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advisortomen · 5 years

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SELF ESTEEM

Every few weeks in one of my groups someone will trumpet the self-esteem movement. Usually, it's because they have been listening to some coach or influencer who has convinced them that all they have to do is see themselves as better than they do, and things will all turn out fine.

Fucking nebulous shit this self-esteem stuff, really hard to get a handle on it, measure it, or grow it.

We end up thinking anything we do or at any time we feel a little off or down, we are FUCKING UP OUR SELF-ESSssTEEEeeeM! OH NO! PLEASE COME AND SAVE MY SORRY ASS!

So, here's what I think about this whole self-esteem movement stuff.

It's super good you have devised a strategy to elevate your personal game, because that is something you should always be doing. I'm all for it. As long as you do have a strategy, one that is specific, measurable and repeatable. That's the scientific approach and the only way to separate wheat from chaff, bullshit from real gains.

And no offense to your preferred gurus, but if they promote self-esteem, they are hacks who have read a few books and are basically, marketers. In fact, self-esteem has little to do with a successful life.

The whole movement was turned on its ear with the publication in 2009 of Tierney and Baumeister's book, WILLPOWER.

Baumeister was Professor Emeritus and Head of Psychology at Florida State (now at U of Queensland) and had spent most of his career studying self-esteem. It was a huge social movement among educators and eventually the public for most of the last 50 years.

Get this: In his book, Baumeister admitted that they had got it ALL WRONG.(high respect to him for that).

You take an asshole and give him self-esteem and you will then wind up with a HIGH SELF ESTEEM ASSHOLE.

Not a great result. But that is what happens.

So two things contribute to successful living.

One is intelligence. However, the advantage stops at just above average IQ. Since the average is 100, once you get to 110 or so, the advantage disappears.

What does count in successful living is discipline. Not boot camp discipline so much, though that can be part of it. Its this: Being able to delay gratification is the single best predictor of a successful life.

Know any intelligent losers? Of course you do. I was one of them and all of us can point to people who are smart but go nowhere.

Know any disciplined losers? _______?

Exactly. Doesn't happen.

Guy could be a auto body man and sticks with it so that in 20 years he's got 5 shops and drives a Bentley and has a trophy wife.

Happens all the time.

So look for ways you can impose discipline in your life, self-esteem will be a by-product of that activity.

No rest for the wicked my friend, (as ma used to say). There are no shortcuts. There is no replacement for doing the work necessary to becoming a better man.

Delay gratification, do that. Impose discipline on yourself. Self-esteem by itself is bullshit.

It's why if you popped into my place right now and scooted upstairs, you'd see my bed is already made. It's like that every morning.

Start there. Make your bed. Then incorporate a morning routine, something that nourishes your soul. Then go be deliberate about how you live your life all day long .

An un-examined life is not worth living said the Greek at his trial in 339 BC according to Plato in reference to Socrates..

It was right back then, it's still true today.

How will you take this information and apply it to your life?

Share that with us. Thoughts?

Stay powerful, never give up

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advisortomen · 5 years

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CARPE DIEM

My father, now 90 years old, was on statins for many years for high blood pressure. Apparently there's a connection between statins and dementia. No kidding.

Yesterday, I visited him with my children, finding him in his room slouching down in a wheelchair, almost falling out. He smelled like s***. When I tried to speak with him I think he asked me to call a doctor, but I might be making that up, most of his words are unintelligible.

I summoned staff and they very professionally got him all cleaned up while missus, the children and I waited patiently in the hallway.

From there we could hear his cries of anguish as they dealt with severe diaper rash causing him so much pain. Usually he cries out then slugs someone, anger never far away.

Finally he was changed and dried and sitting upright in the chair. I found the foot pegs, installed them, and wheeled him down to the mess hall of his locked Ward.

Despite my entreaties, and the entreaties of my children, including his namesake little Howie who is quite devoted to his grandfather, he barely spoke. Nothing we could discern.

We had him near the TV, the one where they play old black and white movies. Suddenly, I could see my father's right hand tapping and moving, and a slight smile crossed his lips and he mumbled something as his eyes opened briefly before shutting again.

It took a second, but I realized it wasn't the big band orchestra music in the background he was tuning in on, it was a typewriter. It was a sound as sure to him as a heartbeat.

My father was a cub reporter in Halifax and later, an information officer in the armed forces. He visited 57 countries on behalf of Her Majesty's Royal Canadian Navy.

As a professional writer, he chaired the committee that developed the style manual for all of the Canadian public service. He retired with a medical discharge as a Lt Commander and editor-in-chief of the Sentinel, the Armed Forces magazine of his day.

At home, we often heard dad back in his room, or the little study they kept eventually when children started moving out and space became available. He was a two-finger typist.

He wrote a whole book about our family history on that typewriter. Several of us have original copies. He would have given his typed sheets to my mother who worked at the Department of the Environment at the time, and had access to free photocopying. Wink, wink.

In any case, all of his 9 children took turns typing something or rather on his old typewriter. It might have been an Olivetti, or an Underwood, or perhaps another brand. I don't remember now.

But I remember struggling when the keys got stuck and how you had to press down an inch or so how to type a letter. I remember my blackened fingers when I messed with the ribbon spool.

I only know one other person who uses an old typewriter like that. The secretary for the Peterson Farm, a huge Dairy outfit not far from Brockville, refuses to get a computer and still does everything on an old typewriter not dissimilar from my father's. The spry old owner abides his secretary. He was proud of her.

I say all this to you now, not because I want you to visit your ailing parents if they are still alive. But, do so if you can.

It's not because computers piss me off at times and I long for a simpler era either. Though, often they do and sometimes I do too.

No. It's to say, look after yourself now, while you can. Its the neglectful slide past the 40s & 50s which sets the seeds physically for a final third of life struggling for one good day.

That's if you're alive at all.

Exercise and diet would have solved my dad's blood pressure, but he was too weak, in many ways stuck in his pain as a little boy, and therefore dependent on others to care for him as an adult. Not a pretty sight.

And so, here he his. No need to describe him further. Missus is afraid when the children hug him. Even I'm unsure around him I admit. Most of that is remnant fear from having grown up with him. He’s only slapped my boy once.

But that he is old and feeble and unhealthy when he was once an athlete---a boxer and football player---and an intellectual with a prodigious memory, is something I know first hand as one of his five sons.

We cannot help my father. But please help yourself. Sleeping 7 to 9 hours nightly will allow a good diet and exercise to be healthful.

Clear your mind of obstacles and savour your time above all. Life gets better when we get better at life.

What else should we do? To make sure to live healthfully as long as possible?

Stay powerful: never quit

Chris Wallace

Advisor to Men & Mentor at Large advisortomen.com

#oldage #statins #livefortoday #family #fathersandsons

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