Preview The Book: Winning System
Winning Systems
Before you Begin- The introduction
Winning Systems
Chapter #01
Before you Begin- The introduction
The first question that I have to ask you dear reader is WHY! Why are you reading a book that is about finding a winning system? It bothers me more that you can imagine that I felt that I had to come up with this system for my classroom students. However, I do find satisfaction in knowing that for many years it has brought much success and reduced hardship and frustration for the majority of my students. I have been told that students who have incorporated the lessons in this winning system have gone on to have very happy and successful lives. So, I am glad that you are about to start the path on this winning system. However, it works best when you actually do what is suggested. You can’t lose weight by just watching exercise videos like back in the 1980’s that were so popular, you had to get off of your couch and take action.
Your first assignment is: what is your mission, what do you want to accomplish from this system? Write a mission statement.
My mission statement from when I was a teacher was:
It is my supreme goal to help my students fulfill themselves as creative unique individuals and to surpass their innate potentiality.
Now my students also had mission statements: by studying and staying focused on my classwork I will graduate high school by ( date ) and go to college to become a ( career of my choosing ). NOTE: not all of my students wanted to go to college, but this is just an example of a student’s mission statement. And please keep in mind that you can change your mission statement as time goes by and you grow.
Also posting your mission statement in an obvious place like by the bathroom mirror, reminds you why you are doing what you are doing and it helps keep you focused and on track. You are an independent person and you are doing this program on your own, or perhaps with a partner. But, and it's a big but, this system works best when you put in the effort and you hold yourself and each other accountable. So actually, schedule time for you to commit to working this winning system.
So, for today, be excited because in the first chapter you are going to begin a life changing quest and by the end of this system you will be thinking differently as you engage yourself in this winning system. Know this and know this well, you are a good person, an important person, and a valuable person. You are worth the time and effort that you put into you and this Winning System…but there’s more… So please keep going, keep investing in yourself, keep love alive, until you get to the end… then…
Your first assignment is: what is your mission, what do you want to accomplish from this system? Write a mission statement.
My mission statement from when I was a teacher was:
It is my supreme goal to help my students fulfill themselves as creative unique individuals and to surpass their innate potentiality.
Now my students also had mission statements: by studying and staying focused on my classwork I will graduate high school by ( date ) and go to college to become a ( career of my choosing ). NOTE: not all of my students wanted to go to college, but this is just an example of a student’s mission statement. And please keep in mind that you can change your mission statement as time goes by and you grow.
Also posting your mission statement in an obvious place like by the bathroom mirror, reminds you why you are doing what you are doing and it helps keep you focused and on track. You are an independent person and you are doing this program on your own, or perhaps with a partner. But, and it's a big but, this system works best when you put in the effort and you hold yourself and each other accountable. So actually, schedule time for you to commit to working this winning system.
So, for today, be excited because in the first chapter you are going to begin a life changing quest and by the end of this system you will be thinking differently as you engage yourself in this winning system. Know this and know this well, you are a good person, an important person, and a valuable person. You are worth the time and effort that you put into you and this Winning System…but there’s more… So please keep going, keep investing in yourself, keep love alive, until you get to the end… then…
Winning Systems
Chapter #01
“Begin at the beginning," the King said, very gravely, "and go on till you come to the end: then stop.”
― Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland
― Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland
I suppose that I could begin by telling you that I was an abused child. My father beat me regularly and my mother was helpless to do anything about it. And that my older sister mimicked good-ole’-dad’s behavior, but why bother with that minutia, and besides I will be slightly referring to some of those events as I go along just a few times in this book, but not enough to be an annoying story told from a pity pot.
I had also started this telling by reporting that in December of 1993 I was in a car crash, lost my lady, but I survived. I did break 126 out of 206 bones in my body. Damaged my liver and kidneys, and there was also bleeding in my brain. I spent 127 days in a coma, and was told that I would never walk or have a cognitive thought again.
So now that that’s out of the way, let's focus on my success and the systems that got me to where I am today. I’m over here now! And where is here? I’m a retired physical science college professor living beyond my wildest dreams in my beloved state of New Hampshire. I live off Lake Winnipesaukee and I sail her often (weather permitting- after all this is New Hampshire and we do get snow, but just a bit and not in the summer.) I also fancy myself as an equestrian and ride frequently, often many times in a week. Life is good, very good, thank goodness and because I have a working system.
But the theme of this chapter is, “Begin at the beginning," the King said, very gravely, "and go on till you come to the end: then stop. “I’m from the world of science, and this is a book about winning systems, and thinking as a winner. And starting from the beginning let's go way back in time to a few hundred years before the common era, (B.C.E), or for you old-school folks, before Christ.
The original philosopher, scientist, thinker and the first European man to record his thoughts was good ole’ Socrates. Known by many as the first great western philosopher. His method today simply called the Socratic Method is simply a dialog between the teacher and the students where there is an exchange of question after question and dialog to solve these questions. This was the first system to solve problems, also known as critical thinking. But there’s more… But before I do that, here's a quote about thinking from not one of my favorite people. “Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is probably the reason why so few engage in it.” Henry Ford and now … But there’s more… so I’ll keep going…
Socrates had a protégé, a favorite student whom he called Plato because that was his name. Plato is considered the second great western philosopher. This is the person who wrote about Atlantis. How many people have spent great fortune’s searching for this so-called “lost city”. Now I know exactly where it is. No Joke!!! If you read the book Plato’s Republic, by Plato himself he states that it is an imaginary place that only existed in his mind. Plato would visit Atlantis when he had a problem that he could not solve. In his mind Plato would visit with the people of Atlantis and see how they solved his unsolvable problem and then he applied what he had discovered from his visit. Sometimes he had to make additional trips to find out more details, but he was using his imagination and not going to a place that was real and existed. Today we call this method visualization, or what Albert Einstein called The Borrowed Genius. But there’s more…so I’ll go on…
Then there was Aristotle, the third great western philosopher. Now to me personally he was the greatest of these three [3]. He came up with Aristotle’s four [4] constitutions, and how to get what you want out of life. Much of the writing in this book was taken from this very basic concept. I believe that it is one of the most important things schools need to teach. So, here I go.
The First Constitution is called: the Final Constitution. It’s what you want; your goal.
The Second Constitution is called: the material Constitution. What are you going to use to build your final constitution?
The Third Constitution is called: the efficient Constitution. How are you going to use the materials to build your final constitution
The fourth Constitution is called: the Formal Constitution. The written plan that puts everything together.
Many people would assume that the Final Constitution is the most important, and it is important, but it is not the MOST important! Let me explain, if you’re a baseball player at bat your goal may be to safely get on first base. However, once you have gotten to first if you do not have a good efficient constitution or rather a winning system, you might not know whether to steal second base, or when to run. It is the system that is actually more important than the goal. With a winning system in place the person on first will know if and when to run to second, or even on to third or beyond. Heck, he may even just walk to second, that is if the pitcher walks the next batter. With a winning system that team has a better chance of winning the game or maybe even the pennant and the world series!
With a winning system you set yourself up for one success after another and so on. And that is what my writing is all about. Having a winning system so that you and the people in your life can successfully reach goal after goal and learn and apply a winning System. but there’s more…so I’ll go on…
Now in all due respect to these three [3] great western philosophers they only did thought experiments they never actually took action. The first scientist to actually do real experiments was Galileo Galilei. He also challenged the authority of the time; the Roman Catholic Church. Galileo took his telescope and noticed that the moon was not perfect, it has mountains. That’s a problem for the church because G-d is perfect so he does not make mistakes, and if the moon has mountains, then it is not perfectly round and it is imperfect- Galileo is in trouble. He also says that Venus changes its size and shape and based on his observation it does go through phases much to the observer as does the moon. Galileo also stated that Saturn has ears! Well, he did not know what the rings were, but that they were round things sticking out from the side of a bigger round thing, so to him they looked like ears on the side of a head. Another observation that upset the church was when he stated that Jupiter has moons, four [4] of them! The church said that that is totally impossible. The teaching of the Church in the 1600’s was that man Is the center or the universe, and the stars, planets, and heavens rotate around the Earth, the center of the universe. And then Galileo said that the...
I had also started this telling by reporting that in December of 1993 I was in a car crash, lost my lady, but I survived. I did break 126 out of 206 bones in my body. Damaged my liver and kidneys, and there was also bleeding in my brain. I spent 127 days in a coma, and was told that I would never walk or have a cognitive thought again.
So now that that’s out of the way, let's focus on my success and the systems that got me to where I am today. I’m over here now! And where is here? I’m a retired physical science college professor living beyond my wildest dreams in my beloved state of New Hampshire. I live off Lake Winnipesaukee and I sail her often (weather permitting- after all this is New Hampshire and we do get snow, but just a bit and not in the summer.) I also fancy myself as an equestrian and ride frequently, often many times in a week. Life is good, very good, thank goodness and because I have a working system.
But the theme of this chapter is, “Begin at the beginning," the King said, very gravely, "and go on till you come to the end: then stop. “I’m from the world of science, and this is a book about winning systems, and thinking as a winner. And starting from the beginning let's go way back in time to a few hundred years before the common era, (B.C.E), or for you old-school folks, before Christ.
The original philosopher, scientist, thinker and the first European man to record his thoughts was good ole’ Socrates. Known by many as the first great western philosopher. His method today simply called the Socratic Method is simply a dialog between the teacher and the students where there is an exchange of question after question and dialog to solve these questions. This was the first system to solve problems, also known as critical thinking. But there’s more… But before I do that, here's a quote about thinking from not one of my favorite people. “Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is probably the reason why so few engage in it.” Henry Ford and now … But there’s more… so I’ll keep going…
Socrates had a protégé, a favorite student whom he called Plato because that was his name. Plato is considered the second great western philosopher. This is the person who wrote about Atlantis. How many people have spent great fortune’s searching for this so-called “lost city”. Now I know exactly where it is. No Joke!!! If you read the book Plato’s Republic, by Plato himself he states that it is an imaginary place that only existed in his mind. Plato would visit Atlantis when he had a problem that he could not solve. In his mind Plato would visit with the people of Atlantis and see how they solved his unsolvable problem and then he applied what he had discovered from his visit. Sometimes he had to make additional trips to find out more details, but he was using his imagination and not going to a place that was real and existed. Today we call this method visualization, or what Albert Einstein called The Borrowed Genius. But there’s more…so I’ll go on…
Then there was Aristotle, the third great western philosopher. Now to me personally he was the greatest of these three [3]. He came up with Aristotle’s four [4] constitutions, and how to get what you want out of life. Much of the writing in this book was taken from this very basic concept. I believe that it is one of the most important things schools need to teach. So, here I go.
The First Constitution is called: the Final Constitution. It’s what you want; your goal.
The Second Constitution is called: the material Constitution. What are you going to use to build your final constitution?
The Third Constitution is called: the efficient Constitution. How are you going to use the materials to build your final constitution
The fourth Constitution is called: the Formal Constitution. The written plan that puts everything together.
Many people would assume that the Final Constitution is the most important, and it is important, but it is not the MOST important! Let me explain, if you’re a baseball player at bat your goal may be to safely get on first base. However, once you have gotten to first if you do not have a good efficient constitution or rather a winning system, you might not know whether to steal second base, or when to run. It is the system that is actually more important than the goal. With a winning system in place the person on first will know if and when to run to second, or even on to third or beyond. Heck, he may even just walk to second, that is if the pitcher walks the next batter. With a winning system that team has a better chance of winning the game or maybe even the pennant and the world series!
With a winning system you set yourself up for one success after another and so on. And that is what my writing is all about. Having a winning system so that you and the people in your life can successfully reach goal after goal and learn and apply a winning System. but there’s more…so I’ll go on…
Now in all due respect to these three [3] great western philosophers they only did thought experiments they never actually took action. The first scientist to actually do real experiments was Galileo Galilei. He also challenged the authority of the time; the Roman Catholic Church. Galileo took his telescope and noticed that the moon was not perfect, it has mountains. That’s a problem for the church because G-d is perfect so he does not make mistakes, and if the moon has mountains, then it is not perfectly round and it is imperfect- Galileo is in trouble. He also says that Venus changes its size and shape and based on his observation it does go through phases much to the observer as does the moon. Galileo also stated that Saturn has ears! Well, he did not know what the rings were, but that they were round things sticking out from the side of a bigger round thing, so to him they looked like ears on the side of a head. Another observation that upset the church was when he stated that Jupiter has moons, four [4] of them! The church said that that is totally impossible. The teaching of the Church in the 1600’s was that man Is the center or the universe, and the stars, planets, and heavens rotate around the Earth, the center of the universe. And then Galileo said that the...