2011 A Year In Review
This year my Year in Review is considerably less structured. I have no report card, no set of goals I set for myself in January. Yet ironically this year I was more organized and I accomplished more than I ever have in my life. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
In January I began pouring effort into publishing Shattered Gods. I knew it was an ambitious goal. I wanted to create an entire roleplaying game and bring it to market. It’s something I’ve talked about doing for the entirety of my adult life, yet I’ve never come even close to realizing that dream. This year I finally changed that.
I created a website, started a campaign and began building the engine. It was slow going, but within a few months the framework for a real role-playing game began to emerge. For the first time I really believed I was going to succeed and my enthusiasm was infectious. Many of my friends got onboard and have helped bring Shattered Gods to life. They helped create maps, game mechanics, classes and to brainstorm parts of the world.
The result is that twelve months later the game is nearly finished. I’ve hired an editor to get the manuscript ready and a layout artist to create the PDF version of the game I will eventually sell. I’ve even signed up to run the game at Dundracon, where I will debut Shattered Gods to the world. It is a heady feeling. Fifteen years of false starts have finally paid off and I believe 2012 will be a year of great success as a result.
Shattered Gods was not the only massive project I focused on this year. I also developed Evil Dice- an app for the iPhone and iPad. As of this writing the app is not yet in the store, but man is it getting close. I’ve hired a game tester to put the alpha version through its paces, and with her help the app is nearly ready for release. Once it hits the app store I plan to pay a pair of developers I’ve met to port it to Droid.
How can I afford to do this? Because I no longer work in collections at Redwood Credit Union. This brings me to the other massive project I focused on this year.
I created Sly Fox Applications, my app development company. My little sister designed my logo, I created a website and I was off and running. In July I joined BNI (Business Network International). I learned how to create and manage a business, and I landed my first pair of clients. More importantly I learned to advertise, which led to an incredible opportunity.
In October I posted an ad on Craigslist for Sly Fox and later that very same day I received a call from a company called PBHS. They wanted to interview me for an iOS development position. I agreed and three weeks later I took a job as a software engineer. Since then I have been creating an iPad application for them called iConsult, which will be tested in a trial hosted by Johns Hopkins university. I’ve spent 50+ hours a week programming and my skills have increased dramatically in a very short time.
I am finally living my dream. I LOVE developing software, but for PBHS and for Sly Fox. I also feel an extreme sense of validation. You see back in 2010 I took a gigantic risk. I bought an iPad and a MacBook and decided to learn iOS programming. I dumped a huge number of hours and capital into learning iOS, because I believed it was the hottest new technology and that I’d be able to make a fortune if I could develop apps for it.
I was right. I’m making great money at PBHS and Sly Fox is earning me a steady second income. That’s BEFORE my apps hit the store. In 2012 all the work I’ve poured into role-playing aides will pay off. I will finally bring some apps to market and if I am right I will make a small fortune doing it. I think I’ve hit on a goldmine and I plan to milk it for all it’s worth.
I am more confident than I have ever been, both in my abilities and in my future.
Part of this confidence has come from Toastmasters. In the thirteen months I’ve been going I have won Best Speaker for 11 of the 15 speeches I’ve delivered. I have learned how to enthrall a room and instead of fearing public speaking I have grown to love it. This will serve me well. Earlier I mentioned Dundracron. I am delivering a seminar for gamers there, a seminar that I have prepared using skills I learned in Toastmasters.
Things are going great on the relationship front as well. Amelia and I have been dating for nearly two years and I believe I have finally found the woman I was meant to be with. Not only is she amazingly supportive, but she balances me in ways I can barely express. She makes me want to be a better person. I love you Amelia.
Wow. I look back over what I’ve written and can’t help but feel a great sense of pride. Three years ago I was a lazy stoner who spent his time playing video games. Today I am a driven entrepreneur who is living his dreams. It’s such a massive difference.
I can’t wait to see where the future takes me…
Life is Fleeting
Life is fleeting. I was reminded of this yesterday while taking out the trash. I heard a strange buzzing and glanced up to see a dragonfly struggling futilely. He’d been caught in an enormous spiderweb strung between an apple tree and the neighbor’s house.
As a I watched a large spider scuttled down the web and perched on the dragonfly’s back. The dragonfly beat it’s wings franctically, but to no avail. In moments it was wrapped in thick, sticky webbing. There was no escape.
The moment was both surreal and horrifying. I stood mesmerized, unable to look away as the spider claimed its prey. It affected me deeply and I replayed the scene over and over in my head for the rest of the day.
Life is fleeting. It can end at any time and no amount of planning or preparation can change that. We can die in a car accident, of heart failure or in countless other ways.
That got me thinking about a quote I’d recently heard at Toastmasters. It is not the years in your life that matter. It is the life in your years.
Putting the two together triggered what we buddhists call a samadhi. It’s an Indian word that translates roughly as ‘Aha!’. It is a moment of profound spiritual discovery that helps us understand ourselves and our place in the world.
The uncertainty of my own mortality prompted a very interesting realization. If I can die at any time then every moment is precious. Each moment could be my last, so I should treat it as if that’s exactly what it is.
What does this mean from a practical standpoint? How does one live every moment of their life as if it were there last? These are not easy questions and I spent the better part of yesterday struggling for answers.
The first thing I realized is that we must not wait for happiness. If something is making us miserable we need to change it. It might be a job we hate, a bad relationship or simply being overweight. Regardless, we owe it to ourselves to change it right now.
Each moment you spend miserable is a moment you will never get back. It is a moment that has taken you closer to death. It is a part of your journey that you have wasted.
Now don’t get me wrong. I don’t believe we should dwell on the past or beat ourselves up for having gotten ourselves into a bad situation. We can’t control the past, so there is no sense punishing ourselves for past decisions.
What we can do is resolve to change our future. To do that we first need to understand what it is we are looking for. What is it that we don’t currently have that will increase our happiness?
To answer this question I looked to the Eight-Fold Path, one of the cornerstones of Zen Buddhism. The first part is right view, which simply means seeing the world as it is rather than how we wish it to be. In understanding my own mortality that was exactly what I was attempting to do.
The second tenet is right intention. It means do the right things for the right reasons. What is right? Each person must decide for themselves. It is a commitment to moral and ethical improvement.
How well was I doing here? I’d like to think I’m a good person, but no one is perfect. Where could I improve? I realize something profoud. My speechs to Toastmasters have taught a handful of people how badly we as a society are being taken advantage of by our leaders. Many thanked me and several said I need to get the word out to more people.
I realized they’re right. I have a responsibility to share that knowledge. It is the right thing to do. I need to teach others what’s wrong with our government and how we might fix it. I can help them to help themselves. So I’ve decided to put more focus in that area. More on that in future blog posts.
The next part of the path is right speech. It teaches that we should avoid lying, avoid swearing and try not to say harmful things to others. So how did I measure up here?
The lying part isn’t much of an issue, but I swear far more than I should. I’ve decided to try to clean up my speech, though I know it won’t be easy. This is doubly important if I want to have a child someday.
The other part of right speech is not saying harmful things to others. I’m generally a pretty nice guy, but I did find an area I could improve. When I get together with the guys we tend to rib on each other. This is done in jest, but I realize that some of what I say probably hurts other’s feelings. It’s not funny and I shouldn’t do it.
The next part of the path is right action. It says we should avoid stealing or harming others. I feel like I’ve done very well in this area. When I was younger I was a major klepto. I stole thousands of dollars worth of merchandise from a variety of stores.
Today I realize how wrong that was, and I would never dream of stealing. I also avoid harming others and in fact do what I can to help. In joining BNI I’ve really taken the Giver’s Gain philosophy to heart. If I help others it will come back to help me. Call it karma or reciprosity or whatever you want. It works.
The next part is right living. This is the big one, at least for me. I used to think that right living just meant having a job that allowed you to sleep at night. This tenet was the reason I left the mortgage industry, because I quite literally couldn’t sleep because of the harm I was doing.
Through reflection I’ve come to a deeper understanding. Killing bunnies (or people), selling bad mortgages and beating people for a living are obviously bad choices for your spiritual harmony. I understand that part. What I didn’t get was that you should be passionate about what you do.
Right living isn’t just avoiding things you hate. It’s about doing things you love. If you were wealthy what would you do for a living? For me the answer is developing software and writing fiction. I love doing both. I need to pursue my passions.
The good news is that’s exactly what I’m doing. I’ve Started Sly Fox Applications and will be debuting my Shattered Gods roleplaying game at Dundracon in February. I’ve found what I’m passionate about, but I still have one more step to take.
I need to quit my day job and make software development and writing my primary occupation. I’ve begun working on a roadmap to get there and I think once I do so I’ll be much happier. I owe it to myself to do what I love for a living.
The next part of the path is right effort. This is by far the hardest, because it takes the most work. In a nutshell it says when you know something is bad for you stop doing it. If you know something is healthy start doing it.
I’m fat because I eat too much fast food. Right living gives a very simple answer. Stop eating fast food. That’s easier said than done. It means breaking long ingrained habits, but I know I have to do this. So I’ve resolved to start eating healthier.
This is very similar to when I resolved to start working out. The good news is that habit stuck and I have been working out six days a week for nearly two years. If I can find the willpower to do something similar with my diet I’ll look and feel better. It’s the healthy thing to do. It’s the right thing to do. Now I just need to do it.
The seventh aspect of the eight-fold path is right mindfulness. This simply means being aware of your actions and biases. If you see a latino or a pregnant teenager does your mind immediately begin forming preconceptions? Right mindfulness teaches you to watch this sort of behavior and try to eliminate it.
I’ve lived in five states. I’ve been poor and I’ve been wealthy. This has taught me empathy for others and I strive to see from their point of view as often as possible. Still, there is always room for improvement. This is something I should be mindful of.
The last aspect is right concentration, also called meditation. For many years I meditated daily. Not surprisingly I was the most grounded and focused during that time. I have since let my practice atrophy, and one of the things I can do to immediately improve my life is picking it up again.
It’s hard, but it’s worth it. Meditation is work, just like working out or tending to your diet. It has tangible benefits which increase the longer you do it. In addition to starting a diet I need to begin meditating again. Soon.
A wise friend once told me that there are three pillars to human well being. Mental, physical and spiritual. I have been tending to the mental, but both the physical and spiritual need improvement. I can benefit greatly from doing so.
Well, that brings us full circle. I spent a lot of time this weekend contemplating life. I’ve come up with some good ideas. Now I just need to follow through with them, because tomorrow may be too late.
Life is fleeting. I need to treasure each moment. That means making continuous improvements to my life, which I know I am capable of. I’ve made an excellent beginning over the last couple of years, but I need to do more. I cannot allow myself to become complacent or stagnant, because life is a journey. Time never stops moving.
How ironic that I needed a dragonfly and a spider to teach me that.
One Year Later
In August of 2010 I made a horrifying realization. I’d allowed my social skills to atrophy to the point where I avoided conversations. I was terrified to speak in public, and did my best to escape notice wherever possible. I skipped picnics, potlucks and work functions…instead staying home alone or hanging out with my friend Jeff.
I was becoming a hermit and it terrified me. So I posed my MCCC Challenge to myself. I resolved that I would improve things, rediscovering the outgoing Chris who’d gone missing in 2007 or so. That was just over a year ago, so I’ve decided to post the results of my challenge.
Shortly after making that post a co-worker of mine, Nora Guy, made a Facebook post about wanting to check out Toastmasters. For those unfamiliar with the group it was nothing to do with toast. It teaches people to master public speaking and leadership.
Nora and I checked out a couple of clubs and in October of 2010 we joined Toastmasters Club #182. This was immensely challenging for both of us, because it meant getting up in front of 30+ strangers and speaking off the cuff without knowing ahead of time what the topic was about. It meant getting over my social anxiety and showing up at a public event every week.
Roughly a year later I can’t even begin to express the impact this group has had on my life. Since joining I have become a more powerful speaker than I’d ever dreamed possible.
I’ve given 10 speeches in front of nearly 30 people, and I’ve received a Best Speaker ribbon for eight of them. When I speak I no longer mumble. I no longer hem or haw or meander. I command attention. I hold audiences in the palm of my hand.
My wall of Toastmaster ribbons
Toastmasters has changed everything. I’ve learned that public speaking is an art, and I’ve become proficient at it. In another year or two I will have mastered it, and I firmly believe that I can become a professional speaker.
It has given me tremendous confidence. I no longer fear public speaking. I don’t avoid eye contact. I no longer run from social events. Quite the opposite. I actually look forward to them. So much so that at a recent RCU staff meeting I stood up and spoke in front of 200+ people.
in July I joined another social organization called Business Network International. I meet and network with 30+ people each week, which includes standing up and giving a 60 second presentation about my business. Today I had to take it a step further and give a 10 minute presentation. You know what? I knocked it out of the park.
After the meeting nearly everyone congratulated me. Several said it was the best presentation they’d ever seen. We had a visitor from another chapter who told me she’s seen hundreds of presentations, but none had affected her like mine.
I would never have had the courage to join BNI were it not for Toastmasters, and I cannot over-emphasize how amazing the organization is. It’s given me courage, confidence and eloquence and it can do the same for anyone who joins.
So to sum things up- I’d say I blew away my MCCC Challenge. I’ve become more confident than I’ve ever been. I am a better speaker than I’ve ever been. You know what the best part is? I’m just getting started!
Inflation- The Hidden Tax
Think back to your childhood. How much was the first movie ticket you purchased? How about a tank of gas on your first car? How much do those things cost today? Prices have risen on everything from homes to cars to groceries. The question is why? We’ve all heard the word inflation, but what does it mean? How does it happen?
The textbook definition is ‘an increase in the money supply’, but that doesn’t mean much to most people. What does this increase in the money supply do? Why does it raise prices?
Let’s say there are 1 trillion dollars in circulation. You get paid $50,000 a year. If the Federal Reserve puts another trillion dollars into circulation your $50,000 is now worth about $25,000. This isn’t immediately apparent though. It takes years for the new money to cycle through the economy, cleverly disguising the money the FED created. This is why I call inflation the hidden tax.
If the government increased our taxes by 50% we’d revolt. But if they devalue our currency by printing the money we won’t even be aware of it for several years. When we finally figure it out most of us don’t know why our currency is worth less, and even if we did the politicians who allowed it are long gone.
We’ve all heard the story of the frog. If you place him in a pot of boiling water he will jump out. But if you place him in warm water and slowly raise the temperature he will sit there until he dies. Inflation is slowly raising the temperature of the water. We’re the frog.
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The Consumer Price Index
The government isn’t as inept as most people assume. They know that if they abuse inflation the people will revolt. So they created something called the Consumer Price Index or CPI to track inflation, thus reassuring the people there was no cause for alarm.
This index showed inflation happening at a controlled rate, with wages increasing at roughly the same pace. It cost more to buy things, but people were paid more to compensate. This process is something youremployer calls a ‘cost of living increase’. It would be a beautiful system if it worked, but unfortunately the Consumer Price Index is a bald faced lie.
Why do I say that? The CPI excludes price increases in food, because the government considers food too volatile to track. It excludes energy (gasoline, natural gas and electricity) because of spikes in price due to natural disasters or embargoes. The CPI became even less accurate in 1983.
Here is a chart showing annual inflation per the CPI since 1928. Notice the peak of the big spike in 1983, and the sharp fall afterwards. Why did that happen?
Look at the chart above. Notice anything about the year 1983? During the 70s and early 80s we experienced record inflation, and yet it plumetted from that point forward. Did our fiscal policy change dramatically? Did we suddenly restore sanity to the government? Nope. In 1983 the government removed housing from the CPI, which is why inflation appeared to decrease.
Let that sink in for a moment. The numbers the government use to track inflation don’t take into account the price of your home, your groceries, your PG&E bill or filling up your gas tank. That’s ludicrous. If you remove all those things what are they tracking?
At the end of the Clinton administration gas was $1.46 a gallon. The national average as of August 1st 2011 is $3.74 a gallon. Fuel prices have over doubled in the last decade and the government doesn’t include that in their official inflation numbers.
Housing prices are just as bad. The average price for a home in 2000 was $207,000. The average today is $272,000. That’s a 40% increase in the last decade after three straight years of decreasing home values. Yet the government doesn’t call it inflation.
It’s not hard to understand why. If you add energy costs, housing prices and food into the CPI it turns out we’ve experienced over 100% inflation since 2000. Our currency is worth less than half of what it was a decade ago. During that same time period wages stagnated, and in some cases even decreased.
Yet most of us remain blissfully unaware. Those few who do pay attention are mollified by the government’s CPI numbers. Yet their lie is exposed when you compare the dollar to other major world currencies.
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Global Currencies
I went to high school in Syracuse, New York. Being close to Canada it wasn’t uncommon for Canadian quarters to turn up in American cash registers. Most stores wouldn’t take them, because a Canadian dollar was only worth about 70 cents. Today that trend was reversed. The US dollar is worth 103 Canadian cents.
This slide in value is true for every major currency from the Euro to the Yen. Our official inflation numbers are garbage, and that lie becomes crystal clear when you look at the dollar versus these other global currencies. Take a look at the next chart. The first column shows how much someone would have to pay in another currency to purchase $1 back in 2000. The second shows those same comparisons in 2011:
2000 2011
Euro 1.08 .67
Canadian Dollar 1.37 1.03
Japanese Yen 120 1.03
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Conclusion
Inflation has sent the U.S. dollar is in a tailspin. Every day it’s worth less forcing the average american to work harder. Jobs are more difficult than ever to find, and those you can find often pay less than they did a decade ago.
So what do we do? How do we reverse course and win the class war being waged against us?
Those are difficult questions to answer, and unfortunately beyond the scope of this speech. I will leave you with a kernel of hope, however. Our currency is based on the strength of our economy. To stop the inflation we need to heal the economy. It won’t be easy, but we can do it.
Keep an eye out for my final speech on the 2007 economic crash, entitled Ignore the Men Behind the Curtain. I will tell you exactly how the rich sabotaged our economy, and more importantly how we can take it back from them.
Ladies and gentlemen, Madam Toastmaster.
College Might be the Biggest Mistake You Ever Make
This is another speech that I am presenting to Toastmasters. It is part of a series examining the financial crash of 2007. How does college play into that? Read on and find out!
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I’d like a show of hands. Who believes that going to a university is the best investment a high school graduate can make in their future? Just about everyone, which is hardly surprising. It’s what we’ve been taught since we were children.
In junior high our teachers warned us that if we didn’t get good grades we wouldn’t make it into college prep classes in high school. If we didn’t make it into college prep classes, then we wouldn’t make it into college. If we didn’t make it into college we would die penniless and alone in some ditch somewhere.
Were our teachers right? Maybe when we were kids, but the same advice no longer applies to our children. Going to college could be a mistake that haunts them for the rest of their lives. That’s a pretty bold claim, but hear me out before you pass judgement.
Let’s invent a fictional high school graduate we’ll call Alison.
She graduated from a high school in San Diego with a good GPA. Unlike most high school graduates Alison knows exactly what she wants to be- a lawyer. She does her homework and figures out that she can go to Sonoma State University, after which she can attend Empire College. These are both good schools and are far cheaper than most universities in California.
Her annual costs at Sonoma State are just over $20,000 dollars, something her parents are unable to help with. Alison covers the cost by taking out student loans, which SSU is more than happy to help her set up.
She excels at school, avoiding parties and studying harder than any of her classmates. Alison graduates with honors after four years- instead of the five that the average college graduate takes. Her student loan debt is over $80,000 dollars, and thanks to the magic of compound interest it’s already beginning to grow.
Alison kicks butt and takes name at Empire College. Her annual tuition is $12,792 and her books run another $3,400. She eats frugally and gets a cheap apartment, which runs her $600 a month. This puts Alison’s annual costs for law school at $23,500. Fortunately she is able to get more student loans to cover the costs.
Eight years after graduating high school Alison has finally realized her dream- she is a lawyer. Unfortunately she now owes over $190,000 in student loans. These loans have an average interest rate of 6.8%, which puts her monthly payment at $1,238 if she pays them off over 30 years.
Let’s assume Alison gets lucky and lands a well paying job right out of college. She makes $60,000 a year, the average for a starting lawyer at a good firm. That works out to about $3,800 a month after taxes. $1,238 goes to her loans, which means she’s living on about $2,500 a month. It’s enough to get by, but Alison isn’t living in a mansion nor is she driving a Mercedes.
She will pay this same $1,238 each and every month until she is 56 years old. By that time Alison will have paid over $445,000 for her education when you factor in interest. It’s a steep price to pay, espcially since Alison did everything right at every step of the way.
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The Road Less Traveled
Now lets take a look at another graduating senior who chooses a different route. Joe decides to skip college, instead taking a job at his local Costco. His starting salary is $10.50 an hour, or about $22,000 a year. Within three years, however, Joe is making $17.50 an hour because Costco gives raises based on the number of hours an employee works. Now he is making about $37,000 a year.
By the time Joe is 26, the same age Alison graduates law school, he has earned $270,000 and is making $40,000 annually. Alison earns a 50% higher salary, but after her student loan payment she is taking home less.
Joe has also been contributing 5% (which Costco matches) to his 401k. By the time Alison pays off her student loan debt he will have accumulated a massive $1,800,000 for retirement.
Joe also took out a 30 year loan on his home when he was 26, the same age Alison graduated from law school. His home will be paid off right around the time she pays off her student loans.
Her income is significantly higher, but factoring in his 401k and house she won’t accumulate more wealth than him until she is 64 years old.
Annual Income Comparison
and a more comprehensive comparison:
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Worst Case Scenario
Now lets look at a few things that could have gone wrong for Alison. What if she wasn’t able to get a job after graduation? This situation is far more common than most people realize. This is because many schools cheat when they publish their student job placement numbers.
When Empire College says that 90% of it’s students land a job after graduation, they fail to mention what kind of job. Are you working at McDonalds? Great, you count as employed. Some schools are even trickier. They will actually hire graduates to do things like filing, then lay them off a few months later. All to pad their job placement numbers.
Not finding a job isn’t the only pitfall that Alison avoided in our example above. What if her mother had gotten sick during her senior year at Sonoma State? What if she’d been a party animal and ended up flunking out of school? What if she made it into law school, but dropped out after a year because it was too intense?
In any of these situations she is stuck with her accumulated student loan debt and has almost nothing to show for it. What does Alison do then? The smart thing would be to declare Bankruptcy right? After all she has no income and more debt than many home owners. That makes her the perfect candidate to wipe the slate clean through Bankruptcy.
Here’s the problem. She can’t.
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How Student Loan Debt played into the Financial Crash
For those wondering how this speech plays into my series on the Financial Crash of 07 you’re about to get your answer.
Alison can’t wipe out her student loan debt through Bankruptcy, because in 2005 George W. Bush passed the mis-named Consumer Protection Act that exempted student loans from being discharged through bankruptcy. There is only one other form of debt that has this special immunity. It’s called restitution, something convicted felons pay to their victims.
If Alison ends up waitressing for a living she still needs to pay back her student loan debt. She will never escape it. Ever. If the banks need to garnish her social security check when she is 90 they will. One way or another they’ll get their money.
Nor would Alison be their only victim. In June of 2010 student loan debt eclipsed America’s credit card debt. There is now over $1 trillion dollars in student loan debt, versus about $800 billion in credit cards. The banks are making a killing on student loan debt. They love it, because unlike home loans, car loans or credit cards you can never escape it.
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Worthless Education
I used law school in my example, because it’s a profession everyone knows to be lucrative. But what if Alison had gotten a liberal arts or history degree? What if she majored in political science or economics? How would she have paid back her loans?
The bottom fell out of our economy in 2007. Graduating students are entering quite literally the worst job market in living memory. It is nearly impossible for someone with one of the degrees I just mentioned to land a job, and if they do they certainly aren’t going to be making much doing it.
Especially if that degree comes from a school like The Univeristy of Phoenix or ITT Technical Institute. These schools exist to make money, and the education they claim to offer is worthless. It will not prepare students for the workforce, but it will saddle them with a lifetime of debt.
Not only is this practice legal, but it’s subsidized by the government. If you can’t pay back the debt the banks don’t need to worry. Taxpayers will pick up the tab.
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Conclusion
Thirty years ago college made sense. You went to school, graduated and found yourself a job. Your student loans were managable, and you could count on paying them off with whatever job you landed.
That’s simply not true any more.
Tuition costs have risen an average of 6% per year since the year 2000. That means that a college education that cost $40,000 in 2000 will cost $75,600 now. Tuition has nearly doubled while wages have remained stagnant and millions of jobs have been outsourced.
The banks are collecting money from tens of millions of students who can never escape their debt. Most will never find a job in a field relevant to the degrees that they have sold their futures to obtain. Those that do will spend long decades paying their student loans back.
Now that you are aware of these facts I have to ask, would you answer the question I posed at the beginning of my speech differently? Do you still believe college is the best option for high school students?
Ladies and gentlemen. Madam Toastmaster.
The Greatest Heist in American History
This is another speech I’m delivering for Toastmasters…
Our next speaker recently delivered a speech entitled Bank is a Four Letter Word, which examined the 2007 Financial Crash. Due to the topic’s complex nature several Toastmasters requested that he expand the speech into a series. Tonight he will be giving the first speech in that new series
Here to present The Greatest Heist in American History is our very own Chris Fox.
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In 1913 President Woodrow Wilson signed the Federal Reserve Act into law. It’s stated purpose was to create a regulatory body to prevent the cycle of booms and busts plaguing the U. S. economy. Wilson proudly announced that the age of recessions and depressions had ended. With the creation of the Federal Reserve we no longer needed to worry about economic instability.
Less than a decade later Woodrow Wilson uttered the following quote.
“I am a most unhappy man for I have unwittingly ruined my country. We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated governments in the civilized world. No longer a government by free opinion, no longer a government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a government by the opinion and duress of a small group of dominant men.”
Why did his opinion change so drastically? Because he recognized the monster he had created.
You see the Federal Reserve is about as federal as Federal Express. The organization is made up of private banks that have absolutely nothing to do with the federal government. In signing the Federal Reserve act President Wilson took the power to issue currency from Congress and gave it into the hands of for profit banks. Why is that bad?
Because the FED charges the United States interest for every dollar it prints. That’s right. We pay them for the right to use our own currency, and the more currency in circulation the more money they make. Sounds pretty shady doesn’t it? It gets worse.
The newly founded Federal Reserve realized there was only one way they could guarantee that United States citizens would pay this hidden tax. They had to create a means of collecting money from every man, woman and child in the country.
In the same year that the Federal Reserve was created the bankers convinced congress to ratify the sixteenth amendment of the Constitution. This amendment is something all of us recognize, because it’s been around for our entire lives. It’s call the Federal Income Tax.
Prior to the sixteenth amendment congress was only allowed to create taxes to pay for a specific purpose, like a war or a dam. Once that purpose was fulfilled the tax ended. The Federal Income Tax was the first permanent tax.
It is the reason one out of every three dollars you earn is given to the federal government. You don’t take home your first dollar until May 1st in any given year. The first four months of income belong to the government. And, unbeknownst to most of us, a large portion of that money is handed over to the Federal Reserve’s member banks.
It doesn’t stop there. How many of you remember the $700 billion TARP bailout that was passed in 2007? Most people don’t understand how the bailout worked, but they know there was something horribly wrong about saving banks drowning in their own bad debts.
If they knew the truth they’d be furious. Maybe even furious enough to turn off Dancing with the Stars or their local baseball game long enough to demand change.
Here’s how the bailout worked. The Federal Reserve used something called the FED discount window to loan $700 billion dollars to the banks at .25% interest. They claimed that without this money the banks would fail and our enonomy would implode. But what did the banks do with this money? They certainly didn’t lend it back to main street America as they promised. Instead they used it to buy U.S. treasuries which paid 4%.
Let that sink in for a moment.
We loaned them $700 billion dollars, but instead of paying interest like any of us would if we took out a loan they got paid 3.75% interest to borrow this money. That’s $26 billion dollars a year in interest for taking our tax dollars.
This is why bank profits are higher than ever despite unemployment being at a record high. This is why their executives pay themselves insane bonuses despite the fact that one in six children is on welfare.
The madness doesn’t stop here either.
The Federal Reserve has never been audited. They’ve issued over $9 trillion dollars in what they term ‘off balance-sheet assets’, and we have no idea who they’ve given all this money to. It could be China or India or any number of foreign corporations. We simply have no idea.
In 2009 Congressman Alan Grayson confronted the FED on national television. He asked them to account for these funds, to explain their activities. Their response? We are not legally obligated to tell the U.S. government how we spend its money. They refused to tell us where our money is going, and Congress accepted their answer like a whipped dog. How frightening is that?
A small minority have become disgustingly rich manipulating our currency, while the rest of us struggle to make ends meet. It’s a horrible travesty, one everyone needs to know about. Yet it won’t be discussed on the news. It isn’t taught in schools. Why? Because the people making the money don’t want you to know the truth.
I will leave you this quote by Mayer Rothschild, the head of the banking cartel that dominated Europe for nearly three centuries.
“Give me control of a nation’s money and I care not who makes it’s laws” – Mayer Rothschild.
Ladies and Gentlemen. Madam Toastmaster.
It’s Not What You Say, it’s How You Say it
The following article is a written version of the speech I will be delivering at Toastmasters this evening. Parts of it may sound odd as it is designed to be delivered to an audience and not read as text. I hope it makes sense!
Have you ever spent hours pouring your heart into a speech only to fall flat on your face when you delivered it? Instead of being captivated your audience was bored. I don’t know about you, but I’ve definitely had this happen.
I spent six or seven hours polishing my first speech, but when I stumbled away from the lectern in defeat I had no idea why I’d failed. What could I have done differently? What were my mistakes?
It wasn’t until about two weeks ago that I finally found my answer. It was located in a book called Winning Body Language by Mark Bowden. This book had a profound impact on my speaking abilities, because it taught me not just how to use body language, but why it is so important.
The book begins by teaching something called the 55/38/7 rule, which was created by doctor Albert Mehrabian. The rule states that 55% of communication is based on body language. 38% relies on voice tone. Only a paltry 7% of your message comes from the actual words that you use. If this rule is correct it means that a whopping 93% of communication is not what you say. It’s how you say it.
How can you capitalize on this? How do you tap into the power of body language when speaking? To do that you have to understand both what your body is saying and what your audience is hearing.
Most people envision the human brain as one complex structure, but it is actually broken into three ‘mini-brains’. One of those mini-brains is called the lizard or animal brain, because it is the one that most closely resembles the brains of other mammals.
This mini-brain regulates your body’s involuntary responses such as breathing, heart rate and the flow of adrenaline. It also assesses everything you see and hear, constantly searching for threats. If it detects something dangerous this mini-brain alters your body chemistry so that you are prepared to deal with the threat.
It triggers the fight or flight response, flooding you with adrenaline so you can run or fight as needed. This was a handy thing for primitive man, but in modern society it can often do more harm than good. Your brain sees any unfamiliar or frightening situation as life threatening, even when there is no real danger to you.
Few things are frightening as standing in front of a group of people and delivering a speech. When most people stand behind the lectern their bodies engage the fight or flight response. They are flooded with adrenaline. Their pulse quickens. Their breaths become fast and shallow. Thought becomes difficult and they assume an aggressive posture.
This is the kiss of death for anyone who wants to deliver a great speech, because of the animal brain I mentioned earlier. Humans are a tribal species and we are always searching for a leader. By standing at the front of the room you become the alpha for the duration of your speech.
The funny thing about humans is that they mirror their perceived alpha. If you are nervous they are nervous. If you are happy they are happy. If you are utterly terrified they sense it and are not receptive to the message you wish to communicate.
It is vital that you be calm and relaxed, because if you are your audience will mirror that calm. So how do you achieve this state? How do you project a relaxed demeanor that your audience will pick up on? The first ingredient is preparation. If you know your material you’ll be more confident delivering it, and the audience will sense this.
You need to suppress the fight or flight response. This is easier than you might think. Oxygen naturally counteracts adrenaline, so deep breaths will help you remain calm. So can certain gestures.
By making gestures in front of your belly you accomplish several things. First, more of your body mass is in line with your center of gravity. This dramatically affects your breathing. You more efficiently process oxygen, which counteracts some of the adrenaline surging through your body.
It also carries a powerful signal that the animal brains in your audience will pick up on. By making gestures in front of your belly you are drawing attention to your most vulnerable area. Unlike your chest the belly has no protective ribcage making it highly succeptible to attack.
When your gestures draw attention to this vulnerable area you convince the animal brain that you are not a threat. How could you be? If you were you’d protect this area, not draw attention to it.
Gestures like these relax your audience, which relaxes you. This creates a self-perpetuating cycle you can leverage. Your audience mirrors you, and you mirror them back.
Another tool you can use to your advantage is positioning. Where you stand is far more important than most people realize, because humans are a territorial animal. Don’t believe me? Let me ask you this. How would you feel if you walked into your cubicle at work tomorrow and a stranger was sitting in your chair going through your files? Your immediate reaction would be hostile, because that person is invading your territory.
Let me demonstrate another example. If I stand behind Mark while he is seated I am not only taller than him, but he can’t see me. His animal brain is screaming that I am a threat, because he has no way of knowing what my intentions are. He can’t see my body language and is in a very subservient position. This will trigger a hostile reaction from him, so much so that he may completely ignore my message.
When you deliver a speech it’s important to stand back far enough that your audience can see your feet while maintaining eye contact. If they can’t see your feet they are unable to predict your movements, and this makes them uncomfortable. So take care with your positioning, because if you violate their personal space you do so at your own peril.
There are a half-dozen other quick tips I could give, but unfortunately my speech is limited to seven minutes so I need to wrap this up. I will leave you with this. When you are speaking stay calm. Make gestures in front of your belly. Be conscious of your breathing. Don’t invade the your audience’s personal space.
Follow these rules and you will deliver confident speeches to a relaxed audience. Ladies and gentlemen, madam toastmaster.
I’ll Bet You Five Dollars
Note: This is the written version of a speech I will be giving at an upcoming Toastmasters meeting. It doesn’t stand up as well in text, but writing this is practice for delivering the speech. When reading it please remember it assumes I have an audience. At several points I need a volunteer and for the sake of this article we’re going to call that volunteer Jolene.
I have a crisp, clean $5 bill in my wallet that might have your name on it. In the interest of full disclosure I have to let you know that I’m hoping you won’t take my $5. Quite the opposite. If all goes well I plan to take your five dollars.
So how am I going to enact my dastardly plan? I’d like to make a wager with someone in the audience. A $5 bet that by the time I am done speaking you will have learned three tools that will help you become a better public speaker. So what do you think? Is someone willing to risk a little cash?
How about I sweeten the deal a little? You get to decide whether or not you’ve become a better public speaker. You get to decide whether you keep my five dollars. Do I have a volunteer? Jolene raised her hand. Excellent. Let’s make a bet.
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The Best Notes to Use in your Speech
Everyone in Toastmasters has given at least one speech. If nothing else you’ve given your icebreaker, and if you’ve been a member for long you may have completed all ten speeches in the Competent Communicator Manual. Regardless of your level of experience everyone here has stood at that podium and done their best to deliver a speech people will appreciate.
Most of the speeches I’ve seen used notes. Some speakers use pages of well written material. Some had index cards with a single word written on each. More than a few use a traditional outline. Which of these methods is the best?
None of them. The best form of notes is no notes at all. I realize that’s a bold claim, but hear me out. Notes weaken your speech. Every time you glance down at them it breaks the spell you’ve woven over the audience. It takes your attention away from them and gives them a chance to take their attention away from you.
You’ve all seen someone get up here and frantically scan their notes as they try to find their place. It often flusters the speaker and I rarely see those people take home the coveted best speaker ribbon. Most have a hard time recovering.
I think we can all agree that notes can trip us up, but you need them don’t you? Without them how do you make sure your speech is focused and on topic? What if you get lost?
That brings me to the second tool in the speaker’s arsenal.
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The Value of Repetition
I recently read a book called Brain Rules by Dr. John Medina. It focuses on how the human brain processes information and creates memories. In essence it explains how we learn.
One of the most critical rules is repetition. Dr. Medina claims that if you repeat new information three times in a twenty-four hour period you will increase the likelihood of retaining it by 80%.
So how does this relate to giving a speech? If you want to succeed at the lectern you need to know your material. I’m not talking about memorizing your speech. I’m talking about knowing your topic so well that you can confidently speak about it.
You achieve this through repeition. Just like a baseball player practices before the big game you need to practice your speech before you think about getting up here and delivering it.
I begin by standing in front of a mirror in a quiet place. A bathroom works great for this. I get out my iPhone and turn on the voice recorder. For those who don’t have an iPhone you can purchase a voice recorder for about $20, and I promise you it’s worth every penny.
I deliver my speech to the mirror, making sure to keep eye contact. Recording it provides two advantages. First, I can see to the second how long my speech is. Usually the first run through goes over the alloted time by several minutes. Because I’ve recorded it I can see exactly how much I need to shave to get it under the time limit.
The second major advantage is hearing your speech the same way your audience will. After I finish recording the speech I listen to it. I look for places where I stumbled, or parts that could be removed. The simple act of listening to myself provides all sorts of insights into improving the speech.
I generally wait a few hours and then do it again. I record the speech from the top, and it’s usually shorter the second run through. Once I’ve finished I listen to the second recording, still looking for places I can change or improve. I take note of any clever phases or any awkward or unclear parts.
Then I do it again. Over a period of two to three days I give the speech a half dozen times. This may sound a bit daunting, but remember that since our speeches are generally 5-7 minutes it doesn’t take very long. You can record and listen to your speech in about fifteen minutes. Doing that four times will only take an hour. If you follow this process you will know your speech so well that notes become irrelevant.
Our very own Cate Griffiths told me that most professional speakers don’t consider a speech complete until it has been given 30 times. Most of us only give a speech once, here at the lectern for our Club 182. By practicing it in advance you can give it five or even ten times before unveiling your masterpiece to your peers.
Trust me when I say it’s worth the effort.
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Playing on Emotions
Thus far I’ve illustrated two tools to help improve public speaking skills. Both are useful, but not nearly as important as the one I’m about to reveal.
Emotion.
The last speech I delivered was about mortgage fraud. I began with the story of Elsie Adams, a woman who’s home was foreclosed on just days before her 92nd birthday. That woman committed suicide rather than let the bank remove her from her home.
The story is tragic and it resonated with the audience. I heard gasps and even saw a few tears. People were outraged. They were angry, horrified and more than a little sad. So why did I choose such an emotionally charged story to begin my speech?
Because of the brain rules book I mentioned earlier. Dr Medina explained that if you really want your audience to remember something then you need to link it to an emotion. It doesn’t matter what that emotion is. You can choose amusement, shock, anger or sadness. Any of these will cause your audience to remember your speech, as it did when I told people the tragic tale of Elsie Adams.
You can see this technique at work in my speech tonight. What emotion did I use? At the very beginning I offered to make a bet with someone in the audience. If I did my job right you were asking yourself what this bet was. I aroused your curiousity, which invested you in the speech.
Once you knew what the bet was you were wondering who would take it, and more importantly whether I would win. Hopefully you are still asking that question. Will I double my money, or is someone going to walk away with my $5. If I used emotion correctly you should be invested in the outcome of my speech.
Many people deliver their speech as a recitation of facts. They go over the points they want to get across, and often provide a wealth of information to the audience. Yet as they stare out at a sea of blank faces they wonder why it’s not having the impact they feel it should.
The answer is emotion. If you want people to remember your speech you need to make sure they are emotionally invested. Do that and you can’t help but succeed.
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Conclusion
So there you have it. I’ve done my best to provide three tools you can utilize to improve your public speaking skills. Give up your notes, practice your speech and use emotion to involve your audience and I promise you will deliver superior speeches.
Of course the real question is what Jolene has to say. So what’s it going to be, did I teach you something new? Are you keeping my five dollars, or did I just double my money?
Ladies and Gentlemen. Madam Toastmaster.
Alright, there’s my next speech. I’m planning on delivering it on 4/11 at the Education Theme Night. Wish me luck!
The Art of Storytelling
Think back to when you were a child. What did you want to be when you grew up? Was it a racecar driver or possibly an astronaut? Maybe it was an archeologist like Indiana Jones. I wanted to be a storyteller, though if you’d asked me back then I would have told you I wanted to be an author.
What’s the difference between the two? Very little. An author is just a storyteller who uses pen and paper as his medium. A storyteller can also use video games, movies, plays or a number of other methods to tell a story. How they do it isn’t important, at least to me. The story itself is all that matters.
So why did I want to tell stories? Because I wanted to give others the same sense of wonder I experienced whenever I read a fantastic book or watched a great movie. I wanted to have an impact on people, to have them remember the characters and worlds I created.
At first I tried doing this through fiction, but my six year old self quickly realized that a good story was damned hard to write. My attempts were juvenile and uninteresting, so much so that I couldn’t pay someone to sit down and read them. I know because I actually tried paying my brother a quarter to do exactly that.
Then I discovered a game called Dungeons & Dragons. I spent a great deal of time in the school library and one day I wandered by a pair of older kids rolling dice and pouring over mysterious looking books with a large red dragon emblazoned on the front.
They were in third grade and I was a lowly first grader, but I gathered my courage and asked what they were doing. To my surprise they happily explained that they were playing a game called D&D.
The shorter boy was pretending to be a dwarf fighting his way through a monster filled dungeon. The taller was the Dungeon Master and presided over the dwarf’s adventures. I spent the rest of my lunch watching them play, and when the lunch bell rang they asked if I’d like to join their game the next day.
I was so ecstatic I could barely sleep that night. Roleplaying was just like all the make believe games I’d invented, only it had rules, dice and books with amazing pictures of the horrific monsters my make believe self could fight.
The 1st Edition Dungeons & Dragons Player's Handbook
I showed up the next day and created my first character, an elf named- wait for it- Elfy. Elfy and his dwarf companion battled their way through the dungeon until they finally confronted a very irate dragon. The dragon promptly ate both of them, much to the glee of our DM (Dungeon Master).
Over the next several years I roleplayed as often as I could. This was more challenging than you might expect, because my parents forbid me to play D&D. They believed the game was Satanic and that if my tender young mind were exposed to it I would be warped in dark and dangerous ways. Maybe that explains how weird I am =p
I defied my parents because I loved roleplaying. It was my first taste of interactive storytelling, something I hadn’t even known existed. My friends and I could create entire worlds that existed only in our heads. We could have fabulous adventures and the game provided rules to give those adventures internal consistency.
Even though our adventures were set in a world with dragons and elves that world made sense. The rules explained how and why magic worked, where dragons came from and why our characters would want to fight them. It created a suspension of disbelief so powerful that we could almost be the characters we played.
I didn’t realize it at the time, but what we were doing is exactly what any good writer does before putting pen to paper. When you write a story you have to understand your characters. You need to know their motivations, likes, dislikes, hobbies and speech patterns. You have to understand how they will respond in a given scene if you want to write them well.
I began practicing this skill at the tender age of six. I had no idea where it would lead. For those readers who’ve seen the Karate Kid you probably remember Mr. Miyagi making Daniel-San paint fences and wax cars. Daniel had no idea why he was doing this, but he eventually realized he was learning Karate.
The Karate Kid
Roleplaying was doing the same thing for me. The hundreds of hours I spent playing characters taught me to think and act like other people. I learned how to visualize myself as a dwarf or elf or mighty barbarian, which is something that takes new writers years to perfect.
This was further aided by the hundreds of fantasy novels that I read from age six on. I wiled away entire summers in Krynn, Middlearth and other fantastic worlds. I took on the role of the main characters, viewing the world through their eyes as I followed their adventures.
While I loved novels and roleplaying games by the time I was eleven I realized something was missing. I wanted to tell my own stories. I wanted to not just experience these fantastic adventures. I wanted to write them.
So in sixth grade I tried my hand at writing again. My stories were much better than they’d been when I was six. Now they were horribly bad instead of completely unreadable. I quickly learned that I still had no idea what I was doing, so I stopped.
Then a light bulb flared to brilliant life in my head. I could run roleplaying games. I’d seen other people do it and it seemed a lot easier than writing a story. So I saved up my paper route money and bought a copy of the AD&D Dungeon Master’s Guide.
I spent weeks pouring over the rules. The truly ironic thing is that instead of warping my young brain it actually taught me a slew of valuable skills. Things like logic and higher math. The game required a number of complex calculations, and this was in the days before calculators were common. I learned algebra, percentages and statistics at an age when my classmates were still wrestling with arithmetic.
All of that was secondary though. The part that really excited me was storytelling. Unfortunately it proved much more difficult than I’d expected. My stories had plot holes large enough to drive a semi through. Yet my players seemed to enjoy themselves and always pestered me to keep running the games.
By the time I was sixteen I found my first regular group, some of whom I still game with today. We roleplayed every day after school and as often as we could on weekends. I ran the vast majority of those games and if they were fraught with mistakes at least I learned from them.
Remember my Mr. Miyagi / Karate Kid analogy earlier? I was doing it again. I didn’t realize that running games was making me a better storyteller, because that wasn’t my goal. I simply wanted to run a game that my players enjoyed.
Each campaign taught me a few more ingredients of a good story. I learned how to instill tension, how to foreshadow, how to characterize and a host of other skills. More importantly I learned what not to do. It felt like I made every mistake in the book, but by the time I was eighteen I was a phenomenal GM.
How do I know? A friend and I ran a campaign at our local game shop and took applications for players. Over thirty people applied and we accepted eight. Most of the rest came on game nights just to watch our games, and they made us keep an alternates list just in case someone left the game. No one ever did, because they were having too much fun.
Yes, I know. I’m tooting my own horn. But you know what? I have reason to. They say that it takes about ten thousand hours to truly master a craft. That typically works out to about ten years. By the time I was eighteen I wasn’t quite at that level, but I’d put in several thousand hours of storytelling.
After that campaign ended I decided to give writing another shot. I mean, I was a phenomenal Game Master right? I knew how a story should be told, so it would be simple to crank out a novel. Yeah it wasn’t so simple after all.
I wrote several short stories and showed them to my then wife Darlene. She was brutally honest, which in hindsight was exactly what I needed. She told me they were bad and she was right. But they were far better than the stories I’d written before.
Thanks to decades of roleplaying they actually had decent stories and characterization. The grammar was bad, the syntax was off and the pacing was all wrong though. But I finally saw a glimmer of potential in my work.
For the next seven years I continued to run increasingly complex roleplaying games. The stories became more involved, often taking a year or more to unfold. I designed them episodically so they were similar to shows like Battlestar Gallactica or Fringe. Characters in my games would begin as ignorant farmers and end up saving the world. The players loved them and many still talk about games I ran decades later.
As I became a more skilled Storyteller I spent more and more time writing. By my 25th birthday I completed my first novella and submitted it to a fan website for a game called Exalted. I published it a chapter at a time, and within days I received a deluge of fan mail asking for more.
For the first time in my life I wrote something that people actually wanted to read. It was a heady feeling, and it convinced me that I was meant to be a storyteller. I worked harder than ever to get something published.
In 2003 I submitted a short story entitled Lord of the Deep to a magazine called The Rifter. I didn’t hear anything from them for nearly a year. One day a package arrived for me at work. I cracked it open and found twelve copies of The Rifter. At first I was confused- until I looked inside and found a check for $65.
My name was in the credits. My story had been good enough to make the cut. I was a published author! I danced around the office and that day my boss took me out to celebrate. Just thinking about that day makes me grin.
Since then I’ve published many more stories. I’ve run a half dozen epic campaigns. I still spend every Friday night running my game, and within the year I should be publishing a roleplaying game of my own called Shattered Gods.
Every day I belt out 2,000 words of fiction. I’m still nowhere near where I want to be, but I have come a long way since I tried to bribe my brother into reading my first story when I was six. It’s been a hell of a ride and if I’ve learned nothing else it’s this.
I was meant to be a story teller. After 34 years I have found my calling.
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