Controlled Thinking

Thinking is the ultimate human resource. Thinking is a skill, yet we are never satisfied with this most important skill to our human nature. No matter how good we become in our God given talents throughout our lifetime, we should always want to be better! Usually, the only people who are very satisfied with their thinking skill level are those poor thinkers who believe that the purpose of thinking only is to prove themselves right as 'experts' with regards to their own personal satisfaction in accessing someone else to be wrong.

The main difficulty of thinking is confusion. This is because when thoughts occur within us, we in habitat other resources such as emotion, information, logic, hope, and creativity within our thoughts. If emotions and feelings are not permitted as inputs in the thinking process, they will lurk in the background and affect all the thinking in a hidden way. Emotions, feelings, hunches and intuitions are strong and real. Once emotions have been made visible by acknowledgment from oneself, then an attempt may be made to explore and even change them. Thinking can change emotions. It is not the logical part of thinking that changes emotions but the perceptual part. If we see something differently than we did before, our emotions may alter with the altered perception.

Critical thinking is a very important part of thinking, but it is not sufficient to cover the notion that critical thinking alone is enough to have gained when training a critical mind. However, I believe critical thinking to be important because critical thinking can in habitat constructive thinking; and constructive thinking is positive in attitude. That is, constructive thinking enables modification to an idea proposed for improvement and strength.

Thinking often proceeds to drift and react to what turns up from moment to moment. There is a background sense of purpose, but this is never spelled out either as an overall objective or as sub-objective. Suggestions, judgment, criticism, information and plain emotion are all mixed together in a sort of thinking stew. It seems to be a matter of messing around until a thinker stumbles on some tried approach that seems to achieve what is desired. It is a haphazard exploration of experience strongly guided by negative criticism. The underlying assumption is that reasonably intelligent people provided with enough background information will, in the course of a discussion for the purpose of a decision, list the action options and choose the most suitable.

DeBono, E. (1985). Six Thinking Hats.

There is also the assumption that the thinking will be molded by past experience and present constraints in such a way that an outcome evolves and is purified by criticism. The analogy with evolution is a direct one, for in ‘Darwinism Evolution’ there is survival of the fittest species ideology and in the 'Thinking Concept' there is survival of the best suited idea. The biggest enemy of thinking is complexity, for that leads to confusion. When thinking is clear and simple, it becomes more enjoyable and more effective.

Therefore, I purpose the usage of a new concept to enter your thinking habitats to help you gain a new age of thinking capabilities. This concept merely relies on the ability to simplify your thinking; by allowing yourself to deal with one thing at a time. Instead of having to take care of emotions, logic, information, hope and creativity all at the same time, deal with them separately. Instead of using logic to support a half disguised emotion, just bring the emotion to the surface without any need to justify it. By doing so, you can think better with a more practical and uniquely positive approach to making decisions and exploring new ideas. It’s use can create a climate of clearer thinking, improved communication, and a greater sense of creativity. Allowing a switch in your thinking habitat can decrease confusion in your life’s matters and increase your thought power to successful desired results; in business or in life .

“Positive thinking will let you do everything better than negative thinking will.” Zig Ziglar

Gaining God’s Favor

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Looking back over my life, I can honestly say that God has been awesome to me. My list of unfulfilled requests is a short one comprised of all the things I still anticipate receiving in God’s own perfect timing for me. Why am I so confident in receiving an abundance of unfulfilled requests? It certainly isn’t because I’m more spiritual than the next person. I know many people who pray more, read their Bible more, and simply know more about God than I do. However, being a super-Christian is not a prerequisite to being super blessed. On the contrary to this ‘I am a Saint Christian’ ideology, is what God has stated clearly in the Bible; that his intent is for all his children to live a blessed and purposeful life. As if giving us the gift of life wasn’t enough, God enlisted we each give him all the strife and burdens associated with our existence on earth to allow us the benefit of living an abundant life.

As I have sought to understand why some folks are blessed more abundantly than others, God’s word has confirmed for me that his ultimate desire is for all to live a blessed life that is overflowing with God’s rich provision and goodness as we cooperate with God’s spirit to become more and more like Jesus Christ and therefore, in God’s grace and covenant. This means we each as individuals, transform into our blessed states at different moments and opportunities over our lifetime. We each have different lessons and challenges to learn and adapt in order to gain the necessary level of obedience that gets us closer in our personal relationship with God; and therefore, in God’s favor.

“Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. But the angel said to her, ‘Do not be afraid, Mary, you have favor with God.’ Luke 1:29-30”.

For God to bless you and keep you, he must be looking at you. And when he looks at you, he must be pleased with what he sees in you by your mind, your heart and your spirit. So that therefore, God must like what your output into the world is. Favor by God proposes that God must be inspired to be gracious towards you. The truth is that as long as God is looking at you, you can obtain the peace that surpasses all humanistic understanding. This is because as long as God is looking at you and your output into the world, you can be sure that you are basking under the watchful eye of his protection. On the other hand, should God look away from your output in the world, the enemy (whether internally or externally) will use that very opportunity to host a field day by inhabiting your soul. Because God is full of righteousness and perfect will, he will not participate in what does not please him.

So if blessings are all about having God’s undivided attention, then surely favor is basking in the smile of God. Whenever we are obedient and coherent to God’s word, things happen in our favor because he has to respond to our obedience by showing up in our situation and showing us out the discourse of the situation. However, you should be cautious as obedience and good intentions are not one in the same. Obedience requires a ‘will’ to do what is right, while conceding good intentions reflects your ‘desire’ to do the good thing. The difference? A willful mind always progresses past desire mind! God is not moved by our good intentions, but rather our direct obedience to his order and commands. Hammond, M, (2001). How to be Blessed & Highly Favored .

My brothers and sisters in the Lord God, I say all this to say no battle is won without God. Sometimes it will seem like God is placing more on your plate than you can stand or requesting more from you than you can give; but God’s understanding is beyond our own. Sometimes God will request more because you deserve more, sometimes he will place more on your plate to gain more. When God’s favor is about to show through you, he will place you in what seems to be impossible extreme conditions as an opportunity to prove his power and shower favor onto the situation.

Ready and prepared to face the battle and gain God’s favor?
www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZx_2menZzI

The Economy’s Political Gain or Political Strain?

“You can’t legislate morality.” Benjamin Franklin

What accounts for the change in CEO pay isn’t any market imperative. It’s cultural. At a time when average workers are experiencing little or no income growth, many of America’s CEOs have lost any sense of shame about grabbing whatever their pliant, handpicked corporate boards will allow them. Americans understand the economical damage as an unethical torment of politician greed. In a recent survey in the USA Today, Americans ranked corruption in government and business with greed and materialism, as two of the three most important moral challenges facing the nation. Of course, raising kids with the right values ranked first.

And yet every parent, liberal or conservative, complains about the coarsening of the American culture, the promotion of easy materialism and instant gratification, and the severing of sexuality from intimacy. They may not want government censorship, but they want those concerns recognized and their experiences validated. Fearful, parents start listening to those leaders who may be less sensitive to constitutional constraints and more direct in their concerns. Conservatives however, have their own blind spots when it comes to addressing problems in the culture. Take executive pay. In 1980, the average CEO made forty-two times what an average hourly worker took home. By 2005, the ratio was 262 to 1. Conservatives outlets like the Wall Street Journal’s editorial page, try to justify outlandish salaries and stock options as necessary to attract top talent, and suggest that the American economy actually performs better when America’s corporate leaders are fat and happy with cash. But the recent explosion in CEOs pay has had little to do with improved performance. In fact, some of the country’s most highly compensated CEOs over the past decade have presided over huge massive layoffs, and the underfunding of their workers’ pension funds. Conservatives may be right when they argue that the government shouldn’t try to determine executive pay packages. But conservatives should at least be willing to speak out against unseemly behavior in corporate boardrooms with the same moral force, the same sense of outrage, which they direct against dirty rap lyrics.
Obama, B. (2006). The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming The American Dream

Most of the other sins of politics are derivative of this larger sin of cash in hand. One of the other political sins includes the need to win; but also the need not to lose. Prevention of losing at any cost is a clear demise of our American government. Certainly that’s what the money chase is all about. There was a time, before campaign finance laws and snooping reporters, when money shaped politics through outright bribery. A time when a politician could treat his campaign fund as his personal bank account and accept fancy junkets; when the shape of legislation went to the highest bidder. If recent news reports are accurate, these ranker forms of corruption have not gone away entirely; apparently there are still those in Washington who view politics as a means of getting rich rather than gaining the richness of the American culture. Some politicians however, money isn’t about getting rich. In the Senate, at least, most members are already rich! For them, it’s about maintaining status and power. Although, money can’t guarantee victory and cannot buy passion or charisma, without it you are pretty much guaranteed to lose.

So what is the solution to corrupt politicians and securing the American economy back to its feet? The last time we faced an economic transformation as disruptive as the one we face today; President Roosevelt led the nation to a new social compact. President Roosevelt bargained between government, business and workers that resulted in widespread prosperity and economic security for more than fifty years. This was conducted by conveying to the average American worker, a security rested upon three pillars:
1st: The ability to find a job that paid enough to support a family and save for emergencies
2nd: A packaged health care system and retirement benefits from employers
3rd A government safety net of guaranteed Social Security, Medicaid & Medicare benefits, Unemployment Insurance and Federal Bankruptcy & Pension protections


Why is this important: Check out this URL for “Did you know” and see why.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jpEnFwiqdx8

Addressing Difficult Conversations

One important and verifiable truth about the mishandling of difficult conversations is the apprehension concentrated on conceivable consequences the difficult conversation can lead to. But one must note that difficult conversations are never about getting the facts straightened out equitable, but difficult conversations rather include expressing conflicting perceptions of personal interpretations and values. If you were to take a more ‘learning stance’ towards the difficult conversation, instead of a ‘message stance’ your focus will internally shift into what you can do differently during the conversation to engage enhancement, rather than of what you can say differently.

In a difficult conversation the real action is seen below the surface. The underlined conversations we have internally about what the external and difficult conversation ‘means’ to us individually can bestow doubtful questions and concerns into who we are as a person. Are they suggesting I am competent or incompetent? A good person or bad person? Worthy of love or simply unlovable? Think about the impacts this systematic thinking allowed will have on your self-esteem, self-image and therefore your future and its’ well being. The gap between what you’re really thinking vs. what it is actually being said causes the “difficult” conversation to occur.

There are three types of difficult conversations:
1st “The What Happened Difficult Conversation”: This conversation asks, what just happened? What should happen? Who meant what & who is to blame?
2nd “The Feelings Difficult Conversation”: This conversation asks & answers questions directly related to feelings. Are these feelings appropriate and valid? Should I deny these feelings & put them on the table? What about the other person’s feelings? Did I consider them?
3rd “ The Identity Conversation”: This conversation identifies questions about the conversation and what it ‘means’ to us internally. Here are where questions of self-esteem, self-worth & self-image come into play. Am I good person or bad person because of what I said in the conversation? Did I display love? Do I know how to love? Do I deserve love?

Knowing each type of difficult conversation creates an occasion to transcend your internal standpoint into a ‘learning stance’ and engage in an opportunity exchanged with focusing on doing differently instead of saying differently. Learning to operate effectively with each realm of a difficult conversation can increase productivity within your life and lessen the fear associated with dealing with difficult conversations. Being a great leader requires conflict; coping with a difficult conversation is comprised of conflict. Therefore, I encourage you to stop arguing about who is right or wrong and just explore each other’s stories within the difficult conversation. For arguing only inhabitants our abilities as individuals to learn.

“There are two ways of exerting one's strength: one is pushing down, the other is pulling up. Therefore, we must reinforce argument with results.”
Booker T Washington

Walking In Your Talk

“A man is never more truthful than when he acknowledges himself as liar.”
Mark Twain

Often people say one thing and do another. They desire something, and then unconsciously sabotage it. They begin with a hopeful intention and then find themselves at crossed purposes. Dreams and wishes seem to give waylaid by life’s circumstances so that your existence becomes ‘a life of quiet desperation’. However, it does not have to be this way. Walking in complete faith of what you talk can make your dreams reality and wishes possible.

It is possible that even your successes and failures in life have something to do with your carriage, your walk, your gestures and not just the words you say? Body language affects everything including your relationships, your potency, and your self-image; which, in turn affects your happiness, personal power, and, ultimately, your health. Back pain, sexual impotence, immune and anxiety disorders, and headaches can often be traced back to how you use your body every moment of your life. You are not just communicating with others when you talk, but you are constantly communicating to your entire organism; which is your body. Your clenched jaw, gripped buttocks, jutting chin affect other people even while it is also affecting your nervous system, skeletal organization, and the circulation of your blood.

We all have an invisible sixth sense, the kinesthetic sense. Our kinesthetic sense is what teaches us how to ride a bike, gives us our spatial orientation and our ability to recognize a friend or foe. Yet we are as unaware of this kinesthetic process and how it works, as a fish is to water. Most of our lives are spent oblivious to kinesthetic habits and reactions that are constantly affecting our attitudes, perceptions, and behavior. Awareness of this kinesthetic sense could be called embodiment, literally living in the body. By experiencing fully what takes place in our standing, walking, talking, making love, or fighting episodes, it’s possible not only to attain what you want in this world; whether financial success, creative fulfillment, or healthy relationships, but you can also become a different person by understanding and transforming the tool with which you chiefly, and knowingly, engage into the world; your talk.
Plonka, L. (2007). Changing Your Life Through The Magic of Body Language

The Bible’s exhortation to love your neighbor as yourself is more challenging than it at first appears because it requires you to love yourself first. God tells us in through the Bible that in order to truly love him, you must love his people. Before you can love yourself you must know how you loving others to understand other people’s need for compassion. Try to experiment with seeing your tensions in your interactions with other people. See what happens in an argument, for example, or if you can sense your tensions as you talk. Are you embodying compassion? Intentionally changing one aspect of an attitude by taking a deep breath, for example, can shift the entire posture and change the entire interaction. By learning to observe your body language, you can begin to identify the postures of not loving yourself and thus, not loving others. I believe this is the first step toward developing a compassionate stance that can improve your connections to others and match your walk to your talk.

A Woman’s Identity Crisis

In today’s world, women must step up to plate and decide what they will ‘allow’ from a man in order to determine the purpose that man will play into their life. For the sake of having a man, countless women have begun to settle for a new, watered-down versions of manhood. Yet these women long for much more. Not realizing that the low expectations ‘allowed’ from their men further perpetuate the downward trend of themselves.

One of the things that garners respect in the heart of a woman, which is a prerequisite to her willingness to submit to her man, is wisdom. A woman needs a man whom she can trust to make wise decisions. Head knowledge alone cannot make a man an effective head of the house, as priest and leader. Only a man who is able to seek the rich counsel of the Lord for insight can lead his loved ones wisely. God is the source of that wisdom. The Bible promises that those who know their God will be strong and accomplish great things! (Daniel 11: 32.)

The world says that behind every great man is a great woman. This is true. God has placed very specific gifts inside a woman that empower a man to be all that he was created to be. However, no man skips the process of transformation that must occur into manhood, except by his own choosing. All men must first be broken before becoming a worthy vessel that can please God and gain honor in the eyes of a woman.

One of the most beautiful things I ever heard a wife say about her husband was: “It feels as if God loves me through my husband. It’s almost as if he anticipants my needs and meets them before I even say a word.” Only a man who prays and hears from God can do such a thing for his wife.
Hammond, M. (2003). In Search of the Proverbs 31 Man

I say all that to say: Women it is time to get serious! Women need men who will seek God’s face and secure our future by their obedience to God’s instructions and thus securing a woman’s needs even when the need isn’t yet seen. A woman’s willingness to ‘allow’ a man to treat her with respect will help her gain self-respect, but her willingness to ‘allow’ disrespect from a man will diminish her self-worth and value that God has created woman for.