The Stenning Tweebs try to roll with the punches

Posted in 3 March 2011
14 Comments »

'Cash cow' snipr for sale?

Ripples of disappointment continue to emanate from the Stenning performing troupe’s roadshow/sales tour through Asia, during which the smooth-talkers (!) apparently sold platforms/products offering quick-and-easy (‘just three clicks?’) internet riches.

As the ‘refund movement‘ heats up against another Shaun Stenning-fronted ‘enterprise’ (spotted the pattern, anyone?) it looks like the gang, through Ian Naylor, is trying to sell/shed/liquidate/dispose of Snipr (— along with any contingent liabilities? It’s not clear).

What will they do? Head off in another but similar snake oil direction? Maybe, by the look of things …

The Stenning gang's latest offering. (Gee, only a 257% increase in traffic? Why so little?)

Do we care?
Bigger question: Will we ever be rid of people showing us how to be a fake for money (… money for them, I mean).

I wonder if the real geeks who founded StumbleUpon envisaged types like this mob (^) pitching the gullible on ‘StumbleUpon Marketing’ and ‘Social Traffic Generation Strategies’? Really? I wonder. Bleurgh!

How long before StumpleUpon, like Google and Amazon before them, decide to make a move to put these kind of low-quality, low-value er, ‘operations’ out of business? Long enough for the loquacious lads to pump and dump their get-rich-quick wares?

It looks to me like the Stenning Tweebs are dodging from pothole to pothole in the ‘get-rich-through-internet-marketing’ jungle as the ponzi schemes, pyramids ‘goldmines’ collapse behind them in a cloud of broken promises and unfulfilled hyperbole. (You should read some of the email we get here at thePaepae.com about these guys. Unbelievable!)

Refunds are being called for on what looks like a wide scale. What’s with that? Don’t those aggravated, dissatisfied twalk customers know who they’re dealing with? Despite being told the Tweebs are ‘the best of the best’? [cough, splutter]

Kim Possible's tweebs — (Disney)

Shaun Stenning – Shaun has been Internet Marketing for 9 years now, over the last 3 year’s he educated over 5,000 people around the world and is a leading international speaker, if you’re looking for someone to speak at an event see the speaking services he provides here

Matt Stenning – Matt has been Internet Marketing for just over 3 years now and is widely recognized as a leading SEO and SMO consultant. With over 200 number 1 rankings under his belt Matt lives and breaths SEO. Starting his speaking career in 2010 he became the youngest speak to speak on a Global Internet Seminar by 5 years. See the consulting services he provides here

I guess this rosy picture (above) is how they want to present themselves online — and maybe that’s what is behind the urgency with which Shaun Stenning is seeking to sanitise the internet (… including but not limited to internet blogs…) of ‘disparaging’ comment about his previous enterprises …He’s actually seeking to suppress ANY communication about it, if you read the required-for-a-promise-of-a-refund ‘Release Agreement‘ closely. Continue reading →

Business/Investment
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More SEO fakery … highly automated

Posted in 2 March 2011
2 Comments »

The net catches all sorts

No big outrage:

Received today through the Empower Education feedback form … which asks for feedback in these terms:

Send Us Your News, Views and Rave Reviews
Your Comments and Questions
We value your feedback.
Please let us have your advice on features, content (and any bugs!). Use the following form to contact us with any questions, comments or requests. And use it if you’d like to contribute a Review on one of our resources or events.

But what did we get today? Another attempted example of the shallow SEO manipulation that Google’s search algorithms have to cope with/see through and discount …

Title: Mr
First Name: Dorian
Last Name: l
Company:
Position:
E-Mail Address: dorian.lyndsey@ [domain-1]
Review/Comments: Link Manager:

My name is Dorian and I am the link database manager for [snip]. I am writing to let you know I have added a link to www.empowereducation.com on my site.

In order to make this link a permanent addition to my website, I would like to request that you add a reciprocal link back to my site on a page cached by Google. My linking information is as follows:

URL: [domain-2]
Anchor: Debt Consolidation Financing
Description: Isn’t it time you refinanced to consolidate debt?

Your link is listed as:
Title: Empower Education — Empowering You For Success
URL: www.empowereducation.com
Description: Empower Education: First for Financial Education. Look here for tools and resources to help you and your family achieve your goals

This is a Triangular exchange, so your link will continue to reside at the following location:

www.[domain-1]

If you feel that any of the verbiage needs adjustment just let me know and I will make the changes right away. [Comment: verbiage??? … defined as: ‘Speech or writing that uses too many words or excessively technical expressions’? Charming.]

Please get in touch with me as soon as you have posted my site details on a links page that is cached by Google. The process I have developed for adding/maintaining links is highly automated and the database will remove your link in two weeks unless I specify the location where my reciprocal link can be found. Once I have verified that a reciprocal link is in place, I will designate your site as a permanent addition to my link library where it will remain until you tell me to remove it.

Thank you very much for your time. I look forward to hearing from you!

Dorian
SEO Manager
www.[domain1]

Thanks for the offer Dorian, but I don’t know you or your client. Why would I vouch for you?

Humour
,

OK. So some impersonation is acceptable, even useful

Posted in 1 March 2011
Comments Off on OK. So some impersonation is acceptable, even useful

I know I sometimes rail against online impersonation and sock-puppets being used for foul and dishonest purposes (case in point: Anonymous comment vs IMPERSONATION and yesterday’s post about Aaron Barr of HBGary Federal‘s dastardly scheme.) But there are exceptions (besides Fake Steve Jobs).

From The Atlantic‘s Alexis Madrigal:

Revealing the Man Behind @MayorEmanuel

Feb 28 2011,
It was the best fake Twitter account ever, deftly satirizing Rahm Emanuel, and elevating the Tweet and the f-word to the level of literature. But the mystery writer was never revealed – until now. …

Look at the guy’s qualifications…

After Punk Planet’s sad demise — mostly due to distribution problems, Sinker says — Sinker received a Knight Fellowship in Journalism at Stanford. He used the time to study how to deliver journalism in a world of mobile device ubiquity. In 2009, he launched CellStories.net, which puts out one story per day exclusively for mobile devices. And he landed a gig teaching journalism at Columbia College in downtown Chicago.

…More recently, Sinker created the Chicago Mayoral Scorecard to track the race for mayor via links, news, and social media. That put him smack in the middle of all the news about the race, big and small.

Opportunity meets preparation (and inclination). Awesome job.

Media issues - Writing/Publishing
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A guide …

Posted in 28 February 2011
1 Comment »

TOP TEXTING FAVOURITES – ‘ZOMG’ from AAP via NZ Herald

pic: frontsidebus.net (click)

The top 25 “Teenglish” buzzwords for 2009, as nominated by 2000 users of the teen social networking site Habbo Hotel:

1 diss – Disrespect.

2 fail – Expression of disapproval for something or when someone does fail at something. Sometimes spelt with a ph and epic fail (or epic phail) is the highest form of failing.

3 ftw – For the win, used to show enthusiasm for something, eg “kittens FTW”.

4 hai – Hi.

5 idc – I dont care.

6 idk – I dont know.

7 ily – I love you.

8 irl – In real life.

9 jks – Jokes.

10 k or kk – Okay.
Continue reading →

Writing/Publishing

Sock puppet army? Thanks HBGary Federal and Aaron Barr

Posted in 28 February 2011
1 Comment »

Remember Aaron Barr, the HBGary Federal social media ‘expert’ who tackled Anonymous and ended up getting comprehensively hacked and 50,000 of his company emails published?

Aaron Barr - not an idiot, don't be fooled - Daily Kos

Well, in those emails, apparently, (according to Daily Kos) were some that disclosed HBGary Federal advocating a sockpuppet army … using ‘personas’ … to, among other things, ‘smear enemies‘ (a little like the cowboys schoolboys who’ve gone after my name online.

According to an embedded MS Word document found in one of the HBGary emails, it involves creating an army of sockpuppets, with sophisticated “persona management” software that allows a small team of only a few people to appear to be many, while keeping the personas from accidentally cross-contaminating each other. Then, to top it off, the team can actually automate some functions so one persona can appear to be an entire Brooks Brothers riot online.

Persona management entails not just the deconfliction of persona artifacts such as names, email addresses, landing pages, and associated content. It also requires providing the human actors technology that takes the decision process out of the loop when using a specific persona. For this purpose we custom developed either virtual machines or thumb drives for each persona. This allowed the human actor to open a virtual machine or thumb drive with an associated persona and have all the appropriate email accounts, associations, web pages, social media accounts, etc. pre-established and configured with visual cues to remind the actor which persona he/she is using so as not to accidentally cross-contaminate personas during use.

And all of this is for the purposes of infiltration, data mining, and (here’s the one that really worries me) ganging up on bloggers, commenters and otherwise “real” people to smear enemies and distort the truth.
This is an excerpt from one of the Word Documents, which was sent as an attachment by Aaron Barr, CEO of HBGary’s Federal subsidiary, to several of his colleagues to present to clients:

To build this capability we will create a set of personas on twitter, blogs, forums, buzz, and myspace under created names that fit the profile ( satellitejockey, hack3rman, etc ) . These accounts are maintained and updated automatically through RSS feeds, retweets, and linking together social media commenting between platforms. With a pool of these accounts to choose from, once you have a real name persona you create a Facebook and LinkedIn account using the given name, lock those accounts down and link these accounts to a selected # of previously created social media accounts, automatically pre-aging the real accounts.

Yes!!! That’s how democracy and the first amendment are supposed to work.
Continue reading →

Media issues
,

Dan Conover: Advertising is not enough

Posted in 27 February 2011
Comments Off on Dan Conover: Advertising is not enough

Very excellent and insightful piece on the past and future of “news and advertising in the 21st century” by Dan Conover at Xark …

What I’m challenging is the prevailing wisdom that because advertising shaped and subsidized journalism in the 20th century, the reinvention of journalism in the 21st century is simply a matter of re-balancing online ad rates with newsroom overhead. Those rates are lower because audiences have fractured and we’re never going to reverse that trend, so it follows that if your only revenue plan for producing original journalistic content is selling Web ads beside it, you’d better learn to make that content cheaper and more sensational than your already cheap, sensational competitors.

… and this bit is also good…

The future is not knowable, but let’s be clear about the lessons of history. The assumption that the future will look like the past is based on an illusion that time routinely treats with disdain.

Smart guy, good insights. – P

Media issues
,

Facebook = ‘public’

Posted in 27 February 2011
Comments Off on Facebook = ‘public’

And here is a ‘definitive’ answer from the Poacher’s Union Press Council …

Facebook ‘public’ says watchdog

27 February, 2011

The Press Council has rejected a complaint against the Herald on Sunday by a man upset a picture off the social networking site Facebook was used in print.

Api Hemara said the picture, run in a report last November that recounted the trial in the UK of a number of men who beat him up, had caused him distress because it was used without his permission.

He felt violated, first by the attack, then by use of the photograph.

Herald on Sunday editor Bryce Johns said extensive efforts had been made to contact Hemara and all of the information in the story was on the public record.

He had offered Hemara $150 for copyright.

In its decision, the Press Council said using a photo off the website was not a breach of its rules.

“Facebook is not a private space but a public sphere and the Press Council has cause, yet again, to remind users that despite the best intents of individuals, it is not easy and not always possible to protect privacy.”

NZ Herald (on Sunday)

It’s too early to read the ruling on the Press Council’s website (it hasn’t been uploaded yet), but it might be interesting …

Personally, I wouldn’t be put off by the Council’s ruling that the Herald or anyone else infringing my privacy “was not a breach its rules”. Pfah! “… it is not easy and not always possible to protect privacy.”

Reminds me of the title of a book my daughter read and enjoyed: And That’s When It Fell Off In My Hand.

“Oh dear,” the Press Council seems to be saying. “How regrettable you feel ‘violated’ and your privacy has been infringed — but that’s not against our rules.” (Assuming the HoS is reporting them correctly.)

Riiighht. (When does the campaign to infringe the privacy of individual members of (the self-regulatory body) the Press Council start? Now? Let me see … )

Media issues
,

James Arthur Ray on trial for being a bully-boy

Posted in 27 February 2011
6 Comments »

Personal development guru James Arthur Ray on trial for manslaughter in Arizona. (pic: Verdenews.com - click)

You may or may not be aware of the manslaughter trial under way in Arizona of personal development guru James Arthur Ray following the deaths of three people during/following a sweat lodge exercise on a pretty intense ‘Spiritual Warrior’ course led by Mr Ray.

Here is a document from the prosectors which forms part of their argument for the inclusion of an audio recording of the ‘Spiritual Warrior’ course as evidence of the build up of messages from Mr Ray to the participants and some of the extreme conditions he put them through in the lead up to to the sweat lodge, including confining them to a six foot circle in a desert for 36 hours without food and drink.

It attempts to answer the commonsense question: ‘If it was so hot and they felt so bad, why didn’t they just leave?’

Group psychology is part of the answer, and this document tries to show how the group and individuals in it were conditioned over a period of time. Cult-like obedience to the guru is a very powerful thing.

It makes awful reading, but read it. James Arthur Ray’s defence attorneys do not want this material set before the court. I think it’s highly relevant. Two extracts:

and

As-yet untested allegations by the Prosecution, but Gee, if true, it sounds really bad...

Full document available as a PDF (1.2MB) from the Arizona Supreme Court website.

It relates how James Ray described his ‘Spiritual Warrior’ training as an ‘accelerated learning program’. I’ve participated in plenty of those (including ‘Warrior training’ with a sweat lodge). As part of my training company, I’ve helped run genuinely accelerated learning teamwork and leadership programmes, and let me tell you, this one sounds nuts.

Anything that attacks individual sovereignty (i.e. choice) or this cult-like breaking down of people’s boundaries with the threat of shame and dishonour is bad — including the shitty little ‘Code of Silence’, ban on toilet breaks, and the Samurai Game, with James Ray ‘playing god’ — as described in the prosecution document (seriously, read it). It is manipulative and deceitful … and I don’t believe any good thing can come from it.

I’m all for challenge, especially in teams. I find them confronting, and I win some and lose some. (Sometimes I’m on ‘the learning team’ grmpf!) And sure, given the choice, I observe that some people will choose dignity over deliverance (but that IS their choice). Reading what the Prosecutors say was going on with James Arthur Ray’s ‘students’ (at $9,000 plus food and lodgings) makes me groan. The humanity. It looks like abuse of ‘authority’ and ‘guru-ship’. Deadly in this case.

I’m trying hard to give James Arthur Ray the benefit of the doubt, but I think like this potential juror, I’d be ‘de-panelled’ PDQ:

After [Yavapai County Superior Court Judge Warren] Darrow quizzed each of the eight [potential jurors], defense attorneys Tom Kelly and Luis Li singled out several potential jurors for extended examinations, focusing primarily on their search for bias against their client.
In one case, Li was able to ferret out prejudice in a woman who had a 22-year background in law enforcement.
“If you were sitting there in Mr. Ray’s shoes right now,” Li asked, “would you want you on the jury?”
The woman agreed she would not and was promptly dismissed for cause.
— Verdenews.com

Yeah, he wouldn’t want me on the jury either.

Big Questions
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Biggest lesson learned in ten years of blogging …

Posted in 27 February 2011
3 Comments »

Some commenters and email correspondents have given me a (mildly) hard time for not leaping into Avenging-Angel mode and castigating the spruikers — the Shaun Stennings, Dean Letfuses, Steve Goodeys and Sean Woods of the world — more stridently and with more fire and damnation as ‘scam artists’, ‘criminals’ and ‘low-lifes’.

To some, it’s as if trying to see all sides of an, erm, disagreement about [allegedly] deceptive sales practices and a trail of hyperbolic claims and broken promises makes me some sort of, I don’t know, panty-waist. Hardly. The spruikers themselves aren’t thrilled with thePaepae.com either. (Deeply wounded emotionally, in some cases, apparently. Outraged. Oh diddums.)

My journalism training (and experience) has taught me to be careful: To always aim to be able to support my assertions. (But comment is free, right?) That’s one of the reasons for my ‘interweaving’ and ‘cross-linking’ which exasperates Matthew Gilligan so, also discussed here. (See? Can’t help myself.)

I know I can get a bit purple-prosey (word?) but I try to be fair. I try to give reasons for my statements. I even got a note recently from Shaun Stenning saying ‘you seem to have a good reporting angle’ … this followed some earlier communications from him of a different tone entirely.

So it was refreshing/confirming to read this about Heather Armstrong‘s lessons from ten years of blogging …

Heather Armstrong's blog dooce.com (click)

The biggest lessons learned:
“I don’t know if my children or my website have aged me more, but I’m willing to be[t] that my website has. I know so much more about what it means to be human and how human react to things. About impulses. What the last 10 years has taught me, the main lesson, is to first give someone the benefit of the doubt. To not believe everything I hear. Because so much has been written and said about me that’s completely untrue, to live with that, I don’t ever want to do that to anyone else. I started out writing about celebrities but I don’t criticize anyone on my website any more. I want it to be an uplifting place to be.”

via Marshall Kirkpatrick at ReadWriteWeb

Well, horses for courses, Heather, respectfully. Maybe I’ll feel that way in a few years?

source: usingenglish.com (click)

Encouragement - Writing/Publishing
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In the cross-hairs: low quality, low value websites

Posted in 26 February 2011
9 Comments »

A comment today on the Is this how Shaun Stenning handles a request for a refund? thread implies the dissatisfaction with his snipr ‘product’ is widespread:

Re: SNIPRscam’ Hi, is anyone else in Melbourne/Australia interested in forcing a refund from Shaun Stenning for his Snipr scam? It seems that asking him nicely doesn’t work. I’ve also emailed the crew at Empowernet, who hosted the internet event he was spruiking at, but no reply there either. I’m asking them for a transcript of his presentation so I can take to ASIC as proof of his lies.
If we can get a few of us making a complaint, it would hold more weight.
Please email me at sniprrefund@gmail.com if you’ve been scammed by snipr as well.

I personally haven’t seen evidence to enable to me to fairly and robustly conclude ‘snipr is a scam’ as this poster and others claim — so I don’t describe it in those terms — but there are plenty of examples in discussion here at thePaepae.com of apparent customer dissatisfaction.

I guess the case is mounting against those who [apparently] hyperbolically over-sold such schemes. Where does the buck stop? Commenter ‘dragonsdread’ above, who is by the look of it, gathering unhappy Australian customer details, has apparently approached the promoters … what’s their liability, if any, for this situation, I wonder?
—
Of significance for the get-rich-quick-through-internet-marketing ‘industry’ (vomit) is this very recent announcement from Google that it is penalising ‘low-quality’ sites in search results:

Junk sites designed to suck people in to click on ads, your days are numbered. (Official Google blog - click)

This update is designed to reduce rankings for low-quality sites—sites which are low-value add for users, copy content from other websites or sites that are just not very useful. At the same time, it will provide better rankings for high-quality sites—sites with original content and information such as research, in-depth reports, thoughtful analysis and so on.

Does anybody else think the Ian Naylor/Shaun Stenning/Matt Stenning/Dean Letfus/Vince Tan-type internet marketing ‘enterprises’ might be affected negatively by this? MFA sites are in the cross-hairs.

I recall this quote from the twalk-branded er ‘document’ YouTube Traffic Thieves ‘black hat’ guide:

HOW TO MONETIZE THE TRAFFIC… 2 Made for Adsense websites

A simple page with ads from adsense work [sic] perfectly in any niche. Make sure you send traffic, people are not finding [sic] what they want in your page, but they may find the answer in the ads, if you know what I mean. For instance, make a video saying if you want to make money online come here. Send them to a page, where there is an article about making money online, but not any real information, just some general shit.

They will be unsatisfied, and they will see those google ads with MAKE 1000000$ [sic] in 3 days. They will click them. Simple as that. Of course you can use this with pay per action or affiliate programs, and adsense as well, this way you will combine your source of traffic.

It seems to me that is EXACTLY the sort of deceitful online behaviour (scam? Yes!) that Google wants to punish …or better put, to no longer allow its fine search engine to be a party to.

Good on them.

Media issues
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Christchurch earthquake

Posted in 25 February 2011
Comments Off on Christchurch earthquake

Gut-wrenching stuff.

If you want to help, donate to the NZ Red Cross relief efforts.

Encouragement

Sockpuppets everywhere

Posted in 24 February 2011
2 Comments »

Oh dear. Even someone with an ‘official’ Facebook page and thousands of followers apparently feels the need to have a sockpuppet …

Read the story at Wonkette (click) ...if you care.

Yesterday, your Wonkette uncovered a private Facebook account registered to what is (or what was at one time) Sarah Palin’s private e-mail address. Last night, she took to her public Facebook page to refute its authenticity.

“On a side note, there’s always buzz about fake Sarah Palin Facebook and Twitter accounts. Please know that this is my only authentic Facebook account and SarahPalinUSA is my only authentic Twitter account. Pay no attention to the fake accounts and their fake messages.”

Which is a pretty convenient way of denying things without having to answer any questions about it. Why was “Lou Sarah” registered to her personal e-mail address, and why is the account listed as being friends with her brother and her cousins? Well, she’s not willing to comment to reporters on that. UPDATE: The “Lou Sarah” account has been taken down.

Now, look, it might just be that this was a semi-dormant FB page set up when Sarah Palin was less famous. [UPDATE: Nope, set up last year, apparently.]

But the fact/assertion that the page was [allegedly] “created for the sole purpose of ‘liking’ the actual Sarah Palin’s Facebook leavings”, if true, makes me vomit and speaks of the sort of devious sock-puppetry some of those I criticise have practised …

e.g. popping up pretending to be innocent bystanders/customers of my business appalled at my online ‘behaviour’ in calling out spruikers by name in a discussion forum (Slapper) or pretending to be their own ‘satisfied customer’ speaking up to defend the deceitful spruiker (i.e themselves) from criticism (Muffit). Or the fake person who popped up to defend Shaun Stenning and publicise his [alleged] large donations to charity and how he’s changed people’s lives with ‘the information and strategies that he has taught from stage’ (Jennifer).

In concert this is called astro-turfing (i.e. fake grass roots — a clever name, I think) … when done by individuals as in these examples, it’s just lying IMHO.

Help me see the reasonable side of what they’re doing with this fake voice.

Media issues
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Miracle escapes and sad fatalities

Posted in 23 February 2011
Comments Off on Miracle escapes and sad fatalities

My family and I are feeling pretty subdued by the disaster in Christchurch.

Miracle escapes and sad fatalities. We humans are resilient and fragile (another paradox).

One can’t help but be positively impressed by the bravery and determination of some of the rescue workers … and co-ordinators/spokesmen, like Christchurch’s eloquent mayor Bob Parker.

These are big days for our country. This emergency really puts our minor grizzles and grievances in their place, as I said yesterday. (Sorry to recycle it.)

Encouragement

What matters

Posted in 22 February 2011
Comments Off on What matters

I texted some of my friends in Christchurch earlier this afternoon. There was a big earthquake there a couple of hours ago.

One of them, Mark, replying to my query/wish that he and his family are OK replied:

Yes we are
my office fell down while i went to get coffee
saw buildings collapsing before my eyes
will be a lot of dead people

Shocking! It puts our naval-gazing and trivial complaints, defensiveness or taking of ‘offence’ into perspective, doesn’t it?

I’m still worried about those I haven’t heard from yet. – P

+ UPDATE:  OK, all accounted for, but some relatives of friends of mine not completely clear.

There’s a death toll for this earthquake. Bad.

Big Questions

Paradox

Posted in 22 February 2011
Comments Off on Paradox

I’m big on perceiving paradox and contradictions, quoting the already oft-quoted Walt Whitman from his Song of Myself:

Walt Whitman (1819-1892) Poet and very wise man, in my view.

Do I contradict myself? Very well, I contradict myself.
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)

I see this everywhere.
It’s OK.
And I acknowledge that if I reach for the comfort/licence of that philosophy (which I do) I must also allow it for others. I do so.

Today, thanks to Anu Garg, I’ve come across another insight from writer and philosopher Albert Camus (1913-1960) which speaks to me of our search for a simple consistency in all the wrong places:

Absolute justice is achieved by the suppression of all contradiction:
therefore it destroys freedom.

Right. Whew, that seems like a high price.

There’s a time when our drive to excise all injustice from a situation actually isn’t worth the candle. Sometimes we have to bear observing an ‘injustice’ or a ‘lie’, and for the greatest good of all concerned, let it go, and trust (hope?) that it will be balanced up later. Sometimes we have to compromise or negotiate.

A good friend of mine is transitioning out of an environment where she has been loved and treasured, and, because paradoxes exist everywhere, also been on the receiving end of whatever feels like the opposite of ‘loved and treasured’.
It’s painful at times, this life of ours, but love and conflict are better than apathy.* Our feathers get ruffled. That’s just how it goes.

My goal (not yours — you choose yours) is always to try to give my gifts in the best way I can, living as honestly as I can, but not stupidly or naively, and to encourage others to do the same. Sometimes that means ‘manning up’ and striding into conflict to try to set wrongs right, or sounding a warning (we discuss whistle-blowing here from time to time).

It doesn’t always have to be a battle though. I try to empathise with others, and to allow them their personal sovereignty and freedom.

Sometimes it means disengaging from a problematic situation … walking away. I try to do that without heat or confrontation, unless it’s strictly necessary, trying to remember that we’re all emotional children on the inside, no matter how well-developed our rational ‘be cool’ shell appears.

Although I do sometimes reach strong judgements (I call it ‘being discerning’, pah!) and sometimes come to discount others based on my perception of their actions, I’ve learned that people don’t always care for one’s opinion, so unless it’s actually asked for, why offer it?

‘You already know what you’re thinking. Listen and find out what they are thinking’ is good advice — and not just for negotiating situations.

However you treat people, you are, by so doing teaching them to treat you that way. Spooky.

* “Better to have loved and lost …” — Tennyson

Big Questions - Encouragement
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