Be Comfortable in Your Own Skin – by Gary S. Smolker

Copyright © Gary S. Smolker 2014

Updated June 28, 2014

The only thing that matters is how one feels in one’s own space.

It is very important to be comfortable in your own skin.

As a result of people striving to be comfortable in their own skin -to enrich their own lives- many significant changes are taking place.

 

ONLY YOU CAN BE COMFORTABLE IN YOUR OWN SKIN

We are living in a time of large scale social change, marked by creativity, innovation, questioning of authority, rugged individualism, concern for self, the emancipation of women, changing demographics, wide scale use of smart phones and many other significant life style transformations.

Today, people are devoting significant amounts of their personal time and energy focused on themselves.  Many people are making strong efforts to take charge of their own individual future.

Today, a developing emphasis on the individual and individual responsibility is growing, the power of authority over the individual is constantly being questioned and reassessed, the traditional authority relationship between men and women – granting authority to the men – is undergoing change and scrutiny, and there are significant changes in the racial educational and economic composition of the population in the United States.

The increased emphasis on the individual cannot be over emphasized.

Concern for individualism has vigorously appeared.

Today, compared to times past, women have attained a great deal more responsibility and freedom.

As a result of having more freedom and responsibility women have themselves come to question their traditional family and social roles and reciprocally, males have raised similar questions about male-female relationships.

As women move out of confinement to the domicile, they experience new outlets and opportunities, demand power/empowerment, respect and “equality”, and are more and more interested in change.

Improvements in methods of contraception and the increase in experiential access to opportunities outside of the home have released women for participation in new roles and functions as never before.

As a consequence of “women’s liberation”, on-going debates on issues of gender and racial equality; the government’s ever growing increase of public debt and social change, including laws regarding contraception and birth control; a cascade of new technologies; and, being bombarded by an avalanche of messages, visual images of massive disintegration of society, a steady stream of information and misinformation and ideas; and, as a result of being constantly exposed to loud acrimonious debates over different points of view, it has become impossible for anyone to live in solitude or in the past.

People Are Tired of Being Talked To, They Want to Be Talked With

The mega-trends that are shaping our times have massively accelerated.

One mega-trend is that there has been a seismic shift from presentation to participation in many areas of daily life.  People are fed up with being talked-down-to.

The shift from presentation to participation means that the days of the Gods, sitting up on Mt. Olympus and telling us how things are and what to do, are long gone or rapidly coming to an end.

People are tired of being talked to they want to be talked with.

Today, people can use technology to search for information and to have a global conversation.

People are hyper-connected: As a result of our use of the Internet and other communications technologies we all engaged in a global conversation.

We are using technology to connect with others – not just with people we already know, but with people who have similar or related interests that resonate with us – and not just to search for information.

In fact, it is estimated that 3 billion more people will join the Internet’s community by 2020.

Everyone’s perceptual space, expectations, life style and peace of mind has been shaken up.

Taking Care of Your Body and Mind

People want to feel cared for.

How does that play out in the practice of medicine?

Consider being told by an MD to put an eye-drop in your child’s eye or in your own eye.

Have you ever been told to do so by an MD?

Have you ever noticed that the eye drop falls onto your eye and/or onto your child’s eye then off your [child’s] eye and wondered how much (if any) of the eye drop actually got in the eye?

Health is “emotionally charged.”

If you are told by your physician to put an eye drop in your child’s eye and you see the drop dribbling down your child’s cheek you are going to be stressed out.

Did your physician tell you that is supposed to happen?

The moisture of an eye drop is too much for an eye to handle; part of the eye drop will ALWAYS dribble down your face or down you child’s face!   That is what is supposed to happen!

MDs, for the most part, have no clue that they should tell you that an eye drop you apply to your child’s eye will always dribble down off the eye.

Is your physician or you partially “brain dead?”

It is not “easy” to know what to communicate, or to know how to communicate or to have empathy or to show empathy.

Being “smart” is not enough.

Always ask questions if you don’t understand something!

You are in charge of your own health.

If you have a young child, you are in charge of  your child’s health.

You are in charge of your own life and your child’s life if you have a young child.

Understand Your MD’s Behavior

One of the large scale social changes being experienced today is that many people are appalled at their personal experience of how medicine is being practiced today on a day to day basis ; they are appalled at the lack of scientific curiosity, the lack of social skills, the lack of humanity, and by the medical profession’s lack of understanding of what is required and expected in a physician patient relationship and the money obsessed focus of the mindset of their MDs.

A galaxy of feelings and impressions is involved in a healthcare encounter.  The medical profession has a name for this: “patient experience.”

There is a human dimension to medical care.

If you are one of those people who are disappointed by the way your current MD practices medicine, understand why your physician acts the way your physician acts and get over your disappointment by moving forward.

If your physician is not adequately addressing your educational, emotional, spiritual needs and feelings, doesn’t make you feel cared for, move on.

You have lots of options.

Move forward because only you can be comfortable in your own skin.

We create ourselves in the everyday choices that move us in life.

It is up to us to create our own lives; it is up to us to create the life we want to live.

If you think you are not deriving “value” from your office visits with your physician: Ask your physician questions. Tell your physician you want answers to questions and/or changes in the way your physician treats you.

Demand your physician’s personal attention.

There are many physicians vying for your attention, bringing medical information to you and exposing you to them and their ways of thinking.

Magazine stands and book stores are full of publications which claim to tell you how to take care of your health.

Newspapers and TV shows and radio shows and the Internet constantly publish information on how to take care of your health.

If you can’t have a forthright conversation with your physician and/or you don’t get any satisfaction or enough satisfaction or enough value from seeing your present physician, look for another physician who is amazingly brilliant, touchingly humane, highly trained, superbly skilled, up to date on the latest research findings and medical thinking and who has a great personality, warmth, empathy, great people skills, is practical and puts you the patient first, puts your concerns, your feelings, your condition (physical and mental conditions) first.

Physicians need to treat the soul and spirit of the patient, not just the body.  In the olden days, when most doctors were solo practitioners ministering to patients, the offered patients communication and empathy as well as technical proficiency and excellence.

There are physicians that still do that: there are physicians who care about how well they communicate with patients and conduct themselves as professionals.

Caring, nurturing, knowledgeable, educated, skilled, brilliant and helpful people exist; some of them are physicians.

Even if you are not trained as a physician, you know whether or not you feel cared for.

Move Forward

Take responsibility for your own life.

Accept your “freedom.”

Don’t behave like a helpless puppet.

You are in charge.

REASONABLE EXPECTATIONS

 

Creative talent is a highly adaptive one and involves specific and complicated processes of thought.

Creativity requires an open mindedness and removal of inhibitions.

Practicing medicine, the stress on conformity in the medical profession and psychodynamic forces inherent in the practice of medicine do not encourage open-mindedness.

Many physicians have mental limitations as a consequence of studying to become a physician which are exasperated by their training and which become severely debilitating as they get further and further experienced in the daily routine of practicing medicine day to day.

A MD friend of mine recently mentioned to me that most physicians lose their dynamic sensory and information processing capabilities.

He explained to me that the memorization demands of the natural science/life sciences courses taken before and while attending medical school destroys their capacity to solve problems by thinking creatively. 

According to this friend: A physician’s creative orientation and ability, if they had any, diminishes and finally goes away as they practice medicine.

While practicing medicine their mental capability due to following standard methods which are recipe book like protocols they follow while they are engaged in their day-to-day professional work.

He explained that very few lectures, in medical school, engage a student’s mind. 

Relatedly, he explained that physicians are not taught to think innovatively so that as they work, they can gain insight into patients’ needs and strive to find new solutions. 

In summary: Young doctors are not educated to be curious researchers and inventors as well as knowledgeable, compassionate, and effective healers. 

They are not trained to be physician-investigators. 

Mind Expanding Experiences

Medical training is not entirely a boring brain deadening experience. 

Throughout basic clinical education small groups of students are presented with a realistic case study (in a hospital or elsewhere) of a patient showing special symptoms. 

The students work together to figure out what is wrong with the patient and what to do about it. 

Tasks are assigned by the instructor that allow the medical students to discover the skills and knowledge any doctor needs in treating a patient that is ill, in traditional areas such as pharmacology, anatomy, and physiology.

“Diagnosis” of medical conditions (i.e. problems) does require a limited amount of analysis, called “differential analysis” [a hit and miss way of determining the cause and/or existence of a medical problem], AFTER the problem already exists.

Because medical training revolves around lecturing and the rote presentation of facts and the practice of standard diagnosis techniques it does not foster the curiosity and inquisitiveness that great innovators commonly display.

As a result, in their every day medical practices very few physicians reach or come to medical conclusions on a particular case after completing many studies and giving a matter much thought; instead, they come to their “medical conclusion” re diagnosis and treatment by following a “one-size-fits-all” a recipe in a recipe book. 

Physicians not been trained to become lifelong learners – strong thinkers who are curious and who work proactively to satisfy their curiosity.

They have been trained (some might say programmed) to follow standard procedures – they are in effect highly trained robots, that is why the standard practice of medicine is in the midst of a huge change, it is being overtaken by innovations. 

A willingness to innovate (which is totally lacking in the standard practice of medicine) will determine the clinical, social and economic futures of medicine in the United States. 

The vast majority of the current set of physicians are not willing to innovate.

Instead, the vast majority of  physicians feel compelled to stay within “standards of medical practice” and do not question, or analyze whether such “standards of practice” make “scientific sense” or not. 

They do not experiment or have a willingness to innovate or to explore challenges to currently accepted “medical truths.” 

They are not curiously engaged humans who want to help patients by pushing medicine further.

They are discouraged from making, recording and acting on their own clinical observations which could or would lead to the establishment of new and better medical care, and new standards of care.

Being curious and then designing and caring out experiments to test ideas is one of the most satisfying uses of a mind. 

Most physicians give up their ability to engage their minds in the pleasurable and satisfying activity of doing research when they begin to practice medicine – because to them the practice of medicine is like playing a broken-slot-machine which always pays – and they “think” they will get great pleasure out of making a lot of money and that is why their focus is on making as much money as possible as quickly as possible.

In that regard, almost all medical doctors practicing medicine in the United States today tried to go into whatever medical specialty would make them the most money in the shortest period of time and are obsessed with making the most money they can make from the practice of medicine.

Another one of my MDs friends further explained to me why there is such a pronounced lack of creativity and innovation in the medical profession as follows:

• “Most MDs are one trick ponies.” 
• This friend (a highly acclaimed MD – who does not practice one trick pony medicine) further explained to me – “If you only know how to use a hammer, everything is a nail.”

Energizing the Minds of Physicians

Research projects energize students, engage them in serious science, and generate the kinds of questions that lead to new discoveries. 

A focus on medical research in the training of medical students and in medical practice would give medical students and physicians a richer, fuller appreciation of how their clinical practice fits into the larger world of scientific knowledge and which would enrich and refine their decision-making capabilities.

Adding a research requirement to their education and to maintaining their license to practice medicine would dramatically enhance medical care – help patients by pushing medicine further.

In my opinion, everyone would benefit.

Is It True that Physicians Are “Poor” Businessmen/Have No Business Sense?

Many successful business people have told me that MDs have no “business sense.”

Have you wondered why it is the general feeling among many successful business people that MDs have no business sense ?

Here are some questions I have asked myself in order to gain insight into that issue:

• QUERY:
• (1) How many physicians practicing medicine have thought about what practicing medicine has done to the functional capacity of that “muscle” in their head called their brain as a result of lack of mentally stressful mind-strength building exercise in their daily lives?
• (2) How many care?
• By the way: “Scientific” experiments demonstrate that use of the brain builds neural networks that enable the brain to process information faster and more efficiently.  In other words, using your brain makes you smarter, increases brain function.
• The old saying “use it or lose it” applies to brain function.

GIANTS IN THE MEDICAL PROFESSION

There are giants in the medical profession who are human wonders.

Also, the conventional make-up of the scientific and educational background, personality, values and world-view of a growing number of people in the medical profession is changing.

I am meeting a physician this afternoon at the check in area of jetBlue at Logan Airport in Boston before I fly back to LAX, Los Angeles International Airport.

This physician has an open mind, but that description seriously understates the reality, which is that he is totally curious and eager to learn and asks question after question.

This morning my daughter and son-in-law took my ten year old grandson to be examined by a retina specialist and a trauma eye surgeon for a follow-up examination.

The first thing the retina specialist and eye surgeon said when he saw my grandson was: “I know how to make toys.  Would you like to see me make toys?”

The surgeon then proceeded to make an origami hopping frog and a flying helicopter.  He precisely folded pieces of paper and precisely tore pieces of paper with his own fingers.

When he was done those pieces of paper had been transformed into a hopping frog and a flying helicopter.

This is a true story – someone with that dexterity and people skill actually practices medicine as an eye surgeon in Boston.

He is an expert in the retina of the eye.

The rest of the members of the clinical medical team have extraordinary expertise and are just as kind and as extremely accomplished and competent physicians as the toy making eye surgeon who made toys for my grandson just before examining his retina early this morning.

Males Being Rebuffed by Stunning Women

One young woman friend of mine [a beautiful and smart woman] rejected her parents desire that she marry a doctor because she thinks the single MDs pursuing her (young Ferrari driving money making obsessed male physicians) are too lacking in substance, she thinks they are shallow self-destructive individuals and if she dated any of them or married anyone of them she would be doomed to living a tasteless meaningless life. 

This young lady doesn’t want to have the emotional burden such physicians put on the women who prostitute themselves to gain that type of physician’s tasteless attention.

She considers their lack of “substance” to be a “sick” situation which will lead those shallow people to “self-destruction” and being in a constant state of extreme unhappiness. 

She is concerned about their mental health.

It is her opinion that those Ferrari driving young MDs did not go into medicine to help people but instead went into medicine because they are insecure and feel worthless as human beings: they will always be striving to compensate for their feelings of worthlessness and insecurity through fantasies of “greatness” which they have striven to realize by becoming a physician.

It is her opinion that her Ferrari driving young MD suitors

•  Believe they will prove their worth to their parents by being an MD.  They psychologically are not well formed or mature adults.  To the contrary, they will have a never compelling need to obtain their parents’ approval, the approval of the rest of their family and of their community and her approval by being a money making machine.

• The feeling of lack of worth has been so consuming in their lives that nothing short of overwhelming financial success will make them feel acceptable.

 

It is her opinion that those young men are unhappy and will always be unhappy.

 

For all the reasons listed above, she doesn’t want to have anything to do with any of those young suitors.

Other, dynamically accomplished women (who coincidentally are smart and stunningly beautiful) I have talked to are totally turned off by the phoniness they are being subjected to in the business and social world they inhabit. 

They feel they are “prized” by successful men as status symbols and are not adored or appreciated prized or cherished for being the warm caring persons who they are or for the good companionship and loyalty they have to offer —

• One beautiful smart successful woman explained her mindset:  She is revolted at being cast in the role being a dynamic businessman’s Gucci purse. 
• She is revolted at being a prestige high status decoration. 
• Another beautiful smart successful woman explained to me that the pressure of being phony – while accompanying her successful husband at ‘society events:  While at parties and social events the amount of phony interest she must display and being forced to be entertaining she is is too emotionally exhausting. 
• She would rather stay home and watch TV than go to another party in the star studded world she lives in.  The routine of being a member of high society is maddening.  Doing the same thing day after day, year after year, is maddening to her.  She cannot imagine anything more boring than living her present high society life. 
• The routines people in her social circle have taken up are tasteless. 
• She is a rugged individualist, who is physically fit and intellectually cultured, who can’t stand the “over-civilized life” she is forced to live. 
• The boorishness and meaninglessness of her existence tests the very limits of her endurance. 
• She is resolved to escape her present life.

 

• These women know who they are and who they want to be in a very fundamental way.
• They have self knowledge.
• They are dedicated to protecting their dignity in their money-driven every day world where their souls and status as a person are constantly under attack.
• They realize how precarious the balance is between creation and annihilation and destruction in the life they lead and in the business world they and the men in their lives inhabit.
• In that world everyone always is seeking investors and to make more money.
• In such a world everyone feels they must “look” successful.  They must spend a lot of money on clothing and cars and houses and jewelry, etc. etc. etc.
• However, the “thinking” women described above – who are moving towards becoming the persons they want to be, and have understood who they are and the psychodynamic forces at play in the world work – don’t want to be emotionally and financially dependent on a man or to be his “eye candy.”
• They are not hostile or bitter or resentful.
• Nor do they have destructive feelings.
• They know what they want.
• They want to be loved and to love; they want to receive bliss and to give bliss.
• They want to give and receive care and nurturance.
• They are not fickle.
• Their sexuality and emotions are inextricably intermingled.
• Their bodies wear the smile of accomplishment; they emote a subjective sense of freedom.

SOCIAL STATUS AND NUMBING OF A PHYSICIAN’S BRAIN 

The practice of medicine [which is viewed by brilliant people as a “game” of association] attracts “smart people” but overall does not attract or hold the attention of people with the most “brilliant” minds.

I recently flew from Los Angeles International Airport to Logan Airport in Boston.  

The person sitting next to me on my flight from LAX to BOS told me that 4 out of his 6 closest friends/classmates – fellow students at Cal Tech – “wanted” to be MDs during their freshman year at Cal Tech.

He also mentioned that after taking pre-med courses for a year or two, half of them decided they didn’t want to be MDs. 

He implied that his fellow Cal Tech undergraduate student closest friends saw the handwriting on the wall:  “Brain Death”  would happen to their brains if they continued to prepare for the practice of medicine and “heaven forbid” if they actually became practicing physicians they would lose their acute highly developed ability to think.

He concluded and his friends concluded that practicing medicine would be an act of self-destruction.

He expressed his understanding to me that he and his friends at Cal Tech have hyperactive dynamic thinking alert minds that are always on the go and which need to be fueled by and are energized by having constant new challenges and experiences.

That Being Said: He concluded that being a MD would be too boring an existence ant that being an MD would cause his hyper-active highly functional brain to atrophy.

He mentioned that the smartest people in the world attend Cal Tech —

• Cal Tech students have the highest SAT scores —
• Additionally, it is a small elite school.  There are only 1,000 undergraduates, 1,000 graduate students and a faculty of 1,000.

• This leads to lots of interaction between students with one another and with faculty which is prized by everyone.

• The faculty wants to teach the most brilliant students.

• The most brilliant students want to be taught by the most brilliant faculty and to interact with other brilliant students.

THE BABY BUST AND ENTREPRENEURIAL MINDSET OF THE SO-CALLED “SMARTEST, BEST AND BRIGHTEST”

Recently, while visiting my eldest daughter Terra, in Marblehead, Massachusetts, I read the Winter 2014 issue of WHARTON Magazine.

“Wharton” is a prestigious business school in the United States.

One article described a study which compares Wharton graduates who graduated in 1992 (the class of 1992) with the class of 2012 in terms of the number of graduates who plan to have children.

The study found that the number of Wharton graduates planning to have children has dropped nearly by half over the past 20 years.

These averages are equal for men and women.  They are both dropping out of parenthood.

This change in plans is not unique to young business professionals.  It’s part of a larger trend: a nationwide baby bust.

Across the United States, births have dropped precipitously.  In 1992, the average US woman gave birth to 2.05 children over the course of her life.  By 2011, it had dropped to 1.89, well below the replacement rate of 2.10.

Another article in the Winter 2014 issue of WHARTON Magazine reports that:

• The amount of interest in entrepreneurship at Wharton is just crazy.

• Historically the school has been associated with careers in finance and consultancy.

• For the first time, more Wharton students are interested in starting companies than in buying them.

• A growing number of Wharton graduates are willing to trade wing tips, three-star Manhattan restaurants and Tribeca lofts for sneakers, take-out pizza and sleeping under their desks as they race to get a product out the door.

• In fact more members of the Wharton graduating class of 2013 started a company than joined a hedge fund.

Our civilization has reached a tripping point.

Many people want to exercise freedom by (a) expressing who they are, (b) by experiencing who they can be, and (c) by living their life to the fullest.

They have concluded that the most important thing in their lives is to be comfortable in their own skins.

GSS

 

Creativity and the Power of Women – A Movie Review of “Belle”, “Chef”, “Million Dollar Arm” and Commentary on The Role of Good Taste, The Status of Women and Points of View by Gary S. Smolker

 

Copyright © 2014 by Gary S. Smolker

Updated June 12, 2014

Introduction

Each of these movies is a vibrant movie which has broad appeal.

Watching each one of these movies moved my mind and heart and will move the minds and hearts of other viewers too.

“Belle”

“Belle” touched my emotional sensitivities and political and social beliefs I am passionate about as an American who cares about race, gender and “affirmative action” issues that impact social, educational, and business affairs in the United States which are subject to a multitude of laws and impactful governmental and institutional gender and race related actions and practices.

“Belle” is an intriguingly profound movie of broad appeal because the story told in “Belle” touches emotionally laden sentiments among white people in America about black people and also touches extremely emotional issues about the status and treatment of women in modern day America.

Watching “Belle” was an intrinsically dramatic experience for me because of “Belle’s” direct and forthright portrayal of ideals about gender and race that are important to me.

The story told in “Belle” directly, truthfully and dramatically portrays common place cruel and unfair treatment of women and black people in 17th and 18th century Great Britain.

It is clear to me that the release of “Belle” to the general public is going to have social, political and economic effects beyond immediately observable economic consequences.

Although I am not a Millennial or a member of Generation X, I am 68 years old, it is clear to me America’s Millennials (people aged 18 to 33) and Generation X (people aged 34 to 49) who watch “Belle” will become enraged because they care deeply about justice, fairness, and equality.

They yearn deeply to live in a world where it is truly and wholeheartedly believed that all men are created equal by their Creator with certain inalienable rights.

Where their hearts and minds lie on issues of race and gender is not a secret to me.

By the way, where Millennials’ minds and hearts lie on issues of race and gender is a big deal in the United States because there are more Millennial voters than Senior Voters in the United States.

In the United States there are 46 million eligible Millennials voters and 39 million eligible Senior (age 69 to 86) voters.

I am constantly in the presence of and interacting with Millennials.

Two of my three daughters and many of my young entrepreneurial friends and colleagues are Millennials.

I know from my own personal experience that Millennials are sincerely concerned about inequality, women’s rights and the status and treatment of women in society, the environment, health of the planet, their own health, education, educational opportunities, jobs, job opportunities and making a living.

Millennials are educated, concerned and “enlightened.”

They have $1 trillion in Student Debt.

Fifty percent of them consider themselves to be Independent; that is to say, 50 % of them consider themselves to be neither a Republican nor a Democrat.

Sixty five percent of them say losing their phone or computer is WORSE than losing their car.

Millennials in the 18 to 29 year old age group make up one-fifth of the eligible voting population in the United States.

Women are also a big voting block in the United States.

Black and Hispanic Females were Obama’s strongest Millennial supporters in 2012.

The group that had the largest turn out in the last presidential election in the United States was “Young Married Females.”

That being said, the rage against prejudice and bias engendered by watching the cruel and unfair treatment of blacks and women portrayed in “Belle” will impact which candidate wins the next election for President of the United States.

Watching “Belle” will make women and black people of all ages, and Millennials mad, and will spur them to support and vote for Hillary Rodman Clinton to be the next President of the United States.

Very simply put:

• Hillary Rodman Clinton does a better job of connecting and communicating with the average American voter than any other person likely to run for President of the United States in the next presidential election in the United States.

• Watching “Belle” will spur people who care about women to become even more fed up with the lack of respect shown to women every day.  Watching “Belle” will ignite an urge in young people to be energetically and actively involved in the already existing widespread groundswell of support for the election of Hillary Clinton as the next President of the United States because young people care passionately about fairness and the status of women.

• The emotionally laden messages delivered in “Belle” will compel women and men who have daughters and grand-daughters to actively support the campaign to elect Hillary Clinton President of the United States.

In the United States elections are won by the candidate who best relates to the average voter.

That being said, Hillary Clinton’s message (“she gives a damn about the average person”) talks to a wide range of American voters.

The average American voter decides which candidate to vote for by asking himself or herself the following questions about each candidate:

1. Is the candidate someone who relates to people like me?
2. Is he or she someone who can handle a crisis?
3. Is he or she someone I can trust?
4. Is he or she authentic?
5. Does he or she have good character?
6. Does he or she care about people like me?

The inflammatory portrayal of the treatment of slaves, slavery, black people and of women in the movie “Belle” emphasizes the need to have someone on “your side” if you are an average American voter because the average American truly and strongly believes the phrase in the Declaration of Independence, “…we hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal, endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights…”

The Declaration of Independence is the heart and soul of America.

That being said, the movie “Belle” speaks directly to the “Spirit of America” because it reminds the average American voter that fairness, the status of women, inequality, gender and race bias, their health and the health of the environment are among the things they care most about.

That phrase in the “Declaration” … “we hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal, endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights,” makes the United States different than any other country in the world.

People of all ages in the United States, especially young people, care strongly about inequality.

The story told in “Belle” directly makes the point that that is a virtuous point of view.

ASIDE: In 2008, a whopping 66 % of young adults between the ages of 18 and 29 voted for President Obama.

Recent trends reveal that voter participation among young voters is steadily increasing.  They represented 18 % of all votes cast in 2008 and 19 % in 2012.

Put in perspective, 46 million Millennials were eligible to vote during the last presidential cycle compared to only 39 million senior citizens, and that figure is projected to skyrocket by 2020.

“Chef”

“Chef” is a story about commonly experienced conflicts imbedded in the human condition.

“Chef” is a story well and tastefully told about the conflicts men everywhere have between (a) the demands of their “job”, (b) their need to make a “living” and to be a “provider”, (c) their desire to be a good parent and “family man”, (d) their need to take risks and their need for security and (d) their need to only do work they believe in 100% with all their heart and no hesitation.

Women, of course, also have those conflicts.

Additionally, the story in “Chef” in dramatic fashion shows the sixth sense that women have that men don’t.

“Chef” is a “how you feel about your work catches on” story which takes place in the larger context of a multidimensional interrelated set of mutually supportive love stories.

Everyone will enjoy watching “Chef” because “Chef” is a joyful and charming story about family, friends, feelings, creativity, work and personal and professional success.

“Million Dollar Arm”

“The Million Dollar Arm” is based on a true story.  The characters it portrays are real life people and the story it tells is a true story.

“The Million Dollar Arm” tells a fun, vibrant and joyful true story about a creative man’s endurance, inspiration, intensity, poise, perseverance and eventual humanity as he goes from being “broke” to becoming tremendously successful in business and in his personal life.

“Million Dollar Arm” is full of beautiful and dramatic and vibrant and educational images and humor.

“The Million Dollar Arm” portrays a journey like episode in the real life of an extremely creative sports agent.

The sport’s agent’s creativity, openness to new ideas, experiences and perceptual space portrayed in this movie are “over-the-top.”

While watching “Million Dollar Arm”, I wanted to hire the main character (a sports agent) to be my personal agent.  I still want to hire that man as my agent.

 

The Impact of Good Taste in Movies

Men should never underestimate the “power” of women, nor should women.

People should never take women for granted or ignore the power, intelligence, character, talents and status of women.

Women are “smarter” than men.

Women have a sixth sense that men don’t have.

Women deserve a lot of respect.

The movies “Belle”, “Chef” and “Million Dollar Arm” prove those points in a tasteful way through the actions of the main female characters.

Each of the main female characters in those movies is even more brilliant than the lead male character; acts with poise and gracefully at all times; has a sixth sense that the main male character lacks; and, steals the show.

Taste, Talent and the Ability to Emotionally Connect Are A Winning Combination

In communication, talent and taste matter:

Here is what Pablo Picasso had to say on that topic:

“There are painters

who transform the sun into a yellow spot,

but there are others who, thanks to their art and intelligence,

transform a yellow spot into the sun.”   — Pablo Picasso

Watching movies that engage our minds become part of the wealth of our lived experience.

That is the reason I predict the movies “Belle”, “Chef” and “The Million Dollar Arm” will have a strong influence on the political future of Hillary Clinton and on the “woman rights” movement.

How something is said – if it connects emotionally to your heart and mind –  will great impact.

Consider the influence of the following two alternative ways of talking about whether or not it is okay to smoke – which is demonstrated in the following two scenes:

“A monk asks a superior if it is permissible

to smoke while praying.

The superior says certainly not.

Next day, the monk asks the superior if it is permissible

to pray while smoking.

That, says the superior, is not merely permissible, it is admirable.”  — George F. Will

The talent of the movie maker as a communicator of ideas matters a lot.

Our relationship with a movie, the characters in the movie, and the message delivered in a movie transforms us to the extent they touch our heart and/or our mind by becoming a beacon which influences the way we engage with people and everything else we do.

The messages and characters in each of these three movies will touch people’s hearts because each of these movies was made by an extremely talented movie maker.

Inevitably, people will be inspired, given hope and taught good lessons by embracing the stories told and the thoughts, processes and ideas presented in these movies.

If you see any one of these three movies and if you are a direct, intense and hardworking person highly motivated both to work and to produce, and motivated to produce entities and things that are both new and valuable and always on the lookout for new and valuable ideas and thoughts and processes and inspiration and solutions to problems, you will recommend to your friends that they see these movies too.

Each of these movies tells a story which proves that it is hard to beat a person who never gives up.

 

“Belle”,”Chef”, and “Million Dollar Arm” Are Masterful Movies

Each of these movies is about the power of an idea.

Each of these movies is about the power of women.

The main female character in each of these movies has a “true eye”, a penetrating perceptiveness, a seamless sense of order and perspective, and is a fully realized human being in every way throughout the movie.

In each of these movies each of the male main characters becomes a fully formed adult and a more fully realized human being under the influence of the main female character.

The story in each movie is masterfully told.  Each story is so masterfully performed that it is impossible for an audience to avoid building an emotional relationship with each character.

Emotional tension begins with the first scene in each movie and never abates.

Things never settle down.

You just have to know what will happen next.

The Main Characters in “Belle”

Belle, the main character in the movie “Belle”, is a woman with practical and penetrating intelligence, curiosity, and an independent spirit.

Belle is broadly educated, very sophisticated and has fantastic intuitive decision making skill.

She is a whole brain thinker. She is a “beauty” in every sense of the word “beauty” and excels at everything she does.

Belle’s beau, in this movie, is a man who has the conviction that all people (black and white) should be treated “equally”  as human beings under the law.  He has Herculean persistence in advocating (speaking out) and standing for the point of view that slavery is immoral.  He is a man of conviction who fully believes that slavery is an abomination.

He not only allows himself to feel his feelings, his feelings emote from him.

His is controlled by his aesthetic and moral sensibilities; he lives his life controlled by moral considerations.

He “walks the walk” and he does what he wants to do the way he wants to.  This creates tensions.

The Issues of Slavery and Social Status in “Belle”

The underlying tensions in “Belle” revolve around the issue of the social status of black people.

At the time the story in this movie takes place slavery exists.

At that time, people thought of slaves as being part human and part beast at the same time.

“Society”, the gentry, people of all colors and all levels of society live in a world where “black slaves” are not thought of as being “people” but instead are thought of as being beasts of burden and no different than cattle.

The story in this movie takes place in a pre-industrialized world in which heavy manual labor is performed by black slaves who are used as beasts of burden.

At the time in history in which the story in this movie takes place black people are “caught” in the “wild” and then shipped to slave markets across oceans and seas on slave ships.

This movie follows what happens in a legal case.  The audience is told at the beginning of this movie that a shipload of black slaves was thrown over board while being “shipped”/transported by sea to a slave market in London to be sold.

The owner of the cargo of slaves made a claim on its insurance carrier for recovery of damages based on total “loss” – a loss due to all slaves having been thrown overboard during the voyage.

At the time this story takes place, a cargo of slaves could be insured just like a cargo of cattle.  A cargo of slaves could be insured as “cargo”  just like a cargo of any other goods being shipped by sea.

The insurance company denied the slave-owner’s claim of loss and refused to pay the slave owner anything.

A lower court ruled in favor of the slave owner, ruled that the insurance company had to pay for the total loss of cargo.

As this movie takes place, this “insurance claim” case is now on appeal before the Lord Chief Justice of Great Britain.

The Lord Chief Justice must decide whether this is a fraudulent insurance claim, i.e. was it necessary to throw the cargo of slaves overboard in order to save the ship or, alternatively was the cargo of black slaves thrown overboard because the slaves had become sick during the sea voyage.

If the slaves had become sick/diseased during the voyage they would be worth more to the owner of the cargo of slaves dead (via receipt of payment on an insurance claim for total loss of cargo) than the slaves would be worth to their owner if they arrived in port alive, i.e. were alive when the shipped docked in port to be off-loaded and then be sold at the slave market.

Diseased slaves would be worth nothing at the slave market.

The Chief Justice had to decide if the slaves thrown overboard became sick during the voyage or if as claimed by their owner the ship ran out of drinking water during the voyage which necessitated throwing the slaves overboard in order to save the ship.

Getting back to Belle.

• Belle is the daughter of a black Caribbean slave who was married to an Admiral in the British Navy.  Her father was a white man and member of the highest level of British society.

• When the movie begins, her father (the white Admiral) is picking Belle up to take Belle to live with the Admiral’s uncle in England because the Admirable is about to embark on a long sea voyage and he doesn’t know if he will ever return from this tour of duty alive.  Belle’s mother has passed away.

The Admiral’s uncle is the Lord Chief Justice of Great Britain, the man who will decide the insurance claim case described above.

During the course of the movie, the Lord Chief Justice, who was childless, falls in love with Belle, loves her as he would love his own daughter if he had a daughter.

The Genius Use of Opposites to Make The Social Point Made in “Belle”

Part of the genius in the making the sociological point that blacks are not stupid beasts being made in the movie “Belle” is the choice of scenes to tell the story being told in “Belle”.

The movie maker chose scenes in which Belle interacts with members of the highest level of society in Great Britain, the idle gentry, to deliver the message that black people are as smart, talented and educable as white people.

In each of those scenes, Belle is far more intelligent, far more educated, far more sophisticated, far more poised, far more graceful, and far more polite and generous than the male and female members of the gentry with whom she interacts.

Proactively Disrupting the Status Quo

The main character in “Chef” and the main character in “Million Dollar Arm” proactively disrupted the status quo.

During the course of each of these movies the main character went from being “broke” and “down and out” to becoming a great business success who realized his full potential as a human being.

These stories illustrate the potential benefit of listening and that “listening” is the ability to be changed by “hearing” what the right person says to you.

In each movie the main character listened to what a special woman in his life told him, changed what he was doing as a result and became a great success by doing what she let him know would be a good thing for him to do.

In each of these movies the main character reached his full potential as a result of listening to a woman in his life who gave him guidance.

Each of these movies demonstrate their is wisdom in the advice “Don’t put a ceiling on yourself.”

Also each movie demonstrates the benefit that can be derived from following Napoleon Hill’s advice: “Do not wait; the time will never be ‘just right.’  Start where you stand, and work with whatever tools you may have at your command, and better tools will be found as you go along.”

Although pennies don’t drop from heaven, they have to be earned here on earth, these movies show how much fun making a fortune can be if you do what you love do to and that no man can make a success of a business he does not love.

Each of their businesses caught fire because their businesses had a purpose beyond making money and beyond making them look “good”/effective.

They genuinely loved what they were doing.

The Main Women in “Belle”, “Chef” and “Million Dollar Arm”

The main women in these three movies have no rough edges.

They are mellow, friendly, gentle, balanced, multidimensional, smart and easy to enjoy role models.

Listening to them speak will aid the flowering of your spirit and continue to expand your perspective long after you are done watching them perform their roles in these three movies.

Passionate Heroic Actions & Great Accomplishments

The source of great accomplishments is passion.

Behind the success and driving the success accomplished on a great adventure is a tenacious believing individual.

Behind the success each of the main male characters  accomplished in “Chef” and Million Dollar Arm” were passionate believing women who “stuck by their men.”

Each of these women was a balanced understanding person who could see “nuances” which the men couldn’t see.  Each of these women had a “subtly-appreciating-intelligence”, a sixth sense, an intuition, that enabled them to see an infinity of things the men couldn’t see.

These women were 100% present in everything they did.  They understood the emotional connotation of what was going on while the main male characters in these movies were lost in thought without a clue of what was happening to them in their lives.

It takes a team to accomplish something significant.  It takes an effective brain team.

The main male character in “Chef” and in “Million Dollar Arm” had a brain team which worked with them in a highly effective fashion.

Each of the main female characters in “Chef” and “Million Dollar Arm” were a critical and crucial and essential part of the male main character’s brain team.

Without them on their teams, the men would not have been able to accomplish the great things they accomplished.

“Chef”

The movie “Chef” is a demonstration of the rule that there is no passion in playing it small.

At the beginning of this movie we see that the main character, a chef, has settled for living a life that is less than the one he is capable of living.

He has descended from being a creative chef and gastronomic guru to becoming a mainstream chef supervising a crew of kitchen helpers preparing and cooking the same dishes day after day – dishes which he creatively created ten years ago.

Supervising the cooking of a kitchen crew of the same dishes day after day is driving him crazy.

As the movie begins, the “chef’s” boss (the owner of the restaurant where the chef works) will not allow the chef to create any new dishes.

The chef is about to die from boredom.  The chef is a tortured soul as a result of being a “creative chef” who has not been allowed by the owner of the restaurant where he works to actualize his creative potential or even to engage his creative impulses for the past ten years.

This “creative” chef is no longer a gastronomic influence, a gastronomic guru or pacemaker.

He has become a “hostage of his own success”/getting a regular pay-check working for a restaurant owner who does not want to take the risk of placing any new unique creative “untried dishes” on the menu.

His life is full of negative tension.

He no longer looks forward to going to work each day.

He is no longer living a fulfilling life.

“Million Dollar Arm”

The movie “Million Dollar Arm” is a demonstration of the fact that “all” great ideas are traceable to a “tenacious believing individual.”

The most difficult thing in running a value creating business is having a good creative idea and then making the decision to act; the rest is merely tenacity.

 

Slavery

The interrelated topics of slavery, power, money, monetary interests, sex and social identity are on everyone’s mind.

Those forces unleash a tsunami of heart centered emotional tensions in the movies “Belle”, “Chef” and “Million Dollar Arm”, and are the forces driving the pending actions the National Basketball Association (NBA) is taking against Donald Sterling to strip him of his ownership of the Clippers basketball team,

Without awareness of the power of sex we are reduced to a sort of self-contained void without accurate awareness of the space around us.

Being a slave is not sexy or powerful.

Being powerless is not sexy.

Being “trapped” is not sexy.

Being powerful is sexy.

The superstar professional basketball player athletes in the NBA had to be willing to boycott the NBA Playoffs and to refuse to play in the NBA if Sterling was allowed to maintain ownership of the Clippers basketball team in order to be able to maintain their swagger and sex appeal.

If the superstar professional basketball players were not willing to boycott the NBA women would think of those superstar athletes as being “slaves” – those superstar professional athletes would lose their aura of power, their sexual attraction would diminish, they would have lost their swagger and the desirability of being seen with them and/or identified with them would have disappeared.

People would think they were losers, instead of thinking they are super human beings – they would lose the aura of  “he-men-super-star winners if they didn’t act like the heroic-action-hero-men they are in the public’s imagination.

They had to act like their image, live up to their image, in order to keep their image.

They need to maintain that image in order to maintain their swagger and in order to increase their “drawing power.”

The National Basketball Association league, the TV stations that broadcast their games and the advertisers who had paid to have their advertisements shown during those games would be devastated if the play-offs didn’t happen.

The basket ball team owners’ in the NBA see the big economic picture.

Their decision on how to vote in an upcoming vote on whether to take the Clippers NBA league basketball team away Sterling’s right to own an NBA basketball team and to force Sterling to sell the Clippers is simple.

Major consumer goods advertisers have made it clear that they do not want to be associated with slavery.

Advertising revenue from TV contracts, revenue from collateral advertising contracts, revenue from endorsements and collateral merchandise contracts and a host of other gigantic cash flow big ticket money contracts were put on the line by the comments Donald Sterling made to his once upon a time “girl-friend” which were recorded then published on social media and afterwards in the the general media.

That revenue has been in jeopardy, has been on the line and  and has been in play since advertisers began fleeing from the Clippers, pulling their sponsorship from the Clippers and increased further when prominent black basketball players declared that there is no place for Donald Sterling in the NBA, Sterling must go.

The NBA as we know it would have been destroyed if the basketball players boycotted the playoffs. The NBA as we know it will be destroyed if black basketball players refuse to play in the NBA.

Business 101: Make It A Rule to Not Bore or Annoy Customers

From a marketing perspective, Donald Sterling is a genius.  By annoying “everyone” Donald Sterling has made himself “the man everyone loves to hate.”

Donald Sterling now gets more unpaid newspaper coverage and news media coverage that the President of the United States and the President of Russia, all as the result of Donald Sterling’s “annoying conduct.”

Meanwhile, the value of Donald Sterling’s basketball team, the Clippers, has gone from $12.5 million dollars when Donald Sterling bought the Clippers basketball team in 1981 to $2 billion dollars today.

Donald Sterling has made himself the most talked about person in the world and his “basketball team” (the Clippers) the most talked about enterprise in the world.

Donald Sterling’s annoying actions prompted some of the richest businessmen in the world to compete with each other for the “bragging rights” of being able to say they “own” the Clippers.

Donald Sterling has created a series of unique experiences/”shows” for all of us “spectators” to watch play-out by pro-actively disrupting the status quo.

Donald Sterling understands the “big picture” perfectly, is fully present living in the present moment, and has shown the rest of the world, through his annoying conduct, how to make money by disrupting the status quo by disrupting the status quo and by not following the standard business school rule, “don’t annoy your customers.”

Experiencing Success without Experiencing Fulfillment

It makes sense to choose the best role models to guide and inspire us towards the realization of our potential.

But recent lawsuits brought by professional football players against the National Football League (NFL) which cast professional football players as enslaved drugged workhorses tarnish the image of professional football players as heroes.

Recent print media, broadcast media and social media comments on profession sports make it clear that professional sports are such a big money maker for all involved that league matches are not games being played for “fun.”  They are business enterprises in which star athletes in some cases have sold their bodies and themselves into slavery to team owners.

In that regard, eight former professional football players (including legendary Chicago Bears quarterback Jim McMahon sued the National Football League (NFL) on Tuesday, May 20, 2014, in a class action lawsuit.  In their lawsuit they claim they were injected with drugs hundreds or thousands of times to keep them on the field despite being injured and in great pain.  They were forced to ignore their medical condition, their medical histories and present physical injuries and ailments so that the business enterprises that “owned” them could make more money by having them play football instead of recuperate.

In their complaint they allege their stories are not unique and are part of a immoral reprehensible out-of-control money obsessed “culture of drug misuse, substituting players’ health for profit.”

Their lawyer has stated, “The NFL has made billions of dollars as a result of drug use that would be prohibited for horses.”

According to their class-action complaint the potential class of injured professional football players could stretch to 5,000 retired NFL players nationwide.

This lawsuit comes on the heels of a $765 million settlement between retired professional football players and the National Football League over head injuries suffered during their careers.  More than 4,800 professional football players joined in that lawsuit.

The case has been assigned to U.S. Magistrate Judge Kandis A. Westmore in Oakland.  Dent et al v. National Football League, CV14-2324 (N.D. Cal., filed May 20, 2014).

The complaint accuses NFL doctors of giving opioids, localized anesthetics and excessive anti-inflammatory drugs to cover up players’ injuries regardless of the athlete’s medical history.

The complaint states that many of them became addicted to the prescription pills over their years of playing, sometimes turning to street dealers to feed their habit after leaving the league.

In short, professional football players sold their bodies; they made a lot of money. But, the daily quality of their lives, the flowering of their spirit and their ability to enjoy life was ruined by being drugged so that they could continue to “play” professional football while they were in injured and in great pain.

The tortured lives of the most severely damaged/ injured professional football players, in my opinion can be thought of as being equivalent to being buried alive and then living out the rest of you life moving around and breathing under ground in your own grave.

Shift of Consciousness

It is well known that people can get head injuries including traumatic brain concussions from playing football.

However, that has not stopped youths from  violently playing football in high school and college football leagues.

A national tracking systems for tracking brain injuries in youths is about to get off the ground at UCLA with $30 million from the National College Athletic Association, a new pledge of $25 million from the National Football League a a $10 million gift to UCLA from New York Giants co-owner Steve Tisch.

It has been reported that Tisch’s donation will sustain and expand a UCLA program that since 2012 has treated 600 young patients with brain injuries and studied the after-effects of concussions in middle school, high school and college athletics.

Reports that concussions may set the stage for learning problems, mental health issues and even dementia have made some parents wary of allowing their children to play in organized sports.

According to the latest available figures about 250,000 people under the age of 19 were treated for concussions in 2009, up from 150,000 in 2001.

A NCAA survey of 15 college sports recently showed that between the 1988-89 and 2003-04 academic years, the overall rate of reported concussions doubled from 1.7 to 3,4 per 1,000 “athletic exposures.”

Privacy

Thanks to revelations about government snooping made by Edward Snowden and facts about Donald Sterling learned by listening to recorded private statements made by Donald Sterling to his girl-friend we now know that where there are cell phones there is no privacy or reasonable expectation of privacy.

In a recent interview conducted by Brian Williams, Edward Snowden revealed that smart phone can be accessed and used (like a camera, a microphone and an audio visual recording device) by governmental agencies to see and hear what people in its presence are doing and saying.

These revelations are a warning to be careful of what you say and do in private.

Think about your privacy before you speak.

Think before about your privacy before you act.

Think before you speak or act.

Orchestrate your life carefully.

Things are not going to settle down.