The Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn has a lot of stories about how evil the Soviet gulag system was. Below I quote a brief section about Western complicity in Soviet crimes, and about Churchill and Roosevelt in particular.

Context for reading the quote: The "Vlasov army" refers to Russian units in the German army in WWII. They turned against the Germans and saved Prague before the Soviet army arrived. (Soviet histories lie and take credit.) The "act of a loyal ally" refers to the Vlasov army betraying the Germans. And the Soviets routinely punished anyone who'd been taken prisoner by the Germans with 15 years in the gulag (which is preceded by torture). Many other people were executed. One reason is they didn't want people who knew about life in Europe to spread information about it in Russia. The Soviets were so unfairly cruel and murderous it's hard to believe if you haven't read about it. Many people would rather have killed themselves than be executed or tortured and imprisoned by the Soviets. Keep that context in mind when considering turning anyone over to the Soviets.

After saving Prague (bold added):

... the Vlasov army began to retreat toward Bavaria and the Americans. They were pinning all their hopes on the possibility of being useful to the Allies; in this way their years of dangling in the German noose would finally become meaningful. But the Americans greeted them with a wall of armor and forced them to surrender to Soviet hands, as stipulated by the Yalta Conference. In Austria that May, Churchill perpetrated the same sort of "act of a loyal ally," but, out of our accustomed modesty, we did not publicize it. He turned over to the Soviet command the Cossack corps of 90,000 men.

[This surrender was an act of double-dealing consistent with the spirit of traditional English diplomacy. The heart of the matter was that the Cossacks were determined to fight to the death, or to cross the ocean, all the way to Paraguay or Indochina if they had to ... anything rather than surrender alive. Therefore, the English proposed, first, that the Cossacks give up their arms on the pretext of replacing them with standardized weapons. Then the officers—without the enlisted men—were summoned to a supposed conference on the future of the army in the city of Judenburg in the English occupation zone. But the English had secretly turned the city over to the Soviet armies the night before. Forty busloads of officers, all the way from commanders of companies on up to General Krasnov himself, crossed a high viaduct and drove straight down into a semicircle of Black Marias, next to which stood convoy guards with lists in their hands. The road back was blocked by Soviet tanks. The officers didn't even have anything with which to shoot themselves or to stab themselves to death, since their weapons had been taken away. They jumped from the viaduct onto the paving stones below. Immediately afterward, and just as treacherously, the English turned over the rank-and-file soldiers by the trainload—pretending that they were on their way to receive new weapons from their commanders.

In their own countries Roosevelt and Churchill are honored as embodiments of statesmanlike wisdom. To us, in our Russian prison conversations, their consistent shortsightedness and stupidity stood out as astonishingly obvious. How could they, in their decline from 1941 to 1945, fail to secure any guarantees whatever of the independence of Eastern Europe? How could they give away broad regions of Saxony and Thuringia in exchange for the preposterous toy of a four-zone Berlin, their own future Achilles' heel? And what was the military or political sense in their surrendering to destruction at Stalin's hands hundreds of thousands of armed Soviet citizens determined not to surrender? They say it was the price they paid for Stalin's agreeing to enter the war against Japan. With the atom bomb already in their hands, they paid Stalin for not refusing to occupy Manchuria, for strengthening Mao Tse-tung in China, and for giving Kim Il Sung control of half Korea! What bankruptcy of political thought! And when, subsequently, the Russians pushed out Mikolajczyk, when Benes and Masaryk came to their ends, when Berlin was blockaded, and Budapest flamed and fell silent, and Korea went up in smoke, and Britain's Conservatives fled from Suez, could one really believe that those among them with the most accurate memories did not at least recall that episode of the Cossacks?]

Along with them, he also handed over many wagonloads of old people, women, and children who did not want to return to their native Cossack rivers. This great hero, monuments to whom will in time cover all England, ordered that they, too, be surrendered to their deaths.

Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief by Jordan Peterson

I started to hear a “voice” inside my head, commenting on my opinions. Every time I said something, it said something – something critical. The voice employed a standard refrain, delivered in a somewhat bored and matter-of-fact tone:

You don’t believe that.

That isn’t true.

You don’t believe that.

That isn’t true.

The “voice” applied such comments to almost every phrase I spoke.

I couldn’t understand what to make of this. I knew the source of the commentary was part of me – I wasn’t schizophrenic – but this knowledge only increased my confusion. Which part, precisely, was me – the talking part, or the criticizing part? If it was the talking part, then what was the criticizing part? If it was the criticizing part – well, then: how could virtually everything I said be untrue? In my ignorance and confusion, I decided to experiment. I tried only to say things that my internal reviewer would pass unchallenged. This meant that I really had to listen to what I was saying, that I spoke much less often, and that I would frequently stop, midway through a sentence, feel embarrassed, and reformulate my thoughts. I soon noticed that I felt much less agitated and more confident when I only said things that the “voice” did not object to. This came as a definite relief. My experiment had been a success; I was the criticizing part. Nonetheless, it took me a long time to reconcile myself to the idea that almost all my thoughts weren’t real, weren’t true – or, at least, weren’t mine.

All the things I “believed” were things I thought sounded good, admirable, respectable, courageous. They weren’t my things, however – I had stolen them. Most of them I had taken from books. Having “understood” them, abstractly, I presumed I had a right to them – presumed that I could adopt them, as if they were mine: presumed that they were me. My head was stuffed full of the ideas of others; stuffed full of arguments I could not logically refute. I did not know then that an irrefutable argument is not necessarily true, nor that the right to identify with certain ideas had to be earned.

wise, IMO.

ppl overreach by saying a bunch of crap instead of actually doing stuff right and thinking. (and if u recommend they slow down, they often bring up the issue that zero would be a bad amount to talk, too. and then you see them say something really careless they spent 2 minutes on. why can't they consistently spend, say, 5 minutes reviewing each of their posts -- more for really long ones, but don't do those anyway -- and send if everything looks good? that should easily get them a more medium result between rushed and nothing.)

a common, important tip for learning is: better to do something correctly, slowly, then speed up. don't go faster than you know what you're doing and try to fix the mistakes later. this applies to learning to touch type, learning video games, and also writing an FI reply.

Peterson also said in a video somewhere, something like: most of what people say is lies or other people's ideas. they don't have their own ideas or a self. they need to create that. i wonder if he's read The Fountainhead.*

in another video, Peterson said basically that people have been building up lies on top of lies on top of lies, for decades. that's why they have such difficult problems! that's why their lives are such a mess! it's layer and layers and layers of lies to untangle!

in some sense, people teach chess, math, Spanish, grammar, history, programming, formal and symbolic logic, chemistry, physics, biology, how our government works, how to cook.

they have school classes on these things. they have books explaining it. i can remember being taught about these things in the past.

by contrast, i cannot remember anyone ever teaching me:

• how to understand what a sentence means
• how to figure out if an argument is true or false
• what an argument IS (and how to decide if X is an argument for Y)
• how to decide if something is a non sequitur
• how to decide if X implies Y
• how to read sentences that don't not have double, triple or quadruple negatives.

people do teach relevant things. reading what the words are is relevant to understanding a written sentence. understanding !!X is relevant to double negatives. but using it is kinda up to you. people also do teach you to avoid using double negatives, and warn they are confusing.

people teach syllogisms. but that's a bad way to think about most arguments. it can make things worse!

people get examples. lots. kids hear many sentences. and they get information about what the sentence was about. like the parent says something including "pancakes" and then 20 minutes later breakfast is served. repeatedly.

i think a lot of how people understand sentences is actually like that. they map the sentence to: "blah blah something about pancakes" and think " cool i understand him". and when you're 3, hey, that's pretty good! success! but when you're 13 or 33, that's bad. but the 33 yo actually interprets tons of stuff that way and muddles through life.

and one of the things that makes it hard is the people talking are as dumb as you. so they say some actual specific words. but they don't know what words mean all that well either. so all they even MEANT is "blah blah something about pancakes". or maybe they had something more complicated in their head, but it didn't match the words they used anyway. that's not universal (even with dumb people) but it's common. a lot of times, "blah blah something about pancakes" is about as good as you can do because the speaker actually didn't use the right words to communicate more. if you try to listen to the details of what he said, and interpret them, you'll just misunderstand him!

people are really bad at explaining or teaching anything they find "self-evident" or super super obvious. that's part of the issue.

Rand, Popper and DD are great at this stuff, but their books don't teach it. they explain more advanced stuff.

---

anyway, i was thinking there are these subjects people know how to teach (often quite badly). and subjects they basically don't teach at all. and i don't think the other ones are impossible to teach btw, people just don't know how much or don't do it or really really suck at it.

some of the stuff they don't teach is basically the kinda stuff that IQ is about. people don't know how to teach IQ. (btw there's also other stuff they don't like teaching like swear words or sex stuff).

in more Popperian terms people need to do steps like:

1) understand, conceptually, what the problem they are trying to solve is.

and ppl get that wrong all the time. and no one really teaches it as a general skill. or knows how to. it is taught in specific ways, like they'll teach you about a particular category of chemistry problem and how to think about it and what to do with it.

2) brainstorm solutions

how do you brainstorm? there's infinite things you could come up with. which ones should you? how do you know? this isn't really taught. isn't not very important though, just don't get stuck here. the initial brainstorming can be shitty ideas, and that gets fixed in step 4.

3) criticize the brainstormed stuff

here is where you have to actually figure out what kinda stuff to target. you both think of attributes the ideas/examples/solutions/whatever should not have for some reason ("let's not use an animal example b/c ppl are confused about how animals differ from humans. an inanimate object will be clearer") and also attributes it should have ("i want a solution that leaves me with at least as much money as i had before, so i'm not gonna do X or Y").

4) judgement, like which criticisms apply to which ideas.

this is partly hard just in a basic way. if trait Z is bad, ok, well, which ideas have trait Z and which don't? how do you figure that out if you don't already know it?

and it's partly hard in a more complicated way b/c you don't wanna just throw out a bunch of ideas b/c of a dumb criticism. you also need to be judging the criticisms too and making counter-criticisms. that's so complicated it actually kinda ruins my attempt to make this a linear step-by-step process. i just threw it in here.

5) brainstorm variants

so the initial brainstorming can just be rather random crap. that's fine. i don't think any healthy adult actually has much trouble with that, even if they can't really say how they do it.

but this part is harder. where you're coming up with ideas that meet criteria you had from (3). it's like, how do i change the solution to leave me with more money? what are some inanimate objects? (ok that one is easy, but some are harder).

one reason people get stuck on (2) is they already know some criteria of criticism. so they skip (2) and do (3) first, and then move on. that's fine. no problem at all. it just doesn't count as being stuck on (2) if they are really stuck on (5).

6) judge when to stop

when is the idea good enough? how much more should you think of criticism and brainstorm better solutions? this isn't taught. people guess wildly and sometimes make corrections to their policies (like they realize to spend more time than normal for important stuff).

---

btw, i have not taught it to you here. this is summarizing and describing it. it doesn't actually teach you how to actually do it. it gives you some hints from which you might figure it out yourself. and in some sense that's all we ever give students. but there are lots of topics where the hints are way better and include actual explanations of how to do something. my 6 point list is not what i'd consider teaching it in the usual sense. it's talking about it and it may be helpful, but it really leaves a lot up to you to figure out how actually do the things i mention.

and there's other stuff besides the 6 things on my list and the points earlier like about non sequiturs and figuring out what's an argument for what and how that works and what would and wouldn't be a counter argument. but like, these are basic things people are bad at, and it's the kinda thing that matters to IQ, and people don't teach it.

it's also hard to get ppl to try to learn it. people on FI want to do things like learn Objectivism when they can barely read sentences, you know? they don't sit there and go over the basics.

part of the issue is people can read sentences. 90% of the time! but it's like, even a little idea involves using some basic skills a bunch of times. 50 tiny little basic things might go into 1 idea. so even if you're 99% reliable and doing the basic stuff right, tons of your ideas will be wrong! you need to be able to do the basic stuff with a VERY good success rate or you get totally overwhelmed with errors when you try to build complex mental structures out of millions of basic components. but people generally don't like practicing stuff they get right over 80% of the time. they don't like trying to go from 99% to 99.999%. and besides being HIGHLY reliable at the basics, people also need to be FAST at them. if you're going to build complex mental structures out of a million little pieces, you better be able to do most of the little pieces in well under a second. but people also don't like practicing to get faster at stuff they are already fast at. they don't like trying to go from 2 seconds to .2 seconds to .02 seconds.

---

morality is another thing people are bad at teaching. there are people who are good at explaining it like Ayn Rand. but like, i watched Pinocchio (the old disney movie) and the cricket (his conscience for some reason) gives Pinocchio a lecture on morality. it's something about avoiding temptation and doing the right thing. it's completely incoherent and Pinocchio doesn't understand. part of the actual plot is this incoherent moralizing that is not understood. and then Pinocchio is immediately thrust out into the world to face temptations to do other stuff besides go to school. and the movie illustrates, in a magical, exaggerated way with 2 unrealistic examples, how nice sounding things can be dangerous and he should have resisted temptation and gone to school.

i think this fits children's actual experiences pretty well: incoherent verbal moral advice they don't understand at home, followed by being thrust into the world totally unprepared.

a lot of how the Bible teaches morality is with stories, too. and there are other old stories with moral content, like fairytales.

Locke had some good ideas about political philosophy:

• People have natural rights to life, liberty and property.
• Natural rights make sense according to reason and are also God's will.
• Individual rights limit what other citizens and the government can do to individuals.
• The government and law should treat everyone equally. Everyone is politically equal.
• The government has limited power, not arbitrary or unlimited power.
• The government's legitimacy comes from the consent of the citizens who prefer the government over the state of nature (anarchy).
• The reason people form a government is to help resolve conflicts and protect rights.
• The people in the government should work to benefit society, not for personal gain.
• If a government is bad enough, the people have a right to rebel against it.

But Locke had some very bad ideas about education.

This info is from my newsletter. Read the whole thing to find out about Locke's nasty education views, the Barbary pirates, and some political links.

And sign up for the free newsletter. (2-4 emails/month)

I like your videos, e.g. about identity politics, university, insight into human life, and the value of skill at thinking, writing, speaking, arguing, and reading. Let's have discussions to advance human knowledge and find truth.

I believe you're mistaken about antidepressants. Logically, at least one of us is mistaken. It'd be good to resolve this and find the truth.

You say [1] that if an antidepressant works, you'll know in a month. But how would you know? If your life improves in a month, it could have been for an unrelated reason, due to trying more, or due to placebo. The correlation between taking the antidepressant and then getting better doesn't imply causation. To know causation you have to figure out explanations of how antidepressants work.

You suggest that antidepressants either work or don't work, and are harmless. You suggest this by saying there's no good reason for people to resist trying antidepressants when they're "depressed". But antidepressants are harmful.

The explanation of how antidepressants "work" is they're brain-disabling [2]. That's what they do, not a side effect. That makes it harder for people to think about or complain about their problems, and harder to fight with others. It also motivates some people to lie that they're better in order to get off the drugs.

Peter Breggin explains [3]:

... except for the brain dysfunction and biochemical imbalances caused by psychiatric drugs, there are no known abnormalities in the brains of people who routinely seek help from psychia­trists ... All biopsychiatric treatments share a common mode of action: the disruption of normal brain function. ... all the major categories of psychiatric drugs—antidepressants, stimulants, tranquilizers (antianxiety drugs), mood stabilizers, and anti­psychotics​—​are neuro­toxic. They poison neurons, and sometimes destroy them. ... The currently available biopsychiatric treatments are not specific for any known disorder of the brain. ... they disrupt normal brain function, without correcting any brain abnormality.

I can elaborate on this, and on the additional issue that "depression" and "mental illness" are myths [4].

I searched for information refuting this position, particularly by you or referenced by you. I was unable to find it. E.g., I checked the six neuroscience books you recommend [5], searched your Quora, and listened to Rethinking Depression [6]. I also looked at other criticism of Breggin [7].

In Rethinking Depression, you say you disregard human antidepressant trials because of human complexity. It's too hard to measure the results, control all the factors like other drugs being taken, and prevent bias. I agree. But the same issues apply to judging whether a drug works in one individual's life.

You positively bring up animal trials. But human complexity also poses a problem for extrapolating from animals. Can you link a detailed, written explanation, citing animal studies, that you think should change my mind?

You say critics of antidepressants have unrepresentative experiences and don't appreciate the depths of human misery. You're right about some critics, but Thomas Szasz and I agree with you about human tragedy. I have nothing against people getting help (it's not a crutch), as long as that help is compatible with science and liberalism. I'm not denying the reality and severity of "depression" and suffering, I only deny that it's a medical problem and that antidepressants can medically cure it. Note that being a non-medical and non-genetic problem doesn't mean it's easy to solve, I actually think that means it's harder to solve. (Memes are more fearsome adversaries than genes.)

This is similar to identity politics in two ways. First, saying people lack appropriate lived experience, perspective, etc, isn't a good answer to critics. If they don't know something, it can be explained. Second, people have assumed that, since you object to trans pronoun laws, you deny the reality of bigotry against trans people and are unfamiliar with their suffering. Critics like that exist, but that isn't your reasoning.

Do you have additional arguments which address my points about antidepressants?

I like much of what you have to say, and don't think it depends on these claims about antidepressants.

Below I discuss objections to discussion and methods of rational discussion, then provide references.

---

You may have some objections to discussion like:

• You're busy.

• You're skeptical that I'm smart and knowledgeable enough.

• You expect discussions of this nature usually don't reach conclusions with anyone changing their mind, ever, let alone in a timely manner.

• If it turns out you're correct and I learn something, where's the value for you?

There are solutions to these problems which don't require giving up on addressing criticism and disagreement from the general public.

Today people get flooded with incoming ideas. People normally filter by prestige, popularity, gatekeeping authorities, social circle, subculture, and proxies for those. These filters are bad at finding the truth. Great new ideas often start off unpopular and look just like bad new ideas to the filters.

One of the solutions is a public, online, discussion forum where other people answer questions and arguments, so you don't have to personally defend everything. (For this, it's necessary to have competent supporters – without those, it's kinda only fair and reasonable that a serious intellectual must do a lot of work explaining stuff himself.)

Another solution is reusing ideas with links and references. If something has already been answered, simply provide the link. And take personal responsibility for any mistakes in that answer, even if someone else wrote it, since you're using it for your own position. Or if no one on your side of the debate has ever created an adequate answer to the criticism, then it's worth some time and attention.

This link reuse approach means only a new argument requires a new reply. And one can write general answers which address an entire category of arguments at once, and then only a different category of argument requires a new answer. Writing quality, canonical answers, and then reusing them, also helps avoid making ad hoc arguments for a position one has a bias about. It also builds up human knowledge.

Methods like these address the question: "If I'm mistaken, and you know it ... how will I find out?"

Answering all critical arguments is important because you could be mistaken. It's also a good way to learn. And providing answers allows for your critics to learn why you're right, or to give follow up arguments you haven't addressed.

People don't do this well. They go through life having inconclusive discussions, using filters to ignore some arguments, and staying mistaken about issues where better ideas are already known. There's a better way [8], which I can elaborate on.

---

References:

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JuQgJxYriYI

[2] http://www.wayneramsay.com/drugs.htm

[3] Brain-Disabling Treatments in Psychiatry, 2nd edition, Peter R. Breggin. pp. xxiii, 2, 7

[4] https://www.amazon.com/Myth-Mental-Illness-Foundations-Personal/dp/0061771228/

http://www.wayneramsay.com/depression.htm

[5] https://jordanbpeterson.com/2017/03/great-books/

[6] http://www.cbc.ca/radio/ideas/rethinking-depression-part-1-1.2913549

[7] E.g. this criticism of Breggin is bad. I can provide details. http://quackwatch.com/11Ind/breggin.html

[8] http://fallibleideas.com/paths-forward

I'm available for hire for philosophy consulting.

Philosophy is a big field. It includes reason which is a general purpose means of figuring things out, solving problems, dealing with mistakes, making good decisions, judging what's true or false, and more. Whatever issue you're dealing with, reason is important to handling it well.

Broadly there are two main uses for philosophy consulting:

1) You want to think better. Reason is my expertise. I'll help you learn it.

2) I apply my expertise with reason to solve your problems. You don't have to learn all about philosophy to benefit.

Visit my consulting page for more info. I explain who I am, what I do, how it can benefit you, example projects, etc.

Rami Rustom wanted to increase sales at his 5 cell phone stores. He came up with a Make Your Business Initiative for his 15 sales representatives. He hired me to edit the document presenting it to his team. He liked my work:

I like it a lot. Way more positive. And of course way more understandable.

Definitely a good investment to set the stage for my reps.

Here's what I created for Rami:

---

Hey Team,

Ten years ago, this industry was full of order takers. An order taker is like a McDonalds cashier. They sit around and wait for sales to come to them. Our industry used to get away with that because there wasn't much competition.

Today, things have changed. The industry is very competitive and order takers are falling by the wayside. To succeed, we have to be more proactive and create sales, upsell those sales, and get more referrals, instead of hoping people will just walk in the door and place an order.

Verizon came down on us two years ago and again last August because our Smartphone Mix and MBB was much lower than their average. That means they considered us as passive order takers. And I agree with them partially. We were proactive with WOWing customers but we were too passive with upselling.

So I created the Smartphone/MBB initiative and we hit it hard and now we kill Verizon's average numbers. So no one can call us order takers anymore. I was proactive by creating the initiative and you were proactive by trying hard to make it work. So now we're good at upselling.
Today, I want to talk about the two components of the sales process that we're going to improve on next. They are follow-ups and referrals. Everyone, including Jason and I, have been too passive about this, and now it's time to get better. This will generate more sales, make more money for you and for Wireless Express, and better please our customers.

Follow-ups

Follow-ups are a way that you can take initiative to get more sales. If the customer doesn't make a purchase today, but he plans to in the future, then it's important to actively follow up with him and get that sale done. The way to do this is by scheduling a later time when he will come back and calling him to confirm the day before. And we're providing the perfect tool to do this right in gmail and we even have a video training to walk you through it; its called gtasks.

Follow-ups are also important with leads. We need to get leads on potential customers and then follow through with those leads to bring in more sales.

Referrals

That brings us to the second component which is getting as many referrals as we can in order to get leads on more customers who don't just walk in the front door. The best way to get leads is to ask for them. After you WOW a customer, let him know that you appreciate his business and see if he knows anyone else who might be interested that he can refer you to. Then follow-up on the referral.

Some referrals will happen by themselves, but by taking initiative with referral marketing we can do better.

Why do referrals work?

Let's consider how customers think:

• Customers are not usually thinking about sending you referrals

• Customers typically feel awkward when cornered into giving a sales person a referral

• Customers worry because their reputation is at stake

• The solution is to gain customer trust

• Build rapport and WOW the customer

• If they are confident in you, they'll often be happy to give you referrals.

• Make sure to ask for your referrals. Take initiative and let them know that you want referrals. They probably won't volunteer referrals.

• We’re bombarded daily with so many marketing messages. People have learned to filter them out.

• But people don't filter out their friends and relatives.

• When you get a referral, you have enough of a human relationship to get a little attention instead of being filtered out.

• Most traditional ways of getting leads cost money. For example you can buy advertising. By asking our exist customers to help, we can acquire leads for free. And customers like giving high quality referrals because later their friend will thank them.

The Benefits of Referral Marketing

• Consumers today have developed cynicism and distrust of advertising messages. When considering a purchase, we’re now much more likely to ask a trusted friend or acquaintance for a recommendation.

• We listen to those we know and trust. When a friend of theirs has referred a potential client to you, a level of credibility and trust has already been established. They are more open to hear what you have to say.

• Referral leads can turn into sales more quickly because the referrer (original customer) may already have told the referee (new lead) about what we do and why it's a good value.

• Referral marketing is more profitable. That's because referred customers do less shopping around for the best price, so we don't have to price match as much. And we don't have to pay for advertising to bring them in.

• To generate a steady stream of referrals will take effort, but may cost little or nothing at all. Did you know that Paul spends no money at all to get his referrals? Did you know that Paul gets zero walk-in traffic and earns 100% of his company profit from referrals?

How Do You Get Referrals?

• Your service must be top notch. In today’s competitive marketplace, simply meeting your clients’ expectations isn’t enough. Aim to exceed expectations.

• Under promise and over deliver. Remember: the person referring you is putting his or her reputation on the line. They must have confidence in you! So you must WOW them! Make them think, "WOW no cellular-guy has ever done that for me before!"

• Ask for referrals. Your customers aren't thinking about you. You must make them think about you by asking for the referral. Be proactive!

• Don't worry if you're not sure about how to do this. We've got more information in our WOWing document and our referrals training videos.

Follow-Ups!

• Once you get referrals, follow-up on them.

• When a customer doesn't complete a purchase, try to schedule when he will come back and call the day before to confirm the appointment.

• Don't hope for sales to complete themselves, take initiative.

• We'll cover all the details in our training videos.

But Referrals and Follow-Ups are not that easy, as we all know. So we've come up with a plan to make it easy. We'll discuss the plan below. First I want to help you understand the situation a bit more.

Think of it like this: out of the company revenue, we pay rent, advertising, your hourly wages, etc., just to keep our doors open to be able to bring in walk-in traffic. But that traffic is not enough to be profitable. It's a competitive marketplace and people can buy from so many places besides our stores. We have to be proactive to compete with all the alternatives.

Here's how our business can be successful:

1. WOWing our customers, [we're already very proactive with this]
2. Upselling, [we've already very proactive with this]
3. Scheduling follow-ups, [we're going to improve on this]
4. Driving referrals [we're going to improve on this]

What causes passivity?

What do we need to watch out for in order to do better?

I think it based in psychology. We think that our potential customers will come back to us because we've WOWed them and we think that because we've WOWed them that they will refer people. So it is hope. We 'hope' that they will do these things. But we've learned that hope is disastrous.

Remember the Sales Jeopardy video? It explains the dangers of hope: video link

Our potential customers are not thinking about us as much as we 'hope'. And they may not understand how commissions work. So help them out and tell them what they need to know. Tell them:

• Tell them that you appreciate their business.

• Offer them an ongoing relationship; that you should be their "cellular guy" for all their needs.

• As part of the relationship, take notes on their situation. They'll appreciate not having to explain anything twice.

• Tell them that you're looking for more customers.

• Ask who they know that should have a “cellular guy” like you.

• When they give you referrals, get names and phone numbers so that you can follow-up and so you don't have to hope that they'll bring the leads in the door for you.

If you don't bring these things up, they probably won't think of it by themselves.

*** THE MAKE YOUR BUSINESS INITIATIVE ***

So, we've come up with the Make Your Business (MYB) initiative. It will help you learn the tools and habits you'll need to be proactive with scheduling follow-ups and driving referrals.

And you know this is going to work. Why? We've thought hard about how to design this so it'll be just as successful as our past initiatives. Just think back to the results we got when we started the initiatives to increase Visual Voicemail take rate, 5Star take rate, Smartphones mix, and MBB percentage.

We've got a good plan and we know you'll be able to execute it when you give it a try, just like you've succeeded in the past.

The 'Make Your Business' initiative has three simple components:

1) Training

We've created videos to show you how to do everything for the MYB initiative, which you can find in the WX Video Training Log. There is also the audiobook 7 Habits of Highly Effective People which you can find in WX Files. I understand that its a 5 hour long book so please listen to that ASAP during your downtime at the store.

2) Tracking Metrics

Keeping track of our progress can help us improve. It can help you know what to focus on, and we need the data to do our job as management.

When people keep track of stuff, they can usually improve it. Why? Because it helps them reflect on your performance and as we've learned, reflection causes learning which then causes increased performance. But if they don't keep track, sometimes they let things slip, they don't reflect, and they miss out on opportunities.

I know it can seem like micromanagement to track a lot of information. But it will help you understand the MYB initiative better and see how you're doing, and we'll look at the information to help coach you and help you reflect to improve your sales.

For tracking metrics, there are two new sheets in the Sales Reflection doc, MYB Goals and MYB Daily.

You'll be inputting 9 figures each day on MYB Daily. Mouse-over each column header for an explanation of how it works, and we also have a training video explaining how to use the sheet.

MYB Goals will help us set and meet goals as we improve. We guess that you currently earn less than 10% of your company profit from referrals, so we put in an initial goal of 10%. You can change it if you want to. Each month, the goals will increase and your actual percent of referrals will increase too. And of course this means that your company profit will increase and that means lots more commission for you!

Once the MYB initiative is off to a good start, we'll be able to keep track of our progress metrics less. Who will be the first one to reach that point?

3) Motivation

We're adjusting commissions to better reward success in the MYB initiative. The old KPI commission structure is being replaced with the new Make Your Business commission structure. We'll now be focused directly on profit. The more profit you bring in, the better for us and the better for you.

These changes to commissions are not a raise nor a pay cut. It's just restructuring and you can expect to make about the same amount of money as before -- at least to start with. As the MYB initiative moves along and generates more profit, then we'll all be doing better.

Here is the new structure, which is a lot higher than the industry average:

    Starting at @ 8%

     $6,000+ @ 12% = at least $720

     $8,000+ @ 16% = at least $1,280

    $10,000+ @ 20% = at least $2,000

    $15,000+ @ 22% = at least $3,300

    $20,000+ @ 24% = at least $4,800

So as an example, say you earned $6,500 in company profit, that puts you at 12% commission, and that equates to $780 in commission. If you earn $8,001 in company profit, that puts you at 16% which equates to $1,280.16.

The MYB initiative is about being proactive. We'll do that with follow-ups and referrals. And that will bring in more profit. Higher profit will benefit Wireless Express and earn you a higher commission. Customers will also enjoy the proactive treatment because they come to our stores to get help. If they didn't want a salesperson's attention they would shop online.

The MYB initiative is all about initiative. So who's going to take the lead?

-- Rami

PS. We'll be discussing this during our next conference call so write down your questions. Or if you want you can reply to this email with your questions.

---

You can compare with the original document to see what changes I made.

I found a quote of Edmund Burke trashing William Godwin:

'Pure defecated Atheism', said Burke [of Godwin], 'the brood of that putrid carcase the French Revolution.'

I was especially interested because I'd been unable to find any other direct quote of Burke saying negative things about Godwin. People claim Burke disliked Godwin, but I have my doubts and have searched for the evidence that those people never provide.

So I tracked down the citations, and ultimately the quote is unsourced. While doing that, I found another quote of Burke trashing Godwin which also turned out to be unsourced.

I also contacted an academic expert who agreed the quote is fake.

Here's what I looked up:

The defecated atheism quote is from Godwin's Moral Philosophy: An Interpretation of William Godwin by D. H. Monro.

I originally found it in a different Godwin paper which didn't even try to source it.

Monro says it's quoted from Ford K. Brown, Life of William Godwin (London, 1926), p 155

So I got that book. It has the quote along with a footnote. The footnote states:

Edmund Burke, who is also said to have called Godwin "one of the ablest architects of ruin." (Gilfillan's Literary Portraits (First Series, Edinb. 1845), p.16.)

I found the Literary Portraits book. On page 16 it has the architect of ruin quote, unsourced. It doesn't have the defecated atheism quote at all.

It's no good to source a quote to a secondary source without following the citations back to an adequate source. That spreads myths.