Here is the answer to the last scrambled quote. Walt Disney said:
If you can dream it, you can do it.
On the other hand an old proverb says:
If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.
Which one do you believe?
This is the last scrambled quote and it’s nice that it ends with something worth thinking about!
From the 1987 Wall Street directed by Oliver Stone, comes this gem of a paragraph – I took the liberty of breaking it up into three for readability. It’s the best speech on the general economy in a movie.
Gordon Gekko:
“The richest one percent of this country owns half our country’s wealth, five trillion dollars. One third of that comes from hard work, two thirds comes from inheritance, interest on interest accumulating to widows and idiot sons and what I do, stock and real estate speculation. It’s bullshit.
You got ninety percent of the American public out there with little or no net worth. I create nothing. I own. We make the rules, pal. The news, war, peace, famine, upheaval, the price per paper clip. We pick that rabbit out of the hat while everybody sits out there wondering how the hell we did it. Now you’re not naive enough to think we’re living in a democracy, are you buddy?
It’s the free market. And you’re a part of it. You’ve got that killer instinct. Stick around pal, I’ve still got a lot to teach you.”
What do you think - does this speech have any truth to it?
Sometime ago I read about a guy who said he had a six figure income from selling tee shirts with conservative slogans on cafepress (you can read the article here) . Which got me to thinking about why is it that conservatives spend so much on stuff that basically keeps repeating what they believe.
When I say spend, I don’t mean just money, but also time. Conservative blogs whether on wordpress or elsewhere have dedicated readers. One of the few liberal blogs which has a huge readership is the Huffington Post. If there are other such blogs with a million plus readers, please do let me know.
Now why is that?
One reason could be:
All the conservatives have more money and therefore do not have to work so much and therefore have all the time in the world to congregate on the Internet, whether to promote creationism, now called intelligent design, or to tell each other global warming doesn’t exist or that science and scientists know squat.
But although this may seem to explain why conservative stuff sells, it is not supported by data. Conservatives that spend their time and money are not likely to be richer than progressives, scientists and liberals. At least I can’t find any data that says one is richer than another. I have seen comparisons between red and blue states but every state has both conservatives and liberals so to say blue states are richer and therefore liberals are richer is simply not good logic.
So if that is probably not the answer, then what other reasons could there be?
More tomorrow.
An aside: for all those who think that the globe is cooling (a.k.a. global cooling), Northern Californians now feel the need for fans and air conditioners – ask anyone who can remember 20 years ago or earlier about how cool Northern California has always been. Remember Mark Twain’s famous San Francisco quote?
“the coldest winter I ever saw was the summer I spent in San Francisco”
I should mention that all Twain scholars are not convinced that he actually said this.
Posted in Business, Opinion, Science, Thoughts
Tagged conservatism, creationism, global cooling, global warming, Mark Twain, quotes
Here is the answer to the last quote:
First the top task, then the Internet.
If you can stay off the internet till you finish your number 1 task for the day then you, my friend, can go places. If you are already doing that, then you must already be at a good place:)
The higher the lever of executive, the more likely it is that they observe a hour media fast for an hour or two every morning – no phones, no Internet, no email – just plain work.
A serial entrepreneur also gave this advice but in his book one should finish the top two priorities for the day before turning to the Net.
I’m still trying to take that advice. You?
The shout for today is an inspiring quote from Walt Disney:
Fi oyu nca rmade ti, uyo anc od ti
Wouldn’t this world be a different place if more people believed that and actually lived their dreams?
Posted in Business, Self growth
Tagged common sense, Inspirational, productivity, puzzle, quotes
Here is the answer to the last shout:
The story goes that after Charles M. Schwab took over Bethlehem Steel in early twentieth century, he hired a consultant to help increase the efficiency of his staff. The consultant observed the executives as they worked and then made a recommendation which apparently greatly doubled executive productivity.
The recommendation was:
Plan the evening before.
If the next day is planned the evening before, when one gets into office then they are ready to go. It may seem like common sense now but how many of us manage to even plan the next day, forget about implementing the plan.
Of course in those days communication technology was not as advanced as today so people actually got work done. Which brings me to the scrambled shout for today:
Stifr het pot stsk tnhe eht ennttei
This one is guaranteed to increase your personal productivity and also falls in the realm of common sense.
Here is the answer to the last shout:
The players play only as well as their coach allows.
This re-affirms a fact of life. In many situations we can only do as well as the circumstances permit. On some days even a middling player will hit the zone and play to the level of great. Often it will be on the days that they received encouragement from someone.
In business, it is often the culture encouraged by the boss that decided whether a company, be it large or small, will accomplish what it wants. A brutal culture, where everyone is always afraid of losing their jobs (remember AT&T back in early ninties) will never permit a company to be great. A brutal culture will always keep the company from middling to below average.
But where bosses have the patience to figure out how to leverage the foibles of their players, there my friends, we have the makings of a great company, like Google and word has it, Amazon and Starbucks is on its way.
This holds true for small business too. But the problem with small business examples if you mention them by name then it hurts people and besides nobody knows the firms involved anyway. And you don’t have to take my word for it. Organization behaviour literature is replete with studies that provide evidence about the importance of the boss and the culture in achieving organizational goal.
This next shout is about increasing your personal productivity or how to get more done in a day. The consultant who came up with this one tip earned, I believe several thousand dollars, way back in early twentieth century. Everybody may already know this tip but here it is all the same.
Nalp eht neneign fereob
Here’s the answer to the last shout:
If wine is good, then vino is even better.
Manufacturers and retailers love to use this concept. Clinique and Mac both call Estee Lauder mama. Three different brands with the highly overlapping product lines. Hotels are the same. Guess what is common between Mariott and Fairfield which are two distinct brands in that industry.
And notice how often high end offerings have names that sound exotic or different like Evian and Perrier. A bit like wine and vino;)
The shout today is also related to business and is about a fundamental truth about the boss employee relationship.
het alsepry yapl lnoy sa lewl sa rehti ochac swlola
Here is the answer to yesterday’s shout:
To win, you must begin
And ain’t that thetruth?
The shout for today is a strategy used by a large part of the business world.
Fi eniw si odgo, neth si neve tebret
If you have any quotes you’d like to see here, drop me a line!
This part of the blog is about revving up the mind. It’s simple. Here is an scrambled sentence that turns into an inspiring ( I hope) quote when you unscramble it. The answer will be here tomorrow approximately around the same time.
Ot inw, oyu smtu eignb
I enjoy doing this. Seems to make my mind move faster. And I make up sentences that are either inspirational or have some application for business. This one is bit of both.
