Manfred,
Are we ever on the same wavelength!
That is precisely my view and it is what I've tried to tell my children for years. The great enslavement is ignorance and dependence on the powers that be.
That theme permeates my NOWHERE MAN.
In CONFIDENT THINKING, I have a small segment where I address the difference between "rights and privileges": education isn't a right; it is a privilege.
In so many ways, I've tried to show my children that by being in debt, by purchasing beyond their means, by being conspicuous consumers, they make themselves counterdependent on the Establishment for their total well being, slaves to the state.
The people with the power have always been the educated, the ones who did not necessarily invent the tools but who control the tools with their expertise. They see to that.
The drone of television, the Internet, the constant cell phone in your ear, the BlackBerry in your hand or iPod have become mainly toys of distraction to keep the natives off balance and easily controlled. They think they are independent when they are anything but.
Yes, these are great tools, but what are people talking about walking everywhere with either a cell phone or a Walkman in their ear? Or why is Google up 90 percent in profits this quarter? People have a new narcotic, "surfacing the Internet," and can waste a way their time, sometimes for hours, just browsing.
My children think I'm too serious, too much a fuddy dud, too focused on my mania to get these words out before by thinking machine dies.
And it is all because I know the game being played on my kind, people who come in at the bottom of the food chain, and are content to stay there as long as they have their cigarettes, beers, drugs, fancy cars, and a few dances on the side to keep them in some kind of dependence, fueling national economy in mainly waste products.
Excess is bad only because it represents waste, and waste puts us little people in jeopardy, and more easily controlled by the powers-that-be.
One of my correspondents says that it is good that I write or I would go mad. That is a way of not taking me seriously or pondering what I am trying to say, implying I am only saying it because, indeed, I am mad.
I am not important. But the vehicle of my expression is through my own empiricism. Author Philip Kerr sings my sentiment when he says, "To be empirical is to be guided by experience, not by sophists, charlatans, priests, and demagogues."
That is my point and has always been my point. What is important, it seems to me, is to see that we are willingly cooperating with the corporate Pied Pipers as they march us over the cliff and into the sea. Well, my role is to say, "Hey, little people, oblivion is just beyond. Is that what you want?"
One final note to illustrate my point. Bill Moyer of National Public Television had a show on TV recently about the Internet. We invented it but are losing the race because other countries, especially Europe and the Far East have digitized it independent of the phone companies at a reasonable cost with fast and sophisticated imagery and easy access that is not available in the US. And why?
The phone companies promised to invest in this technology in the 1990s, and didn't. Now, they want to charge us for its construction, then charge us again as subscribers for using it, while at the same time maintaining total control of the process. It is as Bill Moyer put it making the Information Highway a toll road instead of a free accessible Interstate Highway.
People will pay it. The phone companies know this. Because people are addicted to their toys and they will sacrifice food, clothing, shelter and health to see that they have them.
My children know that I go to great lengths never to pay top dollar for anything; that I try to think ahead to avoid that disadvantage. I don't have a lot of credit cards because I know if you are late ONE TIME on any one of them, everyone one of them across the board jacks up the interest rate and you cannot do a thing about it.
No, I didn't become educated to flatter myself that I am special, or that I am "one of them." Or that because I have a couple dollars I should spend them on things they say are important and I see that they are not. I educated myself to defend myself against them, recognizing that I am still a little people but they don't own me much as they continue to try.
Be always well, and God Bless You, my dear friend,
Jim
-----------------
Forwarded Message:
Date: 10/20/2006 1:02:16 AM Eastern Standard Time
From: Manfred Fiedler, Germany
Dear Jim,
The facts about schooling in the past are very inpressive compared with today.
Sometimes one could get suspicious it could be by ourpose that the governments and industry keeps the intelligence level low, to get uncomplicated followers and cheap workers.
Manfred
Background: This process started when I was looking for some material and made a request for help. I contacted the Clinton Public Library in Clinton, Iowa and was given access almost immediately to the material. This was my memo to advise them of this fact.
Friends:
As you know, I am writing this book called CONFIDENT THINKING and I was just writing about the dumbing down of American society, when I wanted to reference this work that I saw a few years ago, and know I have in my study somewhere. Well, I have not been able to continue, contacting all of you, and then rummaged again through manuscripts and archives to no avail. I finally decided to contact the Clinton Public Library, and its Root Cellar where archives are kept. Sure enough, I was given assistance posthaste, and now I can continue.
Thank you for your desire to help. I contacted Fran Buelow in the Root Cellar, and she was able to help me immediately. In fact, she faxed the two pages to me in minutes after we talked. Can't get much better than that. So, I have the information and it is impressive. Small wonder our hometown has such a rich tradition. Be always well,
Jim
PS In case you are wondering, the classical course for high school students at Clinton High at the turn of the century (1900 - 1905) included German, Latin, mathematics, four years of English, physics, chemistry, astronomy, geology, physiography, botany and zoology. Between 1910 - 1915, manual training, domestic science, a commercial course, music, and public speaking were added. Sporadically (the article's word) additions included agriculture, journalism, art and mechanical drawing. There were no electives. AND THESE WERE HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS!
Friday, October 20, 2006
Friday, October 13, 2006
HALF-WITS IN THE BOARDROOM -- Carly Fiorina & Hewlett-Packard Board!
HALF-.WITS IN THE BOARDROOM -- Carly Fiorina & Hewlett-Packard Board!
James R. Fisher, Jr., Ph.D.
© October 2006
The Greek word “chaos” means literally “gap,” a breaching of the imagined perspective with the real; the failure of the intuitive mind to make union with the cognitive mind. It is perhaps the chief reason boardrooms across the globe are male dominated with half-wits who refuse to use their feminine minds. Now, women as CEOs are emulating these half-wits to our eternal loss.
Author Daniel Goleman did quite a service to closing the gap between thinking and feeling when he came out with his book “Emotional Intelligence.” For far too long, the false notion reigned supreme that IQ or intellectual intelligence was the end all of the problem solving.
You only have to look at the chaos of the world to see the evidence that such intelligence has been inadequate to meet the challenges of the times. Half-wits or masculine brains, alone, have proven insufficient to bring balance back from the breach.
Goleman, sad to say, has hit the wall with his newest book “Social Intelligence,” mainly because his paradigm suggests there is a distinct feminine and masculine social intelligence, as if we have a bifurcated mind. Sex role identities are learned behavior not genetic. There is no feminine or masculine social intelligence other than what is programmed into the individual. By writing as if it is a reified fact compounds the dilemma and deception. This leads Goleman to claim women are better at reading emotions, and men tend to be better at managing them during crisis. He would have been more accurate if he had said the “right brain” is better at reading emotions and the “left brain” is better at managing data.
Men and women possess the same bicameral mind with a brain divided into a right and left lobe. The left lobe is considered the seat of logic and the right lobe the seat of intuition. Likewise, these two respective brains are commonly referred to as the masculine (left brain) and feminine (right brain).
Perhaps men are better at managing crisis because the crises they manage are the crises they have created; women are better at reading emotions because they have been kept off stage while men flaunt their folly on stage.
Women, Goleman continues, are better at reading social interaction, but tend to ruminate more when things go wrong. He means women keep their tongues while men blunder into some kind of action because the male brain says it is better to act than not when you have no idea what to do. Men are the bulls in the China closet while women sweep up the pieces.
I share all this with you because the former CEO of Hewlett-Packard, Carly Fiorina, who was fired, is now promoting her book of vindication with a most masculine title “Tough Choices.”
I have not read the book, but I have seen the well coiffure lady on Charlie Rose on PBS, and have read several articles written about her and her book. Her spiteful posture is decidedly masculine which is unfortunate.
One of the constant themes of her self-promotion is that the big boys in the boardroom did not accept her as one of them. While claiming, “I am a professional woman.”
Man or woman, in the end, it is what have you done for me lately that rules the day. Gender has no claim unless we make gender the issue. It would seem that Ms. Fiorina had a gender crunch in which she attempted to imitate, emulate, duplicate, replicate, and reify what she thought was the expected masculine bravado and decisiveness required of her role. When ego is on display self-demands rule rather than the job, which is role demands.
If ego-speak rules, then accomplishments will be reeled off such as cost cutting, systems integration, function consolidation, and profit producing strategies that turned, in this case, HP around. Women know that people make the difference; half-wits of the boardroom think they do. When a woman sounds like a man, they have won.
Leading, that’s the job, no need to flaunt it. Flaunting sounds too much like the half-wit male brain speaking that cannot join the breach with the feminine brain; too much like a woman trying to act like a man, who takes male pride in being a half-wit.
In point of fact, men have acted as self-important half-wits for centuries now with their linear logic and cognitive rationale, their game theory, and quantitative objectivity. Such half-wits have no time for intuition, abstraction, pluralism, contradiction, on plodding frameworks. They are thinkers and doers; not feelers and wonderers; analyst, not integrators.
“Give me the facts,” male speak says, “I’m a value free planner.” Men pride themselves in a concrete orientation, not a conceptual framework; they are progressive, not regressive. And the name for this male speak is “chaos.”
While men have had the smugness of using only one-half of their brain, they obligingly will the other half to the domain of women. I hear male speak when Ms. Fiorina argues about her decisiveness, making no mention of how much her conceptual, intuitive and feeling sensitivity had to do with her climb to fame and fortune.
She may be totally wrong about why she was let go. It might not be because she was a woman but because she acted too much like the other half-wits on the board. Their strategy is “ready, fire, aim!” To consent to this male speak made her a half-wit of another kind, something I find perplexing, but also somewhat understandable.
It is a strange thing when we act as half-wits, as if we are all this or all that. We are not all loving or all hating but both. We are not all docile or aggressive but both. We are not sensitive or insensitive but both. It is the marriage of these two sides that gives us vitality, perspective and joins the breach to eliminate the chaos. Insight comes from the clash of these two lobes of the brain coming together as a marriage of one.
What I hear is the harangue of a Paris Hilton type celebrity aiming to get back at the half-wits of the boardroom. I hear this when she describes going to a business meeting when she was at AT&T, dressed conservatively, and being mistaken as one of the new acts of the club. The woman protests too much.
Her claim that a glass ceiling doesn’t exist for women, but a glass trapdoor is a shallow and empty charge.
Leadership will change when women are not afraid to be women in business and men who are not afraid to use their feminine brain to close the breach of chaos. Daniel Goleman’s social intelligence paradigm is not only a little too much, but misleading. He should have stuck to “Emotional Intelligence” which is the intelligence that is least understood and most abused.
Carly Fiorina male speak does not serve her well. “When I finally reached the top after striving my entire career to be judged by results and accomplishments, the coverage of my gender, my appearance and the perceptions of my personality would vastly outweigh anything else,” suggests she had forgotten the rule that had served her so well as a secretary, from which she rose to the top.
Every secretary knows this rule: lead by listening, move immovable objects by whispering wisdom into the ear of the monster, and let the monster take credit, as your influence rules.
I never had a secretary that wasn’t smarter than I was; never had a secretary that wasn’t wiser than I was, and never had a secretary that had to roll her shoulders and lead with her chin, as I did, to get things done.
Carly Fiorina thought that as she entered a “man’s world” she should leave this wise counsel behind, and assume the Teflon man that are the half-wits of every boardroom. It is for that decision that Hewlett-Packard, and other stockholders such as myself, continues to suffer. I wish her well as she invites that secretary in her soul back in her future endeavors.
**************************
This was another essay composed yesterday during my daily peripatetic walk.
James R. Fisher, Jr., Ph.D.
© October 2006
The Greek word “chaos” means literally “gap,” a breaching of the imagined perspective with the real; the failure of the intuitive mind to make union with the cognitive mind. It is perhaps the chief reason boardrooms across the globe are male dominated with half-wits who refuse to use their feminine minds. Now, women as CEOs are emulating these half-wits to our eternal loss.
Author Daniel Goleman did quite a service to closing the gap between thinking and feeling when he came out with his book “Emotional Intelligence.” For far too long, the false notion reigned supreme that IQ or intellectual intelligence was the end all of the problem solving.
You only have to look at the chaos of the world to see the evidence that such intelligence has been inadequate to meet the challenges of the times. Half-wits or masculine brains, alone, have proven insufficient to bring balance back from the breach.
Goleman, sad to say, has hit the wall with his newest book “Social Intelligence,” mainly because his paradigm suggests there is a distinct feminine and masculine social intelligence, as if we have a bifurcated mind. Sex role identities are learned behavior not genetic. There is no feminine or masculine social intelligence other than what is programmed into the individual. By writing as if it is a reified fact compounds the dilemma and deception. This leads Goleman to claim women are better at reading emotions, and men tend to be better at managing them during crisis. He would have been more accurate if he had said the “right brain” is better at reading emotions and the “left brain” is better at managing data.
Men and women possess the same bicameral mind with a brain divided into a right and left lobe. The left lobe is considered the seat of logic and the right lobe the seat of intuition. Likewise, these two respective brains are commonly referred to as the masculine (left brain) and feminine (right brain).
Perhaps men are better at managing crisis because the crises they manage are the crises they have created; women are better at reading emotions because they have been kept off stage while men flaunt their folly on stage.
Women, Goleman continues, are better at reading social interaction, but tend to ruminate more when things go wrong. He means women keep their tongues while men blunder into some kind of action because the male brain says it is better to act than not when you have no idea what to do. Men are the bulls in the China closet while women sweep up the pieces.
I share all this with you because the former CEO of Hewlett-Packard, Carly Fiorina, who was fired, is now promoting her book of vindication with a most masculine title “Tough Choices.”
I have not read the book, but I have seen the well coiffure lady on Charlie Rose on PBS, and have read several articles written about her and her book. Her spiteful posture is decidedly masculine which is unfortunate.
One of the constant themes of her self-promotion is that the big boys in the boardroom did not accept her as one of them. While claiming, “I am a professional woman.”
Man or woman, in the end, it is what have you done for me lately that rules the day. Gender has no claim unless we make gender the issue. It would seem that Ms. Fiorina had a gender crunch in which she attempted to imitate, emulate, duplicate, replicate, and reify what she thought was the expected masculine bravado and decisiveness required of her role. When ego is on display self-demands rule rather than the job, which is role demands.
If ego-speak rules, then accomplishments will be reeled off such as cost cutting, systems integration, function consolidation, and profit producing strategies that turned, in this case, HP around. Women know that people make the difference; half-wits of the boardroom think they do. When a woman sounds like a man, they have won.
Leading, that’s the job, no need to flaunt it. Flaunting sounds too much like the half-wit male brain speaking that cannot join the breach with the feminine brain; too much like a woman trying to act like a man, who takes male pride in being a half-wit.
In point of fact, men have acted as self-important half-wits for centuries now with their linear logic and cognitive rationale, their game theory, and quantitative objectivity. Such half-wits have no time for intuition, abstraction, pluralism, contradiction, on plodding frameworks. They are thinkers and doers; not feelers and wonderers; analyst, not integrators.
“Give me the facts,” male speak says, “I’m a value free planner.” Men pride themselves in a concrete orientation, not a conceptual framework; they are progressive, not regressive. And the name for this male speak is “chaos.”
While men have had the smugness of using only one-half of their brain, they obligingly will the other half to the domain of women. I hear male speak when Ms. Fiorina argues about her decisiveness, making no mention of how much her conceptual, intuitive and feeling sensitivity had to do with her climb to fame and fortune.
She may be totally wrong about why she was let go. It might not be because she was a woman but because she acted too much like the other half-wits on the board. Their strategy is “ready, fire, aim!” To consent to this male speak made her a half-wit of another kind, something I find perplexing, but also somewhat understandable.
It is a strange thing when we act as half-wits, as if we are all this or all that. We are not all loving or all hating but both. We are not all docile or aggressive but both. We are not sensitive or insensitive but both. It is the marriage of these two sides that gives us vitality, perspective and joins the breach to eliminate the chaos. Insight comes from the clash of these two lobes of the brain coming together as a marriage of one.
What I hear is the harangue of a Paris Hilton type celebrity aiming to get back at the half-wits of the boardroom. I hear this when she describes going to a business meeting when she was at AT&T, dressed conservatively, and being mistaken as one of the new acts of the club. The woman protests too much.
Her claim that a glass ceiling doesn’t exist for women, but a glass trapdoor is a shallow and empty charge.
Leadership will change when women are not afraid to be women in business and men who are not afraid to use their feminine brain to close the breach of chaos. Daniel Goleman’s social intelligence paradigm is not only a little too much, but misleading. He should have stuck to “Emotional Intelligence” which is the intelligence that is least understood and most abused.
Carly Fiorina male speak does not serve her well. “When I finally reached the top after striving my entire career to be judged by results and accomplishments, the coverage of my gender, my appearance and the perceptions of my personality would vastly outweigh anything else,” suggests she had forgotten the rule that had served her so well as a secretary, from which she rose to the top.
Every secretary knows this rule: lead by listening, move immovable objects by whispering wisdom into the ear of the monster, and let the monster take credit, as your influence rules.
I never had a secretary that wasn’t smarter than I was; never had a secretary that wasn’t wiser than I was, and never had a secretary that had to roll her shoulders and lead with her chin, as I did, to get things done.
Carly Fiorina thought that as she entered a “man’s world” she should leave this wise counsel behind, and assume the Teflon man that are the half-wits of every boardroom. It is for that decision that Hewlett-Packard, and other stockholders such as myself, continues to suffer. I wish her well as she invites that secretary in her soul back in her future endeavors.
**************************
This was another essay composed yesterday during my daily peripatetic walk.
Wednesday, October 11, 2006
CATHOLIC DIOCESE IN IOWA FILES CHAPTER 11!
The Tampa Tribune: October 10, 2006
“Catholic Diocese in Iowa Files Chapter 11.” I read this headline in The Tampa Tribune this morning, and realized it was the Davenport Diocese of my youth. The bishop of the 1940s was Ralph L. Hayes, a good Irishman, who confirmed me at St. Patrick Catholic Church in Clinton, Iowa.
During my elementary school years at that school, I was an altar boy. And as my book In the Shadow of the Courthouse: Memoirs of the 1940s Written as a Novel (AuthorHouse 2003) points out, I had my moments with St. Patrick’s pastor, the Most Reverend Harvey Finefield.
That said, I served 7:30 a.m. masses with him for years, and enjoyed virtually every minute of it. Father Finefield was a dedicated priest and a tribute to his vocation. He passed on after more than a half century of service to the priesthood with his pastoral role unblemished.
That was not the case with his assistant pastor, the Most Reverend Father Anthony Geertz. Over recent years, it has come to my attention as I have returned to my hometown that Father Geertz left the priesthood, married, and died some time ago. Posthumously, I have learned that he, along with other priests in the diocese, has been sued for sex abuse.
This absolutely astounds me because I knew Father Geertz well, was a visitor to his home and wonderful family in Davenport, Iowa, often accompanied him on his shopping sprees for electronics, then, mostly in hi-fi equipment as he loved music.
In every way, Father Geertz was a beautiful man, helpful, kind, considerate, modest, and humble. He was 27-years-old when he came to St. Patrick’s in the 1946 – 1947 school year. I remember that because he told us how hard it was for him to become a priest because Latin was such a challenge. Then with a typical self-deprecating way about him, added, “But that was nothing compared to giving sermons.”
Anyone who ever heard a Father Geertz sermon appreciates the agony he went through to deliver it. The agony was almost as bad as for those that had to be his audience.
The state of the Davenport Diocese saddens me. This is compounded by the legacy of legal charges and innuendos against diocesan priests, including Father Geertz. Dozens of claims were paid out in the fall of 2004 amounting to more than $10.4 million to 37 victims. My mind is incredulous because one of these priests was very important to me in my youth, and he couldn’t have been a better role model.
I have been trained as a psychologist, yes, an industrial and organizational psychologist, and not a clinical psychologist, true, but I’ve taken many of the same courses, and know how easy it is for one to imagine a life gone awry looking for a source of the trouble.
In my day, we would blame our parents, especially our fathers, for not making satisfactory progress. But since the 1960s and the “sexual revolution,” there has been a myriad of skeletons on which we have been allowed to drape the ghosts of our confusion.
Is this the case of some? Obviously, I don’t know.
I do know the Bishop of the St. Petersburg Diocese here in the Tampa Bay Area was accused of “sexual abuse” by a protégé he befriended and treated as a son. The charge against the bishop? He gave extravagant gifts to the young man, the same that a parent might of a favorite child.
Now, I must make an apology to his Excellency the Bishop of Davenport, William Franklin, for blaming the church for erasing my St. Patrick Catholic Church, Rectory and School from the face of the earth.
I thought it was a draconian measure made with great insensitivity to the needs of the Clinton, Iowa Catholic community. I was wrong.
Having been an executive, I know about decisions you have to make involving facilities and people that are never shared “up front” regarding the reason why. That causes people to speculate and think all sorts of terrible things about those in charge. For a modest middle working class diocese, as the Davenport Diocese is, paying out $10.4 million from limited coffers had to be terribly painful if not extremely difficult for the bishop.
I had great affection and great respect for his Excellency Ralph L. Hayes, Bishop of Davenport, and I’m sure Bishop Franklin maintains the same tradition. My best to him and the diocese, and this, too, shall pass.
James R. Fisher, Jr., Ph.D.
6714 Jennifer Drive
Temple Terrace, FL 33617-2504
Email: thedeltagrpfl@cs.com
Website: www.fisherofideas.com
“Catholic Diocese in Iowa Files Chapter 11.” I read this headline in The Tampa Tribune this morning, and realized it was the Davenport Diocese of my youth. The bishop of the 1940s was Ralph L. Hayes, a good Irishman, who confirmed me at St. Patrick Catholic Church in Clinton, Iowa.
During my elementary school years at that school, I was an altar boy. And as my book In the Shadow of the Courthouse: Memoirs of the 1940s Written as a Novel (AuthorHouse 2003) points out, I had my moments with St. Patrick’s pastor, the Most Reverend Harvey Finefield.
That said, I served 7:30 a.m. masses with him for years, and enjoyed virtually every minute of it. Father Finefield was a dedicated priest and a tribute to his vocation. He passed on after more than a half century of service to the priesthood with his pastoral role unblemished.
That was not the case with his assistant pastor, the Most Reverend Father Anthony Geertz. Over recent years, it has come to my attention as I have returned to my hometown that Father Geertz left the priesthood, married, and died some time ago. Posthumously, I have learned that he, along with other priests in the diocese, has been sued for sex abuse.
This absolutely astounds me because I knew Father Geertz well, was a visitor to his home and wonderful family in Davenport, Iowa, often accompanied him on his shopping sprees for electronics, then, mostly in hi-fi equipment as he loved music.
In every way, Father Geertz was a beautiful man, helpful, kind, considerate, modest, and humble. He was 27-years-old when he came to St. Patrick’s in the 1946 – 1947 school year. I remember that because he told us how hard it was for him to become a priest because Latin was such a challenge. Then with a typical self-deprecating way about him, added, “But that was nothing compared to giving sermons.”
Anyone who ever heard a Father Geertz sermon appreciates the agony he went through to deliver it. The agony was almost as bad as for those that had to be his audience.
The state of the Davenport Diocese saddens me. This is compounded by the legacy of legal charges and innuendos against diocesan priests, including Father Geertz. Dozens of claims were paid out in the fall of 2004 amounting to more than $10.4 million to 37 victims. My mind is incredulous because one of these priests was very important to me in my youth, and he couldn’t have been a better role model.
I have been trained as a psychologist, yes, an industrial and organizational psychologist, and not a clinical psychologist, true, but I’ve taken many of the same courses, and know how easy it is for one to imagine a life gone awry looking for a source of the trouble.
In my day, we would blame our parents, especially our fathers, for not making satisfactory progress. But since the 1960s and the “sexual revolution,” there has been a myriad of skeletons on which we have been allowed to drape the ghosts of our confusion.
Is this the case of some? Obviously, I don’t know.
I do know the Bishop of the St. Petersburg Diocese here in the Tampa Bay Area was accused of “sexual abuse” by a protégé he befriended and treated as a son. The charge against the bishop? He gave extravagant gifts to the young man, the same that a parent might of a favorite child.
Now, I must make an apology to his Excellency the Bishop of Davenport, William Franklin, for blaming the church for erasing my St. Patrick Catholic Church, Rectory and School from the face of the earth.
I thought it was a draconian measure made with great insensitivity to the needs of the Clinton, Iowa Catholic community. I was wrong.
Having been an executive, I know about decisions you have to make involving facilities and people that are never shared “up front” regarding the reason why. That causes people to speculate and think all sorts of terrible things about those in charge. For a modest middle working class diocese, as the Davenport Diocese is, paying out $10.4 million from limited coffers had to be terribly painful if not extremely difficult for the bishop.
I had great affection and great respect for his Excellency Ralph L. Hayes, Bishop of Davenport, and I’m sure Bishop Franklin maintains the same tradition. My best to him and the diocese, and this, too, shall pass.
James R. Fisher, Jr., Ph.D.
6714 Jennifer Drive
Temple Terrace, FL 33617-2504
Email: thedeltagrpfl@cs.com
Website: www.fisherofideas.com
Tuesday, October 10, 2006
CONFIDENT THINKING BRIDGE TO CONFIDENT SELLING -- CONFESSION OF A WRITER!
CONFIDENT THINKING BRIDGE TO CONFIDENT SELLING
James R. Fisher, Jr., Ph.D.
© October 2006
ABSRACT
CONFESSION OF A WRITER
I confess here to taking another tact. I cannot get the attention of ordinary sorts like myself with my words, and so I have gone back to the basics, where I have had some success, hoping to have it once again, and build on it.
My aim in this most recent attempt to get the attention of ordinary sorts such as myself has not been to alarm but to alert people like myself to the world we have created and the delusional way I see us facing it.
We Americans can read a disturbing novel from Stephen King, but we don’t want an ordinary sort such as me to write a horror tale of the reality of the times as I see it. I am not a Democrat or a Republican; not a reformer or a crusader. I am an American who happens to be white and aging fast, and in any case, won’t be around, I don’t suppose, for the conflagration that might occur if ordinary sorts such as me don’t start paying attention.
We ordinary sorts not only stir the drink. We are the drink.
The “forward” that follows this little note is my revised and updated CONFIDENT SELLING, first published in 1970, but is more apropos today than it was then. The book dwells on the fact that we are all sellers and poor sellers at that because we think we are above this basic human condition of everyday life.
The “forward” here is also the “afterward” to my CONFIDENT THINKING, which will be published for the first time. Publication of both books is planned for 2007.
I have been absent from book publishing since the publication of IN THE SHADOW OF THE COURTHOUSE: A MEMOIR OF THE 1940s WRITTEN AS A NOVEL in 2003. Scores of articles have been published in the interim, but no books. Additionally, many essays have appeared on my blog (www.fisherofideas.com).
I wrote NEAR JOURNEY’S END? CAN THE PLANET EARTH SURVIVE SELF-INDULGENT MAN? in 2004, and revised and refocused it as NOWHERE MAN IN NOWHERE LAND in 2005 -2006. Neither version was able to find a publisher.
NOWHERE is an outline of Western civilization in which the focus is meant to show how a philosophy of “cut and control” progress has put the planet in its present precarious state. No culprit has been guiltier of this than we Americans.
Throughout Western history, for every piece of progress something has been sacrificed, something irrevocably lost forever.
When man went from hunters and gatherers to farmers, power shifted from matriarchal to patriarchal. Open spaces were reduced to settled lands. These settled lands then divided into properties in which men became the barterers. Fences went up, and settlements grew, villages became towns, and towns became cities, and a whole new complexity took shape.
The freedom and casualness, the harmony and connection to nature would never again be the same. Present day post-modernity is only an advanced iteration of this process with much less to divide and therefore much less that can afford to be lost.
NOWHERE attempts to show the polarity of two utopian ideas that have competed with the Western conscience through time. The UTOPIA (1516) of Thomas More is that of an idealistic society on a crescent shaped isolated island from the rest of the world. The book “1984” published in 1948 by George Orwell is of dystopia, or the negative of More’s positive ideal.
With our “cut and control” philosophy, we have moved into Orwell’s dytopia with a vengeance. In doing so, we have become residence of NOWHERE LAND where people increasingly deny the state of existence and take on the persona of NOWERE MAN. The word “utopia” means “nowhere” because utopia exists only in the imagination. It doesn’t exist in reality.
In many ways, the idea of America is a utopian idea. By the nature of its boundaries of two gigantic oceans, and through the limits of communications during most of its 500 years, it has been possible to keep it isolated and separated from other lands and their problems.
In this sense, it resembles More’s UTOPIA which had an island perimeter of 500 miles and separated from other lands by a man-made channel. More had a sense of humor about his main character, Hythloday, who expounds at length about the mythical land of Utopia. “Hythloday” in Greek means literally, “a talker of nonsense.”
If utopia seems a stretch in the present context, even the great wars of the twentieth century have failed to touch American shores or much of the American conscience.
It is in this climate that those reading this have grown up, that is, with the exception of those just coming of age with the Twin Towers terrorist attack of 9/11 five years ago.
The response to that attack illustrates paranoia not perception; of the delusion of peace at home while the world is coming apart at the seams; or the irrational belief that America is the only idea, and that everyone covets it.
Most Americans have no trouble with giving money to Darfur and other deeply suffering places about the globe, as long as the images are only on their television screens. Most of us cannot imagine such danger, hardship and horror. Yet these places live just beyond our island.
Another book that I have written that has not been able to find a publisher is WHO PUT YOU IN THE CAGE? This book’s premise is that we all create our own cages, and then voluntarily occupy them without a fathom of insight as to where we are and why we are there and not somewhere else. It is as if we are on automatic pilot.
When paranoia dominates national policy instead of perception, the cage becomes a national cage as well. We are all living in it now, and the last thing we want to admit is that this is so.
We Americans, who pride ourselves in our inventiveness, have demonstrated throughout our history that we are given to react to crises rather than to anticipate them. Therefore, we never nip them in the bud.
Check the history of WWI, WWII, the Great Depression, the Union Movement, Sputnik, Japan Can Why Can’t We, follow the genesis of hollow factories, 9/11, and now North Korea as a rogue nuclear power. Reaction always!
It is as if we have to be kick started by a calamity or catastrophe before getting our attention, and then it is often too late for damage control. Crisis management follows and perception quickly gives way to paranoia. It is a response mechanism etched in our consciences.
We live in a culture of complacency masquerading as a culture of contribution with our foot to the accelerator and brake at once burning up rubber going nowhere, while burning the candle at both ends, and still believing the utopian idea that it will all be all right when we wake up.
We need something to put such events in the forefront of consciousness. Otherwise, it is convenient to ignore them, discredit them, deny them, or most painfully of all, when consumed by the reality of such events, to still not acknowledge them as real.
If my website survives my life, and if many of my writings survive, perhaps someone with better wits than I have, and a better flare for getting people’s attention will trigger sense against encroaching calamity.
Having said this, I think these two short books; CONFIDENT SELLING and CONFIDENT THINKING may trigger a response with readers who are being smothered by distractions including their lifestyles while failing to make connection with their nascent sensibility. In the end as in the beginning, things change one person at a time. That is my quest and why I share this confession here with you.
FORWARD TO CONFIDENT SELLING/AFTERWORD TO CONFIDENT THINKING
I have had the good fortune to look back on a long and productive life in which many things have gone my way. I do this without conceit but with a sense of sharing what is possible if you believe in yourself in a self-aware, self-reliant, self-accepting, and self-directing way, a way in which what you do is to your benefit rather than detriment. After all, you are all you have in the final analysis, as you come in alone and you leave alone. No one, absolutely no one has a right to disrespect you, including yourself.
It has been my experience that there are two motors operating within our consciousness. One is self-creation and the other is self-destruction.
Chances are we are always somewhere between these two extremes, vacillating back and forth, often losing precious energy going nowhere. You cannot be in control and confident if you are always trying to please others at the expense of pleasing yourself, or doing what others think is best for you finding little time to pursue what you would prefer. If you don’t know whether you are afoot or horseback, coming or going, between a rock and a hard place, or on the horns of dilemma, someone else is managing your life, you surely aren’t.
Confidence is a self-control mechanism that comes into play to put the mind in concert with the will so that self-creation triumphs over self-destruction. No stage more dramatically presents this conflict than in selling.
THE THEATRE OF SELLING
The “theatre of selling” is the theatre of life, not only those with selling careers, but for everyone. This theatre is a special place. That is why I have chosen to reissue and update this book for a twenty-first century audience.
In this theatre, you determine whether you are the buyer or the seller, whether you have something to share as the seller or something you need as the buyer. It is this theatre that determines whether you are going to give or receive something worthwhile, or are going to be imprisoned in a second-hand, second-rate life in which someone else does all the buying and selling for you. I am thinking of the media for one and the Internet for another. There is no substitute for selling and buying in the flesh on a first-hand, first-rate basis. Then the opinions you have are self-generated and not manufactured for your consumption. In any case, it is a quid pro quo theatre.
Now, in the theatre of selling, you are going to encounter a certain number of people who are bent on seeing you fail rather than succeed. They believe there is not enough room for everyone to be successful when there is always more than enough room.
A person needs to define the situation clearly and manage its nuances sensibly to cope in this theatre.
I learned this the hard way. Married, with a young family, working as a chemist in research and development with Standard Brands, Inc., a food processing company, operating in my hometown of Clinton, Iowa, the prospects were not good with a bachelor’s degree. So, I considered graduate school, being granted a fellowship to an eastern university. One has weaknesses as well as strengths. I was good at manipulating chemical symbols, but a bust in the laboratory. My quest for further training in chemistry had to be away from the laboratory and toward teaching or theoretical research. Knowing this was not a problem because the better we know ourselves the better we tend to know and understand others, and the less likely they can manipulate us away from our strengths.
An examination of my finances made it clear that I had to supplement this stipend in order to assume the fellowship. I checked CHEMICAL & ENGINEERING NEWS for job opportunities, and one stuck out. It pictured a field test kit with positions for chemical sales engineers. I interviewed and was hired by Nalco Chemical Company. It seemed not too far a jump from the lab into the field.
Not knowing anything about selling or fieldwork, I discovered quickly that my natural tendency to be direct was a handicap. I also learned that it was not my nature to be devious, or political. Nor was I concerned about collateral damage to sensitive egos.
After extensive technical training in Chicago at the company’s headquarters, I was shipped off to Indianapolis, Indiana. There, I traveled the first month with the area manager. At the end of this period, he asked me what I had learned. Like the chemist I had been, and having had an analytical disposition, I answered him bluntly.
In my critique, I referenced the fact he never asked for a single order; that calls appeared social calls with us mainly spinning our wheels. Looking at my notes, I mentioned that he never inquired about what problems they were having, or how we could help. Instead, he had a set spiel about the company’s technical leadership and its commitment to research and development, even including the self-congratulations of our having the best-trained field engineers in the business. This, I added, made some of our contacts squirm uncomfortably.
The following Monday I came to the office with only the area and district manager present. They sat there behind adjoining desks with stone faces as if high priests of the Inquisition. I shivered as I entered knowing this was not good.
With somber nods, they motioned for me to sit, which I did on a chair in front of them. Then they proceeded to tell me I was not cut out for fieldwork, not temperamentally suited to sales, too insensitive to other people’s feelings. It was clearly a shock that I had passed the psychiatric interview, psychology tests, and executive interviews without sounding alarm bells. “Do you know we hire only one of every two hundred interviewed?” I failed to see the point, sat there passively, and didn’t even shrug my shoulders.
The district manager said I should look for another job, taking a long drag on his cigarette, adding magnanimously, “We are giving you some marginal accounts to service; you can upgrade them if so inclined, and call on competitor accounts in the area.” Then waxing serious again, laid down the gauntlet. “After two months, if you’ve not acquired another position, we’ll have no other option but to let you go.”
This put me into something of a swoon. I collected the service accounts, a map designating my area of operation, samples of literature, and expense account report forms. Then the stone faces told me without a word I should exit immediately.
I had a wife and two small children, with another on the way; cut off from the security of the laboratory with no job prospects on the horizon, and little chance of supplementing my fellowship with sufficient funds to assume it. I was in survival mode.
My first thought was masochistic, as I felt somehow relieved. Failure was a new experience. I went to a bar, and I don’t drink. It was ten o’clock in the morning, and the bar was full of customers, which I found curious. I ordered a Seven-Up, and got a look from the bartender that resembled the stone faces I had just left. I nursed the drink with my eyes downcast, which must have telegraphed understanding for no one disturbed me.
Once outside the bar, I didn’t return to my car, but went for a walk that must have been four or five miles because I didn’t return for nearly an hour and a half. I was trying to decide what I was going to tell my wife when I got home. And as is my nature, I chose to tell her nothing.
Instead, I went about scheduling my service calls, and studying the product literature. These were not very profitable accounts, and had been neglected. Not surprisingly, they were glad to see me. It also proved possible to service them from early in the morning until late at night across the state, as many operated around the clock, seven days a week. Twelve hour days became routine, and unexpectedly, enjoyable.
Engineers were anxious to discuss problems they were having, and how our products performed or failed to perform. They proved able teachers as they familiarized me with complex mechanical systems from a practical operational point of view. My training was strong on theory but weak on application, so this proved invaluable.
I would sit with operators in the power plant, the control room of the air conditioning system, or stand with them on the deck of a cooling tower and discuss operating problems. We were partners. I found I had a facility to explain chemical technology simply and to draw meaningful schematics of systems that made my customers attentive students.
This mutual enrichment made each call an anticipated event. Chronic problems were located and dealt with as we found some of my products improved and others worsened conditions because they were poorly applied. One of the early findings was that dosage control was poor.
Chemicals were being fed through bypass feeders that resulted in mechanical surges of chemical dosage, which made control difficult. Needed were electrical positive displacement pumps that could feed chemicals at the prescribed dosage on a continuous basis. Once the equipment was installed, operations improved dramatically.
My first real selling experience was selling a product we didn’t produce, positive displacement pumps. I surveyed the literature on pumps, and came to recommend a certain company’s product, showing my customers how this would improve their operations, reduce downtime, save costs of chemicals, and advance overall efficiency.
So successful was I in selling these pumps that I got a call one day from a manufacturer’s representative. He wanted to know how much commission I expected from the selling of the pumps. This floored me, as this never entered my mind. I answered my concern was for controlled chemical feed, and nothing more. He thought I was putting him on, but I insisted. Thus a colleague in another company came to complement my work. He was the first of many through the years.
My very first sales calls sticks in memory, largely because it wasn’t a prospect, but a milk distribution center. I noted the large semis coming in, and thought they must have scale and corrosion problems, not thinking of my chemicals being contaminants; actually, not thinking at all. I wanted to get beyond my nervousness.
I gave a hurried sales presentation to the manager of this center. Afterward, he explained he could not use me, and then added, “Can I make a suggestion?” I said yes, confessing I was new to selling. “Don’t ever lose your openness. It is refreshing. I’m telling you this as someone who just met you. You’re not here to barrel me over, but to help me. That is clear, but as I explained, that is not possible.”
My lack of selling sophistication was common in a company that had a three-year technical sales training program in which no one was expected to sell before the end of that period. Here I was out making sales calls after a month on the job. I was out of my depth on that proverbial plank about to have it sawed off behind me. I had no choice but to find my own way.
FORCED ON A FAST TRACK FOR SURVIVAL
It may seem strange but during those first two months on my own I never turned on the television in my motel, never did anything but prepare for the next day. I came to develop matrixes in an attempt to understand the nuances of the sales calls. I commenced to notice that there was a consistency between the way I was greeted and treated at the reception desk, and beyond.
I also noted that everyone carries their geography with them no matter who they are. Work areas were not even subtle in reflection of this geography; nor were the manners, language and thought processes of those contacted. It was as if everyone was trying to tell me who and what they were if I would only listen. This was taken in and recalled later, often with surprising insight.
Without consciously being aware of it, I was developing a personality, geographic and demographic profile of the people I contacted that was providing intuitive insight into how best to approach them. I was learning how to read people without knowing that is what I was doing. Forty years later this would become THE FISHER PARADIGM ™.
No matter how insignificant or troubling the call had been I would write down briefly what I had experienced after the call. I created notebook after notebook about these observations, which I would review periodically to glean some insight into my approach.
Another thing, I became a student of my competitors’ products and services. I gained a sense of competitors’ strengths and weaknesses as I learned of the strengths and weaknesses of my company’s products and services.
In that first two-month period, I devised a plan of minor and major objectives for each call, feeling that I was not ready for the major objective, or the order, but that I should diagram it as if I were.
A routine was established in which I planned two calls each day on competitor accounts during business hours because I could make two or three calls after business hours on my own accounts.
A schematic was developed of competitors: how long with the account; frequency of service; and sense of satisfaction. I even checked to see how often my company called on these competitor accounts. To my surprise, I found companies that had been with competitors for up to ten years hadn’t seen someone from my company in a year; more than ten years, no calls at all, not even courtesy calls. As much as that astonished me, I knew there was little point in sharing it with my management.
Increasingly, it became apparent: selling was the most natural of enterprises, but sellers and buyers often had a low opinion of the process. I wondered why. I had never done anything that was more refreshing and satisfying, nor had I ever experienced such freedom or invigorating contact.
One day, after a terrible call in which I felt insulted by a customer, I got my dander up and walked out of his office in a huff. It was an ill-advised move as the person contacted my company and I nearly did not have my two-month cushion before being terminated.
Fortunately for me, it blew over and I learned a great deal. I learned: “the sales call was not all about me, but the problem of selling was.” A light turned on that would ultimately lead to CONFIDENT SELLING, as I became a student of the profession, not only of the how, but the why of selling as well, which is all about CONFIDENT THINKING.
During that first two-month period until the time of my first retirement ten years later, I learned from my mistakes. That learning can be reduced to a statement:
“I (seller) must accept myself as I am, and others as I find them.” And a corollary to that statement: “If I am capable of doing this, I will be self-aware, self-reliant, self-directed and self-assertive because there will be no false gods in my path.”
Once I came to that realization, I saw the problem was not selling to another, but my selling myself on the value to another.
I saw I was the only barrier to my success, not someone else. It wasn’t the resistance of another that I had to overcome but my own resistance to my worthiness to be the vehicle to someone else’s success, and thus to my own.
From that epiphany, things started to break for me.
I called on accounts that had been with competitors from anywhere from ten to twenty-five years and amazing things started to happen. Before the two-months were up, I was the leading seller in a seven-man district sales force of veteran sales engineers. I had sold the largest account that had been sold in the district in the last ten years. It was an account that had been with a competitor longer than that period. I continued to sell, so much so that the formula of compensation had to be changed, or I would be making more than the veterans.
Within a year on the job, word spread about my success, and I was invited to speak at regional sales meetings to share my “magic” formula. There was no magic formula. I wasn’t quite sure what it was because I lacked a sales vocabulary to describe my success. It was in reading selling books that I found they had it all wrong, leastwise in my case.
This presented another problem. My approach was intuitive and conceptual rather than mechanical and manipulative. I was reading the buyer and his needs and not riding shotgun hoping to hit something with a blitzkrieg approach.
There was psychology and sociology to my approach, yet, at that time, I had not been a student of either discipline. I was a reader of novels, and novels are about people in human situations attempting to cope with life’s complexities. Novelist Somerset Maugham claims novels are only for entertainment not edification. Yet novels did help me gain insight into real people in real situations.
Typically, engineers scoff at the idea of reading fiction, preferring non-fiction technical books. As my methodology came clearer to me, knowing this, I put it in a format that would match as much as possible the way my colleagues preferred to think.
SERENDIPITY
This did not escape senior management. Nalco was a small chemical company in an ambitious international growth mode. They were looking for ways to be more effective sellers throughout the world. The word spread of my work first in Indiana and then Kentucky. People were sent to travel with me to observe my selling approach, which was to take technical selling problems and reduce them to people perception problems.
With this focus, sellers acted as problem solving partners with buyers. This led naturally to confident thinking and selling. This was a developing idea that would one day become CONFIDENT SELLING and now CONFIDENT THINKING.
More importantly, it worked. This found me rising from an area manager to an international executive with the company, working in South America, Europe and South Africa. It was after South Africa that I retired and wrote CONFIDENT SELLING.
Now both books are testimony to what can be accomplished when we are our own best friend and accept ourselves as we are and others as we find them. To that end I wish you well, and hope that this changes not only your career, but your perspective on life as well.
* * * * * * * *
James R. Fisher, Jr., Ph.D.
© October 2006
ABSRACT
CONFESSION OF A WRITER
I confess here to taking another tact. I cannot get the attention of ordinary sorts like myself with my words, and so I have gone back to the basics, where I have had some success, hoping to have it once again, and build on it.
My aim in this most recent attempt to get the attention of ordinary sorts such as myself has not been to alarm but to alert people like myself to the world we have created and the delusional way I see us facing it.
We Americans can read a disturbing novel from Stephen King, but we don’t want an ordinary sort such as me to write a horror tale of the reality of the times as I see it. I am not a Democrat or a Republican; not a reformer or a crusader. I am an American who happens to be white and aging fast, and in any case, won’t be around, I don’t suppose, for the conflagration that might occur if ordinary sorts such as me don’t start paying attention.
We ordinary sorts not only stir the drink. We are the drink.
The “forward” that follows this little note is my revised and updated CONFIDENT SELLING, first published in 1970, but is more apropos today than it was then. The book dwells on the fact that we are all sellers and poor sellers at that because we think we are above this basic human condition of everyday life.
The “forward” here is also the “afterward” to my CONFIDENT THINKING, which will be published for the first time. Publication of both books is planned for 2007.
I have been absent from book publishing since the publication of IN THE SHADOW OF THE COURTHOUSE: A MEMOIR OF THE 1940s WRITTEN AS A NOVEL in 2003. Scores of articles have been published in the interim, but no books. Additionally, many essays have appeared on my blog (www.fisherofideas.com).
I wrote NEAR JOURNEY’S END? CAN THE PLANET EARTH SURVIVE SELF-INDULGENT MAN? in 2004, and revised and refocused it as NOWHERE MAN IN NOWHERE LAND in 2005 -2006. Neither version was able to find a publisher.
NOWHERE is an outline of Western civilization in which the focus is meant to show how a philosophy of “cut and control” progress has put the planet in its present precarious state. No culprit has been guiltier of this than we Americans.
Throughout Western history, for every piece of progress something has been sacrificed, something irrevocably lost forever.
When man went from hunters and gatherers to farmers, power shifted from matriarchal to patriarchal. Open spaces were reduced to settled lands. These settled lands then divided into properties in which men became the barterers. Fences went up, and settlements grew, villages became towns, and towns became cities, and a whole new complexity took shape.
The freedom and casualness, the harmony and connection to nature would never again be the same. Present day post-modernity is only an advanced iteration of this process with much less to divide and therefore much less that can afford to be lost.
NOWHERE attempts to show the polarity of two utopian ideas that have competed with the Western conscience through time. The UTOPIA (1516) of Thomas More is that of an idealistic society on a crescent shaped isolated island from the rest of the world. The book “1984” published in 1948 by George Orwell is of dystopia, or the negative of More’s positive ideal.
With our “cut and control” philosophy, we have moved into Orwell’s dytopia with a vengeance. In doing so, we have become residence of NOWHERE LAND where people increasingly deny the state of existence and take on the persona of NOWERE MAN. The word “utopia” means “nowhere” because utopia exists only in the imagination. It doesn’t exist in reality.
In many ways, the idea of America is a utopian idea. By the nature of its boundaries of two gigantic oceans, and through the limits of communications during most of its 500 years, it has been possible to keep it isolated and separated from other lands and their problems.
In this sense, it resembles More’s UTOPIA which had an island perimeter of 500 miles and separated from other lands by a man-made channel. More had a sense of humor about his main character, Hythloday, who expounds at length about the mythical land of Utopia. “Hythloday” in Greek means literally, “a talker of nonsense.”
If utopia seems a stretch in the present context, even the great wars of the twentieth century have failed to touch American shores or much of the American conscience.
It is in this climate that those reading this have grown up, that is, with the exception of those just coming of age with the Twin Towers terrorist attack of 9/11 five years ago.
The response to that attack illustrates paranoia not perception; of the delusion of peace at home while the world is coming apart at the seams; or the irrational belief that America is the only idea, and that everyone covets it.
Most Americans have no trouble with giving money to Darfur and other deeply suffering places about the globe, as long as the images are only on their television screens. Most of us cannot imagine such danger, hardship and horror. Yet these places live just beyond our island.
Another book that I have written that has not been able to find a publisher is WHO PUT YOU IN THE CAGE? This book’s premise is that we all create our own cages, and then voluntarily occupy them without a fathom of insight as to where we are and why we are there and not somewhere else. It is as if we are on automatic pilot.
When paranoia dominates national policy instead of perception, the cage becomes a national cage as well. We are all living in it now, and the last thing we want to admit is that this is so.
We Americans, who pride ourselves in our inventiveness, have demonstrated throughout our history that we are given to react to crises rather than to anticipate them. Therefore, we never nip them in the bud.
Check the history of WWI, WWII, the Great Depression, the Union Movement, Sputnik, Japan Can Why Can’t We, follow the genesis of hollow factories, 9/11, and now North Korea as a rogue nuclear power. Reaction always!
It is as if we have to be kick started by a calamity or catastrophe before getting our attention, and then it is often too late for damage control. Crisis management follows and perception quickly gives way to paranoia. It is a response mechanism etched in our consciences.
We live in a culture of complacency masquerading as a culture of contribution with our foot to the accelerator and brake at once burning up rubber going nowhere, while burning the candle at both ends, and still believing the utopian idea that it will all be all right when we wake up.
We need something to put such events in the forefront of consciousness. Otherwise, it is convenient to ignore them, discredit them, deny them, or most painfully of all, when consumed by the reality of such events, to still not acknowledge them as real.
If my website survives my life, and if many of my writings survive, perhaps someone with better wits than I have, and a better flare for getting people’s attention will trigger sense against encroaching calamity.
Having said this, I think these two short books; CONFIDENT SELLING and CONFIDENT THINKING may trigger a response with readers who are being smothered by distractions including their lifestyles while failing to make connection with their nascent sensibility. In the end as in the beginning, things change one person at a time. That is my quest and why I share this confession here with you.
FORWARD TO CONFIDENT SELLING/AFTERWORD TO CONFIDENT THINKING
I have had the good fortune to look back on a long and productive life in which many things have gone my way. I do this without conceit but with a sense of sharing what is possible if you believe in yourself in a self-aware, self-reliant, self-accepting, and self-directing way, a way in which what you do is to your benefit rather than detriment. After all, you are all you have in the final analysis, as you come in alone and you leave alone. No one, absolutely no one has a right to disrespect you, including yourself.
It has been my experience that there are two motors operating within our consciousness. One is self-creation and the other is self-destruction.
Chances are we are always somewhere between these two extremes, vacillating back and forth, often losing precious energy going nowhere. You cannot be in control and confident if you are always trying to please others at the expense of pleasing yourself, or doing what others think is best for you finding little time to pursue what you would prefer. If you don’t know whether you are afoot or horseback, coming or going, between a rock and a hard place, or on the horns of dilemma, someone else is managing your life, you surely aren’t.
Confidence is a self-control mechanism that comes into play to put the mind in concert with the will so that self-creation triumphs over self-destruction. No stage more dramatically presents this conflict than in selling.
THE THEATRE OF SELLING
The “theatre of selling” is the theatre of life, not only those with selling careers, but for everyone. This theatre is a special place. That is why I have chosen to reissue and update this book for a twenty-first century audience.
In this theatre, you determine whether you are the buyer or the seller, whether you have something to share as the seller or something you need as the buyer. It is this theatre that determines whether you are going to give or receive something worthwhile, or are going to be imprisoned in a second-hand, second-rate life in which someone else does all the buying and selling for you. I am thinking of the media for one and the Internet for another. There is no substitute for selling and buying in the flesh on a first-hand, first-rate basis. Then the opinions you have are self-generated and not manufactured for your consumption. In any case, it is a quid pro quo theatre.
Now, in the theatre of selling, you are going to encounter a certain number of people who are bent on seeing you fail rather than succeed. They believe there is not enough room for everyone to be successful when there is always more than enough room.
A person needs to define the situation clearly and manage its nuances sensibly to cope in this theatre.
I learned this the hard way. Married, with a young family, working as a chemist in research and development with Standard Brands, Inc., a food processing company, operating in my hometown of Clinton, Iowa, the prospects were not good with a bachelor’s degree. So, I considered graduate school, being granted a fellowship to an eastern university. One has weaknesses as well as strengths. I was good at manipulating chemical symbols, but a bust in the laboratory. My quest for further training in chemistry had to be away from the laboratory and toward teaching or theoretical research. Knowing this was not a problem because the better we know ourselves the better we tend to know and understand others, and the less likely they can manipulate us away from our strengths.
An examination of my finances made it clear that I had to supplement this stipend in order to assume the fellowship. I checked CHEMICAL & ENGINEERING NEWS for job opportunities, and one stuck out. It pictured a field test kit with positions for chemical sales engineers. I interviewed and was hired by Nalco Chemical Company. It seemed not too far a jump from the lab into the field.
Not knowing anything about selling or fieldwork, I discovered quickly that my natural tendency to be direct was a handicap. I also learned that it was not my nature to be devious, or political. Nor was I concerned about collateral damage to sensitive egos.
After extensive technical training in Chicago at the company’s headquarters, I was shipped off to Indianapolis, Indiana. There, I traveled the first month with the area manager. At the end of this period, he asked me what I had learned. Like the chemist I had been, and having had an analytical disposition, I answered him bluntly.
In my critique, I referenced the fact he never asked for a single order; that calls appeared social calls with us mainly spinning our wheels. Looking at my notes, I mentioned that he never inquired about what problems they were having, or how we could help. Instead, he had a set spiel about the company’s technical leadership and its commitment to research and development, even including the self-congratulations of our having the best-trained field engineers in the business. This, I added, made some of our contacts squirm uncomfortably.
The following Monday I came to the office with only the area and district manager present. They sat there behind adjoining desks with stone faces as if high priests of the Inquisition. I shivered as I entered knowing this was not good.
With somber nods, they motioned for me to sit, which I did on a chair in front of them. Then they proceeded to tell me I was not cut out for fieldwork, not temperamentally suited to sales, too insensitive to other people’s feelings. It was clearly a shock that I had passed the psychiatric interview, psychology tests, and executive interviews without sounding alarm bells. “Do you know we hire only one of every two hundred interviewed?” I failed to see the point, sat there passively, and didn’t even shrug my shoulders.
The district manager said I should look for another job, taking a long drag on his cigarette, adding magnanimously, “We are giving you some marginal accounts to service; you can upgrade them if so inclined, and call on competitor accounts in the area.” Then waxing serious again, laid down the gauntlet. “After two months, if you’ve not acquired another position, we’ll have no other option but to let you go.”
This put me into something of a swoon. I collected the service accounts, a map designating my area of operation, samples of literature, and expense account report forms. Then the stone faces told me without a word I should exit immediately.
I had a wife and two small children, with another on the way; cut off from the security of the laboratory with no job prospects on the horizon, and little chance of supplementing my fellowship with sufficient funds to assume it. I was in survival mode.
My first thought was masochistic, as I felt somehow relieved. Failure was a new experience. I went to a bar, and I don’t drink. It was ten o’clock in the morning, and the bar was full of customers, which I found curious. I ordered a Seven-Up, and got a look from the bartender that resembled the stone faces I had just left. I nursed the drink with my eyes downcast, which must have telegraphed understanding for no one disturbed me.
Once outside the bar, I didn’t return to my car, but went for a walk that must have been four or five miles because I didn’t return for nearly an hour and a half. I was trying to decide what I was going to tell my wife when I got home. And as is my nature, I chose to tell her nothing.
Instead, I went about scheduling my service calls, and studying the product literature. These were not very profitable accounts, and had been neglected. Not surprisingly, they were glad to see me. It also proved possible to service them from early in the morning until late at night across the state, as many operated around the clock, seven days a week. Twelve hour days became routine, and unexpectedly, enjoyable.
Engineers were anxious to discuss problems they were having, and how our products performed or failed to perform. They proved able teachers as they familiarized me with complex mechanical systems from a practical operational point of view. My training was strong on theory but weak on application, so this proved invaluable.
I would sit with operators in the power plant, the control room of the air conditioning system, or stand with them on the deck of a cooling tower and discuss operating problems. We were partners. I found I had a facility to explain chemical technology simply and to draw meaningful schematics of systems that made my customers attentive students.
This mutual enrichment made each call an anticipated event. Chronic problems were located and dealt with as we found some of my products improved and others worsened conditions because they were poorly applied. One of the early findings was that dosage control was poor.
Chemicals were being fed through bypass feeders that resulted in mechanical surges of chemical dosage, which made control difficult. Needed were electrical positive displacement pumps that could feed chemicals at the prescribed dosage on a continuous basis. Once the equipment was installed, operations improved dramatically.
My first real selling experience was selling a product we didn’t produce, positive displacement pumps. I surveyed the literature on pumps, and came to recommend a certain company’s product, showing my customers how this would improve their operations, reduce downtime, save costs of chemicals, and advance overall efficiency.
So successful was I in selling these pumps that I got a call one day from a manufacturer’s representative. He wanted to know how much commission I expected from the selling of the pumps. This floored me, as this never entered my mind. I answered my concern was for controlled chemical feed, and nothing more. He thought I was putting him on, but I insisted. Thus a colleague in another company came to complement my work. He was the first of many through the years.
My very first sales calls sticks in memory, largely because it wasn’t a prospect, but a milk distribution center. I noted the large semis coming in, and thought they must have scale and corrosion problems, not thinking of my chemicals being contaminants; actually, not thinking at all. I wanted to get beyond my nervousness.
I gave a hurried sales presentation to the manager of this center. Afterward, he explained he could not use me, and then added, “Can I make a suggestion?” I said yes, confessing I was new to selling. “Don’t ever lose your openness. It is refreshing. I’m telling you this as someone who just met you. You’re not here to barrel me over, but to help me. That is clear, but as I explained, that is not possible.”
My lack of selling sophistication was common in a company that had a three-year technical sales training program in which no one was expected to sell before the end of that period. Here I was out making sales calls after a month on the job. I was out of my depth on that proverbial plank about to have it sawed off behind me. I had no choice but to find my own way.
FORCED ON A FAST TRACK FOR SURVIVAL
It may seem strange but during those first two months on my own I never turned on the television in my motel, never did anything but prepare for the next day. I came to develop matrixes in an attempt to understand the nuances of the sales calls. I commenced to notice that there was a consistency between the way I was greeted and treated at the reception desk, and beyond.
I also noted that everyone carries their geography with them no matter who they are. Work areas were not even subtle in reflection of this geography; nor were the manners, language and thought processes of those contacted. It was as if everyone was trying to tell me who and what they were if I would only listen. This was taken in and recalled later, often with surprising insight.
Without consciously being aware of it, I was developing a personality, geographic and demographic profile of the people I contacted that was providing intuitive insight into how best to approach them. I was learning how to read people without knowing that is what I was doing. Forty years later this would become THE FISHER PARADIGM ™.
No matter how insignificant or troubling the call had been I would write down briefly what I had experienced after the call. I created notebook after notebook about these observations, which I would review periodically to glean some insight into my approach.
Another thing, I became a student of my competitors’ products and services. I gained a sense of competitors’ strengths and weaknesses as I learned of the strengths and weaknesses of my company’s products and services.
In that first two-month period, I devised a plan of minor and major objectives for each call, feeling that I was not ready for the major objective, or the order, but that I should diagram it as if I were.
A routine was established in which I planned two calls each day on competitor accounts during business hours because I could make two or three calls after business hours on my own accounts.
A schematic was developed of competitors: how long with the account; frequency of service; and sense of satisfaction. I even checked to see how often my company called on these competitor accounts. To my surprise, I found companies that had been with competitors for up to ten years hadn’t seen someone from my company in a year; more than ten years, no calls at all, not even courtesy calls. As much as that astonished me, I knew there was little point in sharing it with my management.
Increasingly, it became apparent: selling was the most natural of enterprises, but sellers and buyers often had a low opinion of the process. I wondered why. I had never done anything that was more refreshing and satisfying, nor had I ever experienced such freedom or invigorating contact.
One day, after a terrible call in which I felt insulted by a customer, I got my dander up and walked out of his office in a huff. It was an ill-advised move as the person contacted my company and I nearly did not have my two-month cushion before being terminated.
Fortunately for me, it blew over and I learned a great deal. I learned: “the sales call was not all about me, but the problem of selling was.” A light turned on that would ultimately lead to CONFIDENT SELLING, as I became a student of the profession, not only of the how, but the why of selling as well, which is all about CONFIDENT THINKING.
During that first two-month period until the time of my first retirement ten years later, I learned from my mistakes. That learning can be reduced to a statement:
“I (seller) must accept myself as I am, and others as I find them.” And a corollary to that statement: “If I am capable of doing this, I will be self-aware, self-reliant, self-directed and self-assertive because there will be no false gods in my path.”
Once I came to that realization, I saw the problem was not selling to another, but my selling myself on the value to another.
I saw I was the only barrier to my success, not someone else. It wasn’t the resistance of another that I had to overcome but my own resistance to my worthiness to be the vehicle to someone else’s success, and thus to my own.
From that epiphany, things started to break for me.
I called on accounts that had been with competitors from anywhere from ten to twenty-five years and amazing things started to happen. Before the two-months were up, I was the leading seller in a seven-man district sales force of veteran sales engineers. I had sold the largest account that had been sold in the district in the last ten years. It was an account that had been with a competitor longer than that period. I continued to sell, so much so that the formula of compensation had to be changed, or I would be making more than the veterans.
Within a year on the job, word spread about my success, and I was invited to speak at regional sales meetings to share my “magic” formula. There was no magic formula. I wasn’t quite sure what it was because I lacked a sales vocabulary to describe my success. It was in reading selling books that I found they had it all wrong, leastwise in my case.
This presented another problem. My approach was intuitive and conceptual rather than mechanical and manipulative. I was reading the buyer and his needs and not riding shotgun hoping to hit something with a blitzkrieg approach.
There was psychology and sociology to my approach, yet, at that time, I had not been a student of either discipline. I was a reader of novels, and novels are about people in human situations attempting to cope with life’s complexities. Novelist Somerset Maugham claims novels are only for entertainment not edification. Yet novels did help me gain insight into real people in real situations.
Typically, engineers scoff at the idea of reading fiction, preferring non-fiction technical books. As my methodology came clearer to me, knowing this, I put it in a format that would match as much as possible the way my colleagues preferred to think.
SERENDIPITY
This did not escape senior management. Nalco was a small chemical company in an ambitious international growth mode. They were looking for ways to be more effective sellers throughout the world. The word spread of my work first in Indiana and then Kentucky. People were sent to travel with me to observe my selling approach, which was to take technical selling problems and reduce them to people perception problems.
With this focus, sellers acted as problem solving partners with buyers. This led naturally to confident thinking and selling. This was a developing idea that would one day become CONFIDENT SELLING and now CONFIDENT THINKING.
More importantly, it worked. This found me rising from an area manager to an international executive with the company, working in South America, Europe and South Africa. It was after South Africa that I retired and wrote CONFIDENT SELLING.
Now both books are testimony to what can be accomplished when we are our own best friend and accept ourselves as we are and others as we find them. To that end I wish you well, and hope that this changes not only your career, but your perspective on life as well.
* * * * * * * *
Monday, October 02, 2006
HEALTH IS WEATH! Enlightening Responses
Health is Wealth
© October 2006
James R. Fisher, Jr., Ph.D.
REFERENCE: These are some of the responses to my “Health is Wealth” missive. I related in the piece to my good fortune with regard to my health, relating a conversation with my doctor, who took the opportunity to comment on society’s health, which he found close to life support.
_____________________________
(1) This is the response of an executive with a high tech company in the USA.
It’s been interesting to follow the dialog. You could substitute Mishawaka for Clinton, and have a similar story although I think Mishawaka has adapted better, or tried to.
(I had mentioned that my hometown of Clinton, Iowa seemed to be moving away from its roots, and that Americans were burning the candle at both ends and getting away with it, at the moment.)
Maybe Americans burn the candle at both ends for stimulation and to avoid boredom. I know I do.
Soldier on bro,
E
________________________________
(2) This is the response of a former top scientist of a government agency, whom I called my brother inasmuch as we have both been schooled in the physical and behavioral sciences, and graduated from high school the same year in the same hometown.
Jim
I very much appreciate your words - both in this email and those
that you choose to share with your readers.
I don't agree with some of which you write but wouldn't it be a 'shitty'
world if we could only _agree_ on all issues.
I applaud your need to write. If you didn't, I'm afraid it might all
'explode' and that would be pretty 'messy' huh? :-P
We will do what we have to do. Even win one now and then! But we only
pass this way one time so until they put in a reliever, keep on
_pitch'n_ (and _catch'n_ too).
Your brother in spirit...
=;-D
_____________________________
(3) This is the response of a European friend and former executive colleague of mine when I worked in Europe. He is a German National and lives in Germany and his children, all successful professionals, educated in both Germany and the USA, are now living in America. He and his wife gave my wife Betty and me a splendid tour of Frankfurt on one of our European visits. This was especially rewarding as we toured the home of one of my favorite authors, Goethe. He, like Hemingway, I discovered, wrote his wonderful novels, poems and plays standing at his desk.
Jim,
I always cherish your missives and essays, even in cases not in line with my opinion. But this is what friendship is all about: If we would be always in sync with each other, it would be no gain for us, because we only can learn from different points of view. When you are critical with your country (as I'm with mine), it shows that you are wishing it to improve. If you wouldn't be critical, that would mean, you are without any interest or passion for your country. Those who don't understand this are too narrow-minded and self centered, i.e. ignorant. Just the various cultures and heritages (melting pot) have made the U.S. so strong and advanced, whereas Europe is still tied to its traditions. Giving this tolerance up would be a setback and terrible mistake.
Keep on going, my friend.
Manfred
_________________________
(4) This is the response of a government official of Austria who also owns a business magazine of business book best sellers. He published the most comprehensive article of mine on leadership and creativity that I have ever had published. To add to my delight it was published beside one’s of Europe’s most advanced thinkers on leadership. When we visited him in Innsbruck, he gave Betty and I a wonderful tour of the castles of the Austrian Empire, along with cultural lessons of the Hapsburg monarchy. We were also in Zurich when they celebrated the emperor’s gift of the "golden dome" to the empress, an annual event that highlighted the visit.
Dear Jim,
I think your “Health is Wealth” piece illustrates perfectly why so many people in wealthy countries suffer from mental and physical illnesses. That’s not only a problem in the US. Of course being ill is not always somebody’s own fault, but many people could lead a better life if they would change their attitude a little bit.
It’s always inspiring and a pleasure to hear from you.
Best wishes to you and Betty
Alex
P.S.: Plan to visit the States next year to get a deeper impression of your country.
______________________
(5) This response is from a publisher of many journals and periodicals who has seen fit to published a good number of my works over the past two decades. Were it not for his devoted support, should I die tomorrow, the world would never have known what one man thought about a myriad of things. I am eternally grateful to him.
Jim,
Keep fit.
Ken
___________________
(6) This is from a man who has published three books that are so loaded with information that they could fill a thousand book library. He happens to be a brilliant engineer, who would scoff at the suggestion. But as holder of more than one hundred patents, I don’t think this could be construed as chump change. He is a friend and doesn’t always agree with me but always makes me think beyond my narrow bands.
We're glad your checkup was good. Good news indeed. The psychological state of your "audience," you already knew from your own experiments. Cheers
________________________________________________________________
(7) This is from a person I’ve only met once, but have had a lively conversation with her through emails. She enjoys good health, but as her communiqué indicates she is also blessed with good genes. To me she is a Renaissance woman in that she quietly does her best to make the planet safe and healthy and beautiful for the generations to come. She doesn’t write classics, or lay paint on canvasses that will fill galleries and museums. Her classics and galleries are created and painted by Mother Nature. I envy her closeness to the Earth.
EXCELLENT, Jim!
Thanks for the reminder. My dad is 92, my mom 90. He is journeying on, but she still swims 30 laps a day. He is at home, per his wishes, with 27/78 nurses, listening to Benny Goodman cds and resting most of the time. They went to Mayo Clinic annually for 48 years (and got their work done in three days -- not three months!) My mom has been in the hospital twice (for births of her two children) and takes only a few pills: vitamins, aspirin regime and calcium. Never too late, I guess! (Good genes, as well, as all four of my grandparents - their parents - lived into their eighties and nineties!)
F
__________________________________
(8) This is from a Canadian engineer who keeps me informed of the thinking north of the border as well as what is going on in his “house of intellect.” We have never met but feel as if we know each other through this medium. I value his comments.
Dear deltagrpfl@cs.com,
Your friend thought you might be interested in this canada.com
story:
"Harper blocks Lebanon resolution"
http://www.canada.com/calgaryherald/news/story.html?id=80d16e11-b92b-4fe7-a6dd-4a47c26d2e9f&k=28442
Hi Jim,
We have a rookie PM (Canada) who is showing signs of being a true leader. He
has been accused of using Bush rhetoric in Canada but I have not heard it
myself. He is smart, very smart. We'll see how he makes out. He's been in
office only 7 months. Be well young fella and thanks for the article on
health. I passed it on to my caged son.
George
_______________________________________
This is a free service courtesy of
canada.com (http://www.canada.com)
____________________________________
(9) This is from the most brilliant classmate in my high school class, a fine athlete, and the temperament that God must have committed to the drawing board when he was having one of His best days. He read through my long (600+ page) manuscript, edited it, and suggested cutting some (200+) pages of IN THE SHADOW OF THE COURTHOUSE. He has always been on the same wavelength as my wife, Betty, as to what writing I should be doing, but I do resist, and persist doing what I am doing here now.
Jim,
Conversation writing is your best writing.
B-
(The missive was written in dialogue form as the doctor held court with me after my examination.)
___________________________________
COMMENT: I share this with you to give you a sense of people thousands of miles apart feeling connected together through this wonderful medium called the Internet. As I’ve often said, my desire is not to convince you to think as I do, but to be alert, ever alert to the dangers of our times, and yes, to the nature of self-imposed dangers as well, the folly of lifestyle. If vigilance be called paranoia, so be it!
Today, in a small Amish community in the northeast of the USA in a one-room schoolhouse, a gunman killed three children and himself for an apparent grievance that had festered for twenty years, not against the Amish, but against something – it is not known at this time.
I mention this because my Betty, who is the business manager at a Jewish day school, has giant boulders at the entrance to the school parking, and off-duty Hillsborough County Sheriff deputies are always on duty whenever school is in session.
She knows the tens of thousands of dollars that this security costs, and sometimes wonders if it is necessary. A long time ago, I said I applaud the school’s Board of Directors for their foresight and generosity, as parents are footing the bill.
If this Amish school had had such protection, there would only be one dead person, today, and that would be the mad gunman.
Always be well,
Jim
--
© October 2006
James R. Fisher, Jr., Ph.D.
REFERENCE: These are some of the responses to my “Health is Wealth” missive. I related in the piece to my good fortune with regard to my health, relating a conversation with my doctor, who took the opportunity to comment on society’s health, which he found close to life support.
_____________________________
(1) This is the response of an executive with a high tech company in the USA.
It’s been interesting to follow the dialog. You could substitute Mishawaka for Clinton, and have a similar story although I think Mishawaka has adapted better, or tried to.
(I had mentioned that my hometown of Clinton, Iowa seemed to be moving away from its roots, and that Americans were burning the candle at both ends and getting away with it, at the moment.)
Maybe Americans burn the candle at both ends for stimulation and to avoid boredom. I know I do.
Soldier on bro,
E
________________________________
(2) This is the response of a former top scientist of a government agency, whom I called my brother inasmuch as we have both been schooled in the physical and behavioral sciences, and graduated from high school the same year in the same hometown.
Jim
I very much appreciate your words - both in this email and those
that you choose to share with your readers.
I don't agree with some of which you write but wouldn't it be a 'shitty'
world if we could only _agree_ on all issues.
I applaud your need to write. If you didn't, I'm afraid it might all
'explode' and that would be pretty 'messy' huh? :-P
We will do what we have to do. Even win one now and then! But we only
pass this way one time so until they put in a reliever, keep on
_pitch'n_ (and _catch'n_ too).
Your brother in spirit...
=;-D
_____________________________
(3) This is the response of a European friend and former executive colleague of mine when I worked in Europe. He is a German National and lives in Germany and his children, all successful professionals, educated in both Germany and the USA, are now living in America. He and his wife gave my wife Betty and me a splendid tour of Frankfurt on one of our European visits. This was especially rewarding as we toured the home of one of my favorite authors, Goethe. He, like Hemingway, I discovered, wrote his wonderful novels, poems and plays standing at his desk.
Jim,
I always cherish your missives and essays, even in cases not in line with my opinion. But this is what friendship is all about: If we would be always in sync with each other, it would be no gain for us, because we only can learn from different points of view. When you are critical with your country (as I'm with mine), it shows that you are wishing it to improve. If you wouldn't be critical, that would mean, you are without any interest or passion for your country. Those who don't understand this are too narrow-minded and self centered, i.e. ignorant. Just the various cultures and heritages (melting pot) have made the U.S. so strong and advanced, whereas Europe is still tied to its traditions. Giving this tolerance up would be a setback and terrible mistake.
Keep on going, my friend.
Manfred
_________________________
(4) This is the response of a government official of Austria who also owns a business magazine of business book best sellers. He published the most comprehensive article of mine on leadership and creativity that I have ever had published. To add to my delight it was published beside one’s of Europe’s most advanced thinkers on leadership. When we visited him in Innsbruck, he gave Betty and I a wonderful tour of the castles of the Austrian Empire, along with cultural lessons of the Hapsburg monarchy. We were also in Zurich when they celebrated the emperor’s gift of the "golden dome" to the empress, an annual event that highlighted the visit.
Dear Jim,
I think your “Health is Wealth” piece illustrates perfectly why so many people in wealthy countries suffer from mental and physical illnesses. That’s not only a problem in the US. Of course being ill is not always somebody’s own fault, but many people could lead a better life if they would change their attitude a little bit.
It’s always inspiring and a pleasure to hear from you.
Best wishes to you and Betty
Alex
P.S.: Plan to visit the States next year to get a deeper impression of your country.
______________________
(5) This response is from a publisher of many journals and periodicals who has seen fit to published a good number of my works over the past two decades. Were it not for his devoted support, should I die tomorrow, the world would never have known what one man thought about a myriad of things. I am eternally grateful to him.
Jim,
Keep fit.
Ken
___________________
(6) This is from a man who has published three books that are so loaded with information that they could fill a thousand book library. He happens to be a brilliant engineer, who would scoff at the suggestion. But as holder of more than one hundred patents, I don’t think this could be construed as chump change. He is a friend and doesn’t always agree with me but always makes me think beyond my narrow bands.
We're glad your checkup was good. Good news indeed. The psychological state of your "audience," you already knew from your own experiments. Cheers
________________________________________________________________
(7) This is from a person I’ve only met once, but have had a lively conversation with her through emails. She enjoys good health, but as her communiqué indicates she is also blessed with good genes. To me she is a Renaissance woman in that she quietly does her best to make the planet safe and healthy and beautiful for the generations to come. She doesn’t write classics, or lay paint on canvasses that will fill galleries and museums. Her classics and galleries are created and painted by Mother Nature. I envy her closeness to the Earth.
EXCELLENT, Jim!
Thanks for the reminder. My dad is 92, my mom 90. He is journeying on, but she still swims 30 laps a day. He is at home, per his wishes, with 27/78 nurses, listening to Benny Goodman cds and resting most of the time. They went to Mayo Clinic annually for 48 years (and got their work done in three days -- not three months!) My mom has been in the hospital twice (for births of her two children) and takes only a few pills: vitamins, aspirin regime and calcium. Never too late, I guess! (Good genes, as well, as all four of my grandparents - their parents - lived into their eighties and nineties!)
F
__________________________________
(8) This is from a Canadian engineer who keeps me informed of the thinking north of the border as well as what is going on in his “house of intellect.” We have never met but feel as if we know each other through this medium. I value his comments.
Dear deltagrpfl@cs.com,
Your friend thought you might be interested in this canada.com
story:
"Harper blocks Lebanon resolution"
http://www.canada.com/calgaryherald/news/story.html?id=80d16e11-b92b-4fe7-a6dd-4a47c26d2e9f&k=28442
Hi Jim,
We have a rookie PM (Canada) who is showing signs of being a true leader. He
has been accused of using Bush rhetoric in Canada but I have not heard it
myself. He is smart, very smart. We'll see how he makes out. He's been in
office only 7 months. Be well young fella and thanks for the article on
health. I passed it on to my caged son.
George
_______________________________________
This is a free service courtesy of
canada.com (http://www.canada.com)
____________________________________
(9) This is from the most brilliant classmate in my high school class, a fine athlete, and the temperament that God must have committed to the drawing board when he was having one of His best days. He read through my long (600+ page) manuscript, edited it, and suggested cutting some (200+) pages of IN THE SHADOW OF THE COURTHOUSE. He has always been on the same wavelength as my wife, Betty, as to what writing I should be doing, but I do resist, and persist doing what I am doing here now.
Jim,
Conversation writing is your best writing.
B-
(The missive was written in dialogue form as the doctor held court with me after my examination.)
___________________________________
COMMENT: I share this with you to give you a sense of people thousands of miles apart feeling connected together through this wonderful medium called the Internet. As I’ve often said, my desire is not to convince you to think as I do, but to be alert, ever alert to the dangers of our times, and yes, to the nature of self-imposed dangers as well, the folly of lifestyle. If vigilance be called paranoia, so be it!
Today, in a small Amish community in the northeast of the USA in a one-room schoolhouse, a gunman killed three children and himself for an apparent grievance that had festered for twenty years, not against the Amish, but against something – it is not known at this time.
I mention this because my Betty, who is the business manager at a Jewish day school, has giant boulders at the entrance to the school parking, and off-duty Hillsborough County Sheriff deputies are always on duty whenever school is in session.
She knows the tens of thousands of dollars that this security costs, and sometimes wonders if it is necessary. A long time ago, I said I applaud the school’s Board of Directors for their foresight and generosity, as parents are footing the bill.
If this Amish school had had such protection, there would only be one dead person, today, and that would be the mad gunman.
Always be well,
Jim
--
Sunday, October 01, 2006
HEALTH IS WEALTH! -- Exchange of Views
HEALTH IS WEALTH!
© October 2006
Note: This was written from scores of comments received when this missive, “Health is Wealth” was posted on my email. The missive follows this.
* * * * * *
My little epigrammatic pieces (such as this) come out of my life experience, but ultimately are written down as they surface during my daily walks. Sometimes nothing comes to me while I'm walking. I thought this day was such a case. But as I was entering the last phase of my walk, the earlier conversation I had with my doctor came into my mind.
I say epigrammatically because I dredge up abstractions and spin epigrams from the tapes in my head.
Since I was a boy, I've been able to recall conversations as if I, indeed, had a tape recorder in my head. They come to me clear as a bell. This got me in trouble in college more than once because professors thought I had copied their lecture notes, when I just recalled their lectures.
It also extends to reading. The words on a page read perhaps ages ago somehow come into my mind. It is why my da said my head was so full of s--- I didn't know whether I was coming or going. He should see me now. The disease is even more pronounced.
These comments are offered because I have gotten all sorts of responses to this little piece.
If I wrote these words in fiction, or in a memoir, as is the case with In the Shadow of the Courthouse, people would tend to take them less personally.
Yes, I confess to being a writer who is direct, in your face, hopefully with moral clarity if not moral authority. I also confess to the boring fact that I laud a disciplined life over the chaos of contemporary society. A counter-counterculture view of absurdism without leftist drill, a compassion and indictment of moral default.
That said my aim is not to change or shame but to dissect authoritarianism and mimicism, for what I see it to be, which celebrates so much detritus as America sinks into its own waste, crying all the time, "Not my fault."
I'm sorry if the most violent society on the face of the earth, and the most wasteful as well, wants to follow the Pied Piper into the abyss waving the flag while claiming God is only on our side. I won't be around when America joins Great Britain and France as great nations of the past. It need not be that way.
If people have a problem with that, they can delete or ask to no longer receive my little missives. Some have. My missives are to be taken personally (if it helps to clarify) but not defensively (which always muddies up the works).
Some clarifiers’ write: "I'm passing this on to my caged son."
"You are writing about the psychological state of your audience, which you already knew from your own experiments."
"Excellent, my parents are picture of health and practice the wealth that you share."
"Glad your checkup was good."
"Conversation writing is your best writing."
The peripatetic philosopher is a provocateur. That is his role. It isn't someone who has ever been deprived of anything, but has benefited from everything.
Not every writer has been so fortunate. Reading the latest book of James Ellroy, Destination: Morgue! he of famous noir fiction, I don't think I've ever read a more honest writer, and yet how he has triumphed over such horrendous odds is testimony the human spirit is capable of amazing things.
My life, on the other hand, has been easy and nearly trouble-free, as if instead of a silver spoon in my mouth, I had ego, energy and sensitivity to shield me from harm.
That is what my next two books are about, Confident Selling (an updated version of my 1970s book in the vernacular of today) and Confident Thinking (a kind of peripatetic philosophy 101).
Whereas Nowhere Man in Nowhere Land cannot find a publisher, these two books will. So, stay tuned; and take from the peripatetic philosopher what helps to define your own life, without becoming defensive, and carry on as best you can, as we all should try to do, remembering in time we will all become a matter of dust. And always be well,
Jim
-----------------
Health is Wealth
James R. Fisher, Jr., Ph.D.
© September 2006
Health is the greatest of all possessions; a pale cobbler is better than a sick king.
Isaac Bickerstaff (1735 – 1812)
English Dramatist
I had my six-month check-up with my doctor today. During the interim period I had an MRI (head), EKG, treadmill test, sonogram of my heart, lungs and intestinal tract, a colonoscopy, blood tests, and an eye examination. It took me a period of three months to schedule and complete all these tests.
As I came into his office – my appointment had been scheduled for 8:30 a.m. and I had to reschedule it for 1:30 p.m. – I felt in an apologetic mood. Turns out he couldn’t see me until 2:30, but he did so then with a broad smile on his face. “How are you today, James?
“I’m fine,” I said, “I apologize for missing my appointment. My 2000 Taurus wouldn’t start. I’m apparently in better shape than it is.”
He laughed so hard he couldn’t control himself. “Now, that makes my day!”
Then he proceeded to go through all my tests with me. “Do you know, James, you have the body of a 40-year-old, do you know that?”
“No.”
“I’ll tell you why. I see all kinds of people. I was born in a small village in India. People here just don’t appreciate what they have. There was no welfare in my village. Your family took care of you or nobody did.
“I’ve got people half your age who can’t pass the treadmill test. I got people here that say they can’t quit smoking and they’ve got emphysema. They want somebody else to quit for them.
“I’ve got people here who can’t pay their bills, and it’s not their fault. They want somebody else to get an education, somebody else to compete for a good job, somebody else to see how hard they’ve got it, and to give them a hand out to get out of their mess.
“I’ve got people here that are obese and have diabetes, and they say it’s not their fault. They can’t exercise because they can’t walk very well, bad backs and bad legs and all. They don’t have any choice but to sit in front of the television all day and eat. They want somebody else to walk for them.
“I’ve got people that are having retarded children and they themselves are retarded. And they want for me to find some agencies to get them more benefits.
“I’ve got people who come here with blood work that indicates they’ve been promiscuous. I won’t treat them. I have no time for them. Society can do all they want for them, but I draw the line because there is no place where it says I have to treat them.
“I’ve got people coming in here who have all of these different ailments. They’ll say the reason I can’t get ahead is because my brother’s in jail and I have to take care of his kids. I can’t get a job. Besides, I ain’t got no education.”
At this point, I interrupted, and said, “You hear it all.”
His head slumped down into his shoulders, “Yes, I hear it all.”
I said, “It’s sad.”
“Yes, it’s very sad. People here just don’t appreciate what they have. I don’t know what the answer is.”
“Do you tell them?”
“Do I tell them what?”
“Do you tell them just what you told me?”
“Do you think it would do any good?”
“Oh, I don’t know, doctor.”
“No, I don’t tell them. Am I a coward, James?”
“No, you’re not a coward, but I agree with you it is sad.”
“James, I don’t know what America is going to come to. Nothing seems to get through to these people.”
“Doctor, you probably see every kind of lifestyle disease there is.”
“Yes, and then some.” Then he added, “It’s not only that. It’s that they don’t think any of this is their fault. There is not a one of these people, that I’ve mentioned, that have failed the treadmill, that have several things wrong with their hearts, that have emphysema and can hardly walk to the end of the block, and some of them are in their forties.
“And that is my fault? That is society’s fault? It’s not their fault. When I say to them, why do you drink? They say, to forget, I’ve had a lot of pressure in my life. Why do you smoke? To calm my nerves. Why do you take drugs? To put me in another place. Not one of them says, I do it because I’m stupid. Not a single one.
“So they come to me, a tall, dark complexioned Indian doctor, who they feel superior to, because I’m a foreigner and I have an accent, and what can I tell them about America? So, I don’t tell them anything.”
I said, “Do any of them get better?”
“You want a truthful answer?”
I nodded.
“No, they don’t get better because they want somebody else to get better for them. You see, that’s the problem.”
Smiling, I said, “Are there many more like me?”
He looked at me steadily. “Well, James, I have all those people out there in the waiting room. I’ve been here since 8:30 this morning. And I’ve been talking to you now, for what, twenty minutes?”
“About.”
“That should be your answer. No, there aren’t many like you. Tell me, why are you like you?”
“I don’t know how to be any different.”
“See, there you have it, nor do I. Good day, James. You’ve put a little light in my day.”
And with that I left.
* * * * *
Check out Dr. Fisher’s website: www.fisherofideas.com
--
Posted by The Peripatetic Philosopher to The Peripatetic Philosopher at 9/28/2006 07:38:00 PM
© October 2006
Note: This was written from scores of comments received when this missive, “Health is Wealth” was posted on my email. The missive follows this.
* * * * * *
My little epigrammatic pieces (such as this) come out of my life experience, but ultimately are written down as they surface during my daily walks. Sometimes nothing comes to me while I'm walking. I thought this day was such a case. But as I was entering the last phase of my walk, the earlier conversation I had with my doctor came into my mind.
I say epigrammatically because I dredge up abstractions and spin epigrams from the tapes in my head.
Since I was a boy, I've been able to recall conversations as if I, indeed, had a tape recorder in my head. They come to me clear as a bell. This got me in trouble in college more than once because professors thought I had copied their lecture notes, when I just recalled their lectures.
It also extends to reading. The words on a page read perhaps ages ago somehow come into my mind. It is why my da said my head was so full of s--- I didn't know whether I was coming or going. He should see me now. The disease is even more pronounced.
These comments are offered because I have gotten all sorts of responses to this little piece.
If I wrote these words in fiction, or in a memoir, as is the case with In the Shadow of the Courthouse, people would tend to take them less personally.
Yes, I confess to being a writer who is direct, in your face, hopefully with moral clarity if not moral authority. I also confess to the boring fact that I laud a disciplined life over the chaos of contemporary society. A counter-counterculture view of absurdism without leftist drill, a compassion and indictment of moral default.
That said my aim is not to change or shame but to dissect authoritarianism and mimicism, for what I see it to be, which celebrates so much detritus as America sinks into its own waste, crying all the time, "Not my fault."
I'm sorry if the most violent society on the face of the earth, and the most wasteful as well, wants to follow the Pied Piper into the abyss waving the flag while claiming God is only on our side. I won't be around when America joins Great Britain and France as great nations of the past. It need not be that way.
If people have a problem with that, they can delete or ask to no longer receive my little missives. Some have. My missives are to be taken personally (if it helps to clarify) but not defensively (which always muddies up the works).
Some clarifiers’ write: "I'm passing this on to my caged son."
"You are writing about the psychological state of your audience, which you already knew from your own experiments."
"Excellent, my parents are picture of health and practice the wealth that you share."
"Glad your checkup was good."
"Conversation writing is your best writing."
The peripatetic philosopher is a provocateur. That is his role. It isn't someone who has ever been deprived of anything, but has benefited from everything.
Not every writer has been so fortunate. Reading the latest book of James Ellroy, Destination: Morgue! he of famous noir fiction, I don't think I've ever read a more honest writer, and yet how he has triumphed over such horrendous odds is testimony the human spirit is capable of amazing things.
My life, on the other hand, has been easy and nearly trouble-free, as if instead of a silver spoon in my mouth, I had ego, energy and sensitivity to shield me from harm.
That is what my next two books are about, Confident Selling (an updated version of my 1970s book in the vernacular of today) and Confident Thinking (a kind of peripatetic philosophy 101).
Whereas Nowhere Man in Nowhere Land cannot find a publisher, these two books will. So, stay tuned; and take from the peripatetic philosopher what helps to define your own life, without becoming defensive, and carry on as best you can, as we all should try to do, remembering in time we will all become a matter of dust. And always be well,
Jim
-----------------
Health is Wealth
James R. Fisher, Jr., Ph.D.
© September 2006
Health is the greatest of all possessions; a pale cobbler is better than a sick king.
Isaac Bickerstaff (1735 – 1812)
English Dramatist
I had my six-month check-up with my doctor today. During the interim period I had an MRI (head), EKG, treadmill test, sonogram of my heart, lungs and intestinal tract, a colonoscopy, blood tests, and an eye examination. It took me a period of three months to schedule and complete all these tests.
As I came into his office – my appointment had been scheduled for 8:30 a.m. and I had to reschedule it for 1:30 p.m. – I felt in an apologetic mood. Turns out he couldn’t see me until 2:30, but he did so then with a broad smile on his face. “How are you today, James?
“I’m fine,” I said, “I apologize for missing my appointment. My 2000 Taurus wouldn’t start. I’m apparently in better shape than it is.”
He laughed so hard he couldn’t control himself. “Now, that makes my day!”
Then he proceeded to go through all my tests with me. “Do you know, James, you have the body of a 40-year-old, do you know that?”
“No.”
“I’ll tell you why. I see all kinds of people. I was born in a small village in India. People here just don’t appreciate what they have. There was no welfare in my village. Your family took care of you or nobody did.
“I’ve got people half your age who can’t pass the treadmill test. I got people here that say they can’t quit smoking and they’ve got emphysema. They want somebody else to quit for them.
“I’ve got people here who can’t pay their bills, and it’s not their fault. They want somebody else to get an education, somebody else to compete for a good job, somebody else to see how hard they’ve got it, and to give them a hand out to get out of their mess.
“I’ve got people here that are obese and have diabetes, and they say it’s not their fault. They can’t exercise because they can’t walk very well, bad backs and bad legs and all. They don’t have any choice but to sit in front of the television all day and eat. They want somebody else to walk for them.
“I’ve got people that are having retarded children and they themselves are retarded. And they want for me to find some agencies to get them more benefits.
“I’ve got people who come here with blood work that indicates they’ve been promiscuous. I won’t treat them. I have no time for them. Society can do all they want for them, but I draw the line because there is no place where it says I have to treat them.
“I’ve got people coming in here who have all of these different ailments. They’ll say the reason I can’t get ahead is because my brother’s in jail and I have to take care of his kids. I can’t get a job. Besides, I ain’t got no education.”
At this point, I interrupted, and said, “You hear it all.”
His head slumped down into his shoulders, “Yes, I hear it all.”
I said, “It’s sad.”
“Yes, it’s very sad. People here just don’t appreciate what they have. I don’t know what the answer is.”
“Do you tell them?”
“Do I tell them what?”
“Do you tell them just what you told me?”
“Do you think it would do any good?”
“Oh, I don’t know, doctor.”
“No, I don’t tell them. Am I a coward, James?”
“No, you’re not a coward, but I agree with you it is sad.”
“James, I don’t know what America is going to come to. Nothing seems to get through to these people.”
“Doctor, you probably see every kind of lifestyle disease there is.”
“Yes, and then some.” Then he added, “It’s not only that. It’s that they don’t think any of this is their fault. There is not a one of these people, that I’ve mentioned, that have failed the treadmill, that have several things wrong with their hearts, that have emphysema and can hardly walk to the end of the block, and some of them are in their forties.
“And that is my fault? That is society’s fault? It’s not their fault. When I say to them, why do you drink? They say, to forget, I’ve had a lot of pressure in my life. Why do you smoke? To calm my nerves. Why do you take drugs? To put me in another place. Not one of them says, I do it because I’m stupid. Not a single one.
“So they come to me, a tall, dark complexioned Indian doctor, who they feel superior to, because I’m a foreigner and I have an accent, and what can I tell them about America? So, I don’t tell them anything.”
I said, “Do any of them get better?”
“You want a truthful answer?”
I nodded.
“No, they don’t get better because they want somebody else to get better for them. You see, that’s the problem.”
Smiling, I said, “Are there many more like me?”
He looked at me steadily. “Well, James, I have all those people out there in the waiting room. I’ve been here since 8:30 this morning. And I’ve been talking to you now, for what, twenty minutes?”
“About.”
“That should be your answer. No, there aren’t many like you. Tell me, why are you like you?”
“I don’t know how to be any different.”
“See, there you have it, nor do I. Good day, James. You’ve put a little light in my day.”
And with that I left.
* * * * *
Check out Dr. Fisher’s website: www.fisherofideas.com
--
Posted by The Peripatetic Philosopher to The Peripatetic Philosopher at 9/28/2006 07:38:00 PM
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)