Apparently I'm a sucker. There's one born every minute they say.

[JohnsonJones]

On 1/30/2025 at 2:16 PM, LDSGator said:

Just some humor. 

I mean, there's a reason why Utah is one of the few places a Con-man could make money off a pyramid scheme, and then write a useless book on how to be successful via successful habits, in order to be successful himself.

When one of the key people praised in Utah had a plan to...make money via pryamid (excuse me...mlm, not pyramid) schemes and then make even bigger money it by telling people how to be successful in a book and then using that to sell seminars and do an entire business of it, something is seriously wrong.  (the key being, this individual isn't successful before being that type of con artist, he made his money because other people thought he had the key to being successful.  Turns out, being a Psychopath will be a better predictor of a successful High acting CEO than using his books or seminars). 

Utah was a prime breeding ground for this type of con-artist.  Unfortunately, far more people and states fall for these types of schemes than not, and we probably should have more laws preventing this type of scamming. 

Edited February 2 by JohnsonJones

[LDSGator]

1 hour ago, JohnsonJones said:

Turns out, being a Psychopath

I’m a barely functional narcissist, so I’ll just be quiet on that one. 
 

But, for what little it’s worth, I think most LDS are extremely, well, nice. They don’t like saying no their stake president-even when he asks for their life savings. 

One of my closest friends in the church died in a canyoneering accident. His parents were screwed out of their life savings by a church leader who went to jail for fraud. He spent his adult life warning seniors of these frauds. 

[Ironhold]

23 hours ago, JohnsonJones said:

I mean, there's a reason why Utah is one of the few places a Con-man could make money off a pyramid scheme, and then write a useless book on how to be successful via successful habits, in order to be successful himself.

 

2000s.

The Seven Habits is a hot topic. 

My mom reads a story about how a particular restaurant chain won't hire anyone who hasn't read it. 

This convinces my mom that I need to read it, too. 

We're at the Borders that used to be in the local shopping mall. Mom pitches a fit right then and there in the middle of the store about how I need to buy that book if I want to succeed. 

I buy it to keep the situation from turning into a spectacle. 

I go online that same day to manage my E-Bay / Half dot Com account and discover that people are flooding the two sites with copies; I could have gotten a copy for dirt cheap even after shipping if she hadn't pitched that fit. 

I read the book. It's pure quackery. It's actually insulting to my intelligence, and I find myself questioning the intelligence of anyone who takes it seriously.

I sit mom down for a talk and explain all of this to her. She relents. 

I go to list the book. Turns out that so many more people have listed their copies that the going rate is now $0.75 apiece, the minimum that Half was allowing us to charge for any given item at the time. 

So I'm now out about $20 and several hours of my time. 

So near as I can tell the book has disappeared into the aether of forgotten management tomes, and if you ask me we'd all be better off if it stayed there.

[NeuroTypical]

30 minutes ago, Ironhold said:

I read the book. It's pure quackery. It's actually insulting to my intelligence, and I find myself questioning the intelligence of anyone who takes it seriously.

You're talking about "The seven habits of highly successful people"?   It was wildly popular back in the day as both a self-help book, and also good for corporate training.  My global company threw a session for managers 15-ish years ago that I got to attend.   One criticism at the time came from returned missionaries: "Covey was a mission president, and all this stuff is basically what we learned the first week at the MTC."

Be proactive
Begin with the end in mind
Put first things first
Think win–win
Seek first to understand, then to be understood
Synergize
Sharpen the saw

I was just starting out in adulthood when I encountered these.  It was my introduction to how to set goals and organize life.  They were great to learn, as I didn't really have anywhere else to learn such things.  I can't think of a single one of them that isn't self-obvious and relevant and applicable to life in general.   My franklin planner honestly was one of the most important tools that helped me juggle work/school/life.   I had one until online calendaring tools like Microsoft Outlook appeared, now I use it and cloud-based notes and spreadsheets instead.

Don't worry about questioning my intelligence - I was not impressed with my level of maturity back in the '90's.  This book was one of the many life lessons I learned that helped cure me of much of my stupid.  

 

Edited February 2 by NeuroTypical

[LDSGator]

23 minutes ago, NeuroTypical said:

You're talking about "The seven habits of highly successful people"?   It was wildly popular back in the day as both a self-help book, and also good for corporate training.  My global company threw a session for managers 15-ish years ago that I got to attend.   One criticism at the time came from returned missionaries: "Covey was a mission president, and all this stuff is basically what we learned the first week at the MTC."

Be proactive
Begin with the end in mind
Put first things first
Think win–win
Seek first to understand, then to be understood
Synergize
Sharpen the saw

I was just starting out in adulthood when I encountered these.  It was my introduction to how to set goals and organize life.  They were great to learn, as I didn't really have anywhere else to learn such things.  I can't think of a single one of them that isn't self-obvious and relevant and applicable to life in general.   My franklin planner honestly was one of the most important tools that helped me juggle work/school/life.   I had one until online calendaring tools like Microsoft Outlook appeared, now I use it and cloud-based notes and spreadsheets instead.

Don't worry about questioning my intelligence - I was not impressed with my level of maturity back in the '90's.  This book was one of the many life lessons I learned that helped cure me of much of my stupid.  

 

Those are all really good habits that could greatly improve your life, so….

[Ironhold]

47 minutes ago, NeuroTypical said:

You're talking about "The seven habits of highly successful people"?   It was wildly popular back in the day as both a self-help book, and also good for corporate training.  My global company threw a session for managers 15-ish years ago that I got to attend.   One criticism at the time came from returned missionaries: "Covey was a mission president, and all this stuff is basically what we learned the first week at the MTC."

Be proactive
Begin with the end in mind
Put first things first
Think win–win
Seek first to understand, then to be understood
Synergize
Sharpen the saw

I was just starting out in adulthood when I encountered these.  It was my introduction to how to set goals and organize life.  They were great to learn, as I didn't really have anywhere else to learn such things.  I can't think of a single one of them that isn't self-obvious and relevant and applicable to life in general.   My franklin planner honestly was one of the most important tools that helped me juggle work/school/life.   I had one until online calendaring tools like Microsoft Outlook appeared, now I use it and cloud-based notes and spreadsheets instead.

Don't worry about questioning my intelligence - I was not impressed with my level of maturity back in the '90's.  This book was one of the many life lessons I learned that helped cure me of much of my stupid.  

 

The actual book itself included a sequence where one of Covey's friends, a small business owner, was about to be priced out of his storefront by an impending rent increase. 

Covey blamed his friend for this, declaring that if the friend had sincerely tried to explain his plight the friend and the property owner would have come to an agreement on the matter. 

That's when I decided the book was functionally worthless as a tome and would be gotten rid of once I'd completed the motions of attempting to read the rest of it. 

[LDSGator]

2 minutes ago, Ironhold said:

The actual book itself included a sequence where one of Covey's friends, a small business owner, was about to be priced out of his storefront by an impending rent increase. 

Covey blamed his friend for this, declaring that if the friend had sincerely tried to explain his plight the friend and the property owner would have come to an agreement on the matter. 

That's when I decided the book was functionally worthless as a tome and would be gotten rid of once I'd completed the motions of attempting to read the rest of it. 

If you separate the advice from the one giving it, it’ll help. 

[NeuroTypical]

15 minutes ago, Ironhold said:

The actual book itself included a sequence where one of Covey's friends, a small business owner, was about to be priced out of his storefront by an impending rent increase. 

Covey blamed his friend for this,

Hm.  That story wasn't in his audiocasettes, nor do I remember it from the corporate training.  So I went to Copilot.  Is this the story you remember?

Quote

Stephen Covey did share a story about a small business owner facing a rent increase in "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People." The story is about a small business owner who was struggling with the impending rent increase that threatened to put him out of business. Covey used this story to illustrate the importance of Habit 1: Be Proactive.

The lesson from the story is that instead of reacting to the situation with fear and frustration, the business owner took a proactive approach. He decided to focus on what he could control and took steps to negotiate with the landlord, explore alternative locations, and improve his business operations to increase profitability. By being proactive, he was able to find a solution that allowed him to stay in business and thrive despite the challenges.

This story emphasizes the power of taking responsibility for your circumstances and focusing on actions within your control to create positive outcomes

 

[The Folk Prophet]

I wonder if, some day, people will react to Jordan Peterson the same way. Some guy made millions telling people to make their bed.

Maybe I can get rich writing a book.

The One Rule of Highly Successful People

Rule #1: Grow up

[Carborendum]

14 hours ago, Ironhold said:

I read the book. It's pure quackery. It's actually insulting to my intelligence, and I find myself questioning the intelligence of anyone who takes it seriously.

I think you might misunderstand the reason we read such books. 

The methods that self-help books offer is not going to "fix you."  It is to feed your brain good principles.  The more good stuff you put into your brain vs bad stuff, the better your mind will function and take you in the right direction.

If anyone claims that by reading one book all of a sudden changed their lives to become uber-successful, that is probably hype (exceptions for divine works).

Reading one book won't change you or fix all your problems.  But by consistently reading many good books with good principles throughout your life, you will program yourself to think more clearly based on correct principles.  And if you do so, you will find more success in whatever your endeavors.

Edited February 3 by Carborendum

[Carborendum]

I'll add another note.  This past weekend, Tony Robbins provided a free introductory seminar for three days.

• It was very emotion filled with exciting and poignant stories from his life and those whom he had helped in the past.
• He provided many great guiding principles.
• He provided some physicality to changing the way one thinks. 
• The seminar was filled with emotional exercises to get the heart and body involved in the overall process of learning these principles. 
  • This is simply education 101. 
  • We don't just teach the mind. 
  • Effective teaching includes the body and heart as well.
  • The most effective teaching will also include the soul.  And he did include thinly veiled generic religious principles as well.
• My family seemed to get a lot out of it. They feel like they can be more prone to seek success in their lives because of it.

I'm already successful in many aspects of life.  So, it didn't really do anything for me.  It isn't something magical that will transform you.  It was designed to teach correct principles.  It is still up to us to implement them.  I already knew the principles and had applied them.  So, what benefit was there for me, personlly?  Not much.

To call him a charlatan would be overly-critical of his methods.  But there is nothing magical about any of his methods or anyone else's methods.  It isn't meant to be.

13 hours ago, NeuroTypical said:

I can't think of a single one of them that isn't self-obvious and relevant and applicable to life in general. 

Yes, it is obvious when it is pointed out.  And I think that people don't realize that these books don't have any special secrets.  The value of any such book is that it is placing the thought into your conscious mind to remember good principles. 

Sometimes, we have a vague notion of what we need to do. But either we're too busy with life to even stop to think about them, or we don't have the proper words to describe these nebulous notions.  When we read a book by someone who has come up with the proper words to define what we've been pondering, we have that "ah-hah" moment.  "Yes!  That's what I've been thinking about.  I just couldn't put words to it."

And the idea of putting words to those ideas... it somehow has the power to make it real.

[Carborendum]

14 hours ago, Ironhold said:

Covey blamed his friend for this, declaring that if the friend had sincerely tried to explain his plight the friend and the property owner would have come to an agreement on the matter. 

That's when I decided the book was functionally worthless as a tome and would be gotten rid of once I'd completed the motions of attempting to read the rest of it. 

14 hours ago, NeuroTypical said:

Stephen Covey did share a story about a small business owner facing a rent increase in "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People." The story is about a small business owner who was struggling with the impending rent increase that threatened to put him out of business. Covey used this story to illustrate the importance of Habit 1: Be Proactive.

The lesson from the story is that instead of reacting to the situation with fear and frustration, the business owner took a proactive approach. He decided to focus on what he could control and took steps to negotiate with the landlord, explore alternative locations, and improve his business operations to increase profitability. By being proactive, he was able to find a solution that allowed him to stay in business and thrive despite the challenges.

This story emphasizes the power of taking responsibility for your circumstances and focusing on actions within your control to create positive outcomes

This goes to show that two people can read the same text and get two completely different meanings out of it.

[NeuroTypical]

2 hours ago, Carborendum said:

This goes to show that two people can read the same text and get two completely different meanings out of it.

Well to be fair, this is one living human (@Ironhold), and one AI chatbot.  The rule for AI is to verify everything it says with a human, so I place a higher value on Ironhold's memory than the claim from my post.  

It's entirely possible IH read an early edition of the book where dude yelled at his friend for failing, and dude revised the story in later editions of the book.  I do remember endless hype about the whole 7Habits/Covey way of living professional life.  It seemed a tad MLMey to me, and I really disliked how many people seemed to think that a franklin planner was required for anyone claiming to be a good Mormon.   I found plenty of good principles to internalize and helpful habits, but I understand why people got turned off at all the hype.

[Ironhold]

22 hours ago, NeuroTypical said:

Hm.  That story wasn't in his audiocasettes, nor do I remember it from the corporate training.  So I went to Copilot.  Is this the story you remember?

 

The edition I had was not as kindly, with Covey blaming the friend for not fully making himself heard. 

[Ironhold]

5 hours ago, NeuroTypical said:

Well to be fair, this is one living human (@Ironhold), and one AI chatbot.  The rule for AI is to verify everything it says with a human, so I place a higher value on Ironhold's memory than the claim from my post.  

It's entirely possible IH read an early edition of the book where dude yelled at his friend for failing, and dude revised the story in later editions of the book.  I do remember endless hype about the whole 7Habits/Covey way of living professional life.  It seemed a tad MLMey to me, and I really disliked how many people seemed to think that a franklin planner was required for anyone claiming to be a good Mormon.   I found plenty of good principles to internalize and helpful habits, but I understand why people got turned off at all the hype.

Right now, I'm reading a book written by Lee Iacocca. 

A year or so back I read Grant Tinker's autobiography. 

Next up is Dave Thomas' autobiography. 

I've also read The Peter Principle & other such works by Lawrence J. Peters, "Who Moved My Cheese?", and several other works on business, management, and leadership. This is on top of several celebrity biographies and autobiographies. 

Some authors deal in platitudes and hyperbole, as if they were reciting nursery rhymes to children. I often find these works to be, in the long run, a waste of time. 

In contrast, authors that openly level with the reader, cite examples, and recount their tragedies alongside their triumphs tend to present something for people to actually grasp onto. Tinker and Iacocca, for example, both have entire chapters in which they say "Here's where I made such-and-such screwup, here's *why* I made it, and here's what I feel I should have done differently with the power of hindsight".

For example, Iacocca spends an entire chapter talking about how Chrysler allowed select employees to take cars home with them for personal use; while this allowed for real-world testing that frequently led to these employees discovering problems that didn't come through in Chrysler's in-house testing (such as a make & model of van where taking a left turn risked stalling the engine), several vehicles that were sent out for this purpose were returned in a state where they never should have been put back into the assortment of cars going to dealerships (including one that was in an accident); the company should have done a better job of screening these vehicles and reclassed any vehicles in unsatisfactory state as being corporate fleet vehicles instead of just patching & cleaning them up and sending them out. 

Or we have TV show host Kairi Byron's autobiography, which she consciously formatted like a textbook. Each chapter is her recounting some pivotal part of her life, including risks she took and decisions she made, and then at the end she has questions to help the reader think about their own lives and proposals for things people can do to try and change anything they aren't keen on. 

These types of works are the ones I prefer. 

[LDSGator]

So, speaking of scams. 
 

I got this message at 12:30 last night. If your job requires you to pester strangers past midnight, that’s another major red flag. 

Edited February 4 by LDSGator

[NeuroTypical]

Oh dude you texted back.   All that does is confirm you are a "live number", which means you'll be added to a list and sold worldwide for the next gazillion years.

It might help if you think of the guy who sent you a text like this: 

Somewhere in India, our friend got to work by 9am.  Today's first job involves canvassing 38,000 cell numbers looking for live ones.  His boss got the numbers from a data leak - all these folks have spent money at Disney in the last 2 years.  The list came with a script to use written by one of his team with good English skills.   He writes a script that will take the words from disney.txt, and send it to all 38k numbers.   It's quick to do, and he moves on to other tasks.  Tomorrow morning he'll run a scrape on all the numbers who responded, and generate a "hot list" which he'll forward to his entire team, so they can prioritize who to contact for their various scams.

Somewhere in that list is Gator's cell number.   Because you responded.

[LDSGator]

6 minutes ago, NeuroTypical said:

 

Oh dude you texted back.   All that does is confirm you are a "live number", which means you'll be added to a list and sold worldwide for the next gazillion years.

 

It was via FB and she was real. I’m not too worried about that. My phone is on DND 24/7 with only favorites allowed to get through. I thought about all you said before I responded. 

Edited February 4 by LDSGator

[NeuroTypical]

Oh good!   Here, let me update my informGator.txt script:

---

It might help if you think of the guy who sent you a text like this: 

Somewhere in India, our friend got to work by 9am.  Today's first job involves canvassing 38,000 FB accounts looking for live ones.  His boss got the accounts from a data leak - all these accounts were linked to Disney in the last 2 years.  The list came with a script to use written by one of his team with good English skills.   He writes a script that will take the words from disney.txt, and send it to all 38k accounts via Facebook Messenger.   It's quick to do, and he moves on to other tasks.  Tomorrow morning he'll run a scrape on all the pings back, and generate a "hot list" which he'll forward to his entire team, so they can prioritize who to contact for their various scams.

Somewhere in that list is Gator's FB messenger info.   Because you responded.

---

I mean no, it's hardly the end of the world.  It's just that your initial "no thanks" was responding to an automated script, and now you'll be contacted by actual human scammers.  

Edited February 4 by NeuroTypical

[LDSGator]

3 minutes ago, NeuroTypical said:

now you'll be contacted by actual human scammers.  

And that’s how we expose them my friend. Anti MLMmer’s (like me) have pages where we don’t play around. Some won’t edit their names out and play hardball right back. 

Edited February 4 by LDSGator

[LDSGator]

I don’t have a problem with releasing names  and “doxxing” hubots and scammers. While it feeds their persecution complex hopefully it warns the next person that the hunbot can’t be trusted. I didn’t do it here because 1) it’s not allowed and 2) the odds that anyone here are in the same Disney FB groups that I am are essentially zero. 

But she was exposed on that group for a time. 

Edited February 4 by LDSGator

[pam]

I almost got taken in by a scammer using my American Express. Got a call. Caller ID said Amex. Said my card had been compromised and they had tried using it for $700 in Florida at a Target but was flagged because of where it was and the amount. So they tried to get me to do different things. Now the caller ID had the actual number on the back of my card so I thought legit. But during that call, I kept getting another caller trying to call that also said Amex. So I hung up and called the number on my card. Sure enough, the first caller was the scammer and was trying to get all of the information regarding my card. He had even gotten into my account online. So we had to cancel the card, and I had to change all of the stuff on my online account. Now I don't trust anyone.  And I'm usually pretty smart regarding these things. 

[LDSGator]

The more we talk about scammers and expose them the better we all are. I have much more respect for the person who admits they were scammed and warns everyone about it than someone who can’t swallow their pride and clams up about it. 

[NeuroTypical]

7 minutes ago, LDSGator said:

The more we talk about scammers and expose them the better we all are.

Indeed.  Although it's more important to understand how it works, than to expose any single scammer.

 

38 minutes ago, LDSGator said:

It was via FB and she was real.

I'm still not sure you've got a full grasp of who you're dealing with.   There's no persecution complex.  There's no real identity attached to this account that has been set up to appear as an American english speaking woman.  12:30 AM your time is about noon in India (although it might be coming from any of a dozen other countries).  Scamming is just a regular old job, where people work in offices, with a manager, and a pay structure, and opportunities for advancement.   You're dealing with folks named Amir and Siddhartha and Aditi, who filter through stacks of data looking for leads to pass on to the next person.  There are endless million fake accounts, with thousands more created every day.  

Even if the account that messaged you is US based, and a live human clicked send on it, the face attached to that human is not the face from the facebook account.  The name isn't real.  There's no opportunity to become a "certified Disney travel agent".   What they want from you is data.  DL#.  SSN.  Credit card info.  It all starts with fishing for a hot account, someone willing to respond to the hook they cast into the web.  

 

 

My wife admins some FB accounts with tens of thousands of followers.  She gets contacted at least 5 times a week.  Scammers, phishers, data miners, catfishers.   The catfishers are fun, because they are real humans, usually young dudes, and they'll invest significant time trying to make a connection.   The way to "make 'em pay" is to see how much effort you can get them to spend on you.  It keeps 'em from spending time elsewhere.  

But my friend, the person who messaged you isn't even a catfisher.  He's a 23 year old Punjabi named Hari, and he never even read your response.  He's just not that into you.     

 

[LDSGator]

6 minutes ago, NeuroTypical said:

I'm still not sure you've got a full grasp of who you're dealing with. 

@NeuroTypical, you don’t either. People in the group have met in IRL. She’s a real, living, breathing, white anglo saxon hunbot. They exist. 

Edited February 4 by LDSGator