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It’s Okay to Be Wrong, Because You Are

Wed, 24 Jan 2024 18:45:53 GMT

It’s Okay to Be Wrong, Because You Are

How do you know someone has yet to achieve adulthood regardless of their age? The most common indicator is their ability to examine their own beliefs, objectively weigh those beliefs, and, as much as they may not want to, change their beliefs if the beliefs they held no longer align with the most logical position. Doing so is simple. Not easy by any measure, but adults do things that are not easy because it is the right and beneficial thing to do.

You would think the world would have plenty of adults then, but unfortunately the percentage of people who are over eighteen who meet the above definition is dropping astronomically year after year.

Today, and most likely tomorrow, people have their opinions formed by school, parents, and peers. This alone is fairly normal, which is why quality education and selecting the right peer groups is so important. Sadly, schools and parents rarely teach anymore how to think and instead teach what to think. This creates 18-80 year olds who then go through life choosing friends, communities, and media (not to mention politicians) which also hold the same beliefs that they do. Not only is that highly immature and destroys one’s potential but it also prevents someone from possibly becoming more correct in their position on an issue. This leaves us with many gown children (18-80) that go through life thinking their opinions on relationships, economics, business, science, faith, politics and such as being correct.

How insane and tragic.

Can you image going to school, reading just some selected books, hearing some selected lectures designed to teach you what to think, not how to think; then, after school spending years around people who agree with you, and then you actually thinking you are correct not only on your topic of indoctrination but on all issues you hold a stand on? How foolish!

Ask yourself; have you ever met anyone who agrees with you on every topic? Have you ever met someone that you agree with them on every topic? Of course not! However, do you agree with yourself on every issue you hold? Of course you do, otherwise you either wouldn't hold them or you would be suffering from a form of mental illness. This means, by default, you believe everyone should believe as you do, or at least in your spectrum of ‘truth.’

Yeah, when you say it out loud it sounds preposterous.

“But Josh, I believe the best experts’ point of view on each topic I hold firm to a belief on, that’s why I’m holding firm on those beliefs.” Irrelevant. Do you agree with any one of your trusted experts on everything? Absolutely not, that would be idiotic. Again, this means that to your own mind you are the only (or most) correct person on every issue out of the 117,000,000,000 people who live, or ever have lived, on the planet, per issue in which you hold a belief! You are the most correct person overall out of 117 billion people?!

Now the idea that you are correct sounds even more ridiculous.

Let’s say you have ten topics that you hold strong beliefs on:

1. Personal Finance

2. Business Maters

3. Love and Marriage

4. Abortion

5. Climate Change

6. Space

7. Raising Children

8. Religion

9. Politics

10. Healthy Living

We have already agreed that you don’t agree with anyone on every issue in which you hold a strong belief.

The chances of you being correct in your beliefs then is 1 in 1,170,000,000,000 Or to put it another way, there is a 99.99999999999% chance you are wrong on one or all of your beliefs!

Since that 99.99% chance of being wrong on all issues exists for all of us, then all of us need to grow up.

Adults sacrifice their personal wants to logic and pick up only wants that are logical.

Children allow emotions, desires, and preferences to form their beliefs and wants. Children then surround themselves with confirmation bias in the forms of media they consume, friends they choose, and research they conduct.

Grown-ups, on the other hand, routinely question if their beliefs still make enough sense to hold on to. They hear out the opposing positions. They contemplate and test the opposing positions. They then correct or adjust their beliefs according to the sound logic. They also are open to reconsidering that opposition in the future as they regularly reassess themselves.

Additionally, they also offer grace to change their minds too and actually celebrate it when someone is strong enough to admit their incorrectness and change. Children, on the other hand, think if someone holds a position, they must continue to hold that position for life. If you hold a position they agree with and you change your mind, they call you a traitor and a hypocrite. If you hold a position in opposition to theirs and change your mind to agree with them, they will forever be suspicious of you and pounce at the first sign of you changing your mind again.

People who change their minds and their behaviors are in no way hypocrites, they are adults. Hypocrites are people who say they believe in a certain type of behavior and then act out in opposition to those statements. A great example would be someone who says they are open-minded, who says they form rational beliefs yet act emotionally and attack those they disagree with beyond just the reasoning of their position.

For adults, and those who want to be, it is a great sign of maturity to say “I don’t know enough yet to make a position” or “I will take this information under consideration.” It doesn’t make you look foolish, it makes you look noble.

Adults; I know in a world full of old children, it can be hard to remain an adult when the when the poplar kids (media figures) ridicule you for no longer agreeing with them, but, remember that an adult is still an adult in a room full of kids, no matter how many temper tantrums they throw. Not only do you need to still act like an adult in the face of childishness, but you need to stand strong for the benefit of those children too, setting an example for them to one day follow.

This is why adults live the logical life.

Sorry, but Your Business Guru Sucks

Wed, 24 Jan 2024 18:34:57 GMT

Sorry, but Your Business Guru Sucks

You want success, you want life to improve, so much so it brings tears to your eyes at night and arguments with your spouse during the day. I completely understand, and I want success for you, but we need to think and act logically in pursuit of that success.

If you are reading this blog you can easily check my bio by clicking a link, so I won’t reiterate my background, nor is this blog post about me at all so let me just say that over the past three decades I’ve met with business leaders, political leaders, celebrities, and athletes at the highest levels. I’ve seen success and mentorship at its best and let me share some terrible news with you; your coach, mentor, guru probably sucks.

Here are some huge red flags to look for:

· They make more than 10% of their income from being a mentor-coach, or by having their followers bring them deals.

· They made their initial fortune hawking “how to get, fix, buy or grow” going to far as usually admitting they were not making it as business owners, so they created a “program” and started selling that program.

· They have a referral or deal sourcing program they promote to all their followers.

· They target their services largely to 18-35 year olds (usually male) who are hungry for that high testosterone or sexy female energy in their life. The coach/mentor will usually claim, if confronted about their chosen demographic, that they target that group because they want to impact the next generation or some other excuse that the gullible won’t question.

· The majority of their customers/mentees are “wanna be rich” and “solopreneur” and not established companies looking for an edge to grow.

· They don’t provide legally binding services relating to what they are teaching, they just teach/coach others how to do it, usually through seminars and digitally delivered information products.

· Their mentorship is offered to the masses and also delivered digitally.

· They have no real measurable success in business outside what they are marketing as their ‘program.’

I know, I just killed your favorite horse. It hurts, I get it, but I cannot lie to you just to make you happy. I want you to be a success and wasting money on non-sense doesn’t speed that journey up for you, it slows you down.

There are some great and truly successful leaders out there who could make a fast and lasting difference in your life but NONE of those people are in the Top 25 trending “experts” on social media.

Let me say that again. None of the actual experts you need to know are trending on social media as business trainers or mentors, nor are they popping up on your feed promoting a program.

Just so I’m really clear, let me put this yet another way. I’ve been in business for 30 years; I’ve built, bought, sold multiple million dollar companies. I’ve been in the media for the better part of a decade. I’ve spoke on the same stages as many of your favorite ‘experts.” I’ve advised domestic and international political leaders. I say this not to brag but to point out the ‘gurus’ on-line do not impress me with their flash. So, based on what they actually offer to the world there is not one expert that is trending on social or traditional media since at least 2005 that I would recommend anyone I care about to follow on social media let alone attend their class, buy their book, purchase their program, or bring them a deal.

In this crazy world I am sure each of these ‘gurus’ will have an excuse or counter to each of the red flags I’ve pointed out, hoping that you’re not a logically thinking adult.

They may also say that I’m just ‘attacking’ them because I’m jealous or trying to compete. So, let’s kick that stupidity in the throat right now.

· I offer NO mentorship/coaching program as a sellable product.

· I have NO advertising targeting my companies’ services to 18-35 year old ‘wanna bes.’

· I have never, and will never, make more than 10% of my income through coaching/training/mentorship that is offered to the masses.

· I have had over a half-dozen companies in multiple different industries before I ever “coached” anyone on business.

· I have NO clients that I service solely through a digital platform.

· Even my old videos that were placed behind a paywall have been made available for free to those who couldn’t afford access, turning away nobody.

· None of these “gurus” are in any way, shape or form direct competition for me or any of my companies.

· I am legally and financially tied to my clients since the services my companies provide are contracted services for the industries we are in, not just offering informational products about an industry.

What it comes down to is this; I love real business and what it can do for families and the communities in which they live. These “gurus” not only have an insanely high failure rate amongst their customers, but the legal and financial chaos that their teachings are causing out there, which are approaching Armageddon levels, is heartbreaking.

Even worse are the people who had the spark to be real entrepreneurs and master this noble craft and now have abandoned those likely riches to in order to take the “easier” path themselves by also becoming coaches, mentors, media personalities, deal makers, content creators or some other “excerpt” without the hard-earned skills needed to accomplish success in an industry for real!

Everyone desires a seat at the table, but a seat not earned is never occupied for long and while taking a shortcut may provide you with the success you seek, it will rob you of the ability to keep it.

Bottom Line, even if you never read my books, attend my free events, watch any of my media programing, or become a client of any of my companies, I want you to be a success. I want you to have entrepreneurship in your family. Do yourself a favor:

1. Find experts that don’t trend yet are 100x more successful than your “ guru ” and study what they do.

2. Only accept coaching from an in-person coach.

3. Only accept mentorship from someone who does not get paid for their mentorship services, or if they do, they do so after reach the goal.

4. Hire service providers who are contracted to provide a legally binding service in addition to whatever they may be doing to coach/mentor you.

5. Realize that mentorship is a personal and deep connection in which the mentor takes the mentee under their wing, in person, and teaches them how to live not just succeed. Do you spend in person time with your mentor more than zoom time? Have you had dinner with your mentor and their family? Has your mentor had dinner with your family? Are you confusing mentorship as just a more attractive word for “at a distance coaching offered to as many people as possible because we can charge for it” which really has nothing to do with mentorship?

6. Only accept expertise from actual experts. Meaning they can provide proof of verifiable success in business outside whatever they are doing for you as well as verifiable success in the industry you are hiring them for before they started providing that service for any form of compensation for doing so.

Happiness Leads to Depression

Wed, 24 Jan 2024 17:50:56 GMT

Selfish Happiness Leads to Depression

People have always been selfish, it is in our nature, and it is not all that bad. When balanced with sound morality and a healthy portion of selflessness, controlled selfishness leads to better health, better relationships, and better society.

However, the form of our selfishness as a society has changed recently and it is leaving us unhealthy, unhappy, and unsuccessful, and in a growing number of cases, unalive.

People from eighteen to eighty are reporting record levels of depression, loneliness, and a lack of overall joy in their lives. They are blaming everything from previous generations, rich people, climate change and artificial intelligence to name a few.

I have no doubt that any, or all, of those factors could be making things worse, but the root of our lack of joy is really found in us.

The first obstacle to our joy is expectations. For the first 10,000 years or so of human existence there was a 99.8% chance your life was going to be terribly difficult and you would most assuredly be poor. Today, in 2024, there has never been less poverty, yet we have never felt the voids in our lives so deeply. As a matter of fact, globally, the percentage of people who live in true poverty is 12 percent , which, while still 12 percent too much, is down from over 36 percent in the 1990’s and 98 percent of people in the 1700’s. Life was so bad coming out of the 18 ^th century that 29% of the population never seen their first birthday, and 45% of people never made it past 14 years old!

If you were a normal person living in most of America in, say, 1790, you would have terrible or no shoes, a shack with a dirt floor for a home (planks if you were lucky and rich), a well to get water as long as the well didn’t become tainted, and for dinner some pig innards and some squash you may have been able to grow in the back of your cabin. Your day would be laborious for 14 to 16 hours, and your bed would be uncomfortable and usually infested at some point throughout the year. If you lived in a more urban environment the conditions were a bit worse with rats, viruses, and horse manure everywhere on top of the labor required just to not die that day.

If you happened to know how to read (which global literacy rates were only about 30% until the 1700s) the amount of information you would consume in your entire lifetime would be less than the average person in today’s world consumes in just a few days!

And yes, I have seen the reports that the serfs of the medieval times worked fewer days for their masters than we work today, and had possibly even more days off too, but these reports are 100% inaccurate! The reason these reports are inaccurate is because they don’t factor in to the fact that you had to work in your own daily life in order to just live to see tomorrow. So, while work for the master might be fourteen hours one day and only five hours the next, you also had to make sure you killed, gutted, skinned and cooked that night's dinner, mend your clothes, chop firewood, feed any livestock you may have, make soap, repair your dwelling, and so on. You get the point. Staying alive was a full-time job above and beyond whatever work you had to do for the master. Not to mention the risk of being raided, raped and killed with little to no warning at any moment by warring factions.

Here's the crazy part though, those people were happy. Not all of them of course, but there was joy, laughter, celebrations, art, festivals and we know this because they kept a written record. More powerfully though, they didn’t ‘feel’ as poor as someone today that has a heated studio apartment, electricity, smart phone, television, internet, access to motorized public transportation, YouTube, Google, social media, readily available food, and streets that are not full of literal sh*t.

Please understand that I am NOT saying the young lady complaining on TikTok with their $1,000 smart phone about how terrible life is when working a nine-hour day with an hour commute each way just to come home and not have any time to hang out with friends doesn’t have something to complain about. However, logically speaking, this young lady, who is not being sold by her father for three goats, has a better life than 99.9% of the 117,000,000,000 people who are now, or have ever lived, on planet Earth.

Someone in America, who is living in government subsidized housing, city paid for bus pass, and food stamps has a higher standard of living than the King of England did in 1880. No, really! Until 1880 the King of England, the most powerful man on the planet at the time, had no toilet, no heat other than however close he could sleep to the fire, no motorized transportation, no electricity, no modern medicine, etc.

So, quality of life for most of today’s poor is 500-800% better than even the wealthy for all of history, so it begs the question, what is really the source of this feeling of destitution, and unhappiness?

First, we have to examine what is the source of happiness, especially if generations before us, as recent as our grandparents, were provenly happier than we are today.

The people of the past:

Longed to sacrifice work in order to have children and raise a family, longing for a wife and kids for themselves since they were children. They understood that the best treasures in life were a spouse and children.
Longed to keep their list of lovers to fewer than two, knowing that brings the highest rate of sexual satisfaction.
Both sexes embraced modesty
Devoted themselves to the love of one person in marriage understanding that a boring marriage, or an unfulfilling marriage had no relevance as to their happiness in marriage since those phases were considered part of the adventure that brought fulfilment.
They didn’t need every day or month to feel like they were living their best life now and realized that being alive was already gift enough.
They learned one, maybe two crafts and spent their lifetimes mastering their craft.
They devoted themselves to spiritual and/or philosophical development.
They honored their aged and ancestors, realizing they were the highest of celebrities.
They accepted that life was tough and enjoyed even the slightest reprieve as if it was a cool drink.

The people of today:

Actively reject the idea of kids until “later” if at all, in order to “live their life first.”
Try to bed as many people as possible before they “settle down.”
Both sexes reject modesty
Abandoning marriages due to “no fault” or due to “boredom, unhappiness, or unfulfillment.”
Changing career every 5 years and even then, always looking for shortcuts to success.
Actively rejecting mental, spiritual and philosophical pursuits in exchange for subjective truth and self-defined morality.
Rejecting, and at times even opposing the older generations and abandoning the stories of our ancestors.

What a completely different approach to life, and to think we rejected for first list because we incorrectly believed the second list would bring more joy.

Secondly, the ability to compare.

If you were poor in the 1920s you lived with, built your local community and culture with, celebrated and mourned with other people in your income and life situation. If a rich man did pass through your community in a gilded carriage, it would be treated as a source of amusement and while the wealth may have drawn attention and dreams, the women of the community, for example, wouldn’t start rejecting the advances and attraction of their male peers, nor stop dreaming of a happy life with those men while raising a family in their community. Wealth, when it was seen, would be something to work towards, or wish for, perhaps but not something that would cause one to reject happiness because they couldn’t obtain the wealth.

Today, it is the opposite. We can compare our lives against tens of millions (yes, that many) of millionaires 24/7 on social media, or every time we watch television. And when we have abandoned the things of life that actually make us happy listed above, those comparisons and subsequent feelings of inadequacy are even greater.

Third, we have unhappy people telling us that the things that can actually make us happy; children, a hard but worthy marriage, local friends, and work that produces a decent living are things to be shunned as too traditional and things that will take away from partying, traveling, and enjoying the ‘fun’ of being single and free. Not only do these unhappy people love to tell us these things, but we, driven by a self-destructive form of selfishness, allow ourselves to believe them.

Look, I’m not saying there isn’t a problem with the economy and today’s work, there absolutely is, which is why I have books, trainings, and even multiple companies I own dedicated to fixing that part of the equation, but what I’m saying is, until people want the deeper things in life that really make us happy, then it doesn’t matter if the economy and the state of labor gets fixed or not.

Until we once again desire to have sex with the fewest people possible, knowing that results in the highest reported rates of sexual happiness. Until we desire the hard work of a great and boring marriage more than the illusion of cheap passion accompanied by the stroking of our vanity. Until we desire to build local clubs, pubs, tea houses, and realize those offer more joy than world travel even to those who engage in world travel. Until we are willing to sacrifice our preferences and yield to a larger morality. Until we do those types of things it wouldn’t matter if a million-dollar salary working a ten hour a week job were dropped in our laps, we would still be (more so actually) unhappy and unfulfilled.

I would go as far as saying, that until we want those deeper things that make us happy, not only will we not have an economy that makes sense for the masses but it would be actually impossible to achieve.

There is nothing more deceptive than self if that self is allowed to pursue cheap and self-serving happiness instead of rich and deep joy found behind a logically.