"Are You Running TOWARD Something, or RUNNING AWAY FROM Something?" - Douglas Castle

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"Are You Running TOWARD Something, or RUNNING AWAY FROM Something?" - Douglas Castle

Dear Readers:

The question would seem to be a very simple one, and indeed it is. Its answer, whatever that may be for any of us, determines 1) what direction our journey will take; 2) where we will end up, and 3) what type of experience we will have along the way.

If we visualized that the things we fear were very much like one "gravitational force," and the things that we desire to acquire are just like the other, competitive "gravitational force," we would soon stumble upon the conclusion that our lives' trajectories, velocities and destinations will be shaped by the conflicts and relative strengths of these two gravitational bodies that each lie at some distance from us.

My suspicion is that running toward something tends to make for more of a deliberate journey, where we have significant say in the flight plan, whereas a life lived running or hiding from something tends to be as erratic as it is frenetic.

Do some Braintenance...exercise your introspection and do some reverse engineering. If you are brutally honest with yourself, you can find out why you are where you are, and why you are headed where you are headed.

Perhaps the mere recognition of these motivational forces in our lives might allow us to better live each day. And life is the sum (or perhaps the product) of all of our days.

Faithfully,

Douglas Castle

Tags, Labels and Keywords: Articles by Douglas Castle, conflicting forces, gravity, polarity, the course of our lives, the quality of our lives, TNNWC, trajectory, Heisenberg's return, where and why, introspection, Braintenance, self-awareness, self-knowledge, self-control.

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You Are Always On The Record. - Douglas Castle

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You Are Always On The Record.

Dear Friends (and those who are eavesdropping with or without "authority" of "law"):

You are always on the record. You are always being overheard. You always leave tracks, and prints and trace evidence. Technology has you cornered. Any "privileged professional relationship" can be set aside by either brute force or by twist of the law. No indictment or conviction is truly "sealed".  And, given the right inducement (either negative or positive), most any lifelong confidante can be turned into an informant.

There are no secrets, and there is no privacy. If you believe that either of these two things exists in this world in more than the form of a theoretical abstraction, you are indeed gullible.

The only private corner where your secrets may be safe and where your privacy can be reasonably assured is within the confines of your cranium -- or perhaps your soul.

Given the above, you have two choices in conducting your conversations and affairs (catered, business, social or sexual):

1.  Speak the truth, and speak it consistently...as if you were on the witness stand...and be brave enough to bear the consequences ; or

2.  Remain silent.

And now, in the interest of providing real-life verification of my printed words, witness the stellar example of Goldman Sachs (those folks who were doing "God's work" on Wall Street recently):

 

April 24, 2010

Goldman E-Mails Cited ‘Serious’ Profit on Mortgages

By LOUISE STORY and SEWELL CHAN

In late 2007, as the mortgage crisis gained momentum and many banks were suffering losses, Goldman Sachs executives traded e-mail messages saying that they would make “some serious money” betting against the housing markets.
The messages, released Saturday by the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, appear to contradict statements by Goldman that left the impression that the firm lost money on mortgage-related investments.
In the messages, Lloyd C. Blankfein, the bank’s chief executive, acknowledged in November 2007 that the firm had lost money initially. But it later recovered by making negative bets, known as short positions, to profit as housing prices plummeted. “Of course we didn’t dodge the mortgage mess,” he wrote. “We lost money, then made more than we lost because of shorts.”
He added, “It’s not over, so who knows how it will turn out ultimately.”
In another message, dated July 25, 2007, David A. Viniar, Goldman’s chief financial officer, reacted to figures that said the company had made a $51 million profit from bets that housing securities would drop in value. “Tells you what might be happening to people who don’t have the big short,” he wrote to Gary D. Cohn, now Goldman’s president.
Actions taken by Wall Street firms during the housing collapse have become a major factor in the contentious debate over financial reform. In his weekly radio address on Saturday, President Obama said Wall Street had “hurt just about every sector of our economy” and again pressed the case for tighter regulation. On Monday, Senate Democrats will try to prevent a Republican filibuster in the first major test of the administration’s effort to push through legislation.
Goldman on Saturday denied it made a significant profit on mortgage-related products in 2007 and 2008. It said the subcommittee had “cherry-picked” e-mail messages from the nearly 20 million pages of documents it provided. This sets up a showdown between the Senate subcommittee and Goldman, which has aggressively defended itself since the Securities and Exchange Commission filed a security fraud complaint against it nine days ago. On Tuesday, seven current and former Goldman employees, including Mr. Blankfein, are expected to testify at a Congressional hearing. [more].
#### 

I do not want to single out the venerable House Of Goldman. I like and admire them just about as much as the majority of my readers do.

But I would like to point out that 1) their conduct is not out-of-line with, or even exceptional, in terms of the moral and ethical standards of the securities industry (and the analysts, auditors, rating services and certain 'special' government officials who are invariably parties to this kind of high-level institutionalized thievery which feasts upon the retirement funds of the general populace), and 2) they are every bit as foolish as anybody else who believes that you can do or say anthing "off the record."

Faithfully,

Douglas Castle

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The National Networker Companies

Braintenance - Stay razor sharp.

The Internationalist Page - A world without barriers.

The Global Futurist - Revealing trends.

Taking Command! - Mastering your fate.

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The Pendulum and The Pit - Retaliatory Regulation and Its Result - 04.23.2010

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The Pendulum and The Pit - Retaliatory Regulation and Its Result - 04.23.2010

Note: This article was written by Douglas Castle, Vice Chairman of The National Networker Companies, for publication in THE GLOBAL FUTURIST, with all rights reserved.

Dear Fellow Futurists and Friends:

History has a tendency to repeat itself (with certain variations and aberrations which cannot usually be foreseen because they are not within the realm of Human physiology, behavioral psychology or our limited understanding of physics and complexity theory) in a cause-and-effect, wavelike pattern. The pattern is best observed from a distance and over long expanses of time.

The elusive aspect of prognostication by wave theory has to do with variations in certain aspects of the wave, such as its amplitude (depth, in peaks and valleys) and its frequency (the speed at which the wave will begin to reverse its direction) -- put simply, if we eliminate all kinds of comet collisions, accidental nuclear bomb detonations [oops!], alien invasions and far-reaching biological or geological disasters, we can have a fair idea about what is going to happen, but we don't know exactly when and to what extent.

With apologies to the late and profoundly tormented Edgar A. Poe (author of The Pit and The Pendulum), these waves are often described as "swings of the pendulum", from one extreme to the opposite extreme. As good citizens (I'm smirking just a bit), we are all gathered in a darkened pit underneath this massive object, feeling the swish in the rush of its blade, anticipating the moment that it will, sooner or later, make icy contact with our vulnerable and quivering flesh.

When you combine an event which is certain to occur (i.e., the slice) with an uncertain timeframe, you have a recipe for fear. Uncle Boris used to refer to this as the "Russian Roulette of Reality."

I can provide you with neither the timing nor the magnitude of the phenomena which I will outline here, but I would wager a goodly sum that they will certainly occur within the next three years throughout the industrialized world and to the greatest extent in the US:

1.   An angry, disillusioned populace and wildly zealous legislators, acting in concert with frustrated, increasingly unpopular and overwhelmed executives (presidents, prime ministers, kings, and other leaders), will force the passage of an historically unprecedented amount of draconian regulation ['retaliatory regulation'] which will impact every company in every industry sector. The costs of compliance, as well as the fines and penalties imposed for infractions, will drive many companies out of business, especially the smaller ones which are not romantically intertwined with their respective governments. The result:

• Many small business failures;

• Loss of private sector jobs (except for attorneys), with a great portion of these displaced workers being "absorbed" into employment within the government sector, which will grow. Sadly this growth will be neither productive nor profitable, and sovereign debt will increase, taxes upon those who are the easiest targets will increase, and productivity (real GDP, innovation, advancement) will decline. Remember "stagflation"? You will.;

• The largest corporations and their respective governments will become increasingly interwoven, interdependent and inseparable in an unannounced merger. If you are neither an executive of a "too-big-to-fail" company, nor a government official, you will either be a veritable slave, a very aggressive entrepreneur, a trust fund beneficiary (if you are a scion blessed with the proper lineage of one of the ruling families), a thief, a prisoner (incarceration produces jobs and removes people on both sides of the bars from the unemployment statistics), or dead.

2.    Cults, common-interest groups, revivalist religious movements and very well-armed citizen militias will all be activated and agitated, each with more adherents than ever before, especially among those overtaxed and disenfranchised by the inevitable marriage of big business and big government, i.e., those "slow moving natives" who are called upon to sacrifice everything in order to pay for the sins and excesses of the privileged few.

3.    The newly married big business and government conglomerated entities will be at war with all of those people and groups cited in #2, above. This war will start with tighter governance, greater restrictions of all liberties and increasing demands upon an overtaxed, angry "outworlder" public -- and it will eventually escalate into violent confrontations.

Does this sound like science fiction? I believe that the three-part scenario outlined above has already commenced, albeit quietly, with a great many government diversions and distractions keeping the harsh light focused elsewhere, while the people in the pit are beginning to compare notes. When slaves communicate, when they unite, when they begin to organize, the masters (if they are awake and aware enough to notice these seditious and ambitious behaviors) tend to adopt a "kill-or-be-killed" attitude.

It might be a good idea to review your old school notes about Harriet Tubman, Martin Luther King, Marie Antoinette, The Romanovs, Paul Revere, Che Guevarra, The Bay of Pigs,
the VietNam "conflict," the various Inquisitions, the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, the fall of Enron, and, of course, The Fall of the House of Usher.

I prescribe education, communication, organization, unification as a means to preparation for survival.

When next I post, I'll just revert to stating facts, citing trends and offering conjecture as to their implications. Thank you for indulging me this once and for letting me share my fears with you.

Faithfully,

Douglas Castle
http://aboutDouglasCastle.blogspot.com

Labels, Tags and Terms: The Global Futurist, stagflation, predictions, big government marries big business, displaced populace, the seeds of insurrection, slaves and masters, The National Networker Companies, TNNWC




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More On Meetings [Moron Meetings?]

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More On Meetings [Moron Meetings?]

Dear Friends:

I just can't say enough about meetings. They can be killers or they can be motivators -- but no meeting can be both. How you preside at, coordinate, orchestrate, present at, or otherwise conduct a meeting, whether by telephone, videoconference or in person, will either damage or enhance your credibility and influence.

Today's rule of thumb should prove helpful:

"If your audience isn't falling out of their seats laughing, or sitting at the edge of their seats white-knuckled, you are a sedative." -Douglas Castle 


Remember: With very few exceptions, the people (or potentially innocent victims) in the audience are looking to you for leadership. They will judge your content, delivery, confidence and intelligence by how you run your show.

Meetings are wonderful to inform and to coordinate a call to action, but they are also auditions. When you are the speaker, you are being judged.

Learn how to run a good meeting.

Faithfully,


Douglas Castle



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The National Networker Companies
Braintenance - Stay razor sharp.
The Internationalist Page - A world without barriers.
The Global Futurist - Revealing trends.
Taking Command! - Mastering your fate.
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How Much Do You Truly Value Your Time? Answer 5 Questions to Find Out.

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How Much Do You Truly Value Your Time? Answer 5 Questions to Find Out.

Please Note:

This article, which contains a brief questionnaire,  was previously posted under the title, "Connecting: Some Questions to Ask Yourself...Seriously."

The previous title was posted in error. This mini-survey (refer to it as Survey TNNW5Q), as you will see, has to do with the presence in each of us, of opposing objectives.

On the one hand, we are taught to be thrifty and independent; this is reinforced with aphorisms like, "I'd save the money and do it myself," "keep an eye on the bottom line (which invariably causes most of us to turn to the default setting of "don't spend money, it detracts from profits.")," "Waste not, want not," and the like. The underlying and unifying rationale is that any money spent is "cost" or "loss," and that it is never actually an "investment in the production of greater revenues and greater profits." It is rather like wanting to grow a large crop without investing money on planting quality seeds. Even better (as terrible analogies go), it can be about as reasonable as heating your house by tearing down your walls and throwing them into the fireplace. After a time, the heating problem becomes a non-issue.

On the other hand, we are told that "time is money," and "don't waste your valuable time."

How you think about money (spending, saving, earning and investing), speaks volumes about your belief in yourself and your own abilities. Fear of poverty is generally a much more powerful motivator than the drive for success and achievement.

A poverty mentality might be a success repellant. Are you frugal? Or simply fearful?

Please bear this in mind as Douglas Castle (I refer to myself in the third person frequently --it makes me feel strangely powerful. You might try it sometime, too) presents Survey TNNW5Q:

-----------------------------------------

Dear Friends:

All other things being equal, and without reading into the questions (simple choices, actually), which of these two alternatives would you prefer in each of the cases below:


FIRST
1. Free social media access to all platforms and free passes to large group networking events, or;
2. Personal third-party introductions (with endorsements) to five pre-qualified, motivated prospective clients or partners per month at a fee of $50/month to $150/month?

SECOND
1. An email subscriber list of 100,000 people (acquired for free), or;
2. A group of 5 individuals who knew you, your product, and were aggressively talking to people to pre-qualify prospective clients to refer to you at a fee of $50/month to $150/month (total) plus a small commission on each closed sale?

THIRD
1. Spending time on the telephone and in virtual or actual meetings with prospective clients, or;
2. Spending time on the internet and working with your social media, with vigorous postings and email correspondence?

FOURTH
1. Spending time exploring and implementing cost-saving measures, or;
2. Spending time exploring and implementing revenue-generating measures?

FIFTH
1. Being the most well-regarded and liked person among your network of contacts, or;
2. Being the person among your contacts who has the most needed product or service?


Please put all of your choices (anonymously) on the form which follows as soon as you can, and then hit the SEND button. No explanations, rationalizations, qualifications or excuses are permitted. Be decisive, without hedging or apologies. There are five questions, and the answer to each one is either 1 or 2.


Please click HERE for a pop-up form.

Thank you for your time, consideration, input and honesty. Anonymous statistical results and their possible implications will be posted shortly. We'll keep you posted.

Faithfully,

Douglas Castle


About Douglas Castle 
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The National Networker Companies
Braintenance - Stay razor sharp.
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Taking Command! - Mastering your fate.
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Connecting: Some Questions to Ask Yourself...Seriously

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Connecting: Some Questions to Ask Yourself...Seriously

Dear Friends:

All other things being equal, and without reading into the questions (simple choices, actually), which of these two alternatives would you prefer in each of the cases below:


FIRST
1. Free social media access to all platforms and free passes to large group networking events, or;
2. Personal third-party introductions (with endorsements) to five pre-qualified, motivated prospective clients or partners per month at a fee of $50/month to $150/month?

SECOND
1. An email subscriber list of 100,000 people (acquired for free), or;
2. A group of 5 individuals who knew you, your product, and were aggressively talking to people to pre-qualify prospective clients to refer to you at a fee of $50/month to $150/month (total) plus a small commission on each closed sale?

THIRD
1. Spending time on the telephone and in virtual or actual meetings with prospective clients, or;
2. Spending time on the internet and working with your social media, with vigorous postings and email correspondence?

FOURTH
1. Spending time exploring and implementing cost-saving measures, or;
2. Spending time exploring and implementing revenue-generating measures?

FIFTH
1. Being the most well-regarded and liked person among your network of contacts, or;
2. Being the person among your contacts who has the most needed product or service?


Please put all of your choices (anonymously) on the form which follows as soon as you can, and then hit the SEND button. No explanations, rationalizations, qualifications or excuses are permitted. Be decisive, without hedging or apologies. There are five questions, and the answer to each one is either 1 or 2.


Please click HERE for a pop-up form.

Thank you for your time, consideration, input and honesty. Anonymous statistical results and their possible implications will be posted shortly. We'll keep you posted.

Faithfully,

Douglas Castle




About Douglas Castle 
Douglas Castle - LinkedIn Profile
The National Networker Companies
Braintenance - Stay razor sharp.
The Internationalist Page - A world without barriers.
The Global Futurist - Revealing trends.
Taking Command! - Mastering your fate.
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Alert: Deadline EXTENDED to 4/22 on Self-Evaluation Survey! JOB 1 = Know Yourself. Click on http://bit.ly/Introspect6

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Deadline EXTENDED to 4/22 on Self-Evaluation Survey! Job 1 = Know Yourself. Click on http://bit.ly/Introspect6  #TNNW_BUZZWORKS

Commentary: Take an anonymous survey to find out more about who you truly are; your affinities and dislikes; your strengths and weaknesses; your personal and professional style; your areas of greatest potential. Self-evaluation is one of the most powerful success tools available, yet so few of us take advantage of it's enormous, transformative, revelatory potential. We must study who we are within to be able to address the world outside of us, and to interrelate with others. -- Douglas Castle [ http://aboutdouglascastle.blogspot.com/ ].


Tags, Labels, Key Topics and Terms: self-growth, self-evaluation, self-mastery, power personality, TNNW Surveys, leadership potential, introspection for greater success, overcoming self-limiting beliefs, finding your strengths and your weaknesses, correcting your course, The National Networker Companies, knowledge IS power, re-program yourself to be what you would want to be, discovering your hidden talents, combating manipulation, people skills, networking, connecting, relationship-building, Relationship Capital, Adam J. Kovitz, Articles by Douglas Castle, your intuition, identify your "rough spots" and find solutions, navigate your psyche, the managerial mindset, the entrepreneurial mindset, leadership exercises, GICBC, your mind is an unexplored landscape, forming an alliance between your desires and your actions, the Law of Attraction, Braintenance exercises, revelation conquers denial, cooperation, collaboration, self-control is required before leading others, team-building skills, perceptions...  

Site-Seeing:
http://www.thenationalnetworker.com/
http://braintenance.blogspot.com/
http://theglobalfuturist.blogspot.com/
http://theinternationalistpage.blogspot.com/
LINKS 4 LIFE




About Douglas Castle 
Douglas Castle - LinkedIn Profile
The National Networker Companies
Braintenance - Stay razor sharp.
The Internationalist Page - A world without barriers.
The Global Futurist - Revealing trends.
Taking Command! - Mastering your fate.
Follow Castle on Twitter 
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Follow Braintenance on Twitter
*Subscribe (free!) for The National Networker Newsletter and the BLUE TUESDAY REPORT, and join The TNNWC GICBC at Join Us!

A Note About Leadership - Douglas Castle

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Dear Readers:

I would be willing to bet you that none of these unhappy-looking chaps has every heard of a GICBC (just Google it as Global Interworked Cooperative Business Community).

Further, I would bet you that none has ever visited The National Networker Companies at http://www.TheNationalNetworker.com, or receives a subscription to our free newsletters, reports and information products, which can be gotten at http://bit.ly/JoinTNNW.

The following write-up relates simply to Leadership - what it is; what it is not; what is tolerable; and what is not.

Leadership is not about politics, grudges and personal agendas - Leadership is about serious, focused responsibility.

Please Read on. And when you've finished, please either click on http://www.thenationalnetworker.com/ or http://bit.ly/JoinTNNW. Every visit that you make to these pages (which costs you nothing!) helps us to pay for LINKS 4 LIFE, our non-profit public health service, and for us to expand the wonderful international team of collaborators who are working under the TNNWC umbrella to rebuild a better civilization....while there is still time.

Now that you've finished, please either click on http://www.theNationalNetworker.com  or http://bit.ly/JoinTNNW . Every visit that you make to these pages (which costs you nothing!) helps us to pay for LINKS 4 LIFE, our public health service, and for us to expand the wonderful international team of collaborators who are working under the TNNWC umbrella to rebuild a better civilization....while there is still time.



Visit us! You can play an important role without spending a single cent.

Thank you.  --DC




About Douglas Castle 
Douglas Castle - LinkedIn Profile
The National Networker Companies
Braintenance - Stay razor sharp.
The Internationalist Page - A world without barriers.
The Global Futurist - Revealing trends.
Taking Command! - Mastering your fate.
Follow Castle on Twitter 
Follow TNNW on Twitter
Follow Braintenance on Twitter
*Subscribe (free!) for The National Networker Newsletter and the BLUE TUESDAY REPORT, and join The TNNWC GICBC at Join Us!