Patric J. Dufficy: Dealers in Hope

Successful people will never be persons following the herd. “Average” is where most of the people are going. What does this mean? This means that most people who achieve success are those who are willing to go against the crowd. When everybody works for someone else, they work for themselves. When everybody sells their stock, the successful are buying in the panic, at bargain prices. When everyone else neglects his or her physical health, the successful watch it carefully.
Which one are you? Are you average? I hope not! Don’t be a sheep! Don’t just follow the herd. Set yourself apart now and do something unique, something that will make you successful because you have abandoned the average and stretched for the great!

“We are discreet sheep; we wait to see how the drove is going, and then go with the drove.” – Mark Twain

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Most of us dealt with parents who wanted more for us that they ever had, but at the same time they had a “poor” mindset, a mentality of contentment.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s ok and we must be thankful for what we have in our life in the present, but we should always aim for higher goals if we want to progress in life.

The main problem is that our parents had an easier life in many aspects. Quite a lot had the chance to work for the same company all their life with a good pension and benefits. The cost of living was lower and more balanced with their incomes and stress was much lower than today.

So they developed a tendency to complacency. I often hear: “Look at worse than you” – “Be satisfied with what you have” – “Do not aim too high to avoid disappointment”.

No wonder why we live in a society of living-dead waiting all day to go home and watch their reality shows.

In my case, at least, I had the chance to have a mother who always told me: “Look at better than you if you wanna learn” – “Stay with dumb people and you’ll become like them, go with smart ones and you’ll become smarter”
On my wife side, her mother still tells her to be satisfied with what she has because there is worse. When she’s saying that, my wife jumps on the occasion to correct her and tells her she don’t want to be satisfied, she wants more out of life, she wants to grow, learn and always be a better person.
The funniest thing is that her mother agrees with her replies, but she’s coming back with her “satisfied thing” on a regular base as if she’s forgetting what her daughter told her. No, she doesn’t have Alzheimer!
She has a lifetime of “bad programming” and it’s now almost impossible to “reprogram” her thinking.

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Here’s a light and somewhat funny topic…

I lived the first half of my life in Montreal and the second in Quebec City, but each year it becomes more difficult to just think about winter.
Ok, I’ll say things as they really are: “I HATE WINTER!!!”

WHY I HATE WINTER

I hate seeing nature dying in October, when all the plants and flowers start to look great with a decent size, they freeze and die.
I don’t like when my boogers freeze immediately when I step outside. 😉
I hate that my car become so filthy after just 10 minutes on the road that I can’t even open the doors without getting my fingers all dirty.
I hate having to put a coat, boots, and a hat, just to go outside for 10 seconds to get something.
I hate shoveling and snow blowing and become all sweaty inside my accoutrement but can’t even open my coat to vent the boiler without catching a terrible cold.
I also hate the snow plow man because he seems to waits for me to finish cleaning my driveway, get inside, have all my sweaty clothes off and as soon as I’m in the shower I hear his truck filling back my driveway with dirty heavy packed snow.
I hate having all my house windows closed for months.
I could go on almost indefinitely, but I’ll stop the list here, I think you got the point.

No, it’s not all beautiful scenery with white landscape unless you live in a really remote and rural place. As soon as you have more than a dozen cars passing in your street, the road becomes a nasty grey to almost brown-black slushy frozen ugly mud.

BATTLE OF COLD vs HOT
There is also a perpetual battle between the winter lovers and haters.
What I have to struggle with every winter are winter lovers…
I’m always trying to make them understand why I can’t love winter by doing some winter activities.
Often they throw at me this kind of suggestion: “If you would do some winter sports or activities, winter would be more fun.”
My answer is simple: ”How can I like doing winter activities when I hate this season in the beginning?”

I do believe that by doing several activities, in the long term it could reduce my hatred for cold, humidity and snow.
My problem is that I don’t want to like it!
It’s not like I have no choice to live here.
I have 2 clear choices; I learn to like winter or I go where there no winter. I’ll take option B.
It’s now my ultimate goal in life. Building a business I can operate anywhere on the globe and find a nice and warm place to live.
Then I’ll return to Canada for couple of weeks to visit my family and friends until I am no longer able to bear the depressing weather conditions.

QUEBEC CLIMATE
It’s a running joke here to say that some year we’re lucky to have 2 weeks of summer; the rest of the summer is often windy, rainy and cool.
One of the characteristic here is the constant humidity; we rarely have real comfortable or dry climate.
In summer hot days, there’s no wind and more than 80% humidity. As soon as the humidity drops in summer, it becomes chilly.
Autumn and spring are in general very humid, cool and windy.
Winter is also really humid, it seems to pierce through our clothes and body, when we have dry days, it gets so cold we can’t let any skin not hidden. It often reaches -5F.
We frequently have 20 degrees variation in 24 hours. No surprise why everybody get sick.

DISEASES SEASON
Winter is the season of diseases.
As soon as we reach December, more than half the people are sick with cold and flu.
In public places, all we can ear is coughing.
The sudden changes in temperatures are the main cause. Then, it spread like wildfire because every public places, work places and houses are so hermetically sealed that it becomes germ nests.
There are also many persons who suffer from allergies due to inadequately ventilated buildings.

So what would you choose if you were me?

Btw… It’s 5 degrees Fahrenheit right now.

Thanks for reading, Patric J. Dufficy

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Yesterday evening, I found myself thinking about the difference between an employee (job borrower) and a business owner and I came up with a nice parallel. “Gold diggers”

Here’s a quick summary of the short lived gold rush that appended in the Klondike.
They estimate that about 100,000 people traveled to the Klondike Gold Rush between 1897 and 1899.

A large quantity of gold was discovered in the Klondikeon August 16^th 1896 and when the news reached Seattle and San Francisco in 1897, it triggered a “stampede” of wannabes prospectors.
The journey to the Klondike was tough and people had to travel long distances and cross difficult mountain passes while carrying heavy loads of equipment. Some of them discovered very rich deposits of gold and became immensely wealthy. But, the majority arrived too late, the best of the gold fields was already claimed and roughly 4,000 miners eventually struck gold. The Klondike Gold Rush ended in 1899, after gold was discovered in Nome, Alaska, prompting a mass departure from the Klondike.

100,000 persons seem like a big amount of people who had the guts to take this huge challenge, but with more than 70,000,000 inhabitants in the United States alone in 1897, it was only 0.14% of the US population (1/7 of a percent).

So what are the similarities between the Gold Rush days and our days?
Only a tiny percentage of people decided to roll up their sleeves and follow a dream no matter what. They surely had a ton of opposition from their friends and families about their bold project, but they had a goal stronger than anything else.
Ultimately, only around 4% of the 100,000 became wealthy in this adventure, but what if some in that 4% had backed-up on their dream saying, “They’re right… It’s a fool plan… It will be too difficult, almost impossible.”? They would never have known what life they could have lived.
If you aim at nothing, you will hit it every time. (Zig Ziglar)

Many employees are thinking like those who never went in search of gold. They think they are not fit for success in business and it’s too much work without any guarantee it will work in the end. Working for someone else and have a weekly assured income is not as risky, but it will rarely bring extraordinary results.

In the end, some will be ready to kneel in a river and look for gold, possibly searching for a long time before they even discover their first gold bit, while the others will rather ask the prospectors if they want to hire them to carry their gold in exchange of a microscopic percentage of the benefits.

Thanks for reading, Patric J. Dufficy

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A great majority of people are living day after day in a self-destructive mode.
What do I mean by self-destructive mode?
I imply that in general we are doing daily things with destruction properties. Those little things appear so harmless, we take them as normal, but they are eating us inside like a virus. What are those little viruses?
Complaining habits, negativity, blaming games, low self esteem, jealous thinking, gossiping, etc.
Yes, I’m talking about destructive behaviours state of mind, not physical destruction as drugs, alcohol, etc.

All those things, almost everybody do every day, brings us toward sadness and even depression.
Depression is one of the most diagnose sickness today.
We tend to say that there is more stress in our time than before…
Is this really true? I don’t think so!
Was it better to work in places with no safety system or health control?
Was it better to die from a simple flu?
Was it better to live with racism and slavery?
Was it better to depend on what you harvest to have something to eat?
Was it a better way of life to never see the rest of the world, never think to go to another continent or just visit another country?

Everything is simpler and faster today, so why are we so stressed?
“Faster” is the problem.
Faster means that you get what you want more quickly, but you are asked to deliver quickly too.
Employees are asked by their employers to deliver more and more work in lesser time than before. The more work load you can deal with, the more you are asked to do. It often brings us to do extra hours, and a great deal of professionals and office workers have an annual base salary and they are not remunerated for extra hours.
People work, work, work, doing whatever it takes to please their superiors and keep their job until they crack under the pressure.
Always increasing traffic jams brings even more tension before we even started our day of work.

There are fewer business owners today.
The greater part of the population is made of workers (employees), and because of this huge amount of people in need of a job, the employers have all the choice they want to deal with staff. This almost eliminated the “lifetime job” of the past generations.
Today, the average job lifespan is around four years. It’s an endless resumption.

Alexander Fraser Tytler (15 October 1747- 5 January 1813), Scottish lawyer, writer and professor have written:
“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising them the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over a louse fiscal responsibility, always followed by a dictatorship. The average of the world’s great civilizations before they decline has been 200 years. These nations have progressed in this sequence: Bondage to spiritual faith, to great courage, to liberty, to abundance, to complacency, to apathy, to dependence, and back to bondage.”
Our civilization is between the apathy and dependence cycle and going back to bondage. We are talking of modern bondage, but it is still the loss of our liberty. To go back into bondage is the self-destruction of our society.

People are looking at any easy way to live a small and simple life, depending on governments when things start to go wrong. People don’t want to put any efforts anymore when things get tough.
We live in a society that do not want any great champions, where everyone must be equal, where we shouldn’t offend the minorities and must all have the same kind of car, of house, etc.
If someone has a luxury car or a big house, neighbours starts the gossip; “He must do something illegal!”

One big problem of this apathy is the medias, they lure you into a world of unnecessary
expenditure and false dreams of fake reality shows… I’ll discuss the medias subject another time, there too much to say on that!

What brings a society into bondage?
The lack a leadership. The lack of people who stand for the right things and are willing to fight for it.

Without anyone leading the way, people are falling into apathy and dependence. A society who wants everything without putting any efforts. A society without courage.
It doesn’t take a lot of courage to get up each morning to go to work and pray that we’ll still have our job tomorrow.
It doesn’t take any courage to finance an artificial success with a big house, big cars, big 3D TV and a big lifestyle going regularly to restaurants, cinema, travel, etc.
I have a hard time seeing any success in going on a cheap all-inclusive tropical vacation by financing it and paying it all year long.
I’m sorry if I’m offending some of you, but I’m just straightforward and always will be.

How to stop this virus?
First we got to wake up and realize what we are doing with our life isn’t bringing us anywhere but to a life wasted without any real meaning.
Also, anyone with character must stand up, inform people about the dark track we are heading to and lead those who want some changes to do what it takes to modify the course of events and get on a better path.

Thanks for reading, Patric J. Dufficy

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Do you sometimes find yourself thinking about all the ways we are controlled in our society?
What I mean by control is, not being able to do simple logical things showing no real danger because of security, laws or simply a way to do things.

Lost of Liberty

Let’s talk about some security controls.
Somethings we all take as normal are, stop signs and traffic lights. I’m sure several people do the same as I when I’m on the road late at night, and I arrive at a red light and the entire city is sleeping, that red light is becoming a stop sign, I stop, look and pass.
And let say there is a stop sign 200 feet away and I can see pretty far at the 3 other crossing roads, this stop sign has no meaning to me.
Why do I have to stop, for no reason, because of a steel panel or a red light, when I’m all alone on the road? Is this logical?
It’s the law, yeah right!
Laws exist because of those who are irresponsible and have no respect.
So stops and lights exist because of those who aren’t enough conscientious to make sure there’s no one coming on the other road and continue and BANG!
This is why in many places we must by law put a fence around our swimming pool, we must buckle up in our car, we can’t allow our young children play in the street, etc.
This is also true in our work places too, take for example many offices, they block several web sites because of those who exaggerate… Result; you cannot check anything personal anymore, even for 2 minutes, during a break or lunch time.
Several jobs have specific schedules for breaks, lunch, arrival and exit time.

In the “I don’t care” and “no respect” category come the smokers. Today, they cannot smoke in any public place anymore. And I was a smoker until last February 2011. I perfectly understand that non-smokers can have a real hard time breathing smoke in public areas, but it’s still control on a personal habit.
There is control because of crime. Also in the “no respect” category, but at a higher state.
Think of how control has gone nuts if you travel by plane. Since couple of years, we must have our passport to go through the US or Canada borders by car… Come on! In a normal world, US and Canada should share the same dollar and no frontiers… My 2 cents.

And here comes the government control… A huge, big big huge reason why the government has this enormous control over the people is because the people now give all the responsibilities to the government.
A ridiculous problem in Quebec is Social Security; there are families with many generations of non-working parasites. “If I loose my job, no problem, the government will pay me.” What a pathetic mentality!
In short, a big majority of the western population suffers from a near-extinction of leaders and goes by with a thinking that somebody else will fix all their problems and they don’t have to leave their couch and miss their favorite TV shows.
Another example from our Province is our electricity company (Hydro-Quebec is government property), they will replace in the next couple of years all the meters for new “smart” ones.
They will record all sort of data giving them the possibility to create a chart of your life habits and control you a little more, telling you that you open too much lights at a certain time frame or take too long showers, or clean your dishes too often.
I could go on for hours writing about government control, but I’m sure you have several examples popping into your mind as you read this.

Several cities compel citizens to use public transport by eliminating downtown public parking. I know we can debate this widely on environmental basis, excessive traffic jams, etc. But it is still a form of control.
Several years ago, our Quebec provincial government forced peripheral cities and municipalities around bigger cities (Montreal, Quebec…) to merge together as one big city. They claimed it would be a smart move economically. It has been a disaster for small cities with low taxes and good services! Management of the big cities that already has problems before merging increased and spread to the new united cities resulting in huge taxes raise and declining services quality. Nobody asked the citizens if they agreed with this decision.
Is this can be truly called a democratic system?
Forcing a population to do what the government wants is not called a democracy in my mind.

Do you understand now what I mean by loosing our freedom?
Between a simple stop sign to a controlling government, there are countless examples of lost freedom in our so called free countries.
I know there are far worst countries in our world with no freedom at all, but they don’t claim to be free democratic countries.

We need new leaders who have the guts to fix broken things in our society.
They are there, scattered around our countries, working to find other leaders, so we can make a positive impact in a near future.

“Everything rises and falls on leadership” – Dr. John C. Maxwell

Thanks for reading, Patric J. Dufficy

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…to live; to believe; to give; to receive; to fall in love; to share a smile; to walk an inch; to run a mile; to dive into sunsets; to forgive; to forget; to love where you’re going; to embrace where you’ve been; to take a deep breath, close your eyes . . . and begin.

May the new year be filled with love, adventure, and dreams come true.

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A true friend is probably the most important persons in our lives.
The one person you know, you can always count on, no matter what.
Friends get in arguments and at times hate each other, but will always talk it out and forgive one another, making the friendship even stronger.

Friends see the worst of each other and accept it along with the best without judgment.
True friendship should not depend on associations, sports teams, job colleagues, school buddies or any other group. If one decides to leave the group, true friendship should prevail at any cost.
Friendships are hard work at times but you get what you put into it and it’s so worth it.

A true friend is honest.
A good friend may not share every detail of every second of their life, but they do try to be clear about their intentions. This means that they try to present an accurate picture of who they are and of different situations. When something doesn’t seem right, they let you know.

A true friend is attentive and adaptable.
A good friend is at least a fairly good listener and notices how little, day-to-day things affect you. They can’t read your mind, but chances are they can usually tell when you’re happy, sad, excited, shocked or upset. If they’re aware that they’re doing something that annoys you, they try to change their ways or at least talk to you about it.

A true friend is supportive of you and your goals.
Sure, your friend may think you’re cool, but are they on the same page as you? Do they know what you want most out of life? A really good friend will know what makes you tick and help you become the person you want to be. They won’t try to change who you are or drag you into situations that make you uncomfortable or put you at risk of losing something that matters to you.
A true friend really knows your weaknesses and strengths.

A true friend makes it clear that they care about you.
Different people may have different ways of letting you know that they care about you. One person may give you a big hug whereas another person might gently tease you. A big clue that someone cares is that they talk to you fairly often and, in general, know what’s going on in your life and is interested about it.

A true friend sticks with you in good and bad times.
Loyalty is a quality almost everyone thinks when they are asked what they look for in a friend. A loyal friend will stick with you when you fail at something, when you earn a great reward for a special accomplishment or when your spouse wants a divorce. If you move out of town or switch job, they’ll do their best to stay in touch with you.
A true friend will never take advantage of you or leave you alone when you need him or her around.

A true friend accepts you for who you are, even when you’re being a butthead.
They are patient with you when you make mistakes — even big ones — and learn how to forgive you when you hurt them. In other words, they treat you as you’d like to be treated, even when you aren’t at your best. They are willing to take time out for you.

A true friend is someone you feel very comfortable to open up to, no matter what it is.
A true friend is like the air or water, something you cannot live without.

Thanks for reading, Patric J. Dufficy

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Almost everybody’s life is a constant roller-coaster. If I illustrate the emotions in the life of an average person, it would look a lot like a heart beat line.

I read several books saying that our thinking creates our environment.
Sometime I still think exactly the other way, that my environment influences my thinking.
Bad weather makes us grouch, traffic jams makes us angry, the way society is in general makes us sad and depress, so our environment clearly creates our attitude, right?
Wrong!
WE DECIDE on our own free will to create a bad attitude because of our environment.
You most likely heard those quotes saying there is two faces on a medal, or that a glass of water can be half full or half empty. These are so true!
If there is bad weather, I’m sure we can find something positive to do other than mourning. If we’re caught in traffic every day, we certainly can find good CDs or take this time to “talk” with our passenger, my wife loves that. 🙂
Society is upsetting… Why should we be forced to surrender to the rotten mindset of a great percentage of our society?
Why can’t we DECIDE to be different from the crowd and think our own way?
Why can’t we DECIDE to close our ears from trash talks of others and medias?
Why can’t we DECIDE to live a life for excellence and not a life for existence?

We have a choice to think positively or negatively of any situation, and we must DECIDE witch one we want in our life.
Of course it’s easier to be angry and trash talk about everything bothering us and it’s really hard to push ourselves to think something positive of a bad situation, but it can be done and in the aftermath, we feel so much better.

I am writing about this today because I’m personally in a situation of perception of others reaction vs. my thinking.
In short, I had recently to rearrange my activities in a group of friends because I was choking under the work load and I had to let go some of it.
They all said that it was OK, that they will find someone else to do the job, but in my mind, I sort of let them down and I imagine several scenarios and I really feel they are colder with me.
On the other hand, it’s probably my wounded attitude making them uncomfortable. As soon as I come back with no bad thinking and a good attitude, I’m sure their attitude with me will change, or at least my perception of it will.

We can create what we want in our life.
It’s easy to do and it’s easy not to do.

Thanks for reading, Patric J. Dufficy

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Sometimes I think of myself as a tree.
The external appearance can tell a lot,
But the invisibles roots underneath,
Those are way more important.
A tree without healthy roots,
Won’t have a beautiful outer look.
If anything bad happens above the earth,
It will have a hard time trying to heal itself.
On the other hand, a tree with good roots,
Will be able to deal with any events,
Hurricanes, fire or even cutting it.
It will find a way to start over.
But cover a new growth with rubble,
Even if he was developing good roots,
It will look for a way to breathe.
But, if the search takes too long,
The tree will weaken until it dies.

*Thanks for reading, Patric J. Dufficy

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