Kategorie: Other

One night, at 11:30 PM, an older African American woman was standing on the side of an Alabama highway trying to endure a lashing rain storm. Her car had broken down and she desperately needed a ride. Soaking wet, she decided to flag down the next car. A young white man stopped to help. This was generally unheard of in those conflict-filled 1960s. The man took her to safety, helped her get assistance and put her into a taxi cab. She seemed to be in a big hurry! She wrote down his address, thanked him and drove away. Seven days went by and a knock came on the man’s door. To his surprise, a giant console color TV was delivered to his home. A special note was attached. It read: „Thank you so much for assisting me on the highway the other night. The rain drenched not only my clothes but my spirits. Then you came along. Because of you, I was able to make it to my dying husband’s bedside just before he passed away. God bless you for helping me and unselfishly serving others.“ Sincerely, Mrs. Nat King Cole

For the „Eliciting Values“ part of „AIM HERE“ mneumonic device, „Examine order“ reminded me of an optometrist, as they change the lenses, asking: „Which is better, 1 or 2? Now, how about 3 or 4? OK, now, how about 1 and 3?“ . If you wear glasses (corrective lenses) you probably can sympathize with this situation… Therefore, I will now refer to this activity as „eye doctor“, ha ha!

When you are four years old, success means not pee-ing in your pants.
When you are 12 years old, success is when you have friends.
When you are 18 years old, success means having a driving license.
When you are 20 years old, success means having sex.
When you are 35 years old, success means having money.
And when you are 50 years old, success means having more money!
When people retire and reach the age of 65 or so, success often means having friends.
At 75, success means having a driving license.
At 80, success means having sex.
And of course, at 85, success means not pee-ing in your pants.

Colonel Sanders was 65 years old when he received his first social security cheque of $99. He was broke, and owned a small house and a beat up car.
He made a decision that he has got to change. The only idea he had was a chicken recipe, which his friends liked. With that idea in mind, he took massive action.
He left his home in Kentucky and traveled to many states in the US to sell his idea. He told the restaurant owners that he had a chicken recipe that people liked and he was giving it to them for free.
What he wanted in return was for the restaurant owners to pay him a small percentage on the pieces of chicken sold.
He got rejections after rejections, but did not give up. In fact, he got over 1000 rejections. He got 1009 no’s before he got his first yes.
With that one success Colonel Hartland Sanders changed the eating habits of the whole world with Kentucky Fried Chicken, popularly known as KFC.
How many of us will keep knocking on doors when we have received 1000 rejections? I presume not many! This is why there are not many successes like Colonel Sanders.
Age is no barrier to success, and so is capital. What is needed is an idea put into action, followed with proper planning and persistency.

A few years after I left my secondary school in Manchester, I was invited to help out with the school’s Christmas Fair and I decided to have a go at being Father Christmas. I had recently grown my first full beard and thought that I would enter into the role by rubbing flour into my growth. Though I say it myself, I looked rather splendid and certainly I attracted lots of custom.
I was enjoying myself enormously, bringing a sense of magic to so many young children, but I was mystified by one young boy who paid for a second visit and then astonishingly for a third. The presents on offer were really pretty pitiful, so I asked him why he was coming to see me so often. He answered simply: „I just love talking to you“.
It was then that I realised that, in many households, parents do not encourage their children to talk and really listen to them. This was a lesson that I have taken with me throughout my life. So, at home, at work, socially, always encourage family, friends, colleagues to talk about themselves and their feelings – and really listen.
Author: Roger Darlington

Most people have heard of the Easter Island statues – the huge mysterious heads carved out of stone that stand on a remote island. Such power and mystery in those heads. There are hundreds of these statues, some standing over 30 feet tall and weighing several tons.
There are all sorts of theories about why and how they were conducted. Because the making and movement of these statues must have required the cooperation of all of the people on the island, the people probably believed that their gods required them to build these statues.
They carved the statues out of a volcano and then dragged them long distances. Many of the statues were abandoned along the way, but others succeeded in bringing the statues all the way to the desired destination. Of course, some people believe that aliens or some other force were involved, but really when people decide to do something, no matter how difficult it may seem at first, they really have all the resources that they need to succeed.
Recently, scientists have discovered something amazing. Although outside visitors have been able to see the heads since the island was discovered by a Dutchman in 1722, nobody realized something very important until quite recently. Below the head is a body! And that body is really important. Each head on Easter Island has a huge body underneath it, and archaeologists and other scientists are now beginning to understand that there are many important symbols and meanings within those bodies.
Even though the people buried their bodies, at some level, they realized that their bodies were really important and were sending out messages and maybe even receiving messages from outer space or the gods.
The heads look out upon the strange sights of the world, noticing so much, yet in a way, they are not connected or complete without the forgotten bodies.These bodies also store many important meanings.
They store many of the beliefs and values that these people considered to be important in the form of carved symbols. Now that we know that there are bodies below the heads, we can get extended cognition … of the world … and thinking of these people.
The feast of Easter is a celebration of rising from the dead, and it’s interesting to see these bodies and all the beliefs and values that were hidden for so long … come to life again.

Gregory Bateson used the analogy of a man cutting down a tree with an axe (Bateson, 1991, p 164) to explain the system- based nature of reality.
He points out that in order to swing the axe, the man needs to pay attention to where the last cut was. The cut, it could be said, causes him to swing in a certain place. And each cut could also be said to result from the specific properties of the axe; how heavy it feels, and how well balanced. So the axe, it might be claimed, controls the cut, which controls the man.
Actually, of course, Bateson is claiming that the tree-cutting is a system, and that cause and effect descriptions of it may be useful for communication, but have little use scientifically. Even the arbitrary divisions between man, axe and tree merely simplify in ways which suit our communication style.

There was one patient who said he was Jesus Christ. He was very paranoid and yet he was harmless and had ground privileges. And Worcester tried to use patients with ground privileges at useful tasks. And the Psychology Laboratory wanted a handyman. And here was this patient, wrapped up in a sheet, walking around communing with God . . . very polite and courteous. And so I was told to do something with him. I told him how desirable it was for the doctors to play tennis in the recreation hour. They were using muscles and skills and abilities that God had endowed them with. And it was very imperative that the tennis grounds be kept in good shape . . . dirt court. And we wandered down to the tennis court. We made a lot of comments about the trees that God had made, the beautiful grass, the creations of the earth itself, and then I noticed that there were some rough spots on that dirt court and I told him I was sure that God didn’t want those rough spots there and could he in some way succeed in having the tennis ground leveled carefully and smoothed out? He said he certainly would TRY, he was there to serve Mankind. So I left him. He was an excellent tennis court grounds keeper. As for the Psychology Laboratory, they wanted some bookcases built. I happened to mention Jesus was a carpenter. So he built the book cases. He became a handyman around the Psychology Laboratory.