LegendaryLife Blog

Although a large segment of the worlds population has self-esteem issues, only a fraction of them have enough money to make changes to their physical image in order to try to improve them. Luckily, we also have positive role models in the area of self-esteem.

What is Self-Esteem?

Well, self-esteem is how you view yourself, your accomplishments and overall quality of yourself. Self-esteem peaks when you feel on top of the world without a care in the world and dives when you are worried everybody will see something that hardly anybody will notice about you. Self-esteem is essentially how you perceive the outside world feels about you.

Negative Self-Esteem

Money, fame and even good looks have little to do with how a person feels about themselves, and here are a few examples of the effects of negative self-esteem.

Micheal Jackson

Regardless of his media stunts, he has achieved INCREDIBLE success that I feel is what is leading towards his downfall. He achieved so much at such a young age and, being a perfectionist, has struggled to reach again with little traction compared to his incredibly high stratus at a younger age. He was once worth north of 200 million dollars, with fans all around the world and basically the King of Pop while today, he is relegated to the back pages of the Inquire or People Magazines. For all his accomplishments, he hasn’t been able to master the most important of all, himself. No amount of children, fame, fortune nor media attention has changed the fact that he has a chip on his shoulder that will probably haunt him until his final days. He was once a great role model for millions of aspiring fans around the world but I feel, in his present state, he is unable to fill those shoes even with his own shadow.

Jocelyne Wildenstein

A once very beautiful Swedish woman, Jocelyne was born in a middle class family but upped her way in the social elite by marrying Alec Wildenstein, whose family is worth about 10 billion dollars. She had two great kids, incredibly luxurious houses on just about every continent, a loving husband and more money then she could spend. When the marriage fell apart, it seems, so did she. Her escape was, like Micheal Jacksons, plastic surgery. Sadly, she put so much of her self-esteem deposits in her husbands bank account that she forever changed her look simply to try to win his heart back. It failed… and she has been living with the consequences ever since.

Anna Nicole Smith

She had more beauty then brains but all throughout her short live, she suffered from drug abuse of every kind. She had no personality, self-esteem of her own. She invested all her time and energy into getting the most out of life at the detriment of her own life. From cosmetic surgery to failed relationships, businesses and you name it, she, like the two celebrities above, suffered greatly psychologically. I am sure, before the fame and fortune came, she had some self-esteem within her but it seems as if it evaporated rather quickly.

Positive Self-Esteem

For some, their success seems almost based on the ability to either turn around personal self-esteem issues or simply continually building upon an already strong foundation.

Arnold Schwarzenegger

I have to admit, he is one of my many role models in life, he has the almost inhuman ability to write his own script for life, turning his predictions into reality with uncanny accuracy. If you look at Arnold’s life, one thing becomes very clear, his nick name “the Oak” is an impossibly strong foundation for where his self-esteem stands. He wants something, he makes it happen, no matter how impossible, how treacherous the path nor how many people doubt him. He is one of the ultimate go-getters who easily has earned every bit of luck and success he has fought so hard to achieve.

Sylvester Stallone

He isn’t the most handsome, isn’t the tallest (compared to the above two) nor did his speech impediment help him on the road to extreme success… but he did it! Talk about a strong foundation, he was broke in Hollywood but even when a studio exec offered him hundreds of thousands of dollars for his first Rocky movie script, he said no! He so much believed in himself that no matter how much somebody thought he was worth, he knew his value and dreams were worth so much more. Since then, he has achieved one fantastic success after another in various fields such as art, entertainment and even in his entrepreneurial activities.

Anthony Robbins

He began his career broke, obese and feeling like a truck ran him over and over a few years, turned himself around into the foundation that people around the world pay big bucks to try to emulate. He has his own island in Fiji, no lack of money and even though he went through a tough divorce at the peak of his success, was able to overcome those obstacles and re-invent himself. How did he do it? He did it by himself for himself, and that is why he has achieved the incredible success he so well deserves.

Self-Esteem: YOU

So, how do you feel about yourself? Do you feel like shit? Well, if you do, no matter what else is going on in your life, you need to get these issues resolved first and foremost. As you can see from the above examples, fame and fortune only seem to make things WORSE, not better. Self-esteem is the inner relationship with yourself, if you cannot make peace with it, it will quickly spiral into absolute dysfunctionality. Before you seek fame, fortune and the life you feel you deserve, you need to focus on making sure the foundation upon which YOU are built is sturdy enough to weather any earthquake that will come as you pursuit a path of success.

The Bottom Line

Wealth has huge responsibilities attached with it, are your self-esteem able to handle such weight?

I believe to truly become successful, there must be some altruism involved. What is the point of being a billionaire if you cannot enjoy your success helping others achieve their personal goals?

What is Altruism?

Altruism at its core is simply the selfless regard for or devotion for the welfare of others, it usually involves behaviors or decisions that are not beneficial and may even be harmful but it helps the general well-being of those around them. A great example of altruist behavior in the business world is Warren Buffet giving away his billions of dollars to the betterment of humanity through the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. How is this altruistic? Well, the selfish response would be to keep that in trusts so that every Buffet for the next thousand years or more can live the life of a GOD, which would dramatically increase their reproductive success in this world given the right circumstances. He could also just cash in all his stocks and build a base on the moon if he so desired! I believe this is also a fantastic act of altruism because he is giving to a cause that will benefit millions of people around the world. His legacy won’t be a moon base but allowing people to get surgeries so they can see again, giving opportunity to those born in the worst of circumstances and best of all, he is still alive to see how his vast wealth benefits others!

Another great example of altruist behavior is Mother Teresa who gave every part of her being to fulfilling her mission to help those less fortunate then her even while she had great doubts about the existence of God throughout her career. She was giving back to the human race even though she suffered severe bouts of depression, gave up on her reproductive success to pass on her genes and lived a rather difficult life.

Are only humans capable of Altruism?

The strict definition of altruism is giving of oneself to better your species (reading between the lines: this is only a human trait) but I believe this is too narrow a definition, as we all share this planet with one another,. Altruism, to me indicates giving of oneself for the betterment of our entire ecosystem. I found this great example to illustrate this case, a baby duck feeding carp! You can’t get more altruist then that… the baby duck is giving food to a fish! I am sure it isn’t a conscious decision to give away food but regardless, putting a human emotion onto non-human species can’t be ignored, even if it’s a big no-no to the scientifically educated.

Altruism as a business model

Of course, there is also non-profit foundations and organizations all around the world where the business model is to HELP mankind instead of trying to derive a profit from it. Great examples are UNICEF (a United Nations Organization), Mozilla Foundation (firefox, thunderbird), Craiglist (run by Craig Newmark who has refused too many buyout opportunities to count), NGOs (Non-Governmental Organizations)that work where even governments won’t step foot in. I could list probably hundreds of thousands of these type of organizations but suffice it to say, altruism as a business model is alive and doing very well!

Love of Altruism

If you love to help others, and derive great pleasure from it… is it still altruism? Why the heck not? I say, if you can create a profitable business that help better the lives of those around the world, why not. Just because you derive great pleasure from doing these types of activities doesn’t lessen the selflessness of an act.

The Bottom Line

Altruism is contagious among the right people, why not begin with yourself?

Sudan is Africa’s largest country but has been strife with war for decades as has much of Africa. Muslims use to live side by side with their Arabian friends for centuries within the Darfur region but when great oil wealth was discovered this all changed for the worse. Sadly, Darfur has been characterized as a Rwanda going in slow motion and still, even to this day, little has been done to stem the tide of death and rape.

Background

Sadly, our colonial raping of the continent of Africa continues to this day but slavery has been replaced by something far worse, indifference. We are all responsible for what is occurring as the precious commodity that sparked this tragedy is what goes into your gas tank, is molded into your Barbie Dolls and what powers much of the worlds machinery… we are talking about OIL. So far in the 21st century, from Nigeria to Iraq, OIL has been the catalyst to cause so much misery and death.

Summary

I believe this is worth watching but if you don’t have time, here is a summary of the key points outlined in the documentary:

• Darfur is the first genocide of the 21st century and has gone on pretty much unimpeded over the past 4 years
• camps in Chad (neighboring country where many refuges head to for safety) have a 3 week waiting period
• 200 000 dead, 2.5 million forced to move
• the motto of the UN was “Never Again” after what occurred during the Holocaust but the it has been bogged down by political semantics
• Mia Farrow has given thousands of interviews to push Darfur into he forefront of the worlds consciousness, using her celebrity to spread the word
• Mia has traveled to Darfur (Sudan) 7 times so far
• sudanreeves.org is an influential site to bare witness to the genocide within Darfur
• most attacks begin with an uncoordinated areal attack with a retrofitted cargo plane dropping barrels of explosives onto a village to cause panic followed by the Jajaweed coming into the village by camel, killing the men and raping the woman before moving onto the next village
• in 2003, the security council got together to discuss reports about mass killings happening within Darfur, a province of Sudan
• China partnered with Sudan after oil was discovered in the 21st century and has becoming one of their biggest offshore suppliers
• when oil wealth came into being due to historic agreements in China, the ruling military elite became extremely wealthy as they kept this wealth to themselves with little making its way into the region of Darfur
• Darfur region was comprised of 6 million Muslims use to share scarce water resources with nomadic Arabian herdsmen
• rebel groups formed to claim a share of the countries new found wealth from the ruling elite but instead of sharing, the ruling elite decided to wage war against the rebels by arming militias to do the dirty work, the Janjaweed
• Janjaweed translates to “devil on horseback”
• government arms the Arabs to kill off the Muslims, no more sharing of resources
• government used the Arabs because its a cheap way to wage war, they loot instead of receiving a salary and they reposes land by force
• in 2004 the Muslims thought the UN was coming to rescue them from systematic annihilation but now they have realized that the UN doesn’t care about them
• by 2007, camps in Eastern Chad and Western Sudan comprise of most of the settlements within that region
• the UN provides aid but fails to do anything to prevent the problems causing refuges needing the camps to begin with
• by the end of 2003, 700 000 people in Darfur where forced from their homes
• by 2004, areal photographs showed villages burning to the ground followed by a number of alarming reports
• 200 000 to 500 000 people so far are estimated to have been killed during the conflict so far
• in the book A Problem from Hell – America and the Age of Genocide, Samantha Power shows that world governments have a history of being shy to intervening when genocide is occurring even when faced with overwhelming proof, they want it stopped but don’t want to take risks
• the UN sat idly by as Bosnia and Rwanda occurred, when Sudan began to occur, the lessons learned from past failures regarding genocide where not practiced
• the United Nations security council is the most powerful council within the UN but sadly, it’s also where most of the politics of inaction towards Sudan took place
• Russia couldn’t condemn Sudan because it was doing the same thing in Chechnya, United States wanted action but it lost status due to its carelessness within Iraq, China didn’t want to do anything that would affect its relationship with the Sudanese government providing it with much needed oil
• Sudan ignored security council resolutions and suffered NO REPROCUSIONS
• on September 9th, 2004, Colin Powell told the United States Senate Foreign Relations Committee that genocide had occurred within Sudan and the Sudanese government along with the Janjaweed bear responsibility for what was occurring
• war crimes and crimes against humanity where discovered within Darfur by the UN after extensive investigations but still nothing has happened
• woman living in camps within Chad and Sudan risk rape daily simply because they need to leave the camps to gather firewood to feed their family
• Abdalmahmood Abdalhaleem, the Sudanese Ambassador to the UN, said much of the genocide occuring is blown out of proportion and made up, they say bad things happen during war and that is basically the way life goes
• in 2005, the UN continued to talk about what is happening within Sudan and the government didn’t do anything while the Security Council was in a stalemate
• the UN doesn’t have the ability to enter a country against the governments wishes
• it took 5 years of Canadian advocacy before the UN passed a resolution allowing it to enter sovereign states without their permission during the world summit in 2005, it now had the authority to enter a country and protect its citizens from their own government
• in 2006, 8 resolutions happened against Sudan (7 in 2005, 4 in 2004) and they where systematically ignored like the previous ones by the Sudanese government
• one of the resolutions allowed the UN to enter by force to protect the populations within Darfur but China added a demand that it must be done with the approval by Sudan, which Sudan then declined
• the problems within Darfur has now spread into Chad, turning the border between the two country into a new killing field
• Chad is the 5th poorest country in the world but now they have the Janjaweed to worry about in addition to abject poverty and malnutrition
• on the United States Mall, in Washington, The worlds largest antigenocide rally occurred in May 2006 with many celebrities trying to highlight the cause including George Clooney
• in 2007, the Janjaweed and Sudanese leader where indited by the International Criminal Court (world court) for crimes against humanity but the Sudanese government said it would not hand over these two criminals
• Olympic Games in China called by some the “Genocide Olympics” to make China personally responsible for the Genocide occurring in Sudan due to its direct investments in Sudanese Oil which was the cause of this genocide to begin with
• on July 31st, 2007, there is an agreement within the UN Security Council to send 26 000 troops to Darfur by the end of the year but there is no mandate to protect the citizens nor disarming the Janjaweed

What can YOU do?

There are a number of websites dedicated towards making genocide a thing of the past, here are a few of the more well known ones.

http://www.darfurgenocide.org

http://www.genocideintervention.net

http://www.sudanreeves.org

The Bottom Line

Todays oil is tomorrow water, hopefully we become more civilized before this transition takes place.

Watch the documentary at:
http://www.cbc.ca/doczone/darfur/video.html

Entrepreneurship is a muscle that must constantly be exercised, otherwise, the sparks stop flying and igniting other fires! As part of this regimen, I am happy to announce that I have launched WoodMarvels.com to the world. I have been reading about product recalls due to lead in childrens toys and I decided to take the initiative to do something about it. Although the idea came to me a few years ago, technology, media attention and lifes circumstances prompted to push this idea a little further along.

You can read more about this by visiting WoodMarvels.com or see visit other i3DS International Corporation properties.

Many people setup goals in their life but once they are achieved, go into free fall with the problem being that they never thought of what happens once a goal is vanquished to the past.

Goals are Important

I believe that a life without goals is a life without meaning. Our species has evolved to the point where, for those of us lucky enough to be born in an affluent country, having a place to live and food to eat is taken for granted. This poses the first problem, there is no longer any motivation to do much of anything as much is given for mediocre performance. The second problem is that we are taught, from a young age, that you need to work you way up the corporate ladder or win the lottery to have any type of happiness or success in life… don’t believe it! This is a problem because most of us will not follow this route, as a result, many give up on the life of their dreams because it doesn’t follow the mold marketed to us by mass society. The third problem with goals is simply a state of balance, if they are too easy, they are meaningless, if they take too long, people give up… that fine middle ground is tough to achieve.

Inspiration + Motivation + Dedication = Goal

Here is my benchmark for solving the third problem outlined above, the first two are up to you to figure out. I have learned that simply giving answers without forcing thought is a futile effort for both involved. How to decide if a goal is worth your time and effort? Easy, first, you need an idea, an “damn, I wish I thought of that years ago” moment, now, if you remember this, without writing it down over several days you have the ambers that may grow into a raging fire. That raging fire? MOTIVATION, you see, it isn’t good enough to simply have a great idea, you need to feel an internal push to spend more and more energy towards making something happen. This can be anything, from trying to loose weight to saving up enough money to purchase your next house. Alright, you got a great idea and motivation but without dedication, the first two will die off. So what is dedication? Dedication is the ability to not only sustain the fires of motivation but also, systemically, develop new ambers. For any fire to remain viable, you need to keep adding more fuel. When is a goal worth while? When you have an idea that becomes ingrained in your head which you cannot stop working on and, most importantly, follow through with even when things don’t look so good.

Now what?

Alright, you are fast approaching your goal, whatever that may be, you need to switch gears now before it’s too late. Remember that overwhelming drive that took over many aspects of your life, well, that is about to come to a screeching halt. You need to run off, yes, stop ALL work on your goal for a few days (good time for a vacation far away) and gain a new perspective on what you are about to accomplish and figure out the “what’s next”. That may be to further elevate your goal or completely change the road you have taken so far as you see it going towards a brick wall.

The Bottom Line

Goals are not a finishing line, they are a market on the road of life.