Category: Uncategorized

بارہ منٹ

Posted on by smilysimple

 

بارہ منٹ
ماحول گرم ہو گیا‘ ہم سب کے چہروں پر تناؤ تھا‘ پورے کمرے میں سراسیمگی پھیل رہی تھی‘ مجھے محسوس ہو رہا تھا سامنے بیٹھا شخص ابھی اٹھے گا اور چیخنے والے بدتمیز شخص کے منہ پر تھپڑ مار دے گا‘ ہمارے سامنے وہ شخص اٹھا لیکن تھپڑ مارنے کی بجائے باتھ روم میں گیا‘ وضو کیا‘جائے نماز اٹھائی اور دوسرے کمرے میں چلا گیا‘ ہم اسے شیشے کی دوسری طرف نماز پڑھتے دیکھ سکتے تھے‘ غصے میں تلملاتے شخص نے پانی کے
تین گلاس چڑھائے اور کسی سے ٹیلی فون پر بات کرنے لگا‘ وہ جوں جوں بات کرتا جا رہا تھا اس کا ٹمپریچر نیچے آتا جارہا تھا‘ فون بند ہوا تو اس نے شرمندگی سے ہماری طرف دیکھا اور معذرت خواہانہ لہجے میں بولا
”میں معافی چاہتا ہوں‘ میرے ایجنٹ نے مجھے غلط بتایا تھا‘ میری فائل واقعی یہاں سے پاس ہو گئی تھی‘ میں نے نادانی میں بیگ صاحب سے زیادتی کر دی‘ میں بہت شرمندہ ہوں“ ہم نے شیشے کی دوسری طرف دیکھا‘ بیگ صاحب نہایت خشوع وخضوع سے نماز پڑھ رہے تھے‘ ہم خاموشی سے کبھی تلملاتے شخص کو دیکھنے لگتے اور کبھی نماز پڑھتے بیگ صاحب کو‘ بیگ صاحب نے نماز ختم کی‘ جائے نماز لپیٹی اور درود شریف پڑھتے پڑھتے کمرے میں واپس آ گئے‘ جائے نماز رکھی اور تلملاتے شخص کی طرف دیکھ کر اطمینان سے بولے ”میرے بھائی آپ جا کر تحقیقات کر لیں‘ میں نے واقعی آپ کی فائل بھجوا دی تھی‘ آپ کو اگر فائل نہ ملے تو آپ ایک دو دن میں واپس آ جائیں‘ ہم دونوں مل کر تلاش کریں گے“ وہ شخص روہانسا ہو گیا اور سر جھکا کر بولا ”بیگ صاحب! میں آپ سے معافی چاہتا ہوں‘ آپ درست فرما رہے تھے‘ میرے ایجنٹ نے میرے ساتھ جھوٹ بولا تھا“ بیگ صاحب اٹھے‘ تلملاتے شخص کو گلے لگایا اور تھپکی دے کر رخصت کر دیا‘ وہ شخص شکریہ ادا کرتا کرتا گاڑی میں بیٹھ گیا۔میں اس تمام صورت حال کو حیرت سے دیکھ رہا تھا‘ میں نے تلملاتے شخص کے جانے
کے بعد بیگ صاحب سے پوچھا ”سر آپ کو اس شخص کی گالیوں‘ بدکلامی اور بدتمیزی پر غصہ کیوں نہیں آیا“ وہ مسکرا کر بولے ”آپ کو کس نے بتایا مجھے غصہ نہیں آیا‘ میں غصے سے کھول رہا تھا“ میں نے عرض کیا ”لیکن آپ نے اس کا اظہار نہیں کیا جبکہ آپ سچے اور وہ شخص جھوٹا تھا“ وہ مسکرا کر بولے ”کیونکہ میں غصے کی کیمسٹری کو سمجھتا ہوں اور جو شخص اس کیمسٹری کو سمجھتا ہو وہ بڑی آسانی سے غصہ کنٹرول کر سکتا ہے“ میں نے پوچھا ”سر غصے کی کیمسٹری کیا ہے؟“

وہ مسکرا کر بولے ”ہمارے اندر سولہ کیمیکلز ہیں‘ یہ کیمیکلز ہمارے جذبات‘ ہمارے ایموشن بناتے ہیں‘ ہمارے ایموشن ہمارے موڈز طے کرتے ہیں اور یہ موڈز ہماری پرسنیلٹی بنتے ہیں“ میں خاموشی سے ان کی طرف دیکھتا رہا‘ وہ بولے ”ہمارے ہر ایموشن کا دورانیہ 12 منٹ ہوتا ہے“ میں نے پوچھا ”مثلا“ وہ بولے ”مثلاًغصہ ایک جذبہ ہے‘ یہ جذبہ کیمیکل ری ایکشن سے پیدا ہوتا ہے‘مثلاً ہمارے جسم نے انسولین نہیں بنائی یا یہ ضرورت سے کم تھی‘ ہم نے ضرورت سے زیادہ نمک کھا لیا‘
ہماری نیند پوری نہیں ہوئی یا پھر ہم خالی پیٹ گھر سے باہر آ گئے‘ اس کا کیا نتیجہ نکلے گا؟ہمارے اندر کیمیکل ری ایکشن ہو گا‘ یہ ری ایکشن ہمارا بلڈ پریشر بڑھا دے گا اور یہ بلڈ پریشر ہمارے اندر غصے کا جذبہ پیدا کر دے گا‘ ہم بھڑک اٹھیں گے لیکن ہماری یہ بھڑکن صرف 12 منٹ طویل ہو گی‘ ہمارا جسم 12 منٹ بعد غصے کو بجھانے والے کیمیکل پیدا کر ے گا اور یوں ہم اگلے 15منٹوں میں کول ڈاؤن ہو جائیں گے چنانچہ ہم اگر غصے کے بارہ منٹوں کو مینج کرنا سیکھ لیں تو پھر ہم غصے کی تباہ کاریوں سے بچ جائیں گے“

میں نے عرض کیا ”کیا یہ نسخہ صرف غصے تک محدود ہے“ وہ مسکرا کر بولے ”جی نہیں‘ ہمارے چھ بیسک ایموشنز ہیں‘ غصہ‘ خوف‘ نفرت‘ حیرت‘ لطف(انجوائے) اور اداسی‘ ان تمام ایموشنز کی عمر صرف بارہ منٹ ہو تی ہے‘ ہمیں صرف بارہ منٹ کیلئے خوف آتا ہے‘ ہم صرف 12 منٹ قہقہے لگاتے ہیں‘ ہم صرف بارہ منٹ اداس ہوتے ہیں‘ ہمیں نفرت بھی صرف بارہ منٹ کیلئے ہوتی ہے‘ ہمیں بارہ منٹ غصہ آتا ہے اور ہم پر حیرت کا غلبہ بھی صرف 12 منٹ رہتا ہے‘

ہمارا جسم بارہ منٹ بعد ہمارے ہر جذبے کو نارمل کر دیتا ہے“ میں نے عرض کیا ”لیکن میں اکثر لوگوں کو سارا سارا دن غصے‘ اداسی‘ نفرت اور خوف کے عالم میں دیکھتا ہوں‘ یہ سارا دن نارمل نہیں ہوتے“ وہ مسکرا کر بولے ”آپ ان جذبوں کو آگ کی طرح دیکھیں‘ آپ کے سامنے آگ پڑی ہے‘ آپ اگر اس آگ پر تھوڑا تھوڑا تیل ڈالتے رہیں گے‘ آپ اگر اس پر خشک لکڑیاں رکھتے رہیں گے تو کیا ہو گا؟ یہ آگ پھیلتی چلی جائے گی‘ یہ بھڑکتی رہے گی‘

ہم میں سے زیادہ تر لوگ اپنے جذبات کو بجھانے کی بجائے ان پر تیل اور لکڑیاں ڈالنے لگتے ہیں چنانچہ وہ جذبہ جس نے 12 منٹ میں نارمل ہو جانا تھا وہ دو دو‘ تین تین دن تک وسیع ہو جاتا ہے‘ ہم اگر دو تین دن میں بھی نہ سنبھلیں تو وہ جذبہ ہمارا طویل موڈ بن جاتا ہے اور یہ موڈ ہماری شخصیت‘ ہماری پرسنیلٹی بن جاتا ہے یوں لوگ ہمیں غصیل خان‘ اللہ دتہ اداس‘ ملک خوفزدہ‘ نفرت شاہ‘ میاں قہقہہ صاحب اور حیرت شاہ کہنا شروع کر دیتے ہیں“ وہ رکے اور پھر بولے ”آپ نے کبھی غور کیا ہم میں سے بے شمار لوگوں کے چہروں پر ہر وقت حیرت‘ ہنسی‘ نفرت‘ خوف‘ اداسی یا پھر غصہ کیوں نظر آتا ہے؟

وجہ صاف ظاہر ہے‘ جذبے نے بارہ منٹ کیلئے ان کے چہرے پر دستک دی لیکن انہوں نے اسے واپس نہیں جانے دیا اور یوں وہ جذبہ حیرت ہو‘ قہقہہ ہو‘ نفرت ہو‘ خوف ہو‘ اداسی ہو یا پھر غصہ ہو وہ ان کی شخصیت بن گیا‘ وہ ان کے چہرے پر ہمیشہ ہمیشہ کیلئے درج ہو گیا‘ یہ لوگ اگر وہ بارہ منٹ مینج کر لیتے تو یہ عمر بھر کی خرابی سے بچ جاتے‘ یہ کسی ایک جذبے کے غلام نہ بنتے‘ یہ اس کے ہاتھوں بلیک میل نہ ہوتے“ میں نے عرض کیا ”اور کیا محبت جذبہ نہیں ہوتا“ فوراً جواب دیا ”محبت اور شہوت دراصل لطف کے والدین ہیں‘ یہ جذبہ بھی صرف بارہ منٹ کا ہوتا ہے‘

آپ اگر اس کی بھٹی میں نئی لکڑیاں نہ ڈالیں تو یہ بھی بارہ منٹ میں ختم ہو جاتا ہے لیکن ہم بے وقوف لوگ اسے زلف یار میں باندھ کر گلے میں لٹکا لیتے ہیں اور یوں مجنوں بن کر ذلیل ہوتے ہیں‘ ہم انسان اگر اسی طرح بارہ منٹ بھی گزار لیں تو ہم گناہ‘ جرم اور ذلت سے بچ جائیں لیکن ہم یہ نہیں کر پاتے اور یوں ہم سنگسار ہوتے ہیں‘ قتل ہوتے ہیں‘ جیلیں بھگتتے ہیں اور ذلیل ہوتے ہیں‘ ہم سب بارہ منٹ کے قیدی ہیں‘ ہم اگر کسی نہ کسی طرح یہ قید گزار لیں تو ہم لمبی قید سے بچ جاتے ہیں ورنہ یہ 12 منٹ ہمیں کہیں کا نہیں چھوڑتے“۔

میں نے ان سے عرض کیا ”آپ یہ بارہ منٹ کیسے مینج کرتے ہیں“ وہ مسکرا کر بولے ”میں نے ابھی آپ کے سامنے اس کا مظاہرہ کیا‘ وہ صاحب غصے میں اندر داخل ہوئے‘ مجھ سے اپنی فائل مانگی‘ میں نے انہیں بتایا میں آپ کی فائل پر دستخط کر کے واپس بھجوا چکا ہوں لیکن یہ نہیں مانے‘ انہوں نے مجھ پر جھوٹ اور غلط بیانی کا الزام بھی لگایا اور مجھے ماں بہن کی گالیاں بھی دیں‘ میرے تن من میں آگ لگ گئی لیکن میں کیونکہ جانتا تھا میری یہ صورتحال صرف 12 منٹ رہے گی چنانچہ میں چپ چاپ اٹھا‘

وضو کیا اور نماز پڑھنی شروع کر دی‘ میرے اس عمل پر 20 منٹ خرچ ہوئے‘ ان 20 منٹوں میں میرا غصہ بھی ختم ہو گیا اور وہ صاحب بھی حقیقت پر پہنچ گئے‘ میں اگر نماز نہ پڑھتا تو میں انہیں جواب دیتا‘ ہمارے درمیان تلخ کلامی ہوتی‘ لوگ کام چھوڑ کر اکٹھے ہو جاتے‘ہمارے درمیان ہاتھا پائی ہو جاتی‘ میں اس کا سر پھاڑ دیتا یا یہ مجھے نقصان پہنچا دیتا لیکن اس سارے فساد کا آخر میں کیا نتیجہ نکلتا؟ پتہ چلتا ہم دونوں بے وقوف تھے‘ ہم سارا دن اپنا کان چیک کئے بغیر کتے کے پیچھے بھاگتے رہے چنانچہ میں نے جائے نماز پر بیٹھ کر وہ بارہ منٹ گزار لئے اور یوں میں‘ وہ اور یہ سارا دفتر ڈیزاسٹر سے بچ گیا‘ ہم سب کا دن اور عزت محفوظ ہو گئی“

میں نے پوچھا ”کیا آپ غصے میں ہر بار نماز پڑھتے ہیں“ وہ بولے ”ہرگز نہیں‘ میں جب بھی کسی جذبے کے غلبے میں آتا ہوں تو میں سب سے پہلے اپنا منہ بند کر لیتا ہوں‘ میں زبان سے ایک لفظ نہیں بولتا‘ میں قہقہہ لگاتے ہوئے بھی بات نہیں کرتا‘ میں صرف ہنستا ہوں اور ہنستے ہنستے کوئی دوسرا کام شروع کر دیتا ہوں‘ میں خوف‘ غصے‘ اداسی اور لطف کے حملے میں واک کیلئے چلا جاتا ہوں‘ غسل کرلیتا ہوں‘ وضو کرتا ہوں‘ 20 منٹ کیلئے چپ کا روزہ رکھ لیتا ہوں‘ استغفار کی تسبیح کرتا ہوں‘

اپنی والدہ یا اپنے بچوں کو فون کرتا ہوں‘ اپنے کمرے‘ اپنی میز کی صفائی شروع کر دیتا ہوں‘ اپنا بیگ کھول کر بیٹھ جاتا ہوں‘ اپنے کان اور آنکھیں بند کر کے لیٹ جاتا ہوں یا پھر اٹھ کر نماز پڑھ لیتا ہوں یوں بارہ منٹ گزر جاتے ہیں‘ طوفان ٹل جاتا ہے‘ میری عقل ٹھکانے پر آ جاتی ہے اور میں فیصلے کے قابل ہو جاتا ہوں“ وہ خاموش ہو گئے‘ میں نے عرض کیا ”اور اگر آپ کو یہ تمام سہولتیں حاصل نہ ہوں تو آپ کیا کرتے ہیں“ وہ رکے‘ چند لمحے سوچا اور بولے ”آسمان گر جائے یا پھر زمین پھٹ جائے‘ میں منہ نہیں کھولتا‘

میں خاموش رہتا ہوں اور آپ یقین کیجئے سونامی خواہ کتنا ہی بڑا کیوں نہ ہو وہ میری خاموشی کا مقابلہ نہیں کر سکتا‘ وہ بہرحال پسپا ہو جاتاہے‘ آپ بھی خاموش رہ کر زندگی کے تمام طوفانوں کو شکست دے سکتے ہیں“
__._,_.___

Turbo blaster aquaponic…Murray Halam

Posted on by smilysimple

Aqglenn@olomanagardens.com says:
August 7, 2015 at 7:03 pm
This answer is from Glenn regarding the turbo blaster.
Okay, I will get on that.
Question? Do you have a copy of my Patent Book that has the Turbo Blaster in it?
That is where pumped water is sent thru a pipe and compressed air is added?
The short version, in words is, pump the water to the desired height, plus two feet, and release the water into a larger pipe.
So if I am pumping water, regardless if it is pumped by mechanical pump, airlift or a combination,(turbo blaster), we are pumping water up the interior pipe, say a 1.25 inch pipe that is mounted or installed inside a 4 inch pipe. The water comes out the one inch pipe, falls down and fills the four inch pipe. at the bottom, you have a four inch tee fitting that was plumbed with a two inch to 1/25 reducer at the bottom, and a side fitting of 2 inch for removing the stored water in the 4 inch vertical pipe (normally reduced down to a hose male fitting to accept a garden hose.
Now the pump sends the water up the 1.25 inch pipe to say 12 feet and the four inch pipe is 14 to 15 feet tall, the water fills the 4 inch pipe, and you remove the water out the garden hose on demand.
For every foot of height in the stored water, you achieve 1/2 psi. So at 12 foot of storage, you have 6 psi. You can wash the car or take a great shower with that stored water.
It gets interesting when you see the four inch pipe, laying on the ground, hurricane or storm passes, they come out, pull on a pulley mounted in a tree, and haul the empty (pipe in a pipe – tankless tower up into a tree, and then turn on the pump, send water up into the center pipe, and fill the four inch pipe, they then have gravity induced water pressure that can supply the entire farm water, up to 12 foot high (or whatever height they hauled the contraption up to.
I normally mount the four inch pipe to a building or light pole, or 4 by four. Never lost one to a storm.
I like to fill with a airlift pump, because as the water fills up, and clears the 12 foot high center pipe, and the water fills ABOVE the 12 foot exit, it can only fill about another two feet and stops filling! It automatically stops because the 24 inches of water ABOVE the 12 foot exit, causes increase resistance to the air water mixture.
That way my four inch pipe never overfills! And when I use water, automatically starts filling again.
When using a mechanical pump, we usually install a “overflow pipe” that routes the overflow water back to the fish tank.
We are doing the tankless tower in installation, where building a storage tank is just not possible, lack of funding, permit required, landlord or liability issues.
The tankless tower is filled with fish water directly from he fish tank or better after a swirl filter and radial filter have remove MOST of the solids.
That way we have less solids in the garden hose.
It is called “detached aquaponics” . They fill the fish tank with clean well water at night, then run the pump all night to filter the water thru the bio-filter that turns the ammonia to nitrogen, and then pump the water up in the tankless tower in the morning, and then water the veggie (in the ground conventional) garden with the enhanced “fish water”. No more hauling buckets of water around the garden, the pressured fish water can travel hundreds of feet and garden hoses are then uses.
Thus more fish are kept in a fish tank than normal, because they will be doing up to a 50 percent water change. The garden that gets enhanced fish water will far exceed a garden simply water with well water.
Detached Aquaponics (DA) is the future for many “in the ground” farmers who are starting aquaponic systems. It greatly expands the value of the fish water.
Our American Thanksgiving story is the American Indians teaching the pilgrims to put a dead fish under each corn plant. Now we just water with fish water and then eat the fish for dinner!
I will get to work on the drawings for you this morning.
Glenn
Reply
Franklin says:
August 10, 2015 at 6:50 am
Filtering the water that goes to the earth grown crops may be unnecessary. The only thing I can think that would be a problem with fish waste in the hose would be clogging or hydrogen sulfide production in the anaerobic environment. One answer to both would be to run air through the hose when not in use. I guess if you are using emitters of some kind, clogging would be more of an issue.
Reply
Franklin says:
August 8, 2015 at 4:56 pm
This sounds great. There may be no real need for passing the fishwater through a biological filter. Most plants show a preference for ammonium and ammonia that are present in raw fish water. The end product of biological filters is nitrate that is not as favored by plants. One notable exception is water hyacinth that thrives on nitrate. Some fish hatcheries use continuous flow through systems rather than the traditional “batch” method of periodic water changes. Some discus farmers do 200% water changes per day. It may be more efficient to simply pass water through the fish tanks so that a predetermined % is collected for irrigation. The continuous flow method avoids the peaks and valleys of nitrate in the water that stress fish. Mechanical removal of solids may be all the filtration needed.

Work sheet tutorial

Posted on by smilysimple

 

 

A worksheet or sheet is a single page in a file created with an electronic spreadsheet program such as Excel or Google Spreadsheets. A workbook is the name given to an Excel file and contains one or more worksheets. The term spreadsheet is often used to refer to a workbook, when, as mentioned, it more correctly refers to the computer program itself.

So, strictly speaking, when you open an electronic spreadsheet program it loads an empty workbook file consisting of one or more blank worksheets for you to use.

 

Worksheet Details
A worksheet is used to store, manipulate, and display data.

The basic storage unit for data in a worksheet is the rectangular-shaped cells arranged in a grid pattern in every worksheet.

Individual cells of data are identified and organized using the vertical column letters and horizontal row numbers of a worksheet which create a cell reference – such as A1, D15, or Z467.

Worksheet specifications for current versions of Excel include:

1,048,576 rows per worksheet;
16,384 columns per worksheet;
17,179,869,184 cells per worksheet;
by default, each new file contains only one worksheet;
the number of sheets per file is limited only by the amount of memory available on the computer.
For Google Spreadsheets:

there is a maximum of 256 columns per sheet;
the maximum number of cells for all worksheets in a file is 400,000;
the current default number of worksheets for new files is one;
there is a maximum of 200 worksheets per spreadsheet file.
Worksheet Names
In both Excel and Google Spreadsheets, each worksheet has a name. By default, the worksheets are named Sheet1, Sheet2, Sheet3 and so on, but these can easily be changed.

Worksheet Numbers
By default, since Excel 2013, there is only worksheet per new Excel workbook, but this default value can be changed.

 

To do so:

Click on the File menu;
Click on Options in the menu to open the Excel Options dialog box;
In the When creating new workbooks section in the right pane of the dialog box, increase the value next to Include this many sheets:
Click on OK to complete the change and close the dialog box.
Note: the default number of sheets in a Google Spreadsheets file is one, and this cannot be changed.

Workbook Details
Additional worksheets can be added to a workbook using the using the context menu or the Add Sheet icon (plus sign) next to the current sheet tabs as seen in the image above;
It is possible to delete or to hide individual worksheets in a workbook;
It is also possible to rename individual worksheets and to change worksheet tab colors to make it easier to identify individual sheets in a workbook using the context menu;
Changing from one worksheet to another in a workbook can be done by clicking on the sheet tab at the bottom of the screen;
In Excel, the following shortcut key combinations can also be used to switch between worksheets:
Ctrl + PgUp (page up) – move to the right
Ctrl + PgDn (page down) – move to the left
For Google Spreadsheets, the shortcut key combinations to switch between worksheets are:
Ctrl + Shift + PgUp – move to the right
Ctrl + Shift + PgDn – move to the left

CITE

 

Norman Vincent Peele epositive thinking

Posted on by smilysimple

After the second Republican debate, when it appeared Donald Trump’s lead was finally starting to slip, and Carly Fiorina and Marco Rubio were gaining traction, Trump himself, in typical fashion, appeared to only see positive signs. He told Fox News’ Sean Hannity that only the polls (Time, Drudge Report, Newsmax) that showed him having picked up support mattered because they represented “the people who vote.” The happy talk was relentless: After speakers at the Emmy Awards on Sept. 20 ridiculed him, Trump told Politico that the evening had been “amazing.” More recently, Trump berated a news photographer who dared to take pictures of empty seats at one of his rallies, insisting his events were as packed as ever.

Is this guy for real? Or more to the point, could anyone really possess that much self-confidence? There has been no shortage of explanations—a huge inferiority complex, infantile narcissism, delusional thinking—for Trump’s undying self-assurance. But as I discovered when writing a book about Donald, his father, and his grandfather, if you want to understand what goes on underneath the blond comb-over, you’d do well to look back to two crucial events in the early 1950s.

Event No. 1 occurred in October 1952, when a book appeared called The Power Of Positive Thinking. Written by Dr. Norman Vincent Peale and translated into 15 languages, it remained on the New York Times best-seller list for 186 weeks and sold 5 million copies. Donald was only 6 years old at the time and didn’t read the book until much later, but it quickly became important in the large Queens household in which he grew up, and it would play a critical role in his future. His parents, Fred and Mary, felt an immediate affinity for Peale’s teachings. On Sundays, they drove into Manhattan to worship at Marble Collegiate Church, where Peale was the head pastor. Donald and both his sisters were married there, and funeral services for both Fred and Mary took place in the main sanctuary.

“I still remember [Peale’s] sermons,” Trump told the Iowa Family Leadership Summit in July. “You could listen to him all day long. And when you left the church, you were disappointed it was over. He was the greatest guy.” A month later, in the same news conference at which Trump tossed out Univision anchor Jorge Ramos, he again referred to Peale as his pastor and said he was “one of the greatest speakers” he’d ever seen.

Known as “God’s salesman,” Peale merged worldliness and godliness to produce an easy-to-follow theology that preached self-confidence as a life philosophy. Critics called him a con man, described his church as a cult, and said his simple-minded approach shut off genuine thinking or insight. But Peale’s outlook, promoted through his radio shows, newspaper columns and articles, and through Guideposts, his monthly digest of inspirational messages, fit perfectly into the Trump family culture of never hesitating to bend the rules, doing whatever it took to win, and never, ever giving up.

“Believe in yourself!” Peale’s book begins. “Have faith in your abilities!” He then outlines 10 rules to overcome “inadequacy attitudes” and “build up confidence in your powers.” Rule one: “formulate and staple indelibly on your mind a mental picture of yourself as succeeding,” “hold this picture tenaciously,” and always refer to it “no matter how badly things seem to be going at the moment.”

Subsequent rules tell the reader to avoid “fear thoughts,” “never think of yourself as failing,” summon up a positive thought whenever “a negative thought concerning your personal powers comes to mind,” “depreciate every so-called obstacle,” and “make a true estimate of your own ability, then raise it 10 per cent.”

Peale’s philosophy fell on willing and eager ears in the Trump family. Long before this self-esteem guru codified his canon, Donald’s grandfather Friedrich used Peale-like confidence and tenacity to make the first Trump fortune during the Klondike gold rush. A few decades later, Donald’s father, Fred, deployed proto-Peale thinking to become a multimillionaire real estate developer in Brooklyn and Queens. And Donald Trump himself has cited Peale’s advice many times in his own career.

One notable example occurred in the mid-1980s, when Trump paid $9 million for a second-tier professional football team, the New Jersey Generals, which played in the spring off-season and belonged to the fledgling United States Football League. Trump immediately began pressuring the other team owners to switch the USFL to the prime fall season, which meant going head to head with the National Football League. Ultimately they agreed, and soon afterward the USFL was defunct—whereupon Trump filed a $1.3 billion federal antitrust lawsuit against the NFL, claiming it had plotted against the USFL and was a monopoly. The jury agreed that the NFL was a monopoly but awarded damages of only $1, which the judge then trebled for a grand total of 3 bucks.

The media saw this as a stunning defeat; by contrast, Trump, who had sunk $12 million into the USFL, channeled Peale, declaring “a moral victory.” He later expanded on this in his book The Art Of The Deal, insisting that he had been such a compelling witness and that his lawyer—the infamous Roy Cohn—had been so powerful a litigator that the jurors had simply taken pity on the NFL.

Then, in 1990, after splurging on a third casino, an airline, the world’s second-largest yacht and the Plaza Hotel, Trump found himself nearly a billion dollars in debt and the banks were threatening foreclosure. But after weeks of round-the-clock negotiations, he emerged relatively unscathed, and in a 2009 interview with Psychology Today he gave Peale’s book credit for his survival. Citing his father’s friendship with Peale and calling himself “a firm believer in the power of being positive,” he said, “what helped is I refused to give in to the negative circumstances and never lost faith in myself. I didn’t believe I was finished even when the newspapers were saying so.”

Event No. 2 in the early 1950s—and in the development of Donald’s personality and style—was the emergence of modern branding. At the dawn of the 20th century, most makers of consumer products focused only on selling as much as possible. But by mid-century, manufacturers of everything from laundry soap and baked beans to automobiles and airlines were taking their focus a few steps further: concentrating not just on how much rolled off the assembly line but on polishing and enhancing the aura and attractiveness of the product.

From now on, marketers would not simply tout how well a product performed. Instead, they would study how consumers felt about the maker of the product—and they would bend every effort toward making everything associated with that name as positive and compelling as possible.

READ MORE
150924_dantonio_trump_ap.jpg
2016
What I Learned Writing Trump’s Biography
By MICHAEL D’ANTONIO
150916_donald_trump_ap2_1160.jpg
2016
It’s Time to Declare War on Donald Trump
By RICK WILSON
20150915_ralph_interview_ReaganSons_AP.jpg
2016
‘Look in the Mirror, Fat Boy’
By ELIZABETH F. RALPH
Fred Trump was an early branding enthusiast. At the 1939 World’s Fair, a futurist extravaganza for which the theme was “The World of Tomorrow,” a billboard for Trump Homes was a tutorial in the use of basic branding principles. Employing a striking modernist typeface for the name Trump, the billboard incorporates the fair’s eye-catching Theme Center pavilion with its iconic spire and sphere (known as the “trylon” and “perisphere”), tweaks the fair’s slogan to read “The Home Of Tomorrow,” and boasts of the homebuilder’s success (“6,000 People Live In Trump Homes”).

In the years that followed, increasingly assertive branding, now broadcast nationwide on television, would show up in every sphere of American life. By the early 1960s, when Fred Trump built a cluster of 23-story apartment buildings in Coney Island, the largest project in Brooklyn at the time, it seemed a matter of course that he would name the entire complex Trump Village—and that prospective buyers showed up in droves.

By all accounts, including his own, Donald Trump did poorly in the classroom in his early years. But he was an apt pupil of his father’s M.O., and he readily absorbed the importance of self-confidence and of branding. Both were on full display by the mid-1970s, when he took over his father’s real-estate holdings. His initial step was to ditch the pedestrian corporate IDs Fred had used when building in Brooklyn and Queens (for example Trump Village Construction Corp.) and to give the company the imposing name Trump Organization; his next step was to launch his first major project not on his father’s home turf but in the far more challenging environment of Manhattan.

The project was the makeover of a derelict old hotel, the Commodore, into a glitzy tourist magnet. The hotel was named the Grand Hyatt because of contractual obligations, but Trump, ever the Peale disciple, insisted on calling the main restaurant Trumpets and incorporated such signature touches as packing in the maximum number of floors to make the building seem taller (by conventional measure, the top floor would be the 26th, but at the Grand Hyatt it was the 34th) and claiming that the ballroom was the biggest in the city (it wasn’t).

With his next project, Trump Tower, Donald’s surname made its Fifth Avenue debut. Mounted over the main entrance and rendered in all-capital 3-foot-tall brass letters, it was so out of scale that Der Scutt, the building’s architect, joked that visitors to New York could read the name before their plane landed.

From then on, Donald Trump would put his name on everything he did, including high-rise buildings, casinos and a reality television series, The Apprentice. In 2014, he graced the facade of Trump Tower Chicago with his name in all-cap 20-foot letters—once again, grossly out of scale, but when Mayor Rahm Emanuel complained, Trump pointed to the fine-print approval included in contracts signed with city officials.

Over the years, as the public has walked by the buildings, gambled at the casinos and watched the TV show, the name has become ever more associated with overwhelming, gargantuan, and seemingly never-ending success. And in the process, Trump has created the armor-plated branding juggernaut, impervious to criticism, self-doubt, or self-reflection, which continues to roll over much of the Republican Party.

Whether or not Trump’s tireless self-advertisement will be enough to gain the Republican nomination, much less elect a president, is unknown. But it may well be that Trump will run into some of the same criticism as Peale himself later did. In an essay titled “Some Negative Thinking About Norman Vincent Peale,” a theologian from Yale University, William Lee Miller, wrote that Peale’s books had become “worse” since the original because “the rhetoric of the sermon has been replaced by the short, punchy sentences of the advertisement.”

Already it is clear that, thanks to Norman Vincent Peale and the magic of branding, Donald Trump is one of the most self-confident and most successful-seeming candidate the nation has ever seen. The question is whether the product will live up to the ad.
Share on Facebook Share on Twitter
Gwenda Blair is author of The Trumps: Three Generations of Builders and a Presidential Candidate and Donald Trump: The Candidate. She teaches at Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. Follow her at @gwendalblair.
This article tagged under:

2016 Donald Trump 2016 Elections Donald Trump 2016
SHOW COMMENTS
More from POLITICO Magazine
President Donald Trump is pictured. | AP Photo
TRUMPOLOGY
We’re Psychiatrists. It’s Perfectly OK to Question the President’s Mental State.
By BANDY X. LEE and LEONARD L. GLASS
Timothy Leary at the State University of New York at Buffalo during his 1969 lecture tour.
HISTORY DEPT.
The Blood Feud That Launched the War on Drugs
By BILL MINUTAGLIO and STEVEN L. DAVIS
oprah.jpg
POLITICS
Why Oprah Hates Politics
By DEREK ROBERTSON

THE FRIDAY COVER
TFC-01-05-18-cover.jpg
Read more

SPONSORED CONTENT
30 cleaning tips that professional car washers wish we didn’t know
30 cleaning tips that professional car washers wish we didn’t know
Life Tonik