Friends

A friend is someone who understands your past, believes in your future, and accepts you just the way you are.  --Unknown


Truly great friends are hard to find, difficult to leave, and impossible to forget. --Unknown


A friend is someone who, upon seeing another friend in immense pain, would rather be the one experiencing the pain than to have to watch their friend suffer.  --Unknown


A true friend is someone who thinks that you are a good egg even though he knows that you are slightly cracked.  -- Bernard Meltzer


True friends stab you in the front. --Oscar Wilde


Friends are a very important part of our lives.  I am on the Straightforward, Inc. mailing list and I received a great one today.  I just wanted to share, enjoy!

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10 Ways To Spot A Fake Friend

Scott Bolan Speaks: We must be careful and diligent in choosing our friends. The most important factor is trustworthiness, and when you find your trust was misplaced, the consequences can range from disappointment to disaster and can be heart-breaking. Recently a long-time friend and colleague revealed a hidden negativity towards me. It saddened me, but I did not miss the learnings, so I am thankful for the experience. As always, my intuition had warned me several times, but I failed to listen to it. My intuition has never failed me, but I have failed it. Intuition is not a hunch or a strong deep feeling. Intuition is a knowing that requires no thought, energy, or reflection, and usually hardly any action at all. There are ways to develop your intuition: prayer (ask for it), Meditation, Mushin (the mind/no mind state found in the Samurai scripts), Ninja Mind Power, learning the higher states of objective/rational positional thinking as opposed to subjective/obsessive positional thinking. For today, here are 10 ways you can spot a friend whose integrity is in decline and may be getting ready to bite. But first, check your pride: if you have truly wronged someone, always be the first to admit it and sincerely apologize. This is the wise and timeless Christian ethic of treating others as you would want to be treated. And remember, a friend who is not transparent and trustworthy, and who does not reciprocate your caring, is a fake friend. Care for those who truly care for you, and let the rest go. Now here are 10 ways to spot a fake friend: 1. Auditory: Short, curt, distant and agitated tones (you can tell they have something to say but aren't saying it. The reason for this is that their conscience is conflicted; their subconscious knows they are wrong, but their pride is searching for an excuse to oppose you. Until they find the excuse, they lay in waiting like a viper coiled on a limb) 2. Visual: Beady, shifty eyes. For the same reasons listed above, their eyes become beady and almost animal-like. They begin accessing their memory (lower left) where they have 'created' past justifications of disliking/betraying you, they can also access their imagination (right or upper right) to reach and create. 3. Kinesthetic: Body language and Energy. They begin to appear shifty and uncomfortable around you. You can tell they're preoccupied. You'll start to detect a certain lack of natural comfort. 4. Breathing: their breathing may become noticeable, and a very slight sheen of sweat on the skin. They may pause, look down and take a breath, before speaking to you, as if they're subconsciously trying to 'get ready' to tell you something. 5. Life Circumstance: Incidents of friendship betrayal are often surrounded by economic factors and related stress and duress. If you find yourself happy and doing well, don't be surprised if some friends start to accuse you of being fake or doing wrong. It's because of their own limiting beliefs and personal choices that they are in a struggle, but rather than recognize that and change their beliefs and make better choices, people tend to cling to previous programming such as 'money is evil' etc Rather than being rational and sober in thought, they resent that you have more than they do, so they smugly figure that you must have cheated or been helped by a rich uncle to get success, not seeing the years of patience and toil it took you to get there. An example: many many years ago I financed a small red sports car on monthly payments I could afford, since I was doing okay in my business at the time. I also had a buddy who was into weightlifting and body-building and we spent an entire summer every single evening at the gym. I've been a martial artist since the age of 8, but had never once lifted weights, so he got me started in weightlifting (and I've never stopped since). By the end of the summer I was looking pretty ripped. Not an Arnold, but stronger and more built than I had ever been. We went to a restaurant and ran into some guys we knew from high school a few years prior. Their remarks were things like "Oh, nice car, your daddy must be rich." And "Oh, you've been taking steroids." You see, their minds were looking for the way that we MUST have cheated to get our success. People like that will always make an excuse for not making it, falsely claiming the moral high ground, and they will always try to shoot you down when you make it. Negative thinkers always look for what's wrong, and they always 'find' it, most often by creating it in their own minds and clinging to it with pride. I worked hard for a ripped physique every night at the gym while they were fooling around wasting time. I earned every penny of that car myself working hard every morning and afternoon. I never have taken a steroid in my life (I hear they make your balls shrivel up and that's just not something I'm willing to risk) Negative people think and work this way and look out, they may be right under your nose and you may not know it! And chances are, if you're a compassionate person who likes to help others like I am, you can try to offer them good advice, but in almost all cases, they will not listen and may even resent you for it. Pride and Envy are almost inseparable; they go hand in hand, in order to conceal each other. Envy is a demon that uses pride to go undetected. 6. The Law of concentrated attention: When you discover they have been unduly concentrating on you in an imbalanced way, you can be certain something is wrong with the relationship. When a person concentrates on an idea, the idea tends to manifest itself. Remember that thoughts and behaviors become habitual through repetition. An agitated/antagonistic thinker will repeat to themselves all of the things about you they perceive to be offensive, in order to reinforce to themselves that they are "right." We can learn this for ourselves so that we don't make the same mistake: if it takes pressure effort or constant reinforcement to convince yourself that you're right... then you're not! When you're truly right, you're at peace with yourself and with the world, and even with those who you believe have done you wrong. 7. The law of the Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: R.K. Merton, Sociology Professor at Columbia University, stated that when we predict an event, the expectation of the event changes our behavior in such a way to make the event more likely to happen. According to Merton, the Self-Fulfilling Prophecy is, in the beginning, a false definition or belief about a situation. This false belief causes a new behavior that makes the false belief come true. So your betraying friend will, in his mind, compile a "shit list" to justify his self-informed prejudice and feel secure. That is the secret pleasure people unknowingly get out of sitting in the Judgment Seat. It's why public lynchings and feeding people to the lions in ancient Rome were so popular. Humans want others to be as they expect them to be - it makes us feel more secure. In NLP this is sometimes referred to as "Perception is Projection" Meaning we project out onto the world and others, all of our unresolved "stuff." Whether you like it or not, let's face it, we humans do it all the time. Remember also that in the battle between Imagination and Logic, Imagination will almost always win! That's why the world is in such bad shape and people are so nuts - they aren't aware that they themselves hold the power to direct their imagination for a good result by design, so they let it control them through emotion ego and impulse by default. How to protect yourself from this danger: Imagine only what is good, clean, powerful and positive, AND, Know when you are imagining. Take volitional control of your Imagination by Imagining "How" as in "How can I...." for a goal or positive purpose, rather than "Why" as in "Why did I.., why did they..." You now have the power to use this vital tool of Imagination for good results. 8. The Character Test: Self-Responsibility. People who take responsibility for their own lives and circumstances are generally those with good lives and good character. They are the friends you want. When you have the type of friends who blame others - God, the economy, the government, their childhood, etc, once they run out of things to blame, they'll pick you. So look closely at how friends talk and think and make sure they tend to have a self-responsible worldview. 9. Smug Self-Righteousness: Notice if they are constantly claiming the moral high ground, quoting scripture, and taking pleasure in pointing the bony finger of contention. That's a huge red flag of a friend about to flip. Remember, the only one anyone should ever be pointing at, the one God gave you to work on, is the one in the mirror. 10. Refusal to be held accountable: when you call them on their bullshit, and provide logical evidence to refute them, they'll clam up. This is pride looking for something to eat, and finding the fridge empty. Give them a little time and they may come out of it. In the end, if they don't, let them go and bless them and move on. Resentment is a dangerous and highly addictive drug that is almost impossible to detect when you are under its influence. It will impair your judgment and hinder your results. Whatever demon of delusion is in your former friend, wants to get inside you too, and the only way it can do that is if you resent it. Upon reading this you can easily look back and recognize these traits in former friends or associates who betrayed you or went sour. After reading this, you are now prepared to recognize and prevent them from affecting you. So what's the best thing to do if a friend betrays you? 1. If your friend lied, even if he believes the lies as true, give him the truth, but without argument. The beauty of email is that it can't escalate into a shouting match. Don't argue; simply lay out facts in black and white objectively and simply as possible. This is the loving thing to do. Being a true friend sometimes means pointing out that no, the emperor’s new clothes are not lovely and in fact the emperor has no clothes at all. This must always be done without emotional heat. If you lose it, raise your voice or return personal insults for personal insults, you just got directed to dance and you are under the control of another. Being directed to dance means you become subjective, instead of objective. Never lose objectivity to emotional heat. 2. Once you've done that, let it go. Do not chase it. Years ago on Fox's "No Spin Zone," Bill O'Reilly gave some great advice: He said, "I have a no-spin zone for friends - I call them twice, if they don't call me back, that's it, it's over." Great advice, Bill! You do not want friends you have to constantly argue or plead with. They are energy vampires. And, arguing common sense really is a fool's errand. You'll find these types of friends will even resent you for giving them good advice. Who really needs friends like that? 3. After you've discovered a false friend, take time to reflect on all of your relationships and make sure they are of true character. Those that are, reach out to them. Those that aren't, let them go quickly and certainly. Don't explain, just simply let them fade. 4. Become grateful for the true friends and family you do have. It's about quality, not quantity. It's about shared sincerity and genuineness, not dogmas and familiarity. Reach out to them for support. Remember that Humble Gratitude unlocks the gates of heaven more than any other attitude. Wisdom and Courage, Scott Bolan PS My "Ninja Secrets for the Modern Man" course gives you multiple ways to Know what you need to know, so you really can get what you want. It's on sale for only 20 bucks until the end of the month. Get it here

Ninja Secrets for the Modern Man