A New Paradigm for the World

You are Smarter Than You Think

November 6, 2006

Within your mind is a bank of biological electro-chemical supercomputers that would make Cray Computer Corporation envious.  Your brain has over 100 million neurons, each with phenomenally more processing speed and power than the fastest supercomputer in existence today.  Each neuron is essentially a microscopic computer processor; each neuron has the added advantage of being connected to 10,000 other neurons. 

For anyone with computer experience, imagine the power of ten thousand Cray supercomputers as parallel processors to solve equations, do weather simulation, flight simulations, and solve mathematical formulas.  Now imagine that power multiplied by a million times.  Now imagine 100 million such computers interconnected this way.  This is the fantastic processing speed and power of the human mind with which we decide which shoes to wear with a burgundy dinner outfit.

The self help industry repeats statements of human potential and capability with the fervor of a monk seeking enlightenment.  What did you think the last time someone told you that you have no limits?   You agree in principle, but after several blind alleys in life's maze, you forget.  You really do have no limits.  If you even had one Cray supercomputer you'd be the big kid on the block.  You have 100 million of them, yet indulge in self-limiting thoughts that keep you from believing your potential.

Give Your Heckler the Boot

Finding and eliminating your limiting thoughts is the first step to reaching your potential.  If you want to unpack the mental baggage that prevents you from being what you could be, log onto Google and search for affirmations.  Take a list of affirmations, read them one by one, and note your response. Write down your response next to the affirmation without giving it a lot of thought.  The more you do the better. 

What you'll see is what you "really" think about yourself.   This negative self-talk runs over and over in our heads like a mantra. It programs the most powerful computer in the universe to create the reality that becomes true for us.  Read your list of responses. 

Is this what you would want to tell an impressionable young child you were teaching?  What if your boss, your spouse or best friend said these things repeatedly to you?  My guess is you'd quickly find new associates.  What do you suppose the result is of such comments on your happiness, self confidence, peace of mind and success?

Consider the following examples.

            AFFIRMATION                                            SELF RESPONSE

1. I am wealthy                                        1. I'm not rich

2. I'm calm and healthy                         2. I hope these cigarettes don't kill me

3. I am joyful                                            3. Except for this damn headache

4. I am a good person                           4. When I'm asleep

5. I deserve to be happy                        5. That's not true

6. I work hard                                           6. I've got to get off my ass and do more

7. I enjoy life                                             7. God I'm tired of feeling this way

8. I have a magnetic personality          8. What a crock, I barely have any friends

9. I am a genius                                      9. Yeah, when pigs fly

Another example of the heckling section we often have in our heads is our response to compliments:

            COMPLIMENT                                            SELF RESPONSE

1. You look really nice                           1. I haven't even brushed my hair

2. I really appreciate your efforts         2. Are you being sarcastic?

3. That roast was awesome                3. They're just being nice, it just a roast

4. You really get a lot done                   4. I've got to finish that report today

5. You're really smart                             5. You've got to be kidding me.

Take the last compliment; you're really smart.  Remember the mental tools that we discussed at the beginning of this report.  Has anyone developed the machine that can play catch with a young boy, paint a sunset, sing in the shower, read someone's expression and body language,  throw a newspaper onto a porch from a moving bicycle, throw a basketball through a hoop, or hug a child!  Each of these activities requires millions of calculations in a microsecond.  YOU'RE REALLY SMART!

Just finding this negative self-talk, helps to lessen its' impact.  Sun light is a wonderful disinfectant.  Using repeated positive affirmations while listening to your inner voices respond gives you a tool to question the negative self talk and start reducing it. 

Why Not Believe in Yourself?

To give you an example of self-limiting beliefs and their impact, I want you to complete a simple calculation. Multiply 65 X 65 without a calculator or paper.  Most people faced with this problem do one of two things.  They start looking at it the way they were taught in school: "5 times 5 is 25 carry the 2, 5 times 6 is thirty, etc."   Or, they don't even try.  Wait a minute, there is a better way.  I'll show you. 

 The Vedas, called the complete book of knowledge, were written in India thousands of years ago.  The mathematical section, consisting of 16 Sutras (rules), was dismissed by scholars as nonsense. In the early 1900's an Indian scholar studied these rules over a period of six years to understand their secrets.  He decoded each Sutra and discovered a different way of doing mathematics that is fun, easy, and intuitive and makes complex calculations child's play.

•·        65x65=4225

So how did I do that? Any two 2 digit number with the same first 2 digits and where the last 2 digits add to 10, can be multiplied as follows: Multiply the first numbers times itself plus 1.

•·        6x (6+1) = 6x7 = 42

This is the left portion on the answer.

Now, multiply the right 2 numbers together.

•·        5x5 = 25

This is the right portion on the answer.

Thus the answer:

•·        65x65 = 4225

Try the following.  Remember, just moments ago you were certain that you couldn't do this easily.

55x55=

43x47=

98x92=

25x25=

84x86=

How did you do?  Check it with a calculator or do it the way you learned in school.  If you have a few mistakes the first time, wonderful.  Thomas Edison was asked if his experiments' failure to produce success made him feel like a failure.  He replied, "No, I've discovered 10,000 ways not to invent the electric light bulb." 

If you have a few mistakes, review the example again.  Make up some more problems to try until you've gotten it. Remember, this example only works for two digit numbers that have the same first number and where the last two digits add to ten.

Vedic Math is a different way of learning math, a paradigm shift.  My simple example doesn't scratch the surface of quick Vedic mental math techniques.   If you're interested in learning more Vedic Math techniques, there are E-books and website with detail about Vedic Mathematics.  Look it up on your favorite search engine.

My eleven year old son, Tom, just started learning Vedic Math two weeks ago.  He can multiply any pair of two digit numbers, multiply any size number by a similar number as long as it is close to a base number such as 10, 100, 1000, 10,000, 100,000 or 1000,000,000 and add or subtract any number regardless of size, all in his head. 

On our last trip to Wal-Mart he added up all the items purchased as we picked them up in the store.  At the checkout he was off by only one penny, all in his head.  With a small amount of practice, you can learn to do all mathematics in your head.  An unanticipated side benefit of the techniques is that three weeks later you'll still remember that a pound of Little Smokies cost $3.34 last time you bought them.

All self-limiting beliefs are the same as believing you can't multiply two digit numbers in your head.  Your belief creates your reality and the supercomputer in your head starts churning out exactly what you expect.  You don't even try things you don't believe you are capable of doing.  If you do try, you either fail or act in ways to derail your success before it gets too far away from your belief structure.   It's a prime example of the old saying, "The apple doesn't fall too far from the tree."

Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf

Fear often underlies limiting thoughts.  Fear of failure, success, emotional or physical pain often stops us from even trying many things we are capable of doing.  All animals are motivated to achieve pleasure and avoid pain.  In a greater sense, nature has endowed us with a self guidance or self-conditioning system that is pro-life and anti-death.

We eat, have sex, and form friendships, because it's pleasurable to do so.  We don't pick up hot coals, jump off high places, or walk in front of moving vehicles because it's painful to do so.  All human actions are naturally driven toward pleasure and away from pain.

You might disagree, saying, "What about suicide, or any other obviously self destructive behavior?"  In every case, the action taken is perceived as less painful than the alternatives apparent to the person acting self destructively.  People commit suicide because they are in mental or physical pain that appears to them to be worse to endure than death.  Even people who mutilate themselves do so to create pain to take their mind off severe emotional pain they do not want to experience.  All human action at the deepest level is motivated by receiving pleasure and avoiding pain. 

Fear of success; can that be fear of pain?  Why wouldn't we ask for a raise, or get a different job, if we are capable and are worth more than we are being paid?  In short, fear.  The question is, fear of what?  Fear we won't get the job.  Fear a new business will fail. 

Failing can be more painful than being stuck in a dead-end job with no rewards.  Or maybe we think if we try and are successful, our friends will be jealous.  Maybe we won't fit in anymore.  Losing a friendship can be very painful.

I still remember outfits from college, faded, grubby, and worn out blue jeans with a faded army surplus or chambray work shirt; the more holes, the better.  I had much nicer clothes, but didn't wear them so I could fit in.  It wasn't until I made different friends that I started dressing differently.

If you'd like to change or do something new and the idea makes you uncomfortable, try this technique.  It has been used successfully on post-traumatic stress disorders, phobias, panic disorders, and fears of all kind.

First, imagine the situation that makes you fearful.  Imagine that you are watching yourself instead of seeing yourself in first person, from within your body.  This is called disassociation.  I love to watch sprint car races.  Watching those little cars skid and bounce around a quarter mile dirt track amid the smell of burning oil, gasoline and rubber is a great vicarious thrill.  But, I would be scared witless to drive one of those cars in competition at 140 miles per hour. 

Public speaking is a common fear.  However, we seldom get nervous when watching or listening to someone else talk.  Choose a fear you want to eliminate.  Imagine watching yourself doing that activity.  Watching you do something takes the emotional sting out of the situation.  Imagine saying things like, "He looks really uncomfortable.  He's gripping that podium so hard his knuckles are white."  It works even better if you visualize the situation in black and white.

Visualize the fearful situation all the way through to the end then stop the picture.  Imagine you can jump into that picture in full color with as many senses (touch, hearing, taste, smell and sight) activated as possible.  Then run the visualization backwards in your head in 1.5 seconds, in super high speed rewind. 

This isn't something you have to do over and over.  Usually, using this technique once or twice will eliminate irrational fears.  You learn very quickly.  It didn't take years to be afraid of snakes, elevators, or public speaking.  It doesn't take long to eliminate these fears either.

My daughter Revae has some difficulty reading.  I look at this as a sign of genius.  Einstein hardly learned to talk before he started school.  She is getting it, but still lacks self confidence. She was really scared if a book had paragraphs.  To eliminate this fear, we used this technique. 

I said, "Revae, let's play an imagination game."  Close your eyes and imagine that we have a time machine.  She closed her eyes.  Can you see it I asked?  "Yes," she replied.  I asked her to describe it.  She described an egg shaped apparatus with doors.  It was yellow, green, pink and purple. "What do the operator's controls look like?" I asked.  She said, "There are a purple triangle, pink rectangle, green heart and a yellow circle, some horses and a gold lever."

"Okay Revae, you drive.  Imagine we are going forward in time to next month.  Stop the time machine in front of school," I instructed.  I told her that when you travel in time other people can't see you because you're in another dimension.  "When you time travel, everything is black and white, Revae."

 "Let's go to your class." I suggested.  "Look Revae you're reading to the class.  You're reading Wizard of Oz.  Look, everyone is listening and enjoying the story.  Revae, you read the whole story to the class and they enjoyed it so much that they are all standing up clapping for you.  Don't get too close to yourself in future time." I told her.  "If you do, you'll get sucked back through time to the present."

Oops! Revae you're too close!  Everything is in bright colors again.  Time's going backwards. You're walking backwards to get on the school bus.  The bus pulls out of the parking space backwards.  It's driving backwards down the road.  You walk backwards into the house.  Mom is un-cooking bacon.  When she's done she's putting it back into the refrigerator uncooked.  You're in the bathroom.  REVAE! DON'T FLUSH THE STOOL!   

Revae literally rolled on the floor laughing hysterically.  Silly, wasn't it?  Exactly!  Running time backward in your head is silly.  It makes the fear seem silly and irrelevant.

This is similar to imagining donkey ears on your most critical and difficult authority figure, it's silly.  The day after this technique, Revae completely read a book with paragraphs for the first time.

Appreciate Your Fear

A very important understanding about any emotion is that all emotions (fear, sadness, happiness, anger) stem from the principle of pleasure and pain.  In every case negative emotions are signs that you perceive pain or loss.  Likewise, joy and happiness spring from perceptions of gain or pleasure. 

Thus, negative emotions should be welcomed as normal and evidence of your desire for happiness.  Even irrational fears are an indication you want only good things for yourself.  Before you try to eliminate a fear, thank yourself for the self interest these emotions demonstrate.  Evaluate the fear in terms of cost benefits.  Open your mind to all alternative and look for what you gain and lose.

For example, a friend told me that she was ashamed to ride her horse last weekend because she felt too fat.  I asked her what she was afraid of in the situation.  She said that she was afraid that she would look ridiculous and be made fun of by her friends. 

I said, "It's painful to be humiliated, isn't it?"  She agreed.  I suggested that she thank herself for not wanting to feel the pain of ridicule.  This emotion was evidence that she cared deeply for herself and wanted what was best for her.  She should be proud of efforts to protect herself and avoid pain. 

I then asked her if it was also painful to miss riding, as this is an activity she loves.  She agreed it was.  I suggested that the shame she felt about being overweight was just as painful whether or not she rode her horse.  

She didn't go riding, which she loves, to prevent others' ridicule.  However, she still felt all the pain of her own self condemnation about weight.  I then asked her if she really thought anyone really would have made fun of her.  She conceded probably not.  I suggested that she negotiate with her closest ally (herself) to see if she could see things differently and go riding next time.  She agreed.  Everyone craves appreciation, not shame, especially from themselves.

Accepting emotional pain is the first step in releasing it.  If you reject it, it persists.  It has been said that all emotional illness is the result of failure to accept legitimate emotional pain.  A very effective free training to reduce figurative emotional constipation is available on the internet.  Search for Emotional Freedom Technique.  This technique involves positive affirmation and a tapping on various pressure points while repeating affirmations that you totally accept yourself despite the unwanted condition.  It seems silly at first.  Maybe that's why it works.  You think a lot clearer when you lose the knot in your stomach.  But, you already knew that didn't you.  See you are smart!

You Can Think Like Einstein

You have the same mental potential as Albert Einstein, Nikola Tesla, Amadeus Mozart, Ludwig Von Beethoven, Henry Ford, Mohandas Gandhi, Andrew Carnegie, Thomas Edison, and Leonardo DaVinci.  There is very little difference between your brain and a genius's.  So why aren't we smarter?  We are. We just don't know how to develop and access that genius.

Albert Einstein was considered slow, a dunce, and even retarded all during school.  He had such difficulty learning to speak that his family feared that he might never learn.  He was expelled from high school, initially flunked his college entrance examination, and did poorly in college.  Einstein stated that he very seldom thought in words at all.  He thought primarily in visual images and feelings.  The theory of relativity did not develop from complex mathematical calculations and detailed physics.  It came from visualizing himself riding a beam of light through the cosmos.

The accepted physics theory at the time was that nothing could travel faster than the speed of light.  Einstein imagined himself riding a beam of light through the universe holding a mirror in his hand.  He simply wondered if he would be able to see himself in the mirror.  If he could, of course, the light reflected off his face must be traveling faster than the speed of light.  How else could he see himself, since he was traveling at the speed of light already?  This change in perception provided the foundation upon which all the other building blocks for the theory of relativity were laid.

His technique for visualizing was very simple.  He sat in a comfortable chair in a very relaxed meditative state holding a rock in each hand.  The rocks were to wake him up if he fell asleep as he was visualizing.  He watched the images in his head, still and moving pictures, and effectively learned to directly access his subconscious mind.  With this process he formed many more connections between the right and left hemispheres of his brain.

Upon Einstein's death, coroner Dr. Thomas Harvey removed and kept Einstein's brain. He studied it to discover the secret of Einstein's genius.  Neurons do not reproduce after birth.  However, unlike neurons, axons and dendrites (the connections between neurons) can continue to increase throughout life.  The more we learn, the more these connections are formed.  Likewise, if we cease learning, these connections wither away. 

While Dr. Harvey was unsuccessful, a colleague, Marian Diamond, found a high concentration of glial cells indicating increased interconnection and heightened communication between Einstein's neurons, the microscopic supercomputers of the brain.

The prolific inventor, Nikola Tesla, also had a peculiar difficulty when he was young.  He would see actual visualizations.  Things he imagined were so vivid that he had difficulty differentiating them from reality.  He searched his mind to find the cause of these mental specters as he tried to eliminate them. 

He first attempted to make the pictures go away by thinking about something else and was moderately successful.  However, he had to continue to think about the substitute idea indefinitely or the visualization would come back.  Finally, he traced the visualization back to the thoughts that preceded it.  With sustained mental effort, he was able to find the visions' source and control it.

As he grew older, this disability became an asset.  He actually visualized his inventions as clearly as if they were real.  He visualized operating his invention without drawing the idea or creating a working model.  His mental creations were so vivid that he could even tell if a motor's design would be out of balance.  He would modify and test the design mentally until perfected.  In every instance, each invention worked exactly as he had visualized without further modifications. 

Napoleon Hill was commissioned by Andrew Carnagie to interview countless successful wealthy capitalists.  These creative geniuses took America from an agricultural society to an industrial giant.  In each case these men talked of visualizing what they desired to create.  They saw their objectives as if they already existed.  Essentially all creation begins in the mind.  Reaching those goals required strong desire coupled with visualization and faith that they could achieve their objective. 

The working of your mind is too broad a subject to be covered by this article.  However, the common denominator of all great minds, inventors, successful businessmen, and creative genius is the ability to visualize.  What's the point of this?  Every genius ever born was primarily right brained, they thought in pictures not words.  In short, they accessed their subconscious mind.  

You're Not Upset, For The Reason You Think

Win Wenger's book, The Einstein Factor, contains instruction for a technique called image streaming.  This technique increases access to one's subconscious mind.  Meditation also helps obtain the quiet state necessary to see mental pictures and build your powers of perception.  Visualization requires a very calm mental state.  But, when was the last time you experienced a very calm state?

I'll use myself as a prime example.  For years I have had a violent temper.  I spent most of my adult life stumbling from one upset to another pointing toward external conditions, people's action, or something someone said or did as the cause of my upsets.  I suffered severe depressions.  I wrestled suicidal thoughts during my younger years.  Although I didn't know it, I also had tormenting critical inner voices that destroyed my peace of mind. 

As a result of an accident, my left arm was amputated at age fourteen.  I actually never acknowledged my loss.  I was determined that I would not be limited by this disability.  I excelled in high school; ran track, went to state track meet all four years of high school, played football, was homecoming king, played basketball, graduating second in my class as student council vice president and class president. 

In the summer of 1972 as a teenager, I started a contract painting business.  That same determination led me to work incessantly.  The first summer I painted, I worked thirty days straight from daylight until dusk to insure the success of my venture. 

I'll always remember the first day I took off.  I was painting a house just outside Williamson, Iowa.  I had plugged the tip of my airless sprayer.  I was so intent on my productivity that I would accept no interruption to insure that I was the most productive, least expensive, best painter in southern Iowa.

In my haste to take the spray gun for service, I backed over 5 gallons of Iowa Oil Base 1500 Series paint. I had negotiated the lowest possible price with the wholesaler, but I still paid roughly $7.00 a gallon.  Man, was I pissed.  Thirty five dollars is not much, but what a mess.  I went to The Captain's Lounge in Chariton, Iowa on the corner of the town square and got gloriously, rip-roaringly drunk.

The business soared.  In my second year, I grossed over $6000 in a single month, not bad for a one armed farm boy from a poor county in southern Iowa.  I considered $4000 per month a total failure.  I paid for all of my college expenses and took a nice vacation each year and had extra money to burn.  In 1974 I bought my first new car a Chevy El Camino for $4200.  I goaded myself like a slave driver with the buried rage at my disability while never even privately acknowledging it to myself.

Until recently, that rage was the one constant in my life.  I had been intensely studying the human mind. It all started with a book I'd ordered from a mail order solicitation, The Nouveau-Tech Discovery.  I focused on the benefits promised, and the magical things pledged if only I bought this book.  I don't recall if it named the Neo-Tech Discovery specifically, but the letter stated that if I purchased the product my life would change.

I must have been desperate.  I sent for the material. When I got it, there was so much of it that was in concert with my view of reality, I couldn't put it down. For the first time, I had the life owner's manual I'd looked for.  It lit me on fire. I became obsessed with finding the secret for maximizing my human potential. 

I read and studied incessantly everything I could get my hands on about personal transformation, eliminating limiting beliefs, and healing emotional pain.  I scoured the internet for more information.  I got computer programs for enhancing mental functioning, audio affirmation tapes, guided meditations, books on emotional intelligence and brain function.  This article is the outgrowth of that effort.

There are no small emotional upsets!  Each time I raged, got depressed, or rejected reality; I lost access to my inner power.  I literally lost my mind.  I was mad, insane even.   I couldn't see alternatives to my viewpoint.  I couldn't access my higher reasoning and thinking capacity.  I was stuck.  I was a cave man battling a rival clan.

Think of it this way.  When you look at something, do you really see it as it is now?  The answer is no.  Your mind understands everything by past association.  When I look at a coffee cup do I see it?  No, I don't.  What I see are associations.  I see the 345,472 coffee cups I've seen in my life.  These were in the past.  In a microsecond my fabulous interconnection of neurons, axons, dendrites, and glial cells process the retinal image, compares it to images in my memory, sorts them for relevance, meaning, associations, emotional content, and forms judgments about what I see. 

Did any of those 345,472 images happen now?  Were the relevance, meaning, associations, emotional content, and judgments formed in the present?  No, they were all formed in the past.  I really didn't see the cup at all; I saw all my past associations to the cup.  I didn't really think about or understand this cup at all.  I was thinking about the past, but the past isn't here anymore.  So I wasn't really thinking was I?  I was thinking about nothing.  I never really thought before.  I was a robot responding to my program.

The same is true in situations where I felt emotional upset.  I always looked outside myself for cause, never inside.  My paradigm never allowed looking at the real source of the upset, my distorted thinking.  When someone did something I disapproved, I criticized them.  They were the problem, I was upset consequently.  But I was wrong.  I couldn't see the reality that I chose my response.  My turmoil prevented me from seeing better alternatives than my own.  It was within my power to choose my response.  I never understood that I had that choice.  The programming in the most fabulous computer in the universe had a virus. 

What happened when I criticized my wife, employees, or children?  Did they mend their ways, seek to improve, start working to do what I wanted?  Sometimes they did.  More often they didn't.  People told me that my criticism was painful.  They resented it.  I was attacking them.  They naturally defended themselves.  They were motivated to avoid pain.  Often they retaliated, so I upped the volume to attempt a mental form of shock and awe to force them to succumb to my version of reality. 

Everyone wants to feel good about themselves, but we loose ourselves in the words.  Self esteem, self actualization, finding your voice, vision, and mystical hocus pocus such as, "Pride goeth before a fall."  What a crock!  People are supposed to be ashamed of themselves to succeed?  Get real!  Yet what was I doing?  I was shaming them.  The only consistent way to get someone to do what you want is to get them to want to do it.

So did I make anyone want to do what I asked?  No, I created wars, conflict, rage, and resentment.  Any message I tried to convey amid the criticism got drowned out by their rationalizations.  Emotionally, my life was figuratively one giant barroom brawl with everyone I contacted.  In the process, I lost access to the bank of super computers in my head.  I was out of my mind.  My world consisted of conflict, anger, resentment, fear, doubt, and lack.  And, I gave a piece of it to anyone I contacted.

Instead of respect, I gave criticism.  Instead of wanting to do what I wanted, people resisted my ideas and avoided me.  Instead of forming friendships, and close associations, I drove people away with criticisms and condescension.  I avoided my intense inner pain by passing the dirty end of the stick to someone else.  I made people ashamed of themselves and they treated me like the pariah I was.

B.F. Skinner, the renowned behavioral scientist, studied learning using rewards with one group of mice and punishment with another group.  The outcome was what you would expect, the group of mice rewarded learned much more quickly than those given punishment.

When I discussed the idea of respect, non-criticism, rewarding good behavior, encouraging, eliminating emotional violence, I was told, "Sure, it'll work for some of our employees, the good ones.  It'll never work for everyone.  Some of our employees are so worthless we have to punish them.  Otherwise, they'll never do what we want."

The idea is simple and has been expressed a hundred times throughout history. Examples are: "You get what you give.  Do unto others as you would have them to do unto you.  Be the change you seek."  When implemented, these ideas create cooperation, respect, peace, self respect, confidence, happiness, access to your subconscious mind, even genius, where once there was only conflict.

Solutions are no longer win-lose, they are win-win.  Rather than some uneasy compromise, the difference in opinion is an asset allowing a new way of looking at the world that can create paradigms shifts that allow synergistic solutions that are better than either party expected when they negotiate from fixed positions instead of with respect, compassions and consideration.

The Power of Believing in People

The genius inherent in this type paradigm shift is obvious in the recent Nobel Prize. Professor Muhammad Yunus won the 2006 Nobel Prize for his vision in establishing the Grameen Bank.  His idea was a radically different approach to banking.  Grameen Bank loans to very poor people, even beggars. 

Professor Yunus walked to school past people nearly reduced to human skeletons.  As he saw the poverty around him he thought there must be something he could do.  Steven Covey's book The Eighth Habit details the thinking and mental processes that led to the development of this bank. 

Professor Yunus and a graduate student talked to the villagers to discover their financial situation.  One lady worked for a penny a day making woven baskets.  When asked why she did not sell the baskets elsewhere, she replied she did not have twenty five cent to buy the reeds for the baskets.  The man who provided her the reeds required her to sell her products to him at almost no profit.

Professor Yunus found many people who needed just a few cents or a few dollars to improve their life and start becoming independent and productive.  He distributed $27 throughout the village.  He told the villagers it was a loan, and they must pay it back.  The people were very excited.  They began improving their situation, and surprisingly started paying back the loans.

Yunus became very excited.  When he tried to get bankers to loan money to poor people, they laughed at him.  He guaranteed the loans to try to prove to the bankers that poor people could be trusted.  When the loans were repaid, the bankers said the results were a discrepancy.  It wouldn't work in five villages.  So he went to five villages and it worked.   The bankers would not be convinced.  So to further his vison of micro-credit's potential to reduce misery and poverty in rural India, he formed Grameen Bank

Today, Grameen Bank has 6.74 million borrowers, 97 percent of whom are women. All loans are very small to very poor customers. Contrary to expectations, default rates are very small.  It has a loan recovery rate of 99% and has disbursed $5.7 billion in loans since inception.  This is prime example of the tranforming power of believing in people.

Steven Covey defines leadership as seeing a people's potential so clearly that they begin to see your vision themselves.  Think of the potential productivity improvement if this perspective were adopted where you work.  What would happen if people were treated as valued partners instead of liabilities, if they were listened to instead of directed, and were treated with respect? 

Can you imagine the difference this vision would create in your spouse, your children, your workplace, your community?  Who needs to change?  Everyone claims to be a people person, but think.  Do you know even one?  I certainly wasn't, until I saw the world in a new light.  It took me over half a decade to reach this perception shift.  I cannot yet describe the view from the other side.  For the first time I see a future bright with promise, joy, and prosperity.  I truly hope this has given you a small glimpse of that world, a bright beautiful future, a Civilization of the Universe.

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