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Home truths from an old hand about what it takes to succeed online. You may not like them but you need them!

Posted on August 8, 2011

By Dr. Jeffrey Lant
Every day thousands of people worldwide wake up and, hey presto!, have a great idea: I’m going to set up a business for myself online. Tons of people have done that and oodles of money is being made.
Now hear this: you are now and truly entering the twilight zone… and I want to help you get through it with maximum success and minimum frustration.
Who am I? Well, I am an old Internet hand who, since 1994, has made his primary work place the Internet and has reaped over the years a very ample reward. Now it is time for me to share with you some of the lessons of these years of learning, growth, and profits.
I know what you’re thinking: “Yikes, another old geezer from ancient times trying to help me by offering useless advice that never in a million years could possibly apply to me and my situation.” Is that how you feel when those more experienced than you are (and more successful) offer up their nuggets of wisdom? If so, reconsider and feast your eyes on this:
Item: Most home-based Internet businesses fail unless they have certain crucial criteria in place. Without these factors, you will fail, too.
Item: Your online business is most vulnerable if you have never previously been involved in business and have limited Internet experience. The failure rate here is staggering.
Item: You are at severe risk if you are trying to run a one-person online business and have no one else to advise and counsel you. This is very likely the situation in which you find yourself right this minute. You will soon discover why one is the loneliest — and least successful — number.
Now, have I got your attention?
The minute you decided you wanted to make money online, you became a failure waiting to happen. That’s why you must pay close attention to the recommendations that follow. Not only are they the result of many successful years online, they are heartfelt, because online helpful friends are few and far between… and should be listened to with the utmost respect, even if you don’t like what they’re telling you.
Home truth number 1: Life online for most would-be Internet entrepreneurs is nasty, brutish and short. It looks like this: decide to have an online business, get a website, then…. absolutely nothing. No traffic! No customers! No money! You will know this description applies to you very, very soon if you are being at all honest with yourself.
How long have you been trying to make money online?
How much have you made?
How much have you spent to launch this e-enterprise?
How much time have you wasted?
What makes you think tomorrow will be better than yesterday?
These are tough questions… and most online business wannabees never do demand answers from themselves… or at least not before it’s too little too late.
Home truth number 2: You don’t know enough about developing your crucial prospect list.
People who make money online know that the list is the business and the business is the list. Do you know this and are you focusing your expertise, time and money in developing that all important list? Or are you focusing on such inessential factors as the colors used on your website, your domain name, how many business cards you should order, etc? All such questions collectively do not have the importance and significance of this single query: what did you do today, yesterday, the day before yesterday and the day before that to build the list, the list that is the business and from whence all your profits will derive, now and forever?
Home truth number 3: You have no marketing experience or success.
Who succeeds online? People who know what marketing is, have important marketing experience, and know what marketing they must know and do daily. Sadly, the wannabees have absolutely none of these things and their lack is both obvious and fatal. You cannot succeed in business online (or off for that matter) with only rudimentary marketing skills, hoping that that will be enough. It won’t be. A thorough practical knowledge of reality-based marketing is essential. You proceed at your peril without it.
Home truth number 4: Success online means having the ability to write cogent advertising and other copy.
How are your customer-centered writing skills? The truth, please, and nothing but the truth.
Successful Internet entrepreneurs are to a person good customer-centered writers. Or if they’re not they have solved that problem by hiring someone who is. Thus, your question is this: can I write the necessary copy that gets prospects to stop in their tracks, pay attention, peruse the offer and product details, and act? Merely “thinking” you can write such copy is just not good enough. Would you go sailing in a leaky boat? Then don’t deceive yourself here either. Excellent copywriting skills are a must.
Home truth number 5: You’re not selling nearly enough products.
Want success online? Sell lots of products. Want even more success? Sell lots more. Success online directly correlates to how many products you sell and your skill in presenting them.
How many products are you selling today?
How many yesterday? The day before?
If you are not adding new products daily, you are handicapping your ability to make money online.
Every successful online entrepreneur is engaged in a strenuous search and discover mission aimed at finding more products.
Are you? If not, your Internet obsequies are near at hand.
Home truth number 6: You are not skilled in essential traffic generation techniques.
In real estate, it’s location, location, location.
Online, it’s traffic, traffic, traffic.
The sad truth is you traffic generation skills and experience are minimal, certainly inadequate to generate the necessary traffic that ensures success.
Hopefully you’ll admit this is true. Then, assuming you are willing to knuckle down and master traffic essentials, the better to create and grow your list, you at least have a prayer.
However, if you do not have the necessary traffic generation skills… and remain unwilling to say so and do something about it, you’re DOA… 100% certain to fail.
Home truth number 7… but I must cease and desist as my space for today is now at an end. There is, of course, much more I can tell you… and undoubtedly will. For now, promise me this: that you will attend closely to these deeply honest observations. And when you implement them successfully, you’ll let me know. I’d like to know how you’re getting on, with my help.
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About The Author
Harvard-educated Dr. Jeffrey Lant is CEO of Worldprofit, Inc. at www.worldprofit.com, providing a wide range of online services for small and-home based businesses. Dr. Lant is also the author of 18 best-selling business books. Republished with author’s permission by Howard Martell http://HomeProfitCoach.com. Check out Cash Renegade -> http://www.HomeProfitCoach.com/?rd=to0kJkVU

Smart Tips For Your Personal And Business Success Today……….Master blog article writer tells you exactly how to write articles that get read and responded to.

Smart Tips For Your Personal And Business Success Today……….Master blog article writer tells you exactly how to write articles that get read and responded to.
By Dr. Jeffrey Lant
It is a pleasure to have this opportunity to spend some time with you and provide the detailed step-by-step information you must have to get the attention of the people on your list and get them to respond — and rain well deserved compliments on you and your notable work.Let’s dig right in; there’s lots of ground to cover.1)  The purpose of blog articles.Know much about space travel? Here’s a crucial part that astronaut pays a lot of attention to: the heat shields that protect a space capsule returning to earth. Without these shields the capsule and the passengers within would be fried. The same thing happens when you mail ad copy and nothing but ad copy to your lists. Recipients will get plenty angry plenty fast. They want more from you than just ads, and if they don’t get it, the unsubscribe link is near at hand.Blog copy is essential because it keeps subscribers on your list by giving them a good reason for staying on your list. In short, like those heat  shields, this copy protects the list and keeps it whole, growing, profitable.2) Don’t publish random articles. Give your articles increased weight importance by creating them as part of an ongoing series. When you write good copy, copy of substance and value, people not only want to read it… but they want more, lots more, from you, a person whose articles and opinion they come to respect.3) Number each article and announce that number along with each article. As I write (August, 2011), this is my 312 article in the series. You want people to know that, not least because they will want to find and profit from the other articles in the series, all the other articles. Furthermore, as your list of articles grows, so will your reputation and perceived standing. In short, you will be an authority, a commentator of renown and repute.4) Write your blog articles to a certain length, and stick to it.My daily blog articles (which I produce for blog owners worldwide) are all approximately 1500 words in length. That is three single-spaced pages. This length gives you ample space to develop an article on any given theme. It is also a convenient length for readers, not too long or demanding; crucial features in our time-pressed days. Once you have developed your format, you will soon start thinking in terms of your available space and will find it easier and easier the more you write to conceive and write articles of that length.5) Always search for and brainstorm new article subjects.I am on a dizzying blog article creation pace: one 1,500 word blog article per day. This is a challenging schedule for even the most experienced writers. That means I need 365 article subjects per year, challenging indeed.  But even if you decide to write just one blog article per week,you’ll need 52 subjects to write about, nothing to take for granted.When you write blog articles, you are always and forever in the business of finding hot new article subjects. To start, get  the major metropolitan newspaper from your area;(for me that’s The Boston Globe)… and a pair of scissors. Now sit down and review this newspaper with a new eye; an eye that’s seeking interesting, timely, readers-will-love-this subjects. Make time to cut these articles from the publication. Don’t fall behind with this crucial task.In my case, I review and cut out three times a week, more if at all possible.Keep a good pair of sharp scissors at hand. Look at each article in each edition to see whether an article on that theme or subject would fit your blog. If so, cut at once and make sure to date everything you cut out. That’s a must.Then deposit what you’ve found in a large drawer…  this is the article subject compost heap and it is essential. In it you will find subjects you will surely want to write about… and subjects you’re watching, to write about at some future date. Cut liberally; you can be sure you will have no subject readily at  hand. Having all these ideas will prove very useful indeed.6) Select the next subject you’ll write about, gather the information you need to do so.The creation of articles of substance, articles that draw continual kudos from your readers,is a direct result of knowing where to look for the information you need. The better you become at this necessary task, the better articles you will produce and the faster your reputation grows, too.Start by doing a search at any search engine (I prefer Google) to see what  information is available. Where you are writing an article about a breaking news item, don’t just check the available information, also pay close attention to the time the most recent material was posted (e.g. “7 hours ago”). This is essential for keeping what you write ahead of the news cycle. For timely articles, this skill is required.Then visit the Wikipedia. The Wikipedia is one of the most ingenious and necessary tools ever invented. There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t use it, finding and printing the invaluable information I absolutely must have do my work… one aspect of which is studding my articles with the facts there in so amply provided. This source is crucial.You will also need to visit the websites of article providers such as Associated Press,Reuters, Bloomberg, etc. They are a terrific source of article subjects and timely data.7) Brainstorm articles.You and your lifetime of education and experience are also valuable sources for articles.Keep a pad at the ready, or an Internet file, where ALL possible article subjects can be listed. Never, ever rely on forgetful memory for such subjects. Write them down at once.8) Set a precise date for finishing all articles.I write and blog my articles daily. I have a precise time of the time when the deadline for the next article MUST be met: 8 a.m. Eastern time. To do this I find all the data I’ll need the day before and review it before bed time. Then I am awake and drafting editing, then finalizing the day’s article by 3 a.m. Eastern time; that is not a misprint? I have found the silent hours of the (usually) uninterrupted night the very best time to write, not least because I am wide awake and full of beans at that  time. You’ll find the schedule most suitable for you; set it, adhere to it religiously.  You will find if you do that your brain and body will be willing to work at that time, and that is a great benefit.9) Keep individual files for every article you write.These files should contain all the printed information sources for this subject as well as all your notes and each draft. Everything pertaining to this article (including the compliments readers email you) must be kept, not least because you may very well decide to write follow-up and related articles for which current data will be most helpful.Last words.Blogging is the future of the Internet; that is absolutely clear. And for blogging to work,and your list to be protected, superior blog  copy is a must. Now you know how to produce it.
About the Author:
Harvard-educated Dr. Jeffrey Lant is CEO of Worldprofit, Inc., providing a wide range of online services for small and-home based businesses. Dr. Jeffrey Lant is also the author of 18 best-selling business books. Republished with author’s permission by Howard Martell http://HomeProfitCoach.com.
Check out Income Hybrid ->  http://www.HomeProfitCoach.com/?rd=wd9GQode
Skype me at homeprofitcoach

Of ‘sliders’, ‘cravers,’ and a White Castle where you are monarch of all.

Posted on June 30, 2011 by Howard Martell

By Dr. Jeffrey Lant
It is the midnight hour here in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, in Cambridge town. And like my overindulged neighbors, I am in search of something to satisfy a craving, for without satisfaction I shall not sleep. As this is a college town, the ultimate college town, with every kind of taste and flavor readily at hand, all ready to obliterate the hunger pangs of the privileged, voracious herds of students foraging hereabouts, there should be no trouble getting that precise, desired effect.
But the taste I seek cannot be found in Cambridge, or Boston, or even in the whole of New England or even beyond. It is a taste rooted in the Midwest and, thus, I need stratagems to find it… all the while my brain, sharpened by exact desire, screams for the thing, the exact thing, no substitutions, no deceptions, no facsimiles, don’t even try.
This is White Castle… don’t even begin to call it just a ‘hamburger.”
And if you have never had one, do not condescend to judge us who have. We know this thing… and if we are in thrall to a taste… we at least have had it, while you have not and do not know.
This, then, is for my fellow “cravers”… you know who you are… and you know what I am going through now… for you may well be going through it, too…
Born in the heartland.
Harry Truman, sometime president of these United States, once said, “There is nothing new in the world except the history you do not know.” I am going to dish up some of that history now.
The White Castle story begins in Wichita, Kansas. It is 1921… America is confident, striding for the first time on the world stage; a heady adolescent among nations… strong, swaggering, a bull in Europe’s epicene china shop. Such a nation, still raw, required food to match. It needed wheat…. and beef… and onions… it was democratic fare… cheap, pungent, delicious, pay your nickle and, laughing with your buddies, wipe your mouth on your sleeve; (your mother cannot see the infraction, so shocking at home.)
The White Castle story is a story of lean, young men, with big ideas; applying science and brains to the hunger of a nation moving to a jazz beat. In such a nation everything was possible… and a young man in Wichita was free to dream and to build and to triumph. In Wichita that year, in America, there was nothing but exuberance, pulsating energies and panoramas of promise.
White Castle aimed to be the fuel for such a people and their ascendancy. And so it began…
Item: White Castle was the first fast-food hamburger chain in the nation.
Item: The first to sell a million hamburgers.
Item: The first to sell a billion hamburgers.
Item: The first to sell frozen fast food.
Founders Billy Ingram and Walter Anderson had an idol… a man of drive, energy, imagination and, always, the ability and desire to improve, make the product better, and grow.
This was Henry Ford, and the founders of White Castle never stopped scrutinizing the Master for ways they could benefit and, in turn, benefit the nation.
“The Jungle”.
The first problem the founders had to solve was one of perception. In 1906, Upton Sinclair wrote one of the signal books of the burgeoning republic, “The Jungle”. It was a book inducing anger and nausea, exposing in sickening detail the revolting conditions of the meat packing industry. America blanched and heaved… cleaning up the noisome menace…
The Wichita boys did their bit. They named their baby “White” for something clean, pure and untainted… and “Castle” for something strong and resolute.
Then they started their life-long mission of mechanizing their work, just as Henry Ford was doing at River Rouge.
Their restaurants, made to resemble the famed Chicago Water Tower, were eye-catching, distinctive, octagonal buttresses, crenelated towers, and a parapet wall. Here, well before Huey Long, “every man was king.” The look was pristine, sparkling white porcelain enamel on steel exteriors, stainless steel interiors, employees outfitted with spotless uniforms… never sprinkled with the blood of what you were eating.
Now they could turn their full attention to the most important thing of all… the taste.
First, Founder Anderson invented the hamburger bun, as well as the kitchen assembly line that gave rise to the modern fast-food industry. Due to White Castle’s innovation of chain-wide standardized methods, customers could be sure they would receive the same product in every one of their restaurants; here, too, they lead the way, as they embarked on sure and certain growth.
Since nothing of the mechanized fast-foot industry existed, it all had to be imagined, attempted, instituted, tried, and re-tried, the tested way of progress for people unafraid to risk, to attempt, to improve, and improve some more. It was the American way, and it was a certain formula for greatness.
White Castle, and the hamburger at its center, was a significant part of this glorious cycle of never-ending improvement.
Anderson developed an efficient method for cooking hamburgers, using freshly ground beef and fresh onions. The ground beef was formed into balls by machine, eighteen to a pound, or forty per kilogram. The balls were placed on a hot grill and topped with a handful of fresh, thinly shredded onion. Then they were flipped so that the onion was under the ball.
The ball was then squashed down, turning the ball into a very thin patty. The bottom of the bun was then placed atop the cooking patty with the other half of the bun on top of that so that the juices and steam from the beef and onion would permeate the bun. After grilling, a slice of dill pickle was inserted before serving on its distinctive square bun available at White Castle only. This was the famous “slider”.
Now, putting it all together, you didn’t just have a burger and fries… you had an event, a feast for nose, eye, tongue and brain. You stopped at other burger joints because you were hungry and couldn’t wait any longer for relief at someplace better. You went to White Castle for satisfaction, gratification, bliss.
On this basis White Castle grew, keeping its price, a dime apiece, fair, affordable. Then, in 1933, Ingram bought out Anderson, moving to Columbus, Ohio. The new owner refused to franchise or take on debt to expand, and so White Castle fell behind other purveyors of burgers, relatively small at 420 White Castle outlets; the one I visited assiduously when I studied at Harvard, in Central Square, bit the dust, to my acute despair.
Somewhere along the line the unyielding insistence on growth, improvement, and no limits whatsoever, died. When I called White Castle’s corporate offices yesterday to see how I could buy the product by mail, the voice at the other end of the line was of the “couldn’t be bothered” variety, dismissive, unhelpful, eager to get me off the line and go back to her nails and jeremiads. Thus the dedicated, devoted “cravers” of company lore are cast aside and dismissed. And so as White Castle goes, the once great nation goes… and we are saddened and bereft.
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About the Author
Harvard-educated Dr. Jeffrey Lant is CEO of Worldprofit, Inc., providing a wide range of online services for small and-home based businesses. Dr. Lant is also the author of 18 best-selling business books. Republished with author’s permission by Howard Martell http://HomeProfitCoach.com. Check out Traffic Blog Empire -> http://www.HomeProfitCoach.com/?rd=nh4VYABW

You are about to be indiscrete. Midsummer’s Night June 21, 2011.

Posted on June 22, 2011 by Howard Martell

By Dr. Jeffrey Lant
Author’s program note: There was never any doubt about which music I’d recommend for this article… it was “The Little GTO”. It was first recorded by Ronny and the Daytonas in 1964; later it went cosmic with the rendition by the Beach Boys. Right from the first line — “Little GTO, you’re really lookin’ fine…” this tune moves. You’ll find it in any search engine. Watch out… when you play it you’re 18 all over again…
This is a story that every boy who was not cool in high school can relate to. It’s a story about that day you were down at the beach (if you were in Beach Boys territory it had to be Zuma). You had gone with your best bud Herbie, but he was the president of the Chess Club. You couldn’t say a word to him; all he knew was Harvey Mudd. He’d never understand… there was no point in telling him…
Then, there it was… first for just the shortest instant as it made the turn towards the beach… … you knew exactly where it was.
Then, the sun in your eyes, a burst of color — it was ice-cold metallic blue… something cool against the heat of the day…
Then the first glance, that mobile palace of an insouciant prince of the road… his eyes dead ahead. You knew he wasn’t looking at you… but he knew you…. and every other person on that oiled body packed beach — were looking at him…
… and at the girl lucky enough to have the privilege in being his prop du jour. She had been carefully chosen by the driver… right down to the way her lightly frosted hair blew in the wind (no detail too small)… but only the clueless missed the point: the focus was not the girl… but the girl in the car…
“… let ‘em know… that I’m the coolest thing around”.
And so it was….. as you ate your heart out… knowing you ached… for the car, the girl… and the profound satisfaction of being a prince in command of a certified muscle car. No wonder you barked at Herbie and told him to shut up already about Harvey Mudd, when everybody knew he couldn’t do any better than Santa Monica Junior College. He looked hurt… maybe you’d make it up to him later…
Blu Sera 385 Spiders.
Every American boy cherished his own particular image of triumph and in every story there was a car… the car… the vehicle he not only wanted, but dreamed about, obsessive, in the places in the night only he could know.
For the subject of this article, let’s call him “Alt”, that object of acute, obsessive desire was the Ferrari 348 “Blu Sera” (Metallic Evening Blue) Spider, made only in 1994 and 1995. Alt discovered through assiduous research that the other Spider colors, red, yellow, black, and white were common, hence instantly dismissed as inferior and infra dig.
Alt also discovered that the rarest interiors were grey (always spelled the English way, never “gray”). Like I said, NO detail was too small. We’re talking about The Dream and no one dreams of acquiring anything but perfection.
In due course Alt graduated from high school and put childish things behind him; only the “Blu Sera” wasn’t a childish thing… it was a part of him, something that tugged at his heart and wouldn’t go away. Godlike though it was, it might have been sent by the Devil, so insistent was the thought reiterated over and over in his brain. He wanted it. He had to have it. He couldn’t live without it. It was just as simply complicated as that.
Oscar Wilde, who understood the nuances and depths of desire, would have told him, “The only way to overcome temptation is to yield to it.”
Enter The Wife…
As every boy learns as he grows into a man with a boy’s desires… girls, even the wife who adores you… don’t get the “car thing”. A car, for them, is nothing more than a gas-guzzling necessity designed for moving screaming kids from Point A to Point B. If there’s an attractive gray interior (the English spelling means nothing to them), that’s terrific, but what matter? They know the kids will be autographing it with their spills and sticky hands. No, few women (maybe none) understand that a man makes eternal vows to only one thing: his dream car… adored in “sickness and in health”, committed till “death do you part.”
Alt had a dream. Alt had a wife. Alt had a problem.
There was no problem, of course, until his Dream became reality. And because of the rarity of this car, every arcane detail enhancing its desirability and decreasing its likelihood, there was no problem… except the problem of a man thwarted by what he could not possess. And this he could live with, just.
Then came the day, on Ebay, when the dream became reality, not something of paint and metal but a partner of power and sensuality. It was intoxicating… it was within your grasp… it was a lot of money. But there was no problem — yet. First, he had to be sure that this car, seemingly so perfect, right down to its grey interior, was The Car, His Car. He dogged the Ebay site, sick at the thought his baby would get away, but like all lovers he wanted what he wanted on his terms and his terms only. He watched, biding his time… and waiting. The car, his car, remained unsold, available, closer to his grasp.
First visit to his beloved.
Alt arranged to visit what looked to be, what quite possibly might be, the car of his dreams. He didn’t tell his wife he was going; why upset her until he knew this one was The One. He rationalized that this was better so, for her own good.
And so he went, dressing up as if for a first date to someone he had long desired.
A wealthy collector owned the car, by great good fortune so close to Alt, he could easily drive there without arousing comment. He went (perhaps too quick for strategy)… and the car, deftly arrayed to best advantage, met him. It was there… in ice-cold blue… waiting for him, just as he’d always imagined.
The owner, who had no doubt his own experience with temptations and obsessions, wisely stayed out of sight… until he saw Alt run a caressing hand over the metal morphed by a master into enticing flesh. The collector knew… Alt knew… it was a done deal… but there were the niceties to go through and the thrill of acquisition to mask. The value of the object demanded complete compliance to the code. And so it went…
Now Alt remembered The Wife and made this bow in her direction. “I have to clear it with the old ball and chain,” he said, feeling stupid, belittled, diminished at saying so. But the man who held the keys to Alt’s desire casually said “you should have brought her; we could have settled it now.”
But Alt couldn’t explain (though the collector knew) that bringing her was impossible, like bringing her to the boudoir of a more favored lover. Impossible.
But the acid in the response, the condescension, aroused Alt… and so they went toe to toe, the discarding lover, the acquiring lover, to arrange the terms of transfer, soon acceptable to both. It had been done by gentlemen, now friends.
There was now only one obstacle left, the biggest, the wife. He mulled over his options… arranging with the seller to make delivery in three days. Alt needed some time…
And on the third day, Alt arranged with the cooperative seller to meet him a block away from his house, there to take possession; the seller to exit in a car driven by his son.
Now, not as suitor testing a vehicle, but as owner of what he always wanted, Alt got behind the wheel and drove to his home…. there to surprise the old ball and chain.
He didn’t need to be told her Irish was up. He knew. She was about to say Something Disagreeable… but Alt knew his business.
He ushered her into the front seat (no prop du jour) and told her,as if in a Confessional, about his dream, that he could put the girl of his dreams in the car of his dreams. It was schmaltz… overdone… but there was something in his eyes that made the girl melt.
And there was something in his hand, serious bling in a magnificent box, to seal the deal.
“C’mon and turn it on, wind it up, blow it out, GTO.”

About the Author
Harvard-educated Dr. Jeffrey Lant is CEO of Worldprofit, Inc., providing a wide range of online services for small and-home based businesses.
Dr. Lant is also the author of 18 best-selling business books. Republished with author’s permission by Howard Martell http://HomeProfitCoach.com. Check out Visitors Dotcom -> http://www.HomeProfitCoach.com/?rd=ow4PGvJe

Blogging is booming. Look who’s blogging… and why.

Posted on June 23, 2011 by 

Howard Martell

By Dr. Jeffrey Lant
I feel lucky to be alive and on the cutting edge of what is fast becoming The Age of Blogging… and you should feel the same way. And if, by some chance, you don’t know what a blog is and how it works for your benefit, you are lucky again; I’m going to reveal the true importance of blogs and some key observations on how to derive maximum benefit from them. Why blogging is sweeping the ‘net and the globe. Consider this. The history of machine publishing begins in 1454 with the preparation of what became known as the Gutenberg Bible. It took over a year before finished copies were available. This was thought to be — and was — a great advance; hitherto books had to be copied by hand, a process that resulted in many errors, of omission and commission. Printing the Gutenburg Bible was a laborious process; as a result today just 21 copies are known. Over the centuries publishing developed. Books were easier to print… there were many more publishers to print them (thereby increasing the number of opinions and points of view available)…. and in due course publishing advanced to where books could be universally distributed and available. But all this, important as it was, was as nothing compared to the most signal advance since Gutenburg himself. This is the blog. A blog is the publishing marvel which enables any person anywhere to post and distribute any message they want any time they want. It expunges the middle man, called the publisher, from the publishing equation and enables the new publishers — you! — to set their own agenda and make sure that their message is written just so… and distributed worldwide within minutes. The implications of this development are staggering. Until just the other day (in historical terms), to get your message out to the world, you either had to persuade a publisher or his designated representative (an editor) to publish your article… or you had to establish your own publication with all the expense and uncertainty that entailed. These days the process is radically different. Subscribe to a blogging service. Write your message. Update your message as necessary and desirable, even daily. And, always and forever, keep building your subscriber lists so that more and more people see what you have written. No longer must writers cringe like Uriah Heap before publishers; you, not they, control your content and can shape and refine it to the satisfaction of a single individual — you! This has never happened before in the history of mankind and is an event of the highest significance for our species as a whole and the crucial availability and distribution of information. So, who’s blogging? Powerful institutions are not always known for their ability to move quickly, understanding change and working at once to use such change to their advantage. But the advent of the blog has caused many to leap into this brave new world. One of many examples is Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley, Archbishop of Boston, Massachusetts, a prince of the Church, beloved of the Pontiff. O’Malley has become one of his Church’s “go to” guys in the pedophile priest scandal and its related sexual issues. Like other Church leaders, I suspect O’Malley has been grievously unhappy about the constant drumbeat of terrible press his beloved church has attracted. You can imagine his eminence’s eyes popping as he learned about the blog and grasped its implications. He probably jigged about his office… O’Malley no longer needs to submit to the impertinent, probing questions of pesky reporters and their insistent editors. Instead, he can shape and nuance his message just the way he wants it, to the very last comma. This is an unadulterated benefit for O’Malley… though not necessarily for truth since those pesky reporters authority figures do not like… are the means of digging, digging and digging some more; now they would be, to a significant degree, cut out of the process. The O’Malley’s of the world can breathe easier. Recently (June, 2011), O’Malley used his blog to deal with a nasty issue that had parishioners of every hue very angry indeed. A liberal priest (no, not a tautology) had announced a “liturgy to commemorate Boston Pride 2011,” an annual celebration of the city’s gay, lesbian, and transgendered community. Conservative Catholics were enraged, many of them blogging their anger. This, then, had the result of haviing the mass “postponed” (church-speak for “it won’t happen until hell freezes over, if then”). This, of course, had the predictable result of angering the liberals… and causing their blogs to erupt in a frenzy of vituperation. What’s a poor prince to do? In years past, his eminence would have been forced by the hostilities of his brethren to go before the media and submit to questioning. That is not a thing princes like to do; in fact they abhor this profoundly irritating and degrading event of lese majeste’. Now they blog… now no one ever sees them sweat… because they no longer sweat at all! O’Malley, thanks to his growing proficiency as a frequent blogger, dealt with this more than tempest-in-a-tea-cup when HE wanted, how HE wanted… his blog carefully nuanced to his liking. In due course, working behind the scenes, with the message completely his without having to bother with reporters, the matter was solved…. at least this time. Not as smart: the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams. Whereas Cardinal O’Mallley got the point about blogs and their utility, the Archbishop of Canterbury, senior cleric in the Church of England, did not. In the most recent (June, 2011) issue of the “New Statesman” magazine, his grace lashes out at the Conservative – Liberal Democrat coalition, which came to power 13 months ago. Williams was appointed in 2002 by Labor Prime Minister Tony Blair. Willams, way behind the technology curve, missed a grand opportunity not merely to get his message out to a worldwide audience far larger than the readership of a single magazine, but to grow his list (something no serious blogger can overlook). He opted for the traditional paper method… and that instantly limited the effectiveness of what he had to say. Had he, instead, set up a blog and posted his message there… his readership would have exploded and he would have added a host of new readers to his blog… where he could have worked early and late to convert them to his often irritating point of view. His grace will learn, however; he really has no choice. No “leader” of any kind does. For all, for each, it’s “blog or atrophy and die.” The same applies to you… which is why you must blog today, tomorrow, forever, or create your own irrelevance and obsolescence. a state of affairs you would really not relish.
About the Author
Harvard-educated Dr. Jeffrey Lant is CEO of Worldprofit, Inc., providing a wide range of online services for small and-home based businesses. Dr. Lant is also the author of 18 best-selling business books. Republished with author’s permission by Howard Martell http://HomeProfitCoach.com. Check out Traffic Blog Empire -> http://www.HomeProfitCoach.com/?rd=nh4VYABW

The Good Humor Man, a tale of hot summers long ago.

Posted on June 13, 2011 by Howard Martell

by Dr. Jeffrey Lant
Author’s program note. To get into the mood of this article, I recommend searching any search engine to find one old summer song that retains its toe-tapping zest. It’s Mungo Jerry’s 1970 hit “In The Summertime.” So timeless is this infectious little number that Hershey’s, the chocolatiers, is using it in a current (June, 2011) ad campaign. As Mungo says in the song, “Sing along with us.” My prediction is that you won’t be able to help yourself… it’s ok, when summer comes we’re all young again… and just plain happy to be alive.
Two things that could not be denied inspired this article… first the oppressive record-setting heat wave here in New England, a phenomenon which turned all of us in the city from folks assiduously avoiding each other into sweltering fellow travelers, anxious to hear the latest news about possible relief… and having no hesitation or shyness about reaching out for news and the agreeable opportunity to be resoundingly banal, “Hot enough for you?”
The second thing that caught my attention was the trill of bells which sounded at first hearing just the way the bells sounded from the Good Humor truck as it traversed the neighborhood, proving beyond a doubt that all us Illinois kids had absolutely no hearing problems; we could hear those bells across Guinness-Book-Of-Records distances… and nothing, but nothing, was going to get in the way of that truck and all of us making an absolutely certain rendezvous. It was clearly written in the Book of Kid Rights and Privileges, that it was our irrevocable and bounden duty to hear its bells, stop the wagon, and look long and hard for what a dime could get you. Personally, I was always seduced by the orange creamsicles. I haven’t seen, much less enjoyed one for decades… but as I write, I am falling helplessly into the insistent consumer mode which marked all my encounters with the mobile ice-cream emporium. The truck arrived; my money departed.
You need to be very clear about our relationship to Good Humor and its cascade of ice-cream novelties. Kids we ceased to be when we saw the truck and reviewed our resources. We were practised buyers, omniscient as to what was on that truck and what we fancied and would have, negotiators with proven skills, discerning, our “due diligence” certain, exhaustive, no doubt frustrating to the college kid home for the summer who wore the company’s uniform and drove the company’s vehicle… Long-suffering, so young himself and barely out of the juvenile consumer throng before him, he saw his profits melting as his pint-sized customers looked, looked again, made a decision, changed their mind, then looked some more…
It was a ritual, and no matter how many times you stopped the wagon, you performed it, loyally and with care. It was, after all, part of the experience… and, besides, you knew, none better, that the customer (even the most dilatory) was always right. It was something your father told you that you never forgot.
Some facts about Good Humor.
As a card-carrying kid and loyal Good Humor customer I knew absolutely nothing about the company whose success hinged on the wishes and buying power of kids like me. The only thing I cared about was whether they had orange creamsicles (they always did)… and what new novelties they had, putting them prominently at the front, the better to seduce me from my unending favorite; I have to admit I was always willing to try the new offerings, particularly if they came with the lure of that magic word: “deal” and a handful of discount coupons, which soon expired but could be seen months later under refrigerator magnets.
So ignorant then about my favorite company, I felt obliged for this article to rectify the matter… and so I have. Originally, Good Humors were a product, chocolate coated ice cream bars on a stick; I loved these too and regarded it as my particular job to ensure Grammie always had a good supply; since she loved them, too, my job was never onerous. Grammie and Grampa had great power and influence on Good Humor drivers. One never-to-be-forgotten day, Grampa who (I now know) had a talent for the right gesture at the right time, peremptorily stopped the wagon when the supply of ice-cream had run low at a birthday party Grammie was hosting for one of my young cousins. With a practised gesture I can see to this day, he ordered the wagon to stop… and invited all the guests young and old to take their pick of the inventory. When the impressed and jubilant driver had done his work, Grampa tipped him liberally, it may even have been $20, a fortune. Grampa was a dark horse in such gestures; he didn’t make them often (for he was a good penny-pinching, investing Hanoverian) but when he did… people noticed, winked, and said “Good Old Walt,” with just the right amount of admiration. They knew, and in due course all the grandchildren knew, that under his gruffness, an art form, there was a man who knew just when to be lavish with ice-cream… or whatever was called for.
Good Humor, having found success with Good Humor bars, did what all successful businesses do: it added new products, always using America’s kiddoes as ground zero for testing and launching new products. Good Humor started in Youngstown, Ohio in the ‘twenties; by the mid-’thirties it covered most of the nation. Catering to the national sweet tooth and a love-affair with ice-cream that still seems inexhaustible, Good Humor flourished, until at its peak in the 1950s, the company operated 2,000 “sales cars”.
But the tribal ways of Good Humor, which I knew to my fingertips, were under threat; baby boomers like me grew up and put aside Good Humor along with the baseball glove and “Mad” magazine.. There were labor issues, costs increased, gasoline and insurance soared. And profits declined.
In 1961, Good Humor was acquired by Thomas J. Lipton, the US subsidiary of the international Unilever conglomerate. Sad but true, in 1978 the company sold its fleet, and an era truly came to an end. Distribution was then handled by grocery stores and independent street vendors. By 1984, Good Humor was profitable again… and (from 1989) growing. Gold Bond Ice Cream, that included the Popsicle brand, was acquired… and in due course Isaly Klondike and the Brewers Ice Cream Company. Nine plants nationwide work hard keeping up with the demand. (I confess I love Brewers chocolate ice-cream whose taste rivals more expensive brands.) I am glad that they prosper, for having lost creamsicles, I can ill afford to lose any more flavors… or a single memory.
Having completed this article, I shall allow myself the luxury (though it is very early on a Sunday) to reward myself with an ice-cream flavor I did not previously know, peach cobbler. It’s by Ben & Jerry,whose flavors I cherish, though their politics are intrusive and unappealing.
I am glad the store is handy… I am glad I won’t have to wait for the ice-cream truck to come, always late, increasing my impatience.
And I am glad I have shared this story with you. For while there have been many vicissitudes at Good Humor… the only thing that really matters, the ice-cream itself, abides, perfect for a hot summer’s day like the one just dawning. And that is good to know and to share with a friend.
About the Author
Harvard-educated Dr. Jeffrey Lant is CEO of Worldprofit, Inc. , providing a wide range of online services for small and-home based businesses. Republished with author’s permission by Howard Martell http://HomeProfitCoach.com. Check out Cash Renegade -> http://www.HomeProfitCoach.com/?rd=to0kJkVU

How to write the kind of blog copy that turns readers into fans who cannot live without you!

Posted on June 14, 2011 by Howard Martell

by Dr. Jeffrey Lant
This is an article for people who want to be smart bloggers! Bloggers who change lives! Bloggers who get people to sit up, take notice and say, “Wow! That guy is right! That guy is on the money!” Bloggers who don’t just want readers…
… but fans who sit next to their computers waiting for your next blog post.
In this article I am going to show you the secret to becoming a producer of “must read” copy…. and becoming, in the process, a person who goes way beyond having readers… instead creating fans.
400,000+ words in the last year.
This article celebrates achieving a “personal best” goal for me… a goal I challenged myself to make one year ago…. and which I have, with the publication of this article, now achieved. I wanted to see if I could write at least 400,000 words of copy in 365 days; not just drab, undistinguished, pedestrian copy either, but copy that’s timely! Intellectually distinguished! Lyric! Insightful! Yes, the kind of copy that stops people worldwide in their tracks and forces them to sit up! Take notice! And pay attention… because they just couldn’t bear to miss a single word!
And I am pleased to tell you that this is precisely what has happened! My blog, where you can find all my articles, now generates millions of hits and a stream of gratifying comments from people worldwide who feed my ego and make my day.
This is me!
And it can be you!
1) Tell stories.
The greatest communicators on earth — Jesus! Abraham Lincoln! Mark Twain! were story tellers. They used the power of stories to make things easy for their audience to understand… and to drive home their points, no matter how difficult and complicated.
You must become a story teller, too, not just a finder and disseminator of facts. Facts alone don’t move people. Mere facts don’t capture minds. Facts, no matter how important, don’t touch hearts. But stories do… they always do… and that is why your blog posts must rely on stories that capture people and leave them begging for more…
2) Today’s successful article starts with yesterday’s motivating “heads up”.
If you want readers today, titillate them yesterday. You see, the power of yesterday is to entice readers today.
People will only be moved to the extent that you move them. If you want readers tomorrow… the crucial process of exciting them starts today.
“Tomorrow! A story of love! Power! Treachery and despair! A story that will move you! Outrage you! And, if there’s a tear in you, cause it to fall! All coming tomorrow to a computer near you!”
This’ll get ‘em!
3) Write short sentences where every word counts.
Thanks to the marvelous technical tools writers have nowadays, most don’t write; they “typewrite”, in the withering phrase of Truman Capote. He was masterful, and he knew that writers could kill their points, their stories and their readers by pouring out too many words and sentences straining to digest them.
Don’t make this mistake.
Look at the sentence length in this article… short, punchy, easy to take in at a glance…
Your sentences should move accordingly.
Moreover, prune your articles mercilessly. A sentence that exceeds just a few words is a sentence smothering itself. And dead sentences will never move live people.
4) Short paragraphs give a story the air and space they need.
Today’s readers are restless readers. They are overwhelmed with information… but have the same number of hours in a day as Caesar. In short, they are looking for a reason to put your copy down… never to be picked up again.
Short paragraphs and airy lay-out forestall this tragedy.
Look at this article… short, often real short, paragraphs with pages that look inviting, easy, not prolix and hard.
Contemporary readers demand ease… and if you don’t give it to them, they walk… fast.
5) Make your people real, not caricatures.
The reason volumes of commentary don’t work is because its authors create card board characters. They then laud the characters they like and demolish the ones they don’t. Not only is this unfair… but it makes for lousy copy.
What distinguishes the best commentary is the way you handle people whose opinions you may not only dislike, but actually abhor. Do you give them the courtesy of presenting their point of view fairly, objectively, honestly… or do you want just a cheap shot that not only misrepresents the people you’re writing about… but proves you’re a writer not worth reading?
This point is worth elucidating because it’s one too many commentators miss.
One reason writers like writing commentary is because it turns them from word peddlers into gods, omniscient, all-powerful, always right, never wrong, with the ability to access every human heart and brain at will.
Such people of course become insufferable in short order.
Your job as a commentator is to be sure you have done everything possible to ensure that all the people you write about are presented without prejudice, honestly, completely, with sincerity and with care.
This does not mean you necessarily agree with their positions or actions. It means you intend to give your readers the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth… even if you strenuously disagree.
Only when you have done this can you in good conscience and to best effect proceed to your opinion. Because only if you have allowed even your most pernicious characters their say… can your say be meaningful, insightful, and worth reading.
Use these recommendations.
The best commentators can have enormous influence… which is why you must use your commentating position wisely, not least by producing copy that moves your readers, with every word you write.
These suggestions will help.
By using them you will produce copy — starting today — that changes your readers’ outlook, opinion, point of view, one apt word at a time. When you do this not only will you have a legion of readers, followers and fans…. but you’ll deserve them!
About the Author
Harvard-educated Dr. Jeffrey Lant is CEO of Worldprofit, Inc., providing a wide range of online services for small and-home based businesses. He is also the author of 18 best-selling business books. Republished with author’s permission by Howard Martell http://HomeProfitCoach.com. Check out Cash Renegade -> http://www.HomeProfitCoach.com/?rd=to0kJkVU

Quirk. n. A personal peculiarity. We’ve all got ‘em.

Posted on June 15, 2011 by Howard Martell

by Dr. Jeffrey Lant
It is now mid-June, 2011 here in Cambridge, Massachusetts.  The Harvard
students have left town, some for good having just graduated; others making
the trek to where all true Harvard students go in summer, to Washington, D.C. –
and Power.
The town is now filling up with summer school students who want to buff up
their resumes by studying at Hahvud. Of course, bona fide Harvard grads
always know the difference… and make you feel your presumption.
… but I’m not here to write about these folks, though they no doubt bring
plenty of tales. I am here to comment on all the June weddings taking place
in the many churches clustered around the Cambridge Common.
The Puritans who created the Commonwealth designated Cambridge as
the theological center of their new land. And while they wanted conformity,
they reluctantly accepted multiplicity… so on any given Sunday there is a plethora of
ideological choices.
But doctrine isn’t my story. My story today concerns, as stated, the many weddings
taking place just now… and just what bride and groom, bride and bride and
groom and groom (for Cambridge celebrates its progressive attitude so)
really know about each other…
…. their quirks.
Quirks are the peculiarities each of us  has collected over the years.
Passion may quell. Desire wane. Love transmute. But quirks are forever.
And ever… and ever. Which, so often, drive your Significant Other to
estrangement and Judge Judy.
Be honest with your mate… they’re going to find out anyway.
Along with blood tests and other marriage pre-requisites there should be a
full disclosure of one’s quirks… and a frank, honest discussion about whether
you can stand the quirks you are about to live with. In the interest of fair
play and total truth, I shall write here, right now, a few of my own personal
quirks.
Item: I have been known to take 3 showers or more in a day, day after day. If
cleanliness is next to godliness, I am sitting in His lap.
Item: I detest face cloths and regard their very presence as provocative, as
likely repositories of germs and bad smells.
Item: If I use a spoon when eating my breakfast, I will use it with only one
thing, and must then get another.  It means more spoon washing but the clear
separation of food tastes and textures is worth it.
Getting the picture?
Since I am in the vanguard of quirk acknowledgement and disclosure,  I want to push
the envelope further, aiming to make the subject a must ingredient in the selection
of mates.
As we all know, 50% of marriages, all of which commence in bliss and fairy
tales, end in divorce. I feel sure that open acknowledgement and acceptance
of partner quirks would cause these lamentable numbers to fall, even plummet.
Let me show you how that could be done.
Each partner is required to submit to the marrying authority, justice of the peace or
archbishop, a list of ten of their quirks.
Note: we know that at first go both partners, enraptured by love remember, will not be
as thorough and honest as required. So, regard this first list as practice; the fullest
disclosure yet to come.
You suggest a quirk: “I run my fingers through my hair dozens of times a day and never have
a comb handy”.
Your partner must then rate the quirk: on a scale of 1-10, (1 meaning “no problem”;
10 meaning “absolute deal breaker. Get out”.
Once each of you has run through your first list, it’s time to get serious. Each of
you must list 10 quirks of your beloved… and, the key, rate them on that 1-10 scale.
Geronimo!
GIs jumpiing out of airplanes in WWII used to shout the name of the great Apache
chief as they leapt out. It signified one wild ride was about to begin. Seems appropriate
to say it here, too…
Okay, let’s get started.
Partner 1: “When you eat M&Ms (which is every friggin’ day),you count them to make
sure you only eat an even number. What’s that all about anyway?”
Now tell your partner (scale of 1-10) just how you feel about that quirk? The lower the
score, the less noxious; the higher, the more.
This is a game sure to while away an otherwise unexceptional evening.
Share and share alike.
Remember, good manners and good cheer help this exercise move along.
Take turns identifying and rating quirks.
Remember, honesty is everything.
If the fact that your darlin’ has to count the M&Ms (and line up all the colors, too)
really bugs you, say so. And if your partner says, “so what, that’s just the way I
am”, that’s good, too. ALL perfect relationships are founded on perfect, total
disclosure. What could be better?
Now switch. Identify a particularly aggravating partner quirk?
“You hum ‘Rule Britannia’ in your sleep and have a tendency to kick me when
you reach “Britons never, never will be slaves.”
This being a nocturnal habit, partner may not even know. That’s why it’s so
helpful to talk these matters out and why Full Quirk Disclosure is sure to catch on.
Nothing but benefits.
By now I feel sure the benefits of ‘fessing up on quirks holds nothing but benefits
for all. That’s why this beneficial exercise must be expanded to parents and
children; grandparents and grand children; members of Congress and all presidential
candidates. You get the idea.
Start now. And never stint in your remarks. After all, love means never  having
to say you’re sorry.

About the Author
Harvard-educated Dr. Jeffrey Lant is CEO of Worldprofit, Inc., providing a wide range of online services for small and-home based businesses.  He is also the author of 18 best-selling business books. Republished with author’s permission by Howard Martell MCEC http://HomeProfitCoach.com. Check out Cash Renegade ->  http://www.HomeProfitCoach.com/?rd=to0kJkVU

‘Hi, Mom. Hi, Dad. I’ve just flunked history — again.’ Abraham Lincoln, who dat?

Posted on June 16, 2011 by Howard Martell

?by Dr. Jeffrey Lant
America’s fourth and eighth graders took home their test results… and delivered the unquestionable fact that the history of this great nation is the subject in which they are least proficient.
Just one finding epitomizes the whole: the overwhelming majority of these future citizens does not know who Abraham Lincoln is… and cannot name a single one of his accomplishments.
But this is not an article just about today’s students and their egregious limitations and unfathomed ignorance. It is a story about us, all of us…
parents grandparents neighbors community leaders and politicians generally.
What we have done collectively is to strip history of its profound significance… so that its position at the very bottom of school subjects can hardly be wondered at.
Here are the facts.
The National Assessment of Educational Progress, an arm of the federal Department of Education, released its 2010 “report card” on history June 14, 2011. This report is a stink bomb, a mine field of horror stories, conclusively demonstrating that how we teach history just isn’t working, for all the money we spend.
Item: Almost no high school seniors were able to identify China as the North Korean ally that fought U.S. troops in the Korean War or when and why that war took place.
Item: Only 20 percent of fourth-graders, 17 percent of eighth-graders, and 12 percent of high school seniors demonstrated “proficiency”.
Item: Fewer than one-third of eighth-graders was able to answer a “seemingly easy” question asking them to identify an important advantage that the American forces had over the British during the Revolutionary War.
The bad news, the horrifying news just keeps on coming.
Item: Just 2 percent of twelfth-graders correctly answered a question concerning Brown v. Board of Education, arguably one of the half dozen most important cases determined by the U.S. Supreme Court in the last 70 years.
Students were given an excerpt from the Court’s decision which included this passage:
“We conclude that in the field of public education, separate but equal has no place, separate educational facilities are inherently unequal”. Students were then asked — but were overwhelmingly unable to answer — what social problem the 1954 ruling was supposed to correct. The irony, of course, is that a large number of these students owe their very places in the schools they attend to this nation-changing ruling.
About the tests.
The test were given in the spring of 2010 to a representative sample of 7,000 fourth- graders, 11,800 eighth-graders and 12,400 12th-graders nationwide. History is one of eight subjects — along with math, reading, science, writing, civics, geography, and economics — covered by the assessment which is also called the Nation’s Report Card.
The program defines three achievement levels for each test: “basic” denotes partial mastery of a subject; “proficient” represents solid academic performance and a demonstration of competency over challenging subject matter; and “advanced” means superior performance.
The students did best in economics: 42 percent of high school seniors were deemed “proficient” in the 2006 economics test, a larger proportion than in any other single subject over the past decade. But let’s not kid ourselves before we uncork the champagne; in their very best subject, 58 percent rated below proficient. Sadly, this is the best, the very best these future citizens of the Republic can deliver. Pathetic.
Grab the good news where we can find it.
The nation’s educational experts point out, rightly, that all the news isn’t bad… there are some bright spots, though only a few. Fourth- and eighth-graders know more history than in years past. Proficiency rose among fourth-graders to 20 percent from 18 percent in 2006 and held steady at 17 percent among eighth-graders. No doubt true… but set against the immensity of their ignorance of history by high school seniors, we have absolutely nothing to cheer about. The minimal “goods” are as nothing against the fact that high schools seniors, many of whom are eligible to vote, are just plain incompetent. Such are the “white hope” of the democracy….
Racial differences, some progress here.
Educational experts, taking the good news wherever they can find it, point to improvements by different racial groups:
On average, white eighth-grade students scored 274 on the latest test, 21 points higher than Hispanic students and 23 points above black students. In 2006, white students outperformed Hispanic students by 23 points and black students by 29 points. From such shards we must take what comfort we can.
Clio laments and muses at such terrible results.
The ancient Greeks, smarter than we are, assigned a daughter of Zeus himself to guard the craft of history. Her name was Clio, and such was her importance that all her amours were kings. In short, she was a person of consequence, honored. She is depicted as holding a parchment role or set of tablets, from which she made her important declarations; so came to be known as the Proclaimer, a determined woman who could confer the gift of undying fame, something ardently desired by every true Greek with any claim to the regard of posterity. Such fame is the gift of history… and is the essence of what history is all about; the story of our species and the significant goods and evils we have committed and which we expect our progeny to acknowledge, know and to either laud and extol or condemn and denounce…. but always to mine for its manifold messages and significance.
History demoted.
History-education advocates contend that these poor showings in the tests underline neglect shown the subject by policy makers ,especially after the 2002 No Child Left Behind Act began requiring schools to raise scores in math and reading but in no other subject. This was like the federal government handing local school districts a mallet with which to demolish Clio and all her works. Scores slumped as a result.
But there is more here than just bureaucrats robbing Peter to advance Paul. We have an educational system that too often disdains history as insignificant, even irrelevant. History instruction is denigrated as nothing more than memorizing dates. But this reduces the riveting tale of our species on this planet to an absurdity.
History is a compendium of our stories, great and small. First, what have we done; not just when did we do it.
Teachers cannot teach history properly because their history studies dealt too often with the most insignificant aspects of Clio’s curriculum. They cannot teach history… because they never learned and never understood history. And so one generation bequeaths to the next generation its boredom and disdain for the most important subject of all: the story of mankind here on this third rock from the sun. Our students fail accordingly and we arrive at a place where even the titans of our race, like Abraham Lincoln, are unknown… with all that that means to our collective future.
Until we have root and branch reform about what we want our historical record to keep as significant… and how we want our teachers to know and our beleaguered students to master ,there will be no progress, only trivial advances amidst a backdrop of gloom. And this we will reckon is the best we can do…. which is the most alarming deduction of all and the most pernicious.
About the Author
Harvard-educated Dr. Jeffrey Lant is CEO of Worldprofit, Inc. at www.worldprofit.com, providing a wide range of online services for small and-home based businesses. Dr. Lant is also the author of 18 best-selling business books. Republished with author’s permission by Howard Martell http://HomeProfitCoach.com. Check out Cash Renegade -> http://www.HomeProfitCoach.com/?rd=to0kJkVU

Lizzie and Johnny Edwards were lovers. Swore to be true to each other, true as stars above….

5, 2011 | Author: Jeffrey Lant | Posted in Dr. Jeffrey Lant’s Article Archive

by Dr. Jeffrey Lant
Author’s program note. To get you in the right mood for this honky-tonk tale of adolescent passion and its sordid conclusion, search for Elvis Presley’s version of “Frankie and Johnny, or You’ll Miss Me In the Days to Come.” Written by the Leighton Bros. and Ren Shields (1912); it was the title song in the 1966 film starring Elvis. It exactly conveys the right mood for this article.
Cute, cute, so temptingly, dangerously cute.
This is the story of a cute Southern boy named Johnny Reid Edwards to whom the gods gave everything… except the self-control he needed to keep all his treasures together. You find such boys everywhere south of the Mason-Dixon line. Dressed in polo shirts and shorts, they’re quick with a quip and that dazzling smile, the smile whose power they soon understand and use with devastating effect.That smile is the royal road to everything… including the women who love them, not wisely (as they all come to discover), but too well.
This is the story of one such boy, Johnny Reid Edwards, the boy with enough wattage in that smile to take him to the top. Or so he reckoned. For now he stands indicted. The man who might have had the White House… now faces the possibility of the Big House.
Born June 10, 1953 in Seneca, South Carolina, a good place to get out of.
Johnny Reid Edwards’ parents were Wallace Reid Edwards and Catharine Juanita “Bobbie” Edwards (nee Wade). The family moved frequently during Edwards’ childhood, eventually settling in Robbins, North Carolina. There his father worked as a textile mill floor worker, eventually promoted to supervisor; his mother had a roadside antique finishing business, featuring the kind of dusty bric-a-brac without value where a smart passerby hopes to make a discovery for “Antiques Roadshow”… but never does. She later became a postal letter carrier. It at least paid regular.
Johnny Reid Edwards, a boy who looked up.
Johnny Edwards was a high school football star. That, and always remember that mega- watt smile, gave him what he wanted… what he always wanted… attention. And lots of it, as any American knows who has ever watched (and envied) the staged swagger of these adolescent lords of the gridiron as they enter their kingdoms each day. He learned what he had to do to move out… and move up.
Edwards was the first person in his family to attend college. He attended Clemson University and transferred to North Carolina State University. Edwards graduated with high honors earning a degree in textile technology in 1974 and later earned his Juris Doctor from the University of North Carolina School of Law (UNC) with honors.
The girl of his dreams?
A man has dreams of the person he wants to marry, but only he knows whether the girl he marries is that dream. Did he get what he wanted… or did he just settle for less? His wife assumes she is his beloved… only to discover, sooner or later, she was merely a facsimile, and therein are the seeds of dissension.
While at UNC met Elizabeth Anania. They married in 1977; they were both cute as bugs in a rug… but Edwards was clearly cuter, and of course he was always festooned with the mega-watt Southern boy smile that just wouldn’t quit.
The couple had 4 children (Wade in 1979, Cate in 1982, Emma Claire in 1998,and Jack in 2000.) Elizabeth matured into an ample matron during these years… John Edwards stayed as young and cute as ever, the very picture of Oscar Wilde’s masterpiece “The Picture of Dorian Gray” (1891) where the portrait ages, not the man. When a man comes to learn that he retains the secret of adolescence, of what mayhem and conquests may he not dream, and more than dream? For who would be sensible in the face of such a boon?
Malpractice millions.
After law school, Edwards clerked for a federal judge and in 1978 became an associate of the Nashville law firm of Dearborn & Ewing, doing primarily trial work, defending a Nashville bank and other corporate clients. The Edwards family returned to North Carolina in 1981, settling in the capital of Raleigh where he joined the firm of Tharrington, Smith & Hargrove.
He was about to break through to the big money, the really big money.
In 1984, Edwards was assigned to a medical malpractice lawsuit that had been perceived as unwinnable; the firm had only accepted it as a favor to an attorney and state senator who did not want to keep it. Nevertheless, Edwards, assisted by that all-powerful smile, won a $3.7 million verdict on behalf of his client, who had suffered permanent brain and nerve damage after a doctor prescribed an overdose of the anti- alcoholism drug Antabuse during alcohol aversion therapy. It was his first big victory… but only the first of huge, multi-million dollar victories and the huge sums he made. In due course, Edwards developed a winning formula that established him as the unstoppable rainmaker… the most important lawyer in any law firm, for they were the ones who had mastered the art of getting the serious money.
Edwards soon became a legend for this money. He had an eye for which cases would deliver the big bucks… and of course he knew, a combination of instinct and experience, how turn the woes of the little people into a cascade of cash, how to squeeze the big guys and rise high.
The tragedy of his life.
And so it might have gone, with the silver-tongued orator able to take the jury to just where he wanted them to go, showing them their power… and showing them how to wield it for Truth, Justice, and the American Way. But in 1996 his first-born child Wade was killed in a freak jeep accident. It was perhaps the only true tragedy of his life, for here the gods took what he so loved… and here, for once, words failed Edwards; the reality of too-soon death too real, too distressing.
A few weeks after Wade’s death, the words were his to command again. Edwards in his 90 minute closing to the jury referenced his great personal tragedy. Mark Dayton, editor of “North Carolina Lawyers Weekly,” called it the “most impressive legal performance I have ever seen.” The jury awarded the family $25 million, the largest personal injury award in North Carolina history… And so, with great irony, his son’s death helped Edwards rise high and higher still…. senator from North Carolina (1998); vice presidential nominee (2004) and, until his implosion in 2008, candidate for president.
Through it all, he still had that Southern boy cuteness; looking like the sunny side of 30 that he wasn’t. Acting like it, too. Which is how ex-senator John Edwards,husband, father, respected statesman, found himself, June 3, 2011, in a North Carolina court charged with violating federal campaign finance laws, using contributions from wealthy benefactors to conceal his mistress and their baby while he was running for president in 2008. That boyish demeanor, handsome face, lithe body, and that smile had at last gotten him into deep trouble.
Elizabeth Edwards, the loyal wife who shielded him, divorced him, then died (2011). American voters who had believed in him now reviled. The big money had stopped. Only one thing remained: he looked absolutely terrific when he walked into the courtroom, the result of forgetting something: Lizzie and Johnny Edwards were lovers. Swore to be true to each other, true as stars above…. he was her man, and he did her wrong.
About the Author
Harvard-educated Dr. Jeffrey Lant is CEO of Worldprofit, Inc., providing a wide range of online services for small and-home based businesses.
Republished with author's permission by Howard Martell <a http://HomeProfitCoach.com. Check out Killer Content ->  http://www.HomeProfitCoach.com/?rd=hh3oNjiJ
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‘Don’t break the heart that loves you….’ Lance Armstrong fights doping charges by ’60 Minutes’… but this time they have teeth.

by Dr. Jeffrey Lant
Author’s program note. There was that quavery, achy-breaky tone in her voice? that made you believe Connie Francis’ world was crumbling… that respect, trust, love were gone and her heart was broken, all because one lover was true and the other… wasn’t.
The name of one of these songs was “Don’t Break the Heart that Loves You”. (1962). You’ll find it in any search engine. Listen to it once or twice… before you read here of the real-life tempests and troubles of a man who’s breaking our hearts right now… and it hurts.
Lance Armstrong, the very essence of grit and determination.
Lance Armstrong is as American a story as you’ll ever find.
He was born September 18, 1971 at Methodist Hospital in Oak Cliff, Texas, the southern sector of Dallas. His mother Linda Mooneyham was a secretary; his father Eddie Gunderson worked for “The Dallas Morning News”, as a route manager. He was named after Lance Rentzel, Dallas Cowboys wide receiver. His home life was chaotic; his mother married and divorced three times… and so poisoned are the confused relationships that Armstrong doesn’t speak to his father and has been caustic about Terry Keith Armstrong, the man his mother married and who adopted him.
In short, like millions of his countrymen, there was mayhem at home, not love. And Lance Armstrong wanted love… Sports were the way to get it… escape, recognition, acceptance… and above all love.
Armstrong got active in sports for the first time when, aged 12, he finished fourth in Texas state 1,500-meter freestyle. But when he saw a poster for a junior triathlon he ditched swimming. It was a good move. In 1987-1988, Armstrong was the number one ranked triathlete in the 19-and-under group. It was now that people began, with seriousness, to look at Lance… and the magnificent body God gave him. It was the vehicle to move out… to move on… to move up…
Armstrong’s point total for 1987 as an amateur was better than the five professionals ranked that year. At 16, A:rmstrong became a professional triathlete and became national sprint-course triathlon champion in 1989 and 1990 at 18 and 19, respectively.
A boy and his bike.
Every American boy wants a bike…a bike he can use to get away from mamma… and taste freedom… a bike he can pound, dance wheelies, maneuver with show-off arrogance… and no hands. Yeah, every boy needs a bike. Lance Armstrong did, too. In short order he and his bike had fused; Lance needed his bike… and his bike needed him. They were an unbeatable team, soaring, energized… true grit, the centaur of the course, a phenomenon that made, even in these early days, the crowd scream his name as he whirled by, the ultimate manifestation of what every boy with a bike could feel and imagine…
It became supremely clear that Lance’s greatest talent was for bicycle racing after he won the U.S. amateur championship in 1991. Representing the United States, he finished 14th in the 1992 Summer Olympics. And now the money came; it was the folks at Motorola who got there first. They wanted what the whirligig of Armstrong could deliver… speed, grace, excitement, and the thrill of escape from everyday woes and oppressions.
In 1993, Armstrong won 10 one-day events and races. He stunned the cycling world when at age 21, he became one of the youngest riders to ever win the UCI Road World Championship, held in pouring rain in Norway…. and so it went, dazzling speed, even more dazzling endurance his to command and ours to exult. We loved this boy… and the smile he flashed us as he sped by… he was our Lance.
The big “C”.
And so it might have gone… more prizes, more victories, more fame, and the money that pours in such situations. But fate, wide-grinning fate, was not finished with Lance Armstrong, not by a long shot. On October 2, 1996, aged just 25, Armstrong was diagnosed as having developed stage three testicular cancer. The cancer spread to his lungs, abdomen and brain. On that first visit to a urologist in Austin, Texas for his cancer symptoms, he was coughing up blood and had a large, painful testicular tumor. Immediate surgery and chemotherapy were required to save a life which had now taken a very painful turn.
But here is where the story of Lance Armstrong morphs into something greater, more compelling, and infinitely more important. For now, to the admiration of all, he becomes the very embodiment of American grit and determination, a man of gallantry and fortitude, a hero for our times. And so Lance Armstrong showed the nation and the world what real courage was all about.
He got back on his bike and turned it into a symbol of hope. And we loved him, if possible, even more… for he carried on his handlebars the best of us…
Tour de France
Before his cancer treatment began, Armstrong had already won two Tour de France stages. Now, a cancer survivor, he wanted to show the world not so much what he could to… but what they could do for themselves if they would never quit, never waver, never doubt, never throw in the towel or pity themselves. Lance was never about pity. He was about being the best you could be whatever your affliction. And the grueling stages of the Tours of France,(which he won 18 times) became a manifesto to the world about rising above and winning the great game of life, whatever stood in your way.
Oh, had it all just ended there… on such a note of bliss and transcendence; even his bitterest foe might wish as much.
But it did not, has not ended there… wide-grinning fate has seen to that.
Throughout Armstrong’s career, there have been charges he achieved his great feats solely or in large measure because of performance-enhancing drugs. These are charges he has adamantly, unequivocally denied, pointing to his willingness to take hundreds of drug tests. But the charges have persisted over time, gaining credibility and adherents. Now the most substantial of these charges has been made on CBS’ respected “Sixty Minutes” program (May 20, 2011) by former U.S. cycling professional Tyler Hamilton.
The cornerstone of Armstrong’s defense against previous charges was that he had never tested positive during his career. But this was flatly contradicted by his former U.S. Postal team-mate Hamilton on “Sixty Minutes”. “I know he’s had a positive test before,” Hamilton said. “For EPO (at the) Tour of Switzerland, 2001.” Asked by the CBS reporter Scott Pelley how this alleged positive test had not been made public and no action taken, Hamilton said “People took care of it.”
Armstrong through his attorney instantly answered this and the other charges, and immediately threatened to sue. But CBS is holding its ground, since they have credibility to protect too. Both sides know the seriousness of this matter… a fight perhaps to the death.
As for Lance’s fans; they are fewer now, quieter, reflective.They are hurting bad, afflicted, unhappy. They want their boy back, riding like the wind past them, arrayed with dazzling smile, victory in his pocket. We loved that boy and everything about him… he was ours. Now he’s slipping away…
Connie Francis knew everything about that, about the misery, the longing, the brutal unhappiness and regret when love goes bad. “Don’t break this heart of mine…Don’t break this heart that loves you so…”
About the Author
Harvard-educated Dr. Jeffrey Lant is CEO of Worldprofit, Inc. providing a wide range of online services for small and-home based businesses. Republished with author’s permission by Howard Martell http://HomeProfitCoach.com. Check out Mass Traffic Accelerator -> http://www.HomeProfitCoach.com/?rd=nn2bq5DU

I Am American

By Michael Beirens
To get you in the right mindset google I am American on any search engine.
I am America
As a nation, known as America, I’m not very old really.  I was born July 4, 1776.  I am a nation of great diversity, in people and in landscape.  From the beautiful islands of the Pacific to the majestic majesty of the mountains and lands of Alaska.  From the Pacific coast lands to the Rocky Mountains to the plains of the great Midwest, to the beauty of New England and the Atlantic coast, to the quiet beauty of the South and to the beauty and broad expanse of the great South West.
I am a free America, I am made up of people of all walks of life. They came to me from many countries of the world in search of freedom and equality.  I was founded on an experiment in government.  “Government of the people, by the people and for the people.”  No government body or any law should be able to take from my land and my people this God given right of freedom.
The Constitution states that all men are equal and endowed by God with certain inalienable rights,  “One of which is freedom.”
John Quincy Adams said  “Posterity you may never know how much it cost my Generation to preserve your freedom, I hope you make good use of it.”
The Bill of Rights addresses laws and matters that effect, “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.”  The Right of Free Speech; The Right to Bear Arms; The Freedom of the Press;  Freedom of Conscience and Worship;  The Right of Peaceful Assembly;  The Right to Petition Government; The Right of Due Process of Law; and The Right to Gain and Hold Property.  Further moral laws set the bounds by which all my people may live in my land.  These laws are not there to restrict people, but to guide them, and to help them develop their God given attributes.  I require all that live within my shores to obey the law.
If you the people of my land allow government to be your caretakers, you will move towards government being your master not your servant.  Never in the history of America, have you my people been lulled into such a sense of false security.  The cry from government is, “All is Well.”  This is not so!  At this time in my history, no greater responsibility rests upon each and every citizen of this great republic, regardless of color, race or creed, than to awake from their sleep and if called, fight to protect the freedoms vouchsafed by the Constitution of the United States of America.
We are the only nation under God that organized government on the basis of universal liberty.  When God inspired the Founding Fathers to write the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, freedom meant all.  It means much now and it must continue, to be a beacon of light and guidance, not only for ourselves, but for all nations of the world.  It is the most important element in the conception of what America should be.  The elements of freedom are instilled into the mind’s and heart’s of all humankind.  Freedom is boundless and stretches throughout all human experiences; it courses through your veins.  It cross all human barriers and knows no color, race or creed.
The principles of Liberty, Justice and Equality are what makes this nation great.  If you the people of my nation do not march onward, and awake from your slumber, then the God given gift of freedom will be lost.  Taking this God given gift for granted is the most dangerous moral peril and failing to maintain a sense of vigilance that is yours, is suicide.  You must awake and be counted.
Many of my sons and daughters in the past fought for this freedom that has been passed down to you.  You may have to fight again.  Were the sacrifices of the Founding Fathers  in establishing this great nation for naught?  I hope not.  Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke of this great gift of freedom in his “I have a Dream,” speech:
“When we let freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day, when all God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestant and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, “Free at last! Free at last!  Thank God Almighty, we are free at last.”’
The many battles that have been fought over the years within the bounds of these shores, were fought to give you my people, freedom!  Many have forgotten that this freedom was bought with the blood of past generations of my sons and daughters.  They were not afraid to die for freedom!  Why is it that you, my present generation, seem afraid to live for it.
The great words spoken by such great men as “Adams,  Dr .King; Jefferson, Jackson and Lincoln are for naught, if you do not use the power that has been given to you at such great cost. What is this great power, that you hold within your hands?   It is the greatest gift that freedom can bestow upon any people.  This power, is the greatest of voices, and if used correctly will make politicians tremble.  This power is the people’s voice.  It is the power of the vote!   Remember that only you, the people of my nation have the power to move government onto the correct path.  When you do this through the power of the vote, then, you will remind all, that you the people are the true master of the Government and of this great land.  For you who do not vote,  a word of warning.  “Evil will triumph, when good people do nothing.”
Thomas Jefferson said. “ My God!  How little do my countrymen know what precious blessing they are in possession of, and which no other people on the earth enjoy.”
Patrick Henry said.  “The battle, Sir, is not to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active and the brave.”
Andrew Jackson said.  “No free government can stand without virtue in the people, and a lofty spirit of patriotism.  I thank God that my life has been spent in this land of Liberty.”
Abraham Lincoln said it best:
“We the people are the rightful masters of both the Congress and the courts, not to overthrow the Constitution, but to overthrow the men who pervert this great document.”
“To sin by silence when they should protest, makes cowards of men.”
If we are to survive as a nation, there must be a stirring and an awakening in my Land.  You, the people, cannot and must not relapse into the negative condition of the undisturbed status quo.  Freedom must continue as a beacon of light for the whole world.  It must be a positive invigorating force that spurs humankind onto wider fields of endeavor.
May God grant to you, my people and to my future generations, strength of purpose and the wisdom not only to seek for freedom and justice.  But to hold fast to these inalienable rights granted to every citizen of my great republic by God and the Founding Fathers.
About the Author: Michael Beirens
I am  from England originally but I am very Patriotic and love America and wrote this to wake up  the America’s  and  give the power to the people! They have the power to change there future.
Republished with author’s permission by Howard Martell <a href=”http://HomeProfitCoach.com”>http://HomeProfitCoach.com</a>. Check out Fast Fan Pages ->  http://www.HomeProfitCoach.com/?rd=ij7eb90h

Thoughts about Sunday and our threatened leisure time.

by Dr. Jeffrey Lant
Today is Sunday, May 29, 2011. I shall celebrate it like millions of people worldwide by going to work, leaving me at the end of the day with only a tiny sliver of the leisure time my grandparents had every Sunday for their long lives. This continuing labor is not necessarily entirely beneficial… although many good things do in fact come from the Sunday tasks performed by its workers worldwide.
Today, therefore, I examine Sunday, its uses and, some suggested better uses. The objective, which I set for myself as clearly as for you, is to examine a problem that grows larger for more people every year: cannibalizing Sunday for the time that should be used for your necessary refreshment and revitalization; sadly each year less of it is. In our frenetic times, we no longer, like Ponce de Leon (1474-1521), search for eternal youth. But we, who are prone to think Don Ponce a bit of a fool, are engaged in our version of his odyssey. We know we need more time, and we are engaged in the never-ending pursuit of ways to get it.
We are victims of work creep and leisure drain, two insidious, inter-related conditions that threaten to turn us into drones who use improving their economic condition as their reason for changing Sunday from free time to work time. “We have to,” they insist.
When I hear this, I think of how monkeys are captured, by a very clever and inexpensive method. The hunter uses no guns or bullets; he wants his monkeys in good condition. Instead, he uses a narrow-lipped jar packed with cookies and other primate delights. This jar is placed in an area frequented by the curious creatures; when they see piles of the sweet things they love best they thrust a paw down the jar… and are trapped.
Now here’s the ironic thing: to regain their freedom, all the monkeys must do is open their paw and let the delicious but dangerous goodie fall to the bottom of the jar. Their clenched paw and the goodie inside have made them prisoners; merely opening their paw will free them. But the monkeys will not unclench their paws, for that would cost them the dainties. And so they are well and truly captured by their own avarice and their desire for more.
And so we, too, are well and truly trapped and captured by the work we must do every day, work we call completely urgent and necessary so as to preserve our life style. But at what cost? We are as trapped and baffled as the monkeys, and like them we might have chosen a less perilous way; one above all else preserving our own freedom.
How the concept of Sunday has evolved over the last 200 years.
Since the sweeping success of both the British and American evangelical movements at the end of the 18th century, three distinctly different Sundays have existed.
First was the evangelical Sunday, strictly reserved for God’s Sabbath with absolutely no work of any kind permitted. England’s Lord’s Day Observance Society (founded 1831) epitomized the thinking that lead to strict Sabbatarianism. God had rested on the seventh day; you would therefore rest, and humbly so, whether you wanted to or not.
As the widely believed verities of the evangelicals began to wane at the end of the nineteenth century (later in America) Sunday changed, too. Progressive humanists argued that strict Sabbartarianism discriminated against the poor and laboring classes who had just Sunday and Sunday only to enjoy all the educational and other amenities. Criticism now centered on the people who advocated a strict and unyielding Sabbath, spent extolling God’s virtues, to the neglect of everything else.This new view saw Sunday as desirable and deserved leisure time, not merely the occasion for weary strictness and total biblical focus.
This trend produced what came to be known as the “Continental Sunday”, where leisure, all kinds of leisure, was wanted and indulged, the general sentiment being that the common folks worked hard for this day and deserved its delights and amenities. And delights and amenities they got as the golden days of the Continental Sunday with its laissez fair ways and relaxed conditions freed the nation from stringent rules and restrictions, mostly emanating from churches of an evangelical persuasion.
So matters might have stayed if matters of this kind are ever unchanging. But the leisured, recreational, family-centered delights of Continental Sundays were changed and challenged by such cultural factors as the desire to make more money to acquire the things money can buy. In periods of economic difficulty this factor changed again; in such periods people had to take Sunday and turn it into additional income, never mind the leisure that was thereby sacrificed — and was so desirable and needed.
Now the nibbling process is at work on the grand, happy, burden-lifting Continental Sunday, an institution so needed by the hard-working folk on Planet Earth you might be excused for thinking this new, third phase had to be an improvement on what we already had.
But is it?
It is a sign of the times that otherwise sensible earthlings swap leisure and necessary recreation for money, money, and more money… and mountains of things we (for I include myself) do not need… but must acquire notwithstanding.
This is a deal made with the devil…. and you are one of the prime signatories… as I am.
It is time, here and now, to launch our bid for freedom… our July 4, Cinco de Mayo, Bastille Day… for we are as oppressed, burdened and weary of abuse as they for all that we have done this to ourselves.
We, like our revolutionary brethren of yore, must strike now, not a moment later, whilst we still have the good sense and strong arm to bring back, to all who desire and need it, our beloved Continental Sunday and the necessary leisure and relief we must have to live a life of balance and equilibrium, not killing stress in all its destructiveness.
All this is no small thing, nothing to be considered casually, without your full attention and concern. We humans are so finely crafted that we need leisure to reach our full potential and maintain our health and splendid spirits which are now and will always be the foundation of our success.
So, now, take the pledge.
Pledge! To fight work creep and leisure drain. Pledge!
Pledge! To think whether the work and its emoluments are more important than the revitalizing leisure you give up. Pledge!
Pledge! To resolve to use leisure as a means of strengthening your life, increasing its span and its quality. Pledge!
Pledge! To keep sacrosanct your special time apart from work, your carefree zone. It is essential for life’s highest quality. Pledge!
Now sign and date this manifesto of common sense and resolute purpose. Your life in all its aspects will improve as soon as you do… the very moment you do!
About the Author
Harvard-educated Dr. Jeffrey Lant is CEO of Worldprofit, Inc., providing a wide range of online services for small and-home based businesses. Dr. Lant is also the author  of 18 best-selling business books. Republished with author’s permission by Howard Martell <a href=”http://HomeProfitCoach.com“>http://HomeProfitCoach.com</a>. Check out Fast Fan Pages ->  http://www.HomeProfitCoach.com/?rd=ij7eb90h