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I thought that title would make you click

I’m partly kidding, but also partly serious… Read my last blog to see what I think I’m right about.

I read all the comments and I absolutely love debating with you guys (and girls).

Maybe I wasn’t clear enough in my explanation.  Maybe I’m wrong, who knows.  Let me try again to make my main point.  If you agree with me, great!  If you disagree, great!  Seriously, either way, please share in the comments below……

Here’s what I’m really saying.  I believe the internet CAN BE much more powerful than the way 99.999% of the people use it for currently.  If you aren’t great at searching, you won’t get what you need.  This is totally true.  And it’s true that most people are REALLY BAD with search and finding opportunities and information online.  They just don’t know how bad they are.

It’s not just the fact that the internet exists that is such a big deal.  It’s about what this means and what the net makes possible.

Reading articles and finding facts online is super basic.  I’m talking about what else the internet allows us to do that is so new to all of our human history.  Think about LinkedIn.com.  If you don’t already use it, you absolutely should.  It’s one of the most powerful sites ever.

Imagine you were back in 1995 and you wanted to speak with an expert in marketing at a particular large company.  How could you do it?  How would you even find the location of the company if you didn’t already know it?  It’s hard to remember life before the internet.

Now, you can go on LinkedIn.com, search for specific jobs and people in any company.  You can contact them and come up with a reason to call them, email them, or even take them out for lunch to ask them stuff (you just need to be creative to think of a reason they’d want a free lunch with you.  It’s really not that hard either)  You can meet with people all over the world in different companies and different job positions.  If you can’t meet them face to face, you can at least email them and set up a phone/Skype call.  I do this all the time.  Seriously.

This one thing is just ONE example of many things the internet allows us to do, IF we decide to take advantage of this.  Imagine how hard it would have been to even find the name of a person in the marketing department in Samsung 20 years ago.  How would you even do it back then?

This is such a game changer for sales.  You can now run an international sales department without leaving your office.  You can find corporate clients (other businesses), then call the right people on the phone or on Skype, send them your website and other documents via email, and close sales deals online.  You don’t need to meet in person.  Some people say it helps, but it’s unnecessary.

Imagine learning about sales in an MBA program that costs a ton of money.  Do you think they teach this new way of meeting clients and closing sales deals?  Do you think they recommend the option of selling huge sales orders while still in your underwear?  Of course not!  They are teaching what was true 20 years ago.  They pretend they are up to date, but they are lying.  Schools are a business, and changing what they teach takes so much effort and energy.

Ok, this school is known for being kind of a joke, but look at this.  It’s an online university.  Students pay thousands and thousands of dollars for their online business courses.   It’s super popular.  It’s INSANE.  That link was directly to their business program.  If you read it and believe it, then WOW.  I don’t know what to tell you.  I’m shocked anyone would think this is a good idea for the money. Shocked!!

The internet can change not only what articles we can read, but also who we can meet and how we can find them.  You can find a job on the other side of the world by researching companies and contacting them DIRECTLY with your ideas, even if they don’t say they are currently looking for jobs.  Then you can set up an interview.  It doesn’t always work, but it often does.  But people just insist on doing everything the old way, and getting pretty terrible results.  They go on job websites and send their resume all over the place; often for low paying jobs they won’t even get.

Even many new sales jobs will require 5 years work experience and a long list of contacts.  This made sense in the past, but why does anyone with talent need the contacts already?  If they are confident and hardworking, they can contact anyone they want in any company.  The internet makes us all have a huge network of business contacts if we are willing to use it properly.

I’m just talking about business and sales here, but this really applies to almost anything.  The internet can change everything if we are creative enough to know how to use it; and I’m really not just talking about reading articles.  I’m talking about in every way imaginable.

I hope I’m making more sense here… If not, let me know I’m a crazy madman in the comments!  I love reading it all, good or bad

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I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I realized just tonight that the internet is WAY more important and useful than I thought.

It can be the biggest waste of time ever (which is how most people use it) OR, it can be used in a way to completely change your life for the better.

This is all obvious and probably sounds like its not new at all.  It seems like it was an article written in 1996, not 2013…

Just stay with me here; please.  I think you’ll see what I mean.

If you’ve read my blogs (You really should) or listened to our hundreds of podcasts (The best are here in the VIP)

then you already know I don’t have a lot of respect for formal education.  I think it’s pretty much a waste of time and money (except for the social and partying parts of it)

I just didn’t really know WHY I thought this so strongly.  I had an idea why, but it really wasn’t SUPER clear until tonight.  That’s why I’m writing this blog now.  It’s fresh in my mind and I actually want to share it with you guys.  It still amazes me that I can connect with people all over the world with an idea, and do it instantly from my bedroom in Shanghai.  Imagine doing this only 20 years ago?

…Anyway, here is my point.  I was thinking about how fast information is changing, and how being good at searching for information really makes a lot of school a complete waste of time.  With information changing so fast all the time, school often becomes a joke because they are teaching stuff that isn’t useful TODAY.  How could it be?  Even our cultural values and beliefs change because society is always so different now.  Old people have very useful advice on what things to appreciate in life, and some huge and important general wisdom they’ve learned from years of life experience.  But they often, not always, but often have really pathetic advice for what is currently possible in today’s world.  They just don’t get how easy it is to learn new stuff and how we can change our lives quickly with that new info.

It used to be such a great skill to be a lawyer.  ”WOOOO, he/she has a law degree”  It was such a big deal in the past, and people had such respect for this kind of thing.  Now, it’s really not a big deal at all; at least it shouldn’t be.

Sorry if you are a lawyer, and I’d love to read your comments if you are, but laws are not secrets.  20 years ago, or even less, if you didn’t know how some legal thing worked, then how would you find the information?  You’d have to contact a lawyer and ask them.  You’d have to pay a bunch of money as well, even just to ask them a question.

I mean, would you find some info on laws in a book you found in a library?  I highly doubt it.  It was the same with accounting, the same with medicine, the same with even cooking foreign foods.  If you didn’t know how to cook an Indian curry 20 years ago, you had no chance in learning.  Now you’d be a fool if you couldn’t find that info in 2 minutes.

In today’s world, if you know how to search the internet well, you can really find out anything.  This concept is not new, but what is new (at least to me) is what this all means……

It means that most of what we learned in school, from our parents, and from our culture is garbage.  (Well, it’s not all garbage, but a lot of it is very very wrong)

How we learn now is different.  The speed we learn is different; it’s much faster.   Each person can become so much more knowledgeable than people in the past; like 50 times more knowledgeable.  It should make us run our lives in a completely different way.  We really don’t need so much formal education.

If you want to know about marketing, you can find about it online.  If you want to know about accounting, you can find it online.  Even though many of the articles are basic, you can at least find a good book on Amazon and order it if you want something more advanced.  We should be able to do many more jobs than before, and we should be able to learn a lot about them quickly.  We should be able to do so many more things than people in previous generations did.  We can just find the information we don’t know about in a couple seconds.

I think we’re only beginning to realize how powerful the internet can be.  This is just the beginning.  The earlier you TRULY understand this concept and apply it to your life, the better your life will be.

Most people still are not taking advantage of the opportunities that lie on the internet.  Do you agree with me?  Why or why not?

How could you use it to improve your life?

Love to read your comments!

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Imagine if the whole world spoke one language.  Seriously, imagine it for a minute…

Would there be war?  Who would be fighting in it?

I believe that most people throughout the world do not want war.  They will say they want it if their country MUST fight, but they would prefer a peaceful world.

The problem is that the world is really terrible at understanding other countries and other people’s perspectives.  It’s so much easier to go to war with a culture that seems so different than it is to go to war with a country who is almost the same.

The western governments (especially US) are really effective at making other countries look like they are either filled with a horrible culture, an evil dictator as a leader, or filled with psycho terrorists.  This makes people scared, and when they are scared, most people will just believe whatever their government tells them, and whatever they see on TV and the news.

Most people are too busy paying attention to sports or the latest pop songs anyway.  They don’t know much about what is going on in the world, and they don’t really care.  It’s sad, but it’s true.

War is a huge business and that’s the main reason it continues in my belief.

It seems obvious (and totally crazy) to me that most countries in the world almost seem to “enjoy” their ignorance about other countries.  We all learn that our own history is better than it is, and that the history of other countries is worse than it is.  This pride and misunderstanding keeps the hatred alive, and it allows the possibility of war to always be present.

Could we all just learn one language and at least learn enough about one another to stop the fighting and killing?  I think so.  I just don’t think the global bankers and the government leaders in the world want that.  They prefer the fighting, killing, money, and misunderstanding.

Try to have a conversation with anyone about other countries.  Talk with them about Iran, North Korea, USA, Iraq, Syria, China, Russia, Brazil.  Listen to their opinions.  Ask them how they get their information and why they believe it so strongly.  You will see that most people feel confident they know what is going on, but when you ask them “how they know” you’ll see they are just people who easily believe what is in the news and what their governments (school system) tells them.

Love to hear your thoughts on why war keeps continuing, who really benefits from this, and would one language help to either stop it, or almost stop it.  Don’t be shy  Please share below.

Love to see you in the VIP!!  You’ll love it if you aren’t already in there.

I don’t know about you, but I am the type of person who absolutely hates doing any “paperwork”.

Paperwork is basically when you have to spend time filling out forms and applications for anything.  I even hate the small stuff like in airports, you know, like when they give you those stupid little cards to fill out and put your name and passport number on.   I always forget my passport and Visa numbers, and it takes me an extra 15 minutes of frustration to find everything.  It almost ruins my whole trip!  (Don’t worry, I already know I’m a baby)

I wish we could just go places without making such a big deal about it.  I mean, we all share the same planet, so why can’t we just travel around whenever we want, wherever we want, and stay as long as we want?

Think of how much money we all waste in tax dollars hiring these people who look at Visas, make the laws, and deal with any parts of the whole thing.

I can “sort of” understand why we can’t just open up all the borders and let people go wherever they want, live wherever they want, and work wherever they want, but in many ways, I just think the current system is absolutely pathetic and it’s hurting all citizens.

I’d love to know where you live (Which country and city) and what your honest thoughts on this are.  Please share in the comments.  Would you be afraid that too many people would just come to your country?  Would you like this “No Visa” world?  What changes would you like to see and why, to the VISA situation and travel rules in this world?

How about this?  We set up a global system where people could pay about $5000 bucks to get a “lifelong world VISA”.  That money would go to health insurance and things like that.  It would also stop millions of super poor people from just moving into any city and totally changing the way the city works.  $5000 USD is enough money to “deter” or discourage certain people from abusing this free travel capability.

Here’s another question:  Why do you think countries will not agree with this idea?  (We know they won’t change anything!)  Who benefits from the current system of almost forcing people to stay in the country they were born in?  Why make travel, working, and even living in other countries such a pain in the ass?

Love to hear your thoughts

Don’t be shy!  Share your views below…

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This is insane.

Here’s the story:  There was an 8 year old girl at home with her babysitter.  (The little girl’s parents were not home obviously)

The little girl took a knife from the kitchen and was threatening to hurt herself, or even kill herself.  The baby sitter didn’t know what to do so she decided to call the police for help.

3 police came (all men) and tried to help the situation.  Remember, this is a little girl, and this little girl is only 8.  I wasn’t there so I can’t know exactly what happened, but we can all imagine how this might have looked.  Is it possible the girl could have hurt herself seriously with the knife?  Maybe.  Is it possible she could have really hurt the adult male police officers with the knife?  I can’t imagine it.

Anyway, the police were asking the girl to put down the knife and she kept refusing.  So one complete dumb-ass cop took out a “Taser” and used that to shock the girl.  If you don’t know what a Taser is, you can look it up on Google.  It’s basically a hand held machine that police in the US use to “stun” people.  It’s supposed to be used on adults and isn’t designed for young or old people.  It’s strong enough that several hundred people have died accidentally from “being tased” by police.  This Taser shoots some kind of electricity at you and makes you shocked.  It’s obviously very powerful, but it’s still a better option than the police shooting someone with a real gun.

So what happened to this girl?  She was so hurt and “messed up” from this Taser that she had to spend 24 hours in the hospital to recover.  Shooting some little kid with electricity?  Wild.  Sick.

When I read the news story, I saw the comments from many people underneath the news article.  I was very surprised to see that MOST people were not blaming the police, and were instead saying that this little girl must have been acting so badly from poor parenting.

Maybe the parents are not great, maybe the little girl has some kind of emotional or psychological problems to be acting that way, but COME ON, is this how pathetic some police are?

That would never happen in China because the police don’t carry around weapons, and I can’t imagine a Chinese policeman thinking that was a good idea.  I think it wouldn’t happen in most countries.

My belief is that some (certainly not all) cops love the “power”.  They LOVE getting the opportunity to use their guns and other “police toys”.

This makes me sick.  Another fact is that the police who used the Taser on the little girl is still working and getting paid.  Why not fire the guy for being such a total fool.

Ok, now for your comments…  Am I being unfair?  Do you agree with my opinion or not.  How would the police handle this in your country?  How should they handle it?  Should this cop be fired?

Please share all your thoughts below.  Here is the article for you to get another perspective.

By the way, the VIP section is really getting to be an awesome idea.  If you aren’t already a member, or your old membership expired, you might want to get in there! There are over 220 lessons and podcasts in there PLUS all the written transcripts!  A new awesome one comes out each week too!  AW YEAH