While I often cite my cynicism with certain quotes and clichés people use in my everyday life, there are quite a few that I admire from the Book of The Samurai: Hagakure (yes the same one Ghost Dog read from). These quotes put life and leadership into a perspective that makes sense for me so I am sharing them in hopes of having them help someone else out there in cyber space. On a final note, you may wonder “well what’s the point?” But remember that quotes are meant to be written down, memorized and studied during those times where they can help put things into perspective and promote a proper resolution. 7 Memorable Quotes from Hagakure: It is spiritless to think that you cannot attain to that which you have seen and heard the masters attain. The masters are men. You are also a man. (MI) Common sense will not accomplish great things. Simply… [Read more]

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Editor’s Note: This is probably the most controversial topic I have touched on in my writing here on The Hall. I reread it days after writing and found that it is 100% Greg Dragon in terms of being blunt, offensive and harsh. I did not and will not be changing what I have written to make it palatable because it is honest, and I feel that me being less than honest is a disservice to both you my readers and myself the bleeding heart. This is an entry into the mind of someone who is extremely bitter with religion in general and I hope you take something away from it other than a wont to argue with me. Thanks as always for allowing me to express myself, it is a freedom I don’t take for granted. – G.Dragon To be honest I never had it, like many other children I was raised into my parent’s… [Read more]

A true hustler is born not made, sometimes the hustle is within but it lays dormant, asleep and unseen. It may take a life-changing experience, meeting the right mentor or even education to wake up the hustle, but once it’s awake other hustlers will recognize it. To this reasoning I do not take people seriously that are “pretend hustlers” or “big game talkers”. These guys are everywhere and make up a majority of people you meet at mixers, business meetings and (clears throat) “grown folks night”. Recently it came to my attention that a certain sect of successful women are recruiting these guys for their husbands and then trying to make hustlers out of them. These women have the game backwards, you support the hustle, you don’t invent it! A hustler on the come-up for some real cash flow is normally a busy, focused guy. He thinks all day long about extending his assets in… [Read more]

Dear Dragon, I just found out that people call me a “douche” behind my back. I’m a pretty confident guy, I have a girlfriend and I go out of my way to help people all the time, so why the hate? What is this “douche” shit mean anyway? – Steve H. Hey Steve, thanks for writing in. Here’s the thing about being a douche, a douchebag (d-bag) or any variance of that object typically used to wash a vagina out. It is a word you really should be concerned about, I mean there is nothing positive or playful about it whatsoever. Guys don’t play with each other using the word douche bag, I mean some words we do play with like “ha ha Steve, what a dick” you can take that anyway you like. If it’s a good friend calling you a dick he is simply saying that you can be a real bastard sometimes… [Read more]

One thing about favors and loans, some people love receiving them, others like giving them and others don’t want jack to do with them. Well I can identify with the latter, I mean imagine if you get a favor done for you by Don Corleone and he shows up one day with his bullet-ridden son for you to prepare for a wake? That has got to be the most nerve-wracking preparation of a body you’ll ever have, what if he isn’t happy with the results? BANG to the head, that’s what would happen. But Don Corleone is fictional, we know this, but the favor can be a complicated thing that tightens friendships or causes animosity that will end in friends becoming enemies. Favors rely on the principle of giving and repaying. As a general rule there are two types of favors, the small favor and the major favor. The gauge of the favor’s size is… [Read more]

Now, if it’s one thing that you learn early on in business, it’s that there are people that walk the walk and those that talk the talk. The talkers are many and the walkers are few and far between. Mostly, what you get is a ton of wannabes and posers. Now, these wannabes and posers, they will congregate, make themselves feel good, and share ideas that hardly ever go anywhere. A lot of these ideas are very unoriginal or aren’t very good. I like to use an analogy for them, I call them spinning tops, if you’ve ever seen a top when you pull it’s string, it’ll set in and spin, and spin, and spin. You could pull the string harder or faster but the most it’ll do is just spin faster without really going anywhere. Now, if you manage to tip that top over, it’ll actually gain some velocity and start moving. This is… [Read more]