Adam Sandler & Halle Berry

Download this Episode!


Adam Sandler


I wasn't a kid growing up thinking, "One day I'll get an Oscar and make a speech". That wasn't on my mind. I want to just do the best work I can do.

Ah, reward, what an amazing motivator. Most successful humans, being basically selfish creatures, are working toward very specific goals.


We are told that failing to have a goal in mind will paralyze our thought processes and will stymie achievement in all it’s forms. This certainly applies to your actual direction in life.


What would happen if the football team was working hard, but didn’t realize the goal was the other way? Quite counterproductive I think. If they didn’t figure it out quickly, they might find themselves not getting to play at all.


Okay then, we really do need a goal to get started in the first place, but what type of goal have you set for yourself? The rich and famous goal is probably one of the most common. All of us have those “if money were no object” dreams. These goals are “What I can gain” types of ambitions.


How about Mr. Sandler here? He has a different type of goal altogether, but seems to be just as motivated by it to achieve great success. I’ll call this “What I can be” goals. It is entirely possible to be mainly interested in the development of your character and skills, and still have the same energy and drive to continually improve. Financial and other successes will follow if you continually improve your personal skills and become the best person you can be.


The philosopher Aristotle said: We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore is not an act but a habit.


Are you going to repeat your character building habits, or just repeat the constant grabbing of what money and fame you can accumulate? What will your life be remembered for?


The website allgreatquotes.com lists this as a Cherokee Saying:
When you were born, you cried and the world rejoiced; live your life so that when you die, the world cries and you rejoice.




Adam Sandler on Twitter




http://allgreatquotes.com




-------------------------------------------------------


Halle Berry

"Humor is always part of the best hours in life."


Think about the good old days. Have you ever wondered why the old days always seem to be so good?


I can think of some very interesting times in our past when a lot of bad things were happening. Caring for my wife’s parents before they passed away, early financial hardships, the deaths of close friends who we felt were too young. All these are obviously bad times of life, but what do we remember most vividly?


The good times. Those memories are what we cherish about those people and good times we had doing simple, happy things while financially able to afford little else. Our memory over the years sorts out and prioritizes the good and happy hours, while pushing unpleasant things to the background. This is much more manageable and we can be happier day to day because of it.


What would happen though, if you had no happiness to apply to the process of your mind creating your “good old days” memory set? If everything you had was bad and unhappy, I suppose you would end up with the “bad old days” instead. I don’t think I would like that very well.


It appears that if we make an effort right now to spend more happy, fun times with family and friends, and extend it into the future, our “good old days” would grow into some wonderful long term memories indeed.


Another consideration is the actual, documented health benefits of humor on our everyday wellbeing. A website called holisticonline.com had a great article by Paul E. McGhee, PhD on “Humor and Health“. It explains how humor contributes to health with muscle relaxation, reduction of stress hormones, and immune system enhancement.


According to Proverbs 17:22 in the King James Version of the Bible:
A merry heart doeth good like a medicine: but a broken spirit drieth the bones.


Fix your spirit with humor! I don’t think you want to be the one with dry bones!


Halle Berry Fan Page On Facebook


https://www.facebook.com/Halle.Berrry




Holistic Online Article


To leave us a voice mail, call 304-460-5760.
Also, at daggersofthemind.com you can subscribe for free using iTunes, Stitcher, TuneIn, and even email!

Robin Williams & Jennifer Lawrence

Download This Episode!


Robin Williams


"Everyone has these two visions when they hold their child for the first time. The first is your child as an adult saying "I want to thank the Nobel Committee for this award." The other is "You want fries with that?"


18 years. You have just 18 years to affect and guide the life of that tiny human being you’ve been entrusted to raise. So sad that so many don’t spend much time or effort on this most sacred of trusts.


I’ve met young men before who take a savage pride in living the wild life, a narcissist who tears around the world, seeding babies at every turn. Some don’t even know of some of these offspring, where or when they might have been born.


There are few things that set a life off in the wrong direction like being forgotten in the first place. Some fathers feel just guilty enough to send money, but never give the most precious commodity of all, time.


Have you had contact with your child today? How about going all the way and telling your son or daughter how much you love them? I know about the time they reach middle school or so, the last thing your offspring can tolerate is public displays of affection from parents.


At this stage, SHOWING them you love them is much more effective. Respect their peer pressured environment and hang back until it is safe to show how much you care. Not embarrassing them in front of their friends is really appreciated more than you know. That shows your consideration for their feelings and yes, it does show love.


Don’t give them everything, but give them the tools they need to be self sufficient and they will grow up fulfilled and will be grateful for the opportunities you provide for their eventual independence. We only have those 18 years to prepare them to fly. They are going to jump out of the nest whether you prepare them or not. It’s not very funny to watch them crash and burn, all the while knowing it was your fault.


Again, it comes down mostly to time. I’ve never heard anyone say, I wish I hadn’t spent so much time with my kids, and more time working. Sure, I could have had more money to give and obtain things for my daughter, but what she values as she is finishing up college (which she paid for herself with no loans) is time with me and her mother.


She still has the same stable home to come back to and has a firm foundation to make that dramatic leap into the world, which is quite a hostile place. The reason soldiers are put through boot camp at first is to train them to meet the adversity they will meet in battle. We can also go too far in the other direction and give too much money, things and then pad the way for them so effectively they don’t learn to cope with problems. They don’t learn the skills necessary to deal with real adversity when it arrives and they are on their own.


It is a fine line to train them to be independent and still maintain a loving relationship with you. If you do this correctly, conflict will result during the teen years as they begin to test their wings and push against you, who are acting as their conscience. As soon as they are on their own, however, you will wonder when the aliens took your kid and left this model citizen in their place. All they will have to make decisions with is what you taught them. You were there. The whole time. And you raised them right.


http://www.robinwilliams.com/


https://www.facebook.com/RobinWilliams


------------------------------------------------


Jennifer Lawrence

"Things can happen to you, but they don't have to happen to your soul."


Dictionary.com defines Adversity as: Adverse fortune or fate; a condition marked by misfortune, calamity, or distress.


I guess I should start with the obvious. Everyone has bad things happen to them. The rich, poor, and everyone in between encounter areas of their lives that are beyond their control, and sometimes it can be really bad.


Mary Tyler Moore said, “You can’t be brave if you’ve only had wonderful things happen to you.”


There are two components to your average everyday calamity. The actual thing that happens to you, and then what you decide to do with it. Coping and solving problems is always best, but sometimes you just have to let it roll over you and start with the debris you have left.


Health problems are like this. A billionaire who gets a cancer diagnosis is no less scared than a poor or middle class person. While the billionaire can get better palliative care, if he or she is dying, they face the great equalizer on this earth.


How we decide to deal internally with distress is ultimately more important than the actual event itself. We all go through various stages of grief when we are faced with death, but there are some things we can do to make things easier for those we leave behind.


When you die, do you want your spouse and children to spiral down into the pits of despair, and ruin the rest of their lives over it? We all hope to be mourned and missed, but what you decide to say to them now, can make all the difference. Encourage them to love and support each other and always remember how proud you are of them and what they will accomplish.


Jennifer Lawrence mentioned that external conditions need not affect your soul as deeply. Put up a shield between your soul and adversity and don’t let it be destroyed by what happens to the outside.


In the last episode of Daggers of the Mind, William Shatner was one of the celebrities quoted. A story is told that distressful  circumstances occurred when after his fame and fortune on the original Star Trek series, he divorced and lost everything. He was reduced to living in a camper for a while.
Being nearly homeless can be quite the morale buster as you can imagine. He could have accepted permanent homelessness, but decided that wasn’t the way he wanted to live.


As we well know, Mr. Shatner didn’t quit and is quite the success. It obviously affected his circumstances, but it didn’t sink so deep as to ruin his desire to live and achieve.


Good, bad and ugly happens to all of us. Let’s keep circumstances external, and protect that soul. It’s beautiful, and it’s the only one you’ve got.


Jennifer Lawrence Fan Site
http://jennifer-lawrence.com/


dictionary.com

William Shatner & Joan Crawford

Download This Episode!


William Shatner


"With three kids, it was always very, very tight, and it was always a scramble for what was my next job. So I learned never to go into debt because I don't want those monthly payments to preoccupy my thoughts. I never spend more than what I can afford, and I don't owe anything."


I suppose all the listeners to this show have all the money they will ever need and life is wonderfully well funded, right? Oh, I guess not. Most of us have lived all our lives from payday to payday, and have accumulated debt along the way. Paying cash for everything seems quite foreign to us, and it feels like we could never have our piece of the “American Dream” if we never accumulate any debt.


A few years ago, the American president was quoted as saying our responsibility as Americans was to use our credit cards to get the economy rolling again.
Is it even possible to have a cash based lifestyle? There are plenty of websites, such as Dave Ramsey.com who say that this is not only possible, but completely practical. Mr. Ramsey talks about becoming debt free after being initially captured in the net of debt, while Mr. Shatner wisely didn’t get snared in the first place.


Imagine where you would be now if you had never gotten into debt in the first place. We immediately think we would have absolutely nothing. I really think this is wrong. It would be an interesting exercise to get an actual accounting of how much of the income we earned actually went to interest paid to some credit card company, many times in the upper 20s in percentages. I imagine some people have paid as much as 1/10th of their income on interest alone.


Starting small and building up to a “normal” lifestyle is a very practical way to add to the happiness and eliminate a lot of worry.


Many young people today start off in the hole immediately with huge amounts of crushing college loan debt. In addition to the actual debt, the government can be counted on from time to time to change the conditions of the debt to be more favorable to itself, and more devastating to the former student.


The Bible, Proverbs 22:7 The rich ruleth over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender.


Kind of scary isn’t it? We have made ourselves economic slaves by our borrowing. We find ourselves completely paralyzed by the financial bondage we have voluntarily chained ourselves with.


What can we do to reverse the cycle? First of all, we can reduce the control the lenders have over us by cutting up our credit cards, and paying them down and off over time. One way to help is to get the high interest debt consolidated onto a fixed loan with a much lower rate. This gives you a set time to be free of it, and reduces drastically how much money you waste paying it all off.


Second, don’t accumulate more debt. Even if it is a small amount each payday, start saving an emergency fund for those car repairs, etc that seem to pop up at the worst possible moment. This further reduces our reliance on expensive revolving debt.


Here’s another suggestion. What if every time you saved money by buying a used item at a yard sale instead of new, you banked the savings? My wife and I recently saved around $200 by buying a used artist’s easel for our daughter to paint with, and the chair and computer monitor I am using right now. Curiously, I have no idea what happened to the $200. It just evaporated.


Most of the time, we get a warm feeling when we save a few cents on gas, buying a sub sandwich, or using coupons at the grocery store, but if we got a cute jar to save the total of the savings, the spare change, it would soon be an amount large enough for a savings deposit in the bank. Try it and see!


While we may never achieve a 100% debt free status, we can surely make things much better by making some changes in our financial lives.


Check out Dave Ramsey.com for more info. He has a wonderful article on "The Truth About Debt Reduction". There are more sources of info, but check them out very carefully. The financial vultures are even victimizing those who want to get out of debt. If it sounds too good to be true, and too easy, it probably is.

William Shatner on Twitter


williamshatner.com


DaveRamsey.com


------------------------------------------------------------------

Joan Crawford

"Love is fire. But whether it is going to warm your hearth or burn down your house, you can never tell."


Do you have love in your life? Have you experienced true love? One of the misconceptions about love today, is that most people just think that love = sex. Our media promotes this idea even in our children’s shows. While sex certainly is part of many loving relationships, let’s take a look at actual love. One time a guy asked me if he should marry a girl he had been dating for a while, and I asked him,


"If you were married for a year or so, and she had a horrible, disfiguring accident so that you could never have sex with her again for the rest of your lives, would you stay with her?”
After an initial shock, he suddenly looked quite confident and said, “Yes I would!” My reply was, “Marry her!”


Ms. Crawford was right that love and fire share many similarities. Fire behaves itself based on how we prepare for its use. We use it every day under controlled conditions to cook food, to warm our houses and even in the internal combustion engines that make our automobiles go. A good relationship has the same steady, controlled burn. The passion is measured and works effectively to make a great and warm environment for the entire family.


That same passion can flame into an amazingly destructive force when allowed to burn out of control. The much publicized divorce trials of celebrities always give an insight into how sensational selfish behavior can be. Further fuel is added to the flames by tabloids and other celebrity friends who enjoy seeing the fight, and getting their names involved for their own selfish purposes.
We all have the capacity for great love inside of us. Will your love be a force for caring and nurturing others, or will you scorch the earth around you with your selfish passion, no matter what grief you cause others?


I came across a great article on the Spirituality & Health website  regarding
“50 Loving Sentiments We Should All Say More Often” by Joyce Marter


Spirtuality and Health Article


The Best of everything. A Joan Crawford Encyclopedia
http://www.joancrawfordbest.com/

Angelina Jolie & Gene Simmons

Download This Episode!


Angelina Jolie



"You might never find out that you are useful for all the right reasons - and not all those stupid things that people tell you you're useful for."


What are you useful for? I believe most of us haven’t really tried to find our special talents and aptitudes. Being busy with life and making a living is quite distracting. As a result, we tend to believe what others tell us, and in the end spend a large amount of time being jerked about like a puppet on strings.


Being used by others is never much fun. We seem to spend inordinate amounts of time trying to please others, and sometimes people get the impression that you are available for their convenience.
This usually starts with a compliment, telling you how good you are at something, and ending with how you need to do this thing for them. Wanting to please and be liked, we comply and find ourselves in a never ending loop of being used.


To be fair, not everyone is trying to use you, but it is imperative that we learn to detect the signs early so we won’t be taken advantage of so often. Asking one main question will help you spot the users. “What will they stand to gain if I comply with their wishes?” While it is perfectly OK to benefit others with your actions and have a giving heart, we must learn the difference in helping a friend, and being used by someone who doesn’t have any intention of giving back to you in the future.


Users never have time to give anything. It is always about what they can gain, and some just get a charge out of the actual manipulation and control of others they consider weaker than themselves. They seek control of another person for the thrill of that control.
Again the vulnerability is the basic human desire to be liked and cared for. We all like the attention we receive from others, but some of us are so desperate that we fall into every trap set for us by those who seek to manipulate.


Take charge of  your life and talents and learn when it is OK to say “No”. Just because you are able to do something, doesn’t mean you MUST do it every time you are asked. The life you have is your own choice. Do favors for those you love and for those who will actually appreciate what you do for them. In time they will reciprocate. That is the basis for a truly rewarding relationship.


Angelina Jolie Fans on Twitter
https://twitter.com/joliefans

https://twitter.com/angelinagossip

-------------------------------------------------



Gene Simmons



"Everyone has SOMETHING for which everybody else will gladly shell out a ton of money...whether or not they know exactly what it is."


What is your hidden talent? Many of us seem to spend our entire lives just getting by in the rat race of life with no idea of what we would be best at.
One the things that the great and famous people of history had going for them is that they didn’t have to waste 8 to 10 hours every day just making money to survive. That left them free to be creative, and to find whatever their special talent was, and then proceed.


One way to find out your hidden talent is to ask yourself, “What am I passionate about?” This is not just something you find interesting, but that thing that other people get tired of hearing you talk about. Passion for something is what makes the difference between a hobby, and something you would love doing so much, that being paid to do it is really a sideline. You would do it for free. If you want to make a lot of money, Forget about the money, do what you are passionate about, and money and other forms of success will follow.


Our minds have been conditioned from birth to accept the status quo, and not to dream. Schools are structured to teach us how to make a living, not necessarily how to actually live. Have you ever noticed that the spectacularly successful and famous people are often the misfits who didn’t conform to the strict structure of the classroom?


Henry David Thoreau said: Our truest life is when we are in dreams awake.


It is hard after years of being taught to stop daydreaming, in class, at work, church etc., to feel that is OK to set our imagination free to dream once again.


Eleanor Roosevelt: The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams. If these beautiful dreams come from inside us, why have we hidden our inner beauty from view?


Embrace your creativity. One final quote:
H.F. Hedge
Dreaming is an act of pure imagination, attesting in all men a creative power, which, if it were available in waking would make every man a Dante or a Shakespeare.


Gene Simmons on Twitter


genesimmons.com