Friday, August 31, 2012

People Watch What You Do ... Not What You Say

Remember the old adage our parents would tell us:
"Do as I say, not as I do"
Seems to me that this is exactly backwards.When I look at all the "advice" dolled out by friends and neighbours, I clearly see that almost none of it is ever considered, much less enacted.

But if we look at children, who are just small adults (ie: their world is ruled by emotion and so is ours) they do a curious thing 100% of the time.

They will take the path of least resistance (the easiest road) to any objective regardless of what you say unless there is a consequence. And the consequence has to be real. Not the fake "wait till your father gets home" or "if you do that you'll be grounded for a week" nonsense. Kids know if you will really follow through. If there's a greater than 50 percent chance that you won't, they'll do the forbidden thing.

It's almost like they have a built-in odds-counter. And so do we. Why do you think people grow pot? Because the odds of being caught multiplied by the punishment that occurs if they get caught is far outweighed by the profit possible. Other factors, like being shot by your competitor or having a life expectancy of 25 years, seem not to enter the equation.

But every once in a while, you'll see someone who doesn't tell you what to do. They just do it.

Those are the people I pay attention to.

I have some examples of people that do what they say, but unnerving to me is that most of them are twenty years younger than me. I find very few examples of someone in middle age who hasn't been compromised by life:

Tynan
Colin Wright
Ramit Sethi
Gary Arndt

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