Trust

Adverts

When I first saw adverts on TV, when I was a young boy in Amsterdam, I thought they were magical. Those short stories advertising usually food and stuff you’d like to own were mesmerising and actually very memorable. Well they repeated them over and over, day after day, many times during an evening and therefore they just stuck in your mind, potentially, forever.

I still remember that in between each advert they presented a lion character and he did strange things in between each advert. I was also very interested in seeing what he would do in between the adverts as well as the adverts themselves. Here is an example of a Dutch advert, advertising Dutch Peanut Butter. Notice the Lion’s antics before and after. I now realise that the Lion, played a massive part in getting you to stay watching and locking in a massive hook into your brain.

[embed]https://youtu.be/iy6AhWkSKo8[/embed]

After all, adverts are short interventions in your brain, they get lodged into your memory banks for recall at a later date. Have you ever found yourself walking around a shop and noticing a product that you actually didn’t need, but you still bought it? You may not have been able to make the association in that moment, you may not make any association to the advert ever, but the signal was still there without you even noticing, the signal to buy something you actually didn’t need.

Happy shopping!

Michael de Groot

Betrayal

In one way or another you have or definitely will experience betrayal in your life. Does it mean then that you should stop trusting? Maybe.

Just recently we experienced a betrayal in our lives by a close family member. Now this person is not a blood relative, nevertheless is still a very close member of the family. Well until now that is.

In good faith we had done everything to support this person for over 6 years, during her darkest days of fear, anxiety and ill-health to the point, we are very pleased to say, that she can totally look after herself now and her life is back on track.

I prefer not to reveal the person’s identity and will try and describe the incident.

We offered support and guidance on using new technology, in this case an iPad, which we supplied. It was one of our old ones, so it was fine and in fairness were paid a small amount for it, so happy days.

We cleared the iPad of all old data so it could be set up as new. We also activated family sharing from one of our accounts. And if you are familiar with family sharing, the person that has activated it, in this case us, allows other family members to make purchases through the app store using our credit card. We can also share photos, music and some files.

We are not able to see what the other person is doing, nothing, this is not a screen sharing process.

But…

A bank staff member, a library staff member and a printer supplier all told her that anyone who has installed family sharing can see everything the other person is doing on their iPad. Untrue, not blaming them, but they are untrained, uninformed and negligent in giving that advice. I’ve even spoken to Apple and they confirm what I already knew.

This family member then bought a new iPad to make sure any spying could be avoided.

Happy trusting!

Michael de Groot