This is an important book because it outlines a cause to so many problems, that is so pervasive it goes unnoticed by the vast majority of people. Television was only introduced in South Africa in 1975, as it happens the year I was born, because the Apartheid government saw a threat to itself loosing control. It would be fascinating to know who finally made the convincing argument to get the government’s approval. This book was published in 1978 or 30 years ago and it’s not hard to imagine how much more entrenched this technology has become, especially given the rise of the so-called reality television programming. (more…)
Ramon Thomas
Psychology of Technology Blog
Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television by Jerry Mander
Osho on Love, Freedom and Aloneness
A long time ago I read a book by the Indian mystic Osho: Love, Freedom & Aloneness – The Koan on Relationships. This is one of those rare gems that explains and perhaps introduces you to the authentic love that is sorely missing from life. The taboo that is sex, the misunderstandings about love, and the freedom you never have when you try to posses or control the others in your relationships. Give it all up and you may find the difference between loneliness and aloneness.
There is a story in the book that is profound for me: A man and woman meet and fall in love. The woman is wealth and owns a great land through inheritance. The man wants to marry her. She says on one condition: You must love on the other side of the land where I will build you your own house. And if we meet in at the lake maybe I will invite you over or you can invite me over. And if we meet in the field maybe I will talk to you and you will talk to me. The man thought about this and decided he cannot marry the woman under these conditions
Anyway I’m paraphrasing the story as I cannot find the exact page on the book right now. There was something that struck a cord with me and whenever I have tried to explain this to women I’m dating they rarely get it. There is so much brainwashing I can see in the world when it comes to relationships and dating. How needy the man or the woman has become. And what is left? Almost nothing. An emptiness that is more a heavy burden than the elusive lightness of love.
Anyway here’s a short video with Osho talking about Love and Hate
Two sides of the same coin:
New Books from Take2 this November
I’ve been checking out Take2 for a long time because its prices are just the best in South Africa. Take2 is one of those online retail stores like Kalahari.net and the international poster boy Amazon.com which offers a selection of books, music CDs, DVDs and other products. What I really love about Take2 is that their prices are better than Exclusive Books or Kalahari.net all year long. In the past I have bought a lot of books from Kalahari.net when they run their regular sales or had a R50 discount voucher.
Now with Take2 they do not offer any discounts or sales and even with shipping costs most purchases are cheaper than their closest competitors. So I highly recommend you switch to Take2 and if you have any doubts just compare some prices for the following books I’ve just received from a recent order:
| Books | Take2 | Kalahari.net | Exclusive Books |
| 4-Hour Work Week | R134.00 | R186.95 | R204.00 |
| Complete Idiot’s Guide: Growing Your Business with Google | R134.00 | R186.95 | R143.00 |
| Laws of Lifetime Growth | R81.00 | R123.95 | R176.00 |
| Shipping Cost | R29.00 | R29.00 | R30.00 |
| TOTALS | R378.00 | R526.85 | R553.00 |
* Note: Free shipping is available from Kalahari.net if you order is more than R350 and with Exclusive Books is more than R400 per order.
So as you can see even if the shipping from Kalahari.net or Exclusive Books was free it would cost more than Take2. What’s your experience been in shopping online in South Africa?
Rober Cialdini’s Weapons of Influence
Ever heard of the Weapons of Influence? This is from an excellent book by Dr Robert Cialdini that every person should read at least once in their life. I have read this one 3 times so far.
Dr Cialdini defines six “weapons of influence”:
- Reciprocity – People tend to return a favour. Thus, the pervasiveness of free samples in marketing. In his conferences, he often uses the example of Ethiopia providing thousands of dollars in humanitarian aid to Mexico just after the 1985 earthquake, despite Ethiopia suffering from a crippling famine and civil war at the time. Ethiopia had been reciprocating for the diplomatic support Mexico provided when Italy invaded Ethiopia in 1937. On a personal note if you invite people to a party at your house, you’re much more likely to get an invitation to a party at their house.
- Commitment and Consistency – If people commit, verbally or in writing, to an idea or goal, they are more likely to honour that commitment. Even if the original incentive or motivation is removed after they have already agreed, they will continue to honour the agreement. For example, in car sales, suddenly raising the price at the last moment works because the buyer has already decided to buy.
- Social Proof – People will do things that they see other people are doing. For example, in one experiment, one or more confederates would look up into the sky; bystanders would then look up into the sky to see what they were seeing. At one point this experiment aborted, as so many people were looking up that they stopped traffic. See conformity, and the Asch conformity experiments.
- Authority – People will tend to obey authority figures, even if they are asked to perform objectionable acts. Cialdini cites incidents, such as the Milgram experiments in the early 1960s and the My Lai massacre.
- Liking – People are easily persuaded by other people that they like. Cialdini cites the marketing of Tupperware in what might now be called viral marketing. People were more likely to buy if they liked the person selling it to them. Some of the many biases favouring more attractive people are discussed. Social proof is a specific way to create the impression that you are popular or liked by people. Sometimes I see rich old men, with young hot young women and I realise one of the unconscious reasons for this is they both gain influence.
- Scarcity – Perceived scarcity will generate demand. For example, saying offers are available for a “limited time only” encourages sales.
Robert Cialdini’s produces a monthly newsletter through his website, Influence at Work.
Anyway I wanted to share this with you because it’s one of my secret weapons these days. I do not go sarging any more. That’s way to much work. Instead befriend high quality women (i.e. women YOU are attracted to personally) to gain access to THEIR social circles. And through this mechanism you can create more and more social proof. So if you have a hot female friends make sure that you are seen with them when you are out. But do not cling to them. Instead leave them whenever you see an attractive woman. Go over to that other woman, strike up a conversation and later go back to your female friend. In many cases, my female friends have pre-sold me to a new woman I have just met.
David DeAngelo makes a very good case for this in his Mastery Program. And if you are on Facebook – USE IT – these hot women are advertising themselves. Go to the events that are continuously posted on Facebook and take advantage of the situation.
Robert Bly explains the way to meet the Wild Man aka Iron John
This book is a must read for any man living in the world today. And for any mother who wants to know what to do with her son, most especially if she is raising him as a single mother. This strikes a real cord with me because I grew up with a single mother ? and I lacked a strong male role model for most of my teenager years. And the result? A lot of confusion, a lot of self-doubt and this with a combination of other factors led directly to a nervous breakdown when I hit 25. You could say that I was never prepared to deal with the harsh reality of the adult world or you could say that I was to immature and the pace of my life was so fast I could not acclimatise quickly enough.
Yes, I have a father and we have not been close for most of my of my life especially after he remarried. Now his 2nd wide has passed away 8 years ago and my half-brother is almost 21. There is a divide that is deep and sometimes painful. And since I grew up with my mother I have a much closer relationship to her and my 19 year old half-sister. How have I dealt with this in the past? With anger, with frustration for being deprived from growing up in a ?normal? family unit. This led to more self-loathing then anything else so I turned outward to find my own role models, especially masculine, in the great books of history. I studied the classics from the West and the East. And I eventually reached a point where the simplest advice turned out to best for me: accept everything as it is. Thank God I never spent years of therapy trying to figure this out, which in retrospect seems like the kind of common sense my mother always claimed I didn’t have when I was a teenager.
Anyway Iron John is a mythical story of a boy’s journey with the Wild Man and his separation from his mother and his father. The basic element that we find missing in the modern world is that of male initiation. Now living in South Africa I know all about male initiation, especially among the Xhosa people. There has been growing resistance from the government to close down these initiation schools because of the lack of medical expertise where the boys end up suffering injuries. Could it be that more and more of the ancient knowledge or know-how of how to best conduct these rituals have been lost? I think we have reached a critical point, post the feminism revolution, the decline of fatherhood, and the rise of single parent (mother) families, which causes a severe imbalance in the male/female polarity that is needed. When the Yin/Yang balance is distorted to this extent we find that weak men are all that’s left.
There is so many analogies from this book, which has been brought to my attention via other sources, most notably the seduction community, because is an attempt to restore the balance. How many times have you observed in a Hollywood film, a sitcom, or a cartoon the idiot man with his intelligent wife/girlfriend who point him in the right direction. How many times have you met men, who are unable to articulate themselves, who do not live with a passion or a purpose. They become like zombies living lives of quit desperation. How can the modern man meet the wild man inside him? He can push himself to do something of extraordinary courage and learn from it. Maybe climb Kilimanjaro or run the Comrades or stop denying your father, your masculine, because you need to draw from there the energy that can sustain you through your life. This book is an excellent big picture of the current problem men are facing and for specific help on how to overcome these problems I highly recommend The Way Of The Superior Man: A Spiritual Guide to Mastering the Challenges of Woman, Work, and Sexual Desire
If you live in South Africa you should purchase Iron John by Robert Bly from Kalahari.net
Here’s an excellent video of poet Robert Bly being interviewed by Bill Moyers in 1990. They discuss what it means to be a man in today’s society – the pains of being a man and the things that can be done to heal them.
Deepak Chopra teaches more than just Creating Health
When I first began hearing of Deepak Chopra, I did not think to much of him. My best friend Nathaniel recommended The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success: A Practical Guide to the Fulfillment of Your Dreams a long time ago but I’ve yet to read it. So recently I picked up this book on sale from Exclusive Books, a big book store chain in South Africa, like Borders or Barnes & Noble in the USA. Anyway this book has made a tremendous impact on how I view healthy living. Firstly I now see how I can live a healthier life and enjoy more of life. This sounds stupid and simple but I always imagined living healthy to be some kind of effort. And in fact it should be or could be effortless – it all starts with your mind and how you think, and how you feel about yourself. Much of what Deepak Chopra says resonates so much with what is the The Secret (Extended Edition) I am very surprised they did not interview him.
The way this book is written makes it a really quick and easy read. The chapters are short and the whole book is divided into four sections: Health and Disease, Laying the Foundation, Strategies for Creating Health and Toward a Higher Reality: Mediation and Metamorphosis.
Now one of my own internal guides is when I see references to other people I already respect. For example Deepak Chopra quotes Napoleon Hill, my all time favourite motivational author, several times in the later half the book, and it fits. He also references his friend Dr Wayne Dyer, which I think is the leading light in the West when it comes to manifesting your reality. All this can be bit much to believe for someone who is not familiar with the law of attraction, and changing your physiology by changing your thoughts but give this one a try. It’s short, direct, simple to understand and yet it encompasses a vast body of knowledge. And I really enjoyed the fact that he ended off focussing on the new physics as he calls it that was started with Einstein. There is a link between quantum physics and the old paradigms of the East. And you don’t even have to read The Tao of Physics by Fritjof Capra to see it. As they see in these circles believing is seeing not the other way around.
If you live in South Africa purchase Creating Health: How to Attain Perfect Health and Feel Ever Youthful by Deepak Chopra from Kalahari.net
Who is the Millionaire Next Door?
Chris Rock once explained the difference between being rich and being wealthy very succinctly. He said Shaquille O’Neil is rich but the guy who signs his cheque is wealthy. When you are rich you can loose all the money when you’re a big spender, live beyond your means or try to keep up with the Jones, also known as conspicuous consumption. The education system creates a society of consumers and that is a fact. Nobody in particular is to blame except yourself. When you stay blinded to the reality of life you continue to suffer. The signs of success can be overt and people may pay attention to you for a little bit longer. When it’s not over they may ignore you completely.
This leads me to Millionaire Next Door. The person who recommended this book was non other than Tom Leykis, the American talk radio host. He is a self-made multi-millionaire and brags about it often. In fact it only seems like bragging when it’s taken out of context or when you are jealous of his success. I’m not. I’m a admirer. He speaks honestly and directly about the reality of the world we live in. So I recently picked up a copy of this book, ordering it online as do most of my shopping these days.
This is not an easy read because it has heavy emphasis on numbers, statistics. Something which you may not enjoy reading because again the school system creates a society that dislikes mathematics in any shape or form. Now the research has been done by two Ph.D’s and you can’t fault the depth of their analysis. They surveyed large groups of millionaires and high income producers for several decades. This book is a very good snapshot of the research and you can start to see the common sense almost boring methods by which the millionaires become millionaires.
Here’s the most common denominators of millionaires:
- They live well below their means.
- They allocate their time, energy, and money efficiently, in ways conducive to building wealth.
- They believe that financial independence is more important than displaying high social status!
- Their parents did not provide economic outpatient care.
- Their adult children are economically self-sufficient.
- They are proficient in targeting market opportunities.
- They chose the right occupations.
In South Africa you may be interested in the Who’s Who list of Wealthiest South Africans.
The Warren Buffet Way by Robert Hagestrom
ISBN 0471743674
Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
2nd edition, 2005.
Warren Buffet is the greatest investor alive today. His track record speaks for itself and this book goes some small way towards explaining the inner workings of this investment genius. A few years ago I passed on buying Buffettology because I thought I wasn’t ready for it and now found this book from my best friend Vergal Walton (checkout his new Jack Higgins website coming soon here).
The Warren Buffet Way is the most readable book I’ve come across on investment so far. The essence of this book is summarised in the various chapters of the book. The stories of the companies that Buffet invests in from the earliest days to the most recent are all entertaining and extremely insightful. One of the core underlying principles is to take the long term view of with investments. And when buying shares to think of it as buying a business and behaving in a way that the owner would behave. The Dot com crash was almost a directly result of short term opportunistic investments. And the whole investment philosophy of Buffet rests on theories expounded more than 50 years ago by Benjamin Graham and David Dodd in Security Analysis as well as The Intelligent Investor also by Graham.
Historically Buffet bought sizeable interests in publicly traded companies from the Coca-Cola company to the Gillette company. And more recently he has moved into purchasing privately held companies outright. As he says he is willing to own these businesses forever. That is an exceptional attitude in investment. Hagestrom described Buffet as the focussed investor. Rather investing large sums of money in a smaller number of companies.
The Focus Investor’s Golden Rules:
- Concentrate your investment in outstanding companies run by strong management
- Limit yourself to the number of companies you can truly understand. Ten to twenty is good, more than twenty is asking for trouble.
- Pick the very best of your good companies, and put the bulk of your investment there.
- Think long-term: five to ten years, minimum.
- Volatility happens. Carry on.
You may also be interested in reading the archives of the annual letters from Warren Buffett, chairman of Berkshire Hathaway Inc. to the shareholders here.
If you live in South Africa purchase The Warren Buffett way from Kalahari.net
Touching the tip of this finger with the tip of this finger
The Undercover Economist by Tim Harford
What does price of Cappuccino and China new wealth have in common?
After being told I this book is better than Freakonomics I had high hopes. And I was not disappointed in the least. As the name says this book reads like a undercover detective story.
What I really like about this book, and perhaps now understanding Economics better, is that Economics is the study of what humans actually do versus what we think they are doing or what they may do. And how using complex mathematical models the non-obvious trends can be determined. I finally understand why coffee shops are so in vogue and particular why you and me would be willing to pay more for something we now make at home. Just having read the final chapter on China is almost like freaky because just yesterday I received an invitation to speak at a conference in Shanghai!
Remember to checkout the website of the author, Tim Hardford, a contributor to the Financial Times and Slate.
If you wanna buy the Undercover Economist from Amazon.com click here.
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