Bryan C. Fleming

Maybe you’ve gotten these maybe you haven’t.  Whenever the price of gas goes up (like it has here in the US) these emails start flying around.  I’ve already gotten two this week.  Here’s how they work:

- Don’t buy gas from Exxon
- Since they have lower sales, they have to lower their gas price
- This starts a price war and drives the price of gas down

For it to happen we all have to work together.  But how do you get a few million people to boycott Exxon?  By forwarding around emails– That’s how!

Hey, I’m in agreement that we’re being taken for a ride.  The blood donation every summer is getting old, and I’ll even play along and go to the guy on the next corner that’s not a Shell or Exxon station.  But let’s really think about it.

So Exxon looses some cash and lowers the price of gas from $3.29 to $3.27.  You can bet the guy on the corner won’t lower his price because his pumps are getting drained daily from all his new found business.  We’re all going to keep up the fight right?  We’re going to keep paying $3.29 when Exxon across the street is at $3.27.  Good, let’s keep it going. 

Exxon lowers again to $3.25 a gallon.  Now, I don’t know about your town but here in Detroit the news channels take 5 minutes every hour to tell you where the cheapest gas is in town.  I’ll guarantee if this happened people would be out in front of the Exxon Stations fighting over gas!  News trucks would be out front of the Stations telling the world “Gas prices you won’t believe….Watch our full report at 6”.  It would be chaos.

So when you get these emails, play along.  I am.  We’ll get some great YouTube videos out of it if we can actually get Exxon to lower their price even a nickel.

Want to come out ahead this summer with higher gas prices? read my post last year about buying stock in an oil company.
 

Ok.  I live in the Big “D” and when an auto company is sold it’s big news.  You can’t turn on the TV today without hearing about Chrysler being sold off for 7.6 Billion Dollars (that’s with a capital B).  But put it into persective…

Google just bought a banner ad company called Double-Click for 3.75 Billion. 

And we all remember when they bought that funny video website called You Tube for 1.65 Billion.

So I did a little math…

The 3rd largest automaker in the United States was sold for the price of 2 YouTubes and 1 Double-Click.

Isn’t that amazing?

What do all these having in common?

The 40th edition of the Personal Growth Carnival.  That’s what.  I’ve been picking 3 articles each week and highlighting them at the top of the carnival so let’s get started…

bdurfee presents You Are Worthy of Wealth.  He talks about how its our thinking that really holds us back.  Read his article because this is absoluetly true.  I wanted to highlight his article because he’s talking about such an important point.

Charles H. Green presents Corporate Fear and Performance Anxiety.  Charles impressed me with all his research.  He even lists some studies from the Harvard School of Business.  Kind of scary that people are really that afraid at work.  That’s too bad because those people will never move ahead.  You simply have to believe in yourself.

Chris presents Overcoming Laziness, Inertia, And Fear As You Improve Your People Skills.  Chris has a facinating theory.  It’s something like this: because you don’t have to do something (like as a girl a on a date).  It’s optional so you’ll tend to procastinate.  He explains it much better in his article.  Read it and you’ll see what I mean.

Those were 3 articles that jumped out at me this week…  Here are even more.  If you find one like, be sure to list it in the comments below.

Dave Olson presents The ultimate guide to a mediocre life posted at daveolson.ca - the developing blog!, saying, “a fun look at mediocrity”

Paul Gonzalez presents Alice: Starting a One Year Exit Plan Journey posted at The One Year Exit Plan, saying, “Alice has been a good friend for many years. Alice recently left the rat race and moved out of the DC area, to “softer plains” near her granddaughters (a much more valuable way to spend your time, in my opinion!) Alice has volunteered to tell her story in a series of blog entries.”

Brandon Peele presents A Week with Sai Maa posted at GT.

Andrew Michaels presents Lifecrafting · Finding And Setting Goals posted at Lifecrafting, saying, “This article discusses the importance of goals and how to choose, implement, and complete them.”

john presents UnCurb Your Enthusiasm posted at Open-Secrets.

Susan Borgas presents Hints for Staying Focused posted at Arts & Stuff, saying, “Staying focused in your work isn’t always easy, especially if there is a daunting amount of work to do over a period of a year and the next and so on. Time management is so important to stay focused on what needs to be done. This is how I try to stay focused and for the most part it does work.”

GP presents Nurturing Naturally posted at Fish Creek House - INNside Innkeeping, saying, “Innkeeping and horse ownership are a great journey for focus, balance and discovery.”

Moses E. Miles III presents Renewing Your Commitment posted at Three Sticks, saying, “Overcome your daily challenges and renew your commitment to your goals”

Wanda Grindstaff presents Prosperity and Abundance is Your Birthright - Living with Intent posted at Creating Abundant Lifestyles, saying, “Do not buy into the myth that wealth is not for everyone.”

Debra Moorhead presents 7 Ways to be Happier and More Fulfilled in Everything You Do posted at Debra Moorhead.com.

Jeremy Reeves presents The Top 5 Ways To Appreciate Life More posted at The Road To A Perfect Life.

Craig Harper presents War of the Mind posted at Renovate your life with Craig, saying, “If you’re like many, then some days your mind is a war zone. Complete with the good guys (Mr glass-half-full) and the bad guys (Mr stay-in-bed-you-loser) fighting for your attention; your thoughts. Competing for valuable territory on your cerebral landscape.”

Eduardo Zambrano presents Marriage gone to heaven posted at The Way of It.

That concludes this edition. Submit your blog article to the next edition of personal growth carnival using our carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.