「ビジネス書、自己啓発書ばかり読んでいるとバカになる」は、嘘！

これまであなたはこんなことを言われたことはないだろうか？
「ビジネス書とか自己啓発書ばかり読んでいるとバカになるよ」
その人が知的かと言えば、決してそんなことはなかったはずだ。
ここだけの話、むしろバカだったのではないだろうか。

もう少しまともな批判になると、ビジネス書や自己啓発書に使われているボキャブラリーが少ないと主張する人もいる。

だがこお批判も気にしなくていい。

ボキャブラリーが少ないと主張する人は、そもそも自分がボキャブラリーが少ない本しか読んでいないだけなのだ。

ビジネス書や自己啓発書の中にも、豊富なボキャブラリーの本がいくらでもある。

加えてあくまでも稼ぐ読書ということであれば、豊富なボキャブラリーよりも人とお金が集まってくるセンスを身につけるほうが遥かに大切だ。

たとえばテレビのCMや新聞広告のコピーを思い出してもらいたい。
難しいボキャブラリーなんてまったく使われていないし、厳密に言えば日本語としてややおかしいものもある。
それにもかかわらず、シンプルなコピーには人とお金が殺到する。

ビジネス書や自己啓発書で卓越したコピーとは、タイトルや見出しなどが該当する。
タイトルや見出しが優れたコピーになっていなければ、ベストセラーにならないどころかそもそも誰の手にも取ってもらえないのだ。

商業出版の難易度が相当高いから、そもそも書店に並べてもらえるだけでも気の遠くなるような競争を勝ち抜いてきた結果だ。

一冊の本を世に出すためには数多くのプロたちが関わっており、稼ぐために厳選された言葉が本に詰まっている。

断言してもいいが、稼ぎたければビジネス書や自己啓発書を読むのが一番の近道だ。

たいていは歴史や哲学の豆知識なども頻繁に登場するから、頭も良くなるのは間違えない。
ちゃんと勉強すれば見えてくるが、自己啓発書には哲学や心理学をベースに書かれているものが多いのだ。

私が大学時代にハマった某哲学者は、ビジネス書や自己啓発書の有益性とレベルの高さをすこぶる評価していた。

大学教授だった彼は自身でも２００冊以上の著書を出しているし、正真正銘のお金持ちだ。

DAY TWO

BREAKFAST
3種ミックスベリージュース 94 calories

LUNCH
Lunch-Thai style chicken ground curry 500
Crunky Crunch chocolate Bar 249 calories

DINNER
Lassi 200
Large ass vegetable curry 900 calories (with rice of course, the rice was the large-ass part)

TOTAL AMOUNT OF CALORIES: 1943

DAY ONE

BREAKFAST:
Honeywell Mixed Fruit Juice 160

LUNCH:
Thai Style Chicken Ground Curry 500
Crunky Crunch Chocolate Bar 249

DINNER:
Chicken Burrito 800
Nacho Chips 200

TOTAL: 1,909 calories!

Goal achieved!

Inspiration from America's oldest living person

Weaver is America's oldest living person and celebrates her birthday on the 4th of July.  She lives in a care facility and is said to still be relatively active.  She says its her faith that keeps her going.  "You have to follow God.  Don't follow anyone else," she told the Camden News on her 116th birthday.  "Be obedient and follow the laws and don't worry about anything.  I've followed Him for many, many years and I ain't tired."

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Some people are so poor, all they have is money.

Thought for the Day

Seeking substantial wealth is almost always a fool's game.  The statistics show that very few people ever succeed.  Most of them should never have made the attempt in the first place.  They aren't suited to it, and if that sounds defeatist, then consider the fact that the search will take up a great deal of your waking life for many, many years.

You cannot get rich without "wasting" that time.  Not unless you were born lucky-so lucky that luck has squatted on your shoulder virtually from birth.  You would not need to get rich, then.  You would already be rich, in one way or another.

Time is finite.  Which is a fancy way of saying that you only have so much of it-then it will run out  When you are young, time seems to stretch into the distance for so far that surely it will always be on your side?  When the young catch the old unawares, they may sometimes glimpse a look of naked envy, which is then instantly disguised.  And the old have reason to be envious.  Truly, truly, they do.   Ask me what I will give you if you could wave a magic wand and give me my youth back.  The answer would be everything I will ever own.  

If you are young and reading this then I ask you to remember just this:  you are richer than anyone older than you, and far richer than those who are much older.  What you choose to do with the time that stretches out before you is entirely a matter for you.  But do not say you started the journey poor.  If you are young, you are infinitely richer that I can ever be again.

Money is never owned.  It is only in your custody for a while.  Time is always running on, and the young have more of it in their pocket than the richest man or woman alive.  That is not sentimentality speaking.  That is sober fact.

And yet you wish to waste your youth in the getting of money?  Really?  Think hard, my young cub, think hard and think long before you embark on such a quest.  The time spent attempting to acquire wealth will mount up and cannot be reclaimed, whether you succeed or whether you fail.

Even if you should succeed in becoming rich, unlikely as that is, what will you have achieved?  Independence of a kind?  The luxury to choose what you wish to do with the rest of your life?  Happiness?  No, no and no.  You will not achieve any of these things.  Now when you have too much money.  Wealth makes many demands and by the time you have acquired it, you will be prey to certain habits.  You will fear to lose it and must spend a great deal more time to defend it.  No one is 'independent' of the human race.  'No man is an island entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.'  

No luxury of choices for rich little you.  You will be too busy keeping the sea from washing away the sand you have spent so long collecting at such terrible cost to your health and your sanity and your relationships with others.  It is always thus.  There is no escape.  You believe (I know you do) that it will be different for you.  But it won't be.  It never is.

Happiness?  Do not make me laugh.  The rich are NOT happy.  I have yet to meet a single really rich happy man or woman-and I have met many rich people.  The demands from others to share their wealth become so tiresome, and so insistent, they nearly always decide they must insulate themselves.  Insulation breeds paranoia and arrogance.  And loneliness.  And rage that you have only so many years left to enjoy rolling in the sand you have piled up.  

The only people the self-made rich can trust are those who knew them before they became wealthy.  For many newly rich people, the world becomes a smaller, less generous and darker place.  It sounds ridiculous, doesn't it?  Ridiculous and gloomy.

But then, you are to consider that I have been very poor and I am now very rich.  I am an optimist by nature.  And I have the ability to write poetry and create the forest I am busy planting.  Am I happy?  No.  Or, at least, only occasionally, when I am walking in the woods alone, or deeply ensconced in composing a difficult piece of verse, or sitting quietly with old friends over a bottle of wine.  Or feeding a stray cat.  

I could do all those things without wealth.  So why do I not give it all away?  

Because I worked too hard for it.  Because I am tainted by it.  Because I am afraid to.  All those reasons and more.  Perhaps, if I am lucky enough to become old, I will accumulate something else: the courage to give it all away before I die.  That would be a good thing I think. (When I die, it is all going to a charity called 'The Forest of Dennis'.  You see, even I do a good thing with my money, my ego insists that I name it for myself.  Not a good sign.)

Giving money away when you are dead takes no guts.  No courage.  But to divest yourself of hundreds of millions of dollars, or the greater part of your fortune, before your death?  That would be something to be proud of, don't you think?  It even makes logical sense.

For what is left afterwards but a few tears by the graveside and years of bickering and waste over a complex will?  (The wills of the rich are always complex.)  Bitter years, where lawyers count the number of fairies they believe you once thought danced upon the head of a pin-years in which they enrich themselves at your descendant's expense.  A fine legacy, to be sure.

But you must make your own choice.  I have said my piece and I meant every word of it.  This small part of my book was composed in my mind years ago.  It was easy to write.  I knew all of it before my fingers touched the keyboard.  It has troubled me for years and I thank you for allowing me to share it. -Felix Dennis-How to Get Rich

I

Peace-Shalom

“I form the light, and create darkness; I make shalom, and create evil; I am the LORD, that doeth all these things.”-Isaiah-45:7

What is that one thing everyone in the world is frantically searching for but cannot seem to find?  Of course, the answer is peace.  People will sometimes do the craziest things to get some peace in their lives.  Ironically, the actions many people take produce the opposite results.  Some will go chasing after riches while wrecking their health and alienating their family in the process.  Others will turn to drugs and alcohol.  Others will turn to sex.  Others will buy self-help book after self-help book and find that not only are they not any happier, they’re also broker.  We’ve all read the stories about stockbrokers jumping off of skyscrapers and rock stars putting bullets in their heads.  Everyday our newspapers report about how another Mideast peace negotiation between Palestine and Israel has broken down.  One can get on the internet and watch a video stream of a hostage captured by Islamic terrorists literally getting his head sawed off.  The divorce rate in the US now exceeds 50%.  People are losing their jobs left and right.  I could go on and on an on but I think its pretty clear that the world has anything but peace and the many things that people do to gain peace just don’t seem to be working.

However, what does the Bible have to say about gaining peace?  Well, before we answer that question, it is more important to first see how the Bible defines peace.  The Hebrew word from which the word peace in English is usually rendered is “shalom”.  Many of you are likely aware that Shalom is used idiomatically in Israel to mean “Hello” or “Goodbye”.  However, biblically speaking, there is no one word in English that can do justice to the actual and overall meaning of this word as it embodies a broad range of nuances.  The words peace and grace really just scratch the surface in terms of what this word meant to an ancient Israelite.

Probably the best way to explain it is to say that this word refers to one’s total sense of well-being with much emphasis on the word “total”.  Shalom means feeling very positive about one’s future, it means having health and having more than enough money to have one’s needs met, and it also means having peace of mind and grace from G-d.  I think the idea of having a healthy balance is at play here.  Shalom isn’t just connected to money.  It isn’t just connected to health.  It isn’t just connected to joy.  It is all of these things working in harmony with G-d at the center.  However, one important point is that without G-d, you could never really have shalom even if you had money and health etcetera.  In order to have real shalom, G-d had to be at the center of your life.

I think the biggest mistake the secular humanists and evolutionists make is to treat a human being as if he or she is only a physical entity.  However, the Bible makes it clear that we have a soul.  And this soul needs to be nourished just as much as our physical body does.  That is why purely material pursuits after only money and sex will ultimately never really satisfy.  Furthermore, if you are a believer, you now also have the Holy Spirit living inside of you, which can be a source of joy or grief depending upon how you live your life. 

Have you ever felt joyous for no particular reason at all?  You were just in a great mood and just felt so positive and euphoric.  This is kind of what having shalom from G-d feels like.  By the way, I’ve heard that heroin addicts experience a similar high.  However, as believers, we don’t need to turn to heroin.  All we have to do is open our Bibles and pray.  Isn’t that great?!

L-rd,

I pray that we would turn to You and only You for shalom in our lives.  Yes money, sex and food are very important.  But L-rd let us not turn them into idols.  Let these things be the positive byproducts of our faith in you.

So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’  For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.-Matthew 6:31-34

Amen.