During the Cold War, America undertook serious military cuts only once: after the election of Richard Nixon, during the Vietnam War. The result: Vietnam fell to the Communists, the Russians moved into Afghanistan, and American influence around the globe waned dramatically.
Autoimmunity is probably the next frontier. The majority of cases of autoimmune disease result from a complex genetic problem that has environmental influences. It is a colossal task for the immune system to maintain tolerance to self and yet be ready to react to everything in the world around us.
Innate mechanisms endow the visual system with highly specific connections, but visual experience early in life is necessary for their maintenance and full development. Deprivation experiments demonstrate that neural connections can be modulated by environmental influences during a critical period of postnatal development.
The mind can go either direction under stress—toward positive or toward negative: on or off. Think of it as a spectrum whose extremes are unconsciousness at the negative end and hyperconsciousness at the positive end. The way the mind will lean under stress is strongly influenced by training.
...we cannot fail to recognise the influence which the progressive control over natural forces exerts on the social relationships between men, since men always place their newly won powers at the service of their aggressiveness, and use them against one another.
Create an environment to grow consistently and to influence everyone around you positively. Your future doesn’t have to equal your past. You are designed to achieve greatness, to be happy and to live the life you deserve. Start with setting a P.O.S.I.T.I.V.E. Goal.™
Without a second look, your habits and hygiene reflect a lot about you—your thoughts, values, beliefs, priorities, self-esteem, self-respect, confidence, and every other category covered in this book that influence how people perceive you.
When you have defined your mission, values and attitudes in the context of leadership influence and excellence, you also need to conduct a personal audit, checking how aligned they are to your current leadership practices. Where necessary, begin to make adjustments.
Hyacinth took out a bottle of rum, and Phaedra raised her eyebrows, a reflex she'd acquired upon seeing her father and mother under its influence, their eyes and mouths turned wilder, as if a cork at the edges of their personalities had come unscrewed.
Nowhere can we get to know the holiness of God and come under His influence and power except in the inner chamber. It has been well said: "No man can expect to make progress in holiness who is not often and long alone with God."