"As a man thinketh...

...in his heart so is he."  A quote taken from an essay written by James Allen and published in 1902.

How powerful is this simple phrase.

If you want to be, whatever it is you want to be, the first thing that precedes it is a thought.  That thought is followed by other similar thoughts which will soon be followed by action, and action is the source of becoming.

"Sow a thought and you reap an action; sow and act and you reap a habit; sow a habit and you reap a character; sow a character and you reap a destiny." -- Ralph Waldo Emerson.

If you want to be a positive person, think positive thoughts, do positive things, and become a positive person.  It really is that simple.

I have read somewhere that all it takes to be an optimist or to be a pessimist is to have one more thought one way versus the other.

Just one thought makes all the difference.

Want to know how to add power to this new knowledge?  Here it is...

You have the power of choice.  You choose.  You make the difference.

Decide today that you can be that person you want to be, then do it.

If you decide to take up the challenge, and I hope you do, realize that it isn't always easy, especially if you have allowed yourself to be programmed with negative self talk and negative automatic responses, but I promise you this...YOU CAN DO IT.  You have to actively reprogram your thoughts to be positive and you have to actively reprogram your automatic responses to be positive.  If your thoughts start going the wrong way, recognize it for what it is, faulty programming.  Purposefully stop those thoughts cold in their tracks and forcefully replace them only with the positive thoughts that you decide are the only ones worthy of your attention.

You may not be able to control all that goes on outside you and around you, but your head is your own so own your thoughts.  You have it within you, I know it.  No need to wait.  Start being who you are meant to be today.  You know what a better you is, and if you need someones permission I give you permission to be the better you.  You are worth it.

This is Ed Nef with a view from the Farrwest.

Summer Reading - Stephen Colbert

It used to be that this time of year would bring plenty of references to what to read at the beach or something along those lines.  I haven't seen as much of it this year which is fine because I didn't pay a whole lot of attention to those list anyway figuring they were just paid advertisements in most cases.

Instead I would look for and spend my time on whatever caught my fancy.  This is generally bad for my wallet when I come in close proximity to a bookstore as many things catch my fancy...and the basement is full of boxes of books that didn't retain my fancy...don't tell my wife because most of them still catch my fancy just not at the moment...I am going to read them, I promise...just don't make me come up with a deadline.  Besides, I have learned how to flatten my borrowing card from the library instead of flattening my credit card at the bookstore.

Anyway, I am still reading like crazy and have covered a lot of different topics in a lot of different genres from a lot of different books.  Some are worth the time and effort and many are not.  I think time and experience helps immensely when it comes time to decide your reading material by judging a book by it's cover.

I got sucked in though by Stephen Colbert's 'America Again: Re-becoming the Greatness We Never Weren't' book.  I didn't actually read this one, I got the audio book version and made him read it to me.  As this one came out in October 2012 you can tell I am not hung up on having the latest and greatest but I would like to have the greatest.  This one is sadly far from the mark.

I have enjoyed Stephen Colbert's sense of humor for quite some time now and although I don't always agree with his politics (come on people, you have to realize by now that his show is a caricature of a conservative talk show not the real thing) you could still see and appreciate the humor in what he did.  Unfortunately as the show went on he would resort to more crude and vulgar humor.  This book follows that format.

There are some good points made some of which provoke thought but then the low brow stuff is injected and you can't increase the play speed fast enough to get to the next section hoping for better.  Thankfully it is a short book.

Which leads me to wonder what Stephen Colbert will be like as the replacement for David Letterman.  It has been said that he will drop the current character he plays on his show.  Does that mean he will now have a pronounceable "T" on the end of his name?  Since it is Letterman's production company, I am sure he had say in the selection, did David pick Stephen because his politics are more closely aligned and how close will the marching orders be to keep it that way?

You can never replace what you once had and I for one do not believe you should try to.  It is like trying to do a remake of the Three Stooges, it will never match the original so don't bother.  Instead search for the new originality in the same genre and if there is enough love it just might stick.  These two are very smart and talented people who should be able to figure it out as long as they don't egos and self importance get in the way.  Right now I am giving them a 40% chance.  What they do is not easy and lately they have been slacking off a bit but I am willing to give them a shot.  How about you?

This is Ed Nef with a view from the Farrwest.

Walmart and Visa debit card create big time fail

I generally like Walmart and have done much business with them.  I haven't been caught up in all the chatter about how 'Walmart is evil' which seems to be mostly a hate story merely because of their size.  You can find good and bad policy in almost every corporation in this modern day, it is mostly a matter of what you like to look for.

Bust some days, a mistake is made.  A mistake that lessons the company in the eyes of its customer's.  In this case, an attempt to purchase a couple of gift cards as birthday gifts.  Rather than getting a store specific card it was decided to get them something that could be used at any place they pleased with a Visa debit card that could be used anywhere.  How easy, how simple, how convenient.  Why not?

A transaction fee that amounted to an extra 10%, that is why not.  I was under the gun so agreed to this outrageous and inconcievable excess and am still having extreme buyers remorse for agreeing to this abusive practice.  As I sit here revealing my regrets, I realize that I could have given the original all purpose, all merchant accepted gift card that never has additional fees (hidden or otherwise) attached, never expires, and only loses value over time the same way that all currency does...and that gift card would be cash.

Will I return to Walmart?  Sure, there is still a lot of good found at Walmart, but I feel like something dear was lost...trust.  I will be skeptical about dealing with them.  I will scrutinize anything that appears to be a deal, or even any transaction that I would assume would work one way only expecting to find the fine print hiding somewhere that makes it feel like the proverbial internet scam rather than trusting it too be a straight up deal.  Things change, companies change, people change, relationships change and when they do we go back to square one and have to rebuild from scratch the things that are lost.

Business that works is business that is mutually beneficial to all parties involved.  When business becomes one sided it can quickly diminish into none existence and that is a shame of the highest order.  It happens to the big boys and it can happen to the little ones as well.  Be sure your integrity and those who represent you is of the highest order in all you do and you will have little to worry about.

This is Ed Nef with a view from the Farrwest.