Judging Advice: The (Reverse) Ad Hominem Fallacy

Dharmesh Shah

Founder and CTO at HubSpot and Blogger at OnStartups.com

We're all aware of the ad hominem fallacy, where we misguidedly attack the person instead of his or her ideas.

What we don't always think about is the fact we often apply the ad hominem fallacy in the opposite way much more often – and how that can have just as significant an impact on what we think and, more importantly, what we do.

Here's an example: Imagine you're a recreational cyclist. One day you're out for a ride and you stop at a local coffee shop for a quick snack. Much to your surprise you run into Lance Armstrong. You exchange pleasantries, he asks about your ride, you say it's not going so well, and he starts to give you a little advice.

You mentally recoil. "I'm not going to take advice from this guy," you think. "He confessed to doping. He confessed to lying about it. He's a… he's a… all I know is I'm not listening to anything he has to say."

In short, you discredit the person instead of his ideas.

Your feelings about Lance may be justified, but where his advice is concerned, they also may be shortsighted. Doping aside, Lance has vast knowledge of cycling, fitness, nutrition, training... he knows more these things than just about anyone you are likely ever going to meet.

He could probably give you some great advice, but you won't listen because he's Lance.

That's the ad hominem fallacy at work.

What If You Ran Into Mark Zuckerberg?

Now flip it around. Say you're an MIT student and an aspiring tech entrepreneur. You're hanging out at Voltage Coffee in Cambridge (a hot spot for entrepreneurs). Much to your surprise you run into Mark Zuckerberg. You exchange pleasantries, he asks about your startup, and he starts to give you a little advice.

You hang on his every word. You consider dropping out of school. You wonder whether you should pivot hard into a consumer software company instead of enterprise. Why wouldn't you listen to him? He's Mark-Freaking-Zuckerberg!

That's the ad hominem fallacy in reverse.

I'm not saying Mark's advice wouldn't be outstanding. But… does he truly know what's right for you and your startup? Does he know what's right for you as an entrepreneur? Maybe he does.

But maybe he doesn't.

Often we judge advice based on the person giving it and not on the quality of the ideas.

If we like or respect the person, we value the advice highly. If we don't, we disregard it.

Regardless of who provides it, most advice isn't necessarily wrong. It's just biased.

Take startups. Most entrepreneurs who give advice do so based on their own experiences. They extrapolate from a minimum set of experiences – their own.

Take me. I have some experience with startups (HubSpot is my third company). But I don't know everything – far from it. Ask me for advice and I'll gladly share my thoughts, but my ideas and opinions are based mostly on my experiences and in the broad scheme of things, they are limited. For example, I've never started a company outside of the U.S. — so have no idea what that's like. Nor do I know anything about businesses that rely on advertising for revenue. I have opinions on both of those things, but not well-informed advice.

Whenever you get advice, do your absolute best to strip away the framing that comes with the source – whether positive or negative – and consider information, advice, or ideas based solely on their merits.

The next time you get advice from someone you admire and respect, ask yourself these questions: If I didn't know the person giving the advice, would I think as highly of it? Would the arguments be as convincing?

Would the conclusions be as persuasive?

Never automatically discount a message simply because you discount the messenger. And never automatically accept a message simply because you admire or respect the messenger.

Assessing The Advice-Giver

There are a number of dimensions I measure the advice-giver on:

1. Competency: Are they generally smart and clueful?

2. Context: Do their experiences have some relevance? (Zuckerberg is smart, and successful, but might not be of much help if you're wanting to train for the Olympics)

3. Conflict: Does the person have any motive or bias that makes their advice suspect? Someone that's a genius, with great experience — but who is out to harm you, might not be giving you great advice)

So remember, position, perceived status, and the individual's unique set of experiences should count for something – but not everything.

Edited by: Lawyer Asad

Marilyn Monroe - Hollywood Mind Control Slave?

Marilyn Monroe is possibly the most iconic figure in American culture and the most recognizable sex symbol of all times. However, behind Monroe's photogenic smile was a fragile individual who was exploited and subjected to mind control by powerful handlers. The first part of this two-part series will look at the hidden life of Marilyn, a Hollywood Monarch slave.

Source: The Vigilant Citizen

Marilyn Monroe is the ultimate sex symbol, embodying everything that Hollywood represents: glamour, glitz and sex-appeal. Her iconic sensual blonde persona forever revolutionized the movie industry and, to this day, is greatly influential in popular culture. While Marilyn represents everything that is glamorous about Hollywood, the disturbing story of her private life equally represents everything that is dark in Hollywood. Marilyn was indeed manipulated by high level "mind doctors" who controlled every aspect of her life and caused her to basically lose her mind. Her death, at the young age of 36 is one of the first "mysterious celebrity deaths" in popular culture. While many facts point to a murder, it is still classified as a "probable suicide".

While many biographers explain away Marilyn's hardships with "psychological issues", piecing together facts about her life combined with knowledge of the dark side of Hollywood reveals something a lot darker: Marilyn Monroe was one of the first celebrities subjected to Monarch mind control, a branch of the CIA's MK Ultra program. Through trauma and psychological programming, Monroe a became high level puppet of the shadow elite, even became JFK's Presidential Model.

When Monroe's programming lost its effect and she started to break down, some argue that she was "thrown off the freedom train", an MK ULTRA term for designating slaves that are killed when they are not useful (and potentially dangerous) to their handlers.

The first part of this series of articles will look at the real life and career of Monroe, an isolated girl whose great beauty became a true curse.

Her Early Years

Norma Jeane Mortenson had a difficult and unstable youth. She never knew her father and her mother was mentally unstable and incapable of taking care of her. In My Story, Monroe wrote that she recalled seeing her mother "screaming and laughing" as she was forcibly taken to a State Hospital.

At age 11, Norma Jeane was declared a ward of the state. She lived in a total of 11 foster homes throughout her youth; when there was no foster home available, she sometimes ended up at the Hollygrove Orphanage in Los Angeles. As if moving from one foster home to another wasn't difficult enough, Norma Jeane recalled being treated harshly in several of them. Even worse, she was abused in at least three of them.

For instance, at age 11, Norma Jeane was adopted by her mother's best friend Grace McKee and her new husband, Ervin Silliman "Doc" Goddard. There, "Doc" repeatedly sexually assaulted her, which forced Norma Jeane to move out. In another case, when she was in middle-school, Norma Jean was sent to her great-aunt's house in Compton, California. There, one of her great-aunt's sons abused her, forcing her, again, to move out. Here is another account of abuse:

"She told of being whipped by one foster mother for having touched 'the bad part' of her body. Another more serious incident occurred when she was eight. One evening a lodger she called Mr. Kimmel (Marilyn said later that this was not his real name) asked her to come into his room and locked the door behind her. He put his arms around her. She kicked and struggled. He did what he wanted, telling her to be a good girl. (In a later interview Marilyn stated that the abuse involved fondling).

When he let her out, he handed her a coin and told her to buy herself an ice cream. She threw the coin in his face and ran to tell her foster mother what happened, but the woman wouldn't listen.

'Shame on you,' her foster mother said. 'Mr. Kimmel's my star boarder.'

Norma Jean went to her room and cried all night.

Marilyn said she felt dirty and took baths days after it happened to feel clean. Such repeated attempts to feel clean through showers or baths are typical behavior for victims of assault.

Marilyn said she began to stutter after the incident and reverted to it at times of stress. When she told one interviewer about the abuse, she began stuttering.

The evidence points to the fact that she was an abused child whose early sexualization led to her inappropriate behavior as an adult.

Norma Jeane's unstable and sometimes traumatic youth made her a perfect candidate for Monarch mind control. Being a ward of the state, she had no stable family.

"Some children live in foster homes, or with adopted parents, or in orphanages, or with caretakers and guardians. Because these children are at the mercy of the non-related adults, these types of children frequently are sold to become mind-controlled slaves of the intelligence agencies."
- Fritz Springmeier, The Illuminati Formula to Create a Mind Control Slave

Norma Jeane's background made her a prime target for Beta Programming (also known as Kitten programming). Being an attractive and charismatic woman looking to be part of show business, she also had the perfect profile for it.

Contact with Occult Hollywood

Before becoming famous, Norma Jeane went by the name of Mona and worked as a stripper at a Burlesque house in Los Angeles. There, she came in contact with Anton LaVey, the man who would later found the highly influential Church of Satan. According to Springmeier, LaVey was an MK handler and Monroe became one of his "Kitten" slaves.

LaVey's biography also mentions an "affair" with Monroe, which was probably more than that.

Around the same time period, LaVey was involved with another actress, one that was known for being the "working man's Marilyn Monroe": Jayne Mansfield. The relationship between the two was also described as an "affair", but the reality was a lot darker.

Marilyn Monroe and Jayne Mansfield had a lot in common. Both were "blond bombshells" (neither were natural blondes) and are credited for "sexualizing" Hollywood. Both were Playboy playmates, both had an "affair" with Anton LaVey and both had an "affair" with Robert F. Kennedy and John F. Kennedy (the "affair" was actually them being Presidential Models). Finally, both died in their 30s.

A Star Living Like an Inmate

Another common point between Monroe and Mansfield is that they were both part of the Blue Book Model Agency. It is there that Norma Jean metamorphosed into the iconic Marilyn Monroe.

Industry insiders convinced Norma Jeane to undergo aesthetic surgery, to change her name to Marilyn Monroe and to change her hair color to platinum blonde. Monroe's sensual, "dumb blond" persona allowed her to land roles in several movies which began a clear culture shift in Hollywood.

Norma Jeane used Marilyn Monroe as a stage name for several years, but in 1956, she accomplished a strange but symbolic move: She legally changed her name to Marilyn Monroe. The change reflected many sad truths about her personal life: In mind-control terms, the changing of her name to Marilyn Monroe represents the suppression of her "core persona" in order to only allow her programmed alter persona to exist. Marilyn was only what "they" wanted her to be.

As several biographies have revealed, Marilyn had little to no personal freedom. She had no contact with her family, and her handlers isolated her in order to further control her and to avoid "real" people from helping her to realize that she was being manipulated. The only people that she was in contact with were her "psychologists" and her handlers.

Marilyn was also constantly under high surveillance. Years after her death, an incredible amount of surveillance equipment was found in one of her homes.

"In 1972, actress Veronica Hamel and her husband became the new owners of Marilyn's Brentwood home. They hired a contractor to replace the roof and remodel the house, and the contractor discovered a sophisticated eavesdropping and telephone tapping system that covered every room in the house. The components were not commercially available in 1962, but were in the words of a retired Justice Department official, "standard FBI issue." This discovery lent further support to claims of conspiracy theorists that Marilyn had been under surveillance by the Kennedys and the Mafia. The new owners spent $100,000 to remove the bugging devices from the house." - Source: IMDB

Under the Spell of Mind Doctors

In 1956, Marilyn converted to Judaism and married her third husband, screenwriter Arthur Miller. At this point, the only people in Monroe's life were her husband and her acting teacher Lee Strasberg and her psychiatrists Margaret Hohenberg, Marianne Kris and Ralph Greenson.

The ultimate proof that these individuals were the ONLY people in Marilyn's life is that they inherited most of her fortune. Lee Strasberg alone inherited 75% of her estate while Dr. Kris obtained 25%.

After her death, Marilyn's Will was contested due to her being under "undue influence" of her handlers.

Another proof of the excessive control of "mind doctors" on Marilyn's life is the fact that her psychiatrist Ralph Greenson was the one who found Monroe dead. Why was he at her house late at night? As we'll see in the next part of this series of articles, the circumstances of her death are incredibly suspicious.

In short, as it is the case for most Monarch slaves, Marylin's handlers were in charge of every aspect of her life. Contact with family members was totally forbidden.

Disconnected from her family and with virtually no friends, Monroe was visiting therapists almost daily. Were these visits actually programming sessions? One thing is for sure, as the visits augmented in frequency, Monroe became worse. One particularly hunting account is the "Surgeon Story", a text written by Monroe herself.

Edited by: Lawyer Asad

Neuro-marketing: Can Science Predict What You Buy?

Advertisers have long used science to peer into consumers' brains; today 'neuromarketing' has given them the power to delve into our subconscious, finds Alex Hannaford

By Alex Hannaford / Source: The Telegraph

In 2008, a team of scientists in Germany published a study showing how the brain unconsciously prepares our decisions: that several seconds before we consciously decide what we're going to do, its outcome can be predicted by looking at unconscious activity in our grey matter.

The researchers, from the Max Planck Institute in Leipzig, told participants in the study that they could freely decide if they wanted to press a button with their left or right hands, whenever they wanted, but they had to remember at which time they felt they had made up their mind. They found that it was possible to predict from their brain signals which option they would choose seven seconds before they consciously made their decision.

"It's all very Minority Report," Steve Sands says, referring to the Tom Cruise film in which a special police department known as "PreCrime" tracks down criminals based on knowledge provided by psychics. "But we're not too far from that now."

In fact, it's incredible how close Sands is. For the past 20 years, from his lab in El Paso, Texas, he's been using technology to look inside our heads and show what consumers really feel, as opposed to what marketers think we feel. Using EEG tests (essentially a plastic swimming cap complete with electrodes to measure brain signals), functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI, which measures brain activity by looking at changes in blood flow), and eye-tracking technology, neuromarketing, as it's known, has completely revolutionised the worlds of advertising and marketing.

Sands sits opposite me, looking relaxed in a white shirt and jeans. In his office there's a framed 1995 cover of Newsweek on the wall with the headline: "The new science of the brain: why men and women think differently".

"That's the first cap I made," he says of the EEG-outfitted woman on the cover. Sands used to work with rhesus monkeys in the psychology department at the University of Texas. When his lab closed down he started Neuroscan, which became one of the world's largest suppliers of EEG equipment to research scientists. After selling Neuroscan, Sands and his team started to use the same machines to look at the brain's response to advertising.

He recently finished a one-and-a-half year project for POPAI, an international trade association, for which Sands's researchers used eye-tracking and EEG technology to gain insight into shopper habits. The results were fascinating. Forget scrawled shopping lists on the back of an envelope: Sands found that the vast majority (76 per cent) of US grocery shoppers make their purchase decisions in-store, and that shoppers using non-cash payment methods are most likely to make impulse purchases. So shelf-placement and in-store marketing are more crucial than ever.

Sands's team would pop a pair of eye-tracking glasses on their volunteers (which were in turn wired up to a MacBook Air, carried in a rucksack), then send them off around the store to do their shopping. The researchers then waded through three terabytes of data and analysed 80,000 eye movements from the shoppers that agreed to take part in the study. Sands says a single eye movement takes just 200 milliseconds, the time a product in store gets to persuade a shopper to buy it. "And it only takes one eye movement to change their behaviour," he says.

The researchers noted what Sands calls "approach-avoidance" taking place in the sweets and chocolate aisle, and that the eyes sought out the shopper's favourite sweets, even though they may have decided not to succumb to buying them. "Twenty per cent of eye movements relate to what you're going to buy. The rest are alternatives," Sands says. "We'd watch them pick up a packet of doughnuts, put them back, then walk away. Some came back later and put them in their shopping cart."

Sands says one interesting observation was that while the fizzy drinks aisle was the most organised in the entire supermarket, the sweets and chocolate aisle was the least: what Sands describes as "a potpourri of different sizes, shapes and brands that makes a lot of noise".

"Our brain is looking for something simple, and it's happiest when it finds what it's looking for," he says. "Candy is unusually noisy. The industry doesn't organise itself as well as the canned drinks one does. Visual clutter really does matter. All you're doing is frustrating the brain."

The neuromarketing industry isn't just interested in what makes shoppers choose the products they do in the supermarket. Much of their work is done before they've even walked through the door.

Each year, Sands Research screens the commercials that have aired during the Super Bowl, the FA Cup of American football, to a test group of around 30 people. As in other tests, his team wires each person up to an EEG machine to monitor their brain signals, and each wears a pair of eye-tracking glasses so the Sands researchers can see what, specifically, they're focusing on.

Super Bowl ads are the most sought-after and expensive slots in the industry. In 2011, among the companies vying for hearts, minds, and cold, hard cash, were Coca-Cola and Volkswagen, both of which came out with brilliant spots. Coca-Cola's featured two border guards in different military uniforms at some godforsaken desert outpost, who bond over a bottle of Coke.

As for Volkswagen, their ad for the VW Passat saw a pint-size Darth Vader walking down the hallway of his suburban home, attempting to use "The Force" on his parents' exercise bike, the washing machine — even the family dog. When his father arrived home in his Passat, the boy was almost ready to admit defeat: he ran outside and tried one last time to use his powers on the car, while inside the house his dad saw what he was trying to do and started the car's ignition with the remote control. The boy turned around, astonished that The Force worked.

Of all the ads Sands has ever tested, The Force was, to use the American vernacular, off the charts, achieving the highest "neuro-engagement score" ever. Adweek named it 2011's best commercial; it won two Gold Lions at Cannes. Before the game even began it had attracted 12 million YouTube views. At the time of writing it's had almost 58 million.

The man behind the advert was Deutsch LA's Doug Van Praet. He says Sands's research demonstrated that The Force ad had an inordinate capacity to engage the brain. "It galvanised our attention, our engagement and our emotion, and it turned out to be a very powerful predictor of end-market performance." As he writes in his book Unconscious Branding: How Neuroscience Can Empower (and Inspire) Marketing, "it drove significant increases in purchase consideration, upped traffic to the VW website by half, and contributed to a hugely successful sales year for the brand."

Amazingly, it's taken big business 20-plus years to realise how effective neuromarketing can be. British psychologist Dr David Lewis-Hodgson founded one of the earliest firms, Mindlab International, in the UK in 1988. One of his early "products" was Mindscan, a piece of software which measured the brain's responses to marketing messages, working on the premise: "What can't speak, can't lie."

Hollywood's interest was piqued by a 2012 study by Innerscope Research. They showed 40 film trailers to more than 1,000 people, measuring their heart rate, breathing, how much they sweat and motion responses – as well as what they focused on using eye-tracking technology.

Using the results, they found they could predict box office hits. According to Fast Company magazine, "If a film's trailer fails to reach a specific emotional engagement threshold (65), it will very likely generate less than $10 million in revenue on opening weekend." But a film whose trailer exceeds an engagement threshold of 80 "will very likely earn more than $20 million the first weekend". Studios such as Fox and Paramount have now started taking neuromarketing very seriously.

And in January, the research agency Millward Brown announced its clients Unilever and Coca-Cola would be using facial coding technology – where emotions are tracked in facial expressions – in all their advertising testing in 2013. According to the company, this would "automatically interpret viewers' emotional and cognitive states, moment by moment".

As well as gauging an audience's reaction to Super Bowl commercials and tracking shoppers in supermarkets, Sands Research also tests ads before they've aired, letting agencies know what works and what doesn't. "By looking at the EEG readout we can tell whether they're disengaged or engaged," Sands says. "And we've found that storyline wins every time. If you want to lose someone's attention, have several storylines in your commercial."

In a small office adjoining his, Sands sits me in front of two computer monitors and hooks me up to a pair of eye-tracking glasses. On the left-hand screen I can see my eyes, with a target indicating where my pupils are as they flit from left to right; on the right-hand screen is an ad for the Hyundai Sonata hybrid. The places on the screen where my eyes land are denoted by a frenetic green dot that jumps around at incredible speeds. When we play back the recording of my viewing session, I seem to have focused on exactly what the advertisers intended: initially the various characters in the commercial, but by far the longest spell is devoted to eyeing up the car itself.

Only when he places an EEG cap on the head of his test subjects, however, can Sands really tell whether they like what they're seeing. He says he once looked at an ad for a telecoms company and the panel he showed it to had such a negative reaction he had to tell the agency to think again. "There were two competing storylines," he says. "Young creatives think they're multitaskers, and this influences how they design things. And it doesn't work. Simplicity wins every time."

Using EEG, Sands records the electrical activity of the brain along the scalp. In ads that really engage an audience, a large portion of the cerebral cortex, the part of the brain that plays a role in memory, attention, awareness and thought, is activated. Sands says that during portions of an ad that "work", the frontal lobe, which deals with emotion and processes information, lights up. On the computer screen, Sands sees a line, much the same as you see on a heart monitor, which shows the exact moments during the commercial that different parts of the brain are engaged.

Sands's company has also been using EEG technology to gauge taste and smell. "From our experience, people usually tell market researchers what they think they want to hear. We're social animals and we don't want to offend anyone." But by looking at the brain's response to scents, Sands can tell exactly which fragrance you prefer.

Van Praet acknowledges that neuromarketing is not without its pitfalls; that in studying the human brain, we have to be comfortable with paradox and contradictions. For example, he says you can like an ad and it can create a positive emotion, but if it doesn't leave you with an appropriate and corresponding set of associations and emotions for that product, it's no use to the company trying to sell it. He gives an example: Quiznos, the US sandwich chain that now has some locations in the UK. "They ran an ad that featured cartoonlike rodents, and it was funny as heck," Van Praet says. "It was very likeable and engaging and people remembered it. But there's a bad association between rats and food. It wasn't very successful."

Edited by: Lawyer Asad

How to Experience the Dream of Life

By Jason and Skye Mangrum, 
Authors of Uberman! Almost Super Human

In this life, there are two kinds of beings…

There are victims, and things happen to them. And there are creators, who create as they observe.

At the deepest, sub-nuclear level, we are one. There is no separation, as drops of ocean water existing in an infinite ocean… a boundless sea of possibility…

All we have ever experienced has lived inside the visual cortex of the brain. The outward projection is an illusion.

Our sense of touch is but an electrical impulse… A wave of focused light energy with information in the carrier-wave… a set of instructions for the brain to decode.

To feel. To see. To smell. To taste… these are illusions. Things are not as they seem. This is the veil shrouding the great mystery of life and creation… of consciousness.

You are existing right now, in your Mind.

These words you are reading, are in your brain, as every sight, every sound, every texture, every smell… but it goes deeper. The body is a projection of the Mind.

Though these concepts are difficult to grasp, they are the truth of your existence. All you experience, must be filtered through the Mind to be perceived.

The entire universe is quite literally within you.

You already understand this on some level, for when you dream, the Mind constructs vast landscapes, places actors and extras, props and plots into your reality…

They all seem external; outside of you, don't they?

And yet, you've lived your entire life knowing they too were illusion, as you were comfortable in your bed… your body in a state of deep sleep, resting and relaxing.

Those who "wake up" while in the dream, realize they gain an amazing amount of control over it.

When lucid, things no longer happen to them; they create all they observe… and can begin to direct their dreams in any way they desire… the dream world becomes their playground… they become creator.

So the act of using Mind Power is learning to "wake up" in this dream world we call physical reality. To realize that if we are one, and all we have ever seen, heard, tasted, smelled or touched has been an illusion within an electrical matrix of information and light energy…

Then we can go lucid while in this waking-state…
We can wake up and understand our place and purpose…
And we can use our Mind Power to control this dream.
If you have a Mind, you can use your Mind's Power.

It is but a term we can use to describe the amazing phenomena we can observe as a result of utilizing the power and capabilities of our Mind, to its full potential.

Most people are so "stuck"… so caught up in this physical dream and all its external affairs that when they begin to use Mind Power, they try to change the external world…

They want a bigger house, a fancier car, more money in the bank… a love relationship… a trip around the world.

So often, they have great difficulty in manifesting these things into their dream… their inner-world remains unchanged, and so cannot be projected by the illusion into the external reality they are experiencing, inside the visual cortex of their brains.

It's like trying to change the reflection in the mirror without changing its source, you.

But once it is announced to all aspects of the Mind… proclaimed from the inner-mountaintops of your highest being that YOU are creating as you observe, on every level and in every way… then you gain access to the control room… you can now create your reality.

Outer illusions seem to fade away into the vast sea of infinite potential… as does any concept of limitation.

So the real use of Mind Power, is using it to change your inner-world; the inner-qualities you wish to possess… the ones that create winners, masters of their destiny…

Self-confidence, greater focus, better memory… an open imagination, strength of Iron Will… higher intelligence… access to the deepest dimensions from within…

These are the hidden keys to the Kingdom, and they are already present inside of you… waiting for you to discover them and activate them fully and consciously.

For once these inner qualities are developed; exercised and mastered… you can truly begin to Know Yourself.

All the external things you want begin flowing to you.

You become the success you have been seeking, because you are now fully controlling the waking-dream world.

You are now manifesting from the inside-out.

As you create in your Mind, you are using its power to "out-picture" what you observe in the physical world.

But seek first these inner-qualities, the real treasure.

This is a meditation.

The Dream of Life and How to Life It

Be in this moment, and observe what you are creating.

Know that it is not what it seems to be… as your entire concept of space and time are both as false, and as real as the space and time you experience while dreaming.

To the Mind, there is no difference.

And so to you, the conscious, intelligent awareness inhabiting a temporary body… you are dreaming.

But this dream allows you to have anything you want.

It is a continuous dream, so you can experience it fully.

You are creating, and you are observing your creation.

It is both in the same moment, since there is no time.

Awaken and learn to operate with this understanding and you will become an active creator of your reality.

All Mind Powers begin and are developed from this secret.

Mind Power techniques are instructions you can consciously give to the brain that allow you to unlock the Mind's power.

There truly are no limits, but the ones you create for yourself and reinforce through your beliefs, be them for or against you.

So expand your boundaries… become boundless in your thoughts and actions, as an infinite sea of potential energy only knows abundance.

Then, you are using Mind Power to its fullest capabilities.

This manifesto is also a meditation. As you read it, your understanding of the world inside you manifests with crystal clarity.

You become the NOW. You immerse yourself into this moment and are awe-struck by the immensity of it all… the wonder of your creation.

For you ARE the infinite sea of potential, experiencing itself in every conceivable and inconceivable way… in every life of every individual… not just human, but all of creation is within you.

Edited by: Lawyer Asad

Lessons from Unexpected Places

Kat Cole

President, Cinnabon, Inc. at Focus Brands

Coworkers, students, peers, media and friends often ask me, "What advice do you have to help others be successful?" My response is, "success is something that you have to define for yourself, and it is almost completely up to you whether or not you achieve it."

I went from growing up in a divorced family & single parent household, being in high school, working at Hooters, going to college, traveling globally for work, dropping out of college, getting promoted to the corporate world all by the age of 20. I remember becoming a serial volunteer, painting, traveling, living and loving life to the fullest, being in and out of relationships, seeing my sisters grow up, becoming a speaker, taking big professional risks, and becoming a Vice President of a large, multi-national company by the age of 26. I recall moving up in the for-profit corporate world, leading non-profit groups, getting into a serious relationship, traveling internationally, getting involved in global humanitarian work, spending time in Rwanda, getting my MBA, changing jobs to become President of Cinnabon at 33, and most recently working with friends to help villages elevate themselves out of poverty in Ethiopia.

There are so many lessons applicable to my personal life and business from that journey so far, and I'm still learning...every minute. Those lessons have helped me realize that my definition of success is about helping people, communities, brands, businesses and even countries realize they are capable of more than they know, so they can make a positive difference in their world. Success for me is also about expressing gratitude and making people proud, especially the many who have given me chances, coaching and opportunities along the way. The definition of success is incredibly personal and should be set by you.

Looking back, I realize that some of my most powerful influences and inspirations on this topic as well as leadership, living a fulfilled life, and building a strong business came from the most unexpected places in life – from villages in Africa, from little sayings my mom had, from listening to others' successes and mistakes and definitely from making my own.

Pay attention as you go through life; the most powerful lessons to help you and your company succeed are around you every day. Here are a few that have helped me, and I hope they can help you make the most of opportunities as you move through business and life.

If Not Me, Who? If Not Now, When? Ask yourself this; it helps you step up and speak up when you need to. This has guided me through business and personal life – just as it did my mom.

You Define You. Never forget where you came from as a person or as a company, but remember, you are not solely defined by your circumstances or your history. You can reinvent yourself many times over if needed. Nothing about my background would suggest I would have ended up where I did, and where our company is today is notably different that where we were headed just 3 years ago. Write your own narrative, or someone else (or the competition in business) will write it for you instead.

I am constantly inspired by so many stories out there of people and companies doing great things despite the odds not being in their favor. I believed my mom when she said, "you can do anything". Not only did I believe her, but I helped others believe it too. Bringing that mindset to a company, that we can achieve big things, has been a powerful tool that drives real results.

No Borders, No Boundaries. When I was 19, I was asked to go open the company's first restaurant in Australia. I had never been out of the state of Florida, had never been on a plane (or any other type of mass transit for that matter), and of course, I did not have a passport. But none of that stopped me. I said yes, and then figured it out. The only boundaries to your growth and experiences (or that of your company or brand) are those you mentally put up, or those you allow others to put upon you.

We use this mindset at our company, just because we haven't been in a certain channel or showed up to the market a certain way, is not reason enough to miss taking a chance on something new.

Be Curious. Have a Constant Pursuit of Education, and Have a Bias for Action. The most creative and accomplished people and companies I know have this in common. They are constantly learning at every opportunity; they know they don't know it all. They ask, "why, how, why not?" And, when they get the answers, they share what they learn and do something about it. Your mind and your organization's intellectual capital is something others can never take away – feed it.

Volunteer. Give. …for the job, for the community, for those in need. We all need a hand up some times, and giving of yourself and your company is one of the best ways to learn, grow, see new opportunities and make a difference. The reason I was asked to open that first international restaurant was because I raised my hand to help with jobs others didn't want. After about a year, I had worked every job in the building. Who knew that would make me the top candidate for international travel, which ultimately would change my life.

Companies can get built the same way; they raise their hands and give of their strengths to their communities and step up for unexpected opportunities. They end up having more meaningful connections with their consumers, building brand credibility and loyalty and creating new growth vehicles over time.

Life is most about relationships – if nothing else. It doesn't matter how smart you are, how much money you have, what a great school you went to or how long your business has been around; if you can't build meaningful relationships with peers, strangers, new customers and your communities and work well with others to influence them, your other attributes can only go so far.

Even the coolest inventions and biggest companies founded by one person only grow because of the team they pulled together, and you can only lead when others want to be on your team. Be kind, take pride in helping others, and keep your word - as a person and as a company.

Life is full of surprises (and karma), so try to be your best self as an individual and as a brand or company at every opportunity. I know I wouldn't be where I am without relationships with so many great people who have helped me along the way. 

There are many other lessons to share, but I'll save those for another post. So keep this final point in mind.

You have to live, love, work and build your business and brand like there is no tomorrow, because there are no guarantees in life. If you want to change something, say something or do something, do it. Don't wait for someone else to do it for you, allow someone else (or a competitor in the market) to do it instead of you, or simply miss the opportunity. The world needs awesome, ambitious, kind, curious, creative people and companies to step up and speak up to continue to make it a better place to live.

The great lessons from the most unexpected places all echo the same thing: You have the power to make all the difference the world needs.

Edited by: Lawyer Asad

7 Modern Day Ways To Leave A Lasting Impression

Linda Coles

Building Relationships Online and Offline. | Speaker | Author | Trainer | LinkedIn Influencer | Fig Enthusiast

Dale Carnegie wrote a fantastic book back in 1936 that really spelled out How to Win Friends and Influence People, and in my view it was so successful and continues to be successful because it contains such a lot of common sense about treating others how we ourselves like to be treated.

Unfortunately, we sometimes forget our common sense due to work and other pressures, and times have changed a little too, so I have put together a quick list with a few examples of both "old" and modern day areas to focus on to leave a lasting impression and be remembered for the right reasons.

1. Pay someone a compliment

If there is a genuine reason to pay someone a compliment, make their day and tell them. The person wearing a great shirt or a nice perfume will always appreciate a positive compliment, and that compliment will stay with them all day. I wear the best shoes I can afford and they get noticed, very often making the topic of conversation.

2. Say thanks often

Show your appreciation by saying thanks when someone holds the door open for you, or goes out of their way to do something. When did you last thank your partner for being awesome or your staff for doing a great job? Appreciation is one of the main drivers for someone staying committed in a relationship or job, don't forget to tell them.

3. Give generously

If you are not the type to get stuck in when manual labor is needed, how else can you give generously? A fellow Rotarian who didn't have the time for the physical work, gave his expertise generously instead, allowing the club and other charities to benefit from his experience and knowledge.

4. Do what you say you will

Don't let others think badly of you by not doing what you said you will, even the smallest of things, someone may well be relying on you.

5. Smile

I am a big believer in this. The chap that held the door open for me with a beaming smile made me feel like a princess. How can you pass on such great feelings to others to make their day?

6. Use their name

What was the name of the barista that made your coffee this morning? Next time you order, thank them as usual and follow up with their name, it will be noticed. Using their name really is Dale 101, "the single sweetest sound in any language is a person's name".

7. Follow up

The drain layer that came to give me a quote didn't follow up until 2 months after he visited. Needless to say, someone else did the job and he lost out. Do you follow up 100% of the time in a timely manner before your competitor gets in? You will stand out just by following up every time because so few people do it.

For comments: What else would you add to this list, old or new? How do you leave a lasting impression on others?

Linda Coles is the author of "Learn marketing with social media in 7 days" (Wiley) and is an author, speaker and trainer on building relationships. She lives in New Zealand on a fig orchard. You can get a complimentary sample of a chapter of her book by registering for her newsletter.

Edited by: Lawyer Asad

Leadership Lesson from Dravid the Goliath

Viren Rasquinha

CEO at Olympic Gold Quest, Former Captain of Indian Hockey Team

Rajasthan Royals as a whole is greater than the sum of its parts. This is no exaggeration as the team has performed way beyond its potential in this year's IPL. The credit should go to captain Rahul Dravid.

Dravid knew that a majority of the players with him had little star value. He knew the onus was on him to transform each one of them into a match-winner. Look at how he has managed that over the last two years.

Dravid hasn't merely lead from the front in inspiring his lot. He created an environment for talent to flourish. He was aware that there was a big gap between potential and performance. He empowered players to take ownership and responsibility and encouraged them to show leadership qualities to maximise their potential. That inspired everyone to perform at the same time. That remains Dravid's greatest success.

One way of doing this is to make the juniors feel comfortable in a team environment. In most team conversations, the seniors are so lost in their little world of planning and thought that the youngsters are treated as fringe elements. It does not help anyone's cause if power centres are restricted to the top few. Dravid's method was all embracing: whether he talked to individuals or the team, he ensured that the juniors were given due importance. These players were allowed to think and translate thoughts into action. Success was met with encouragement, a wrong result was used to show them the right way.

In an interview, Ajinkya Rahane pointed out that Dravid and Shane Watson brought the best out in the team. That would not have happened without two other factors that Dravid has diligently worked on. One, equipping a player to fend for himself and two, keeping their strategies simple. Sport is all about decision-making under pressure and Dravid created an atmosphere where each player was encouraged to overcome pressure on his own. He constantly showed them the way with his performance as a batsman, fielder and leader and when the responsibility was transferred to the team members, they performed as a unit.

Was Dravid lucky to get a team which listened to him? I don't think so. His motivational skills are too good to demand conditions conducive to him. A good captain or coach creates an environment where a player listens to them. Dravid commands the respect of Rajasthan Royals. I am sure he will inspire the players in such a way that they will continue to rally round him.

The spot-fixing scandal has pushed the team into a dilemma. Its credibility questioned, the team is in a state of shock. This is another test for Dravid and his team. This is where they will have to fall back on another golden attribute of team sport called trust. They had this virtue in generous proportions and it is time these professionals proved once again that they would not allow adversity to destroy it.

(As told to V Narayan Swamy of Times of India. This appeared as an article in the Times of India Sports Edition on 22nd May 2013. Images courtesy Times of India and First Post)

Brought to you by: Lawyer Asad

The Winning Ways of a Great Leader

Michael Moritz

Chairman, Sequoia Capital

Manchester United's Longtime Boss Retires

When Sir Alex Ferguson waved to the crowd at a stadium just outside Birmingham (U.K.) this Sunday, he was ostensibly saying goodbye to the most distinguished coaching career in the history of professional soccer, but in reality he was bringing down the curtain on one of the great displays of leadership in the past quarter of a century.

Alex Ferguson took over the role of Manager of Manchester United when Ronald Reagan was in the White House, Margaret Thatcher lived at 10 Downing Street, Deng Xiaoping was undoing the calamity of the Cultural Revolution and Cristiano Ronaldo was just starting to cut his teeth. In the annals of American sports, Ferguson's accomplishments dwarf those of Vince Lombardi who coached the Green Bay Packers for nine years, or John Wooden who led the UCLA basketball team for 17 years. (In top-level American sports only Mike Krzyzewski's run at Duke is longer.) Ferguson's 27 year run at the helm outstrips Steve Jobs' 14-year reign as CEO of Apple or Andy Grove's 11 years as CEO tenure of Intel.

When it comes to business, Manchester United and, for that matter, every other high-profile soccer club, are tiny concerns. (Manchester United's revenues are about one third of one percent of Apple's). Yet the challenge of transforming a rotting entity (which was Manchester United's condition in the mid 1980s) into a winning franchise that has lasted for more than two decades – especially under the phosphorous glare of the media – is a task accomplished by very few leaders of any sort of organization.

The performance of most soccer managers is closely correlated with the amount of money that team owners lavish on players. Most managers, just like people who "actively manage" mutual funds, don't outperform their comparable indices. Not so with Ferguson who wracked up a record, accumulated over four decades, that for his fellow managers will seem like an unsurpassable bogey.

Ferguson arrived at Old Trafford, Manchester United's home, after spending 30 years as a player and manager of three clubs in Scotland (East Stirlingshire, St Mirren and Aberdeen.) He inherited a team of dissolutes and a club that had not won a significant trophy in many years. By the time he retired, Manchester United had won 38 pieces of what the British commentators so charmingly refer to as "silverware" – including 13 premier league titles, and two European championships – and the stadium had been expanded to accommodate over 76,000 fans.

Ferguson is part radical (he was a trade union leader in his younger days), longtime supporter of the Labour party (he was close to Tony Blair) but also has a deep belief in conservative virtues – application, hard work and loyalty. He says, "I'm a tough bugger but I'm a fair bugger," and that he is. Raised in Govan, which at the time was one of the world's great shipbuilding venues, his childhood was spent in a milieu, still marked by the strict rationing of World War II, outside toilets and no televisions or telephones. It's far removed from today's multi-racial Britain where every boy expects to own a pair of cleats and has a Facebook account.

Ferguson is a man of subtlety and charm (even though soccer referees and league officials with puffed-up feathers have frequently been on the receiving ends of explosive tirades). He is enormously curious, a wonderful raconteur (with a trove of stories drawn from a life spent with characters brimming with testosterone) and a man of great kindness. His interests extend far beyond soccer and encompass political history, British art (including the great mid-century painter, Stanley Spencer), wine (especially some of the more rarified French varietals) and the breeding of racehorses.

Like all great leaders, Ferguson has led an unbalanced life built upon an unquenchable desire to win. For him, everything revolved around soccer, which has become a year round activity. Daily practice, scouting missions, match preparations, romancing of young players (and their parents), negotiating with agents and sparring with the press (an increasingly tiresome task for Ferguson). In hotel rooms his television was always tuned to soccer and, no matter what he was doing, he was keeping an eye on a competitor. His winning ways came not from the match-day appearances but from studious application conducted far from public view. Consistent, relentless preparation was the foundation on which his record stands. It's no coincidence that he had a special fondness for players who would put in extra time at practice.

Under Ferguson, Manchester United was an organization that spoke with one voice. It was a voice of authority, drawn from years of experience. In his case, it was expressed in a style of attacking soccer and a refusal to dwell on setbacks. Many of his victories came in the final minutes of nail-biting games with squads taught that nothing is impossible.

Though Ferguson made his share of big money signings, he knew that great organizations are built from within. It's no accident that several of Manchester United's best players of the last 20 years have been schooled within the club since they were in their early teens. Ferguson had a knack for improving and tuning these apprentices. The prime example is Ryan Giggs, signed at the age of 14, and still playing a quarter of a century later. For the youngster, Ferguson was The Guvn'r, the Boss, the Gaffer, the Paterfamilias and, for many players, the Father figure they never had. The approach at Manchester United stands in stark contrast to other clubs in the Premier League, where mega-stars have been assembled by the hasty application of oodles of money from Oligarchs or Emirs.

While Ferguson, like all great leaders a part-time psychologist, knows how to minister to the insecure, chivvy the slackers, enhance the strong and tend to the mercurial, there has never been any confusion that club, team and organization comes before the needs of any individual. Hence the expulsions of David Beckham (who had too much of an affinity for make-up), Cristiano Ronaldo (who had a yearning to play in Madrid) and Roy Keane, the longtime club captain, who, incidentally, bears a striking resemblance to Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and had made 326 appearances for the club, before making the fatal mistake of making derogatory comments about some teammates. The latest head-on-the-block is Wayne Rooney, the barrel-chested Liverpudlian, whose infatuation with himself has been too much for Ferguson.

All the while Ferguson had to deal with the unpredictability of outside stakeholders. About eight years ago, an ugly spat with some Irish racehorse breeders, who owned about a third of the Club, resulted in its sale to the Glazer family of Miami. At the time, Manchester United was a publicly traded company with healthy profits. The Glazers, who operate their own down-market version of the buyout business, have since sucked out over $1 billion dollars to either pay interest on the debt beneath which they buried the club or pocket for themselves. This dwarfs the total amount Ferguson has spent on buying players during his entire time at the Club.

Ferguson left the field on Sunday with his team as strong – and young – as ever: the best bequest that anyone can leave a successor. He had already encouraged United fans to support his successor in tough times as well as good. Like Ferguson, Manchester United's new manager, David Moyes, is a hardened Scot whose heavy accent sometimes makes him just as difficult to understand.

Meantime, Manchester City, who with the exception of their Championship winning season in 2012, have long operated in United's shadow just appointed a new Manager. Brian Kidd will be the 19th Manager appointed at Manchester City during Ferguson's time at Old Trafford. In his younger days, Kidd was a United Player. He then spent a decade serving as Assistant Manager to the man whose ghost will always be in the dugout -- Alex Ferguson.

Edited by: Lawyer Asad