Tag Archives: Thoughts

65 THOUGHTS FROM 65 YEARS

I turned 65 this week. Officially, I’m a Senior. I’m now eligible for geezer graft – my public pension and a free morning coffee at McDonalds plus 10 percent price cuts at prestigious places I patronize like Walmart, Home Depot, Habitat For Humanity’s ReStore, Salvation Army’s thrift shop, and many, many hole-in-the-wall used book stores. On delegated days, of course, and with certain conditions applying like having my Covid vaccine papers ready and my leak-free Depends securely on. Also, my If Found – Return To wristband in place and my GPS tracker beaconing away.

I never thought I’d live this long, given some of the high-risk behavior I’ve displayed during my 65 trips around the sun. 64 of those trips were pretty much fun. 1 was not.  However, that bad trip gave me an entirely new respect for the value of this extremely precious and terribly fragile thing called life.

My 65 trips gave me insight into what’s important and what’s not. They also gave me plenty of time to think. Specific thinking. Random thinking. And nonsense thinking. In no particular order, and with no particular agenda, here are 65 thoughts from 65 years—many borrowed from folks much wiser than me. By the way, I also shared this post with friends over at the Kill Zone blog on Thursday although it’s tweaked a bit for today.

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1. Whatever the mind can conceive and believe it can achieve by taking planned action with a positive mental attitude. This is the core of Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich personal growth and success philosophy which, in my experience, is pure truth. It’s the primal advice I pass on.

2. You become what you think about most of the time.

3. Be careful with your thoughts, because your thoughts become your words. Be careful with your words, because your words become your actions. Be careful with your actions, because your actions become your habits. Be careful with your habits, because your habits become your character and your character becomes your destiny.

4. Dream big. Dream often. The first step in achieving big dreams is by having them.

5. Don’t matter what came first—the chicken or the egg—as long as you stay alive and remain healthy enough to eat them.

6. I’ve been rich. I’ve been poor. Rich is better.

7. Always read the instructions. Twice. Then save them.

8. Don’t buy extended warranties, timeshares, or cheap tools.

9. Persistence is to character as carbon is to steel.

10. If you must read the news, read for fact and data, not for opinions.

11. Cocaine users say they indulge because it amplifies their personality. I say coke is a dangerous drug for assholes.

12. When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.

13. If you chase a badger across a field and it goes down a hole, don’t follow and poke its backside with a pick handle. Seriously, don’t. I tried this. You’d be amazed at how fast badgers can turn around in a tight spot.

14. People of accomplishment rarely sit back and let things happen to them. They go out and happen to things.

15. Do not steal the parking spot reserved for the guy who’s about to interview you for your dream job.

16. And don’t bother searching for your eyeglasses while wearing them.

17. Speaking of eyeglasses, when you do go searching for your lost glasses and finally find them, don’t put them back where you found them. Put them where you first looked for them.

18. Once you get it all down to one shopping cart, you’ve got it made.

19. The Golden Rule will never fail. It’s the foundation of all other virtues.

20. I don’t judge your age, race, gender, sexual orientation, language, religion, political beliefs, education, occupation, body shape, or any other quirk that makes you a human being. You are you. I am me. I’ll be nice to you even if you’re not nice to me and I’m fine with that.

21. Never get involved in an Asian land war.

22. To make mistakes is human. To own your mistakes is divine. Nothing elevates a person higher than quickly admitting to, and taking personal responsibility for, the mistakes you make and then fixing them fairly. If you mess up, fess up. It’s astounding how powerful this ownership is.

23. Optimize your generosity. No one on their deathbed ever regretted giving away too much.

24. I’ve never seen a hearse pulling a trailer loaded with a ski-boat, an ATV, or a full-dresser Harley.

25. A vacation + a disaster = an adventure.

26. Ancient Jewish wisdom says not to argue to win the argument. Argue to discover the truth.

27. The difference between successful people and really successful people is that really successful people say no to almost everything.

28. The best way to have good ideas is to have a lot of ideas and then discard the bad ideas.

29. Seek to be the wisest in the room, not the loudest, and never miss a good chance to shut up.

30. Never take down a fence until you know why it was put up.

31. If you have to convince someone to stay with you, they’ve already left.

32. You have to write the book that wants to be written. And if the book is too difficult for adults, then write it for children.

33. No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader. No surprise in the writer. No surprise in the reader.

34. Always apply the duck test.

35. The past is behind, learn from it. The future is ahead, prepare for it. The present is here, live it.

36. The two founding points of human existence are consciousness and entropy.

37. Everything in moderation, including moderation.

38. Read, read, read. Read everything—trash, classics, bad and good, and see how they do it. Just like a stonemason who works as an apprentice and studies the master. Read! You’ll absorb it. Then write. If it’s good, you’ll find out. If it’s not, throw it out the window and write something else.

39. Carl Sagan said, “A book is made from a tree. It is an assemblage of flat, flexible parts (still called leaves) imprinted with dark pigmented squiggles. One glance at it and you’ll hear the voice of another person, perhaps a person who’s been dead for thousands of years. Across the millennia, the author is speaking, clearly and silently, inside your head, directly to you. Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people, citizens of distant epochs, who never knew one another. Books break the shackles of time—proof that humans can work magic.”

40. And Lady Gaga said, “When you make music or write or create, it’s really your job to have mind-blowing, irresponsible, condomless sex with whatever idea it is you’re screwing with at the time.”

41. There are old pilots and there are bold pilots but there are no old bold pilots.

42. You don’t stop flying when you get old. You get old when you stop flying.

43. A ride in a US Navy F-18 Hornet flight simulator is a mind-blowing and condomless, sexual experience. Been there. Done that. MUST do again.

44. A business rule: Pay every invoice within 48 hours. You’ll be amazed at how many people give your work top priority.

45. Ungulates like deer, moose, elk, and caribou have antlers for a reason.

46. Bears have claws and teeth for a reason, too. Don’t poke the bear like I poked the badger.

47. The cost of perfection is inaction, but boring progress produces exceptional results.

48. The less you need the approval of others, the easier it is to get what is right rather than what is easy.

49. “I don’t pay no attention to no kind of critics about nothing. If they knew as much as they claim about what they’re criticizing, then they ought to be doing that instead of standing on the sidelines using their mouth.” ~Muhammad Ali.

50. Multitasking is not only not thinking, it impairs your ability to think. Thinking means concentrating on one thing long enough to develop an idea about it. You do your best thinking by slowing down and concentrating.

51. Ninety percent of success can be boiled down to consistently doing the obvious thing for an uncommonly long time without convincing yourself that you’re smarter than you are.

52. That thing that made you weird as a kid could make you great as an adult—provided you don’t lose it.

53. If someone tries to convince you it’s not a pyramid scheme, it’s a pyramid scheme.

54. If you have any doubts about your ability to carry a load in one trip, do yourself a favor and make two trips.

55. Anything real begins with the fiction of what it could be. Imagination is the most potent force in the universe, and a skill you can get better at. It’s the one skill in life that benefits from ignoring what everyone else knows.

56. For every dollar you spend on something substantial, expect to pay another dollar in energizing,  repairing, maintaining, disposing, and replacing by the end of its serviceable life.

57. Eliminating clutter makes room for your true treasures.

58. If you plant for days, plant flowers. If you plant for years, plant trees. If you plant for eternity, plant ideas.

59. Never start a fight. Especially one you can’t win. Like, don’t get in a pissing match with a skunk, because you’re going to end up taking an excruciating, eye and nose blast plus a humiliating, clothes-stripped, tomato juice remediation bath while the skunk reloads and carries on to hose the next idiot who’s stupid enough to cross it.

59. Subsection 1. Same applies to badgers.

60. A writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.

61. People shouldn’t look for perfect leaders. They should look for authentic leaders with human-flawed competence and integrity, not consumed with presenting their title’s self-importance.

62. Near the end of his life, Steve Jobs said, “I learned that life is like a river. At first, you think that if you’re successful, you get to take many things from that river… products people have made or ideas people have come up with. But, eventually, in life you realize that it’s not what you take from the river, it’s what you get to put into that river.”

63. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but not their facts.

64. Learning is not compulsory. Neither is survival.

65. When you die, you take nothing with you except your reputation.

Bonus Bit: When playing Monopoly, spend all you have to buy, barter, or trade for the strategic orange properties at the end of the second stretch just before Free Parking. Don’t bother with Utilities or Railroads. If you play the game right, and for long enough, you’ll find Park Place and Boardwalk are terrible returns on investment.

Another Bonus From 31Oct2021: I don’t care if the cat is black or white as long as it catches mice.

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Dyingwords followers – What words of wisdom will you share? Don’t be shy about commenting!

HOW TO IMPROVE YOUR CREATIVITY

A8Creativity is the phenomenon of finding imaginative ideas and turning them into reality. It’s the process of bringing something new and original into existence. The results can be intangible products, like theories and songs, or tangible products such as inventions and the new crime-thriller novel I’m struggling to create. Creativity appears to come easier to some folks than others and we tend to see high achievers as gifted, natural creators rather than nurtured normals.

But is that so? Are there a chosen few, born with greater creative ability? Or can creativity be learned—a skill that can be taught, practiced, and mastered?

A2Back in the Greek and Roman days, creativity was seen as facilitated by a muse who connected individual human minds to the gods. Daemons were the Greek equivalent of guardian angels. They accompanied a soul from birth to death, some being highly creative which manifested themselves in outstanding and intuitive people like Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. Romans saw these paranormal intermediaries as Geniuses—disembodied messengers from a heavenly intelligence, delivering divine wishes to mortals.

The Renaissance era disagreed. Creative individuals were enlightened, they posed. Creativity came from within the self and gifted ones—DaVinci, Beethoven, and Shakespere—were born intellectually superior with unique abilities to create. They were the geniuses; being able to connect directly with a plane of higher intelligence rather than having an imaginary genius translate for them.

B2Today’s neuroscience has another view on this. It sees creativity as a complex psychological process that occurs via the brain’s ventral striatum and amygdala and can be enhanced through neuroplasticity, or rewiring the brain through practiced behavior.

In other words, a planned and continual workout program for your brain can definitely improve your creativity.

Improving creativity starts with a foundation of subject knowledge, learning a discipline, and mastering a proper way of thinking. You build on your creative ability by experimenting, exploring, questioning assumptions, using imagination, and synthesizing information. Learning to be creative is like learning a sport. You need a desire to improve, develop the right muscles, and be in a supportive environment.

You need to view creativity as a practice and understand five key behaviors:

1. Associating—drawing connections between questions, problems, or ideas from unrelated fields.
2. Questioning—posing queries that challenge common wisdom.
3. Observing—scrutinizing the behavior of others in, around, and outside your sphere.
4. Networking—meeting people with both common and different perspectives.
5. Experimenting—constructing interactive experiences and provoking unorthodox responses to see what insights emerge.

A3Read this as — listen, watch, ask, mingle, and stir. Sir Richard Branson has a mantra that’s bred into the corporate DNA of his Virgin staff — A-B-C-D — Always Be Connecting Dots. Branson swears that creativity is a practice and if you practice these five behaviors every day, you will improve your skills in creativity and innovation.

Now, if these five behaviors put you in the right direction for improving creativity, then there must be behaviors to avoid. I found eight:

1. Lack of courage—being fearful of taking chances, scared of venturing down new roads, and timid about taking the road less traveled. Fear is the biggest enemy of creativity. You need to be courageous and take chances.
2. Premature judgement—second-guessing and early judgment of outcome severely restrict your ability to generate ideas and freely innovate. Let your initial path expand and follow it to its inevitable destination.
3. Avoidance of failure—you can’t be bold and creative if you fear failure. Creativity requires risk and making mistakes. They’re part of the process.
4. Comparing with others—this robs your unique innovation and imagination. Set your own standards. Be different. Something new is always different.
5. Discomfort with uncertainty—creativity requires letting go and the process doesn’t always behave rationally. Accept that there’s something akin to paranormal in real creativity.
6. Taking criticism personally—feedback is healthy, even if it’s blunt and harsh like 1&2-Star Amazon reviews. Ignore ridicule. Have thick skin, a tough hide, and don’t let criticism get to you.
7. Lack of confidence—a certain level of uncertainty comes with any new venture. Some self-doubt is normal but if it becomes overwhelming and long-lasting, it will shut down your creative abilities. The best way to create is to first connect with your self-confidence.
8. Analysis paralysis—overthinking renders you unable to make a decision because of information overload. “Go with your gut” is the answer to analysis paralysis.

A9

Aside from positive and negative behaviors, there is one overall and outstanding quality that drives successfully creative people.

Passion…

Passion is the secret to creativity. It’s the underlying feature that’s laced the successes of all prominent creators in history.

A10Passion is a term we’ve heard over and over again. Chase you passion, not your pension. But few understand what passion implies. The word comes from the Latin root “pati“ which means “to suffer“. Passion is what perseveres in getting to your goal despite fear, discomfort, unhappiness, and pain. It’s the determination—the motivation—to push through suffering for the sake of the end result. And this passionate feeling of motivation has its source in your brain.

B11A study released in the Journal of Neuroscience identified the ventral striatum, in connection with the amygdala, as the brain’s emotional center that controls the motivation feeling—the higher degree of motivation you feel, the higher the activation will be in this part of your brain. So that intense feeling of motivation you feel when you are in a creative state—that feeling of euphoria when engaging in something you feel truly worthwhile and meaningful to you—is real and is something physiological occurring in your brain. It’s one of the least researched areas of psychology, yet has the biggest impact on your creativity.

I sense you’re wondering if there’s a trick—a method to stimulate your ventral striatum and amygdala—in improving your creativity. Well, yes there is. It’s long been known and practiced by the greats:

Relaxation, along with definite purpose.

Relax. Put your thoughts and desires out to the ether. Relax and wait. Creative ideas will come.

A13I’m a life-long student of the Napoleon Hill Philosophy of Personal Achievement which is the psychology behind the world’s best self-help book, Think and Grow Rich. Hill clearly outlines the path to unlimited creativity which he postulates comes from the source of Infinite Intelligence that we all can tap. In order to get creative ideas from Infinite Intelligence, first you must know what you want, then you must relax and let Infinite Intelligence deliver ideas or answers to you.

Relaxation can be done in many ways. Meditation. Workout. Vacation. Change of environment. Retail therapy. Long showers. Reading. Music. Deep breathing. Long walks in nature. Maybe a stiff drink or two. The methods are varied but whatever you choose, it needs to put you in a headspace receptive to creative ideas.

A11Napoleon Hill didn’t have the anatomical knowledge of how the ventral striatum and amygdala worked, but he sure understood that definite purpose, motivation, and relaxation opened the doors of creativity. Hill described this part of the brain as being like a radio transmitter and receiver which exchanged creative thought with Infinite Intelligence.

So, if I can give one single piece of advice on how to improve your creativity it’s to read, understand, and practice the seventeen principles of success Napoleon Hill outlined in Think and Grow Rich.

Click Here for a previous blog post I wrote on the Napoleon Hill’s science of personal achievement.

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A post script to this DyingWords article—while I was researching this piece, I came across a TED Talk with well-known author, Elizabeth Gilbert. Her presentation on creativity for writers is a fascinating look at the process. Click Here to watch it.