Have You Had Your Squirt Today?

Has Facebook Jumped the Shark?

Facebook stock is falling and the once shiny company, while still a social media behemoth, is not growing as fast as it once was.

The same thing that happened to Happy Days may be happening to Facebook.

According to brain and behavior scientists, when you see something new and shiny your brain rewards you with a shot of dopamine -- a brain chemical that makes people feel pleasure.

When you see it (or something like it) over and over again that shot of dopamine is not enough to trigger that same feeling of pleasure.. 

So after a while the thing becomes "old" and "familiar" and it eventually falls off our radar.  This explains why diets fail, relationships sour, most sequels suck, styles change, TV shows get cancelled and why disco died.

Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter and other social media attract users because they are dopamine delivery systems.  

People are constantly checking their social media platforms for updates looking for  what one scientist calls "dopamine squirts".  Over time those users need a larger "squirt" to get the same effect.

When a dopamine delivery system fails to provide an adequate dopamine squirt it  makes it harder to keep users interested.  And that tends to scare investors away.

Let's pick on Facebook for a moment...

There is one thing that Facebook does that makes it an effective dopamine delivery system;
 
It allows you look at cute photos and check on the ever changing status of your real friends and family...

While some might consider that a waste of time it also may explain why  Facebook is so popular.

...and there's one thing that Facebook does that makes it an ineffective dopamine delivery system;

It forces you to look at annoying ads from advertisers and unwanted status updates from people who you really don't even know (your "virtual" friends).

Facebook, by sharing personal data with advertisers, has been accused of trying to “monetize” its users.  The more this happens the less the users will enjoy the time they spend on the site.

And that tends to scare investors away.

What about you?  Are you spending more or less time on Facebok these days?


Learn How to Write in Less Than an Hour

One of the best things you can do to improve your writing is to get into the habit of writing. One of the best things you can do to get into the habit of writing is to just write. One of the best ways--in my own humble opinion--to just write is to "cluster". Clustering is a technique that I learned in a book called "Writing the Natural Way" by Gabriele Rico. I find this book to be an excellent companion to "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain" by Dr. Betty Edwards which, as some of you might already know, is my favorite book on learning how to draw. Here's something I wrote after completing one of the exercises in the book:

Sad Billy

I've noticed Billy has seemed very depressed lately. He's normally in such an upbeat mood. He's been acting so sad lately. Our conversations, which up to recently have been so joyful, have become depressingly cheerless. Every time I ask Billy to tell me what's wrong, he offers the dismal excuse "you wouldn't understand". And once he even cruelly told me "it's none of your business!" I remember Billy as always being so carefree and happy. To see him in such a piteous state tears at my heart. What, I wonder, could it be that has made Billy so melancholy lately?

Here's something else I wrote after completing one of the exercises in the book:

Clam Hunt

Hand harvesting wild clams under the glow of a full moon can be a pleasantly primitive experience. As sunset approaches, my wife, Margaree, and I seek out the most secluded parts of the beach where we embark on our clam hunt like ancient tropical island villagers. First, I go about selecting a hefty, grapefruit sized rock, which will be used to locate the clams, while Margaree collects porcelain like seashells that will be used for digging up the clams (just like, we imagine, our ancestors did). Next, we take our places along the shoreline sharing in the knowledge of primitive clam harvesters, that the biggest and most succulent clams are often found buried in the moist sand along the shoreline. Then, like a speechless man-ape, I stand in ankle deep water, my toes dug into the sand beneath me, waiting for the tide to begin to recede. At that moment, I lift the heavy rock above my head and just when the ocean water has cleared my feet, I release the weighty boulder away from my body. As the primitive tool lands with an impressive thud we spot a miniature geyser erupt from the smooth tightly packed sand as the frightened clam (just like its crustacean ancestors had done hundreds, even thousands of years ago) spits water into the sky. Before you know it, Margaree, like a wild, famished, banshee-girl, is at the spot digging furiously with the seashell. Seconds later, the exposed hopeless clam, trapped and with no place to escape, is extracted from the hole and placed in a bag. We exchange a quick triumphant glance before repeating this simple, aboriginal act under the light of the ageless moon, not stopping until we have gathered enough clams for an unsophisticated meal before a crudely built fire under a night sky filled with faded, prehistoric stars.

Here's something else I wrote after completing one of the exercises in the book:

Alone in Her Own Bed

She was afraid to sleep at night for fear she'd have another nightmare. She'd dream violent dreams of guns and sometimes knives. Of war and death and armies of men invading and ransacking the house in which she lived. She dreamed of old movie monsters chasing her on her way home from school. She could never run fast enough and just as the monster had her within reach she'd wake up from the terror of her dreams crying into her pillow as she clutched her favorite doll, still afraid to go to sleep at night, alone in her own bed. She dreamed handsome young men would enter her bedroom as she brushed her soft brown hair by the lamp near the open window where the sheer curtains billowed in the wind while she gazed at the clouds drifting past the full moon. With shiny metal scoops, like the ones she saw in the huge ice-making machine in the kitchen of the nursing home where her mother used to work, they'd pour diamonds at her feet. Abruptly, she found herself in the middle of a raging snowstorm where dirty gray snowmen shoveled dirty gray snow at her dirty gray frostbitten feet. She noticed a pack of snarling wild reindeer with gnarled antlers and sharp teeth tied to an old tree. She was afraid they'd break free which, of course, they did. They nipped at her piggies and ankles as she lay perched upon mountains of trash. She remembered the huge dumpsters outside the kitchen of the nursing home where her mother used to work, filled with half-eaten spaghetti, wilted salad, and soiled diapers. She'd awake from the terror of her dreams crying into her blanket as she clutched her favorite doll, still afraid to go to sleep at night, alone in her own bed.

Writing the Natural Way is great for bloggers, songwriters, poets, screenwriters, and more. Should be at your local library or you can click the following link to order it at Amazon; Writing the Natural Way

Learn How to Draw in Less Than an Hour

Mother_and_child_large
Three or four chapters into Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain by Betty Edwards, I was challenged to try her upside down drawing assignment. I smiled a wry smile as I read her claim that I would be pleased with the results of my effort. I started copying the upside down picture and about forty minutes later I was finished. I turned the drawing and the picture right side up for comparison. I was amazed at the results. I wanted to close the book and just start drawing everything I could get my hands on. Betty must have sensed this because she offered a second challenge that was a little more difficult. Not much, but just enough to convince me that I'd better stick around and read a few more chapters at least. She went on to explain the phenomenon of what I'd just experienced. What I learned is that it's important to understand three things about your brain. First, the left side of your brain is very good at what it does. Second, the left side of your brain is in charge most of the time. Third, the left side of your brain doesn't like to waste time. I also learned that these are good things most of the time but they can hinder the performance of tasks, such as drawing, that require access to the creative power of the right side of the brain.

The Right Brain for the Job

Let's conduct a little experiment to show just how good the left side of your brain is at what it does. The letters in the following sentence are all mixed up but I doubt you'll have any problem reading it:

The wlord wuold eb a bteter pclae fi ew lal ujts lneeard ot darw.

I find this fascinating! It clearly demonstrates the power of the left brain to solve simple puzzles quickly and efficiently freeing us up to move on to other things. Besides solving puzzles, another thing your left brain is good at is assigning symbols to things. For example, as far as the left side of your brain is concerned, the human head is an egg shape, the eye is an almond shape with a small circle in the middle, a wheel is a circle, the sun is a circle with triangles around it, and so on. When you try to draw any of these things, the left side of your brain, assuming that you want to perform this task as quickly and efficiently as possible, rushes in with the appropriate symbol. The right side of your brain, which may have been getting ready to help, retreats. And that's just the way the left side of your brain likes it. Get the "job" done and move on. But what if you wanted to shift to the right side of your brain because you agree that it's better suited to accurately draw the picture? One way you can do this is to present something to the left side of the brain that it doesn't understand. Something like the upside down picture.

Who's in Charge, You or Your Brain?

The left side of your brain might like to think it's in charge but it realizes that YOU are in charge. When you decide to perform a task, it assumes you want to do it in the most efficient and effective manner possible. When you sit down to draw a human face from memory, the left side of your brain believes that it has your best interest at heart. "Come on, good buddy", it says, "I got all the symbols you're gonna need for this here project!" So you start with the head. The left side of your brain has a symbol for that; it's called an egg (or a circle). In fact it also has a symbol that represents the nose, the mouth and everything else. Imagine a photograph or drawing of several men of equal height on a platform waiting for a train. Who appears tallest? The man in the foreground appears tallest. The man who is furthest away appears tiny in comparison. The left side of your brain is allowing you to see what you believe to be the truth. Use a ruler to measure the height of each man and you may be stunned to learn the truth that each man is the same height. Measuring is a great way to deny the left side of your brain its place at the drawing table when the right side of the brain is clearly the better candidate for the task. After all, even the left side of the brain will give up in the face of cold hard facts. If you can convince the left side of your brain that it is not the authority that it thinks it is, it will give up and let the right side of the brain take over. Are there other ways besides turning the picture upside down that will facilitate the shift over to the right side? Certainly; avoid calling things out by name as you act upon them. Instead of thinking "nose" when you're drawing the curves of the nose think in terms of the curvy line that you are drawing that starts halfway up the page and is exactly x number of inches from the weird curvy thing that I was drawing just a moment ago (don't call this body part it by its real name either).

The Right Side of Your Brain is a Terrible Thing to Waste

As I pointed out above, the left side of your brain hates to waste time. After all its main purpose is to take you where you want to go, based on the information that you've provided it, in the shortest amount of time possible. "I want to draw a wheel", you tell it and Wham - in five seconds you have the circular symbol for a wheel ready to apply to a sheet of paper. You look at your pathetic little wheel and acknowledge that while it certainly represents what you wanted to draw you see absolutely no reason to sign your name to your miserable masterpiece. The key here is to quiet the left side of your brain long enough to get the right side of your brain involved. One way you can do this is do deprive the left side of your brain access to its database of symbols. But how do you do this? Turning things upside down is one way to get the right side of your brain involved. (This may not work in the case of a wheel because an upside down wheel doesn't look that much different from one that is right side up. The left side of your brain will detect your attempt to deceive it and will conjure the circle symbol every time.) The left side of the brain considers this task, for which it doesn't have handy symbols to speed it along, as useless so it gives up allowing the right side of the brain to take action. It views this as a waste of time and it goes into an idle state ready to spring into action once you've come to your senses and begun to pursue a more meaningful task for which it is more suited.

Conclusion

We now know that the left side of your brain is very good at what it does, that it wants to be in charge most of the time, and that it doesn't like to waste time. We know that, as hard as it might be, there are times when we need to quiet the left side of the brain when the right side of the brain is the better resource. We now know that we can quiet the left side of the brain by simply tricking it into thinking that the task is a waste of time, or convincing it that our data can't be validated, or by convincing it that the right side of the brain is better for the job (which to the left side of the brain means the task is a waste of time). The good thing is that your brain works for you. You tell it what you want and it works to get it for you. Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain is available at your local library or you can purchase it on Amazon or almost any craft store. Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain

No one can love who has not a heart.

"While I was in love I was the happiest man on earth; but no one can love who has not a heart."

Tin_man
"I was born the son of a woodman who chopped down trees in the forest and sold the wood for a living. When I grew up, I too became a woodchopper, and after my father died I took care of my old mother as long as she lived. Then I made up my mind that instead of living alone I would marry, so that I might not become lonely.

"There was one of the Munchkin girls who was so beautiful that I soon grew to love her with all my heart. She, on her part, promised to marry me as soon as I could earn enough money to build a better house for her; so I set to work harder than ever. But the girl lived with an old woman who did not want her to marry anyone, for she was so lazy she wished the girl to remain with her and do the cooking and the housework. So the old woman went to the Wicked Witch of the East, and promised her two sheep and a cow if she would prevent the marriage. Thereupon the Wicked Witch enchanted my axe, and when I was chopping away at my best one day, for I was anxious to get the new house and my wife as soon as possible, the axe slipped all at once and cut off my left leg.

"This at first seemed a great misfortune, for I knew a one-legged man could not do very well as a wood-chopper. So I went to a tinsmith and had him make me a new leg out of tin. The leg worked very well, once I was used to it. But my action angered the Wicked Witch of the East, for she had promised the old woman I should not marry the pretty Munchkin girl. When I began chopping again, my axe slipped and cut off my right leg. Again I went to the tinsmith, and again he made me a leg out of tin. After this the enchanted axe cut off my arms, one after the other; but, nothing daunted, I had them replaced with tin ones. The Wicked Witch then made the axe slip and cut off my head, and at first I thought that was the end of me. But the tinsmith happened to come along, and he made me a new head out of tin.

"I thought I had beaten the Wicked Witch then, and I worked harder than ever; but I little knew how cruel my enemy could be. She thought of a new way to kill my love for the beautiful Munchkin maiden, and made my axe slip again, so that it cut right through my body, splitting me into two halves. Once more the tinsmith came to my help and made me a body of tin, fastening my tin arms and legs and head to it, by means of joints, so that I could move around as well as ever. But, alas! I had now no heart, so that I lost all my love for the Munchkin girl, and did not care whether I married her or not. I suppose she is still living with the old woman, waiting for me to come after her.

"My body shone so brightly in the sun that I felt very proud of it and it did not matter now if my axe slipped, for it could not cut me. There was only one danger--that my joints would rust; but I kept an oil-can in my cottage and took care to oil myself whenever I needed it. However, there came a day when I forgot to do this, and, being caught in a rainstorm, before I thought of the danger my joints had rusted, and I was left to stand in the woods until you came to help me. It was a terrible thing to undergo, but during the year I stood there I had time to think that the greatest loss I had known was the loss of my heart. While I was in love I was the happiest man on earth; but no one can love who has not a heart, and so I am resolved to ask Oz to give me one. If he does, I will go back to the Munchkin maiden and marry her."

http://www.literature.org/authors/baum-l-frank/the-wonderful-wizard-of-oz/cha..." target="_blank">The Rescue of the Tin Woodman

Heaven Must Be Like This

I recently read an article on the Daily Beast that dealt with the existence of Heaven from the prospective of an academic neurosurgeon, Dr. Eben Alexander, who found himself on the journey of a lifetime after falling into a bacterial meningitis induced coma.  I found it so fascinating that I've already read it three times (and I plan on buying the book).  Here's a portion of that article (followed by a link to the full article and a link to Amazon where you can buy the book)...

Repeat_after_me_small
For most of my journey, someone else was with me. A woman. She was young, and I remember what she looked like in complete detail. She had high cheekbones and deep-blue eyes. Golden brown tresses framed her lovely face. When first I saw her, we were riding along together on an intricately patterned surface, which after a moment I recognized as the wing of a butterfly. In fact, millions of butterflies were all around us—vast fluttering waves of them, dipping down into the woods and coming back up around us again. It was a river of life and color, moving through the air. The woman’s outfit was simple, like a peasant’s, but its colors—powder blue, indigo, and pastel orange-peach—had the same overwhelming, super-vivid aliveness that everything else had. She looked at me with a look that, if you saw it for five seconds, would make your whole life up to that point worth living, no matter what had happened in it so far. It was not a romantic look. It was not a look of friendship. It was a look that was somehow beyond all these, beyond all the different compartments of love we have down here on earth. It was something higher, holding all those other kinds of love within itself while at the same time being much bigger than all of them.

Without using any words, she spoke to me. The message went through me like a wind, and I instantly understood that it was true. I knew so in the same way that I knew that the world around us was real—was not some fantasy, passing and insubstantial.

The message had three parts, and if I had to translate them into earthly language, I’d say they ran something like this:

“You are loved and cherished, dearly, forever.”

“You have nothing to fear.”

“There is nothing you can do wrong.”

The message flooded me with a vast and crazy sensation of relief. It was like being handed the rules to a game I’d been playing all my life without ever fully understanding it.

“We will show you many things here,” the woman said, again, without actually using these words but by driving their conceptual essence directly into me. “But eventually, you will go back.”

To this, I had only one question.

Back where?

Here's the link to the full article: 

http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2012/10/07/proof-of-heaven-a-doctor-s-experience-with-the-afterlife.html

Available Oct 23, 2012 on Amazon. Click the following link to pre-order:

Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon's Journey into the Afterlife

 

 

PRIMARY QUESTION for today...

"Who are the TWO people who will buy the $25 Basic Membership from me today?"

That's all. You don't have to enroll 100 people this week to earn a massive income. You don't need to be a super-hero.

Just focus on two people today! And do it again tomorrow! Consistently putting 2 people in your business every day will produce a multiple six-figure income for you and make you a financial hero to your family.

Here's what you get:

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