Thinking is the Mother of Freedom
Discerning thought is the one thing that separates us more than anything else from all of God's creatures. Our min
ds are a vast bastion of freedom that no person can restrict without our permission.
And while it is a sad statement that we have become a society in which free thought receives a lot of lip service but very little actual support, that discussion is only relevant to those who choose to think for themselves. Few do.
The greatest threat to freedom is not oppression by others, it is the self-suppression of our own minds. This suppression characterizes itself in three forms: Habit, Fatigue, and Compliance.
Habits are useful for humans. Man is a creature of habit. Habits make life predictable which is essential in complex world with so many variables. But habits can be harmful as well. While we all have habits we should change, the habit of not thinking as a free man or woman should be at the top of the list.
When was the last time you truly thought like a free man or woman? Perhaps it was as long ago as your childhood. What were you going to do with your life before you were worn down by experience and necessity? What is it that you secretly wish to do now, if you only had the freedom to do it? Brian Tracy asks, "What one thing would you do if you knew you could not fail?" He goes on to ask, "Why aren't you doing it?"
The only place of true freedom is in one's mind. This year, exercise the freedom of your mind by thinking of what you would do if you knew you couldn't fail. Then think about how you can go about doing it.
We all succumb to fatigue. But what makes us most fatigued is one simple phrase: "Have to". How many times in a day do you "have to" do something? We "have to" go to work. We "have to" pick up the kids. We "have to" make dinner. Fatigue should be experienced because we've fully spent the freedom we enjoy, not because we've burned up the hours in "have to" activities.
When exercising your freedom of thought this year, use it to make those things you do free choices as well. Replace "have to" with "get to" and see how different you feel. Imagine the joy of "getting to" pick up the kids after school. Many parents don't have the privilege. Best of all, when "have to" becomes "get to" you just might find some of those "have to" activities aren't all that necessary.
Perhaps no other thing we experience is so defeating as compliance. Whether political correctness or family and peer pressure, we all comply with others to some extent. Compliance is good in that it provides common ground from which we all can prosper and be free. But everyone suffers when we comply in an attempt to appease others.
We all know people who had dreams and aspirations that were thwarted by well-meaning family and friends who cautioned them against their dreams. What fantastic new services or products have been kept from us by this type of compliance? Countless are the thought-provoking, idea generating ideas that have been held back due to fear of failure, success, or scrutiny of others. How devastating it is to the free mind to hold back ideas and beliefs.
There was a time when men and women said what they meant and meant what they said. That was a time of thought-provoking ideas. Today we may say what we think but don't think about what we say. More often than not we're reciting our lines or those of someone we listen to often. We comply with ideas instead of investigating them and seeking our own. We become involved in the conversation before we investigate what the conversation is about.
This year, commit to thinking through things that matter to you. Decide that you will be well-versed in those things and you'll stay out of those that don't matter to you. Things happen and are reported far too quickly to be an instant expert on everything. Think before you speak, but speak once you've thought.
To be truly free, one must think like a free person. Free people resist bad habits. Free people "get to" do things and limit those things they "have to" do. And free people rarely comply unless they have thought through things first and make a conscious choice to comply.
Free people are open to new ideas, especially those of their own thinking.
God Stepped In For This Appearance At Jobseekers PTC
God clearly had His hand in my recent talk at Jobseekers. I recorded it on my iPhone without a microphone so the audio is a bit muffled in places. Turn your speakers up and see what God did to ensure I didn't miss a very important day.
God Stepped In For This Appearance At Jobseekers
You won't hear the full joke at the beginning but the end of the joke ties in nicely with the introduction so I preserved it. You also won't hear the conversation as I was leaving with a gentleman who is related to Jane Brenner, a lady I knew while living in Punta Gorda (you'll understand the irony if you listen to the full talk).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nSQKFkMlC38&feature=share&list=UUMYARjsZs7ePj6pLBSpC4Jg
The Brand You
Whether we are aware or not, each of us has a brand that is singularly ours. I recently shared some ideas on how to better develop a personal brand with a group of Jobseekers.
Free help with personal self introduction click here
Just as we all have a brand, we are all constantly seeking connection with someone. Jobseekers are seeking connection with employers. Salespeople with customers. Single people with potential spouses. While targeted at jobseekers this talk can help anyone with their personal branding. See the short video below.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kKD2Q-C20hY&feature=c4-overview&list=UUMYARjsZs7ePj6pLBSpC4Jg
A New Citizen Explains what it means to be an American
I pray we all would understand what it means to be an American as well as this new citizen does.
Last year I had the privilege of witnessing the ceremony for new American citizens and hearing one new citizen, Ed Camargo, owner of StoneArtMasterpieces.com explain what it meant to him. Below is the speech he gave (printed with permission). I think we all can learn a lot about what it means to be free from this text.
I am honored to be here today and also by the invitation to address you, The New American Citizens. Thank you Judge, for the introduction. I would like to say that it is a privilege and an honor to be here today and to be able to speak to you about what it means to be an American citizen.
The fact that I am also an immigrant to the United States, and went through the same process that you are now finalizing, and my life experience, allows me to understand and relate to you. Today we celebrate this achievement. Welcome to the land of the Free and the home of the Brave.
America my friends, is a Capitalist nation and we welcome your Human Capital which is: your knowledge, your unique skills, your diversity, and your culture will enrich our way of life, all of you have something different to contribute to America.
This wonderful country called America has been the greatest model of Liberty, the greatest spreader of freedom and the greatest preserver of Liberty that the world has ever known.
We love our freedom so much that The president John F. Kennedy famously expressed this believe in his inaugural address in 1961 proclaiming: “Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of Liberty.”
Here in the United States of America, you are going to be able to achieve and accomplish all the things that you never could. The dreams that you had when you were young, and were impossible to achieve, now they can become a reality, now there is no limit on how far you can go, because now you are an American.
Look at me. I am standing behind a podium in front of a room giving my first speech. I was able to start my own business and prosper with my ideas and the strength of my muscles and the dexterity of my mind.
My family was originally from Italy and after the Second World War, they immigrated to Brazil. I grew up in Brazil and graduated college with a civil engineering degree. I worked while I also studied and I learned a lot about the business world. I decided that English would be an important tool so I came to the United States to study. I ended up meeting my wife and becoming a citizen over 20 years ago.
Today, I am the proud owner of Stone Art Masterpieces. I design and create luxury mosaic tables and floors from natural stones. I had an idea and I worked at some other jobs until I had saved enough money to open my own business. I was able to do the research and got the ideas of what the market needed and was able to fulfill that segment.
America my friends is the land of the entrepreneur and it is the place that welcomes new ideas. It is through very hard work that you can accomplish your wishes. Here in America you can set a goal to be anything that you want to be, and if you put a lot of dedication, inspiration, commitment and have a good attitude towards your purpose in life, the chances are that you will accomplish your dreams.
Everything that is really inspiring is created by the individual that can work and leave in freedom.
We are a special people, because we have been united not by a common race or ethnicity. We are bound together by common values. Today you are facing a new beginning in your life, and the story of those that came before you remind us that America has always been about new beginnings. America is the story of everyday people who did extraordinary things. We are a people that continue choosing the principles written down by our founding fathers, to solve the challenges of our time, and as long as we continue living by those principles specified in the Declaration of Independence, this miracle of freedom that is the United States will go on for another generation to inherit.
Please keep these words close to your heart ---all men are created equal, that we are endowed by our creator with unalienable rights such as: Life, Liberty, the pursuit of Happiness, and Property that is the fruits of our labor. This cannot be said often enough. Everything important flows from these words. These words are the foundation for people determined to govern themselves.
In America we have three very important documents: The Declaration of Independence, The Constitution, and the Bill of Rights, and you should get yourselves acquainted with all three. All the words in these documents say what they mean and mean what they say.
I would also like to repeat the words of a past great American president: Abraham Lincoln, he said: “America is the best hope of earth”. It was true over 100 years ago and it is true today.
The United States of America, this country is the only country in history born, not of a chance or a blind tribal warfare. This country was founded as a rational product of man`s mind.
In the year when I first came to America as a student, it was in 1984, and my other favorite American president was in power and I will never forget his words about Liberty. Ronald Reagan said: that your freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We did not pass it to our children in the bloodstream. We must fight to preserve our freedom, we must protect our freedom and hand it on to our children so they can do the same, or if we continue taking it for granted one day we will find ourselves spending our sunset years, telling our children and our children`s children, what it was once like in the United states where men were free.
One last thing that you need to know is that now that you are an American citizen, you have the privilege to vote in the elections, and you need to register to vote.
In the United States we have two major political parties and a few smaller parties.
Therefore you will need to understand what they represent, and decide where you belong.
Use wisely your power of choice. Being an American is not just a blessing, it is also a responsibility.
Thank you for this opportunity and good luck to you all.
Congratulations!
What Freedom Really Means
School is out. Many will graduate. Hot days at the pool, lake or beach, warm nights cooking out, and a well-deserved vacation. Summer, the time of freedom is here.
Freedom. Just utter the word and Americans immediately stand proud. It has a ring too it, a sweetness of sound that only a free people can understand. And as free people we know that freedom isn’t free. It comes through and with sacrifice, some on our own and some on our behalf. Someone always pays the price for freedom.
Freedom is a word we throw around a lot but when analyzed few of us know what it means. We may be able to define the word but finding it’s meaning is challenging because freedom can mean so many things. A simple search of the word returns over 396 million hits. From schools and towns named freedom to Webster’s multiple definitions, freedom is a word that has varied definitions but perhaps one uniform meaning.
Today you’ll choose what you will have for lunch, and for some, you’ll choose nothing at all. You had freedom in lunch. Lunch wasn’t free, but you had the freedom to choose if you would have lunch, what you would have for lunch, and if you would pay the price for lunch. In this example you might conclude that freedom means choice. And sometimes it does.
However, let’s say you are gluten intolerant. You are at a meeting and non-gluten free pizza is being served. Your only choice is to eat and become ill or not to eat and be hungry. You still have a choice, but is this really freedom? By any definition this example at least limits freedom. Most definitions of freedom include “without confinement, coercion, or restraint”. This is why we must find the meaning and not just the definition of the word.
As I have come to understand the meaning of freedom, the best, all-encompassing meaning is that one has control. The extent of freedom you enjoy is directly attributable to the degree of control you have in a given situation. And for the most part we enjoy a great deal of freedom.
I cringe when I hear people say (myself included) “I have to go to work.” Think of all the wrong messages in that one line we recite all too often. The sacrifice of freedom indicated in that six-word sentence is evident. “Have to” means we wouldn’t choose to if we had a choice. Is that really true? What does that say about us? Are we willing slaves to our labor? Have we build lives of quiet desperation, purchasing our confinement by our financial dependence on work we “have to” do?
Sadly for many this is the case. They head off to work they never intended to do. Somehow they landed in this job they tolerate but wouldn’t do if they had a choice. That’s the way they see it; they have no choice.
Which brings us around to the meaning of freedom. Control. Ask any of those people who go to work because they “have to” and you’ll find they truly believe they have no choice. Upon further inspection however you’ll find they have chosen the life they lead willingly, without coercion, as a better option than the unknown alternative. In this way they may not realize it but they are in control. At any moment they could, given the need, change the work they are doing or and find something else to do. If they only understood their need they would pay the price to change. But they choose not to. They are in control.
They see themselves as the fly on the windowsill. Feverishly exhausting their efforts on a task at which they will never succeed. Freedom is just beyond the glass and yet the harder they try, the closer they come to losing their freedom and their lives. If only they would turn around and see the open door behind them, if they would just fly a bit higher and find the open window, they could enjoy the freedom their work has provided.
Of course there are those among us, far too many, who have no work. While it may not seem like it, this is a great time of freedom. In this moment they have the ability to clearly choose their path. While many will take whatever they can get and fall into the cycle again, some will break free and chart a new course, find fulfilling work, or even start their own business.
For those of us who are fortunate enough to have work, we should examine the choice we make each day to engage in it. A simple shift in our attitude toward the work we do can make a huge difference in our results. Fly a bit higher, or perhaps fly in a different direction. You are in control. And that is really what freedom is all about.