Day 31 of 100 Days of 100 Ways To Rule Your World

REMOVE LABELS & STEREOTYPES

Numerous times throughout my life I have been a victim of stereotyping and labeling. Then again, in the past I have stereotyped and labeled others. I know that you have done it too. We’ve ALL done it for one reason or another. Why do we do it? It is easy and convenient.

Has “they’ve done it to me so I’ll do it to them” been your mantra? Does the temporary feeling of superiority and sense of euphoria carry you all day? I highly doubt it does. I bet it carries you until the next time you do it and so on.

Thus changing that mantra and actively avoid the temptation to dismiss people because of what you can see and hear and start to ACTIVELY opening your mind. Who knows, the person you were stereotyping and labeling last week might just be the person who has the key to your financial success? Then again, they might not but you will never know if all you do is keep closing the door on them because they look, sound, think, or act different than you.

Just because they don’t appear to have stepped off the cover of GQ or VOGUE doesn’t mean that they don’t have something genuine and authentic to offer you, your family, or your friends.

Really, if you base everything on how people look then how do feel about those that APPEAR to have it all (looks, money, power) (a form of stereotyping) and fail to deliver on your expectation of them?

So loosen up, open your mind, and let people in. They might just astound you.

Thank you,
David Guerra
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Day 30 of 100 Days of 100 Ways To Rule Your World

READ EVEN MORE (A Few Suggestions)

What are you reading? Something from the New York Times Best Seller List? Your kid’s Science book? A Comic Book? A Classic? Junk mail? If you answered yes, that’s a Very Good thing. If you are not currently reading something then it is time to crack open a book (or two or more).

Read something all the time. Always have a book handy, either bound or electronic format. Always have a book you can dive into no more than arm’s length away.

Reading is essential to life. Reading is what opens our minds and expands our horizons. When you read you increase your vocabulary, keep your mind performing at peak levels, increase your knowledge of the world, and among other things you experience the world through the eyes and thoughts of someone else.

If you are not too sure what to read first, that’s OK.

Here is a list of 77 books that I highly recommend. These are what I consider REQUIRED READING FOR LIFE. These books are listed in NO particular order but they are ALL in one of two lists: “Read” and “Not Yet Read”.

1. The Iliad by Homer
2. The Odyssey by Homer
3. On the Road by Jack Kerouac
4. Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut
5. 1984 by George Orwell
6. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
7. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
8. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
9. The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
10. Maus by Art Spiegelman
11. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
12. Lord of the Flies by William Golding
13. Don Quixote by Miguel De Cervantes
14. The Trial by Franz Kafka
15. Much Ado About Nothing by William Shakespeare
16. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
17. Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
18. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
19. Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson
20. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
21. Kim by Rudyard Kipling
22. 52 Pick-up by Elmore Leonard
23. The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
24. East of Eden by John Steinbeck
25. The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
26. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
27. Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper
28. Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller
29. The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
30. A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
31. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
32. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
33. The Chronicles of Narnia by CS Lewis
34. I Am Legend by Richard Matheson
35. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
36. Dracula by Bram Stoker
37. The Time Machine by HG Wells
38. The War of the Worlds by HG Wells
39. The Sword in the Stone by TH White
40. Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe
41. A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
42. Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
43. The Book of Daniel by EL Doctorow
44. Les Miserables by Victor Hugo
45. Elmer Gantry by Sinclair Lewis
46. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
47. The Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe
48. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
49. The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane
50. Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe
51. For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway
52. The Prisoner of Zenda by Anthony Hope
53. The Call of the Wild by Jack London
54. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
55. Moby-Dick or, The Whale by Herman Melville
56. Master and Commander by Patrick O’Brian
57. The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen by Rudolp Erich Raspe
58. All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque
59. Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott
60. Around the World in Eighty Days by Jules Verne
61. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
62. Slaughter-House Five by Kurt Vonnegut
63. The Island of Dr Moreau by HG Wells
64. The Complete Stories by Flannery O’Connor
65. To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
66. The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
67. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
68. Lake Wobegon Days by Garrison Keillor
69. Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card
70. War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy

So grab yourself a book and start reading. If you are curious, as of this writing, I finally finished reading The Odyssey by Homer.

Thank you,
Dave
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Day 29 of 100 Days of 100 Ways To Rule Your World

LET GO OF WHAT YOU CANNOT CHANGE: THE PAST

Letting go of the past is one of those things that people say is easy but in reality it is one of the most difficult things anyone can do.

However, it does not hurt to try and let go of the past. Set free those grudges that we have of people that have hurt us, that have done us wrong, that have made us feel bad, they have no right to make us feel like they did.

Of course, in letting go of their past transgression does NOT mean you have to associate with them. It just means that you are not going to give them any more power over you. Power that you gave them when you allowed yourself to stay hung up on the past. A past that you can no longer change.

The only thing you can change is the future. Changing the future begins with letting go, so let it go!

Thank you,
David Guerra
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