Free Your Mind

 I thought about the article about long term thinking and ponder at the some comments I saw a little a while ago. I came up with some insights of my own. The reason why long term thinking is dying is the same reason that people are being herded into cattle cars or told they have like on one giant Native American Reservation. They are told they can’t. It is exactly a robot with the same computer application repeating the same thing over and over again. There are people out in the society are the modern day Edward Bernays and believe that people have to be nudged and controlled like cattle. Most of all, it is the free independent thinking of entrepreneur that built the society going back to the start of western civilization.

Cass Sunstein

Edward Bernays

                Now, for those who do not know who Edward Bernays is, he was a person who believed that people could be nudge to think a certain way and influenced to do certain thing simply repeating the same slogan again and again through psychological suggestive techniques. He thought that man was a simpleton that needed to be controlled. Also, he thought that the individual was too stupid in his own words to know what he wants and was an animal could that not control their impulses. Bernays was the father of modern propaganda and public relations. He did manage to get the American public eat pork bellies with pancakes. This became the pancake breakfast. Have you ever notice that people request that they eat bacon or sausage with eggs at breakfast? This was his idea originally. Bernays and others like Cass Sunstein got it wrong. The one thing they forgot that the individual can be trusted to make their own judgments. Mr. Sunstein wrote book called “Nudge”. He argued that people need to be controlled. This thinking is a slap to the progress that is ongoing.  Most of all, free ideas and free minds are the engines of growth. Free thinking leaves the Sunstein -Bernays type thinking dust bins of history where they belong.

Why did I bring this up? In order to be a good entrepreneur or business person, that one has to have an understanding of people and that free thinking leads to better tomorrows and a better society overall. Also, I thought about the great entrepreneurs over the last 300 years.  I thought going back to the age when the British became an empire because of ships. The British were the first to begin the industrial age in the 1800s. This later begot the Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, JP Morgan , Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, and others. They sought to forge destiny with the ideas that free minds build and create society rather than being controlled. Most of all, it takes one person to has the vision to see things forward.

In the early part of America history, there were the trail bosses drove the cattle from the plains of west Texas to northern Colorado. It was the dreamers and doers like Edison his light bulb along with his other inventions that forever changed the way we interact with each other. Alexander Graham Bell and his invention of the telephone changed the landscape of how we communicate.  They all had long term thinking and sought to forge destiny like no other. Next, it was the railroads that made traveling across the US possible during late 19th century. History doesn’t say that we have to accept things as they are. But, it is rather that change is the status quo.

If society is to break free to into long term thinking, it starts on an individual level in the home and with the family or finding people who are like minded. No amount of repeated slogans can kill off long term thinking completely. Flashy marketers may think they can by urging instant gratification and using Bernays’  techniques instead of looking for the long term approach. It just takes one person to say no to all over it and to see how things can be different. Lastly, it just takes one person that can see beyond and have the vision and fortitude to make it happen.

 It is the just 1-2 percent that pushes and thrusts forward. I saw this 1% on practically everything from milk cartons claiming 1-2% to signs everywhere I saw it. I even saw it on political campaign commercials. This when I had my moment and the light bulb kick into gear, I knew what it meant to me. It means in my view that if 1 -2 % can see a future better than it is now, that they carve their mark upon history. It is the dawn of beginning and renewal. Mostly, it is just seeing what a person is really capable of.

No amount of sanitized politically correct corporate speak can create a market without an understanding that the individual needs to allow to be free. My first mentor was wealthy and didn’t even have a high school diploma. He told that there is no free market without a free mind to dare to dream and build. Free minds can create free markets, which in turn creates jobs. He was wise and told me to understand people rather engage in sanitized politically correct corporate speak. He told me to talk plainly to people and understand their needs rather than engage sanitized politically correct corporate speak that can conflate a person’s business needs. He told to me to understand their needs by providing solution that meets their needs. He told me in order to be abundant that it starts mentality in your head first. Lastly, before he passed about 10 years ago I had remember everything to this day and told me to be my own person rather being controlled.

The most important it is to see things beyond and look to the past for answers and inspiration because you never know where you might find it. I get my best ideas by thinking long term and seeing things beyond the way things are. I day dream little more than I should. It is ok. Most of all, it tells that I am alive.

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