A Slice of Americana – Think Sunshine and Good Days Ahead
Ed

Musings by Ed Bagley:

 

On Tolerance:
The English writer G. K. Chesterton (1874-1936) once remarked that tolerance is the virtue of people who do not believe in anything; consequently, the have no standards by which to judge, which means they can be endlessly “ tolerant”. Within any given society or culture, the majority can, in fact, be wrong. Ergo, “Right is still right if nobody is right, and wrong is still wrong if everybody is wrong.” An act’s rightness or wrongness does not depend upon the number of its supporters. Acts that are popular or even laws passed by a legislature are not necessarily moral or ethical, not to mention fair.

On Your Potential:
It is possible that you are squandering your ability to develop your potential by spending too much time mooning over what is not right with your life rather than using that same energy to take action to achieve what you want to happen. To do so you must first decide who you are, what it is you want, and why you are here. Once you answer those questions for yourself, you will naturally gravitate toward becoming the person you are, you want to be, and what you are going to do with the rest of your life. Along the way, you will be feeding your passion rather than trying to discover your passion on an ever ending journey to despair.

On Personal Growth:
There is a huge difference between “professional growth” and “personal growth”. Do you know the difference? Virtually all successful people have professional growth. Professional growth is getting more education (a bachelor’s degree or an advanced degree), or successfully completing a training course in some specific skill (an apprentice carpenter becoming a journyman carpenter). Personal growth is totally different because personal growth requires you to change your thought process and belief system. Of every 100 people who could benefit from personal growth, only 10 at most would even attempt to develop personal growth, and, of those 10, only 1 will achieve personal growth because it is so difficult to achieve on your own without professional help of some kind. The one percent of people who achieve personal growth could be called “1 percenters”.
The 1 percenters may be 99% ahead of those who do nothing to change their thought process and belief system.

Clason’s “The Richest Man in Babylon” Part 2 – The 7 Cures for a Lean Wallet and The 5 Laws of Money

Copyright © 2007 Ed Bagley

Part 1 of this 2 Part series ends the synopsis of George Clason’s book “The Richest Man in Babylon,” but Clason raises an important question: Why should
so few men be able to acquire so much gold?

The answer is because they know how.

One may not condemn a man for succeeding because he knows how. Neither may one with justice take away from a man what he has fairly earned, to give to men of less ability.

And so it was that the good king of Babylon sought out the richest man in Babylon to teach to others in his kingdom the secrets of his success.

This is a synopsis of what the richest man taught to the people
of Babylon:

The Seven Cures for a Lean Wallet

1) Start your wallet to fattening. Save one-tenth of all you earn. Remember that a part
of all I earn is mine to keep. Do this faithfully. Do not let the simplicity of this escape you.

When I ceased to pay out more than nine-tenths of my earnings,
I got along just as well.
I was not shorter than before, and, money came to me more easily than before.

2) Control your expenses. How is it that all do not earn the same yet all have lean wallets? Here is the truth: That which each of us calls our “necessary expenses” will always grow to equal our incomes unless we protest to
the contrary.

Confuse not necessary expenses with desires. We all have more desires than our earnings can gratify. Examine which of the accepted expenses of living can be reduced or eliminated. Let your motto be 100% of appreciated value demanded for every dollar spent.

Budget your expenses so that your actual necessities are met without spending more than nine-tenths of your earnings.

3) Make your money multiply. Protect your growing treasure by putting it to labor and increasing. Money in your wallet earns nothing. Money that we earn from our money is but a start; it is the earnings generating earnings that builds fortunes.

When the richest man in Babylon loaned money to the shield maker to buy bronze, he said this: “Each time I loaned money to the shield maker, I loaned back also the rental he had paid me. Therefore not only did my capital increase, but its earnings likewise increased.”

4) Guard your money from loss. Everyone has an idea of how to make quick money; few, however, have the evidence of making money to justify their idea, scheme or offer of quick riches. The first sound principle of investment is security for your principal.

Before you loan your money to any man assure yourself of his ability to repay your loan, and of his reputation to do so. Make no one a present of your hard-earned treasure.

Consult the wisdom of those experienced in handling money for profit. Such advice is often freely given for
the asking, and may possess more value than the amount you
are about to invest.

5) Make your home a profitable investment. When you can set aside only nine-tenths of what you earn to live, and can use a part of that nine-tenths to improve the investment in your housing, do it; owning your own home is also an investment that grows with your wealth.

Your family deserves a home they can enjoy and call their own. It builds a sense of stability and well-being.

6) Ensure a future income. Build income-producing assets that do not require you to work forever. We will all grow old and die.

You should prepare a suitable income for the days to come when you are no longer younger and cannot work as hard, and to make preparations for your family should you no longer be with them to comfort and support them. Provide in advance for the needs of your growing age, and the protection of your family.

7) Increase your
ability to earn.
Desire precedes accomplishment, and the desire must be strong and definite. When you have backed your desire for saving $1,000 with the strength and purpose to secure it, you can then save $2,000.

Desires must be simple and definite. Desires defeat their own purpose when they are too many, too confusing, or too difficult to accomplish. Cultivate your own powers to study and become wiser, more skillful, and more productive.

Here is more sage advice from Clason’s masterpiece on financial matters:

The 5 Laws of Money

If you had to choose, would you choose tons of money or wisdom? Most men would take the money, ignore the wisdom, and waste the money. Here is the wisdom:

1) Money comes gladly and in increasing quantities to any man who will put aside not less than one-tenth of his earnings to create an estate for his future and the future of his family.

2) Money labors diligently and contently for the wise owner who finds for it profitable employment, multiplying unto itself in infinity if kept working diligently. Money multiplies itself in surprising fashion.

3) Money clings to
the protection of the cautious owner who invests it with the advice of men wise
in its handling.

4) Money slips away from the man who invests it in businesses or purposes that he is not familiar with, or which are not approved by those skilled in its keep. The inexperienced handler of money who trusts his own judgment, and puts his money in investments which he is not familiar, always pays with his money for his experience.

5) Money flees the man who would force it to impossible earnings, or who follows the alluring advice of tricksters and schemers, or who
trusts it to his own inexperience and romantic desires in investment.

Here is the hard lesson of the 5 Laws of Money: You cannot measure the value of wisdom in bags of money. Without wisdom, those who have it quickly lose money, but with wisdom, money can be secured by those who have it not.

This ends the condensation.

Financial Thoughts
on Investing
by Warren Buffett

 

(Ed’s Note: The following condensation is from The Tao of Warren Buffett, written by Mary Buffett and David Clark and available for sale at Amazon and bookstores nationwide. I am always impressed by what Warren Buffett has to say and am doing this condensation to help promote their book.)

On Investing: Never be afraid to ask too much when selling offer too little when buying.
(Ed’s Note: How much you get from a sale or how much you have to pay when making a purchase determines whether you make or lose money and how rich you ultimately become.)

(Ed’s Note: For more of Warren Buffett’s advice go to the menu bar above and click on Financial Thoughts.)

Copyright © 2007 Ed Bagley

As a former record-setting championship runner, it is normal and natural for me to proclaim “Chariots of Fire” as simply the greatest running movie ever made. What is strange is famed movie critic Roger Ebert’s reaction to this film classic.

“I have no interest in running and am not a partisan in the British class system,” says Ebert. “Then why should I have been so deeply moved by ‘Chariots of Fire’, a British film that has running and class as its subjects? Like many great films, Chariots of Fire takes its nominal subjects as occasions for much larger statements about human nature.”

Ebert is drawn to Chariots of Fire like a bee to honey. He cannot resist the powerful presentation of this true story about two men of principles and integrity that use running as a magnet to attract followers to their cause.

One is Harold Abrahams (Ben Cross), a British man to the core and a Jew whose father is an immigrant and financier from Lithuania. The other is Eric Liddell (Ian Charleson), a Scot who is the son of missionaries in China. Both have the God-given gift of speed and seek to bring home medals from the 1924 Paris Olympics.

Abrahams feels the sting of discrimination because of his Jewish heritage and runs for the glory of Britain and the acceptance that he believes will make him whole; there is no question he is worthy. Aubrey Montague (Nicholas Farrell) is his close friend and confidant.

“You, Aubrey, are my most complete man,” says Abrahams. “You’re brave, compassionate, kind: a content man. That is your secret, contentment. I am 24 and I’ve never known it. I’m forever in pursuit and I don’t even know what I am chasing.”

Abrahams is driven by his quest for a gold medal in the 100-meter dash. He will let nothing come between him and his goal, even the love of his life Sybil Gordon (Alice Krige). He enters Cambridge University and quickly becomes a campus standout by becoming the first person to successfully run around the Trinity Great Court from the first toll until the clock strikes 12. His competition is Lord Andrew Lindsay (Nigel Havers) who pushes him to glory.

Abrahams tells his friend Aubrey Montague that he has never been beaten in competition. When he faces Eric Liddell for the first time he loses, and his immaturity surfaces when he declares to Sybil Gordon that “If I can’t win, I won’t run!” Sybil replies, “If you don’t run, you can’t win.”

Fortunately, the famous trainer Sam Mussabini (Ian Holm) is at the race and tells Abrahams he is over striding and points out that over striding is the kiss of death for a sprinter. He reluctantly agrees to coach Abrahams so he can beat Liddell in the 100 meters.

Sam Mussabini tells Abrahams that Liddell is a fast gut runner who digs deep, but reminds him that a short sprint is run on nerves, and then adds that it’s tailor-made for neurotics.

Eric Liddell is more than fast, he is one of the fastest runners anywhere, a fact that is about to be demonstrated to the world in the Olympic games. Liddell is self-assured and confident and unlike, Abrahams, runs for the greater glory of God.

When his missionary sister Jennie Liddell (Cheryl Campbell) fears his focus will be lost on running, Eric replies that “I believe God made me for a purpose, but he also made me fast. And when I run I feel his pleasure.”

In the Olympic games, both Abrahams and Liddell will clash with two very fast Americans, Charles Paddock—the world record holder in the 100 meters—and Jackson Scholz—a 200-meter sprinter.

When Eric Liddell learns that the preliminaries for the 100-meter dash will be run on Sunday, he refuses to compete. When confronted by the British Olympic Committee and Lord Cadogan reprimands him for his impertinence, Liddell replies that “The impertinence lies, sir, with those who seek to influence a man to deny his beliefs!”

At the 11th hour and 59th minute, Lord Andrew Lindsey intervenes with a solution: Since he has already won a bronze medal in the 200-meter race, let Liddell replace him in the 400-meter dash.

Liddell is then seen at church delivering a guest sermon and quotes the Bible prophetically from Isaiah, Chapter 40, Verse 31: “But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint” (King James Version).

Chariots of Fire has an unknown cast with spectacular photography and music as well as many running scenes.

Roger Ebert keys in on the musical score, calling it “one of the most remarkable sound tracks of any film” with music by the Greek composer Vangelis. “His compositions . . . are as evocative, and as suited to the material, as the different but also perfectly matched scores (as) ‘Zorba the Greek’.”

Vangelis’ use of an electronic score may have been ill-suited to a period piece like Chariots of Fire, but it worked beyond anyone’s expectations, creating a new style in film scoring. He played all of the instruments, including synthesizers, acoustic piano, battery and percussion.

Against this nostalgic backdrop the movie opens with Lord Andrew Lindsey delivering the eulogy for Harold Abrahams funeral:

“Let us praise famous men and our fathers that begat us. All these men were honored in their generations and were a glory in their days. We are here today to give thanks for the life of Harold Abrahams. To honor the legend. Now there are just two of us—young Aubrey Montague and myself—who can close our eyes and remember those few young men with hope in our hearts and wings on our heels.”

From this incredible opening follows the flashback and the narration that recounts the challenges and glory of Great Britain’s athletes at the 1924 Olympic Games. The next scene is the athletes running along the beach to what has become known as the Chariots of Fire theme that would later be released as a single in 1982 and top the charts in the United States.

In the end, Harold Abrahams would win the 100-meter dash, and would also win a silver medal as the opening leg (runner) on the 4×100 relay team. Eric Liddell—the Flying Scotsman—would win the 400-meter dash in an Olympic record 47.6 seconds, and also picked up a bronze medal in the 200-meter dash, won by Jackson Scholz with Charles Paddock second.

Among many poignant moments in Chariots of Fire is Eric Liddell at the starting line of the 400-meter dash and Jackson Scholz, who was not competing in the race, hands him a written note of text from the Bible. The quotation was from 1st Samuel, 2nd Chapter. Verse 30, “Those who honor me I will honor.” Liddell ran the 400 meters with the note in his hand and set an Olympic record.

Abrahams would marry his sweetheart and become the elder statesman of track and field in Britain. Liddell would return to China as a missionary with his physician brother Rob and ultimately be imprisoned during the Chinese-Japanese War in 1942.

Winston Churchill arranged for a prisoner exchange to get Liddell out of the camp (his family had left China before the hostilities started) but Liddell—ever faithful to the end in serving others—gave up his place to a pregnant mother. He died of a brain tumor in 1945, 5 months before the camp was liberated. Even today, 64 years later, he is honored as Scotland’s greatest athlete.

If you have a shred of integrity, principles, ethics, morals, honor, sensitivity or patriotism, you will love Chariots of Fire and be moved by its message.

If you do not, I cannot do anything for you but let you know that Chariots of Fire is more than the greatest running movie ever made, it is also one of the greatest films ever made.

Chariots of Fire, released in 1981, was a British film written by Colin Welland and directed by Hugh Hudson. It would draw moviegoers everywhere by winning 4 Oscars at the Academy Awards for Best Picture (Producer David Puttman), Best Original Screenplay (Colin Welland), Best Original Music Score (Vangelis) and Best Costume Design (Milena Canonero).

Chariots of Fire was also nominated for Oscars for Best Supporting Actor (Ian Holm as Sam Mussabini), Best Director (Hugh Hudson) and Best Film Editing (Terry Rawlings). It also had 12 other wins and 15 more nominations, including Best Foreign Film at the Golden Globe Awards.

Chariots of Fire remains among my list of the Top 10 films ever made. It passes my most stringent test of asking myself after seeing a film: Am I a better person for having seen this film? The answer is yes, a thousand times yes!

Even today, 26 years after seeing Chariots of Fire for the first time, I get goose bumps whenever I see it again.

Every time I see it I pull down my Cambridge Factfinder from my library shelf and stare at the 1924 Paris Olympic results. There I see three gold medal winners—Harold Abrahams of Great Britain in the 100-Meter Dash (10.6), Eric Liddell of Great Britain in the 400-Meter Dash (an Olympic record 47.6) and Douglas Lowe of Great Britain in the 800-Meter Run (1:52.4). Lowe was not in Colin Welland’s script.

I think of that glorious time when some few ran with hope in their hearts and wings on their heels.

If You Think as a Parent that Little League Baseball Does Not Teach Important Survival Skills, Think Again

 

By Ed Bagley

Sometimes as parents we forget how simple and subtle the lessons in life
can be.

I was reminded of this yesterday afternoon when
I heard the cheering of youngsters playing a Little League baseball game in the nearby city park. It is amazing when the noise of kids at play can carry the sound a half-block away and into the open window of your living room.

Little League baseball games can get noisy. Kids are excited when the bases are loaded and their next hitter sends a screaming line drive into the outfield.

They know that the outfielder will likely boot the ball, and as it gets by him on its merry way to the fence, all three players on base will score and the hitter will probably come home safe with an inside-the-park home run and 4 ribbies (runs batted in) to his credit.

Ah, baseball, spring is in the air and summer is approaching.

The pure fun of sport is so normal and so natural to our human experience.

I read a study once that interviewed hardened criminals spending life in prison for capital crimes, such as murder. A psychologist asked inmates what they missed most now that they were spending the rest of their lives behind bars without possibility of parole.

The answer stunned me, and it should stun you too. What they missed most was not their girlfriend, or sex, or drinking, or drugging, or gambling; it was the sound of kids playing. Perhaps the one, real, positive memory they have of their life was when they were a child playing.

These are two compelling extremes: children at play without a care in the world, and incarcerated criminals who are burdened with the reality that they will never again be free to play.

With all of the violence we are now seeing with youngsters who solve their supposed “problems” by shooting their perceived “enemies” (many times friends and family), I am reminded that some of our children today seem less able to cope with adversity, and even less so with patience.

How is it that they clearly lack coping skills and patience, two necessary traits for survival as an adult?

It will take someone a lot smarter than me to give you the right answer to this question.

I will leave that answer to what some educated professionals who study psychology think.

In the meantime, I choose not to tell you what I think, but to share with you what
I know.

Here is one thing about Little League baseball that is being taught by some parents and some leaders in some organizations that is really not worth teaching, and that is this:

Certain organizations have adopted the misguided practice of rewarding every kid on each team regardless of their effort or performance. In other words, a team can lose every game all year and each kid gets a trophy for participating, a team picture and his or her own baseball card with their mug on it.

Apparently some parents do not want to hurt their child’s feelings even though the child makes little effort, is clearly incompetent at improving on any skills of the game, does not understand the game, and really could care less.

I doubt the parents in the example given have a clue about the lessons they are teaching their children by insisting on this foolish practice of making their child feel like he or she has accomplished something.

First, they are encouraging mediocrity by rewarding nothingness. Practice this stupidity a few more generations and we will have our children thinking they can show up to work as an adult, do nothing and get paid for their lack of skills, effort and production.

Second, they are rewarding children for having no concept of goal-setting and achieving goals. The parents are not encouraging any concept of self-improvement and providing no incentive to do so.

Third, they are teaching no learning skills in how to cope with failure, and not providing a shred of understanding about the function of failing. Losers would be astonished to learn that successful people have failed more than losers ever thought of failing.

One of the big differences between losers and winners in the game of life is that when winners fail, they get right back up, dust themselves off, learn from the experience, and try again.

Fourth, they devalue the kids who do work hard, fail and then succeed by rewarding a bunch of kids who haul off and do nothing, learn nothing, and have no sense of real accomplishment.

I remember going door-to-door as a 9-year-old kid, looking for a sponsor for a baseball team I was putting together. I instinctively knew kids would want to be on my team if I could get them a free baseball hat and shirt; we would then look like a real team. I had played on a team that had nothing; we could not afford uniforms, we were lucky to have a glove or borrow a glove.

I found that sponsor, a business called Jewell Realty in Flint, Michigan.
I found a sponsor because
I was looking for a sponsor. The people that owned that business were impressed that a 9-year-old kid would have the guts to walk all over town and ask businesses to sponsor his rag-tag team. I put up with the nos and getting kicked out of places because
I wanted it that bad.

The year was 1953 and we were terrible; we lost more games than we won. We were put upon, put down, slapped around and got the crap kicked out of us, but
I never quit, and I made sure my teammates didn’t quit either. When someone quit trying, I kicked him off the team and found someone else.

Two years later we won the league championship, and when we did, I was surrounded by winners who had become my friends.
I did not need my parents to do this for me, I did not need some meddling adult or juvenile counselor to do this for me, I needed to do this for myself.

When I got the guys together and we took that trophy down to Jewell Realty, we all shared in the excitement of being winners. Later that summer I would walk by Jewell Realty, see that trophy in the window, and know who
I was and what I had become: a winner. Jewell Realty did not win that trophy, I won that trophy, and I knew what it would take to win another.

Our parents never saw us play, they were too busy working.

If someone had come around after that first season and given each of us a trophy for losing, we would not have accepted it. Think about it: the message they would have been sending us was we think you are so bad that you could never win a title, so in order to sooth your precious little feelings, here is a trophy for being a loser.

I think I would have spit in their face. I was that competitive. I might have been a 9 year old but I did not need some meddling parent setting goals for me that I thought were so low
I would trip on them walking across the baseball diamond.

If you think a 9-year-old child cannot have some dignity, you are dead wrong, and have probably been wrong about a lot of things in your life.

Once we won that championship and experienced our moment of victory, you could have taken that trophy away and it would not have mattered.
I knew what I had sacrificed to win that trophy, and after all of the blood, sweat and tears, nothing any stupid parent or adult could do would have made me feel less about myself.
I knew I was a winner, and
I wasn’t going to settle for anything less.

Parents, if you do not understand one thing in raising your children, understand this: if your child goes through his or her entire schooling period (kindergarten through high school graduation) and never experiences real success at anything at least one day is his or her life, your child will be handicapped for life. Nothing could be more arcane, stupid and bovine.

Don’t you dare try to prevent your child from failing. Let them try and when they fail, pick them up, dust them off, and encourage them to try again. It is in failing that we learn to succeed.

If you as a parent cannot be a winner in your own pathetic life, if all you have to offer is whining and complaining about this and that, and bemoaning how your child is treated, then get the hell out of the way and let your child fail to ultimately win on his own.

Take a snapshot of two pictures.

In one a child is given a trophy, a team photo and a baseball card with his picture on it featuring a loser who accomplished nothing. In the other snapshot, a child is given only a trophy, or the team is given one trophy to admire, because they have worked their butts off, improved their skills, played their hearts out, taken risks and won a league title. Which is your child?

Any child who has worked to get to the top of the mountain, and experiences the sheer joy of competing and winning, is someone who will go much farther in life.

I can tell you from experience in hiring that there is an incredible correlation between having athletic success at the high school or college level and success later in life. The reason is simple: winners win and losers don’t.

Do not misunderstand what I am sharing here. It is not that you cannot win bigger and better in life unless you are a successful athlete in your youth, it is that you need to have a sense of accomplishment and recognition doing something that takes hard work, dedication, effort and goals. It could be singing, it could be acting, it could be playing a musical instrument; suffice to say any activity that allows you to fail, learn, improve and succeed over a period of time.

It certainly helps to have a strong father in the house to help teach his children what it is to be a winner, to learn coping skills, patience, hard work, dedication, effort, improvement and success. A strong single mother can do the same.

Do not play patty-cake with your children when they are 9 years old, do not knowingly set them up in life to fail, let them struggle and succeed. If you do not do this someday they will be adult and not know how to act when they are put down, put upon, made fun of and beaten up emotionally. They will figure it out if you do not protect them and their feelings so much they become helpless and inept.

They will learn to cope and be stronger for the experience. When they reach adulthood they will be able to dismiss people around them who have mediocre minds and are mental midgets. They will be polite as they treat these losers as irrelevant (which they are) and be unaffected by their negative presence.

Then they will move on quickly to be with the winners. It is the losers who are left standing alone and wondering why.

Do not play to participate, play to win. It is not winning that is the be all to end all,
it is that in the process of winning we learn important skills that make us much more effective in playing and winning in the game of life. After all, life is not a resting place; life is a testing place, it is now and will continue to be as long as you live.

A wise man said it and it bears repeating here: When everyone is somebody then no one’s anybody.