Don't Be Stupid!: Four Rules to Simplify Your Life

By Gary Jones

We cannot control a lot of things in the world. The only thing we can control is what we decide to do.

Have you ever felt like you made a bad decision?

Have you ever felt like you could make better decisions?

Have you made decisions that altered the course of your life in a direction you did not intend on going?

Have you made decisions that made you slap your forehead and yell, Duh?

Do you want to improve your world and live with less stress?

By using the Four Rules, you can take control of your choices and the decision-making process that directs your life.

We can change the world, but change has to start somewhere. Lets start with us. Me First!

Gary Jones is not an ivory tower academic, a Harvard MBA, a television evangelist, or a political consultant. He is a simple man with a simple message: four rules to change your decision-making life. We all have some type of psychological system to make decisionsGarys system works!

Mike Bishop, PhD., professor of marriage and family therapy, Capella University

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Oct 8, 2015
• ISBN: 9781512711462

Gary Jones

Gary Jones is a husband, father, and grandfather. After graduating from Abilene Christian University with a business management degree, he has owned an insurance agency and has been a teacher, a consultant, an advisor, and has umpired high school baseball during the past forty years. He lives in Texas and has kept himself young at heart by staying active in sports and other recreational activities. His involvement with various organizations has allowed him to utilize his common-sense approach to develop a keen awareness of reading and understanding people and has resulted in him being sought after by many friends and business associates for advice.

Book preview

DON’T BE

STUPID!

FOUR RULES TO SIMPLIFY YOUR LIFE

GARY JONES

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Copyright © 2015 Gary Jones.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

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ISBN: 978-1-5127-1145-5 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5127-1146-2 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2015914580

WestBow Press rev. date: 10/07/2015

CONTENTS

Introduction

Choices and Results

Origin of the Rules

Rule # 1: Don’t Be Stupid!

Character - Standards

RULE # 2: No Evidence

Reputation - Image

RULE #3: A Man’s Got to Know His Own Limitations

Be Humble - Don’t Be Cocky

RULE #4: Remember Who You Belong To

Community - Commitment

Conclusion

INTRODUCTION

Many people are dissatisfied with things going on in this world right now and are searching for solutions. People are stressed out from a multitude of reasons and frustrated by their inability or lack of means by which to do anything about it. Unfortunately, we have very little control (if any) over most of these things. What we can control is the way we approach and deal with what life brings us.

So many of us feel as though a large portion of the standards, principles and foundations that made us a great nation and people have been compromised. Core beliefs have been challenged, and institutions have been reduced to mere concepts.

There was a recent study done by National Public Radio in cooperation with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Harvard School of Public Health that polled over 2500 people in the country to determine if they had experienced stress in the past few months. Over 49% responded that they had, indeed, had major stress in the past year and that over 37% had had stress in the past month. Areas identified as major causes of stress included too many responsibilities (54%), health concerns (38%), financial or work related (33%) and family issues (32%).

The report asked how these individuals dealt with this stress, and the results were very interesting. 70% said they slept less, but 41% said they slept more. 44% said they ate less, but 39% said they ate more. 43% said they exercised or played more, while 26% said they exercised or played less. Attending religious services or praying more was the answer for 41%, and using social media less was the answer for 28% of the people.

Some even said that stress had a positive effect on them. 67% replied that stress had motivated them to recognize that they needed a change.

But one statistic jumped out to me. One in seven people interviewed in the report said that they had not experienced stress at all in the past month, and two-thirds of these respondents attributed their personality as the reason. Others said that they had taken steps to reduce stress in their lives.

Another major contributor to the frustrations we feel comes from making comparisons. How do we measure up? We are constantly looking at others and what they do or have compared to we do or have. Making comparisons to others can be a primary cause of frustration and stress in our lives. We must choose to control these comparisons and to whom we compare ourselves. If we set standards for our lives to challenge ourselves to be better, rather than using them as just a means by which to justify that we are not as bad as someone else, we can make the comparison factor work for us.

In this book we will address four simple rules or principles that I believe can drastically alter the landscape where we live. By applying these rules to ourselves and making them a part of our daily lives we can at least show a better way to those with whom we come in contact. These rules offer a better approach for dealing with the things in our lives that can add stress and frustrations.

We will address how we can change some of these factors in our lives and greatly reduce the impact of some of the ones that may be out of our control.

I do not propose that these four rules will solve all your problems or those of your friends and family, but I do promise that following them will make your life easier and simpler. I do promise that these rules will help you see a brighter future and a path for reconstructing those foundations and standards.

To make things better, change has to occur. Those 14% who said they hadn’t experienced stress in the past month did so by taking steps to make it happen. Change has to start somewhere! Let’s start with us. ME FIRST!

CHOICES AND RESULTS

I’m confused! I just don’t know how to get my life in line with these people who have it all together.

You know the ones I’m talking about. They only need five hours of sleep every day. They get to work at 6 o’clock in the morning. They make deals, attend meetings, visit with clients and make thousands of dollars every day. They work ‘til 8 o’clock in the evening, but still find the time to go to the gym or go running or biking every day. They also have enough time to be a husband, father, son and friend every day. Everything in their lives keeps running smoothly. They even find time to keep up with all the happenings in the world, both politically and socially, and