Internet Privacy Invansion

The internet is one big hairball that keeping expanding. It welcome a great opportunity to share informations. Unfortunately, some are use for wrong purpose to for personal or financial gain.

I will cover on different series of how you can protect yourself while browsing freely.

The first topic I will be covering on the social networking and the ladies.

The social networking is a wonderful web 2.0 concept to connect with your friends in a certain niche. Facebook, MySpace, and Linkedin are a good example of social networking. Linkedin is a great social networking connecting with other professionals seek prospective customers and job opportunity. This is an example of niche social networking. There are over thousands of niche social networking site.

The Facebook and MySpace is one of fastest growing social networking. They claimed to add 100,000 to 300,000 new users a week.

Some of social networking sites don’t have great privacy protection. It have holes in its security for people to exploits your privacy.

I am going to discuss e-whoring method today. E-whoring is a marketing tactics where a user set up a fake profile to enticing a member into sign-up for a financial gain.

For example, A male will find a pretty picture of a girl. He will create a profile on a dating site that he sign up with. Then, he maybe will go into chatroom or any ads site like Craigslist to advertise. He lures men who is interested in this profile. Then, he flirts with them and guide them to a sign-up page. Depend on publisher’s term on how the payout will be. Some will earn $3.00 per sign up or $30.00 for a new customer who sign up with credit card. In the end, if he is successful, he earns a paycheck and the customer end up into empty abyss where this girl doesn’t end.

This is considered fraudlent. The publisher don’t endorse this method. The publisher wants to build a honest business. If the publisher discovers this fraud is happening. This advertiser will be banned and the commission will not be paid. Unfortunately, those advertiser are savvy in hiding their identification. They resort to method called blackhat. It is a method where an advertiser may violates the agreement using unorthodox method to gain large financial in short period on internet. If you keeping on getting viagra ads in your inbox. Those e-mail came from blackhatter.

How does e-whoring exploits girls. I observe their method. They will building many profiles. The more profiles equals more monetary rewards. Their favorite place is going on MySpace to find cute girls. They will steal the picture to create a profile. It maybe your picture or your girlfriend. They will advertise the fake profile. They may advertise it in a sexually way. Can imagine if you happen to stumble across the picture. This picture is your sister or your daughter. And you are upset by her secret life she is living. This will cause a chao among the families and friends. Maybe she is doing this or she is a victim of being e-whored.

It is a two-way street fraudlent, your picture is being stolen and men are misleaded. Your reputation is tarnished and you end up losing money to a fake profile.

In my research, I discovered that there are two companies that enodorse this method of e-whoring. Those guys claimed that they make up to $1,000 or more per day tricking guys. They report that there is huge money in gay market.

How can you protect yourself?

1) Upload clean head and shoulder pictures, group pictures, and  non-sexual pictures only. The e-whore guys are looking for pictures that invoke sexually. Many girls like to post picture taken in bathroom off the mirror of her in underwear and tanktop. It is what lot of guys look for. If you must post, share it with your friend in a invitation profile only. Don’t revealing much of yourself on the internet. There are thousands and thousands of stalkers seek for an opportunity to pounce on you.  The e-whore guys love MySpace since lot of young girls fleece to these sites with no considration of her security and posting pictures like there is no tomorrow.

I give the Facebook five stars for good privacy system.

Take a look at your social networking profile. Some have toggles that you can control how much you release your information to the public. Keep it clean and respect manner and you shouldn’t have this problem.

2) Add watermark to the picture. It will slow the e-whore guys. The e-whore guys tends to be lazy and want easy way out making money. There is watermark stamped on picture and the e-whore guys don’t want to spend time cutting the mark out of picture. No watermark = amateur pictures + free of repeat uses.

3) Getting picture protected. Go to http://creativecommons.org/. It is a non-profit organization that provide copyright protection for any type of medium. Take advantage of this. It will make your case stronger if you are going to file a complaint.

4) Montitor your privacy using http://www.tineye.com/. It is a reverse search engine for image. Upload the picture or url address. It will search the engine. If you see your picture is being use in a wrong manner. You can search down the website and contact the administrator. They will investigate and possible revoke this advertiser’s account and remove their comission.

5) Run whois search. With some luck, you may find this  contact’s information. You can report to the website hosting account company that they are using your image in wrong way. They will suspended this person’s account. Check the information by entering website’s url at http://www.whois.net

6) Become educated on the Digital Millienium Copyright Act. It is a legislation bill it was passed by the Congress in 1998. It outline your right in how you can protect your work on-line. http://www.copyright.gov/legislation/dmca.pdf

I discover a e-whore profile being ’advertise’ discreetly on Tim Ferriss’s blog. I am declaring the profile plausible but a strong indication of e-whoring being employed. Here is the landing page, http://www.annamcmahon.com/.

Go ahead practice test this url by running it through Whois search and Tineye. If you are curious. Go to Craigslist and reply to an posting in relationship or adult section. You will see how they try to ’sell’ you. They are pretty savvy in doing this since they are motivated by making money easy way frauding the hell out of you. Again, run this through Tineye and Whois.

Remember to report to protect the next victim. The internet re-victimize the ladies forever through sharing. Watch out for yourself and your loved ones.  

Watch out, MySpace.com and HotorNot.com is a popular hunting ground for the e-whore guys to harvest the picture.

Be vigilant and get yourself protected today.

P.S. I must admit I fail to protect myself sometime. When I was working on this project. I was tired and I decide to take a nap. I left my work open. The next thing I find someone had use the computer. Oooh no. It is a big oops. What they see and they may mischaractized my e-whoring reserach. It make the situation awkward and it is tricky to give an explantation. Be vigilant, be responsible, and check your surrounding before you sign off.

We may slip sometime. We are human after all. We hope that someone out there will not take advantage of us. If one slip, extend your helping hand pull them up back on the feet. He will return you the favor the next time you stumbling down.

It is a crucial time during January and February for the health clubs to generating high revenue of the year. It is time of year people decide to change their lifestyle by getting in shape. They are frustrated with how they look. They want to look beautiful and sexy. Men will want to be able to take their t-shirt off at a beach or for the ladies to strutting in her two-piece bikini.

January 1 is a popular date people putting their resolution list together. To tell you the truth, they fails.

Why do they fail?

They wallowed in their own self-pity and feel so ashamed. They devise a escape plan by putting together a resolution list. There are 17 items on the resolution list starting with lose 35 pounds, quitting smoking, and going to work 15 minutes earlier and forth on…

They are overwhelming themselves and they believe they can accomplish this with their sheer force. I salute for those who made it. You are my role model.

I read a book long time ago and it stick with me forever. The author suggested that we pick four things we want to improve. When you identified four items. You start with you feel you want to focus fully. Focus on the first item for 90 days. Just 1 thing at time.

You are not distracting with stress yourselves to improve 17 things at same time. Doing one at time will help you feeling you are accomplish something. It is a rush when you succeed. Success breeds success. It take about 21 days to develop into a habit. 90 days is to lock your habit so that you feel so naturally just like you breathe the air involuntarily. If you even forget just like you got in bed and didn’t brush your teeth. Your body’s mechanism kick in and you self-correct and brush your teeth. It is all automatic. It is what 90 days of working on your habit is all about.

When your first period of 90 days has passed and then you can move on to second one for other 90 days. That give you 360 days to work on four goals you identified. Then you have 5 days of reviewing period when you accomplish 4 goals. You are ready to tackle second set.

Remember, the tortoise won the race against the hare. The tortoise was slow but patience with eye on the prize. The hare is boasted with ego and took his eye off the prize…and the rest is history.

I wish you a many success.

P.S. Don’t get discourage if you didn’t make 21 days. It is what 90 days are for to give you some buffer zone to give it other try.

DSA logo

I was in Las Vegas from June 19-28 doing volunteer work for Deaf Seniors of America. It was a fantastic experience. 1,900 senior citizens in attendance and I am in awe. It was an inspiration seeing sea of white hairs gathering. I watched their conversation. It ranged from their old day at institution and college days to their current ailment of health.

The funniest moment was when I help getting more chairs for the workshop, “How to Keep It Hot after 50″, a sex workshop by mental health presenter. I stay there collecting the survey. It was hilarious watching senior citizen bantering on the sexuality. That workshop was packed for next few days. I felt bad when I had to steal the chairs from the workshop next room.

The conference was entertaining yet dangerous. There was at least 30 motor scooter running around. I had to be on alert to get hitting. Sigh, some are a bit senile and drove recklessly. It fascinated me when I saw the motor scooter gathering together just to chat. They went in a circle. The size of motor scooter took up the space and it was a huge circle.

The vibrancy of the conference has given me and glimpse to my future. I observe and I seek for a healthy and fit senior citizen who I could model after. There were few at present. Friends and I striked a conversation on what like we will be in next few decades. I pray that I am healthy and well.

The major play I learned working as a volunteer was how to give a superb customer service. I am studying for MBA at Grand Canyon University at Ken Blanchard School of Business. Two things brought out me were emphatic and quality of service. As a student of marketing, I understood the demographic and psychographic of senior citizens. But, this senior citizen was a different group. It was a deaf senior citizen. Being deaf and with the history they survived had more hardship than what I went through. They didn’t have equal access when they were young. They had to work harder in order to have a good living. Many of them were on limited budget. I had to be considerate of their spending. It may have cost them an arm and a leg coming to the conference. It was the conference where they can once reunite with their old friends and to pick up new knowledge. Every where I turn, there was a small circle of senior citizens catching up. I see laughing and hugging happen across the room. Everyday, I pick up good energy circulating in the room.

I understand the real meaning of customer service when I finally saw the smile on senior citizens faces and a sign of relief. To see a smile, you had to go an extra mile rendering a good quality service.

Here are few examples:

I was asking for an advice on good place to eat. I throw out few suggestions. All of them were rejected due cost of menu and distance. The rejections have given me a feedback. I modify my recommendation based on their ability of walking distance and size of wallet. I ask series of questions to find what their appetite is up for thus I can offer a selection of eateries.

When a recommendations are generated. This is a basic customer service. To put an extra mile in customer service, I offered escort them to the eateries. In Las Vegas casinos, you get lost easily. It is casinos’ evil plan. I got myself lost few times. The escort is a small thing that made a huge difference. I know this frustration will stir up among the senior citizens. I took their burden away and lead to the place where they can afford a decent meal.

The next day, this lady I guide them to eatery, came to me. She told me how much she appreciated my help. It was a compliment when she told me she is going to vote me as a best volunteer.  But, being deaf and it is norm of the culture that they are straightforward. She told me all of her friends and she had a major diarrhea from the Japanese restaurant they picked. I offer them a selection and they picked. I am completely off the hook. But, a sincere compliment and a story of diarrhea made my day.

Second, a lady asked where she can break her dollar bill. I offered to show where the cashier cage is. This guide turns into an hour service. She saw a little boy wear Yarmulke. She asked the mother where can she go to Rabbi’s house for a dinner since it is Judaism holiday. This lady asked me if I can wait. I have no problem with that. I will be glad as long she finds where she needs to be. But, we were near the cashier cage. Instead, we took a detour going to this lady’s room in hotel. It was a penthouse and I sat through the whole conversation of them make a plan on how she can go to the Rabbi’s house. In the end, she was turn down at close notice when the car pool was full although she was offered a spot. However, keep her company while she waits. In a way, it boosts her self-esteem which she came from a hard time in her past. All I do was sitting and listen. I offered emphatic responses. Then, I add extra mile which I offered that I will ask locals to see if they can take her to Rabbi’s house. I warned her that they maybe will reject. She couldn’t really afford a $40 dollars cab ride. In the end, I don’t know if she made it but the strive of get her to where she need to be and keep company has made a difference.

There were many small acts such as give them direction, guide, talk, help, and make them happy through the day. They came far away to be reunited with their friends and to be revived. It is a moment that I put all my fullest in make this possible. The major consideration was making it convenience around their healthy and their budget.

The bottom line of a Superb Customer Service was going extra mile. A company with superb customer service practiced this method. How they make it possible? The CEO built an organization framework that will allowed their employees to do its best in their capacity. One way CEO make this happen was authorizing the employees up to $100 to $500 on fixing the problem for customer. This encourage the employees to think creatively with permission to solve a problem. This beat going through red tape getting permission which take forever. The result will cause the customer becoming disloyal and possible badmouthing the business.

The customer service is part of marketing and sales department. The departments must take a proactive responsible in ensuring the ability of customer services. I enjoy Zappos.com’s customer service. It is the best company to study its customer service. You will see how many customers rant about the upgrade to free shipping when they didn’t ask for it. They literally got their shoes the next day. This is Zappos.com’s way of give 10 times its value. In the end, you end up order more from Zappos.com. It is all about customer experience shopping. Just go extra mile. You and customers will feel great because you did a right thing. If everyone are doing this in the life and world will become more peaceful.

In nutshell, the superb customer service, going an extra mile and doing 10x the value for the customer. You will see a thousand fold of results in the end.

Have you watched Throwndown with BobFlay on the Food Network channel?

Credit: Food Network Website

Watch it! Bob Flay sneaked show his secret of success on national television. You have to observe Bob Flay keenly.

What I have observed of how Bob Flay success beating his competitors. Sometime Bob Flay lose but he lose magnificently in short time. His work is impeccable. If we use what he done and we replicate. Then we will see more success coming our way.

First thing first. Bob Flay is an experienced chef. He have the basic skills he need to masater. We can’t start as an expert when we have no fundamental. Always start with fundamental first before you pou move on to higher level. If you don’t start with basics and you are asking for diaster.

The Throwndown with Bob Flay is a television show on Food Network channel show where Bob Flay is handed a mission that he will have a cook-off with a person who is an expert in certain culinary dish. Bob Flay will surprise this person on the television show when this person thought he is doing a cooking show.

What I have observe of Bob Flay’s strategy in beating the competitors. Those strategy are well executed and is done in same steps every time.

Do Your Homework

Bob Flay will study his competitors. He will take notes in what is the main ingredients in this culinary dish. He detects and start planning around the given situation.

Positioning

Positioning is a marketing term. It was introduced by Al Ries and Jack Trout in their book, Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind. Positioning is a plan on how your product can stand out in the targeted market.

Bob Flay will take this culinary dish and experiment with different ingredients to make it a wow factor. Bob Flay’s dish will compete against the same genre dish and he wants to stand out.

Partnership

Bob Flay doesn’t work alone. Bob Flay have aides who help him with cooking. Bob Flay would often ask his aides for opinions on the dishes. His aides will provide feedback. Bob Flay encourages criticism. This is how he make his culinary dish a top-notch. Bob Flay knows that he may fall in love with his work and become defensive. His aides have credible opinions and often represents the larger population. Bob Flay must pass the aide test in order to gain the vote from larger population.

King Solomon has preached that in order to be successful you must have someone in your life who you can take on as a partner who may consult you and give honest feedback.

Plans fail for lack of counsel, but with many advisers they succeed. -Proverb 15:22

Confidence Factor

On the competition day, Bob Flay does have advantage. He have short frame to prepare the best culinary dish. Bob Flay joins at the scene and surprise the competitor when they don’t know they are going to compete. But, it is a fair competition since this competitor have being doing this culinary dish creation all his life and is always ready. They do win sometime.

The bottom line is that you must always be ready. Have a competitive advantage which put other competitors in unadvantage situation. I means that you will have to work hard everyday and trying be a better person than you was yesterday. You will never want to caught yourself saying, “I wish I was ready.” Once it happen and there is going back. You will not be able to rewrite the history. You have short life on Earth. From every awakening minutes, move and do what will put you ahead of the pack. And, the rest is easy to dominate.

Be ready give you leverage. You are at the most ready and there will be an opportunity for you to become better because you have master the fundamentals. It will be easy for you to climb the rung of the ladder.

Likeability Factor

You will never see Bob Flay talk down his competitors. You will see him joking and enjoy competition in the most civil manner. Think about it. His reputation is on the line. If an amateur cook beat the renowned professional chef. Then, what is Bob Flay. Bob Flay carry tremendous pressure. Yet, he stay cool.

The people will see how calm and cool Bob Flay is. This portray his confidence. People feel good about Bob Flay. The people will vote for competitior who made them feel good. They feel good because they receive the positive energy.

In the end, who win and who lose, Bob Flay and the competitor are on the good note. Through the competition, the competitor also feel good yet nervous trying to beat the professional chef.

You don’t always see people desire to associate with negativism. The show was fill with archetype of good versus bad. There is people rooting for hometown hero which is the amateur cook and the big bad guy is the Bob Flay who is claiming that he is the best chef in the whole world. This is the storyline people enjoy. In midst of good versus bad, two cooks compete aspirationaly. The whole game become fun and the audience enjoy so much.

It was Bob Flay that command the positive energy in the room. It doesn’t matter if he win or lose. Bob Flay dominate the energy of people in the room. Maybe, it did give him edge in voting over the best culinary dish.

Now, we can see how Bob Flay smokes the competitor and acquire skills and knowledge n short time.

The steps Bob Flay repeat it again and again.

Prelude: Master the fundmaental skills.
Step 1: Do your homework studying the competitior.
Step 2: Positioning: Discover what will put you over the edge
Step 3: Partnership. They help you guide your journey by minimize risks and giving bold honesty.
Step 4: Confidence Factor: Always be ready and sharpening your saw.
Step 5: Likeability Factor: People loves to be around someone who make them feel good.

We were raised to do work with no mistake. When a task is assigned, we take it serious. We work cautiously. We do our best. At the completion of task, we turn in.

The result?

Our boss hates it.

Our hope is lost.

This is our our society functions.

We must unhinged this thinking. If we don’t and then we live our life miserably. Our creativity and passionate is hindered.

When we subscribe to this convention of perfection system, we no longer make a breakthrough in our daily life around our circumstance.

We must start feel our fear and do it. This is when we failure forward. Failure make us a better person. How often do you have friends or family members who have a great idea. You love it. You encourage it. But, that idea go no where. Why? Remember, we have been conditioned that our idea is bad and failure is an embarassment.

Debunk this convention of perfection system.

Failure forward.

If you have great idea. Do it. It is ok when you make mistake or you failure. Cherish your failure. This i s an opportunity when you can reflect and improve yourself to a better you.

Yes, it is a pain. But, it is the pain that make you beautiful. Think of a great building that are being pounded by hammer and cutting by power saw. If this building have feel and the building will scream in agony of pain. This is what make the building beautiful.

Take criticism. Garner yourself a thick skin. Grow a cajones.

A great person said, “A disappointment is an opportunity in disguise.” Change your thinking and ask yourself, “What can I learn from this?” “What can I do better?” The odd is that you will find answer right under your nose. This is  you telling your brain to work different. And, your brain will start to seek for the answer you needed. Brain is an amazing organ. Use it well and it will serve you well.

I recalled a story telling by Jack Canfield in his book, “Success Principle”. He told the story about a little boy who went to the fridge to get the milk. He helped himself to a glass of a milk. The milk jug was too big for him to handle. He spilled the milk all over the milk. This little boy was so disappointed. His mom saw this event and she went down to him and told him, “Honey, can you help mom clean this up and we will try this again.”. If you are like me and think this boy will be in a big trouble. Unfortunatelhy, we have been conditioned that if there is a mistake and it is to be scolded. It has been pass down from many generations. What can we learn from this mom? The mom taught the little boy to take responsible after his mess. And, she encourage him to try again. This mom just solved a world problem at very early age. How many people will try again after the first mistake? Not many because they felt ashamed and they don’t want to get yelled at. It is not a great feeling. We desire to be guided, coached, advised, and appreciated.

To sum this up in few words:

Take risk.

Do it.

Accept failure.

Learn.

Move on.

Do it again.

This is your defining moment to a greatness.

Jesus offers us a simple instruction to love.

The Lion and the Lamb

Jesus’s first greatest commandment was

“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.”

Jesus’s second greatest commandment was

“Love your neighbor as yourself.”

This was Jesus’s instruction on love. The three things: Love God, Love yourself, and Love others.

This is a simple instruction yet challenging.  We often are struggling to love others. In our life, we may be hurt by others. How can we love those who hurt us? It is tough to love our enemies.

Love for God

God have purpose for us. We suffered to learn and to grow. God tests and challenge us to continue love Him. It is a way God shapes us to become a better person. It is just like a hammer and chisel being blow. Each blow, it hurts. But, in the end, you become beautiful.

How can we love God?

We can love God by pray, reading Bible, teach other people about God, and to meet Jesus through Sacrament: Baptism, reconciliation, Confirmation, Communion, Matrimony or Holy Order, and anointing of sickness. We must partake in reconciliation and Eucharist often as we can.

Love Ourselves

We must love ourselves first. How can we love other if we don’t love ourselves?

For example, if we can’t ride a bicycle. Can we teach other to ride a bicycle? No. First, we need to learn how to ride bicycle and then we can teach others. We are experienced and we understand what it is like to ride a bicycle. Through our teaching, we can coach better and be more emphatic.

How can we love ourselves?

We must take good care of ourselves. We need to exercise and eat well since our body is the temple of our soul. We need to study and find good educational stimulation for our brain. We must work on accept who we are. We have our own strengths and weaknesses. Understand ourselves will liberate from our burden of society’s norm. Learn to overcome our shortcoming and find the strength in life. This is how we can love ourselves.

Reconciliation is often a first step. God’s forgiveness will remove our burden and bless with his grace. God know we are sinners and we are not perfect. He will always forgive us and give us a renewed life again and again. We must face God that we are sorry for our mistakes and step up to do better with our life.

To love ourselves, we can find goods in others despite their flaws. If we don’t love ourselves and then we will continue to see the problems. Love ourselves change our conscience and perception. This put a better filter in our conscience.

Love Others

To love others, we create a peace on Earth.  When we love each other and it become like a Heaven on Earth. Can you imagine how if everybody learn to love each other. What will our Earth be like? Maybe no war and we become the most productive human being. There maybe will be no thousands page to dictate on how we should live. Our only law is to love other.

Love others reinforce us to find greatness in other. It is not matter of liking others but to serve, to help, to develop, and to cultivate. By love others, we extend our kindness, support, and peace.

How can we love others?

Find time to visit your loved one or someone who is in need such as nurse’s home or prison. Extend your expertise to others who may benefit. Doing uncommon kindness such as phoning your long lost friends and reconnect with them. Make a time to find out name of your building custodial and striking a small talk with him from time to time.  There are countless way to love others. The basic way to love is through emphatic listening, offering assistance, and concerned thoughts.

Live up Jesus’s eight beatitudes are a good place to start. The Jesus’s eight beatitudes when he gave a sermon on the Mt. Sinai are:

• Blessed are the poor in spirit,
  for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
• Blessed are they who mourn,
  for they shall be comforted.
• Blessed are the meek,
  for they shall inherit the earth.
• Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
  for they shall be satisfied.
• Blessed are the merciful,
  for they shall obtain mercy.
• Blessed are the pure of heart,
  for they shall see God.
• Blessed are the peacemakers,
  for they shall be called children of God.
• Blessed are they who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

Gospel of St. Matthew 5:3-10

From the Book of Mark

“Of all the commandments, which is the most important?” “The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.” (Mark 12:28-31)

Jesus never said we must love God or love people.  Jesus said we must love God and Love people.

We will appreciate the deep love when we continue to love God with our entire mind as we would love others and ourselves. We will begin to live a better life in mind, physical, and spirit.

If we practice the 3 ways to love interconnected, we will create a heaven on Earth.

Once again, to love as Jesus’s greatest commandments have showed us that we must love God with our entire mind and love others as ourselves.

The instruction is simple. To love are challenge. We often struggle to understand why God is doing this to us? We have hard time to love those people who did terrible things. Sometime we have difficult time accept who we are. It is tough to love. But, God has promise that we will experience joy and gracious when we love fully. When we love fully, we become better, happy, healthy, and productive.

This Sunday, the December 21, 2008; my parents will mark their 40th anniversary.  I am so blessed to have parents in my life.

Mom and Dad

Let me pull the message I wrote about my parents from my Facebook profile:

My parents, Thomas Vieira and Sharon Vieira.

They are the architect of my life. They gave me the strong foundation that I can enable my journey in exploring the life.

They are amazing people. They beat the almost impossible odds. My dad and mom survived the hardship of life. The bag of hardship were homeless, growing up being unappreciated with lack of love, facing the horrible forms of abuse, and have almost no guide in life.

They married when my dad was 17 and my mom was 18. One of their first commitment is that their children will not live their old lifestyle.

Today, my sisters and I are the outcome of their success. We all three graduated from college. It were my parents’ iron-clad goal that we will graduate from college and to live a good life with all their support no matter what.

My parents of 40 years in marriage has served as my role model in building a loving relationship and the driven character of being success in life.

They are always persistent in hope, faith and love.

My parents, Thomas and Sharon, the mast of my life.

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I am now read a book by Rod Dreher, “Crunchy Cons”.  It is a controversy takes on the conservatives that now is becoming a countercultural to the mainstreamed conservatives and liberals. 

On the front cover, the block text go on,

How Birkenstocked Burkeans, gun-loving organic gardeners, evangelical free-range farmers, hip homeschooling mamas, right-wing nature lovers, and their diverse tribe of countercultural conservatives plan to save America (or at least the Republican Party)

This is such contrasting statement how Dreher describe the conservatives. Birkenstock? Organic?

Dreher’s chapter on Consumerism, he tells his experience meeting Wade Davis, the Harvard anthropologist, who studies the vanishing indigenous cultures around the world. 

The conservation between Dreher and Davis after the lecture which I find it interesting…

We say we believe in marriage, but half our marriages end in divorce. We say we love our children, but look how we let them live.  We say we believe in the family, but you don’t see it in the way we behave.  You can say a lot of things about Americans, but ‘they’re happy’ is not one of them.

The thread of a conservation between Davis and Dreher made me thinks how we hold on our beliefs yet our actions don’t reflect what it aligned with the belief.

The solution American’s misguided dream maybe is to make a committment and live what we intended to live our life.   
 

The able to learn is a critical skills that enable us to enjoy life and to become a better person everyday is to be lifelong learner.  Lifelong learner is a person who strives for knowledge.  The lifelong learner will seek different way to learn because they are thirst.  It may be a book that quenches their thirst.  Maybe they enjoy the intellectual environment at the local college lecture series. 

Each lifelong learner has their reason of continuing learn.  It may be to enhance their professional and personal life.  It may be to gain their self-esteem.  There are several reasons. 

Lifelong learner holds the same goal, to be a better person through learning.  When you learn something new, you are cultivating yourself to a better person by gain a new skills, knowledge, and better understanding of how our world runs. 

Please do Google “lifelong learner” and there will be many and many tips of what path can we take to become a wonderful lifelong learner.  I just want to share an extraordinary way to learn.

The unique way to learn is to become a teacher.  When you become a teacher, you become a student of your students.  Yes, this seems funny but being in a direct contact with your students who come from different walks of life brings something special to share.  It is always something new.  You must be a different kind of teacher to experience this.  It is a teacher who listens and share with the students. 

Sad, many of teachers enter this picture as a superior.  I am right and you are wrong.  I know everything.  With this mindset, it hinders the able to listens and learns.  When come with this approaching, the students will find you intimidating and the students end up holding all their cards because they are scared.   With a tender heart but a firm mind, the students will respect you.  With the mutual respect, the students open and you will learn about who they are and get to see what is in their soul.  You will start to see what the students want and needs.  This is the moment where you become the best teacher because you are out on a mission to fulfill their needs and to guide them to a great life.    

It is not necessary to be a teacher in a formal education setting.  It can be providing a workshop, one-on-one session, or give a presentation.  You may do this out of your request.  Or you get asked to do this gig.  It is an honor because you are recognized as an authority figure or someone who is an expert. 

As a responsible teacher, I want to make sure that my students get the best education.  I will go over the materials and also to study the segmentation of my students.  Ironically, I learn more because I research like a madman although I am expert in this subject.  I get in touch with the students.  I look at the demographic to identify the needs and to prepare accurately.  I learn about their lifestyle, the culture, and the background.  I thought I know but I was wrong.  I learn more than ever.

Through the session, I get the opportunity to meet the wonderful people.  Each conversation we held, there is always something new.  It may be the knowledge they add to the topic.  It may be a story of their life which embodies the spirit of their life that they open and share.  It can be personal stories, their culture, or even new discover.  It is surreal that you deepening you knowledge because you and the students are exchanging on personal level.  You get the first-hand experience that the textbooks can’t provide.

For example, you spent 3 years studying Spanish.  You are off to a vacation to Spanish.  You realized that the 3 years of studying Spanish does not help you to engage in a fully conversation with the Spaniards.  Suddenly, you spot a hot Spanish hunk and you spent the week with that babe.  You learn so much Spanish, their culture, food, and their way of life in just 1 week than you learn in your 3 years of Spanish class.  This is the power of teacher-student relationship practice the giving and receiving relationship.   

I have done these opportunities as paying and volunteer jobs.  In my opinion, volunteer to teach is a humble experience.  You give up the time of able to earn money to prepare world class teaching material for your students.  You go out and deliver your best pitch.  With this volunteer mentality, it become all about giving with no incentive.  The projection is different because it comes out of your heart.  In this midst, you are committed to see the students benefit something in the end.  In the end, the feeling is exhilarating because it is pure action out of heart with no expectation in return.  The interaction with students is amazing. 

This does not make the paying job experience any less.  Doing this as a paying job is great learning experience.  The mentality is different because it is a job.  You will experience a great moment if doing this as a paying job.  The difference is the duration of job as a teacher.  You are pay for your time and expertise.  The money is your fuel to continue doing the great job.  If you enjoy this job and then it is a best job in the world because you experience a great moment and you learn something new everyday.  You even get pay for doing this.  Sacrifice and deserving do have a different feeling but they both end with a big bang.  When you volunteer, you sacrificed.  When you get pay, you deserve. 

The experience of paying and volunteer has the same awesome incentive you will get in the return.  The awesome incentive is you forged a lifetime friendship with students and you get to witness their moment when the “light bulb” goes off.   You also will reap the benefit of hearing their success stories of your students take your teachings to their heart when you and the student meet again.

Aside the paying and volunteer teaching jobs.  We will always be a teacher-student.  When we learn something from someone else, we become a student.  When we share our knowledge, we become a teacher.  It is a giving and receiving society we live in.  We must give first in order to receive.  Always be ready to listen, to open your mind and heart, and to participate in a discourse.  It is an opportunity to learn and to become a better person.  When we rejects, we wasted a precious knowledge that can make world a better place.  It is because we cease the giving and receiving conduit.  Don’t be the person that clogged up the pipeline of knowledge.  Let it flowing free so that we continue to elevate. 

If you want an extraordinary learning experience, be a teacher in any means.  You will become student of your students. 

Happy Learning,
Joe “Lifelong Learner” Vieira