Thursday, August 29, 2013

Like the stories? Here's one more!

The "Subtract the Pants" story:

A young man comes home from college and says to his father "  Papa, you've helped me all my life and now I want to help you.  You sent me to Harvard and I just got my MBA, thank you very much just incase I haven't said it before.  I'm studying for my CPA Licence now and I'd like to help you by taking a look at your books if that's okay?"  The father wipes his eyes to hide his tears. " Zuch a good Zon I have!   How many childrenk vould vant to help da family now days?   Of course you can look over Da books Bubala! Dank you!"

So the young man takes his fathers hand and follows him down into the basement. They walk to a big black door and his father opens it and turns on the light.  The son's jaw his the floor. Inside the room are literally hundred of shoe boxes filled with receipts . Some don't even have tops on the boxes.  The son composes himself after a few minutes looks at his father and says" Gott in Hemel Popa! THESE are your books?  How do you even know if you turned a profit?

The father smiles a wise smile and with a twinkle in his eyes says " Zon its very zimple. Ven I got to dis gountry I had nothing but a spare pair of pants with me and nothing I could offer to anyone . I met your ma and we started the business and got married. Now we have twenty stores instead of just one , your sister got a PHD in creative writing und is now a State Poet Laureate and just married a doctor. You just graduated from Harvard and are studying for your CPA Licence. both you and your sister are still driving the 2013 Toyota Lexuses we bought for your birthdays last month, paying in cash for both. Now your job is very easy as I see it Zon. All you have to do is add up the shtuff I just mentioned, SUBTRACT THE PANTS and ANYTHING LEFT OVER IS PROFIT! "

I've BEEN FOLLOWING THIS BUSINESS THEORY IN MY OWN AFFAIRS FOR 40 YEARS  NOW. IT STILL SEEMS TO BE WORKING! WELL, AT LEAST I THINK SO.

See you next time!  And don't forget to check out guest poet Lynelle P's post on my events calendar blog at http://poeticconversations.blogspot.com  and my web site at http://www.skysajeenterprise.com

Friday, August 23, 2013

Here's another littlle tidbit for you!

Hi folks: It's that time again! So here you go:

You'll hear a lot of folks saying " You need to think outside the box!" these days. Okay, quick show of hands here. Does anyone know what the box is?  Or what might be inside it? This gives me a bit of the "Hebe Gebe's" for the following reasons :

1. If you don't know what the box is, how can you possibly be expected to think outside of it?

2. You NEED  air , food , water and shelter. You might CHOSE to think out side the box or not.

3. If you are not fully aware of where it is not a conscious choice.

I have two stories on this that I'd like to share. One I call the " Ham story" the other I call the "River Dance" story.

The "Ham Story"  is first:

A young woman becomes a famous business person and does a talk show interview. One of the questions the interviewer asks her is " Okay,  have you ever cooked a ham? "  She answers "Yes, and I follow tradition and always cut the ends off."  The interviewer says "  Wait a minute , all through this interview you've stated you try to break traditions why do you keep this one?"  The woman says " Well, my mom did it that way all my life so I do it to please her. I'm not sure why she started  doing it."  The interviewer smiles and says " We've got some time left and I know your mom is here in the audience today after the commercials what say we bring her up and ask her?"The  woman says " "sure".   So after the commercial they bring up her mom and find out she was a successful business woman and a leader in the community too. The interviewer asks why she cut the ends off her ham too.  The mother says " Just like my daughter my mom always cut the ends off her ham and it became tradition.  All of a sudden an old woman in the audience starts hyperventilating and looks like she will pass out. The original woman being interviewed yells out " That's my Grandma!" Security comes over and gets her stabilized.  Then they bring her on the stage.  She says " I'm sorry  babies! I thought you knew, I've always cut the ends off the hams I've made because I have only one roasting pan in the house and if I don't cut the ends off the ham it won't fit! " 


Here's the "River Dance" version :

A Great Rabbi is on his last legs and he gathers his students for a final lesson. They are arranged from his top student to one who just barely "gets it".  The Rabbi nods his head and says  " Life is like a river." and falls asleep.  The last student says " I wonder what he meant by that?" The top  student replies " God in Hemel! He meant that life is like a river because it ebbs and flows and is ever changing."  The lowest student replys" I have zero interest in what that  Mamzer at the head of the line THINKS the Rabbi meant! I want to know what THE RABBI MEANT!"  So they gently wake the Great Rabbi. The top students Says " Great Rabbi. I'm sorry to disturb your rest but some of us are confused. What did you mean when you said " Life is like a river? "  The  Rabbi smiles and with a twinkle in his eye says " Okay, so maybe life is NOT like a river." and dies.

Please remember these stories for the next time you're asked to " Think outside the box."

Have a great day!  See you next time!

Thursday, August 15, 2013

As promised, here's more advice.

I'll start with a quote from one of my favorite TV shows when I was growing up:

" You got  big dreams? You want fame? Well fame costs ! And right here is  where you start  paying!  IN SWEAT!"

There is a lot of truth in that, huh?  Remember the saying is " Fame AND Fortune!"  not just Fame or Fortune alone! It takes both to be a success in  life . Here's another expression " Sales AND Marketing"  you'll notice Sales come first and the first one you have to sell is yourself. Lets define the two okay?

1 Sales: The exchange between buyer and seller that occurs when BOTH are satisfied they have  received the full value they asked for and are expecting . Its not always about the money, Particularly with me. Money is just the easiest "yardstick"  you can count with. You can also use the metric system, algebra, or a spread sheet program as long as  you receive the full value you were asking for  Was it "worth it" for both of you? This is the purpose of Sales. This is the Fortune part!

2. Marketing: Getting the world to know you, your products and/ or services exist. Including any and all methods for doing so. This is the Fame part! As you can see from the quote above "fame costs!"

I'm probably going to ticked off a lot of folks with this line  but  even Salvation from JESUS costs.  I've heard many Christians tell me Salvation is a free gift . Don't believe the hype ( I say that a lot in these blog posts, huh?  Should I change the  blog title? Let me know what you think. ) There is a line where Jesus asks his disciples " Why do you call me Lord and yet do not do what I say?" There is a sales contract to becoming a Christian. In exchange for following his concepts and teachings  he will offer you Salivation from your sins and life eternal in the glory of heaven. You "buy"into it, you  become "Saved"  and you are  expected to act accordingly in your daily affairs or the contract is void.

I know a number of Christians who share this belief and they will all tell you that meeting their contractual obligations giving them the right to call themselves Christians is by no means easy
but they do it every day. Or do they?

Think about all this till next time okay?  Lynelle Paulick will be posting her work on the Poetic Conversations blog as my first "Guest Poet" for 2013. She'll be posting for the next 8 weeks too. click here to check out her works




 SEE YOU Next time! 

Thursday, August 8, 2013

Wow!

Hi All:  There was a fantastic response to the first post here! Thank you for the vote of confidence! But so far nobody has left a comment on what advice they might like me to give. Like I said last time " It is extremely difficult for ME to condense 40 plus years of experience down into a few paragraphs with NO CLUE AS TO WHAT YOU WANT TO KNOW FROM ME! So please leave your comments for this blog, okay? Thanks !" That having been said, here's the advice for this time:

 I was at a workshop on success training and somebody mentioned having a goal of being free and I said I hate that word and its true!  I never got the chance to explain why so this will be my subject here this time. Once in a while you get lucky huh?

To being with, the word Free started as  a  shorten form of the word Freedom as in " Home of the Free and Land of the Brave."  I've never liked the concept! To become Free you must first have become imprisoned or enslaved in some way.  To become Free, action must be taken on the part of the individual!  To become free,. they must break their imprisonment in some way. This requires a great deal of effort and very often a high price. Yet in 2013 getting something free means receiving it without any cost involved at all doesn't it?  Don't believe the hype! Anything with having is worth the effort and energy it cost!  To become " The Land of the Free"  the colonist had to fight a revolution against the English Monarchy. People forget it took a LOT of blood shed  and a three year war! Not to mention the help of countries like France and Spain who could help the colonists deal with the ships that brought the huge numbers of  British Soldiers that were coming over from the mother country. People forget that the colonists were British  themselves right up till July 4th 1776   and that the leaders of what had become known as the Continental Congress spent 3 years fighting battles getting the colonies to fight together before the war actually started in 1773 .  And that the revolutionary war was  hard fought for 3 YEARS before the Declaration of Independence was written!   In 2013,  the bill is still being paid by active duty military, veterans and those who have died in all the wars over the last 220+ years since.


 Boy, talk about running up a debt !  I'll stop here for now  but unless you leave comments asking me to go in another Direction, I'll have a Part 2 on this at least next time !  Remember to check out my other blog too. Click here to go right to it. Feel free to check out my web site  as well. Click here for that one.  Last comment from me for this time. Again,   DON'T BELIEVE THE HYPE! FREE DOES NOT MEAN WITHOUT VALUE OR COST AND NEVER HAS!  See you soon!  

Friday, August 2, 2013

Well, I Did Itt! What Do You Think?

Hi: I've mentioned that It was suggested that I start an advice blog. I've asked for feedback and been encouraged to "Go for it!" and a lot of other positive comments so here's the new blog. Feed back is vital to me on this one because I can't advise folks to do things they are incapable of because it might be confusing.  I'll try and follow what most folks call the " KISS method here but unless you leave comments I won't know how good I'm doing at it,OKAY? Let's get started.:

Advice number one: The expression " Those who do not learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them!" is  a warning but not the one you might think!:

The operative point is learn the lessons  !  Schools used to offer simpler lessons for "slow" or "retarded"  kids. Many graduated highschool, started buisness and proved they learned thier leasons by hiring the "smart" kids  to be their lawyers,accountants and such.  Remember. Andrew Carnegie was one of the most successful business men in American history and Funded many universities but never got past 5th grade himself. Tomas Edision failed math 4 times but look what happened to him!  Half the class graduates at the "bottom" but 9 times out of 10 It's those bottom graduates that rule the world ! Just to drop a few more names you might have heard of:  Abraham Lincoln and Sam Walton were both" "self taught", Nelson Mandela and Adolph Hitler got their education IN PRISON YET BOTH BECAME WORLD LEADERS! Mahatma Gandhi never went to "school" a day in his life! and there are hundreds more for another time. 

I'm sorry if I through you there throwing Adolph Hitler and Nelson Mandala together but that just leads me to number two:

Advice number Two: Learn the Lessons but let history make the Judgments!

If you ever see me at a performance you might hear me talk about the" Domino's theory of poetry."  I'll go into it in this blog at some point but for now here's the important part " I never promise "good" poetry! All art is subject to personal tastes and as my chosen form of art my poetry is no different! You will either like it  or you won't it simply is what it is!"   Adolph Hitler took Germany from Banrupcy and Ruin to being the world's first major Europian superpower and was only defeted by two others ( Namely Russia, and The US )  joining forces and ending up dividing the globe between them after he was defeted.  Hitler may have had policies that folks don't like but he was ELECTED BY POPULAR VOTE AND WAS RELEASED FROM PRISION SOLEY BECAUSE OF HIS POLICAL IDEAS AND ABILITIES TO RALY FOLKS TO HIS CAUSE. HE NEARLY RULED THE PLANET JUST 5 YEARS LATER!  So was he "Good" or "Bad"?   History has made its judgmet. Please learn the lessons before you make yours okay?  Don't just "cut him off" because  you don't think his methods were "good" !

I think that enough for now. Like I mentioned in my responce to one of the comments to whether or not I should do this blog, it's hard to condence the lessons learned  during a 30 year sales career, 15 years as a self employed buisnes owner and 40+ years of life experience into a few paragraphs  to do these blog posts! I've hinted at some posible futuer topics but what do YOU  want to know from me?

for a little more on possible topics please visit my other blog at Poetic Conversations, or check out my web site or my Linked in profile.  Let me know where you want to go next. See you soon!