The Miracle Posting

We search the Internet because we're looking for solutions to our problems. We find an interesting blog posting, somewhat thought-provoking, that we really enjoy reading. Our day continues normally and when it's over we fall asleep, still concerned about our situation. While asleep a miracle occurs. The underlying issues creating our problems resolve themselves. The problems will begin to go away once we wake-up; but there's still one thing wrong. We're asleep and have no idea the miracle started by the blog posting has happened.


How do we find out about the miracle the next day? What could we do differently that would show us indicators? What would those indicators be and what could we do to nurture and speed them along?

 These are the questions asked by Solution Focused Brief Therapy (SFBT) practitioners, a practice commonly used to help those struggling with personal issues that has equal value in an entrepreneur's life. The Active Investor doesn't get a free pass. That investment in our own business or professional career comes with significant problems along with the freedom and financial benefits. It's our business. How do we wake-up in the morning and deal with it?

Frequently the best answers are not in the language of the problem. They are hard to see because you have to look in non-problem places to find them. That's a lot of places, so we need to narrow this down! We do that by looking in solution places instead. That is, try to imagine finding an answer that is already out there. What would that look like?

Sometimes, simply a solution-based way of looking at things brings sudden, dramatic insights. Other times, it doesn't. Now what? 

Badness comes in degrees. Some days have moments that are much better than others. What happens that allows those better moments? How can we capture more of them? The solution begins to unfold itself for us incrementally as we learn how to do this. The trick is to be looking for it.

Could each of us have a miracle bog posting somewhere? Perhaps.  Maybe for someone it's this one. Tomorrow morning, how would I know if a miracle has happened?

Photo Credit: angelofsweetbitter

A Disease of Choice

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If we focus enough on the potential of contracting a certain disease, we will increase our chances of actually getting it to the point where we are actually sick. What if that were a good thing?

House M.D. is a television show about an obnoxious doctor who ingeniously cures patients with exotic conditions in spite of his offensive manners. In one episode his staff was impressed with the positive attitude of one of their patients, who in spite of having a condition they couldn't cure was always kind and caring. This was a personal challenge to House who begins his relationship with the patient by trying to make the patient react badly. That never happens and a frustrated House suddenly considers the possibility that maybe this patient isn't upbeat and positive in spite of his disease, maybe he's that way because of the disease. This insight leads to a diagnosis and cure. The episode ends with the cured patient still being kind and caring, which was something of an annoyance to the lead character.

We believe many of our short-comings may be the result of medical conditions. For example, Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) makes it difficult (perhaps impossible) for sufferers to focus and therefore succeed in areas that require study. This is  serious condition that should be treated and not ignored.

Now if something exists, then it's possible that its opposite also exits. What would a life be like if we could also suffer from an opposite brain condition, Inattention Deficit Disorder, IDD? The symptoms would be an inability to be thoughtless and distracted which would require the sufferer to live a life of complete awareness. That would be a great disease! If we were obsessively worried about contracting it, we might actually get it! To obsessively worry, one would continually imagine what life would be like with a medical inability to suffer from your perceived short-comings.

Every personal investment has its elements of self-doubt and reservation. These can control and derail us from our purpose in life. What if we had a medical condition that made it impossible for this to happen to us? What if we had the insights, confidence, and courage we need because of a medical condition that just made us that way? If we have a purpose in life, isn't it reasonable to be able to contract it?

While suffering appears to be an unavoidable consequence of living, there is both productive and unproductive suffering. Why not choose the former?

The Problem of Original Sin

It's easy to believe and act on the power of good intention and co-creation; yet history and personal experience painfully demonstrate that life just isn't that easy. There is a restraining force that thwarts the co-creative powers of positive intentions and its been present as long as history has been recorded.

We  find this force labeled "original sin" in Biblical doctrine. It's a favorite concept for those who wish to argue against Biblical teachings to attack; however, it does seem to explain what happens; so a second look at the mechanics of original sin is in order.

Cognitive scientists study the brain in an effort to understand the mind. Humans have this distinctive ability to be self-aware. We can observe and therefore can also encourage, love, criticize, or despise ourselves. It doesn't appear that other life forms can (or want) to do this. While all life has some form of intelligence, it just usually doesn't have the capability of self-awareness.

In the cognitive studies of the human brain, self-awareness appears to be in a special area of the human brain known as the prefrontal cortex. Unlike a mechanisms subject only to Newton's Laws, humans are not limited to a fixed reaction to an action. We use the prefrontal cortex and its capability of  self-awareness to change our response.

Wonderful as self-awareness might be, the thousands of operational details required to maintain human life would simply over-whelm it. Never fear, a subconscious mind rises elegantly and efficiently to meet the need.While the prefrontal cortex is a small part of our total brain, the rest is busy operating all our life functions in an automatic fashion with any conscious direction.

A small portion of this subconscious intelligence is instinct. Most of our automated behaviors are learned. Researchers believe this larger area of our brain takes-in all it experiences as truth from birth until about the age of 6. While this system gives each succeeding generation the opportunity to receive updated lessons in living, the subconscious dutifully records with reason or judgment, often misinterpreting childhood experiences and forming false and/or destructive beliefs. These beliefs primarily come from our parents, who received them from their parents, who received them from generations of parents going back in time until the beliefs associated with original sin were started.

Defining sin is important. It was originally a term used in archery to mean "missing the mark." Original sin is the programming we receive from our ancestry that through our subconscious mental automation causes us to miss the potential we all were given. This definition is not meant to take away the use of the word sin to refer to missing out on God's grace; rather it includes that and more.

Neurologically, 95% of the brain is dedicated to the subconscious. While the remaining 5% can choose to be different, this doesn't happen easily. Corrective beliefs, in the form of new habits, are needed to re-program the subconscious. Forming those habits take the repetitive, powerful, and gentle actions  this blog has discussed for Active Investors. Biblically, it is what the work of the Holy Spirit is all about for all of us.

Image Credit: petervanallen

Creating Products from Services

An objective of The Active Investor blog is to inspire the thinking of small business owners and professionals to create greater lasting value in their business. There is perhaps no better way to do this than to find ways to create products from services.

A product without services eventually becomes a commodity with business going to the lowest cost provider. Selling only services is a bit like selling air. You can't really sell time. You can only rent your expertise for some time. Expertise is intangible and difficult to either prove or differentiate and in the end the amount that can be sold is always capped by a time limitation. If you want to sell the enterprise, because it's your expertise and you're leaving, the residual value is relatively small. However, when the business offers a deliverable solution that can be named plus is easy to understand and refer, you have hit a "value-added" sweet spot. Here is a personal example.

Names are important. They give the offering tangibility. As a Texas business broker, I create marketing plans for my clients, as do many other business brokers. Since most small business buyers come from the internet, this plan includes multiple internet directory listings, which again, other brokers do. So far, we're still at the services level. I've then created a unique product offering on top of these services named Business Opportunities Bulletins (BOBs). With some creativity and technology, each client listing can appear on the first Goggle results page of significant search terms used by potential buyers. If a client wants to be found by potential business buyers, here is a product, a BOB, that does exactly that.

A BOB is easy to understand. The art of selling your business is to be presented to interested parties and still keep the sale confidential. Prospective clients can see how this is already working for existing clients. They "get it" immediately.

In this example, the product's name is a take-off of my own name. If a need for my business broker services gets touched upon by someone in my network, it's easy for them to explain and refer my product (my service).

Building BOBs takes time,  expertise, and technology but their existence adds critical value both to immediate marketability and to the ultimate value of the brokerage practice. A product has been created out of services common to the industry. How many products can be developed from your services? Something with a name that is easy to understand and refer. I can't image anyone who can't develop at least one more.

Image credit: EraPhernalia Vintage (catching up)

Shaping the future

In President Obama's address to Congress on Healthcare this month, he reminded them that they came to Washington not to fear the future but to shape it. What an inspirational remark and what a great definition for an Active Investor. Active Investors are more than just business owners and professionals; they are the individuals who have made a decision not to fear their future but to take responsibility to shape it.

Once we get beyond the inspirational feelings of that remark, we're left with the reality of exactly how does one go about shaping their own future? For Congress and Healthcare, it involves agreeing to passing enabling legislation. What's involved for us as individuals?

We cannot know the future; however we can understand it through System Dynamics. Our core principle is structure will determine behavior. The future will play-out according to the structures at that time. Our nation will have better Healthcare if a better Healthcare system is in place. An Active Investor will have a more successful business if better business structures are in place.

Each day is a new opportunity to:
1) Faithfully respond to the needs currently presented to us, and
2) Imagine how we can build structures to be even better in the future.

This is a big step beyond "making money." This is building lasting value. The profits earned at any given time will be consumed; but the structures are a lasting value. We see this in business brokerage all the time. Business owners who have created structures cash out handsomely. Those that have just made money get by.

Shaping our future is building our structures. What marketing, sales, management, HR, compliance, fulfillment, etc. resources need to be in place for our complete success? This question is never conclusively answered in our expanding universe. The mere passage of time is enough to continually create new opportunities for everyone. New structures will first form in our minds and later find their way into our reality - shaping our future.

As for politics, our President's speech did affect me. I've decided to believe there is a viable solution to the nation's Healthcare problem. Congress only has to imagine it.

Image credit: dmitryku

On The Edge of Space and Time

Using the image on the left as a guide, image a metal plate with a hole in the center that is being heated. We know that heating metal causes it to expand , so the arrows indicate how the plate will expand. The question is what will happen to the hole? Will the forces applied cause it to get bigger or smaller?

Please take a moment to to quickly decide on one of the following positions before reading further:

1) The hole will get bigger
2) The hole will get smaller
3) I'm just not sure

Let's ask the same question in a different manner. Suppose there is a bolt stuck in a metal hole. If the metal is heated, will that loosen the bolt and make it easier to remove? Yes or No?

Generally, looking at the arrows in the diagram causes confusion. They all appear to be pushing against the diameter of the hole in a way that should make it smaller. Yet that just doesn't feel like a right answer and Position 3, being not sure, is a typical first reaction. Asking essentially the same question without the "helpful" diagram is much easier to answer. Even the mechanically challenged, like myself, imagine the bolt getting looser as the metal heats. The correct answer, which we all intuitively know, is heating the metal plate will cause all dimensions to increase, including the hole's.

Why is it difficult for most of us to quickly see what we know as obvious in that problem? This is really an illustration of two principles. The first is we tend to make decisions using an "Anchor and Adjust" strategy. In this case, the misleading illustration was put first to set it as a mental "Anchor". Then when we try to answer by Adjusting from that image, we run into difficulty because of the apparent shrinking effect of the arrows. Anchor and Adjust is very powerful and will be described further in future postings. The other principle is that even though we know this is an expanding universe, we are easily suckered into acting as if it were shrinkable.

The general acceptance of Hubble's Law and The Big Bang Theory has spread the knowledge that the universe must continue to expand; however, we tend to think of that as something only related to astronomy. Each of us are on the very edge of the space-time continuum and each passing moment of our lives moves our edge further outward. A popular metaphor is to imagine an ant on a balloon. Our ant's "space" (along with all the other ants) in space-time must expand as the balloon of the universe inflates (expands). We are all always in a place of expansion. The universe has no other way of acting. No matter how it appears, it's just not shrinkable.

The Active Investor, a business owner or professional, initially believes in an expanding universe. Time and circumstances wear on us all and we all eventually face "arrows" that indicate we were wrong about the universe. If that conclusion just doesn't feel right, there is every good reason to believe it's just so much junk science obscuring the truth. A suitable path out of the circumstance is to take gentle yet powerful actions that do feel right and to repeat them until feelings coincide with situation.

This blog is written to inspire good feeling thoughts that lead to actions. They will manifest themselves if we seek them. They have to. It's our part in the expansion of our edge of the universe.

Sixty and the Pursuit of Happiness

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Since Freud, our parents and our upbringing have been popular targets of blame. We'll never really know our parent's inner struggles, only that parents are given a miraculous gift of unmerited love for their children. No matter how graciously or obscurely that gift was expressed, the bottom line is always that our parents did the best they knew how. As children we also can share in this family gift. Love, respect, and appreciate what we can and forgive them for anything else.

Who outside our family doesn't also deserve the same? Nothing ever turns out the way we imagined. Stopping our Imagination, depicted in the picture posted here, is to stop living. It's only from imagination we enable creativity, growth, and hope. We can't go far on sheer will power; but our imaginations can fuel anything. The inevitable frustration and disappointment that an active imagination will cause requires we also extend our forgiveness to all involved. Anything less permanently disables our future happiness.

This is a lot easier to understand than to practice. The root of unforgiveness seems of reside inside of us. The fundamental attribute error that plagues our relationships with others is also nurtured in our self-recriminations. Ridiculous as it sounds, we take the position that we're not worthy of ourselves. With that absurdity firmly in place, we're now perfectly aligned to ruin our lives and the lives of those around us. Self forgiveness requires a large degree of self respect.

In the history of humanity, nothing has lead people to acknowledge their self-worth more than a belief that God resides within them. We know ourselves too well to completely trust us; but we can trust God within us.

I've just turned 60 and that called for some reflection. Before 30, happiness was found in experiences. After 30, the experiences needed meaning, so goals and growth processes became more important. Today the meanings need to be significant, that is from God within. Being able to forgive what's not that, seems to free all that is.