Mr. William H. Danforth,
After reading and studying his book, “I Dare You”, I have decided to incorporate Mr. Danforth as one of my “Horseman”.
Nice fire by the way.
The Four Horseman, no, we’ll talk about them later. Suffice it to say they are pretty significant, in the bible.
As ‘The Emerging Man’ I have endeavored to ditch all the things I thought I knew.
I have endeavored to find ‘experts’ and follow their advice to see if what they say and have done are true.
To have someone show me the way to success.
Mr. Danforth promotes a life philosophy called,
‘The Four Square’ program.
As you read his book he dare’s you to write down your own four square checker, here’s mine.
As you can see it’s pretty basic.
But those are just the underpinnings.
On page 72 of ‘I Dare You’, after discussing Personality and it’s impact on the Social side of your checker he states,
“Yes, I have found it pays to come in contact with great men,
but it pays more to try to emulate them.”
So what I have done with my Four Square checker is to add a specific book and person to each side of the square.
I bet you can guess what book and person represent my Spiritual foundation.
Yep, The Bible and Jesus.
The Physical side will be represented by the book, ‘The Art of War’ by General Sun Tzu, it is a military book but people have been using it’s strategy concepts since it was written, for everything from national security issues to business take overs.
The Mental side will be represented by Mr. Danforth and his Four Square plan as prescribed in the book ‘I Dare You’, to provide the specific overall life plan to follow. It has been used by thousands since he published it and he lived it out and totally believed in it.
I have found my Social side is a bit lacking. I am a little stuck on manners. I’ve always been somewhat of a gentleman but it’s been more accidental and the basic tenets of ‘just be nice’, than anything learned and applied.
It works, but it feels incomplete.
I have ordered a book for the Social side called ‘Bushido: The Soul of Japan” by author Inazo Nitobe.
It is a book that details ‘the way of the warrior’ and describes how the Samurai culture has effected all of Japan.
As the Samurai progressed their philosophies and training led them into the ‘other’ arts, one of the highest forms being, ‘The Way of the Tea Ceremony’.
But they mastered, poetry, arranging flowers, painting, music and literature.
I know, flower arrangements, but they did carry swords and could kill you with their bare hands, so if they want to arrange flowers…
“more power to ya!”
The Bushido book even comes highly recommended by Teddy Roosevelt. When he got a hold of it he bought 60 copies and passed them around to friends and family.
Well, I wasn’t raised to be anything so… here I am.
I hear tell, my dad was a very good bar manager and bartender.
Though he never let me see him work or visit him while he was working.
I did help him clean the bar in the wee hours of the morning though, musta’ been his way of spending time with me.
Growing up we just expected to get a job, get married and hopefully settle down.
Looking back on my path, it was God protecting me, could you imagine the wreckage I would have caused working in a tavern!
As I became an adult I picked up some individual skills but not any trade or business expertise. I would learn what I needed to know about the job at hand, complete it for today, and then bounce to the next job or position because I worked hard, learned fast and was willing.
And was always chasing the ever elusive, ‘Pay for Performance’!
Which is another lie we’ll talk about later.
(Hint: you get paid by the hour no matter what the job is or how hard you work. No more, no less. And you work for your money, your money doesn’t work for you.)
Trouble is, the bouncing was happening more than the learning!
Leave a Reply