"Fast Weight Loss! Make Easy Money! Increase Your Sex Life!"

I participate in a weight-training online forum. Recently a subject came up which heated everyone. I wrote a post which I think is deep enough in my thoughts to share in my blog. I have no idea who reads my blog (except for Missy in WVA - hi Missy!) but if anyone reads it, this is very important to share.

The subject was regarding these programs which promise that you'll lose fat, get more muscular, make all the money of your dreams, increase your mental power , get more sex, better sex, look younger . . . blah blah blah. You've heard it all.

These ads are mostly online and by email, but can also be found in some magazines. They are "testimonial style", crafted with certain words, and sometimes phrases are highlighted in the morass of text which your eye can barely read. The copy (that means, the actual words) are chosen with the most impact in mind. Here's what always gets me: they say that "this information is soooo valuable that it would be worth $500 - but we are giving it to you for the low price of $150, and throwing in these free e-books worth over double that $500..."

That being said, I have participated in presentations where the marketers have decided to use these tactics. I respectfully requested that they consider other tactics, but, since it wasn't my project, they went their own manner. That's perfectly alright. I have never felt, and hopefully will never feel, that these marketing tactics are appropriate.

Ignore the crap and focus on what you feel is integrity-ful. If those letters/programs in your e-mailbox or on your screen are crap, ignore them and laugh :)

If they pique your interest, find out more. You'll discover (one way or another) the real truth: either you will be changed forever, or you would have helped someone get a new boat.

It's that simple.

I laugh my head off about people with "programs". Honestly. You should see the ones I get in my e-mailbox also.

Some people just learn the FORMULAEIC (sp?) (uh: "formula'd") way of MARKETING the product (or program). They use buzz words and particular ways of advertising which get some people buying. A SMART person doesn't get entranced by buzzwords or phrases. But others are. Anything that makes you "buy now", "hurry", "fast, easy", "my life changed, and it was easy" is a scam. Nothing GOOD and WORTHWHILE is easy. (Simple, maybe: not easy)

And there are no "promises": only progress.

It always makes me laugh that many of these "experts" also have a part of their website(s) where they tell others "How to make the money of your dreams in online marketing". Hmmm. How telling.

It's up to each individual how they want to present themselves (and their business), what business they have, and how (or whether) to be full of INTEGRITY about that.

Me? I've been told (by "pros" * ) to scrap my current website, change it to the screaming-headlines "testimonial-style", and offer my knowledge/coaching via "pay for info" products. At the moment, I won't do it. Not a whit. And my wallet is the poorer for it --- but my SPIRIT feels just ducky. I have no boat, my car is 6 years old now (really? Honda makes an awesome car!), and I haven't bought new clothes since I-don't know-when. But I sleep well at night regarding my BUSINESS ETHICS.

I want the buyer to beware. Stop being scammed, if some of those advertisements are scams in marketing language which grabs you emotionally. I want the buyer to learn how to GROW UP and BE WISE : do your research.

I have a personal way of looking at advertisements: sometimes the subtler, the more truthful it is. Less "yelling". They know that what they are selling can stand the test of time. They know you can research it. They know that they don't have 10-seconds to grab your attention or you'll buy elsewhere. They want a quality customer who is not looking for a quick fix -- and will have a disastrous, quick-fix mentality.

It's kind of like the martial art aikido: to get a blackbelt, it takes many years of hard work, self-reflection, inward change, body understanding, sensitivity, ... and the black belt is considered "just proficient" or "just beginning to know". Nothing fast, but it's incredible for those who do it.

Have a thoughtful day.

* PS: the "pros" who tell me to change my website have fancy expensive cars and probably second houses. I don't. But, to me, it's like junk bonds: someone is making money off someone's else's gullibility.
I'm not a Buddhist, but I like the Buddhist thought of "Right Livelihood": "one should earn one's living in a righteous way and that wealth should be gained legally and peacefully". To me, 'righteous, legal and peaceful' means that I give people their hard-earned money's worth.

Saving us from ourselves

I read an article today which fascinated me: "Save Me From Myself".

The article was discussing "akrasia" (coined by the ancient Greek philosphers Socrates and Aristotle), "those attacks of weak will that lead us to satisfy fleeting desires at the expense of our own acknowledged long-term interests."

Interesting: the article focuses not on how to have strong will, but on a growing trend toward creating situations where we are "parented" by an outside entity (government restriction or person) so we are relieved of the burden of parenting ourselves.

Here's a quote from the article:

"Parentalism is in a sense more insidious: It emerges when we begin to suspect that we ourselves are not competent to make our own choices, to yearn for someone to relieve us of the burden of choice."

How many times have we seen this? People who cannot/will-not make healthy choices for themselves and need others to do it for them. Spouses who rely on spouses to 'keep them in line', monitor their food, turn off the TV. Or worse yet, we have a culture which needs laws to keep people from doing things that they shouldn't be doing in the first place.

Another quote:

"... The true parentalist wants to escape not just the burdens of the act of choosing, but the responsibility for making a poor choice. Voluntary market mechanisms for filtering or restraining choice will always, ultimately, have an escape clause: We can fire the personal trainer or tell our friends we've changed our minds about that diet or quitting smoking after all. And, in the final analysis, they allow us only to defer responsibility, not avoid it".

It's an interesting article... read it for yourself.
Article: "Save Me From Myself"

Seek who you are

I am discovering something:

If you want to know "who you are" [deep inside], do something different than what you've been doing. It's very interesting...

What I mean is, we (people) seem to be a cluster of habits and interests. Some habits are good for us. Some habits are bad for us. Nevertheless, they are ingrained inside our preferences and muscles ... and our "interests" are those things which 'turn us on' or make us passionate about living.

In my coaching practice, I advocate awareness. This means that we realize what we are doing and what is around us. When we take a step back from our habits and interests, that is, step back so we are on the precipice of not engaging in those activities, we can really see that we crave those activities. When we are aware of our craving, we can set about the task of understanding our habits or interests.

Example:

I have always done creative projects and crafts. Since I was a child, I had always had glue and bits of fluff, and crayons and all those sorts of things. I thought it was part of growing up, and that all children did these things.

As I grew, I attended art college. Yet, while I attended college, I performed shows; it was natural to me to make all of my costumes and create my own props. Then I would create my own "audition" videos, brochures, and continued making my own performance needs. This was natural to me -- and I was genuinely astounded when other performers did do the same thing, preferring to purchase their needs and hire others (sometimes while whining about these vendors) to do their marketing.

I have created my own websites, designed and sewed my own costumes, even made my own props. I created things like a light-up sequined top-hat, sewed a new umbrella-cover, fabricated a 4-airbrush rig. (evidence of my work can be seen on my website: Snake Oil Productions) But I digress....

Recently, I have been focusing on my coaching career and spent little time in my workshop. My paintings have gone unpainted, I have not created performance-marketing materials, and my costume closet has stayed exactly as I had left it. For about 2 years, I have been coasting on memories and past evidence on what I had created - but had created almost nothing myself, save for painting a couple of walls. My hands remained distinctly and achingly unsullied.

Something had been gnawing at me in the interim of my "hiatus". In the beginning, I thought that I could re-focus my energies elsewhere (my coaching career: this needed no dirty hands or bits of cloth, or hours in a workshop). Then I began to feel a bit empty. My life, however filled with happy moments, had little creativity: not the thrill of designing something, the raw joy of shopping for supplies, not the terror of messing up while mid-work, not the burst of proud "birth" after the project was achieved. I was, in fact, mostly just a consumer.

Something in me started dying. Despite all the love and interesting things in my life, I was dying, trying to become "a new creature" (as biblical scriptures had called it) when there were parts of the "old me" which were still serving my heart, soul, and the world... why did I put all my old projects down? A combination of events, all seeming separate but truly, after all was said and done, set in motion to decipher who I really am.

Several weeks ago I started again on a project which I had put away since my divorce: a new painted tire-cover, this one with the design of Botticelli's Venus.
And yesterday, I embarked on a new project with only a thought in my head and the dream of making a little girl happy: I made a flower head-garland suitable for a faerie-princess.

I feel a sense of "completeness" when I gaze on these works... completeness inside myself, as if I am able to wring out stuff from inside me which needs to be birthed. Maybe it's oddly prophetic that I am painting the Birth of Venus ;)

This long-winded post aside (and I haven't yet embarked on the idea of ingrained habits), I realize that sometimes it is only when missing something can we find out its true value. It is in that "space", (that open space, that hole that the lack of the thing creates) that we can seek its value.

It is NOT "absence making the heart grow fonder".

It is realizing the absence of something which makes our heart be PASSIONATE.

Soooo gone lately

Sorry for people who have been reading this blog and I have gone missing... I've been doing my best Clara Barton for someone very special who has undergone hand surgery. I've actually started this blog several times and had been called away, so if you've missed me, my sincerest apologies.

However, while "nursing", I've discovered many interesting things:

• One CAN do things with one hand...
• ... it's just not whatsoever easy, fast, or by rote
• "Nursing" can encompass any amount of care for someone: getting a drink of water, tying shoes, washing dishes, running errands, doing laundry, fluffing pillows, even scratching a back. Civil War nurses (such as Clara Barton) were not necessarily skilled in any "medicine"; they simply wanted to help the sick and wounded soldiers. "Helping" is almost anything.
• Even if the "patient" doesn't always say thank you, know deep inside that he/she appreciates the care
• Some medical personnel remember the issues that the patient encounters; although these procedures are routine for the staff, they are not routine for the patient. Some procedures and encounters are painful, fatiguing, uncomfortable, confusing, and difficult. the best medical personnel are the ones who approach every patient's experiences through the patient's eyes, not through the been-there-done-that attitude of the tired, workworn self.

My laptop computer seems to be ill as well; the display has gone out and I am only able to use it currently while hooked to an external monitor. I am endeavoring to seek solutions, although a $700 replacement of a new display screen was not exactly part of my budget.

Meanwhile, as I sort out my assisting and computer issues, enjoy the Daily Om:
This article changes every day:

The Daily Om