under a desk as opposed to beside it.  So in any case, getting under your desk will not do much for you.

         Marina woke up to the shaking and tried to get out of bed; I tackled her and grabbed her back onto the bed with me on top of her as our TV flew over our bodies, just missing us and crashing into the wall, raining pieces of TV all over the room.  We were hearing explosions all over the room and outside of the window.  The TV was so violently thrown, some of the parts stuck into the wall.

         Most everything had fallen, and everything that could break, did.

         If she had gotten up, Marina was likely to be tackled by the TV instead of me.  She didn’t have any bruises from my tackle.

         The shaking seemed to go on forever; things were flying around the room. We were on the second floor as we heard crashes from below us in our kitchen and living rooms.  Our place was completely destroyed on the inside.  And I had just bought a new bottle of vodka. Marina is, after all, from the USSR. It was broken on top of everything in the cabinets, lending an additional soaking to the cereal. It was a good thing I wasn’t hungry.

         After the shaking was over, Marina got up; she wanted to see if the building was still up and if we could get our car out of the subterranean parking from below.  

         We were lucky and pulled the car out and headed for her mother’s in Northridge; we didn’t know we were traveling to where the quake was centered.

         It was about 4.40 am, and to my amazement, some of the traffic lights were still working as we got to her mother’s house.

         Everyone was up and everyone was OK, but the damage was very severe. We saw buildings crushed onto themselves, power poles down in the streets, cars crushed by parts of buildings falling on top of them.  We were lucky our building held up.

         As we tried to navigate home, the traffic lights were no longer working, and traffic was out on the streets. It was dangerous going home.

         The small condo Marina had before we got married was red-tagged as unsafe to go into.  It took almost three years before it was rebuilt; there were many buildings not rebuilt for almost a decade in our neighborhood, a constant reminder of the power of nature.

         57 people died from the earthquake that morning. I am amazed it wasn’t many, many more.

         OK, so the chances of you dying or having an accident in America are pretty slim; most of us are going to get up in the morning and have long lives.  Yet we worry about bad things happening to us all of the time. 

         Who doesn’t stay up to make sure the children come home?  Worry when a child doesn’t show up at the appropriate time?  I have had this worry and Chance is still young--what am I going to be like when Chance gets older?  I am hoping calm and reason will prevail, taking my own advice.

         We are easy to panic, sometimes a natural reaction.  Joseph LeDoux, a professor of neuroscience at New York University, has done studies explaining the jumpiest part of the brain is the amygdala.  An almond-shaped tissue above the brain stem is responsible for triggering adrenaline and other hormones in your body when you think there is something to be afraid of, even when there is no danger present, except in your mind.  It is not until a second or two later that the higher regions of our brains sort out if there is real danger or not. 

         We see a shadow, and our amygdala gives us a shot of adrenalin; we get pumped up and then our brain recognizes it was just our own shadow scaring us, and meanwhile we say, “Jeez, that scared me.”

         Chance had perfect attendance at school last year. He should be more afraid of going to school every morning, because doing our normal activities every day is more likely to happen than a shark attack or slipping on a banana peel.

         There is stronger chance that Chance will be tutored in Four Dynamics than an accident will happen to him.

         That doesn’t mean we should stop talking about safety and what to do in an emergency; it just means as much as some people worry the sky is falling, it is a waste of time and energy.

         So we waste time and effort worrying about things that probably statistically will not happen.  We get ourselves worked up over something not likely to happen.  Focus on what good could happen, not the end of the Earth, because in the end, instead of us ruining the Earth, the Earth is more likely to spit us out.

         And if it does happen that a shark eats you, at least you will go out on television, and get your 15 minutes of fame. 

         So let’s celebrate and concentrate on other things much more important in life.  And when you start to get those fears, lose them.  The media makes a lot of money pushing our fears, yet the chances of something bad happening to us are limited.

         So the energy we waste on fear could be put to better use by planning our life and examining the Four Dynamics of the Forward Wheel.

Chapter Eight: You make mistakes; you are not a mistake

         Chance, you are going to make mistakes in life.  It is something that happens to all of us. 

         You are not a mistake; you are a human being that can go on to be great, in spite of the mistakes you are going to make.

         Your mother and I would love to protect you from the mistakes that we know you are going to make, but we can’t.

         We can try to give you education and guidance, but you are going to be living your own life. 

         Some of those mistakes will help you live a better life if you learn from them. 

         Learning from your mistakes is an important part of growing up and living.

         However, we hope you will think about the things you are doing and choose correctly. 

         We hope you learn from your mistakes and use these mistakes to guide you to additional wisdom and develop yourself to go beyond the 3^rd order of mental development.

         People can and will be cruel--that is their mistake, not yours. 

         Through your mistakes you will also be able to develop character and values and become a good man.

         Remember, you will make mistakes; you are not a mistake.

         To have success, you can have a lot of failure.  There are very few successful people who have not had a lot of failure.  We have to learn from failure, but we also have to remember if we don’t take a chance we won’t have either--success or failure.

         Having failure is not an end, but a beginning to learn so we can have success in the future.

         Thomas Edison and Abraham Lincoln are just two examples of great men having failure and then using failure to have eventual success.

         You will hear the story: Thomas Edison tried 10,000 times to try to invent the light bulb.  Abraham Lincoln failed at every public office he ran for, until he became the President of America.

         Failure is just as much a part of success, as success is a part of your failures.  This is Aristotle’s dialectic at work.

         You will make mistakes; you are not one.

Chapter Nine: Get an Education!

         There is no excuse for being ignorant in today’s world.   We expect you to go to college and get a formal education, and we expect you to finish your education. All of the information you receive in school will not be correct, and you will find corrections later in life.  But it is important you do this for yourself. Will you use this education in the future?  Probably not.  The point is to have the experience in your life.  How can you know if you don’t explore different ideas and concepts from other people?  College will give you experience you will be able to use the rest of your life.  Take advantage of the educational system in America; it is a great tool for success.

         According to recent studies, college graduates will most likely not use their degree in their work.  And only about 20% of Americans will finish their degree.

         By having the discipline to finish, you will have achieved more than most.

         Your mother would like you to become a doctor, lawyer, or some other professional.  Imagine--a Jewish mother would want you to be a doctor or lawyer. I don’t care. Do what you want, but the goal is to finish with your formal education, and then do whatever it is you would like.  Finishing school will help you grow up and move you into a different model.

         You will have many more opportunities in life by finishing school, as opposed to not finishing.  The chances are you will have a long life, and by not finishing you may have regrets.  You will also miss out on an experience you will remember for the rest of your life.  The dreams of the final exams will pass; I know they have for me.

         I know people are going to say you do not have to have a college degree to be successful--be careful of those dream killers.  

         Actually you do not have to finish college to be successful, but your chances are much higher if you do finish. 

         One famous American, Bill Gates, founded Microsoft and did not graduate college.  But this is the exception, not the rule.

         Education is important to opening your mind up to new ideas.  The educational experience will open your mind to diversity, and how important diversity is to creating sanity in the world.

         The educational experience will help you expand your mind and give you tools which will help you for the rest of your life--like getting better at reading, writing, and learning how to speak to co-eds.

         Success is not necessarily making a lot of money, although money will most likely be important in your life.  Success will be the self-satisfaction you will get by accomplishing something important to you.

         Your mother and I will feel successful if we can make sure you are educated, and are balanced to have a successful life.

         I would image this is what most parents would like: to be able to allow their children a better education, so their children have more opportunities in life. 

Chapter Ten: Self-actualization

         We are in a different era than any time before us.  Needs of human beings have changed.

         Professor Maslow at the University of Wisconsin put forth the theory of needs of the human being as our society enters this post-modern era of the human being.

         For many centuries human beings were looking for survival and security.  As cave men, we didn’t want to be eaten by dinosaurs or some other creature.  We looked for protection against the elements. 

         As we learned to protect ourselves physically, we wanted to be socially accepted.  We wanted to be part of a group, a society.  And as we had more security and safety, we want to feel self-esteem.  As we moved into post-modern society, we wanted to feel self-actualization.

         Our first desire is to have food, water, and shelter, warm in the cold, cool in the hot.  We want to physically be well.  We all have this need and automatically realize the importance of these needs.

         Our second desire is to be safe: we want security, stability, and freedom from fear.  So many of us have unfounded fears that drain our resources.

         If we feel physically well and safe, we push some fears out of our mind and we want to belong and feel loved.  We tend to want a family unit where we feel we belong and feel loved.

         Once we feel we belong, whether to a family or group, we feel the need to have achievement, to have recognition, and have respect from the people around us.

         This is a natural progression, would we have inventions and art we have today without the natural urge to achieve things in life?

         This brings us self-esteem, or a self-image of ourselves: we want a self-image that is positive and strong.

         We can’t have this self-esteem without first having the basics and a feeling of safety.

         As human beings after self-esteem and self-image, we want self-actualization: creativity--we want to find inner talent, fulfillment of ourselves.

         We want to create art, inventions, business--live this self-actualization in ourselves.

         Obviously, in prehistoric times there were people who created art, stories and other self-actualization fulfillment, in today’s society more of us are able to fulfill this self-actualization.

         Chance, you are already expressing yourself in art, music, and other creative endeavors on your own accord.   You are being fulfilled, feel safe, already have a budding self-image of yourself which is strong, and you are naturally feeling the need to self-actualize your creative needs.

         Like your father, you have started to create books.  I think this is wonderful.  Your latest book, “Skul,” the skeleton with an ibone phone is funny and has a beginning, middle and an end.  It is how all books begin.  You have begun self-actualization at a young age.

         We would hope this self-actualization continues for the rest of your life.  You have more opportunity; everyone has more opportunity at this stage of human development than ever before to have this self-actualization. 

Chapter Eleven: Sex and Relationships.

          Well, you have been on the playground and are learning about your body and the bodies of others.  You have discovered girls and laugh about sex.

         When I was a little older than you, Grandma Phyllis sent your Grandfather to explain the birds and the bees to me. 

         This was in the ‘50s and talk about sex was generally more uncomfortable for people of that era.  People had not self-actualized to discussions about sex and relationships.  So Grandfather Gome and I talked baseball.  Mostly about the Cubs losing and how they would win next season. 

         After several weeks of our birds and bees talk, your Grandmother wanted to know what I had learned during my father and son talks, and I told her how the Cubs would win next year.

         She was very upset with my father and took matters in her own hands, so I ended up learning about sex from my peer group, which I think is very a very dangerous thing in today’s society.

         Sex will be an important part of your life.  And having sex is good for you physically.

         According to the information services at the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender and Reproduction in Bloomington, Indiana, they know that healthier people have more sexual activity, but they do not know which comes first, the sex or the health.

         Sex is natural for human beings, and people have been having sex from the beginning, whenever that happened.

         According to an MSNBC report, sex can have the following benefits:

·      Easing depression and stress

·      Relieving pain

·      Boosting cardio health

·      Countering prostate cancer

·      Healing wounds

·      Fights aging

         But the reason most of us have sex is we like it.  I have every reason to believe you are interested in sex and relationships with the other sex.

         First of all the dangers of sex: you can get many serious and life threatening diseases from sex.

·      HIV/AIDS

·      HERPES

·      WARTS

·      GONORRHEA

·      LICE

·      SYPHILIS

         And there are many more diseases you can get by having any kind of sex.   While there are many benefits to having sex, there are also downsides to having sex.

         Another downside to having sex is the possibility of creating an unwanted child--not being prepared to take care of a child being brought into the world.

         There are about 4 million children born in America a year.

         There are about 500,000 foster children in America with no permanent mother and father.

         There are about 100 babies abandoned in America a year.

         There are about 100,000 orphans created in America who need parents.

         Raising children is a complicated, emotional, financial and intellectual challenge many people are not ready for in their lives.

         Raising children is a full time job you have to pay for in time and money.

         Once a child is born, the child can’t be put back or put on a shelf if the child is to have a chance in the world.

         Nebraska has a safe haven law for children, which means anyone can drop off a child to any state-licensed hospital without fear of prosecution for abandonment.  In three months people from not only from Nebraska but other states have taken 18 children they do not want, some 13 and 14 years old. Parents felt they could not cope with continuing to raise their babies.

         Having children is an awesome responsibility, and many who have children are not ready to bring them up to be adults.  Having children is very serious, and I recommend you make sure you are ready for this commitment in your life; otherwise, don’t do it.

         Having children to be brought up by just one parent is not good.  It takes a mother and father to raise a child.  And the divorce rate is so high it would be obvious that two-parent homes are lacking.   A child needs both a male and female figure.

         “The Birdcage” is a film about two gay people, Armand and Albert Goldman (or is it Coldman?), who raise their son Val.  In the movie it is clear that Armand and Albert have done a good job of raising their son.  It is a wonderful movie, but this could be the exception, not the rule.

         I am not here to prove that two parents are needed, but how would you feel without one of us in your life?  We give you different things emotionally, intellectually, and spiritually.  

         Chance, at a younger age, it is more likely that bad feelings will develop in relationships. 

         If you have a bad relationship and children too young, before you have a career, and see the world, how is that going to work out for you?  I can tell you, it is not good.

         Many people think they are in love the first time they have sex, or because they had sex they are in love.

         Relationships are very tricky, and adults have a hard time with relationships: the divorce rate in this country hovers around 50% nationally.

         People get married pledging they will be together forever.  And with people living longer, forever can be a long time.

         Young men and women who get married before twenty-five years of age have an 80% chance of getting a divorce.

         Divorce is usually not a pleasant experience, and if you marry without a pre-nuptial agreement you can put your finances into a serious situation.

         If you have children when you divorce, you will be responsible for child support, not that you wouldn’t want to support any children you have, but at a young age, this can be a crippling blow to your future.

         It takes a lot of maturity to stay together in a married relationship.  There is a lot of consensus required in a life partnership.

         Of course there are many groups that support abstinence, just say no to having sexual relationships.  This is hard to do because we are hardwired to have sex to propagate the human species.

         And I believe it is unnatural not to have sex, it is part of us.

         What is important is when do you have sex, you understand the risk and talk to your partner about sex and what happens if there is a pregnancy?  Are you doing this because both of you want to have sex?  Or is there another meaning behind having sex--someone wants to get married? Would your partner have sex with you to cement a relationship?  Are there other agendas besides just having sex?

         Before you enter into a sexual relationship, it should be clear to both parties what is going on in the relationship, and how you feel about the possible consequences.

         You should always wear a condom.

         You should be aware if you marry a woman with children, this would most likely be very difficult for you.  I would not recommend it.  You will not be the father; you will not be in control of what the kids do.  This will put you into a very difficult situation.  You will have the child’s father to deal with, while most likely the mother will have the children physically with you, where you live.

         I know you have a big heart, but children are serious responsibilities, and no matter what you do, you will be wrong as far as the biological mother and father are concerned.  

         There could be infighting from the parents, where you will be on the outside looking in and feeling very uncomfortable.  It will be a no-win situation for you.

         You will also most likely to have to participate financially with the mother’s children, and while I know you are not selfish and would be glad to give anything, you will end finding yourself financially poorer and not emotionally enriched.

         I married your mother when I was 42.  I believe it is better to marry later in life, if that is what you choose to do.  Unless you plan to have children, there is very little reason to marry.

         You are the most important thing in our lives.  We love you.  And we believe having a father and a mother is the best for you.  Please remember this when you become older.  It is not easy to have a family, especially if you are not prepared, so my advice to you is take your time.  Develop your career; be financially ready to have a family.  There is no rush.  Travel the world, find something you like to do--and without a family it is easier to explore different career options. 

         Once you have a family it is tough to sit in your underwear and meditate about the meaning of your navel; you have to find a job and make money, whether you hate the job or not.  It is something you will have to do.

         Take your time; it is going to be long journey.  I know plenty of pretty girls are going to come along and you are going to be seduced in making a commitment to one of these pretty girls.  Believe me, your mother was the prettiest and smartest of all of the women in my life and she came along much later in life.

         Take your time; the right person will come around.  Don’t be in a rush to have the love of your life.

Chapter Twelve: Commandments

         Your mother and I are not particularly religious people. Your mother was born Jewish and I was born Methodist.  Your mother had a completely different experience with religion than I did. 

         In the USSR, it was frowned upon to practice religion.  Your mother told me as a young girl, she would see her friends enter into a church, never to be seen again.

         Your Grandmother in World War Two was put on a death train to Siberia because she was Jewish.

         There was a Holocaust in the world that took the lives of Jewish people, just because of their religious affiliation. 

         There are people today that do not believe there was a Holocaust.  Believe me, people have been persecuted because of their religion and beliefs.

         I grew up as a Methodist in our small town, and the family went to church every Sunday.

         Belief in God was just something you did.

         Why do we know there is a God?

         Thomas Aquinas offered 5 proofs of the existence of God in the 13^th century. These are considered by many to be the Gold Standard of the existence of God.

“The first and plainest is the method that proceeds from the point of view of motion.”

The Saint argued everything to exist must move, so there must be a prime mover.

“The second proof is from the nature of the efficient cause.”

This refers to creation; something must have started the creation, which would be God.

“The third proof is taken from the natures of the merely possible and necessary.”

Something must have existed in the beginning or nothing would exist now.

“The fourth proof arises from the degrees that are found in things.”

There must be something that is the greatest; therefore there must be a God.

“The fifth proof arises from the ordering of things, for we see that some things which lack reason, such as natural bodies, are operated in accordance with a plan.”

When we look around us at the planets and the miracle of the world, something must have created this order and this must be God.

         The debate over the existence of a God or Gods has been going on since humankind started asking questions about our existence and how the world around us was created.

         I know some beliefs in God or Gods have been dangerous. 

         This summer you and I went to Mayan temples in Mexico. 

         The Mayans believed Gods came from above to seed the planet to create people, and human sacrifice was one way to worship the Gods with the blood of the Royals.

         In Tahiti, people practiced cannibalism: if you ate a person’s heart that was strong, the Gods would give a strong heart.  That applied to other body parts as well.

         There are many Gods and many religions, many with varying ideas and practices from love to hate.  And all believe in a God or Gods.

         Could it be logical that one is right, or perhaps none are right? But it doesn’t seem logical more than two would be right.

         So many people must be wrong.  They are praying to the wrong God, because not everyone can be right, but everyone could be wrong.

         Most religions are recruiting for more people to join their ranks.

         Jehovah’s Witnesses are recruiting to their ranks daily.  I have had many knock on the door and the Witnesses want to talk to me about their beliefs and why I should believe with them.

         Why do they recruit? To remain in existence, to receive capital so they can build buildings and make payroll, to hold ceremonies and religious events.

         Your mother is Jewish and celebrates many of the Jewish holidays in respect to her mother.

         We observe also some Christian holidays.

         I cannot prove to you whether there is or is not a God.

         I know the concept of God gives a lot of people comfort.  It also gives a reason for people to kill.

         I do believe in values, and being a good person, so when Moses came down from the mountain and brought the Ten Commandants for us study, I do not think that was such a bad thing.

         It is like a very old version of the Forward Wheel. 

         I know, you knew Moses and I am no Moses. 

         There has been a lot of hubbub about the Ten Commandments in this country, whether to display them or not, how displaying the Ten Commandants could violate or make other religious organizations uncomfortable, or an atheist who doesn’t believe in God feel put upon. 

         I am more open-minded, even though I am not particularly religious in an organized, conventional way. These legal battles have perked my interest in what the Ten Commandments are, and why they would be so controversial to so many people.

         It is an example of how mental models and self-image create a self-concept through the concept of religion. 

         Religion is also something to be viewed with skepticism.  A reporter named Colbert interviewed a congressperson from Georgia, named Westmoreland, who was in favor of having the Ten Commandments put up in courthouses.

         Then the reporter asked Congressperson Westmoreland if he could think of other buildings where the Ten Commandments might be more appropriate, and the Congressperson could not.

         Next the reporter asked the congressperson to recite the Ten Commandments. He could not.

         People blindly follow other people, even if they don’t know what they are talking about, in religious groups.  Many times people call this blind faith.  If you don’t have faith you cannot believe and you cannot believe without faith.  It is like the chicken and the egg--which came first?

         If you are going to have a religion at least you should know what it is about.

         Let’s look at what Moses brought down from the mountain:

One: “You shall have no other Gods before me.”

Two: “You shall not make for yourself a carved image—any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.”

Three: “You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain.”

Four: “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.”

Five: “Honor your mother and father.”

Six: “You shall not commit murder.”

Seven:  “You shall not commit adultery.”

Eight:  “You shall not steal.”

Nine: “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.”

Ten:  “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, nor his male servant, nor his female servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor’s.”

         I am not opposed to these words, or any words from any religion that promote peace, love, give us guidelines on how to treat each other with respect.

         What I do have a problem with is small minds, violence, injustice, intolerance, which some religions seem to promote.

         Remember the burning of “witches”-- do you really think they were witches, or was there some other motivation for people to burn alive other people on a stake?

         The Koran of the Islamic religion has similar commandments.

         Yet some Islamic religious thinkers today condone violence against anyone that does not think their way. 

         Between Christianity and Islam, over half the people of the world believe in some form of these two religions.

         Can both be right?

         Let’s review the Ten Commandments as they apply to over half the people in the world.

         Number one, you shall have no other Gods before me, OK, I am not sure if there is a God or not.  I don’t believe anyone can prove the existence of a God, although plenty of people will tell you that they can prove God’s existence.  I will share with you why I think if there is God, you don’t have to worry about going to heaven.  I believe I make as much sense in this proof of an existence of God as anybody in the next chapter.

         Number two, don’t make any idols. OK, should I put away my Kokopellis in the back yard? Besides that, what does God look like, anyway?

         Number three, quit cussing, it offends half the people in the world.  Why should you offend people?  You’re going to offend people anyway, innocently; why do something that is going to guarantee offense?

         Number four, take a day off.  No problem, I have football.

         Number five, honor your mother and father, please.  Your mother is adding to your sentence on when you can get the kitten now, as we speak.

         Number six, don’t kill anyone. I think this a good practice for everyone--when does this start?  And who is most responsible for killing?

         Number seven, don’t have sex with married women; it is too complicated anyway.

         Number eight do not steal--well, don’t.

         Number nine-- no one likes a tattletale.

         Number ten, don’t steal from your neighbor, see number eight.

         OK, so we now know more than a congressperson trying to have these words put in Federal buildings.  I don’t see a problem with it as long it is done with private funds. Have you been in a Federal building lately? They could use any kind of sprucing up. Maybe some of us should have more tolerance in our lives.

         Just living the Ten Commandants is not going to make you successful in today’s society.

         If it were only so easy, to be able to live the Ten Commandments and be successful in today’s world.

         But in today’s society it is not enough to be a moral person to succeed.  These rules of character were in a traditional society that does not exist anymore, even though many people would like to go back in the past.  

         I believe in a life plan is part of these moral equivalents; I think having values is a terrific thing and I would support values creating harmony in the neighborhood, the country and the world.

         These morals alone will not help you set goals, or build enough character for you to be successful in today’s world. 

         While these morals are important, there is more.

         You need to set goals--remember, if I was a blacksmith you would be a blacksmith; you were going to become what your father was as an occupation.  Goal setting wasn’t necessary only a couple of hundred of years ago; today it is critical.

         And what kind of character is necessary for today’s world, what is character?  Characteristics of successful people are behaviors being developed, habits, ethical traits, and representations of the people who display them. 

         Characteristics are not just a personal thing; you can see character in groups, religions and nations. 

         Here are 15 success characteristics I believe would be important to keep in your mind.

         Have a positive self-image--do you hear the voice in your head, and do you ever stop talking to yourself? 

         Clickity-clack, all day, all night, 24/7 your voice is going, speaking to you in your head. What is it telling you? You are good or you are bad.  I can’t believe I made that mistake, or did this dumb thing.  Over and over what are you telling yourself, that you are dumb or are you good and smart?

         Wouldn’t having a positive self-image as a characteristic be a good thing in ones’ life? Remember, you make mistakes; you are not one. 

         So a self-image along with a mental model makes a dynamic of one’s self-concept, but a self-image is also a characteristic you can acquire.

         A positive mental attitude as a characteristic just means you think you might be able to do something, as opposed to thinking you cannot do something.  It is not about being happy, or gushy about life, simply I can, as opposed to I can’t.  Remember what Henry Ford said, “If you think you can, you might, if you think you can’t, you won’t.”

         Imagination--if you can’t visualize something in your mind, can you make it happen?  How can you set goals without visualizing the future?  Groups and nations often talk about the future, political campaigns in the United States talk about the future, and use their imaginations about what it will be like to live under a political party.

         Companies use their imagination to see where they want to go in the future; it is part of the goal setting process.  How can you not have a characteristic like imagination in your personal arsenal? 

         At the same time we use our imaginations to see what we want in the future, we begin to put together a plan for where we want to go. 

         Without planning as a characteristic, how can you set effective goals?

         How do we plan?  Do people plan for a vacation?  How much planning goes into planning for a vacation?  Let me ask a question--do we plan more for a two-week vacation, or the 50 weeks around the two-week vacation?  Do we plan our life for the other 50 weeks?

         Do we sit down and figure out what we want to do with our year?  Things may come along and change our plan, but that is OK if you understand this is part of life. Things are going to change, and we need to be looking at our plan to change with our circumstances.

         Plans do not have to be complicated; they can be simple, but we need a plan.

         Life while going from day to day seems very long; life is very short if you think of life this way:  How many summers are you going to have?  If you live to be 80, you will have 80.  Does that sound like a lot of summers to you?

         How many springs, how many falls, how many winters? Only 80.  That means I only have 20 left if I live to 80. This summer I spent with you, Chance, was the best summer of my life. 

         We went to the beach, horseback riding, lunch in Malibu, lunch in Beverly Hills, rode sea ponies in the Colorado River, went to museums and exhibits, like Body Works, and the Natural Museum to see dinosaurs.  We went to Mexico and you did things that you have never done before, snorkeling, kayaking, even went on the trapeze. 

         We explored Mayan Ruins, and learned about a civilization of the past.  We saw Mexican cities and how people live differently from us, and that is OK.  We even stayed up until 11pm or 12 midnight as we watched shows and danced around the pool.

         We planned a summer of fun and it was terrific--we should plan next summer.  While life is short, it is also long, as our day-to-day lives seem to never end.  Take your time and examine what is important to you in your life.

         Now we are planning day-to-day life, and what is going to take place for the next nine months.  Me, writing and speaking; you going to school, having tutors, learning new things in life, Karate, piano, maybe a few more magic tricks, reading writing and arithmetic.  To help you grow in knowledge. 

         Knowledge is coming faster and faster to the human race; we should embrace and look at the knowledge that is available to us.  Things change, what was true yesterday may not be true today.  Can we open our minds to examine knowledge as fast as it comes to us?

         If what Dr. Gupta said is true, by the time you are 50 our knowledge of the world will be doubling every 72 hours, every three days we will know 100% more than we did in all of history.

         People were able to hang on to traditional values because of our knowledge, or lack of knowledge in the past.

         Things did not change very quickly in the past; as a consequence, the ideas we had changed very slowly. 

         Ideas were not challenged on a regular basis; ideas could reign for centuries, even if they were false.  The Sun revolved around the Earth, and if you were brave enough to say the Earth revolved around the Sun, you could, in some societies, be put to death for heresy. 

         What is wrong with marveling at the world we live in today?  Accepting new ideas and facts?  When Hegel wrote about the Historical Materialism of societies changing, I wonder if he thought how fast the world and people could change in such a short period of history?  Just look at what has happened to the world in less than one hundred years.  It is amazing, marvelous, breathtaking to see the world change as fast as it has.  Will people be able to keep up with change taking place around the globe?  Do we have a choice?  Time and change will keep moving forward; even as a world of societies we may want it to stop. 

         Competence--do we know what we are talking about?  Can we craft what we want to do?  I speak and write, I work to become competent.  In my business career, do I know a balance sheet from an operations statement?  Am I fluid in the nuances of the business? Do I know what I am talking about?  But I believe in myself, to write and speak to bring others this important message, especially you, my son Chance. 

         Your knowledge is becoming stronger every day, your music is better, your math and English are better, your Russian is better.  You are becoming more competent everyday because your mother and father are pushing you to become better every day.  What would happen to your future if we didn’t push you to live up to your capabilities, what will happen when we are no longer your prime movers and you have to get better by yourself--will you be motivated to continue to get better and become a more competent individual?

         Your success will be your own in the future and by developing and understanding these characteristics and dynamics in your life, you will have more opportunity.

         Are we committed to what we want to do in life?   You are just beginning; your mother and father are trying to give you the basics so that you will be able to run your life.  Your mother and father are committed to giving you the best education and success tools so you can be in charge of your own life.  You will have to decide for yourself what kind of commitment you will want to have in life.

         Are we willing to move forward with commitment among the road blocks, the setbacks, the dream killers, to have a spirit we will be committed to ourselves?

         From concept to completion, it will take almost two years to finish this book.  What if I was not committed to what I was doing--do you think this book would have ever been finished?

This is the eighth rewrite, and there could be more coming. It takes a lot of commitment to do anything worthwhile.  I wish I could just sit down, write a book the first time and be done with it.  It takes work and practice.  Just like your piano, Karate, and schoolwork, it takes practice and continual work to get better, and a commitment to keep doing whatever it is you want to do.  It is easy to get discouraged; people will say you are not good enough, you don’t have talent, but you do if you keep your commitment.

         Your mother and I have been married for 15 years--without commitment, do you think we would still be together?  Without commitment to you and your education, do you think we would have gone to Mexico to explore Mayan ruins?  Run around taking you to school, tutors, special events, Russian lessons, karate, piano, and the list goes on. 

         We are developing you into an educated man.  Your test scores have been some of the highest; we have hired tutors to work with you, even though you are bright enough to get along without them, but your mother and father are committed to give you the best education we can, so that you can have the best life possible.

         Determination to keep moving forward, to learn and develop when those roadblocks appear in life are staring you in the face.

         No one said life is easy or fair.  As I joke with you, “If you want fair go to Pomona.” (Pomona is where the Los Angeles County Fair is held every year.)

         There are going to be many setbacks in life. I do not know anyone who is immune to life’s setbacks.

         It is what you do with setbacks that is important.  Character is revealed in defeat, not success.  You need determination to keep moving forward. 

         I imagine; like me, you will feel sorry for yourself from time to time; it is a perfectly natural feeling, but give yourself a time limit and then be determined to move forward.

         Enthusiasm to move forward is a powerful characteristic you need like gasoline in an internal combustion engine.  Without enthusiasm in life you cannot sustain forward motion to get the job done.  

         Enthusiasm is contagious; if you are enthusiastic you can pass it on to other people just by having it.  Others will feel this powerful emotion in you.

         Enthusiasm will show people your interest in them or a project you want to accomplish.  If you are enthused, people around you will want to see what your cause or ideas are; if you are not so enthused, people will look past you, because they won’t think you believe in yourself.  

         Ancient Greeks meant enthusiasm to mean divine inspiration, being possessed to get something done.  Without an enthusiastic effort you can often fall short of your goals.

         When I was selling door-to-door in my youth to pay for college, we would all meet before going out to knock on doors and sell our product and we would get ourselves fired up by chanting, “If you act enthusiastic, then you will be enthusiastic.”

         Believe me when I say that selling door-to-door was one of the hardest things I have ever done to make a living, and if you didn’t have a great deal of enthusiasm when someone opened the door, the door would get closed in your face very quickly.

         You need enthusiasm to sell everything, including yourself to others around you.

         Self-discipline is to do the things others won’t do to be successful.  Lying around on the couch watching TV is making other people rich, but it is not doing anything for you unless you are there watching for a little entertainment value or you are one of the people making the programs getting paid.  Not that I am against TV; it has its place, and it is easy to get hooked so you end up doing nothing.

         Self-discipline is to do the right things for you, not the wrong things.  Drugs are bad for you.  Being with the wrong people is bad for you.  You have to have self-discipline to work every day.  I get up in morning and sit in front of my keyboard; some days, I write, and some days I have writer’s block, but I sit in front of the keyboard hoping inspiration will arrive.

         You, my young son, are at this point in your life where you do not have a lot of self-discipline; I don’t think this is a natural characteristic in the human being.  I believe some of the characteristics can come within, like enthusiasm. I have meet people who are naturally enthusiastic; I don’t remember anyone being naturally self-disciplined.

         It is easy in life to screw off when you shouldn’t be.  Without self-discipline you will never work for yourself, you will always be working for someone else.  You will be making others rich by watching TV. 

         Without self-discipline you cannot be good at many things that are going to take practice to achieve the results you want.

         Persuasiveness is to rally others to your cause, because you can’t do it alone. 

         One of Napoleon Hill’s concepts was the mastermind, the gathering of people around you to help you realize the things you want in life.  It is very hard to be successful without the help of other people.

         Being persuasive about a plan will help you rally people to your cause.

         Learning how to sell ideas is important in life; learning to listen is also being persuasive.  People like to talk more than listen, and when you are listening you are actually reading the person’s mind.  It is very difficult to talk and think about things at the same time, so letting someone talk is like reading their minds right now in the present.  If you know what a person is thinking it is easier to build an argument about why they should help you, hire you, join you in a cause you might have.

         Having a well-thought-out plan you can communicate effectively is important to be persuasive.

         Being able to speak well, publicly and privately, is important to being persuasive with your ideas.

         As a child you are naturally persuasive when you want something; keep up the good work.  I think this is a trait that most children have. 

         A pleasing personality--I am not always grumpy, regardless of what Chance says.

         Most of the time it is OK to listen and be nice to people.  Why not, what do you have to lose?

         Throwing a temper tantrum does not endear you to me, but when you put your arms around me and hug me and tell me you love me, I become putty in your hands.

         Grandmother Phyllis used to tell me you get more bees with honey than vinegar.  I know she is right.

         No one likes someone who is mean or ill-tempered.  Who wants to spend their day around someone you have to walk on eggshells, afraid they will scream or try to be intimidating? 

         It is just not hard to be nice.  Do it.  Even when bad things happen, you can still be nice and move on.

         Budget time and money--we have to work to get what we want and sometimes we have to spend less or maybe not do something we would rather do.  All of us only have so much time so we have to budget our time: remember, you only have so many summers.  But there is no reason to hurry life; while it is short it is also long.  Life is like Aristotle’s dialectic.

         You to want to buy toys with your money; what do your mother and father say? College fund.

         Your mother says we work so hard, and we don’t have very many toys we can play with and relax and have a good time, when our friends seem to have boats and other things they use for recreation.

         Instead we have real estate, investments and a 529 plan for your college career.

         Having assets have allowed me to open a philosophy company and your mother to travel with me on some great vacations.  I have been able to write some books and not worry about having enough money to pay the rent or the mortgage. 

         Your money should not be about toys, but about assets that will help you build wealth.

         Keep your physical and mental health.  I have a friend, Michael, who calls and asks me how is your mental health today?  Well, sometimes it is not very good, but I know I have to change my attitude around.

         Getting fat and slovenly is not a good thing.  Not exercising your brain with reading will keep you from growing in life. 

         What is the purpose in life? To grow mentally, physically, emotionally and spiritually.  Keep your health.

         Do you have love and energy for your plan of life, or are you slogging along?

         Love what you do, but sometimes a job is job and you might need a job to pay the bills.  Do yourself a favor and put some energy into what you are doing. 

         Hey look, I am just like you--not all of these characteristics are with me all the time. I have to work on having these characteristics just like you are going to have, too.

         Grandmother Jones will tell you nobody cares until you care.  So care when you are doing something, even if you don’t like doing it right now.  Have some love and energy.

         So the Ten Commandants were great for their time, but we as people, as societies, have moved on.

         Our mental capabilities are greater than any other time in history.  We have a different history, we can have more self-actualization, and we can have successful careers not even available to us a decade ago.  And in the next decades there are going to be more exciting things we will be able to do to make our life experience fuller and richer.

         Clinging to the past for the past’s sake is holding you back.  Move forward with the Forward Wheel and success characteristics.

Chapter Thirteen: Why everyone goes to heaven

         In America almost 90% of the people believe in some sort of religious God. 

         Austin Cline, a writer for About.com writes, 

“Atheists appear to be a growing segment of the population - but how big of a segment? Decent figures seem hard to come by, perhaps because admitting atheism is as much of a social taboo as admitting homosexuality.”

         Wow, is this really the face of the American people?  Are people so mean-spirited they would have no tolerance for people who do not want to think like them?

         For some people to have no tolerance is a sad state of affairs in America.  Racism and hate have no place in your life.  If you tell other people you do not think like them they may shun you.  These are people you need to be suspect of having closed minds about life.  This will be a tip that you should move on to other people who are more open-minded.

         When I was growing up in the 1950s homosexuality was considered a bad thing. People of a different sexual orientation other than heterosexual were considered bad.  People who were not heterosexual would be in the “closet,” which means they did not tell people of their sexual orientation because they could lose their jobs, their friends, and in some cases be threatened with prison. 

         I believe your sexuality is born with you, just like you have blue eyes and some other people have brown eyes.

         What would the world believe if 90% of people were homosexual instead of heterosexual?  You never know; it could have happened.

         People don’t like people who are not like them; it takes them away from their comfort zones.  It is also a way of social engineering: people and leaders can blame people who are not like them for damaging society, like the leaders of Germany in World War II blamed the Jewish for many of the problems of the day.

         In Bosnia, Muslims and Croatians were almost eliminated in 1997 in Banja Luka because they are different from the Bosnia Serbs. 

         Leaders have claimed being different in society causes breakdowns in the “moral fabric” of society.

         In Indonesia today, Muslim politicians want to pass a law against the Miss Universe pageant.  Muslim leaders feel women who show their hair, let alone any part of their bodies, are creating mayhem in society.  These Muslim politicians want to send to jail anyone who does not dress in the traditional fashion and advertisers who produce “racy” commercials to jail for up to 15 years and fines of 1.5 million dollars.  Whether this law passes or not is to be seen.    

         However the tolerance is much greater in America than many other parts of the world.  But there are still many people who would condemn people who are different from them. In the State of California, where we live today, Californians are going to vote in November on whether we should allow same-sex marriage.  Why?  Because it is different from a majority of people and people are concerned about people being different.

         This is America’s strength, diversity and tolerance. 

         People in their lives tend to stay in the 2^nd and 3^rd stages of mental development.

         Adults may say things to you like, “You don’t really believe that, do you?”

         What difference does it make if you do not think like other people?  Why should you be afraid if you have another opinion that is different from someone else?

          People are looking to be with people that think like they do; it is an easy way to stay in their comfort zone.

         I am not sure if there is a God or not, and what should it matter?  But people will be filibustering about me writing about the possibility of whether there is a God or not.  Why would they care? 

         I do not believe anyone knows if there is a God or not.

         When your Grandfather died, we were at the reception after the funeral service; it was in the middle of the afternoon.  I had a martini or two and walked out on the deck of the restaurant on a little lake named Pine in LaPorte, Indiana.

         For a February, it was a beautiful day, not too cold, and the lake melted from ice some time before.  It was a calm day, sunny with blue skies.  I could hear the waves lap against the piers down below the deck.  You could see most of the shore around the lake, with cabin-type houses and pine trees soaring up in the air.

         No one was with me on the deck at the time; it was as peaceful as it could be.  I was reflecting on my father’s death, and wished I could have seen him one more time before he died.

         I looked up at the white billowing clouds floating freely in the blue sky above me, and saw many lights appear where I was standing, stretching from where I was standing to the beautiful clouds floating above me.

         These lights were round like soap bubbles and connected together as they sparkled against the water in the lake.  They were changing colors slowly from white light to blue light.

         I had never seen anything like this in my life.  I felt my father in me, telling me he was OK, and everything was good and he loved me and I was forever with him. 

         He knew of you, Chance, and I felt him encourage me to be a good father, and tell you about him.  You were to be the last of Joneses Grandfather would know about.

         Tears came to my eyes as I kept watching the soap bubble lights shimmer and twinkle in the sky.  Soon they were all gone, as they slowly dissipated into thin air, and I felt Grandfather was gone now too.

         Where did he go? The only place people can go if there is a God, to heaven to be with Him.

         Where else logically could you go?  Would a great and powerful God make you and then shun you?  Would He decide maybe you are not right? But how could he do that? God couldn’t make mistakes could He--didn’t He make you?

         Why would you have to be saved--wouldn’t that already be something that He would put into His creation?

         If God created you, why would He scorn you?

         It appears to me that by default you would go back to your Maker.

         Yes, I believe that everyone goes to Heaven if there is God in the Universe.

         It seems every religion has you do something different to be saved, or you can only believe in one thing to be saved.  Do you have to give money to be saved? Why would you have to honor certain people for God to love you?  Would you have to put your right foot in, then put your left foot in, and shake it all about five times daily to be saved?

         Can only one religion be right?  If one religion is right then all of the rest are wrong, then oops, a lot of us are not going to our final destination.

         In history there is not a lot of tolerance between religious ideals.  Some of the most horrific and terrible wars were over religious ideals, and still are.

         In the beginning there were many Gods, in many areas on the Earth--Greeks, Egyptians, Norseman, Indians (east and west) and the list goes on. People have had many complicated Gods.

         Scientology has Thetans.

         Islam has jihad.

         It seems one thing has remained the same from two hundred years ago: you grow up a Christian of some faith, Islamic of some faith, religious of some faith and you tend to stay and believe in the same particular religion of your father.

         Now we are no longer bound by “what my father did,” but we seem to continue to be bound by what my father’s religion was.

         Hardly anyone I talk to would want to do as an occupation what his or her father did, including you, Chance.

         Chance would like to be a “rock and roll” star.  Why would you embrace a religion you did not examine?  Isn’t being religious one of the most personal things in a person’s life?

         If God were such a good thing, then when we die, why wouldn’t we just go back to our Maker?  Do we think He is vain enough--a human quality--to say, “Not so fast there, Sport, you didn’t have the right thoughts”?

         Is Saint Peter really guarding the Pearly Gates?

         Even people who are religious can occasionally lose faith from time to time, and a new survey suggests some atheists pray from time to time.

         With so many religions to pick from, how do you know you are picking the right one? 

         What if you picked wrong and you didn’t get to heaven?  I think it would be some concern to study the religious faiths and pick the right one, but which one is that?

         Your Grandfather Gome said, “Everyone prays in the foxhole.”  I am not sure how he knew this since he was in the Navy in World War II.  But I am sure if bombs rained on him in the foxhole or on the ship, most everyone said a prayer to someone.

         I don’t care what religion you are, so long as your religious philosophy is not to power a jet aircraft though my building.

         Religious people kill people because other people don’t think like them.  How can this be God’s plan for the world?

         You have your religion, I have mine--have you examined yours from your 4^th and 5^th mental orders to see if the beliefs are consistent with your own personal philosophy?  What is it you are doing and being now? 

         Remember the CFO from the beginning of the book?  She asked me a question about a book I was carrying and reading when I had spare time. She said, “Do you like the author?”

         I said, “No.”

         She then asked, “Why are you reading the book?”

         I replied, “How do I know I don’t like the author if I don’t read his book?”

         How do you know if you don’t study and examine ideas, faiths, and the world around you?

         Are the world and history changing before our very eyes?  If your answer is yes to this question, should you not question everything around you?  I don’t mean for you to become a skeptic, but having an open mind is not a bad policy.

         My belief is that everyone goes Heaven, because how could there be another conclusion?

         Isn’t this just as valid an argument as Thomas Aquinas? 

Chapter 14: Chance’s “Deli Salami”

         Chance, I propose a new order, World Spirituality, and I am going to be your leader, “The Deli Salami.”  So as not to cause unemployment in the world, all of the religious leaders in the world can convert to World Spirituality-- just send those cards and letters to me with a small tithe enclosed.

         I will be the Father, you will be the Son and Grandfather Gome will be the Holy Ghost.

         The new World Order of Spirituality will have the following commandments posted everywhere, not just in courthouses:

         One, you will believe in yourself.

         Two, you will have a life plan with character, values, and goals.

         Three, America is a great place.

         Four, you will choose your friends carefully, and beware of the dream killers.  You will choose a “master mind” group carefully.

         Five, in the present you will have a “can do” attitude.  You make mistakes; you are not a mistake.

         Six, you will be adaptable to change and make choices to be effective in your life.

         Seven, you will have a good self-concept. You will use the science of epistemology to examine what you think and believe. You will have tolerance.

         Eight, you will work on success characteristics.

         Nine, you will strive to have self-actualization, and not be fearful of the world.

         Ten, you shall have no other World Spirituality leaders before you and you will obey “The Deli Salami,” a “Who Said” of the most greatest magnitude. (I wonder if this should be number one?)

         Jesus, Mahdi, and Nostradamus are not coming back to earth.  When I die, I will not be coming back.  I will be going to Heaven with everyone else.  You will have memories of me staying with you forever.

         Daddy, how do you know?

         Chance and I have father and son time, and we have friend time.  The two are completely different.  I would venture to say this is true of a lot of father and son relationships.  I don’t think we are exclusive, but common.

         The father time pushes, advises, disciplines, tells him what needs to be done.

         The friend time lets him be himself, ask outrageous questions, and perhaps have truth about the world around him.  But with the world changing so fast, am I sure some of the truths I hold today will be tomorrow’s truth?

         I don’t know all of the answers, so when Chance challenges me, “Daddy, how do you know?”  sometimes I sigh and tell him the most unsatisfactory answer, “Because I am your father, The Deli Salami.”

         Sometimes I want to add, ”Because I have several more decades of experience than you.”  Of course if you live the same ideas every year instead of looking at the possibilities of other answers there is no growth. 

         In my professional career I have seen people who learned how to do something at the beginning of their career, and because they learned one way to do something, they kept these patterns for the rest of their careers.  Couldn’t there other ways to do the same thing that might be better?  Of course, but people stay in the third order of mental development, are afraid to change, and want to stay in their comfort zones.

         I get out my Forward Wheel and look at the wheel and examine the ideas I believe in, the things I think I know so I can live a better life.  Isn’t that what life is all about? To be able to learn, discover, and have growth?  And if it is time for me to change a belief am I going to go screaming down the street saying it just can’t be so, I believed otherwise for so long?

         These concepts have certainly helped me to the point I might have gone crazy if I didn’t have the direction I have written about in this book. 

         These concepts gave me direction, when I could have been lost in the forest for more time than I wish I had been.

         These ideas and concepts are important to me, and I hope they will become important to you. These ideas and concepts made my life much more than it otherwise might have been.

         I can only ask you, my son, to ask the questions yourself, and decide for yourself what you think and believe in.  This will be my greatest gift to you, the knowledge and ability to seek answers from all different places.

         I have given you structure so you will be able to examine the questions, give you strength, and will allow you to grow in this world.

         I know you are growing up, because when I call you sweetheart, you ask me not to.

         But in my heart you will always be my sweetheart.

         “Daddy, how do you know?” 

         Because I love you.

         PS. Where did you learn the phrase, “Daddy, how do you know?

 

 

 

 

 

 

For advance information please email Step at Step.Jones@lifemotivations.com,