Thursday, February 22, 2007

Additional Exercises to Achieve Your Goals

We have looked at the first two pillars; the Mental and Intellectual pillars. Additionally, we have begun to discipline ourselves with some initial exercises. Our first exercise was to clearly state our goals in order to provide us with direction, and secondly by letting ourselves not be ruled by emotion.

Now in order to continue, we must begin to provide additional framework for you to fully realize your potential.

What You Can Conceive, You Can Achieve

By writing your goals down, you’ve dared to dream them. This is an important first step in realizing these goals. You have conceived them, thus making them real. Now you can achieve them.

Goals, when unstated, or worse not written down, never become real. They remain nebulous and you are often able to diffuse responsibility. By writing them down you have unlocked your blind eye, never to be closed again.

Let’s say the goal you have written down is to run a marathon. Write it down. Refer to it often. Let it become a personal mantra. Envision it. You have now committed to your goal.

You Are Not a Victim

By having stated these goals, you may not have realized it, but you have now become responsible to yourself to achieve them. You and you alone, are responsible to yourself for achieving these goals. You must have the right frame-set and embrace personal responsibility.

There isn’t anything or anyone that will stop you, except you. If you want to achieve the right frame of mind and reach your goals, you must take responsibility for your mindset, your body, your development and your life.

Embracing personal responsibility is scary, as doing so leaves no one to blame but yourself. But it is also very empowering. When you realize your responsibility to yourself and take control of your own destiny, you will feel free. No longer will you feel powerless, or subject to others. Instead you will feel accountable to yourself, and rather than feeling lucky when something happens to you, you will feel deserving. You will know that you created your own luck, your own good fortune. Luck is when preparation meets opportunity. By having the right frame of mind, and preparing yourself, you will find success.

If you’re overweight, it’s because you don’t work out enough and/or you don’t eat right. Either way, you are neglecting you and your body. You have no one to blame but yourself. Blaming your work, your spouse, or your friends is useless, the exercise and the dieting still need to be done. You’re blaming them, because you don’t want to do the work that is necessary. That is why you must -

Pay Yourself First

The first way you can take responsibility is to make sure to make time for yourself. Often the first thing business owners are taught is to pay themselves. It’s easy to neglect yourself, and not take home any pay. But if you’re working hard and other people are the only ones benefiting, then you don’t have a business, you have a charity.

This same concept should apply to you and your development. Put yourself first. What could be more important than your development? By putting you and your development first, you will be a better everything to everyone around you. If you’re healthier and live longer, you are a better son, daughter, spouse, father, mother, boss, and employee. By putting you and your development first, you will be healthier mentally, intellectually, physically and spiritually. Again, these will help you to live the right way, which in turn will make you a better person with healthier relationships.

Exercises

Exercise 3 is to write down the plans to execute your goals. Now that you have conceived your goals, and written them down, now is the time to clearly lay out the plan to achieve these aims.

If you want to scale Everest, you don’t jump on the next plane to Nepal. You’re going to have to research the task (intellectual preparation that will help you prepare the path), so that you can determine how to prepare yourself physically, mentally and spiritually to achieve your goal.

This may sound like common sense, but studies have shown that you will be 10 times more likely to achieve your goals if you write them down. And you will be far more likely if you show yourself how you’re going to do it. And then if you record your progress, you are even more likely to achieve success. As I said before, write everything down. Think of it as a Progress or Development Journal.

Exercise 4 actually goes along with Exercise #3. Make a schedule, making sure to pay yourself first. Schedule the times that you will be dedicating to your development. By setting this time aside for yourself, you will make sure to keep your appointment to yourself.

For instance, if your stated goal is to run the New York Marathon, you will need to train. Make time for yourself by scheduling your runs. First, you might schedule runs for Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Tuesday from 7am to 8am before work, will be a medium range interval run. Thursday 7am to 8am before work, will be a speed development run. Your Saturdays can be reserved for your long runs, beginning at 8am until 10am, because you have more time available on the weekends.

This doesn’t have to be war and peace. You have a basic aim, a basic plan and a schedule, however, you will need to flesh out your plan.

So here’s a sample so you can see how easy it really is –

Tue 7-8am – Interval Training – 800 meter intervals (Goal of 800 meters at 8:30 min mile pace, 800 meters at 10 min mile pace for 6 miles) – Weekly improvement of 5-10 secs

Thu 7-8am – Speed Workout – 100 meters at peak speed, 200 meters at 5% off peak, 400 meters at 10% off peak – Weekly improvement of 5-10% each week

Sat 8-10am – Distance Workout – Lengthen runs by 10-15% weekly

Or maybe you want to lose some weight…make a plan.

6 days on, 1 day off. Schedule 6 days of work for yourself, one day of cheating to reward yourself. You will find that cheating will actually help you to lose weight. This is due to the body’s ability to adapt.

6 foot, 180 pounds
1800 calories
180 grams of protein per day
Less than 150 grams of carbs per day
Less than 60 grams of fat per day
No carbs after 6pm
8 glasses of water daily
5 servings of fruit and vegetables daily
No diet soda
No more than 2 alcoholic beverages a week (even if fits within daily caloric intake)

It would even make sense at this point to schedule your meals for the week. This will keep you out of starvation mode where you reach for anything in order to satisfy your hunger, like when you go to the supermarket while hungry.

In both cases, you should be documenting how you are doing with your schedule. This will show you how often you’ve committed, as well as chronicle your progress. Realizing that you are progressing will be doubly motivating as well

- bg

Monday, February 19, 2007

Feminism Run Amuck in Today's Headlines

All of these news stories, ripped straight from the headlines, well illustrate feminism run amuck:

(New York, NY)—Women, on average, say they would be willing to give up sex for 15 months for a closet full of new apparel, with 2 percent ready to abstain from sex for three years in exchange for new duds, according to a new survey of about 1,000 women in 10 U.S. cities. Sixty-one percent of women polled said it would be worse to lose their favorite article of clothing than give up sex for a month.

Meninist Message: Beware, men, of any woman who does not desire you, lust after you, fantasize about you and want to rip your clothes off in equal measure, if not greater, than your own desire to do the same to her. Healthy, well-adjusted women much prefer to tear off the clothes of their partner than to have new ones purchased for them. As much as women love shopping and shoes and handbags and accessorizing, what they really love—need—more than anything, is the penetrating thrust of strength and affection they receive from a real man. Remember that the next time, you start thinking in terms of “getting lucky” or “scoring”. The luck is mutual when the score is even.

--(Los Angeles, CA)—A couple engaged to be married decided mutually to assume the woman’s last name upon marriage in response to what they feel is a patriarchal society that oppresses women. The soon-to-be-husband said the idea was his when he consulted with his wife and she felt uncomfortable assuming his last name, as it opposed her beliefs about gender equality. They have filed suit in California, which has no surname exemption for assuming the woman’s last name. The ACLU has taken on the case.

Meninist Message: This one is simple. As with men opening doors for ladies, walking on the outside edge of the curb to protect her, asking her father’s permission to ask for her hand in marriage and subsequently getting on bended knee to ask her, a woman assuming a man’s last name in betrothal is strictly a matter of longstanding tradition. And so it shall remain. Sure there are historical reasons for its existence but they are entirely irrelevant today. The day women get on bended knee to pledge their undying love for us and beg our hand in marriage; open car doors for men and stand between us and danger when it threatens our household, is the day I will consider amending this tradition. This one is a gimme, people, a matter of tradition like a man asking a lady dance instead of vice versa. I’m all for reversing social policy and bucking tradition when it proves anachronistic and/or counterproductive. But the surname tradition will stay. Just as sure as I will rise in admiration and deference when my lady steps to the dinner table while I’m seated, so too will she smile politely and proudly when she’s addressed as Mrs. Lidgi by the maitre’d. One more thing: anyone with a hyphenated last name or let his wife retain her maiden name, I have one word for you. Pussy.

--(New York, NY)—A study of American women whose net worth exceeds $10 million suggests that money contributes to a more satisfying sex life for women, including more partners, higher reported frequency of sex, more excitement and a higher overall level of enjoyment. The study also revealed that women with more money were more likely than their less affluent female counterparts to have affairs, engage in group sex and swinger activities, cheat on their spouses and be more demanding sexually.

Meninist Message: What women have gained in political, financial and social power they’ve given up, in proportionate measure, in sexual power. No more is it true that women are less horny or less sexually demanding than men. The opposite could in fact be true. We’ve noted before that women’s ascension in the workplace and in social circles should be viewed as a positive step towards female-actualization. The price they’ve paid is a relinquishment of their sexual capital. If not tipped towards our side, it is at the very least balanced now. More women than ever are complaining about not being able to get laid, being sexually deprived from their partner, being twice as needy as men of sexual gratification and just plain sexually frustrated. Ring a bell, men? For the first time in history statistics for men and women cheating on each other’s spouses and/or significant others are almost identical. 66% of men report to having cheated on their wife, with over 50% for women. Stop seeing women as delicate little flowers that need to be wined and dined and cajoled into sex. Remember, whereas once we leveraged our financial and political capital for sex, we now can use our sexual capital for…sex.

--(Washington, D.C.)—National census figures just released reveal that for the first time in this nation’s history, single households outweigh married households by a margin of 50.9% to 49.1%. The numbers are telling in that they have enormous social implications that may help explain the high rate of divorce, the increasing number of men and women that are putting off getting married and starting a family, and infidelity statistics.

Meninist Message: Where do we start? This statistic should be utterly shocking to you if you really let it sink in. At no time in the history of our nation—think about it—have single households outweighed married ones. Why now? Sadly, the cycle proceeded thus: Feminists run amuck with man-hating notions of sexual superiority and gender bias…the once-sacred paradigm of man-woman-family disintegrates in favor of mutual independence and unfettered ambition…romantic relationships devolve into little more than convenient transactional arrangements that have little to do with respect or love…divorce rates soar as the new propaganda about female empowerment and male subversion spreads like venom…infidelity sees its vogue as the new instrument for self-empowerment and emotional therapy in lieu of open communication…marriage becomes the perennial butt of jokes, likening it to prison, captivity and The End…and then the Census statistics come out and…we’re surprised?

Again, these news stories are real. Men need to think about the ramifications of these stories and what they mean from a societal standpoint. Having a blasé, “Eh, who cares, women will be women” attitude will weaken you individually and us as a group. Until the Feminist movement becomes accountable for the damage it is doing to our nation’s daughters, the Meninist Movement will have to bear that burden.

Join us.

-al

How to Instantly Be More Attractive To Women

The good news is you can instantly change your prospects with the opposite sex for the better. With just a few quick changes, you will notice that people, most importantly women and/or girls will react differently to you.

This is not to say that internal changes won’t also be necessary, but you can begin to work from the outside in. For instance, you may have noticed how great you feel when you’ve got the right clothes for the occasion. Or maybe it was how uncomfortable you felt because you didn’t have the right gear. Whether it’s for an interview or a buddy’s wedding, when you’ve got the right clothes it will definitely affect the way you feel. When you’re confident, and more importantly when you look confident, that’s the most important ingredient in others finding you attractive.

Grooming
You have to know enough to care for yourself. If you care for yourself, women will figure that you will know how to take care of them.

- Keep your toenails, fingernails, and nose hair trimmed regularly.

- Shave. Facial hair should be neat and trim, not unruly. Your balls, too. A man’s pubic region should be neat and trim if you ever want to get blown. No woman’s going to volunteer to go down on Bigfoot. And besides, your dick will look bigger.

- If you’re bald, face it and Bic it. You may have to do this daily, but do it. It looks better.

- Get a haircut regularly and a hairstyle. Go to a salon and if you trust them, let them show you how to wear your hair.

- Use soap designed for your face. Do not use the same soap for your face that you use for your ass. Make sure to scrub the undercarriage. Make sure you wash your balls and ass prior to going out. Cetaphil makes a great face soap that won’t dry your face.

- Use a lotion on your face with SPF of at least 15, but ideally 30. Loreal and Aveeno make great lotions for your face. This will keep your skin looking young as you age, as well as keep your skin from drying out which can lead to acne.

- Bad breath comes from decay, germs and residue in your mouth and teeth. Make sure to brush, floss and have routine dental cleanings to avoid bad breath. This is a killer. Make sure to use Listerine prior to going out.

- Get your teeth whitened. Having a great smile starts with having confidence.

- Buy cologne. It’s a good idea to take a girl with you to assist you in picking one out. If a female is unavailable, you have a great opportunity to ask the girls at the store to help you.

- Use deodorant, not anti-perspirant. Tom’s of Maine is a natural deodorant that won’t stain the underarms of your shirt by clogging your pores.

- Go to a tanning salon. Do not get a garish George Hamilton toxic tangerine look, just enough to look 10 pounds lighter and that much healthier. Additionally, if you have acne or worse, bacne (back acne), this will help clear your skin, and your body will release endorphins after tanning. I advocate this practice only in moderation as it is truly not healthy. However, there are benefits.


Clothing
You don’t have to spend a great deal of money to look presentable. Clothes should be clean, unwrinkled, and should fit you.

- Make sure your clothes fit you (and don’t hang on you like a potato sack), and that they go together. Your clothes don’t have to be expensive. If you’re going to buy clothes, take a girl with you, or you have a great opportunity to talk to the girls at the store that are there to help you.

- Do not wear athletic socks unless you’re working out or are planning on being at Centre Court at Wimbledon.

- Buy some nice shoes. Athletic shoes should be worn for athletic events. Ideally you would have at least one pair of black and brown shoes.

- Buy some nice leather belts. One brown, one black.


Health and Exercise
The following are not necessarily instant in nature, but you should get started doing these right away.

- Run a few miles; slowly if you must. Keep this up at least every other day to begin with.

- Do sets of 20 each day of push-ups and sit-ups or crunches. Also you should take up a regular martial arts class, or yoga if you’d rather.

- Eat no more than 100 calories per pound of weight. For instance, if you weigh 180 pounds, consume no more than 1800 calories 5-6 times a week. You can have cheat days on days days 6 and 7, just make sure to resume your program once those days have past. This way your week can be focused on being healthy and your weekends can remain unchanged.

- Do not eat carbs at night. This means no rice, no tortillas, and no pasta after 6 pm.

- Attempt to eat a gram of protein for each pound of body weight. For instance, if you weigh 180 pounds, you should consume 180 grams of protein daily. This will help you build muscle and lose weight. Taking whey protein as a dietary supplement is a much easier way to take in this much protein.


Mannerisms
The following behavior will communicate confidence. As at least 85% of communication is non-verbal, these are vital behaviors in presenting yourself in the best light.

- When you make eye contact with women, hold longer than they do. This may seem awkward at first. If you look away first, women feel you’re intimidated by them. It’s ok to smile if you’d like, but it’s not necessary.

- Be funny and lighthearted, playful and confident. Women that are not interested in you should not bother you, neither should any comments that women make. Many times women are testing you. Act cool and you’ll be fine. Never let emotion enter the equation, and make sure to not get down, or let yourself get too excited.

- Stand up and sit up straight. Posture is a great way to communicate that you’re confident. It asserts your presence as a man.

- Speak slowly and clearly. Do not mumble or speak too fast.

While some of these are more "instant" than others, you should get started on these right away. Not only will you feel differently, others will view you differently.

-bg

Monday, February 5, 2007

Women’s Earning Potential: Respect

I don’t respect Women.

No more than I respect Blacks, Jews, steel workers, billionaire oil tycoons or Swahili-speaking window washers. Or any other arbitrarily chosen group, for that matter, based solely on its identification as a group. That goes for Murderers or Monks; Philanderers or Philanthropists. And so it goes for Women, a group so broad and diverse that surely, though the group’s feminist citizenry would disagree, at least one out of the bunch is undeserving of respect.

Indeed, respect is a privilege that is earned individually not collectively, through deeds, actions, intentions, values, integrity and social impact. It is NOT a birthright conferred on any person born with a vagina and a set of breasts.

Still, it is quite common these days to hear carping about not being shown enough respect “as a woman”. Feeling like they’re constantly put-upon by “chauvinistic pigs” (read, men), these women spend a disproportionate amount of time declaring their independence and even more time decrying the perceived lack of respect shown them by men. “You don’t respect women,” they cry, to whatever man will listen who they’ll end up sleeping with anyway. “As a woman, I demand to be respected,” comes the familiar refrain.

As a feminist, I take great umbrage at these sorts of declarations. Women who feel this way are being more discriminatory to themselves than men could ever be to them. Like the beneficiaries of affirmative action, there is an implicit admission of inferiority and lack of ability in someone who demands to be treated differently because of their genetic coding.

Not only that, but it is at stark odds with the basic tenets of feminism and the female empowerment movement--sexually, politically and socially—that I value as a feminist. To wit: notions of equality, fair treatment and equal pay, sexual liberation, personal and financial empowerment. I believe in these feminist ideals. Unfortunately, the loud-chirping shrews who eternally, futilely, seek the respect of men while slipping on their panties, day-old makeup scrubbed sideways and condom wrapper on the floor, are doing the rest of us feminists a disservice.

And here is what I mean: Any group who requests preferential treatment based on nothing more than their naked social identity—“Beautiful Black Women”, “Suffering Alcoholics”, “Holocaust Survivors,” “Children of Holocaust Survivors”—are disempowering themselves by acknowledging their own inferiority and inability to rise above circumstance. Do NOT do them the disservice of according them their sought-after respect.

With women it’s no different. It’s just a little harder to do because they’re pretty and they have tits. And they know this. But if they cannot earn it individually, they have no right to demand it collectively. So next time a woman says to you, “you don’t respect women,” tell her she’s right; you respect people, men and women alike, who demonstrate their worthiness, and as an avowed feminist you find her remarks offensive and insulting to women. Then leave.

Remember, it is no coincidence that women who seemingly are always complaining about their lack of respect and blame men for their problems, never seem to get it. Meanwhile, the silent minority—the Oprah Winfrey’s, the Greta Van Suestren’s, the Melinda Gates’ and the Meryl Streeps’ of the world, just to name a few—receive effortlessly the respect and admiration of men the world over. Not a word about lack of respect ever leaves their lips. They, along with myself and men like me, are the true feminists.

To these women, respect is something that is earned not demanded. They are the wives and the single mothers, the homemakers and the corporate executives. They have strengthened their husbands and got the same in return; raised children and commanded their bodies as vessels of beauty, purity and sanctity; they have risen proudly in the workforce and staked their rightful claim in industry, politics, enterprise and social policy. They have earned it. And as a feminist I salute them all.

Meanwhile, the carping little girls who are put-upon and abused and disrespected (wah, wah, wah…) ought be ashamed of attaching the hallowed feminist credo to their limp existence. They are a disgrace to the word. All the gold-diggers and largess-seeking husband hunters, all the women who use their looks to get plied with drinks at bars; all the unemployed parasites with sugar daddies, the lot of you ought to be ashamed of yourselves for ever using words like “respect” and “woman” in the same sentence.

To the men out there, these are the same “women” who preserve their maiden name or demand you hyphenate yours, adopt masculine qualities of austerity and over-aggression in the workplace to validate their position and feel “respected”. Watch out for them like a field mouse stays alert to lurking rattlers. They’ll eat you alive.

It is, instead, that rare breed of woman who has harnessed the ideologies of female empowerment, embraced sexual liberation and earned female independence in a constructive way while maintaining the reverence for the respective differences in our inherent natures as men and women who are the heroic figures of the feminist movement. Not the vocal majority.

In conclusion, yes, women have changed. Today a woman needs to be gratified sexually and should expect to be. Women in the workplace are a blessing for which all men should be grateful. Their novel ideas and variegated perspectives have enriched corporations and paved inroads previously uncharted. These women seldom need to insist on hyphenated last names or bellow about lack of respect in order to be admired and revered by men. Their value stands on its own.

These women always feel like real women, and their true genius lies in their ability, in the face of female empowerment and sexual liberation gone awry, to still make their men feel like real men. Because yesterday, today and, yes, still tomorrow, nowhere will a man ever feel like more of a man than in the tender cradle of strength, nourishment and dignity of a woman’s love. That will never change as long as men and women are alive.

Respect women? As a feminist, never!!

-al