What is Learning/Wisdom?

Why Seek Wisdom?

How Can I Seek Wisdom?

How Can I Discern Fact from Fiction?

What Hinders Seeking Wisdom? (Pride, Drugs, TV and Other Time Wasters)

What Are the Dangers of Seeking Wisdom? 

Consider using these one to three minute stories during announcements to get the entire school thinking about the trait of the month.  These are also filed topically with the other below illustrations on "wisdom/learning."  

Basketball great Kareem Abdul Jabbaar once said,

''You can't let people who aren't going anywhere influence your opinions.''

The opposite is also true. Make sure the people who are going somewhere influence your opinions. This is a pattern in many successful people. They sharpen their skills and keep motivated by hanging out with those who have similar interests.

• The world's best known theoretical physicist: Twenty-two year old Albert Einstein and like-minded friends met frequently in each other's homes or talked on hikes, sometimes all the way through the night. These conversations had an enormous impact on his future work. They called themselves ''The Olympia Academy.''
• The most successful entrepreneur: Fifteen-year old Bill Gates met regularly with other computer enthusiasts who called themselves ''The Lakeside Programmers Group.''
• One of the wisest men of his time: Benjamin Franklin met every Friday for decades with a diverse group of civic-minded thinkers called ''Junto.'' Many of his great accomplishments were a result of cross-pollination from this group.
• Two of the most popular writers: J.R.R. Tolkien (Lord of the Rings) and C.S. Lewis (The Chronicles of Narnia) met with a group called ''The Inklings,'' on a weekday morning in a pub and Thursday evenings at Lewis' house, often reading their manuscripts aloud to get input.

Albert Einstein's parents and teachers considered him dull. His son once said, ''He was even considered backward by his teachers. He told me that his teachers reported to his father that he was mentally slow, unsociable and adrift forever in his foolish dreams.'' At 16, his father ''urged him to forget his 'philosophical nonsense' and apply himself to the 'sensible trade' of electrical engineering. A slowness of speech had predisposed his parents to think him dull.'' He also found learning languages difficult. He failed to pass his college entrance exams in zoology, botany and languages. Because of this, he had to return to secondary school for another year. (Cradles of Eminence, p. 248ff)

Do you ever feel dumb because of your inability to get good grades in certain subjects. Don't get discouraged! Just keep on learning, however you learn best. Ask good questions. Read up on subjects of interest to you. Ask teachers for help when you get discouraged. Many of the top minds in history had troubles in school. Don't let that stop you from becoming a life-long learner!

Learning - Listen to Evaluations of Your Weaknesses

Great learners honestly face their weaknesses and work on them. Here are a few examples: 

Michael Jordan, after his humiliating cut from the high school team as a sophomore, began waking up at 6:00 each morning to practice with his Junior Varsity coach. Then there were the basketball clinics he began attending during the summers, where he got input from top coaches. Although he played an extraordinary game as a college freshman, that didn't keep him from intently listening to his coach's evaluation of his weaknesses. By working hours a day on these weaknesses, he came a step closer to being the best player of all time. 

As a young grade-school movie maker, Steven Spielberg would show his films on a sheet, thrown over a clothes line in his backyard, with his sister selling tickets and candy. Between showings, he would get their input on what they liked, and how he could improve. 

Bodybuilder Arnold Schwartzenegger asked a fellow-bodybuilder to evaluate his physique. Schwarzenegger took his advice, changed part of his routine, and took another step toward becoming the world's top bodybuilder.

One day Benjamin Franklin's friend sharply rebuked him. ''Ben,'' he said, ''you are impossible. Your opinions have a slap in them for everyone who differs with you. They have become so expensive nobody cares for them. Your friends find they enjoy themselves better when you are not around.'' Franklin took the rebuke seriously and began to work on his relational abilities. The effort paid off in later years as he became one of the most sought out, respected men of his time. At another time, in order to improve his writing, he and some friends each wrote a paper based on a Psalm, and then critiqued each other's writing.

If Michael Jordan had refused to listen to his coaches' critiques of his game…
If Franklin had never taken his friend's advice… 
If Spielberg had never gotten input on his films…
If Schwartzenegger hadn't listened to the input of other bodybuilders...

…we might have never heard of these guys. (Written by Steve Miller, Copyright February, 2003)

Like everyone else, I hate criticism. Sometimes I don't respond like I should when people give me input. But unless I allow people to give me honest input and act on it, I can't really grow as a person. This week I want to listen to other's input. Let's all try to get the input of several people in an area where we want to excel, whether it be a sport, an academic subject, or a hobby. 

Learning - Learn to Appreciate the Red Marks.

Stephen was a 10th grader when he took a job as a sports reporter for his hometown newspaper. His first assignment was to write a story about his school's basketball team. A player had broken a scoring record, making it big news in a small town. So he wrote the story and turned it into the editor, who proceeded to put lines through everything that he thought unnecessary. Stephen could have gotten mad at the editor for tearing apart his hard work. He could have ignored his comments, thinking that he knew quite well how to write. Instead, he loved it, taking everything to heart. Looking back, Stephen says that this editor's ten minutes of criticism taught him more than any of his English Literature, composition courses, fiction courses, or poetry courses in high school and college! He kept on writing and became one of the most successful authors today, Stephen King. (Written by Steve Miller, information from Stephen King, On Writing, Pocket Books, 2000, pp. 56-58)

It's easy in school to get so focused on grades that we consider ourselves failures when teachers write remarks on our papers. I know that feeling well from my own schooling. Successes like Stephen King relished in the red marks. They helped him know where to improve. This week, let's try to relish in the corrections, even when we disagree with some of them. Acting on some of those red marks may be a key to our future success. 

Learning - Making Time for Your Priorities

So how did Bill Gates get the brains to be able to write computer code lightning fast, lead a fast-growing company, become a millionaire in his 20's and billionaire in his thirties, and keep a step ahead of his competitors, while many people his age were still trying to decide on a career? Several things could be mentioned about how he soaked up wisdom. But for now, I'll mention a couple of things that he determined NOT to do.

He knew that he couldn't keep ahead of the computer industry while spending the time that most spend following the popular sitcoms and typical entertainment. To make sure he didn't get sucked into it, he didn't even own a TV until he was 29. Even then, it was just a monitor and a VCR given to him by a long-distance girlfriend so that they could watch the same movies and talk about them by phone afterwards. He made sure that he didn't get a broadcast tuner, so that he couldn't pick up TV stations. Knowing how enticing TV is, he couldn't risk wasting the time.

As if that weren't radical enough, he disconnected his car radio so that he could think better in the car. He took baths instead of showers so that he could accomplish things while the water ran and read while he soaked. (Written by Steve Miller. Source: Stephen Manes and Paul Andrews, Gates: How Microsoft's Mogul Reinvented An Industry - And Made Himself The Richest Man in America, Simon & Schuster, New York, 1994, pp. 199,200 ) also, USA Today Weekend, p. 5.)

Like Gates, all serious wisdom seekers separate themselves from the crowd by showing an apathy toward the frivolous things that most people sink tons of time into. It's not that they never watch TV or get involved with healthy distractions. It's just that they know what they need to give up in order to achieve the success that they want. Today, let's consider cutting back on some things that might hinder us in our future success. 

1. Imagine that Bill Gates were to hang out with an average group of students today. What parts of their activities do you think he refuse to participate in?  
2. What are some activities that might be both fun and profitable? (Choosing TV programs that have some educational value, activities that involve exercise.)
3. What is something that you might need to cut back on in order to pursue a worthy goal?

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Learning - I.Q. Doesn't Tell Everything.

We are all equipped different types of intelligences. Some of us memorize better than others. Some of us think better than others. Some are gifted mechanically while others have a high artistic intelligence. So believe me, an I.Q. test doesn't tell you the whole story of your intelligence, much less your potential. You've probably heard of Mensa, the exclusive organization for those with I.Q.'s in the top 2%. 

I read a story about a Mensa convention in San Francisco where ''a bunch of Mensa members were lunching at a local café. They discovered that their salt shaker contained pepper and their pepper shaker was full of salt. How could they swap the contents of the bottles without spilling, and using only the implements at hand? Clearly this was a job for Mensa! The group debated and presented ideas, and finally came up with a brilliant solution involving a napkin, a straw, and an empty saucer. They called the waitress over to dazzle her with their solution. 

''Ma'am,'' they said, ''We couldn't help but notice that pepper shaker contains salt and the salt shaker--'' 
''Oh,'' the waitress interrupted. ''Sorry about that.'' She unscrewed the caps of both bottles, switched them, and said, ''Will that be one check or separate?'' (Tamim Ansary, ''What's Your I.Q.?'', March 12, Microsoft Network)

In the past we mistakenly thought of people with high I.Q.'s as smart and those with low I.Q's. as dumb. But now we know that there are many different kinds of intelligences. The same student who looks dumb on his  I.Q. test may be brilliant at relationships. Because of her relational skills, she may end up as a manager over some of the high I.Q. people! Some have poor memories but are creative geniuses. Others can't understand math but excel at empathizing with others. 

Today, let's stop labeling people "smart" and "dumb." Instead, let's start looking for the many types of intelligences in those around us and encouraging each other to be all that we can be. 

Learning - Learn by Asking Questions.

While walking to school each day, future comedian Rodney Dangerfield perfected his humor by telling a joke in several different ways to his friends, and then ask which delivery was funnier.

Multi-Billionaire Bill Gates regularly asks associate Steve Ballmer to look over his schedule. That input helps Gates to know when he's using his time poorly or focusing on the wrong activities. (P. 64, Bill Gates Speaks, by Janet Lowe, John Wiley & Sons, Inc.) 

Many people learn the guitar by asking questions. They ask someone who's a step ahead of them how to read a cord chart or how to position their fingers for a certain chord or how to get a certain sound out of their amp. Then, they practice till they can do it. Whenever they want to do something new, they ask a person who can already do it or read a music magazine that show how the professionals do it. (Written by Steve Miller, Copyright Feb., 2003)

Who are some people who could help you in an area you want to excel in? 

  For Discussion:

For Discussion:

Learning - Learn from Those Beneath You. 

Great leaders don't think they have all the good ideas. Instead, they humbly solicit ideas from all levels of their organizations. All of us who want to be wise should follow in their footsteps. Steven Spielberg is the most successful movie producer in the world. He's got plenty of creative ideas and has every right to tell the actors to sit quietly and allow him to tell them what to do. Yet, listen to actress Drew Barrymore tell how Spielberg worked with her and the other children in the movie E.T.

''Right off, I fell in love with Steven [Spielberg]. In many ways he was – and always will be – the dad I never had. I wanted so badly to be accepted by him, and when I was, it meant a lot to me. I was thrilled when he invited me to his Malibu house. We'd run along the beach, collect seashells, and build sand castles. It was so much fun to hang out with him.

But working with Steven was even better. In most of the scenes he let me do whatever I wanted. All of us were free to offer input, but he especially seemed to like the silly things the kids came up with. Like in the scene where Henry, Robert, and I are hiding E.T. in the closet from our mother, Henry tells me that only kids can see E.T. There wasn't a line to go with that, and Steven told me to just make something up. So when we did the scene again, I just shrugged and said, ''Gimme a break!''

He'd often take me aside and say something like, ''You're talking to me now. Do you really like this? Or do you have a different idea? Do you think it could be done a different way?'' Eventually I'd add something and Steven would smile and say, ''Good, let's combine ideas.'' It made me feel so good. For once I didn't feel like some stupid little kid trying to make people love me. I felt important and useful.'' (Drew Barrymore with Todd Gold, Little Girl Lost, Pocket Books: New York, 1990, p. 58)

The point? As wisdom-seekers, we should be humble enough to learn from everyone, even those who are in lower grades. There's no person we come across who's too young or too ignorant to learn from. Every person has ideas and experiences that we can learn from.  Let's treat them with some respect! (Written by Steve Miller, Copyright May 6, 2002)

For Discussion:

Jim Otto, who wore the number ''OO'' for the Raiders pro football team, was arguably the greatest center to ever play the game. According to player/coach/commentator John Madden, ''If someone came from another planet and wanted to know what a football player looked like, you'd show him a poster of Jim Otto.'' That's how well respected he is in the world of pro football.

For those who don't know football, the offensive center mans the middle of the bone-crunching action, on one play protecting the quarterback from 300 pound defensive linemen and on the next play drilling through them to pave the way for a run. His dedication, intelligence and leadership helped transform the Raiders into one of the most successful football franchises ever. He was selected to an incredible 12 Pro Bowls and inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

Yet amazingly, John Madden, Otto's coach for 6 seasons with the Raiders, says, ''Jim was a great football player, but he wasn't a great athlete. He wasn't real big, real strong or real fast.'' So how did he come to dominate his position and become so wildly successful? Madden says ''he made himself into a great football player. He was a hard-worker, a guy who really was committed.'' A big part of that work was mental. Madden remembers that every time the team would analyze films of past games, Otto would sit up front. While most players wanted to see their good plays over again, Otto asked to review his bad plays, even though there would only be a few, so that he could learn from his mistakes.

If we ever want to excel in a field, we've got to do what Jim Otto did. We must become wise in that field by soliciting input from others about our strengths and weaknesses, honestly facing them, and working to correct them. Today, let's start getting that input. (Written by Steve Miller, from The Pain of Glory, by Jim Otto and Dave Newhouse, Sports Publishing, Inc., 2000, pp. xii, xiii.)

For Discussion:

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Learning - Get a Passion for Learning  

For Discussion:

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When you work with computers, you find the name Microsoft popping up everywhere - Microsoft Windows, Microsoft Internet Explorer, Microsoft Word. A computer won't do anything without an operating system, and Bill Gates managed to produce the systems that became the standard. So when almost anyone buys a computer, part of that money goes to Microsoft, which Gates started when he was around 19 or 20 years old. (Gates, 179) 

In the early days of Microsoft, Gates was so young that when he flew into cities to market his software, he couldn't rent a rental car. He was too young, and looked even younger. A year later, Microsoft's manager  hired a secretary who was instructed that a couple of rooms were off limits for visitors. It wasn't long till she spotted someone who looked like a teenager, complete with mess-up hair and blue jeans, rummaging through the president's office and heading for the off-limits computer room. She dutifully ran to warn Woods, who calmly instructed her, ''That's Bill.'' 
''Who?''
''Bill Gates. The president. He's your boss.''(Gates, pp. 116, 117)
The next year, when Gates was 22, Microsoft would have its first million dollar sales year.(p. 128) 

Without an insatiable thirst for understanding computers that began at 13 years of age, Bill Gates could have never led the computer revolution. He was so motivated to learn computers that as a youth he would act like he was going to bed at night, only to sneak out and take a bus to an office which allowed students access to their computers. (Written by Steve Miller, Copyright Feb., 2003) Stephen Manes and Paul Andrews, Gates: How Microsoft's Mogul Reinvented An Industry - And Made Himself The Richest Man in America, Simon & Schuster, New York, 1994, pp. 16, 27,30, 31)

Sometimes we think that since we're young, we can't accomplish anything. Bill Gates proves that assumption wrong. This week, let's think about what we can do now to accomplish something significant. 

For Discussion:

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Learning - Hang Around Other Motivated Learners

In the last couple of "Intercom Insights" we talked about about Bill Gates, the multi-billionaire president of Microsoft. I've got to wonder, when so many people hate learning, how he got such a motivation to learn. 

In his early years Bill made "A's" in the subjects he liked, but "C's" and "D's" in the subjects he didn't like. It wasn't cool to get good grades. So, in the 7th grade his parents moved him to a different school. Although most of these kids weren't into learning, Bill found a small group of motivated learners. These are the ones he hung out with. These friends kept him intellectually challenged.  I think you'll understand when I tell you about a few of his friends. 

Senior Harvey Motulsky wrote a ''Monopoly'' program and a program to figure grade point averages from letter grades. Senior Math whiz Bob McCaw developed a black jack and roulette casino program. Tenth-grade electronics expert Paul Allen worked with robots with ultrasonic eyes. He taught Bill about computer hardware and convinced him about the future of the microprocessor. Ric Weiland built a Tic-Tac-Toe computer out of surplus electrical parts. This was all while they were in high school! In light of the people he was hanging around, it was no wonder that as an eighth-grader Bill put together his first two programs, one to convert numbers from any one arithmetic base to another and an elaborate war game. 

From the 8th to 11th grades, Gates' closest friend was Kent Evans. Whereas his other friends read journals such as Popular Electronics or Electronic News, Kent was more likely seen with Fortune, Business Week, or the Wall Street Journal. Kent was a fearless businessman, seeing no limits to what he could accomplish.  Later in life, people would attribute these same qualities to Gates. He became one of the early influences on Gate's business savvy. He helped name themselves the Lakeside Programmers Group, so that as 15-year-olds they could get some respect when they tried to work with businessmen. 

Since they had each other, it mattered little that other students thought they were geeks. Working together and stimulating one another, they became geeks with a purpose, geeks with attitude. (When they became super successful, it must have been like "The Revenge of the Nerds!") Gates and friends spent their free time learning computer languages and writing programs. They loved it! You see, by hanging out with motivated learners, Bill became a motivated learner. (Written by Steve Miller, Copyright Feb., 2003. Source: Stephen Manes and Paul Andrews, Gates: How Microsoft's Mogul Reinvented An Industry - And Made Himself The Richest Man in America, Simon & Schuster, New York, 1994, pp. 16,18,19, 23-28, 30,32) 

For Discussion:

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Learn from One Another: Filmmakers Helping One Another to Success

Julia Cameron was married to filmmaker Martin Scorsese in his early years. In her book, Finding Water, she recalls that Scorsese's friends included Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, Francis Coppola and Brian De Palma, all of whom would later become famous filmmakers. What's interesting is how they supported one another and sharpened one another's talents. 

"They screened early cuts of their films for comments and input. I remember a sequence of New York, New York being reversed and revamped at George Lucas's suggestion."

As they became successful, they continued to help one another. Example: they would suggest actors for one-another's films - "Scorsese suggested De Niro to Coppola for The Godfather: Part II." 

Today, these five filmmakers are numbered among the greatest ever. But you have to wonder if they could have ever become great in isolation. By sharing their ideas and lending helping hands, they paved one another's roads to success. 

(Written by Steve Miller for www.character-education.info All Rights Reserved. Source: Julia Cameron, Finding Water: The Art of Perseverance (New York: The Penguin Group, 2006), p. 87.)

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Learning - Read and Experiment

For the next few weeks, I want us to get to know Thomas Edison, probably the greatest inventor who ever lived. You may know him only as inventor of the light bulb, but he also invented the phonograph, mimeograph machine, and paraffin paper for wrapping candies. He perfected or made usable such inventions as motion pictures, the telephone, the electric train, and the electric generator. But that's just 8 of an astounding 1,093 inventions he patented during his lifetime. Astonishingly, he averaged inventing something every 10 to 12 days of his adult life! (Uncommon Friends, p. 19)

To be that smart, surely he was a Harvard grad, right? Wrong.  During his 3 months of school, 7-year-old Edison exasperated his teacher with his incessant questions. In his teacher's mind, an ideal student sat quietly and mindlessly memorized lectures. Edison was about last in his class and his teacher told the school supervisor that Edison was addled, meaning retarded or rotten.  Overhearing the comment, he ran home and told his mom, who, enraged, promptly pulled him out of the school, taught him how to read and allowed him to ask his questions and explore on his own. 

He had already begun to experiment by the age of 6, when he watched a goose sitting on her eggs and saw them hatch. Soon, he disappeared, and his frantic parents found him sitting in a hand-made nest filled with eggs, trying to hatch them. And he never stopped experimenting. He would ask, ''''What makes birds fly?'' ''Why does water put out a fire?'' When no one could answer his questions, he experimented, sometimes getting into trouble. Upon learning that gas-filled balloons would float, he persuaded a friend that he could fly if he took a triple dose of Seidlitz powders, thus filling his stomach with gas. The unfortunate boy may have felt like he was floating, but his body stayed securely laid out on the ground until his pain eased up.

His dad encouraged his reading by paying him for each book he mastered. At 9 years he read a Chemistry book that fascinated him. He tried every experiment himself, and eventually collected over 100 bottles of chemicals for his experiments, labeling them ''Poison'' to keep people away from his stuff. 

What can we learn from Edison. One thing that stands out to me: going to classes isn't the only way to learn. Edison often learned by hands on experimentation. Let's say that you want to have better relationships. Why not experiment? Observe intently the conversations at the lunch table and note how different people react to criticism, compliments, bragging, or complaining. By observing people, you can learn a lot about relationships. Perhaps you want to become a great musician. Don't just go through instruction books. Creatively experiment with different sounds. Let's go beyond memorizing facts to actively experimenting with life. (Written by Steve Miller, Copyright Feb., 2003. Sources: Facts taken from The Boys' Life of Edison, 1911, Harper and Brothers, USP, William M. Meadowcroft and Charles Henry Meadowcroft. Uncommon Friends, by James Newson, 1987, Harcourt Brace Janovich, Publishers, Orlando, Florida. Also, World Book Encyclopedia.)

For Discussion:

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Learning - How Learning Can Be Fun.

In the last "Intercom Insight" we started talking about great inventor Thomas Edison. He loved to learn by experimenting, but he combined this with learning by reading.  By 12 years of age he had read books like Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. I suppose his mom stopped teaching him around that time, since he took a job selling newspapers and snacks on a train. He had a daily 6 hour layover in Detroit that most people would have wasted away with boredom. Not Edison. He'd hit the library and read voraciously. In fact, he set out to read the entire library, subject by subject. (There's an old saying that goes, ''Good things come to them that wait.'' But Edison would later say, ''Good things come to those who hustle while they wait.'') 

With his earnings, he bought apparatus for his experiments, and set them up in a baggage car so he could experiment on board. This worked out fine until a bump in the rail caused a stick of phosphorus to fall to the floor, burst into flames, and set the baggage car on fire. The conductor angrily grabbed him by the ear and threw him and his chemicals off the train.

Thus began Edison's new trade as a telegraph operator. But he wasn't content to simply transcribe messages. He studied the principles by which electricity made telegraphy possible, and constantly experimented to make the telegraph work better. 

Edison's great learning paid off. It's fulfilling when other people respect you. It feels great to accomplish things. He also loved learning and had fun with what he learned. Often, he'd play jokes on his fellow-operators, like the time he ran a small voltage of electricity through the wash-water of the men's bathroom. He cut a hole into the ceiling so that he could watch the fun. You see, back then, people weren't used to being around electricity. A man would touch the water, receive a shock, and then join the crowd around the water to marvel at the astounding quality of the water. (Don't try this with the voltages of electricity we have coming out of sockets today!) On another occasion, when roaches and rats infested the telegraph office, he connected two metal plates to a battery, insulating them from one another, and placed them to where any unfortunate varmint that stepped on both plates at once would complete the circuit and immediately go to meet its Maker. The first bug zapper!

Edison found ways to pursue wisdom that were fun for him. He loved it! This week let's begin to think of the best ways we can learn, ways that would be fun, and try them out. If you're into football or the electric guitar,  check out an instructional video by an excellent coach or musician from the school or public library and watch it with some of your friends who have the same interest. There are lots of ways to learn!

For Discussion:

Learning - One Percent Inspiration and Ninety-Nine Percent Perspiration.

In our last "Insight" we talked about how Edison loved learning and had fun as a result. At 22 years of age,  he walked into New York City broke and hungry, waiting for a telegraph job to open up. But in that same year he went from rags to riches when someone bought his patents for improvements on the stock ticker for $40,000.00. Rather than buy an expensive house or liquor, he spent the money setting up a shop with apparatus to continue his inventions. Once the inventing germ got into his blood, he'd never recover from it. He loved inventing! 

But that doesn't mean that his inventions came quickly or easily. He would thoroughly study the principles behind an invention and the work that had been previously done before choosing his course. Then, he would perform ceaseless experiments. For example, in inventing a filament for the incandescent bulb, he tested over 6,000 species of plants before he found one that would last long enough. After 9,000 failed experiments on the storage battery, such as we now use in cars, someone expressed their regrets at his having no results. ''Results!'' Edison replied, ''Why, man, I have gotten a lot of results! I have found several thousand things that won't work.'' (p. 221) It would take more than 10,000 experiments before he achieved his first positive result, and 40,000 more, working day and night for several years, to perfect it. Now you can see why Edison replied, when people said he was great because of his genius, ''Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration.''

For Discussion:

Learning - Hard Work and Hard Thinking.

Edison not only spent time studying and experimenting. He spent time thinking. Once, one of his engineers submitted three possible designs for a machine.  When the designs were rejected, the engineer remarked to Edison that it was a shame, since these were the only three possible ways of solving the problem. Edison said nothing, but returned two days later, laying his own 48 sketches on the desk, again without a word. One of the 48 ideas was implemented.

In his latter years, Edison was known to go fishing near his Florida residence, but without any bait on his line. You see, he wasn't out to catch fish. He just wanted undisturbed think time. In his town it was considered rude to disturb a man while he was fishing. In this way, neither man nor fish bothered him. Edison said that there was no limit to how far most men would go to avoid the real labor of thinking. (Uncommon Friends, p. 18)

For Discussion:

Learning - When Everything Seems Against You. 

Joe was born into a large family that eventually had 11 children. His parents raised them in a three-room farmhouse in the little town of Aurora, North Carolina. His family was poor, but that wasn't Joe's biggest problem. He was born with a speech problem that caused his teachers to label him as mentally retarded. School was not Joe's favorite place as a boy.

One of his favorite places, however, was Sunday School. ''When my teacher read those stories, it gave me hope. If you have hope for the future, you have power for the present.''

Also, Joe had a mother that believed in him, despite what the teachers said. She said, ''Joe, I don't care….I believe that slow people could rule the world, because when a slow one gets it, they got it.''

A turning point came in Joe's life through a girlfriend's rejection. Joe was now 17 and deeply in love. She said to him, ''Joe, I want to get married. But I want smart kids and you're retarded.'' She left Joe for a smarter boy who she soon married. This was the impetus for Joe to finally buckle down and pay attention to his studies. He went all the way back to the first grade books and studied each one, first, second, all the way up to 10th grade, until he learned everything that he'd ignored the first time. Joe said, ''I decided that day that I was gonna put something in my head and nobody could ever take that away from me.''

Joe decided that he was going to be somebody and he was willing to do whatever it took. ''I think that was one of the determined points in my life that changed me around,'' Joe said. ''Every time I wanted something, I realized you can go to the library and you could find it and I studied. That was the beginning.''

Dudley left North Carolina to join the ranks of Fuller Brush salesmen in Brooklyn, New York. He knocked on doors where people would come to the door and teach him how to correctly pronounce the words he was using in his sales script. ''It didn't bother me, because I knew I didn't know today, but tomorrow I would,'' said Joe. ''That's how I got started. It was hard. My first day I sold $2.60. I made about $1.20.''

Joe Dudley sold brushes during the day and went to college at night, finally finishing when he turned 26. He was trying to expand the items that he sold, but the Fuller Brush Company couldn't help him. So, Joe turned to his old friend, the public library for information. He returned to North Carolina to sell his own products that he learned how to make through a library book. His wife would type out the labels for the containers and he would make the products on the stove. He would go to beauty salons to pick up old containers that would be refilled and sold again. He and his wife would make the products every night and he'd sell them every day.

Some of us think that Sir Isaac Newton was just a guy who was sitting under an apple tree one day, minding his own business, when an apple fell on his head. He called the force gravity, which got him into our textbooks. But there's so much more to this guy. He has been called ''one of the greatest names in the history of human thought.'' Amazingly, he made major contributions to Mathematics, Physics, and Astronomy. This genius (and some of you will hate him for this) invented calculus, showed us how the universe is held together, and discovered the secrets of light and color. His book, Principia Mathematica, is considered one of the greatest single contributions in the history of science. Albert Einstein idolized him, kept a picture of him on the wall of his study  and said that his own work would have been impossible without Newton's discoveries. 

Now if I had accomplished all that heady stuff, it be pretty easy to get puffed up! But Newton wasn't just a great thinker, he was also very religious. Perhaps because of this, rather than getting puffed up with pride, he saw his great intellectual accomplishments in perspective. Listen to how he evaluated his great accomplishments, shortly before his death: 

''I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.'' (Isaac Newton, p. 308, World Book Encyclopedia, 1978)

So, for those of us who are tempted to think we're so smart and sometimes look down on others, Newton reminds us that even the smartest of us understand very little about life and the world. Today, let's try to deal with our pride and realize that in the final analysis we're all just children in our understanding.  

Treasure Hunt

Tape a candy bar or a dollar bill to the bottom of a several chairs or other good hiding places. Tell the students that you've hidden a few treasures around the room. The rules are, "Finder's keepers, loser's weepers". If they can't find some, tell certain people when they're "hot" (close to the prize). 

Debriefing: Why do we get so motivated at times to look for hidden treasures? (We know something's there that we want. We also like the competition!) Searching for wisdom isn't something that comes naturally for most of us. What can motivate us to seek wisdom more passionately? Are the rewards of becoming wise greater than the candy and dollar bills some of us just found? What are some of the rewards of becoming wise? What are some practical ways we can seek wisdom for making us successful?

Divide into teams of 5 or  6. Each team takes out a sheet of paper. Explain:

"Your small group is aboard a sinking ship, just about to put out the life raft. You have about three minutes before the boat sinks to decide what items you want to take with your group onto the nearby deserted island. You know that the island contains fruit trees, wild animals and running water. You can only take 5 items. Decide as a group what you will take."

After the three minutes, ask each team what they decided to bring and why.

Debriefing: How did other people's input help you in deciding what to take? Why is it beneficial to have input from others on life's decisions?  

Truth and Lies

Divide the class into two groups. Tell answers to trivia questions, some just interesting and others related to whatever topic you're teaching on. Each team votes on whether your answer was true or false and presents as a team their majority vote. The team with the most wins serves donuts to the other half of the team. Here are some example questions.

1. In every episode of Seinfeld there is a Superman somewhere. (True)
2. Cat's urine glows under a black light. (True)
3. When opossums are "playing possum," they are not "playing." They actually pass out from sheer terror. (True)
4. Each king in a deck of playing cards represents a great king from history. (True)

• Spades - King David
• Clubs - Alexander the Great
• Hearts - Charlemagne
• Diamonds - Julius Caesar

5. Both parents must have a blonde gene in order to produce a blonde-haired child. Although blonde genes still dominate in Nordic regions, the odds of a husband and wife both carrying a blonde gene are declining, so that within 200 years there should be no more blondes. (False. Was originally spread through the media as factual until someone discovered that the source was spurious.)

6. Iceland consumes more Coca-Cola per capita than any other country. (True)

For whatever your topic is, you can intersperse startling facts or commonly-believed rumors. Call it stealth teaching! For example, if you're teaching on sex education, you might include a fact like:

7. Of Americans ages 12 and older, one out of five have the sexually transmitted disease HSV-2 (Herpes). (True. From the Centers for Disease Control site at http://www.cdc.gov/nchstp/dstd/Fact_Sheets/facts_Genital_Herpes.htm .) 

If you're teaching on money management, you might include:

8. If a 15-year-old deposited $10,000.00 into an investment that averages 10% interest per year (like a stock index mutual fund), in 51 years that investment would grow to over $1,000,000.00. (True)

''Committing a great truth to memory is admirable; committing it to life is wisdom.'' (William A. Ward)

* * * * * * * *

Whom, then, do I call educated? First, those who control circumstances instead of being mastered by them; those who meet all occasions manfully and act in accordance with intelligent thinking; those who are honorable in all dealings, who treat good-naturedly persons and things that are disagreeable; and furthermore, those who hold their pleasure under control and are not overcome by misfortune; finally, those who are not spoiled by success. (Socrates)

* * * * * * * * 

An educated man is one who can entertain a new idea, entertain another person, and entertain himself. (Anonymous)

* * * * * * * * 

There are two types of education... One should teach us how to make a living, and the other how to live. (John Adams) 

* * * * * * * * 

Information isn't wisdom. Information isn't learning. If information were learning, you could be educated by memorizing the world almanac. If you did that, you wouldn't be educated. You'd be weird. (David McCullough author/historian, in INC. magazine, May 2000) 

* * * * * * * * 

We are drowning in information but starved for knowledge. (John Naisbitt)

* * * * * * * * 

The only person who is educated is the one who has learned how to learn... and change. ( Carl Rogers Freedom to Learn)

* * * * * * * * 

The biggest difficulty with mankind today is that our knowledge has increased so much faster than our wisdom. (Frank Whitmore) 

* * * * * * * * 

The object of education is to prepare the young to educate themselves throughout their lives. (Robert M. Hutchins)

The story is told of a man who wanted to travel by ship from America to Europe, but could only scrape together enough money for a ticket, with nothing left over even to purchase food at the ship's restaurant. Instead, he packed his own cheese and crackers, and avoided the restaurant, where people feasted daily on the most delicious foods. 

Days later, as the crackers were getting stale and the cheese was certainly beginning to mold, a fellow passenger pulled the wretched man aside and inquired, ''I noticed that you never dine with us in the cafeteria. Would you mind telling me why?'' He confessed his inability to pay for anything except for the ticket, to which his new acquaintance replied, ''But didn't you understand? The food came with the ticket!'' 

In the same way, many people don't know all the perks we get when we invest in wisdom. Here are some of them.

Unleashing the Incredible Potential of our Brains 

Within this building today we have some of by far the most advanced computers ever constructed. But I'm not talking about anything with a man-made Intel chip inside. I'm talking about the brain that God has given each of us. Even if you think your brain is the slowest in the group, I want you to follow me on this. 

Slowly look around the room (go ahead, look around) and realize how your brain is processing hundreds and thousands of bits of information at lightning-speed: colors, shapes, sizes, sounds, smells, sensations of hot, cold, anger, exhilaration. At the same time that you're observing all this, your brain tells your arm just how much muscle to exert so that the book you are holding doesn't either slip out of your hand or get tossed up into the air, and exactly how many breaths you need per minute to take in the optimum amount of oxygen. You don't have to concentrate on how many times per minute your eyes need to blink in order to keep it from drying out. Your brain does it automatically, at the same time that it's processing hundreds of other tasks. Now take a reflective look at the people sitting around you. If you go back at all with some of these, you can instantly recall memories of how that person dresses, places you have been with them, and your evaluation of what kind of person he or she is. 

Incredible. Have you ever considered what an incredible gift God gave you when he constructed your brain?

Your brain – yes, your brain - is made up of between 10 billion and 100 billion neurons which communicate with each other by almost instantaneous electrical and chemical messages. And although weighing in at only about 3 pounds, it has the capacity of storing more information that all the libraries in the world. (''The Brain,'' by Restak) Years ago some scientists estimated that to build a computer with the capabilities and circuitry of the human brain, they would need a building the size of the Pentagon to house it. (The Pentagon has five floors plus a basement, and covers 29 acres of ground.) 

What a shame that we use so little of our potential! Educator Howard Hendricks once asked a brilliant brain surgeon if he had ever seen a brain that was maxed-out. ''Not even slightly used,'' the surgeon replied. (Written by Steve Miller, Copyright Feb., 2003)

What do I really want?

What do I really want? This is one of the most important questions you will ever ask yourself. Spell out your desires. (Alfred A. Montapert) 

Activity: Have students write down what they want to get out of life. Then, have them discuss how becoming wise can help them achieve these desires. 

Many of you have seen Ben Stein on the MTV game show where people try to win his money by beating him at answering difficult questions. As well as being an actor on both TV and movies, this brilliant, successful man also teaches Securities Law at Pepperdine University. Stein once wrote an article in Reader's Digest (Nov. 1994, p. 202) entitled ''Mistakes Winners Don't Make.'' One of his biggest points was this: ''The inability to make and keep friends is involved in every single failure I have ever seen.'' Isn't it interesting that we spend years studying history, math and science, yet perhaps no time at all studying relationships. Go ahead, make the honor role or even be valedictorian of your class. But if you neglect learning how to love people and get along with difficult people, you'll likely find yourself failing over and over in the areas that mean the most to you in life. (Steve Miller)

* * * * * * * * 

Most of us would like the joy that comes from mending broken relationships and having really close friends who love us. But excelling at relationships takes work: unlearning our poor habits and learning new ones. It involves prioritizing relationships.

Yet, one writer on relationships reports that from his experiences in talking to lonely people, he's often discovered that ''though they lament their lack of close companions, they actually place little emphasis on the cultivation of friends.'' They'd rather earn a degree, work their way up the corporate ladder, or excel at a sport. (The Friendship Factor, by Alan Loy McGinnis, Augsburg Publishing House, 1979, p. 22)

Jim Otto: All Pro Football Center

Jim Otto, who wore the number ''OO'' for the Raiders pro football team, was arguably the greatest center to ever play the game. According to player/coach/commentator John Madden, ''If someone came from another planet and wanted to know what a football player looked like, you'd show him a poster of Jim Otto.'' That's how well respected he is in the world of pro football.

For those who don't know football, the offensive center mans the middle of the bone-crunching action, on one play protecting the quarterback from 300 pound defensive linemen and on the next play drilling through them to pave the way for a run. His dedication, intelligence and leadership helped transform the Raiders into one of the most successful football franchises ever. He was selected to an incredible 12 Pro Bowls and inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

Yet amazingly, John Madden, Otto's coach for 6 seasons with the Raiders, says, ''Jim was a great football player, but he wasn't a great athlete. He wasn't real big, real strong or real fast.'' So how did he come to dominate his position and become so wildly successful? Madden says ''he made himself into a great football player. He was a hard-worker, a guy who really was committed.'' A big part of that work was mental. Madden remembers that every time the team would analyze films of past games, Otto would sit up front. While most players wanted to see their good plays over again, Otto asked to review his bad plays, even though there would only be a few, so that he could learn from his mistakes.

If we ever want to excel in a field, we've got to do what Jim Otto did. We must become wise in that field by soliciting input from others about our strengths and weaknesses, honestly facing them, and working to correct them. (Written by Steve Miller, from The Pain of Glory, by Jim Otto and Dave Newhouse, Sports Publishing, Inc., 2000, pp. xii, xiii.)

Joe Lewis: Famous Boxer

Joe Barrow thought he'd trained and sparred enough. It was time for him to get into the ring for his first fight and show everyone that he could make it as a boxer. But the bright, hot lights didn't reveal much promise that night. Joe was knocked down seven times, to the jeers and shouts of the crowd. His only show of promise that night was that although he was knocked down seven times, he also got back up seven times. The winner said of Joe, ''Well, any kid that hauls himself up seven times has got something.''

Joe's dad said, ''Well, you tried. That's the end of that. I got you a job at the Ford plant.'' But Joe wasn't content there. Instead, he persevered and learned from his failure. Back at the gym, his trainer tied Joe's right hand to the ring post and sent in a sparring partner to teach Joe how to protect himself with his left up. The partner pummeled him with both fists, but Joe learned his lesson. And he kept training and learning until he became the heavyweight champion of the world, under the name Joe Louis, a name he'd taken for boxing so that his mom wouldn't know he was fighting.

Joe Louis reigned for eleven years, eight months as boxing's heavyweight champion of the world, longer than anyone else in history. But he could have never done it without learning that boxing was more of a science than a back street brawl. He learned that he had to study and exploit his opponent's weaknesses, to learn the Psychology of a fighter's will, the thinking part of the game that old-time boxers sometimes called ''the sweet science.'' 

He learned all he could from his early trainers, but later put himself under a truly great trainer, Jack Blackburn, a former lightweight boxer who was half Joe's size. He told Joe, ''You got to listen to everything I say. Jump when I say jump, sleep when I say sleep. Other than that, you're wasting my time.'' Joe agreed. 

Not only did he submit to the long hours of training and learning, but he was taught the social skills he'd need to make it. The whites controlled the press and many would be looking for something against Joe. So he learned to be reserved, not laughing when he knocked out a white man. He learned to be friendly and dignified, how to act in social situations, so that people would have nothing bad to say of him and he could be a true hero to people of all races. 

(Written by Steve Miller. Source: Joe Louis, A Champ for All America, by Robert Lipsyte, Harper Collins Publishers, 1994, pp. 5, 19-32.)

He reigned as heavyweight champion of the world for eleven years, eight months, longer than anyone else in history. But he would have never made it had he not grown wise in his areas of weakness and learned from his defeats, even when after being knocked down seven times in his first match. (Written by Steve Miller. Source: Joe Louis, A Champ for All America, by Robert Lipsyte, Harper Collins Publishers, 1994, pp. 5, 19-24.)

Arnold Schwartzenegger, Successful Bodybuilder

When 15-year-old Arnold Schwartzenegger caught fire for bodybuilding, he began to hang around the local serious bodybuilders, although they were twice his age. He learned from them, looked up to them, and by hanging around those who were wise in bodybuilding, he became wise in bodybuilding. (Written by Steve Miller, copyright February, 2003)

We must become learners, constantly accumulating wisdom and knowledge. According to Judy West, who is an author, consultant and cyber-recruiting expert, 

''Technology reinvents itself every six to 12 months, and waits on no one,'' she says. Those who keep up and constantly seek to expand their horizons — in whatever their field — will have the best chances of getting ahead, working on their own, and switching careers whenever they choose, West says. (Tech skills the ticket to best job, Monte Enbysk MicroSoft Network, Jan. 23, 02)

* * * * * * * * 

A plumber was called to fix a leak. He looked at the pipe, gripped the hammer with both hands, struck the pipe as hard as he could, and the leak stopped.

He presented the customer with a bill for $250.35. The owner was furious. ''This is outrageous; you were here only two minutes and all you did was hit the pipe.'' 

The plumber itemized his bill. Wear and tear on the hammer – 35 cents. Knowing where to hit - $250.00.

* * * * * * * * 

Without an insatiable thirst for understanding computers that began at 13 years old, Bill Gates could have never led the computer revolution, become a millionaire in his 20's, and a multi-billionaire in his 30's the wealthiest man in America. He's been called ''The world's greatest entrepreneur.'' He was so motivated to learn computers that as a youth he would act like he was going to bed at night, only to sneak out and take a bus to an office which allowed students access to their computers. 

If you ever work with a computer, you find the name Microsoft popping up everywhere - Microsoft Windows, Microsoft Internet Explorer, Microsoft Word. A computer won't do anything without an operating system, and Bill Gates managed to produce the systems that became the standard. So when almost anyone buys a computer, part of that money goes to Microsoft, which Gates started when he was around 19 or 20 years old. (Gates, 179) In the early days of Microsoft, Gates was so young that when he flew into cities to market his software, he couldn't rent a rental car. He was too young, and looked even younger. A year later, Steve Wood, general manager for Microsoft, hired a secretary who was instructed that a couple of rooms were off limits for visitors. It wasn't long till she spotted someone who looked like a teenager, complete with mess-up hair and blue jeans, rummaging through the president's office and heading for the off-limits computer room. She dutifully ran to warn Woods, who calmly instructed her, ''That's Bill.'' 
''Who?''
''Bill Gates. The president. He's your boss.''(Gates, pp. 116, 117)
The next year, when Gates was 22, Microsoft would have its first million dollar sales year.(p. 128) While in his 30's, he became a billionaire. 

Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft, once said, ''I'm not an educator, but I'm a learner. And one of the things I like best about my job is that I'm surrounded by other people who love to learn.'' (Bill Gates, with Nathan Myhrvold and Bill Rinearson, The Road Ahead (New York: Penguin Books, 1995), p. 208). As Proverbs challenges us: ''He who walks with the wise grows wise, but a companion of fools suffers harm.'' (Prov. 13:20)

* * * * * * * * 

Journalist Randall Stross researched Microsoft, one of the most successful companies in the world. He observed them for months and concluded:

''What struck me about Microsoft as I examined its operations at close range was not the company's market share but the intense, pragmatic thoughtfulness that informed its decisions…''THINK'' permeated Microsoft's bloodstream through and through. This was a company of smart people, managed well, constantly learning as it went.'' (Randall E. Stross, The Microsoft Way: The Real Story of How the Company Outsmarts Its Competitors (Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1996) p. 3.)

* * * * * * * * 

''This is a company (Microsoft) with an enormous amount of intellectual challenge. It's like drinking from a fire hose.'' (Greg Maffei, Microsoft vice president and chief financial officer, from ''What Does Bill Want,'' Forbes, Jan. 27, 1997, p. 102)

* * * * * * * * 

Warren Buffett is America's most successful investor, making him one of the top two wealthiest people in the United States. His thorough knowledge of companies helped him to succeed in an arena where many others failed. According to Buffett, ''Risk is not knowing what you're doing.'' Warren Buffett, quoted in the Omaha World-Herald, October 28, 1993.

L.A. McQueen, a General Tire & Rubber Company executive said, ''People judge you by what you say and write. I don't know a successful man in business who is not a good letter writer.''

* * * * * * * * 

'I believe the true road to preeminent success in any line is to make yourself master in that line.'' ( Super-successful Steel Magnate, Andrew Carnegie)

''Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps learning stays young. The greatest thing in life is to keep your mind young.'' (Henry Ford)

SIGNS YOU LIVE IN THE 2000'S

You call your son's beeper to let him know it's time to eat. He emails you back from his bedroom, ''What's for dinner?''

Your daughter sells Girl Scout Cookies via her Web site.

You chat several times a day with a stranger from South Africa, but you haven't spoken with your next door neighbor this year.

Your grandmother asks you to send her a JPEG file of your newborn so she can create a screensaver.

You get an extra phone line so you can get phone calls.

To Find Happiness...

Joy in looking and comprehending is nature's most beautiful gift.  (Albert Einstein) 

* * * * * * * * 

Wisdom is the supreme part of happiness. (Sophocles) 

* * * * * * * * 

The plainest sign of wisdom is a continual cheerfulness: her state is like that of things in the regions above the moon, always clear and serene. (Michel de Montaigne) 

* * * * * * * * 

The test and the use of man's education is that he finds pleasure in the exercise of his mind. (Jacques Martin Barzun) 

* * * * * * * * 

It has always seemed strange to me that in our endless discussions about education so little stress is laid on the pleasure of becoming an educated person, the enormous interest it adds to life. To be able to be caught up into the world of thought--that is to be educated. (Edith Hamilton)

To Become a Sought-After Person...

If a man can write a better book, preach a better sermon, or make a better mousetrap, than his neighbor, though he build his house in the woods, the world will make a beaten path to his door. 
--Ralph Waldo Emerson 

* * * * * * * * 

I don't believe makeup and the right hairstyle alone can make a woman beautiful. The most radiant woman in the room is the one full of life and experience. 

To Get Respect...

To a large extent, the United States owes its independence to the brilliant military leadership of George Washington. Why did the Colonists choose Washington to lead the fight? Guess. They not only knew of his bravery; they recognized his great wisdom. 

So if you want respect, get wisdom. If you want no one to take you seriously, you can always be a fool.

Most people don't know just how bad Washington had it with his soldiers. Sometimes the soldiers would miss their families and simply leave the ranks without telling anyone. Once, when spooked by a lightly armed advance guard of 100 British troops, his militia of 4000 men fled, leaving Washington sitting alone on his horse, steaming with rage, 100 yards in front of the troops. 

The British could have easily shot or captured him, but they suspected some kind of trick! So how did Washington, with often undisciplined and sometimes cowardly troops, defeat the seasoned British troops, which greatly outnumbered him? He outsmarted them with brilliant strategy, and the clever use of spies. (Written by Steve Miller, Copyright Feb., 2003)

To Avoid Being a Fool...

There is nothing more frightful than ignorance in action. (Johann von Goethe)

* * * * * * * * 

There's too much youth; how about a fountain of smart? (Bumper Sticker)

* * * * * * * * 

If you were a jerk before, you'll be a bigger jerk with a billion dollars. – Warren Buffet, ''Does Money Buy Happiness?'' in Forbes Magazine

To Avoid Embarrassment...

If you took an IQ test, the results would be negative - Bumper Sticker

* * * * * * * * 

The legendary detective Sherlock Holmes and his friend Dr. Watson were going camping. They pitched their tent under the stars and went to sleep. Sometime in the middle of the night Holmes wakes Watson up. 

''Watson, look up at the stars, and tell me what you deduce.'' 

Watson says, ''I see millions of stars, and if there are millions of stars, and if even a few of those have planets, it's quite likely there are some planets like Earth, and if there are a few planets like Earth out there, there might also be life.'' 

Holmes replies, ''Watson, you idiot, somebody stole our tent!''

* * * * * * * * 

''There are three kinds of people in the world - Those who can count, and those who can't.''

* * * * * * * * 

These questions about Australia were posted on an Australian
Tourism Website. A Melbourne University Tourism Studies Major
working in the office for the summer holidays answered....

1. Q: Does it ever get windy in Australia? I have never seen it
rain on TV, so how do the plants grow? (UK)
A: We import all plants fully grown and then just sit around
watching them die.

2. Q: Will I be able to see kangaroos in the street? (USA)
A: Depends how much you've been drinking.

3. Q: I want to walk from Perth to Sydney - can I follow the
railroad tracks? (Sweden)
A: Sure, it's only three thousand miles, take lots of water...

4. Q: Is it safe to run around in the bushes in Australia?
(Sweden)
A: So it's true what they say about Swedes.

5. Q: It is imperative that I find the names and addresses of
places to contact for a stuffed porpoise. (Italy)
A: Let's not touch this one.

6. Q: Are there any ATMs (cash machines) in Australia? Can you
send me a list of them in Brisbane, Cairns, Townsville and Hervey
Bay? (UK)
A: What did your last slave die of?

7. Q: Can you give me some information about hippo racing in
Australia?(USA)
A: A-fri-ca is the big triangle shaped continent south of Europe.
Aus-tra-lia is that big island in the middle of the Pacific which
does not... oh forget it. Sure, the hippo racing is every Tuesday
night in Kings Cross. Come naked.

8. Q: Which direction is North in Australia? (USA)
A: Face south and then turn 90 degrees. Contact us when you get
here and we'll send the rest of the directions.

9. Q: Can I bring cutlery into Australia? (UK)
A: Why? Just use your fingers like we do.

10.Q: Can you send me the Vienna Boys' Choir schedule? (USA)
A: Aus-tri-a is that quaint little country bordering Ger-man- y,
which is...oh forget it. Sure, the Vienna Boys Choir plays every
Tuesday night in Kings Cross, straight after the hippo races.
Come naked. 
(Could someone help me find this source so that I can give proper credit?)

* * * * * * * * 

Some people think that they have no potential to be wise. They think that if you lined them up ear to ear with people of their IQ, you'd have a wind tunnel. But we all have the potential to be wise.

To Have Security...

If money is your hope for independence you will never have it. The only real security that a man will have in this world is a reserve of knowledge, experience, and ability. (Henry Ford 1863-1947 American Industrialist) 

* * * * * * * * 

If a man empties his purse into his head, no man can take it away from him. An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest. (Benjamin Franklin) 

* * * * * * * * 

Do your homework! Nothing helps success more than knowing what you're doing. It reduces the risks and works like an insurance policy for your own ability. ( Philip Oxley, president Tenneco)

To Have Power...

Knowledge is power. (Sir Francis Bacon, 1597)

* * * * * * * * 

There are but two powers in the world, the sword and the mind. In the long run, the sword is always beaten by the mind. -- Napoleon

* * * * * * * * 

In Russia all tyrants believe poets to be their worst enemies. (Yevgeny Yevtushenko (1933-) Russian poet) 

* * * * * * * * 

Engraved on a statue at the United States Air Force Academy: ''Man's flight through life is sustained by the power of his knowledge.''

To Become an Effective Teacher...

He who dares to teach must never cease to learn. (Richard Henry Dann) 

To Help You Meet Members of the Opposite Sex...

While Bill Gates, programming wizard and founder of Microsoft, was a teenager, his all-male school merged with an all-girl school. Scheduling classes became a nightmare for the faculty and Bill was asked to write a program from scratch to streamline the process. You can imagine how complicated this could get. Class sizes have to balance. Double period labs have to mesh with teacher's schedules. You can't have drums practicing upstairs while the choir sings downstairs. 

In order to complete it by the Fall trimester, he and his friends spent tons of time in the computer room, often sleeping overnight in a classroom or in the teacher's lounge. But they pulled it off, making Bill a legend at the school. What was in it for Bill? First, he got to use the computer free of charge to do the programming. He was always looking for ways to get free computer time. Second, the scheduling program made him a legend at the school. Third, he was able to schedule classes with the people he wanted, including one class with ''all the good girls in the school,'' and only one other guy who was ''a real wimp.'' (Written by Steve Miller, copyright February, 2003. Source: Stephen Manes and Paul Andrews, Gates: How Microsoft's Mogul Reinvented An Industry - And Made Himself The Richest Man in America, Simon & Schuster, New York, 1994, p. 47)

To Stand Apart from the Crowd...

''To act without clear understanding, to form habits without investigation, to follow a path all one's life without knowing where it really leads—such is the behavior of the multitude.'' (Menclus)

To Become a Person of Character and Significance...

What we think, we become. (Buddha)

To Feel Significant All of Your Days...

For the ignorant, old age is as winter; for the learned, it is a harvest. (Jewish proverb)

* * * * * * * * 

If you are planning for a year, sow rice; if you are planning for a decade, plant trees; if you are planning for a lifetime, educate people. (Chinese proverb) 

On the mountains of truth you can never climb in vain: either you will reach a point higher up today, or you will be training your powers so that you will be able to climb higher tomorrow.  (Friedrich Nietzsche)

* * * * * * * * 

On Not Being Rash...

Remember, smart carpenters measure twice and cut once, whereas foolish carpenters measure once and cut twice.

* * * * * * * * 

Patience is the companion of wisdom. (St. Augustine)

* * * * * * * * 

After all, a smooth sea never made a successful sailor. (Herman Melville)

* * * * * * * * 

The brain is a wonderful organ. It starts working the moment you get up in the morning and does not stop until you get into the office. (Robert Frost)

* * * * * * * * 

''…wisdom is not a product of schooling but of the lifelong attempt to acquire it.'' (From a letter dated 1954. Found in Albert Einstein: The Human Side, Selected and edited by Helen Dukas and Banesh Hoffman, Princeton University Press, 1979, p. 44)

Go Beyond School

Not sure which of the following, if not both, are accurate...

I have never let my schooling interfere with my education. (Mark Twain)

Never allow school to interfere with your education. ( Mark Twain)

* * * * * * * *

Wisdom is not a product of schooling but of the life-long attempt to acquire it. (Albert Einstein) 

* * * * * * * *

''The chief end of education is not to make students dependent upon teachers, but to prepare them to educate themselves throughout their lives.''

H.J. Heinz has a very successful frozen food subsidiary named Ore-Ida. They strongly believed that they must take risks in order to be successful. Sure, many of the experiments would turn out to be failures, but even then they could learn from the failures. In order to reinforce more risk-taking and learning, they decided to shoot off a canon in celebration of every failure, so that workers would be encouraged to keep trying. (Rewritten by Steve Miller from Joe Griffith, Speaker's Library of Business Quotes)

* * * * * * * *

Reportedly IBM's Tom Watson was asked if he was going to fire an employee who made a mistake that cost IBM $600,000. He said, ''No, I just spent $600,000 training him. Why would I want somebody else to hire his experience?'' (Joe Griffith, Speaker's Library of Business Quotes)

* * * * * * * *

Preferably, from the mistakes of others...

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Experience is the worst teacher. It always gives the test first and the instruction afterward. 

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It pays to discover your mistakes...

The National Bank of Detroit once offered their customers $10 each time they discovered an error in their checking account. The policy brought in fifteen thousand new accounts and $65.5 million in deposits in the first two months. (Joe Griffith, Speaker's Library of Business Quotes)

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A man asked his boss why three other people were promoted past him. He said, ''Boss, I have twenty years experience in this job.''

The boss replied, ''No, you don't have twenty years of experience. You have one year of experience twenty times. You've been making the same mistake since you first started.'' It doesn't matter how many years you've been teaching students if you haven't been learning from your experience all those years.

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Jim Otto, who wore the number ''OO'' for the Raiders pro football team, was arguably the greatest center to ever play the game. According to player/coach/commentator John Madden, ''If someone came from another planet and wanted to know what a football player looked like, you'd show him a poster of Jim Otto.'' That's how well respected hee is in the world of pro football. 

For those who don't know football, the offensive center mans the middle of the bone-crunching action, on one play protecting the quarterback from 300 pound defensive linemen and on the next play drilling through them to pave the way for a run. His dedication, intelligence and leadership helped transform the Raiders into one of the most successful football franchises ever. He was selected to an incredible 12 Pro Bowls and inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

Yet amazingly, John Madden, Otto's coach for 6 seasons with the Raiders, says, ''Jim was a great football player, but he wasn't a great athlete. He wasn't real big, real strong or real fast.'' So how did he come to dominate his position and become so wildly successful? Madden says ''he made himself into a great football player. He was a hard-worker, a guy who really was committed.'' A big part of that work was mental. Madden remembers that every time the team would analyze films of past games, Otto would sit up front. While most players wanted to see their good plays over again, Otto asked to review his bad plays, even though there would only be a few, so that he could learn from his mistakes. 

If we ever want to excel in a field, we've got to do what Jim Otto did. We must solicit honest input from others about our strengths and weaknesses, honestly face these, and work to correct them. (Written by Steve Miller, from The Pain of Glory, by Jim Otto and Dave Newhouse, Sports Publishing, Inc., 2000, pp. xii, xiii.)

Read

If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants. (Isaac Newton, scientist)

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There is more treasure in books than in all the pirate's loot on Treasure Island . . . and best of all, you can enjoy these riches every day of your life. (Walt Disney) 

* * * * * * * *

The average high school graduate reads about 225 words a minute. (Some exceptional readers cover 3,000 words a minute) If you read as fast as the average high school graduate and set aside 15 minutes a day six days a week to read, you'll read 171/2 books a year. All it takes is setting aside 15 min. a day systematically. (From the collection of Barry St. Clair)

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Benjamin Franklin was fond of reading from his childhood, and in his words, ''all the little Money that came into my hands was ever laid out in books.'' Later, he gained access to a personal library, to which he devoted an hour or two each day, as a means to improving himself. While working as a printer, he didn't work weekends, ''So I had two days for reading.'' In Franklin's words, ''Reading was the only Amusement I allow'd myself. I spent no time in Tavern, Games, or Frolics of any kind.'' (Autobiography, p. 13)
© Copyright 2002 Steve Miller - All Rights Reserved

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''When I get a little money, I buy books; and if any is left, I buy food and clothes.'' (Erasmus)

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Read an hour every day in your chosen field. This works out to about one book per week, 50 books per year, and will guarantee your success. (Brian Tracy)

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The things I want to know are in books; my best friend is the man who'll get me a book I ain't read. 
--Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865)

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The man who doesn't read good books has no advantage over the man who can't read them. (Mark Twain)

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It is a good thing for an uneducated man to read books of quotations. (Sir Winston Churchill)

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Warren Buffett, America's greatest investor, tells about a typical day: ''Well, first of all, I tap-dance into work. And then I sit down and I read. Then I talk on the phone for seven or eight hours. And then I take home more to read. Then I talk on the phone in the evening. We read a lot. We have a general sense of what we're after.'' (Warren Buffet, in Reynolds, Simon, ed. Thoughts of Chairman Buffett, Harper Business, New York, NY: 1998.)

* * * * * * * *

Bill Gates tries to read at least an hour each weeknight and a few hours each weekend. He tries to read a newspaper each day and take in several magazines each week. (Bill Gates Speaks, by Janet Lowe, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., N.Y., p. 194)

''I make it a point to read at least one news weekly from cover to cover, because it broadens my interests. If I only read what intrigues me, such as the science section and a subset of the business section, then I finish the magazine the same person I was before I started. So I read it all.'' (Bill Gates, ''Ask Bill,'' New York Times Syndicate, Feb. 15, 1995)

In the late 1980's, his high-bandwidth (techie lingo for ''really smart'') girlfriend, Ann Winblad, would accompany him on holidays with reading themes. She'd choose and pack the books, so that they'd have a ''biotech vacation,'' ''physics vacation,'' or an ''F. Scott Fitzgerald vacation.'' It's what they loved to do. According to Winblad, ''We were going everywhere with these huge big stacks of books.'' (Stephen Manes and Paul Andrews, Gates: How Microsoft's Mogul Reinvented An Industry - And Made Himself The Richest Man in America, Simon & Schuster, New York, 1994, p. 354)

Since he carries books when he travels, he doesn't mind delays. (Bill Gates Speaks, by Janet Lowe, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., N.Y., p. 195)

But he doesn't just learn by reading. He also learns by interacting with his brilliant co-workers and by learning from his relationships in the computer world. ''Bill had listening posts in every far-flung corner of the hardware world, giving him a sweeping, global vision of the future.'' 

He also takes ''think weeks.'' ''Alone with his thoughts, he would strategize, read, play with competitors' software, and 'write a lot of memos.''' (Stephen Manes and Paul Andrews, Gates: How Microsoft's Mogul Reinvented An Industry - And Made Himself The Richest Man in America, Simon & Schuster, New York, 1994, p. 182, 424)

''A couple of times a year I go away for a think week, during which I read books and other materials my colleagues believe I should see to stay up-to-date. These materials often include Ph.D. theses exploring the frontiers of computer science.'' (Bill Gates, Column, New York Times Syndicate, August 28, 1996) Gates also had ''thousands of connections'' in the computer/software industry so that he could see the future before anyone else in the industry. (Stephen Manes and Paul Andrews, Gates: How Microsoft's Mogul Reinvented An Industry - And Made Himself The Richest Man in America, Simon & Schuster, New York, 1994, pp. 199,200 ) So, he learned from reading and learned from people. 

Wise men say, and not without reason, that whoever wished to foresee the future might consult the past. (Machiavelli)

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Read no history: nothing but biography, for that is life without theory. (Benjamin Disraeli)

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Nurture your mind with great thoughts, for you will never go any higher than you think.''  (Benjamin Disraeli)

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Everyone probably thinks that I'm a raving nymphomaniac, that I have an insatiable sexual appetite, when the truth is I'd rather read a book. (Madonna)

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Christian educator Howard Hendricks has said that his number one objective is to get people to read.

* * * * * * * *

After writing his book, Bill Gates said, ''Writing a nonfiction book forces you to really think issues through in a disciplined way. It challenges you to order your thoughts. You find hidden gaps and inconsistencies, which prompts still more thought.'' (Bill Gates, ''Ask Bill,'' New York Times Syndicate, Nov. 22, 1995)

* * * * * * * *

Some books are to be read slowly, in order to digest them thoroughly. Concerning programming, Gates said, ''If somebody is so brash that they think they know everything, Knuth [The Art of Programming] will help them understand that the world is deep and complicated. It took incredible discipline, and several months, for me to read it. I studied 20 pages, put it away for a week, and came back for another 20 pages.'' (Bill Gates, ''Ask Bill,'' New York Times Syndicate, April 11, 1995)

Hang Out With the Wise

Wait, I just remembered something! You're boring and my legs work. 
--David Spade as Finch on Just Shoot Me 

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I refuse to have a battle of wits with an unarmed person - Bumper Sticker

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A chief event of life is the day in which we have encountered a mind that startled us. (Ralph Waldo Emerson)

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Steven Spielberg didn't fit into the social life of his school. But in middle school he wasn't the only kid making movies. Incredibly, four other students within 10 houses from him spent their time making films while other kids chased girls and played sports. One of these friends said that he doubted Spielberg could have kept his motivation for filmmaking without the camaraderie of his fellow-enthusiasts. By hanging around those who were growing wise in filmmaking, Spielberg became wise.

* * * * * * * *

Benjamin Franklin was considered one of the greatest men of his time. Yet, he felt he couldn't attain wisdom by himself. At age 18 his chief acquaintances were three people who he describes as ''lovers of reading.'' They took pleasant weekend walks together where they would read to one another and talk about what they read. (p. 41, Autobiog.) So, by walking with wise people, he became wise. (Written by Steve Miller, Copyright Feb. 2003)

He formed a club, named Junto, which continued for 40 years of his life. While others were hitting the taverns on Friday nights, Junto would meet to present and critique each other's essays, debate issues, and discuss important matters. (p. 65 of Franklin's Autobiography) He referred to them as his ''ingenious acquaintances,'' including a surveyor, self-taught Mathematician, copier of deeds, mechanic and a Merchant's clerk. The club would continue for almost 40 years. Each member was responsible to produce and read a paper on Philosophy, Morals, Politics or any other theme of interest once every three months. Then, the members would debate and discuss the paper. (Written by Steve Miller, from Franklin's Autobiography) 

* * * * * * * *

A voracious reader of biographies, I've noticed a pattern in the lives of many successful people. They didn't do it alone. They sharpened their skills and kept motivated by regularly meeting with those who had similar interests. 

Twenty-two year old Albert Einstein and like-minded friends met frequently in each other's homes or talked on hikes, sometimes all the way through the night. These conversations had an enormous impact on his future work. They called themselves ''The Olympia Academy.''

Fifteen-year old Bill Gates met regularly with other computer geeks who called themselves ''The Lakeside Programmers Group.'' 

Benjamin Franklin met every Friday for decades with a diverse group of civic-minded thinkers called ''Junto.'' Many of his great accomplishments were a result of cross-pollination from this group. 

Writers J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis met with a group called ''The Inklings,'' on a weekday morning in a pub and Thursday evenings at Lewis' house, often reading their manuscripts aloud to get input. 

These successful people found that the collaboration of several minds produces more wisdom than the sum of these same minds working separately. Is there a school club where you could meet other people who have the same interests or goals as you? (Steve Miller, copyright January, 2003)

* * * * * * * *

''He who walks with the wise grows wise, but a companion of fools suffers harm.'' (Solomon, in Proverbs 13:20; cross reference. Proverbs 14:7)

* * * * * * * *

If your greatest concern each morning is whether or not you are having a bad hair day, and you have no motivation to learn or better yourself, you might want to look around to see what kind of people you hang around. If the loftiest goals of your close friends are to get their hair fixed, go to a party, or to try a new drug, you're going nowhere in life. As you define where you are going in life, surround yourself with people who are going the same direction. Then you will find yourself growing wise. 

So, what do wise people look like? Don't be fooled. Straight ''A'' students are not necessarily wise. Many ''A'' students are in prison today. Neither are those with poor grades necessarily dumb. Spielberg couldn't get into film school because of his low grades. We're talking about people who not only a thirst for learning, but can make the wise decisions that bring them success. ((Written by Steve Miller, Copyright February 2003.)

* * * * * * * *

The best mirror is an old friend. (George Herbert)

* * * * * * * *

Today, Gates still depends on his friends. ''Steve Ballmer looks at Gates' calendar on a regular basis to help him decide if he's spending his time efficiently and focused on the right subjects.'' (P. 64, Bill Gates Speaks, by Janet Lowe, John Wiley & Sons, Inc.) Who do you allow to look over your home and work and ministry habits and evaluate you? 

Basketball superstar Michael Jordan reigns as America's most popular athlete, perhaps the most popular in the world. He's mastered the game to such an extent that pro player Magic Johnson could say, ''There's Michael – and then there's the rest of us.'' (Rare Air, on front sleeve) 

But he didn't just wake up one morning, pick up a basketball, and begin his lightning fast moves and stratospheric jumps, dunking baskets against giant defenders. Believe it or not, he was cut from the Varsity team his sophomore year in high school. So what did he do to improve? One could argue that without the fierce, daily, one-on-one, back yard competitions with his older brother Larry, who was a better athlete at the time, Michael would have never developed his ability and confidence enough to compete at the game. Larry was his mentor as well as best friend. 

So learn as much as you can from your family - cook, garden, build. Learn from their wealth of experiences, both good and bad. (Written by Steve Miller, Copyright Feb., 2003)

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If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants. (Isaac Newton, great scientist)

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Object Lesson: Better to Learn from Mentor...

This is a great object lesson: Ask a student to stand behind you, back to back. Take off your jacket and ask him or her, without looking at you, to instruct you, step by step, on how to put on your jacket. By following the instructions literally, you can thoroughly foul up the process, and your audience will love it. The moral? If even something simple, like putting on a jacket is more easily taught by example than by words alone, how much more the principles of life that we need to learn from people? 

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It's easier to learn good behavior by watching it than by hearing about it. (Frank A. Clark)

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Those who do not want to imitate anything, produce nothing. (Salvador Dali)

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''Very few people get to the top without being taken under the wing of an older person somewhere along the way.'' ( Jean Paul Lyet, former CEO, Sperry)

* * * * * * * *

Warren Buffett, America's greatest investor, said, ''The key in life is to figure out who to be the batboy for.'' (Warren Buffett in ''Broadcasting'' June 9, 1986)

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''I think Warren [Buffet] has had more effect on the way I think about my business and the way I think about running it than any business leader.'' (Bill Gates, Keynote speech at San Jose State University, San Jose, Calif, Jan. 27, 1998)

* * * * * * * *

Warren Buffett is America's most successful investor. He said, ''The best thing I did was to choose the right heroes.'' (Warren Buffet quoted by Roger Lowenstein in ''Buffett: The Making of an American Capitalist'') One of his mentors was Benjamin Graham, whose book ''The Intelligent Investor'' startled him with its wisdom. So he went to study under Graham, Graham offered Buffett a full-time job, and ''For the next two years he poured his heart and soul into learning from the investment master, working late into the night and immersing himself in ever detail of a target company's performance.'' (Reynolds, Simon, ed. Thoughts of Chairman Buffett, Harper Business, New York, NY: 1998.)

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Back in the early 1950s, Ralph J. Cordiner, then president of General Electric, said that within three years after a chief executive takes over a company, he should have at least three people equally capable to succeed him. (Joe Griffith, Speaker's Library of Business Quotes)

* * * * * * * *

In high school, Bill Gates and his buddies worked after school for a business called ''C-Cubed.'' There he found his role models - the cool, smart programmers who wore t-shirts and sandals when they worked weekends. Steve Russell had trained at Stanford Artificial Intelligence Labs and created the first video game. Dick Gruen ''cultivated a snotty attitude toward software that didn't do what it was supposed to, and generally promoted fearlessness.''

Of those days with the high school kids at ''C-Cubed,'' Gruen said, ''The novel thing was that we were treating high school students like real people.'' (Written by Steve Miller, Copyright Feb., 2003. Source: Stephen Manes and Paul Andrews, Gates: How Microsoft's Mogul Reinvented An Industry - And Made Himself The Richest Man in America, Simon & Schuster, New York, 1994, p. 32)

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Dave was an adopted child who dropped out of high school and drifted from one low-paying job to another. A loser? Not by a long shot. A mentor changed his life.

While working at a barbecue restaurant in Fort Wayne, Indiana he met Colonel Sanders of Kentucky Fried Chicken fame. Sanders taught Dave what he knew about the restaurant business. In fact, Dave was so successful that he took four failing KFC restaurants, turned them around, and sold them back to the Colonel for $1.5 million dollars.

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''The man who never reads will never be read; he who never quotes will never be quoted. He who will not use the thoughts of other men's brains, proves that he has no brains of his own.'' (Charles Spurgeon, Commenting and Commentaries (NY: Sheldon, 1876), p. 62.)

* * * * * * * *

"They that won't be counseled, can't be helped.'' (Franklin, Poor Richard's Almanac, p. 225)

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Great leaders don't think they have all the good ideas. Instead, they humbly solicit ideas from all levels of their organizations. All of us who want to be wise should follow in their footsteps. Steven Spielberg is the most successful movie producer in the world. He's got plenty of creative ideas and has every right to tell the actors to sit quietly and allow him to tell them what to do. Yet, listen to actress Drew Barrymore tell how Spielberg worked with her and the other children in the movie E.T.

''Right off, I fell in love with Steven [Spielberg]. In many ways he was – and always will be – the dad I never had. I wanted so badly to be accepted by him, and when I was, it meant a lot to me. I was thrilled when he invited me to his Malibu house. We'd run along the beach, collect seashells, and build sand castles. It was so much fun to hang out with him.

But working with Steven was even better. In most of the scenes he let me do whatever I wanted. All of us were free to offer input, but he especially seemed to like the silly things the kids came up with. Like in the scene where Henry, Robert, and I are hiding E.T. in the closet from our mother, Henry tells me that only kids can see E.T. There wasn't a line to go with that, and Steven told me to just make something up. So when we did the scene again, I just shrugged and said, ''Gimme a break!''

He'd often take me aside and say something like, ''You're talking to me now. Do you really like this? Or do you have a different idea? Do you think it could be done a different way?'' Eventually I'd add something and Steven would smile and say, ''Good, let's combine ideas.'' It made me feel so good. For once I didn't feel like some stupid little kid trying to make people love me. I felt important and useful.'' (Drew Barrymore with Todd Gold, Little Girl Lost, Pocket Books: New York, 1990, p. 58)

The point? As wisdom-seekers, we should be humble enough to learn from everyone. There's no person we come across who's too young or too ignorant to learn from. Every person has ideas and experiences that we don't have. It's fun to learn from them! 

* * * * * * * *

While walking to school each day, future comedian Rodney Dangerfield perfected his humor by telling a joke in several different ways to his friends, and then ask which delivery was funnier.

Many people learn the guitar this way. They ask someone who's a step ahead of them how to read a cord chart or how to position their fingers for a certain chord or how to get a certain sound out of their amp. Then, they practice till they can do it. Whenever they want to do something new, they ask a person who can aleady do it, read the music magazines that show how the professionals do it. (Written by Steve Miller, Copyright Feb., 2003)

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Surround yourself with wise people. After you get them around you, be more concerned with learning from them than showing off how much you know. One band missed this principle. 

In the early days of Rock, the popular Isley Brothers band toured Europe with a young keyboard player who wanted them to listen to the briefcase of songs he'd written. But they never did. They said, ''We figured this guy with the big glasses, how could he write something that would be funky enough for us?'' Now he regrets missing out on all those great songs. The keyboardist was perennial best-selling singer/songwriter Elton John. (Written by Steve Miller. Source: Kot, Greg, ''How the Isley Brothers became – and stayed – the first family of R & B'' Chicago Tribune, November 4, 2001, Sec. 7, p. 1.) Are we humble enough to respect and learn from those that most people would consider "beneath us?" 

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Often the best ideas can come from those who aren't insiders. As the man who devised a new method of producing steel said, ''I had an immense advantage over many others dealing with the problem mainly as I had no fixed ideas derived from long-established practice to control and bias my mind, and did not suffer from the general belief that whatever is, is right.'' (Henry Bessemer)

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Stew Leonard, Sr., owner of ''the world's largest dairy store'' in Norwalk, Connecticut, carved his policy on a 6,000-pound rock right at the entrance of the store:
Rule 1 – The customer is always right.
Rule 2 – If the customer is ever wrong, re-read rule 1.
Leonard said it's chiseled in stone because it's never going to change. He believes his policy is responsible for the store's growth from a 1,000 square foot mom-and-pop store into a 100,000 square foot shopper's festival with annual sales approaching $100 million. (Source: Joe Griffith, Speaker's Library of Business Quotes)

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The learning and knowledge that we have, is, at the most, but little compared with that of which we are ignorant. (Plato) 

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''There is only one boss. The customer. And he can fire everybody in the company from the chairman on down, simply by spending his money somewhere else.'' (Sam Walton, founder, Wal-Mart)

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''The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only one page.'' (St Augustine)

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Some businesses are great at listening to new ideas and rewarding them. For example, Robert Levering, in the ''100 Best Companies to Work For," says, ''At Marion Labs each year, the person who offers the best suggestion receives a week-long, all expenses-paid trip for two to any city in the world, plus an extra week of vacation.'' Do we encourage great ideas from those around us? 

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''Fools you are…to say you learn by your experience…I prefer to profit by others' mistakes and avoid the price of my own.'' (Bismarck)

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''Half of the world is composed of people who have something to say and can't, and the other half who have nothing to say and keep on saying it.'' 

* * * * * * * *

We are all equipped with different types of intelligences. Some of us memorize better than others. Some of us think better than others. Some are gifted mechanically while others have a high artistic intelligence. So believe me, an I.Q. test doesn't tell you the whole story of your intelligence, much less your potential. You've probably heard of Mensa, the exclusive organization for those with I.Q.'s in the top 2%. 

I read a story about a Mensa convention in San Francisco where ''a bunch of Mensa members were lunching at a local café. They discovered that their salt shaker contained pepper and their pepper shaker was full of salt. How could they swap the contents of the bottles without spilling, and using only the implements at hand? Clearly this was a job for Mensa! The group debated and presented ideas, and finally came up with a brilliant solution involving a napkin, a straw, and an empty saucer. They called the waitress over to dazzle her with their solution. 

''Ma'am,'' they said, ''We couldn't help but notice that pepper shaker contains salt and the salt shaker--'' 
''Oh,'' the waitress interrupted. ''Sorry about that.'' She unscrewed the caps of both bottles, switched them, and said, ''Will that be one check or separate?'' (Tamim Ansary, ''What's Your I.Q.?'', March 12, Microsoft Network)

So, who was smarter? It depends on what type of intelligence you're measuring. Let's all maximize our own gifts rather than measuring ourselves against others. 

* * * * * * * *

Ed Rensi, president of McDonald's USA, spends three days per week inspecting his restaurants. Part of what he does is to get input from the employees and customers. ''He talks to employees about their aspirations and their training, then wanders among the customers, handing out free fries and sundaes in exchange for frank opinions.'' (Source: Joe Griffith, Speaker's Library of Business Quotes)

* * * * * * * *

Innovation can come from the bottom of a company as well as from the top, if it is encouraged. For example, companies like Federal Express offer innovation awards as high as $25,000 to employees who come up with suggestions and innovations. (Joe Griffith, Speaker's Library of Business Quotes)

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We are all ignorant -- but just in different areas.'' (Mark Twain, American Author)

* * * * * * * *

For over thirty years, Al Boyajian has been operating Sears Restaurant in San Francisco. His longtime patrons wait up to forty-five minutes to eat. Al said the reason was because he treated every customer as if they were guests in his home. He constantly asked them how he could improve the ''little'' things. (Joe Griffith, Speaker's Library of Business Quotes)

* * * * * * * *

Business management expert Peter Drucker said, ''There are no dumb customers.'' 

* * * * * * * *

Asking a writer what he thinks about criticism is like asking a lamppost what it feels about dogs. (John Osborne) 

* * * * * * * *

Here's a fascinating test. Quickly count the ''F's'' in the following text: 

FINISHED FILES ARE THE RE-
SULT OF YEARS OF SCIENTIF-
IC STUDY COMBINED WITH THE
EXPERIENCE OF YEARS

Now, how many did you come up with? Three? If you did, you're like most people. Try again. The total is six! Look at it more carefully. For some reason the brain has difficulty processing the ''F's'' in the word ''of.''

The point? Some things that should be obvious are difficult to see. Just like most people are blind to three of the ''F's'' above, all of us tend to have blind spots in our personalities and people skills that hurt us in our relationships. They are easy to spot in other people -- friendship busters like moose breath, saying dumb or embarrassing stuff, body odor, and I could go on and on. 

* * * * * * * *

The cure for blind spots? Get input from other people who'll be honest with you about your shortcomings. As Solomon said thousands of years ago, ''Plans fail for lack of counsel, but with many advisers they succeed.'' (Proverbs 15:22)

* * * * * * * *

''Listen to advise and accept instruction, and in the end you will be wise.'' (Solomon, in Proverbs 19:20)

* * * * * * * *

Any student I'm not prepared to learn from, I'm not prepared to teach. (James D. Nelson, Historian)

* * * * * * * *

A wise man listening to a fool will learn more than a fool listening to a wise man. (Nuggets)

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Every person that you meet knows something you don't; learn from them!

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I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn't learn something from him. [Galileo Galilei (1564-1642)] 

* * * * * * * *

Frederick Copleston wrote the most comprehensive, most respected history of philosophy in existence. Its massive 17 volumes of microscopic print in paperback have been called ''one of the enduring intellectual achievements of the twentieth century'' - George Weigel 

Because of his great knowledge, he was asked to lecture in universities around the globe. How did he grow so wise in his area of expertise? From reading his autobiography, I believe he never allowed his output to exceed his input. Instead of hanging out at social events impressing people with his knowledge, he continued to learn in every way that he could. 

For example, when preparing to lecture in Berlin after World War II, his mind was not consumed with how he could impress the listeners as a great writer and teacher. Instead, he prepared a list of 121 questions that he wanted to find answers to in a wide variety of areas. 

And he didn't limit his questions to the great officials and professors. He'd learn from taxi drivers or anyone else who might provide a fresh perspective (Written by Steve Miller, copyright May, 2003. Sources: Frederick Copleston, Memoirs of a Philosopher, Sheed and Ward, 1993, Kansas City, MO, p. 112)

You've got to ask! Asking is, in my opinion, the world's most powerful -- and neglected -- secret to success and happiness. (Percy Ross)

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A person who asks a question might be a fool for five minutes, but a person who doesn't ask, is a fool forever...

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The fool wonders, the wise man asks. (Benjamin Disraeli)

* * * * * * * *

Becoming wise is more than passively memorizing information. It is actively engaging in the educational experience. A kid was growing up in a poor neighborhood, but his mom wanted him to excel. She would ask him each day when he came home from school, ''Did you ask any good questions today?'' The child, Isador Isaac Rabi, became one of America's outstanding physicists.

* * * * * * * *

''The fellow wanted to get acquainted with folks, so he went over to the village square and saw an old-timer with a kind of mean-looking German Shepherd.

He looked at the dog a little tentatively and he said, ''Does your dog bite?'' The old-timer said, ''Nope.'' So the stranger reached down to pet him and the dog lunged at him and practically took off his arm. As he repaired his shredded coat he turned to the old-timer and said, ''I thought you said your dog doesn't bite.'' The guy says, ''Ain't my dog.''

There are no foolish questions and no man becomes a fool until he has stopped asking questions. (Charles Steinmetz)

* * * * * * * *

Know how to ask. There is nothing more difficult for some people. Nor for others, easier. (Baltasar Gracian) 

* * * * * * * *

If you don't ask, you don't get. -- Ghandi

* * * * * * * *

Curiosity is one of the most permanent and certain characteristics of a vigorous intellect. (Samuel Johnson) 

Listen Intently

All wise men share one trait in common; the ability to listen. (Frank Tyger)

* * * * * * * *

If you want to be listened to, you should put in some time listening. (Piercy)

* * * * * * * *

It's so simple to be wise. Just think of something stupid to say and then don't say it. (Sam Levenson)

I am neither especially clever nor especially gifted. I am only very, very curious. (Albert Einstein) 

* * * * * * * *

The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity. (Ellen Parr) 

* * * * * * * *

The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery every day. Never lose a holy curiosity. ( Albert Einstein)

* * * * * * * *

As a child, Steven Spielberg had an aunt who babysat him. Listen to her observations:

''From the time he was able to open his mouth his first word, I think, was ‘Why?' You just had to answer every question, and then there would be more. Most of what I remember is Steve's curiosity and inquirious (sic) nature. He was just curiouser and curiouser….'' (Spielberg, p. 37,40) 

* * * * * * * *

As a schoolboy, Albert Einstein's science teacher was infuriated that he kept asking questions that they couldn't answer. Although the teacher couldn't expel Albert for asking questions, he told him that the teachers preferred that he leave the school. (Albert Einstein: Young Thinker, pp. 131ff.) 

* * * * * * * *

Shortly after the Civil war, Thomas Edison worked as a telegraph operator in Cincinnati. Before the telephone, telegraph operators would send messages via dots and dashes, which an operator on the other end of the line would translate back into words. One day Edison looked outside to see an immense crowd gathering outside the newspaper office. A messenger soon appeared, shouting, ''Lincoln's shot!'' The crowd wanted the details. But to everyone's surprise, all the operators claimed they had not received the message. But after their boss demanded that the operators look through their transcripts, an embarrassed operator held up the account. Incredibly, the operator had translated the account so mechanically that he had no idea of the significance of what he was writing. Makes you want to knock on the guy's head and say, ''Hello! Is anybody home in there?'' Be curious enough to think about what people are saying. (Written by Steve Miller, Copyright July, 2003. Source: Boys' Life of Edison, p. 53)

* * * * * * * *

''The heart of the discerning acquires knowledge; the ears of the wise seek it out.'' (Solomon)

Now look closely at this quote. Reading is one of our best skills to acquire knowledge. But does the verse say ''read all the time?'' No. It simply says to acquire knowledge and seek it out. Even if you can't read books, you can read people and learn how to relate to them. You can listen to audio books or learn languages by listening to audio books. In other words, find out some ways you can learn, and start seeking. 
(Written by Steve Miller, Copyright Feb., 2003)

* * * * * * * *

I think, at a child's birth, if a mother could ask a fairy godmother to endow it with the most useful gift, that gift would be curiosity. (Eleanor Roosevelt)

* * * * * * * *

Be Inventive to Meet Needs

Ideas are like rabbits. You get a couple, learn how to handle them, and pretty soon you have a dozen. (John Steinbeck)

* * * * * * * *

Necessity, they say, is the mother of invention. In 1904, on a hot and humid Wisconsin summer afternoon a fellow named Ole Evinrude was determined to present his future wife, Bess Cary, with an ice cream cone. His only obstacle was Wisconsin's Okauchee Lake, and of course, the blazing sun. Nevertheless, Ole rowed his boat across the lake to purchase the ice cream only to deliver it to Bess in the form of creamy soup. Embarrassed, Ole vowed it would not happen again. It was this promise that led first to the birth of Evinrude Motors, later to the Outboard Marine Corporation, and subsequently the Lawn-Boy lawnmower business. Their success has been incredible. (From Lawnboy Web site at http://www.lawnboy.com/history.htm)

Observe Intently

''By doing nothing more than observing and acting upon the obvious, a person
can change the world.'' ( Buckminster Fuller)

* * * * * * * *

''Learning is acquired by reading books, but the much more necessary learning, the knowledge of the world, is only to be acquired by reading men, and studying the various editions of them.'' (Lord Chesterfield, quoted from Tell It Often, Tell It Well, by McCloskey, p. 249)

* * * * * * * *

Wisdom begins with wonder. (Socrates)

* * * * * * * *

Pat Riley was one of the greatest basketball coaches of all time. In reflecting back on what made him great, he thought about his small positions before he became head coach. Of these, he said, ''First, never demean the time you spend in the trenches. If you pay attention to what you're doing, you can learn an awful lot about how an organization behaves, and that can be very useful later on.'' ''Second, use any time when you aren't on center stage to strengthen your powers of perception. Even being on the bench or working around the periphery of the Lakers was like attending a master class in professional basketball. It's strictly attitude that lets you learn.'' So don't get down if you feel that your responsibilities are small. Do well at them. Learn under successful people. Don't get discouraged. Those times out of the limelight serve to train and strengthen us for greater things. (Pat Riley, The Winner Within, G.P. Putnam's Sons, New York, 1993, p. 63)

* * * * * * * *

Joy in looking and comprehending is nature's most beautiful gift. (Albert Einstein) 

* * * * * * * *

Discovery consists of looking at the same thing as everyone else and thinking something different. (Albert Szent-Gyorgyi)

When I'm getting ready to reason with a man, I spend one-third of my time thinking about myself and what I am going to say – and two-thirds thinking about him and what he is going to say. (Abraham Lincoln)

* * * * * * * *

As a child, Bill Gates' parents had a hard time getting him ready leave when the family was ready to go. When his mom called and asked, ''What are you doing?'' he'd respond, ''I'm thinking. I'm thinking. Don't you ever think?'' (Stephen Manes and Paul Andrews, Gates: How Microsoft's Mogul Reinvented An Industry - And Made Himself The Richest Man in America, Simon & Schuster, New York, 1994, p. 16)

* * * * * * * *

If you're not confused, you're not paying attention.

* * * * * * * *

This, the task is not so much to see what no one yet has seen, but to think what nobody yet has thought about that which everybody sees. (Schopenhauer)

* * * * * * * *

Few people think more than two or three times a year. I've made an international reputation for myself by thinking once or twice a week. (George Bernard Shaw. Source: The Art of Creative Thinking, by Robert Olson (1986)

* * * * * * * *

Never allow school to interfere with your education. -- Mark Twain

* * * * * * * *

''I think and think, for months, for years; 99 times the conclusion is false. The hundredth time I am right.''  Albert Einstein)

* * * * * * * *

Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation. (Oscar Wilde)

* * * * * * * *

When Louis L'Amour, the world's most famous western writer, was asked how he could finish one book and instantly start another one, he said, ''I'm like a big old hen. I can't cluck too long about the egg I've just laid because I've got five more inside me pushing to get out.''

* * * * * * * *

Most of us are blind to the problems that hinder our ministries. We need people to point them out to us. As Albert Schweitzer said, "For us the great men are not those who solved the problems, but those who discovered them.'' (Albert Schweitzer)

* * * * * * * *

Western society has become so complex that we live harried lives, with no time to think. Albert Einstein needed time to simply think, and relished in it. In 1918 he said, ''When I have no special problem to occupy my mind, I love to reconstruct proofs of mathematical and physical theorems that have long been known to me. There is no goal in this, merely an opportunity to indulge in the pleasant occupation of thinking….(Found in Albert Einstein: The Human Side, Selected and edited by Helen Dukas and Banesh Hoffman, Princeton University Press, 1979, p. 17)

* * * * * * * *

If everyone is thinking alike, then somebody isn't thinking. 
--General George S. Patton

* * * * * * * *

Thomas Edison said that there was no limit to how far most men would go to avoid the real labor of thinking. He was known to sit fishing with no bait so that no one would disturb him, so that he could sit and think.

* * * * * * * *

By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest.

* * * * * * * *

Reason can answer questions, but imagination has to ask them. (Ralph N. Gerard)

* * * * * * * *

''People must have time to think about things.'' (Bill Gates, Source: John Emmerling, ''Gates-ian Ideas Work in Ad Biz,'' Advertising Age, Sept. 23, 1996, p. 31.)

* * * * * * * *

Don't keep forever on the public road. Leave the beaten track occasionally and dive into the woods. You will be certain to find something that you have never seen before. One discovery will lead to another, and before you know it you will have something worth thinking about to occupy your mind. All really big discoveries are the results of thought. (Alexander Graham Bell)

* * * * * * * *

Jesus spoke of not throwing your pearls before swine. Some people aren't ready for more knowledge. As Huxley said,

''The great end of life is not knowledge, but action. What men need is as much knowledge as they can organize for action; give them more and it may become injurious. Some men are heavy and stupid from undigested learning.'' (Thomas Henry Huxley)

* * * * * * * *

Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested. (Francis Bacon)

* * * * * * * *

As the light changed from red to green to yellow and back to red again, I sat there thinking about life. Was it nothing more than a bunch of honking and yelling? Sometimes it seemed that way. (Jack Handy, Deep Thoughts)

* * * * * * * *

As to methods there may be a million and then some, but principles are few. The man who grasps principles can successfully select his own methods. The man who tries methods, ignoring principles, is sure to have trouble. --Emerson (1803-1882)

* * * * * * * *

The man who knows how will always have a job. The man who also knows why will always be his boss. --Emerson (1803-1882)

* * * * * * * *

Some people get so focused on their pet peeve that they miss the big picture. It's like Jay Leno's comment on a an animated Dinosaur movie. 

* * * * * * * *

''Scientists are complaining that the new Dinosaur movie shows dinosaurs with lemurs, who didn't evolve for another million years. They're afraid the movie will give kids a mistaken impression. What about the fact that the dinosaurs are singing and dancing?'' -- Jay Leno 

* * * * * * * *

The first two years of college are vocabulary lessons. The second two years are spent learning who to ask and where to look it up. (Bill Austin)

* * * * * * * *

Accept Criticism

Pay attention to your enemies. They are the first to discover your mistakes. ( Antisthenes)

* * * * * * * *

Michael Jordan, after his humiliating cut from the high school team as a sophomore, began waking up at 6:00 each morning to practice with his Junior Varsity coach. Then there were the basketball clinics he began attending during the summers, where he got input from top coaches. Although he played an extraordinary game as a college freshman, that didn't keep him from intently listening to his coach's evaluation of his weaknesses. By working hours a day on these weaknesses, he came a step closer to being the best player of all time. 

* * * * * * * *

As a young grade-school movie maker, Steven Spielberg would show his films on a sheet, thrown over a clothes line in his backyard, with his sister selling tickets and candy. Between showings, he would get their input on what they liked, and how he could improve. 

During his college years, Steven Spielberg spent his time after classes and during the summer helping out at Universal Studios, where he asked millions of questions and watched the masters in action.  It takes more than practice. It takes the right kind of practice. Usually, we need experts to show us how. 

* * * * * * * *

Bodybuilder Arnold Schwartzenegger asked a fellow-bodybuilder to evaluate his physique. Schwarzenegger took his advice, changed part of his routine, and took another step toward becoming the world's top bodybuilder.

* * * * * * * *

One day Benjamin Franklin's friend sharply rebuked him. ''Ben,'' he said, ''you are impossible. Your opinions have a slap in them for everyone who differs with you. They have become so expensive nobody cares for them. Your friends find they enjoy themselves better when you are not around.'' Franklin took the rebuke seriously and began to work on his relational abilities. The effort paid off in later years as he became one of the most sought out, respected men of his time. At another time, in order to improve his writing, he and some friends each wrote a paper based on a Psalm, and then critiqued each other's writing.

* * * * * * * *

Stephen was a 10th grader when he took a job as a sports reporter for his hometown newspaper. His first assignment was to write a story about his school's basketball team. A player had broken a scoring record, making it big news in a small town. So he wrote the story and turned it into the editor, who proceeded to put lines through everything that he thought unnecessary. Stephen could have gotten mad at the editor for tearing apart his hard work. He could have ignored his comments, thinking that he knew quite well how to write. Instead, he loved it, taking everything to heart. Looking back, Stephen says that this editor's ten minutes of criticism taught him more than any of his English Literature, composition courses, fiction courses, or poetry courses in high school and college! He kept on writing and became one of the most successful authors today, Stephen King. (Written by Steve Miller, information from Stephen King, On Writing, Pocket Books, 2000, pp. 56-58)

* * * * * * * *

''Sometimes you must be willing to listen to some really bad opinions from subordinates. You can't put down what they say because if you do they'll quit telling you what they think, and it's like working with a puppet on a string.'' (John Bryan, chairman, Consolidated Foods)

* * * * * * * *

Most of us don't see ourselves as we really are, or as others see us. We need to have others honestly tell us how they see us. As Warren Buffet, one of the world's most successful investors said, ''Investing is not as tough as being a top-notch bridge player. All it takes is the ability to see things as they really are.'' 

* * * * * * * *

We all understand colorblind people. If their parents or wives don't match their clothes for them, they are in trouble. But I'm convinced that all of us have one kind of blindness or another. Some people are relationship blind. They can't keep friends, but have no idea why. They may have bad breath, a sense of humor that only their mom appreciates, and body odor. But they are clueless. Their only hope of not going through life with the problem is if they can get someone to be honest with them, and take the truth to heart. 

But fools blow off correction, thinking, ''Who is he to try to set me straight?'' That's why they never improve themselves. They are too defensive to ever face their weaknesses. It's like the American Civil war general whose last words were, as he raised his head above a parapet - ''Nonsense, they couldn't hit an elephant at this dis....'' Wise people, on the other hand, take criticism to heart, regarding their critics as some of their most valuable friends. Super-successes go beyond taking criticism well; they ask for it. 

* * * * * * * *

Bill Hybels started a church in a movie theatre that grew, in 15 years, to over 14,000 attendees, making it the largest church in America. How did he perfect his speaking ability? He asked a diverse group of people to critique his sermons each Sunday and write their input, both positive and negative, to help him improve himself. Besides this input, his staff also meet with him the following week to critique the entire service.

* * * * * * * *

As a high school student, Bill Gates was already an accomplished programmer. But he still wanted to learn from those better than him. As a senior, he and Paul Allen landed a job where they could work on state-of-the-art computer problems, under the scrutiny of brilliant analysts. John Norton was flown in from One Space Park to ''audit the project, interview the suspects, review everybody's code, straighten out the screw-ups.'' 

To many people a person like this would be a pain, a dreaded overseer. But to Gates, a person who intensely desired to write excellent code, he was an incredible blessing. In Gate's words, ''He was a god! He would take a piece of source code home, come back and just totally analyze the thing.'' He loved it! (Written by Steve Miller, copyright Feb., 2003. Source: Stephen Manes and Paul Andrews, Gates: How Microsoft's Mogul Reinvented An Industry - And Made Himself The Richest Man in America, Simon & Schuster, New York, 1994, p. 54)

* * * * * * * *

''Whoever loves discipline loves knowledge,
but he who hates correction is stupid.'' (Solomon, in Proverbs 12:1)

* * * * * * * *

''Plans fail for lack of counsel,
but with many advisers they succeed.'' (Solomon, in Proverbs 15:22)

* * * * * * * *

''Listen to advise and accept instruction, 
and in the end you will be wise.'' (Solomon, in Proverbs 19:20)

* * * * * * * *

''A rebuke impresses a man of discernment
more than a hundred lashes a fool.'' (Solomon, Proverbs 17:10)

* * * * * * * *

I heard and I forgot; I saw and I remembered; I did and I understood. (Another Version of the Above)

* * * * * * * *

Collect It

Star Wars creator George Lucas knows how to collect wisdom. One day he was searching for a movie reel which was located in Row 2, section D-2. Can anyone guess what came to Lucas' mind? The assistant called out section R-2-D-2. Sounded like a catchy name, so Lucas wrote it down and later used it to name the short, spunky robot of Star Wars. (Written by Steve Miller, Copyright Feb., 2003)

* * * * * * * *

Mary Kay has been called America's foremost woman entrepreneur, a super-success at selling beauty products. She has collected some of her best ideas by carrying a small tape recorder with her to record her thoughts as they come to her. (Bottom Line, p. 10, Dec. 15, '85)

* * * * * * * *

Steven Spielberg couldn't act in his school plays because no matter how much he tried, he couldn't memorize the parts. But he kept up with his story ideas in a notebook, so that, for example, when he produced E.T., he could pull from ideas he had been written down years before.

* * * * * * * *

The weakest ink is stronger than the strongest memory. (Chinese philosopher)

* * * * * * * *

The wisdom of the wise, and the experience of ages, may be preserved by quotations. (Isaac Disraeli)

* * * * * * * *

''Not only was the Teacher wise, but also he imparted knowledge to the people. He pondered and searched out and set in order many proverbs.'' (Ecclesiastes. 12:9)

 

Know How to Learn...

What one knows is, in youth, of little moment; they know enough who know how to learn. (Henry Adams)

Know How to Look Things Up...

Albert Einstein was once asked how many feet are in a mile. Einstein answered, ''I don't know. Why should I fill my head with things like that when I could look them up in any reference book in two minutes.''

Get Wise Advice, ESPECIALLY When You Don't Want It...

A middle-aged school teacher invested her life savings in a business enterprise that had been elaborately explained to her by a swindler. 
When her investment disappeared and the wonderful dream of getting rich was shattered, she went to the local office of the Better Business Bureau. 
They asked, ''Why didn't you come to us first? Didn't you know about the Better Business Bureau?''
She said sadly, ''Oh, yes, I've always known about you. But I didn't come because I was afraid you'd tell me not to do it.''

* * * * * * * *

Be careful who you get advice from.  Financial planner to client: ''I've reviewed your financial picture, and if we manage your money properly, there should be plenty for both of us.''

* * * * * * * *

The Contradictions We Believe...

Silence is golden... but the squeaky wheel gets the grease.
To thine own self be true, but when in Rome, do as the Romans do. 
It's never too late to learn, but you can't teach an old dog new tricks.
Good things come in small packages, but the bigger the better.
Two's company, three's a crowd, but the more the merrier.
Better safe than sorry, but nothing ventured, nothing gained.
Never judge a book by its cover, but clothes make the man.
Out of sight, out of mind, but absence makes the heart grow fonder.
Actions speak louder than words, but the pen is mightier than the sword. 

Discern Good Sources from Bad...

On Monkeys producing Shakespheare

We've all heard that a million monkeys banging on a million keyboards will eventually reproduce the works of Shakespeare. 

Hasn't the Internet now proven that this is not true?

News Release: Narnia Walks Out of Trade Talks

A recent news release on several respected business sites reported that delegates from "the independent state of Narnia" walked out of the World Trade Organization talks in Hong Kong. According to spokeswoman Susan Aslan, they were "tired of bullying by EU and US delegations and would be returning immediately to their state capital at Cair Parvel."

Does anything seem odd about this to you? (Let students respond.)

Narnia’s not a real country. It’s the fictitious land from C.S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia. Susan was one of the main characters. Aslan was the lion. Cair Paravel was one of  the fictitious cities.

Yet, this story was released by respected sources!

(Ending #1: on the need for discernment.) Today, we can pass on information almost instantly through e-mail, RSS feeds and websites. More than ever, we’ve got to be discerning about what reports we believe.  

(Ending #2: on the need to check your sources.) While the report about Narnia is great for a laugh, other misinformation can result in animosity, even wars. Truth is fragile. Make sure to check your sources, and only pass on what you know to be true. 

(Ending #3: on the need to know your geography.) Major news magazines don’t let articles onto their sites without human reviewers. Apparently, someone either didn’t read carefully or didn’t know their geography. It’s not only embarrassing, but could cause your magazine to lose respect.

(Written by Steve Miller. Source: www.theage.com.au , article by Mark Forbes
December 24, 2005, The Lion, The Witch and The World Trade Talks.)

Don't Believe Things Just Because the Experts Believe Them...

We'd like to think all our predictions will prove right. But the highways of history are littered with wrong calls, false insights and bad guesses. Here's a sampler of 20th century futurology that flopped:

I confess that in 1901, I said to my brother Orville that man would not fly for fifty years...Ever since, I have distrusted myself and avoided all predictions. (Wilbur Wright, U.S. aviation pioneer, 1908)

I must confess that my imagination...refuses to see any sort of submarine doing anyting but suffocating its crew and floundering at sea. (H.G. Wells, British novelist, 1901)

Airplanes are interesting toys but of no military value. (Marshal Ferdinand Foch, French military strategist and future WWI commander, 1911)

The horse is here to stay, but the automobile is only a novelty--a fad. A president of the Michigan Savings Bank advising Horace Rackham (Henry Ford's lawyer) not to invest in the Ford Motor Co., 1903. Rackham ignored the advice, bought $5,000 worth of stock and sold it several years later for $12.5 million.

Believe me, Germany is unable to wage war. (Former British prime minister David Lloyd George, Aug. 1, 1934)

Everything that can be invented has been invented. (Charles H. Duell, U.S. commissioner of patents, 1899)

Who the hell wants to hear actors talk? (Harry M. Warner, Warner Brothers, 1927)

There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in their home. (Kenneth Olsen, president and founder of Digital Equipment Corp. ,1977)

Nobody now fears that a Japanese fleet could deal an unexpected blow on our Pacific possessions...Radio makes surprise impossible. (Josephus Daniels, former US secretary of the navy, Oct. 16, 1922)

What use could this company make of an electrical toy? (Western Union president William Orton, rejecting Alexander Graham Bell's offer to sell his struggling telephone company to Western Union for $100,000)

The election of Hoover...should result in continued prosperity for 1929. (Roger Babson, American financial statistician and founder of the BBabson Institute, Sept. 1928)

Radio has no future. (Lord Kelvin, Scottish mathematician and physicist, former president of the Royal Society, 1897)

I have no political ambitions for myself or my children. (Joseph Kennedy, 1926)

Stocks have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau. (Irving Fisher, professor of economics, Yale University, Oct. 1929)

For the majority of people, the use of tobacco has a beneficial effect. (Dr. Ian Macdonald, LA surgeon, quoted in NEWSWEEK, Nov. 1963) 

(From the collection of Barry St. Clair)

* * * * * * * *

Don't ever blindly follow the supposed authorities of your day. Look how these missed it:

The widely read Popular Mechanics magazine accurately predicted in 1949: ''Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons.'' Right, Popular Mechanics. I think laptops have come in slightly under the 1.5 ton figure.

In 1957, the editor in charge of business books for Prentice Hall publishers said, ''I have traveled the length and breadth of this country and talked with the best people, and I can assure you that data processing is a fad that won't last out the year.'' Can you say, computer revolution?

If you lived in 1957 and wanted an expert's opinion on cigarettes, why not trust Dr. Ian MacDonald, a member of the highly distinguished California Cancer Commission, who was quoted by US News and World Report as saying, "A pack a day keeps lung cancer away.'' (p. 101, The Complete Guide To Alternative Cancer Therapies.)

In 1899, the commissioner of the U.S. Office of Patents proposed closing the agency because, in his own words, ''Everything that can be invented has been invented.'' 

And what about early thoughts about the usefulness of airplanes? Marechal Ferdinand Foch, professor of strategy at Ecole Superieure de Guerre, flatly stated, ''Airplanes are interesting toys but of no military value.''

And don't leave it to the experts to decide which movies will fly. Successful actor Gary Cooper turned down the leading role in Gone With The Wind, one of the most popular movies of all time. He confidently stated, ''I'm just glad it'll be Clark Gable who's falling on his face and not Gary Cooper.'' 

In 1946 Darryl F. Zanuck, then head of 20th Century-Fox Studios, said that the television ''won't be able to hold onto any market it captures after the first six months. People will soon get tired of staring at a plywood box every night.'' 

Decca Recording Co. ought to have a pretty good handle on what groups are destined for greatness. But when they heard one group of guys perform, they responded, ''We don't like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out.'' They'd later regret the decision. They had just turned down The Beatles.

(For over 300 pages of such ''expert advise,'' see The Experts Speak: The Definitive Compendium of Authoritative Misinformation, by Christopher Cerf and Victor Navasky, 1984.)

* * * * * * * *

Winston Church was asked what he considered to be the most important qualification for a politician. He said, ''It's the ability to foretell what will happen tomorrow, next month and next year – and to explain afterward why it did not happen.'' 

Question Everything...

A few years ago a 9th grade science teacher in Toledo, Ohio told his students that the USA was switching to a metric time system. Students could send their watches and calendars to the state capital to be converted. Clocks would have 10 hours of 100 minutes. Each year would have 10 months. July and August would be dropped and students with birthdays then would have them cancelled, reducing the summer vacation to 20 days. (From newspaper source)

Now, imagine that you're in the class. What questions could you ask to see if the teacher is shooting straight with you? (If they fail to think of these questions, mention: Where can I read more on this? What is the name of the government agency? Hey, if each day had 10 hours of 100 minutes each, then each day would have 1,000 minutes instead of 60x24=1440 minutes. After a few days, we would be going to school at night instead of during the day!)

Interested in how the actual class responded? The teacher just wanted to teach his students to think for themselves. So mid week, the teacher admitted that he was fibbing, but not before some parents had called in to ask when the metric time would begin! Not even one student objected or asked questions. No one sat down with a pencil and figured out that it couldn't work.

* * * * * * * *

Here are some helpful definitions to keep in mind when shopping used car lots:

''Owned by a doctor'' - And driven by his son in drag races.
''Never been raced'' - Former owner too embarrassed.
''Low Mileage Car'' - We turned the speedometer way back.
''Driven only 11,000 miles'' - And towed the rest of the way.
''Fair condition'' - Some paint is left.
''Transportation car'' - Some car is left.
''Rebuilt Engine'' - We cleaned the spark plugs.
''One owner car'' - Man by the name of Hertz.
''Cream Puff'' - Was in a head-on collision with a milk truck.
''Undercoated'' - With rust.
''Second car'' - There were only two cars in the race.
''Doesn't burn oil'' - It drips out before it has a chance to burn.
''Reconditioned'' - With the cheapest seat covers we could find.
''As is'' - Bring your own shovel.
''Must be sold this week'' - The Health Department is getting nasty again. 

(Found in Pilgrim Press Brochure)

* * * * * * * *

According to Proverbs, the fool believes everything he hears.

Use Rigorous Logic and Sound Reasoning...

Logic is the beginning of wisdom; not the end. (Spock, in Star Trek VI Final Frontier) 

* * * * * * * *

Warren Buffett, America's greatest investor, said, ''One piece of advice I got at Columbia from Ben Graham that I've never forgotten: You're neither right nor wrong because other people agree with you. You're right because your facts are right and your reasoning is right. That's the only thing that makes you right.'' (Warren Buffett quoted by Andrew Kilpatrick in ''Of Permanent Value'')

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Some people make huge judgments out of limited experience. For example, they have a bad experience at one church and conclude that therefore avoid all churches. As Mark Twain said,

I hear experts train bankers to detect counterfeit money by thoroughly acquainting them with the real money. They master what authentic money feels like, how the fine detail looks, etc. Because the more they know the look and feel of the real thing, the more likely they are to spot a forgery when it comes along. So, the best way to spot lies and inaccuracies is to familiarize ourselves with facts and truth. 

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Warren Buffett, America's most successful investor, said of how he has been successful in an arena (the stock market) where most seem ruled by emotion. ''I'm rational. Plenty of people have higher IQs and plenty of people work more hours, but I'm rational about things. You have to be able to control yourself; you can't let your emotions get in the way of your mind.'' (Reynolds, Simon, ed. Thoughts of Chairman Buffett, Harper Business, New York, NY: 1998.)

Don't Be Gullible...

Received via E-mail -

Scam Warning

I hate it went people forward too many warnings as much as anyone, but this one is important!

Send this warning to everyone you know, friends and enemies!

If someone comes to your front door saying they are conducting a survey on deer ticks and asks you to take your clothes off and dance around, do not do it!

IT IS A SCAM; they only want to see you naked!

I wish I'd gotten this yesterday. I feel so stupid now.

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In case you haven't noticed, we're growing up in the middle of a knowledge revolution. More information has been produced in the past 30 years than in the previous 5000. Now the amount of information available in the world's libraries and computers doubles every 5 to 8 years. (Reader's Digest, July '85, and Michael J. McCarthy, Mastering the Information Age, from tape series) Yet, in the midst of the knowledge revolution, we seem to have a wisdom deficit. It's like people can't distinguish the truth from the lies, the wacky from the wise. For example,

In March, 1997, 39 people committed mass suicide. They were all members of a New Age cult called ''Heaven's Gate,'' which taught that people could rise to a ''Level Beyond Human'' by riding a spaceship into the heavens. ''What a senseless tragedy?'' most people would say. ''If only they had been educated enough to know better.'' But that's the catch. Some of them were educated. LaDonna was a successful 37-year-old computer programming whiz and outstanding violinist. Margaret was so brilliant that she graduated from the University of California at Berkeley in three years with a triple major in math, German and computer science. (Written by Steve Miller, Copyright January, 2003. Source: USA TODAY, March 31, 1997, p. 2A)

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A young man applied for a job at an ad agency. He was told, ''Your resume is fill of distortions, half-truths, and bald lies. Welcome aboard!''

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Advertising may be described as the science of arresting human intelligence long enough to get money from it. --Stephen Leacock

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Don't Miss the Obvious...

The legendary detective Sherlock Holmes and his friend Dr. Watson were going camping. They pitched their tent under the stars and went to sleep. Sometime in the middle of the night Holmes wakes Watson up. 

''Watson, look up at the stars, and tell me what you deduce.'' 

Watson says, ''I see millions of stars, and if there are millions of stars, and if even a few of those have planets, it's quite likely there are some planets like Earth, and if there are a few planets like Earth out there, there might also be life.'' 

Holmes replies, ''Watson, you idiot, somebody stole our tent!''

Learn to Distinguish Good Sources from Bad

Your education has been a failure no matter how much it has done for your mind, if it has failed to open your heart.  (J.A. Rosenkranz)

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Some people seem to think that the sole answer to youth's problems is: ''Get a good education.'' But education alone isn't enough. Let me tell you about a guy named Ted.

You'd think that Ted had a bright future. He was so brilliant that he was able to skip two grades, graduate from Harvard University (one of the top schools in the world), and win a prize for his doctoral thesis. So it was no surprise that he landed a job teaching math at prestigious Berkeley University. But before you take him on as a role model of wisdom seeking, hear out the rest of the story. He became famous in 1996, not as a Math whiz, but when detectives discovered that he had been mailing pipe bombs to people over a period of 18 years, wounding 23 people and killing three. His full name is Ted Kaczynski, the infamous ''Unabomber.'' (Newsweek, April 22, 1996, ''Blood Brother,'' by Evan Thomas, pp. 28ff.)