The Splash of Wisdom

Whether you’re building a business, a network, or friendships, you always want to look for people who are genuine. After all, nobody wants to work or hang out with a phony. On the flipside, that goes for you, as well. Bet you never considered that.  Image credit: Eli DeFaria | StockSnap.io In case you're wondering, genuine means actual, real, sincere, honest. Genuine people are more or less the same on the inside as their behavior is on the outside. Unfortunately, it's a tough quality to discern. The problem is that all human interactions are relative. They’re all a function of how we perceive each other through our own subjective lenses.  Being genuine is also a rare quality. In a world full of phony fads, media hype, virtual personas, positive thinkers, and personal brands – where everyone wants what they don’t have, nobody’s content to be who they are, and, more importantly, nobody’s willing to admit to any of that – it’s becoming more and more rare all the time.   To ...

T here was a farmer who sold a pound of butter to the baker. One day the baker decided to weigh the butter to see if he was getting a pound and he found that he was not. This angered him and he took the farmer to court. The judge asked the farmer if he was using any measure. The farmer replied, Your Honor, I am primitive. I don't have a proper measure, but I do have a scale." The judge asked, "Then how do you weigh the butter?" The farmer replied "Your Honor, long before the baker started buying butter from me, I have been buying a pound loaf of bread from him. Every day when the baker brings the bread, I put it on the scale and give him the same weight in butter. If anyone is to be blamed, it is the baker." Moral of the story: We get back in life what we give to others. Honesty and dishonesty becomes a habit. Choice of words and tact are important.

You know that phrase, "Ignorance is bliss"? There's a reason it's stuck around all these years. Because having the upper hand in intelligence might give you an advantage in some areas, like crossword puzzle solving and quantum physics-ing, but it also might just screw up your life forever.  For instance, if you're smart ... 5. You're Probably a Night Owl -- And That's a Bad Thing Recently, scientists discovered a quirky side effect to having a high 'IQ' You tend to stay up until later hours and get up later in the morning. That's right -- the more intelligent are also much more likely to be night owls. Which isn't such a surprise when you consider that intelligent people are infamous for burning the midnight oil to cram for tests, write papers, touch up those earnings reports, etc. And spending reports. It appears to just be evolution -- the more intelligent members of a species are, in general, the first to change habits (their big brains ...

1. You will receive a body. You may like it or hate it, but it will be yours for the entire period this time around. 2. You will learn lessons. You are enrolled in a fulltime informal school called life. Each day in this school you will have the opportunity to learn lessons. You may like the lessons or think them irrelevant and stupid. 3. There are no mistakes, only lessons. Growth is a process of trial and error, experimentation. The "failed" experiments are as much a part of the process as the experiment that ultimately "works." 4. A lesson is repeated until learned. A lesson will be presented to you in various forms until you have learned it. When you have learned it, you can go on to the next lesson. 5. Learning lessons does not end. There is no part of life that does not contain its lessons. If you are alive there are lessons to be learned. 6. "There" is no better than "here." When your "there" has become a "here" you wil...

One day while walking down the street a highly successful Human Resources Manager was tragically hit by a bus and she died. Her soul arrived up in heaven where she was met at the Pearly Gates by St. Peter himself. "Welcome to Heaven," said St. Peter. "Before you get settled in though, it seems we have a problem. You see, strangely enough, we've never once had a Human Resources Manager make it this far and we're not really sure what to do with you." "No problem, just let me in," said the woman. "Well, I'd like to, but I have higher orders. What we're going to do is let you have a day in Hell and a day in Heaven and then you can choose whichever one you want to spend an eternity in." "Actually, I think I've made up my mind, I prefer to stay in Heaven", said the woman. "Sorry, we have rules..." And with that St. Peter put the executive in an elevator and it went down-down-down to hell. The doors opened and sh...

It is better to be alone than in bad company. A big part of who you become in life has to do with who you choose to surround yourself with.  Sometimes luck controls who walks into your life, but you decide who you let stay, who you pursue, and who you let walk back out. Ultimately, you should surround yourself with people who make you a better person and let go of those who don’t.  Here are some warning signs you’re in the presence of the latter: 1.  They only make time for you when it’s convenient for them. It’s obvious, but any relationship without regular interaction and communication is going to have problems, especially when there’s a lack of commitment. Don’t waste your time with someone who only wants you around when it’s convenient for them.  You shouldn’t have to force someone to make a space in their life for you, because if they truly care about you they will gladly create space for you. Being in a relationship with someone who overlooks your worth isn’t l...

There are a lot of ways to get stronger. Adding more resistance, adversity, or stress is one way, learning how to adapt to the challenge is another, and adopting dialectical thinking (see blog post 9/23/14) is another. Yet for all of these ways to get stronger, without removing the obstacles in our own approach to adversity, we will see little gain. So if you want to get stronger mentally, here are five things to stop doing right now. Stop Off Loading Responsibility. Mentally strong people know what is their responsibility and what is not. What they take responsibility for is their behavior, thoughts and feelings. They have long since let go of the idea that anyone is going to make things better for them. While they know that sometimes things happen that are out of their control, they know that they — and only they — are solely responsible for how they respond to these things. You will never see them pointing a finger, blaming anyone else for “messing up their day,” “making them feel ...