The Profit Profit

The Rush to Bottom

noreply@blogger.com (Profit Prophet) — Wed, 18 Jan 2023 15:09:00 +0000

I cannot take credit for these words of wisdom, and sadly I do not know who wrote it originally. So, I cannot acknowledge them by name but I can acknowledge their exceptional talent to get a message across with clarity and hard-hitting truths. Whomever this author is, I thank and admire you and take pleasure in sharing this with others! I have also included a video if anyone is interested in sharing it.

“When the reward is great, the effort to succeed is great...but when government takes all the reward away, no one will try or want to succeed.”

An economics professor at a local college made a statement that he had never failed a single student before, but had recently failed an entire class. That class had insisted that socialism worked and that no one would be poor and no one would be rich, a great equalizer.

The professor then said, “OK, we will have an experiment in this class on socialism. All grades will be averaged and everyone will receive the same grade so no one will fail and no one will receive an A.” ... (substituting grades for dollars - something closer to home and more readily understood by all).

After the first test, the grades were averaged and everyone received a B. The students who studied hard were upset and the students who studied little were happy. As the second test rolled around, the students who studied little had studied even less and the ones who studied hard decided they wanted a free ride too so they studied little.

The second test average was a D! No one was happy. When the 3rd test rolled around, the average was an F.

As the tests proceeded, the scores never increased as bickering, blame and name-calling all resulted in hard feelings and no one would study for the benefit of anyone else.

To their great surprise, ALL FAILED and the professor told them, “Socialism would also ultimately fail because when the reward is great, the effort to succeed is great, but when government takes all the reward away, no one will try or want to succeed.” It could not be any simpler than that.

These therefore are possibly the 5 best statements ever read and are all applicable to this experiment:

1. You cannot legislate the poor into prosperity by legislating the wealthy out of prosperity.

2. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving.

3. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else.

4. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it!

5. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that is the beginning of the end of any nation.

How Much is Enough?

noreply@blogger.com (Profit Prophet) — Sat, 06 Feb 2021 07:35:00 +0000

I have been thinking about integrity and honesty, and frankly should humanity even continue, but that is another thread. In my thinking, I keep coming back to the same question: How much or little cheating is enough? Or stated another way?

How much of a lie makes you a liar?
How much cheating do you have to do to be a cheater?
How much do you need to steal for you to be considered a thief?
How much infidelity do you need to be considered an adulterer?
How much fraud to you need to commit for it to be criminal?
How much of the truth needs to be changed for it to be untrue?
How much shit exactly, does something need to have to be considered a shit sandwich?
How dead must a person be to be considered murdered?
How pregnant do you have to be to be considered pregnant?

OK, the last two were off topic but the answer is “any”..

Any amount of lying makes you a liar.
Any amount of cheating makes you a cheater.
Any amount of stealing makes you a thief.
Any amount of infidelity makes you an adulterer.
Any amount of fraud makes it a crime.
Any amount of untruth makes it false.

These are step functions: it is either 100% or 0%. There is no scale to truth, honesty, integrity, character, or fidelity. These are virtues and you either possess them or you do not. To paraphrase Yoda, “You are or you are not, there is no middle.” To accept a little fraud, lying, cheating, and stealing is to accept a lot.

So, you see if there were any lies, cheating, stealing, or fraud in the past election, it makes the whole election false, untrue, and bogus. Essentially, any amount of shit makes it a shit sandwich inedible except for the ones who want to force it down our throats. So, those people who keep lying, cheating, stealing, and have no integrity need to have a “come to Jesus” meeting real soon with the consequences of their actions.

Two quotes come to mind, both by Benjamin Franklin, “Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters,” and “We gave you a Republic, if you can keep it.” So, as you can see by letting this situation stand we are no longer a virtuous people and neither deserve freedom nor a Republic. Instead we are now lead by masters intent on keeping us in pens and cages. For me, there is some shit I shall not eat.

We are not a Democracy, and that is a good thing

noreply@blogger.com (Profit Prophet) — Wed, 16 Dec 2020 17:08:00 +0000

We have all heard the common talking point from the left that conservatives, and most specifically Trump, are destroying democracy. The response to this claim is the same time and time again: “We are not a democracy, we are a constitutional republic!” You should have learned that in 8th grade civics class. Still, this begs an important question: Are there any differences between the two, and if so, why do they matter?

The answer is simple: There are profound differences between a democracy and a constitutional republic that are crucial to every aspect of American life. These three quotes from the Founding Fathers remind us to defend our constitutional republic with all our might.

Alexander Hamilton stated, “Real liberty is neither found in despotism or the extremes of democracy, but in moderate governments.” Hamilton recognized the first of three harms of a real democracy. Democracy excludes the minority’s rights. It reminds me of the classic saying, “Democracy is like two wolves and a lamb voting on what to eat for lunch, but a republic is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote.” In recent months, we’ve seen attacks waged on two important aspects of our republic: the Electoral College and the filibuster. Those who argue against these things see both as a threat to democracy. After all, they argue, a candidate should not win the presidency unless he wins the popular vote! The issue with these claims is they exclude the minority. Hamilton rightly saw that in a democracy, the majority have the right to take away the rights of the minority simply by being the majority. Take past issues like slavery or indentured servitude, or present issues like gun rights or religious liberty. In all these areas, the majority has the ability to seize the rights of the minority because democracy does not balance power. The Founders saw the horrific consequences of letting the majority have total power, so they instituted a system that ensured that everyone’s opinion mattered. The Electoral College ensures the interest of every state will be considered in our federal elections. The filibuster guarantees that the party who is not in power still has a say in policy. Every aspect of our republic has been carefully crafted so that the minority and their rights will not be stripped away at the behest of the majority.
Thomas Jefferson is our second Founder to see profound issues with democracy. Jefferson said, “The republican is the only form of government which is not eternally at open or secret war with the rights of mankind.” Jefferson recognized the secret war that occurs under a democracy, a war for power and control. The secret war is fought in many political systems. There is a reason Plato said, “Dictatorship naturally arises out of democracy.”
John Adams saw the harm of democracy when he said, “Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There is never a democracy that did not commit suicide.” Adams knew that democracy is hard and often fraught with human error. Because of this, democracy often leads to a government takeover of the people, organized by a few well connected people.

The Founders were explicit about their views on democracy, and for that reason, they looked hard, and found solutions that led to what we now call a constitutional republic. Our system may not be perfect, but it is one in which every voice can be heard. And being heard is what is always important. To quote one more founding father's warning, Benjamin Franklin, “This Constitution can only end in despotism…when the people shall become so corrupted as to need despotic government, being incapable of any other.” That my friends will be a sad day if and when it happens. Gone will be last great hope for a free and just world vanishes from the face of the Earth. I hope not to be alive when it happens, and pray it never does.

Trump has Already won, the other side just does not see it.

noreply@blogger.com (Profit Prophet) — Tue, 15 Dec 2020 18:39:00 +0000

Remember this date: January 6th, 2021. The real victor will be revealed.

”The victorious make many calculations prior to the fight, for every battle is won before it is ever fought.”
--Sun Tzu

So, why do I have this quote here? Well, believe it or not, the war is already over, it is just the losing side does not know it yet. Just remember this date: December 6^th, 2020. To that end, I have two items to discuss. The first is a more in depth analysis of how the Constitution works. It is not my own work, but it does lay out how Trump has already won. The second outlines some of the Executive Power Trump still has at his disposal.

SCOTUS said no to Texas. They will not hear the case. Cue crazy leftists and their inane celebrations. You are probably pissed off by now because you thought the SCOTUS was going to take this case. Many can vouch for this, but I've stated a few times that the SCOTUS may throw this case out and that, if they did, Trump never needed them to begin with. This is an easy one to explain.

When it comes to elections there is no HIGHER or FINAL authority than the state legislatures. No, not even the Supreme Court has the final say in this, believe it or not. In all of this, where is Trump? He is oddly quiet. Where is Sidney Powell? Lin Wood? Rudy? Jenna? An hour has passed and no one said anything on Twitter about it. What if I told you Trump knew this case would get thrown out? He had to know this and I'll tell you why. One of Trump's lawyers is Mark Levin's wife. The Levin's are leading authorities on constitutional law. Why is this important? Because the Texas filing was weak. Their argument was REALLY weak, so weak that both of the Levin's would have told Trump days before that this case was not going to get heard. In fact...Mark Levin DID say it was not going to get heard on his radio show...all week long and he was right.

Justice Alito was right in his decision. He argued that the state of Texas was not, in so many words, as serious about a resolution as they pretended to be. He said there were not “interested” in a real resolution ...and he was right. He stated that just as in Arizona vs California 589 U.S. where they disputed over the distribution over the water from the Colorado river, the actions of one state cannot disenfranchise the actions of another. In other words, Texas cannot say they were wronged because they voted for Trump and Pennsylvania voted for Biden, even if the laws were illegal. One state cannot dictate the actions of another state otherwise we would have precedence for no individuality of states. They would all dispute over matters big and small until EVERY state had the same laws...therefore simulating a federal regulation where it becomes national. The SCOTUS cannot set that precedence. What would be next? California suing Nevada and Texas for having more favorable tax breaks, drawing California businesses to register there instead of California, disenfranchising the other taxpayers and programs in California that need the tax dollars (for example)?

Do you have any idea how bad it would be to make that precedence? When there is no competition there is tyranny.

The state of Texas produced a weak argument. Trump knew this but he still pushed it. Why? Legal strategy. Here is what I mean... In the legal world, the accuser (Plaintiff) has the greatest amount of pressure in the case. The accused (Defendant) is innocent by default so all of the pressure of proving their side rides on the accuser. At the same time, if the Judge throws the accuser's case out with prejudice, the accuser cannot bring that complaint up again. In a nutshell, the GREATEST risk to a case is to become the prosecutor. As a matter of fact, it is easier to DEFEND yourself than it is to PROSECUTE that the person you accused is guilty. Yes, a good defense is the best offense, but stay with me.

So whoever brings the case first runs the highest risk of losing before they even have a chance to fight. Why is that important? Because Trump stands a better chance of winning this as a defendant than he does as an plaintiff. Trump does not need the courts to win! He only needs for the state legislatures to do their jobs! And...if he gets a SCOTUS hearing that is just icing on the cake. Now let me tell you what is about to happen, and it is going to happen BIGLY.

Many thought that either SCOTUS would hear this first cast, that SCOTUS would NOT hear the first case but they may or may not hear the second case. Neither happened, so what?

Many, many, many state legislatures are pissed. Pissed as big as TEXAS pissed. They will feel as if THEY have been disenfranchised, and either on Monday December 14th or January 6th (when Congress counts the votes), the state legislatures will CHANGE their certifications to Trump, those 4 states (maybe even AZ and NV too). Then the fun starts. This will cause an internal legal battle within the states. By Article 2 Section 2 of the US Constitution, the state legislatures have the final say on whom they want to certify as the winner of their states. Well, this will piss off the Governors whom all have illegally certified the states and illegally passed state laws that strip the state legislatures of their Article 2 Section 2 powers.

The states (Governors, Secretary of States, Election idiots, Supreme Courts) will say “we have the right, we're not backing down” and the Governor's AG will say “see you in court.” Now comes phase 2. The SCOTUS is in a pickle. They do not have the authority to tell the state legislatures to ignore the US Constitution and follow federal law. Federal law is automatically overridden by the constitution. So they (SCOTUS) can do one of two things. Take the case and no matter what they ruled, the state legislatures can ignore it since SCOTUS has NO constitutional rights in dictating State Legislatures. Or the SCOTUS can do what I THINK they are going to do....throw the cases out. SCOTUS has backed themselves into a no win situation. Throwing OUT the cases, they legitimize the State legislature's decisions. Trump wins.

But what on the off chance if they take the case from the States who are screaming foul? Remember when it is harder to win as an plaintiff than it is as a defendant! Well the AG of PA (for example) will have to explain why and how any federal law can override the US Constitution. Point, Set, Match. I am betting that at least 5 of those Justices will disagree with that and they can LITERALLY cite the constitution as precedence and final authority. Trump wins. I believe that the SCOTUS will keep out of this for sake of not showing partiality and hide behind the Constitution, which is what they should do.

But if they DO get involved, it will be after January 6th where a constitutional crisis will exist and then they would need to step in and settle the matter in 3 possible ways:

1) Ignore the complaints, Trump wins...

2) Take the case(s), invalidate the elections, give it to the states to vote...Trump wins as we have a state majority of 27 or...

3) Take the case, order a nationwide audit and re-certification. With all the fraud.....Trump wins.

In the end, Trump will win. You can roll these dice as many times as you want. The Constitution will win this election for Trump.

On to the next topic: the real Executive Powers of the Presidency. Trump declares Marshall Law, declares a state of war against a foreign enemy (China), holds military tribunals, suspends habeas corpus, and starts throwing people in jail and begins ordering audits because he “feels” foreign influence has corrupted the election. Trump has thousands of affidavits, plenty to get the elected officials in those fraud States put behind bars for a long time. Not on trumped up charges, but on eye witness testimony under the penalty of perjury. Again, some states will rush to SCOTUS and remember, it is much harder to win as a plaintiff than as a defendant. Lincoln did it once, whipped out these powers, and Trump also has is 2018 Executive Order to seize all the Dominion Machines and do a full audit. So, when the whining States’ AGs petition the SCOTUS guess what? SCOTUS will tell them, Trump is doing NOTHING unconstitutional, and even if he is, what can we do? He is just demanding that States follow their own laws, and if they do not, well, there is a procedure on January 6^th that decides, not us. SCOTUS will just defer, and then, Trump wins again. The ONLY thing I am wondering, is why he is taking so long to declare as state of war and start the military tribunals. He will probably but AG Barr on trial first. In the end, Trump wins, the Constitution wins, and America wins. In closing, Leo Tolstoy once said, “The strongest of all warriors are these two: time and patience.” Both of which are being tested now. I close with a quote from Grant…. “There are but two parties now: traitors and patriots. And I want hereafter to be ranked with the latter and, I trust, the stronger party.”

Pick one.

The Buffon in the White House?

noreply@blogger.com (Profit Prophet) — Tue, 27 Oct 2020 17:49:00 +0000

Love him or hate him, and a lot of people hate him, Donald J. Trump has done a lot of things while serving as the 45th President of the United States, which is being ignored by most people. As they often say, it is the people who do the most that get ridiculed. Instead of talk, talk, talk, he puts his words into action. This is what we get for electing a no nonsense businessman, who knows how to get things done as President, rather than just a politician whose main job is actually to get reelected. So, what has Trump done in his first term that is noteworthy to be labelled a buffoon?

The buffoon in the White House just brokered three Middle East Peace Accords, something that 71 years of political intervention and endless wars failed to produce.

The buffoon in the White House is the first president that has not engaged us in a foreign war since Eisenhower.

The buffoon in the White House has had the greatest impact on the economy, bringing jobs, and lowering unemployment to the Black and Latino population of ANY other president. Ever!

The buffoon in the White House has exposed the deep, widespread, and long-standing corruption in the FBI, the CIA, the NSA, and the Republican and Democratic parties.

The buffoon in the White House turned NATO around and has them start paying their dues.

The buffoon in the White House neutralized the North Koreans, stopped them from developing a further nuclear capability, sending missiles toward Japan, and threatening the West Coast of the US. Also putting an end to the cease fire that has been going on for over 65 years to broker a peace deal.

The buffoon in the White House turned our relationship to the Chinese around, brought hundreds of business back to the US, and revived the economy. Hello.

The buffoon added over 450,000 manufacturing jobs in 3.5 years. Reversing a 20 year trend of declining manufacturing jobs. I guess he found that magic wand?

The buffoon in the White House has accomplished the appointment of three Supreme Court Justices and close to 300 Federal Judges.

The buffoon in the White House lowered your taxes and caused your stock market to move to record levels over 100 times, positively impacting the retirements of tens of millions of citizens.

The buffoon actually shrunk the wealth gap of the lowest two percentiles for the first time in history.

The buffoon actually reduced the poverty level in the United States. The first time that has happened since 1959.

The buffoon on average put $6,000 in the pockets of every average American.

The buffoon in the White House fast-tracked the development of a COVID Vaccine - it will be available within weeks. We still don't have a vaccine for SARS, Bird Flu, Ebola, or a host of other diseases that arose during previous administrations.

The buffoon in the White House rebuilt our military - which the Obama administration had crippled and who had fired 214 key generals and admirals in his first year of office.

The buffoon in the White House uncovered widespread pedophilia in the government and in Hollywood. The buffoon in the White House is exposing world-wide sex trafficking of minors and bringing children home to their families.

The buffoon in the White House works for free and has lost well over 2 billion dollars of his own money in serving - and done all of this and much more in the face of relentless undermining and opposition from people who are threatened because they know they are going to be exposed as the criminals that they are if he is re-elected. I get it. You do not like him due in a large part to big media's relentless false narratives. How special of you. He is serving you and ALL the American people. What are you doing besides hating him and calling him names? As Kennedy once said, "Ask not what your Country can do for you, but what you can do for your Country."

I hope one day that my resume is as accomplished.

A lawyer with a briefcare can steal more than a thousand armed men

noreply@blogger.com (Profit Prophet) — Sat, 26 Sep 2020 19:43:00 +0000

What makes the United States a great country is the fact that we are a land of laws, and that every lawyer is a defender of our Constitution and laws. Our court system was designed primarily to allow free citizens to argue in a courtroom instead of in the streets with weapons. While lawyers for the most part defend all Americans from ourselves, something very different has happened in the past 50 years that is quite disturbing in our political landscape, and it has to do when lawyers run the country.

In fact, every Democrat presidential nominee since 1984 went to law school (although Gore did not graduate). Every Democrat vice presidential nominee since 1976, except for Lloyd Bentsen, went to law school. Barack Obama is a lawyer. Michelle Obama is a lawyer. Hillary Clinton is a lawyer. Bill Clinton is a lawyer. John Edwards is a lawyer. Elizabeth Edwards is a lawyer. Look at leaders of the Democrat Party in Congress: Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer is a lawyer. Ex-Senator Harry Reid is a lawyer.

The Republican Party is different. President Trump is a businessman. President Bush 1 and 2 were businessmen. Vice President Cheney was a businessman. President Reagan was an actor. President Eisenhower was a 5 star General. The leaders of the Republican Revolution: Newt Gingrich was a history professor. Tom Delay was an exterminator. Dick Armey was an economist. Ex-House Minority Leader John Boehner was a plastics manufacturer. The former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist is a heart surgeon. Who was the last Republican president who was a lawyer? Gerald Ford, who left office 31 years ago and who barely won the Republican nomination as a sitting president, running against actor Ronald Reagan in 1976. The Republican Party is made up of ordinary people doing real work, who are often the targets of lawyers.

This is very interesting. I never thought about it this way.

The Democrat Party is made up of lawyers. Democrats mock and scorn men who create wealth, like Trump, Bush, and Cheney, or who heal the sick like Frist, or who immerse themselves in history like Gingrich. The Lawyers Party sees these sorts of people, who provide goods and services that people want, as the enemies of America. And, so, in the eyes of the Lawyers Party, we have seen the procession of official enemies grow. Against whom do Hillary and Obama rail? Pharmaceutical companies, oil companies, hospitals, manufacturers, fast food restaurant chains, large retail businesses, bankers, and anyone producing anything of value in our nation. This is the natural consequence of viewing everything through the eyes of lawyers. Lawyers solve problems by successfully representing their clients, in this case the American people. Lawyers seek to have new laws passed, they seek to win lawsuits, they press appellate courts to overturn precedent, and lawyers always parse language to favor their side.

Confined to the narrow practice of law, that is fine. But it is an awful way to govern a great nation. When politicians, as lawyers, begin to view some Americans as clients and other Americans as opposing parties, then the role of the legal system in our life becomes all-consuming. Some Americans become adverse parties of our very government. We are not all litigants in some vast social class-action suit. We are citizens of a republic that promises us a great deal of freedom from laws, from courts, and from lawyers.

Today, we are drowning in laws; we are contorted by judicial decisions; we are driven to distraction by omnipresent lawyers in all parts of our once private lives. America has a place for laws and lawyers, but that place is modest and reasonable, not vast and unchecked. When the most important decision for our next president is whom he will appoint to the Supreme Court, the role of lawyers and the law in America is too big. When House Democrats sue America in order to hamstring our efforts to learn what our enemies are planning to do to us, then the role of litigation in America has become crushing.

Perhaps Americans will understand that change cannot be brought to our nation by those lawyers who already largely dictate American society and business. Perhaps Americans will see that hope does not come from the mouths of lawyers but from personal dreams nourished by hard work. Perhaps Americans will embrace the truth that more lawyers with more power will only make our problems worse.

The United States has 5% of the world's population and 66% of the world's lawyers! Tort (Legal) reform legislation has been introduced in congress several times in the last several years to limit punitive damages in ridiculous lawsuits such as spilling hot coffee on yourself and suing the establishment that sold it to you and also to limit punitive damages in huge medical malpractice lawsuits. This legislation has continually been blocked from even being voted on by the Democrat Party. When you see that 97% of the political contributions from the American Trial Lawyers Association go to the Democrat Party, then you realize who is responsible for our medical and product costs being so high.

Quotations By Rumi

noreply@blogger.com (Profit Prophet) — Sat, 10 Feb 2018 11:00:00 +0000

Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Balkhī (Persian: جلال‌الدین محمد بلخى‎), also known as Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī (Persian: جلال‌الدین محمد رومی‎), Mawlānā or Molānā (Persian: مولانا‎, meaning Our Master), Mawlawī or Molavi (Persian: مولوی‎, meaning My Master), and more popularly in the English-speaking world simply as Rumi (30 September 1207 – 17 December 1273), was a 13th-century Persian poet, jurist, theologian, and Sufi mystic. Rumi's importance is considered to transcend national and ethnic borders. His poems have been widely translated into many of the world's languages and transposed into various formats. His best poems are listed below for your convenience.

“It’s your road, and yours alone. Others may walk it with you, but no one can walk it for you.”

“The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you. Don’t go back to sleep.”

“Goodbyes are only for those who love with their eyes. Because for those who love with heart and soul there is no such thing as separation.”

“The beauty you see in me is a reflection of you.”

“What you seek is seeking you.”

“I am yours. Don’t give myself back to me.”

“I closed my mouth and spoke to you in a hundred silent ways.”

“Patience is not sitting and waiting, it is foreseeing. It is looking at the thorn and seeing the rose, looking at the night and seeing the day. Lovers are patient and know that the moon needs time to become full.”

“You have escaped the cage. Your wings are stretched out. Now fly.”

“I belong to no religion. My religion is love. Every heart is my temple.”

“Your body is away from me, but there is a window open from my heart to yours.”

“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.”

“At the end of my life, with just one breath left, if you come, I’ll sit up and sing.”

“The minute I heard my first love story I started looking for you, not knowing how blind that was. Lovers don't finally meet somewhere. They're in each other all along.”

“When I am with you, we stay up all night. When you're not here, I can't go to sleep. Praise God for those two insomnias! And the difference between them.”

“This is love: to fly toward a secret sky, to cause a hundred veils to fall each moment. First to let go of life. Finally, to take a step without feet.”

“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I will meet you there.”

“Oh soul, you worry too much. You have seen your own strength. You have seen your own beauty. You have seen your golden wings. Of anything less, why do you worry? You are in truth the soul, of the soul, of the soul.”

“Only from the heart can you touch the sky.”

“Let the beauty of what you love be what you do.”

“Don't grieve. Anything you lose comes round in another form.”

“You were born with wings. Why prefer to crawl through life?”

“The way you make love is the way God will be with you.”

“Everyone has been made for some particular work, and the desire for that work has been put in every heart.”

“Observe the wonders as they occur around you. Don't claim them. Feel the artistry moving through and be silent.”

“Let the lover be disgraceful, crazy, absent-minded. Someone sober will worry about events going badly. Let the lover be.”

“Every tree and plant in the meadow seemed to be dancing, those which average eyes would see as fixed and still.”

“We come spinning out of nothingness, scattering stars like dust.”

“All day I think about it, then at night I say it. Where did I come from, and what am I supposed to be doing? I have no idea. My soul is from elsewhere, I'm sure of that, and I intend to end up there.”

“He is like a man using a candle to look for the sun.”

“Something opens our wings. Something makes boredom and hurt disappear. Someone fills the cup in front of us: We taste only sacredness.”

“The lion is most handsome when looking for food.”

“Everyone sees the unseen in proportion to the clarity of his heart, and that depends upon how much he has polished it. Whoever has polished it more sees more - more unseen forms become manifest to him.”

“We can’t help being thirsty, moving toward the voice of water.”

“It may be that the satisfaction I need depends on my going away, so that when I've gone and come back, I'll find it at home.”

“I died a mineral, and became a plant. I died a plant and rose an animal. I died an animal and I was man. Why should I fear? When was I less by dying?”

“Sell your cleverness and buy bewilderment.”

“Why do you stay in prison when the door is so wide open? Move outside the tangle of fear-thinking. Live in silence.”

“You are quaffing drink from a hundred fountains: whenever any of these hundred yields less, your pleasure is diminished. But when the sublime fountain gushes from within you, no longer need you steal from the other fountains.”

“To praise the sun is to praise your own eyes.”

“Return from existence to nonexistence. You are seeking the Lord and you belong to him. Nonexistence is a place of income; flee it not. This existence of more and less is a place of expenditure.”

“Reason is like an officer when the king appears. The officer then loses his power and hides himself. Reason is the shadow cast by God; God is the sun.”

“The Eternal looked upon me for a moment with His eye of power, and annihilated me in His being, and become manifest to me in His essence. I saw I existed through Him.”

“Pilgrimage to the place of the wise is to find escape from the flame of separateness.”

“In your light I learn how to love. In your beauty, how to make poems. You dance inside my chest, where no one sees you.”

“Silence is the language of God, all else is poor translation.”

“One day You will take my heart completely and make it more fiery than a dragon. Your eyelashes will write on my heart the poem that could never come from the pen of a poet.”

“Who could be so lucky? Who comes to a lake for water and sees the reflection of moon.”

“Knowest thou not the beauty of thine own face? Quit this temper that leads thee to war with thyself.”

“Now I am sober and there's only the hangover and the memory of love.”

“The ground submits to the sky and suffers whatever comes. Tell me, is the Earth worse for giving in like that?”

“Look at Love... how it tangles with the one fallen in love.”

“A shadow cannot ignore the sun that all day creates and moves it.”

“Fear is the cheapest room in the house.”

“All that you think is rain is not. Behind the veil angels sometimes weep.”

“Liberated from suffering and search I have tied myself to the skirt of God. If I fly, I look at the summits I ascend. If I go around in circle I observe the axis on which I revolve. If I am dragged by a burden, I know where I go. For I am the moon, and the sun is my guide.”

“Oh Sweet Bitterness! I will soothe you and heal you I will bring you roses I too have been covered with thorns.”

“Silence within silence, no words within blank space, nothing on blank page, less within the void.”

“The hurt you embrace becomes joy.”

“You are so weak. Give up to grace. The ocean takes care of each wave till it gets to shore.”

“How will you know the difficulties of being human, if you are always flying off to blue perfection?”

“How do the birds make great sky circles... They fall and falling they are given wings.”

“Try and be a sheet of paper with nothing on it. Be a spot of ground where nothing is growing, where something might be planted, a seed, possibly, from the Absolute.”

“Water in the boat is the ruin of the boat, but water under the boat is its support.”

“Joy lives concealed in grief.”

“Days of wanting. Let them go by without worrying that they do. Stay where you are inside such a pure, hollow note.”

“Look at your heart and tongue, one feels but deaf and dumb, the other speaks in words and signs.”

“The delight a friend feels when he hears a friend's voice bring all that matters. There are those who hear within a voice the essence being said, and there are those who can't.”

“Don't look at your form, however ugly or beautiful. Look at love and at the aim of your quest...O you whose lips are parched, keep looking for water. Those parched lips are proof that eventually you will reach the source.”

“Come out of the circle of time and into the Circle of Love.”

“You are searching the world for treasure, but the real treasure is yourself.”

“Not the ones speaking the same language, but the ones sharing the same feeling understand each other.

“Come into my eyes, and look at me through them, for I have chosen a home far beyond what eyes can see.”

“Raise your words, not your voice. It is rain which grows flowers, not thunder.”

“There is hope after despair and many suns after darkness.”

“The real beloved is that one who is unique, who is your beginning and your end.”

“The very center of your heart is where life begins, the most beautiful place on earth.”

“Light up the fire of love inside and blaze the thoughts away.”

“If you wish to be a mine of jewels, open the deep ocean within your heart.”

“Blessed is the poem that comes through me but not of me because the sound of my own music will drown the song of Love.”

“Love is a mirror..You see nothing but your reflection..You see nothing but your real face.”

“Words are a pretext. It is the inner bond that draws one person to another, not words.”

“I looked in temples, churches and mosques. But I found the Divine in my heart.”

“All doubt, despair, and fear become insignificant once the intention of life becomes love.”

“Everything in the universe is within you. Ask all from yourself.”

“The cure for pain is in the pain.”

“Gratitude is the wine for the soul. Go on. Get drunk.”

“If you wish for light, be ready to receive light.”

"Love is not written on paper, for paper can be erased. Nor it is etched on stone, for stone can be broken. But it is inscribed on a heart and there it shall remain forever."

“We rarely hear the inward music, but we’re all dancing to it nevertheless.”

“Live life as if everything is rigged in your favor.”

“When I run after what I think I want, my days are a furnace of distress and anxiety. If I sit in my own place of patience, what I need flows to me, and without any pain.”

“Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.”

“Go find yourself first so you can find me.”

--Jalal ad-Din Rumi

The 20 Best Quotes on Experience

noreply@blogger.com (Profit Prophet) — Sat, 16 Dec 2017 15:45:00 +0000

We all talk about the value of having experience in our lives to be either more successful or happy. Throughout the ages, smart people have stated this fact in pithy quotes, and I have listed the top twenty here.

“When a man with money meets a man with experience, the man with the experience gets the money, and the man with the money gets the experience.”
--William S. Knudsen

“In the business world, everyone is paid in two coins: cash and experience. Take the experience first; the cash will come later.”
--Harold Geneen

“Learning is experience. Everything else is just information.”
--Albert Einstein

“Experience is one thing you can't get for nothing.”
--Oscar Wilde

“Good judgment comes from experience, and often experience comes from bad judgment.”
--Rita Mae Brown

“You cannot create experience. You must undergo it.”
--Albert Camus

“Everyone in your life gives you something. The bad ones give you experience, the worst ones a lesson; the good ones give you memories, the best ones, joy.”
--Jeffrey Fry

“Experience is not what happens to a man. It is what a man does with what happens to him.”
--Aldous Huxley

“Experience is the comb that nature gives us when we are bald.”
--Belgian Proverb

“Experience is what you get when you do not get what you want.”
--Dan Stanford

“A failure is a man who has blundered but is not able to cash in on the experience.”
--Elbert Hubbard

“Experience is the name everyone gives to their mistakes.”
--Oscar Wilde

“Most people do not consider dawn to be an attractive experience; unless they are still up.”
--Ellen Goodman

“The great geniuses are those who have kept their childlike spirit and have added to it breadth of vision and experience.”
--Alfred Stieglitz

“It is not age but experience that brings wisdom.”
--Jeffrey Fry

“We choose our joys and sorrows long before we experience them.”
--Khalil Gibran

“The soul should always stand ajar, ready to welcome the ecstatic experience.”
--Emily Dickinson

“Experience is something you don't get until just after you need it.”
--Steven Wright

“Never argue with stupid people, they will drag you down to their level and beat you with experience.”
--Mark Twain

“Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired and success achieved.”
--Helen Keller

7 Laws of Leadership

noreply@blogger.com (Profit Prophet) — Fri, 02 Jun 2017 03:50:00 +0000

I have read and written a great deal about leadership and being a boss in a corporate setting, and am a big fan of the development of leadership skills in a person’s life. No, not everyone will be a leader all the time, but when you do lead, great leadership makes ordinary people into extraordinary people. So, what is it about leadership that is so important and what are the characteristics that make a great leader? As Orrin Woodward once said, “The only thing tougher than developing leadership skills is attempting to be successful without them.”

In that vein, there are seven critical characteristics that make great leaders stand out from other people. What is amazing is that there is nothing super human about them, and any one of us can hone these skills if we do a little practicing every day. Yes, leadership is in all of us if we just put a little effort into it.

Optimistically Realistic

Napoleon Bonaparte once stated that a leader is a dealer in hope. To take it a bit further, “There is nothing more inspiring and stimulating than being in the company of optimists. It is the core of true leadership,” as James Joyce says. Still, a major challenge with being a leader is the ability to balance being a “cheerleader” with being a pragmatist. So, if you are too much of a optimist and something bad happens, you might have to tendency to sit back and say, “do not worry, everything will work out.” Of course, a pessimist will throw up their hands and complain about the situation or blame other people or external forces at work. But a optimistically realist will get others to believe that whatever action they do, it will move them closer to their goals. Essentially, they put things in motion and are people of action. To sum it up, “Leadership conceives and articulates goals that lift people out of their petty preoccupations and unite them in pursuit of objectives worthy of their best efforts,” as quoted by John Gardner.

Walk the Talk

“Anything that costs you your integrity is too expensive,” and this goes especially true for great leaders. People might listen to what you say, but the always are looking a what you do as a leader. It is through actions that great leaders develop trust and inspire admiration. You see many leaders say that integrity is important to them, but great leaders walk their talk by demonstrating integrity every day. Extolling the virtue of something does not mean you possess it; just as harping about the behavior you want to see in people has little impact. What does have an impact is you, as a leader, acting in a way that others will mimic. As Max DePree says, “Leadership is much more an art, a belief, a condition of the heart, than a set of things to do. The visible signs of artful leadership are expressed, ultimately, in its practice.”

Confidently Defiant

As I like to say, “Confidence is armor you cannot buy.” We naturally gravitate to people who are confident because confidence is contagious, and it helps us to believe that there are great things are in store in the future. The trick, as a leader, is to make certain your confidence does not denigrate into arrogance and cockiness. Confidence is about passion and belief in your ability to make things happen. It is not about idly boasting about your skills or abilities. When your confidence loses touch with reality, you begin to think you can do things you cannot and start to believe that you have done things that you have not. Suddenly it becomes all about you. This arrogance makes you lose credibility, integrity, and most importantly, loyalty.

The secret sauce is that confident leaders are still humble. They do not allow their accomplishments and position of authority to make them feel that they are superior or better than anyone else. As such, they do not hesitate to jump in and do the dirty work that is needed to be done, and they do not ask their followers to do anything they are not willing to do themselves.

Kind Hearted

One of the toughest things for leaders to master is the soft touch of being kind hearted. Great leaders understand that kindness is about sharing credit and offering enthusiastic praise for people’s work, effort and success. It’s a balancing act, between being genuinely kind and not looking weak. The real hard part is finding that balance between recognizing that being kind is really about trusting yourself and actually being strong. It is about keeping your integrity and always being direct and straightforward with everyone you interact with. Telling people the difficult truth they need to hear is much kinder than protecting them (or yourself) from a difficult conversation. It is about facing reality head on, not dodging it to do the easy stuff.

True kindness also does not come with expectations of reciprocation. Being kind is a weakness when you use it in a self-serving manner. Self-serving kindness is thin and week, and people will be able to see right through it when a kind leader has an agenda. Think of those leaders who gave without any benefits to themselves, but only thinking of other people. Now, that is true kindness and leadership.

Fluidly Strong

While strength is important in a leader, how great leaders use strength is what sets them apart. “As a rule, whatever is fluid, soft, and yielding will overcome whatever is rigid and hard. This is another paradox: what is soft is strong,” as so well observed by Lao Tzu. Loyalty is derived directly from whether a leader demonstrates the ability to be strong, to make the difficult decision and can care for those in his or her charge. People want a leader who will stay the course, but make a change when it is called for.

Emerson once stated, “Shallow men believe in luck. Strong men believe in cause and effect.” A great leader will not make the mistake of domineering, controlling, and doing otherwise harsh behavior for strength. People do not want to ruled by force, but coerced by strength. They will follow and trust a leader that demonstrates strength time and time again in the face of adversity.

Self Sacrificing

Lao Tzu once said, “In wishing to be above men, put yourself by words below them, and, wishing to be before them, place yourself behind them.” What this means is that to be a great leader, you must first be a servant. The best leaders will do anything for their teams, and in doing so, they will have their teams support no matter what. Great leaders know that They take a little more than his share of the blame, a little less than his share of the credit.” They do not shift blame, and they own up when they fail. They know where the buck stops, and keep that target on themselves no matter what. Great leaders also make it clear that they welcome challenges, criticism, and viewpoints other than their own. They know that the best teams work in an environment where people are not afraid to speak up, offer insights, and ask good questions.

Love, Actually

Great leaders know it is about giving, not taking, and that includes love. Love is about giving freedom and power, not about gaining possession and control. Great leaders really love people, not just the work those people are doing for them. And by people, not just the people close to them or who work for them, but anyone they meet. They understand that love is about giving others respect and authority, and not about hording power and information.

And in order to love others, great leaders understand that you cannot give what you do not possess. They take time to develop the self-love that is necessary to be a giving person. In addition, they have also mastered the art of life and living as stated by James Michener in his quote, “The master in the art of living makes little distinction between his work and his play, his labor and his leisure, his mind and his body, his information and his recreation, his love and his religion. He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence at whatever he does, leaving others to decide whether he is working or playing. To him he's always doing both.” A great leader makes other leaders, and shows them that in the end, it really is all about love.

Men v. Boys

noreply@blogger.com (Profit Prophet) — Sat, 18 Feb 2017 17:38:00 +0000

I have been reading a lot of articles of late about relationships and seeing some that put men into groups without understanding that men are NOT all alike. By lumping all men together, the concept of being a gentleman does not come into play. Women, and people in general, have to realize that there are men of character, culture and grace, and then there are boys. Boys are men who have chosen not to grow up and become wise in the ways of civility, charm, and substance. This post highlights the differences between men and boys. Ladies, which are you dating? Men, whom are you?

Men: See women as the fairer, not weaker, sex

Boys: See women as weak and just for sex

Men: Realize that to be a leader, you need to be a servant

Boys: Only want to be seen as a leader to get the recognition

Men: Hold doors, and rise when a woman enters a room or comes to the table, knows how to be a gentleman

Boys: Have no idea what those concepts are nor why you should do it for women

Men: Honor women

Boys: Desire women

Men: Make Love

Boys: Have Sex

Men: Give freedom and power to their significant other

Boys: Want to control and possess his girlfriend

Men: Appreciate a woman’s character, heart, and mind more than the beauty she possesses

Boys: Look for beauty first, and does not care of what she thinks, feels, or acts

Men: See women as equal partners

Boys: See women as something to “own”

Men: Take women out on dates

Boys: Do Booty calls

Men: Understand and practice the concepts of truth, integrity and fidelity with themselves and others

Boys: Are not faithful or honest with themselves so could not be with a woman or others

The Tough Get Going

noreply@blogger.com (Profit Prophet) — Sat, 04 Feb 2017 14:00:00 +0000

During my years of working at startups and trying to get funding, I have developed a pretty accurate guide on what it takes to raise money. The main reason why some startups are not successful with certain funding entities or organizations is because there is not a "rightness of fit." What that means is unless you have some incredibly compelling reason for someone to invest with you, that they will look for an excuse not to. I can appreciate that one of your founders may be a friend of one of the potential funding organization’s partners, but unless you are talking directly to the guy or gal who makes the decision to fund or not, you are just wasting time with a gatekeeper, and gatekeepers do not go outside their comfort zone.

In addition, too many companies shop their business plans around too much. Yes, maybe you will get lucky, but in between, you are going to get rejected by lots of VCs. The one major potential downside is that the word gets out that your company is desperate for money (and desperate people do not inspire confidence in others). If at all possible, try to get an introduction to the decision makers through a trusted source (attorney, accountant, venture partner, etc.), instead of cold calling. It never hurts to walk up to a potential investor you do not know, but plans that get "thrown over the transom" rarely get reviewed not matter what they say.

My suggestion to any company struggling to raise money is to first calm down, and secondly look at what you are doing right by answering yes to the following questions:

1) Are you in the right market space at the right time?
2) Is your company message resonating with potential customers?
3) Do you have a good business model (pathway to profits)?
4) Do you have a compelling fire in your belly that what you are doing is right?
5) Do you have an exceptional leader and good executive team?
6) Do you have enough money to maintain your team for another 12 months?
7) Is new market data bearing out your original business assumptions?
8) Do you think you will get an intro to well-connected investor, and soon?

If you can answer yes to 6 out of 8 of these questions, where does it leave you? First, make sure you are preserving capital as best as possible, and just keep the goal in mind that you are potentially creating a company that may one day change the world and perhaps make you very rich. Next, you may have to get creative in raising funds by going to potential customers or vendors who can benefit in your company’s product or services and perhaps ask for a pre-payment or an NRE to get a little cash in the door without having to give up equity. Or as an alternative perhaps share some of your future revenues with an investor to take the "risk" out of the investment. Times are tough, and the tough get creative in order to survive.

If you cannot answer the affirmative to at least 5 of the questions above, you either need to take steps to do so, or consider putting your endeavor on the shelf until the storm clouds pass.

Remember, no matter what you do you need to just chill.

44 Truisms and Quips

noreply@blogger.com (Profit Prophet) — Mon, 30 Jan 2017 02:03:00 +0000

I am a big believer in humor and love intelligent word play. Over the course if my, many, many years, I have run across quite a few truisms and now have listed them here for you to enjoy. It is not all inclusive, but they are funny, and right now, we all can use a bit of humor. Enjoy, and I hope you get a chuckle out of them.

1. If I had a dollar for every girl that found me unattractive, they'd eventually find me attractive.

2. I find it ironic that the colors red, white, and blue stand for freedom, until they're flashing behind you.

3. Today a man knocked on my door and asked for a small donation towards the local swimming pool, so I gave him a glass of water.

4. I changed my password to "incorrect" so whenever I forget it the computer will say, "Your password is incorrect."

5. Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity.

6. I'm great at multi-tasking--I can waste time, be unproductive, and procrastinate all at once.

7. If you can smile when things go wrong, you have someone in mind to blame.

8. Never tell your problems to anyone, because 20 percent don't care and the other 80 percent are glad you have them.

9. Doesn't expecting the unexpected mean that the unexpected is actually expected?

10. Take my advice — I'm not using it.

11. I hate it when people use big words just to make themselves sound perspicacious.

12. Hospitality is the art of making guests feel like they're at home when you wish they were.

13. Television may insult your intelligence, but nothing rubs it in like a computer.

14. I bought a vacuum cleaner six months ago and so far all it's been doing is gathering dust.

15. Every time someone comes up with a foolproof solution, along comes a more talented fool.

16. I'll bet you $4,567 you can't guess how much I owe my bookie.

17. Behind every great man is a woman rolling her eyes.

18. If you keep your feet firmly on the ground, you'll have trouble putting on your pants.

19. A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing.

20. Ever stop to think and forget to start again?

21. When I married Ms. Right, I had no idea her first name was Always.

22. My wife got 8 out 10 on her driver's test--the other two guys managed to jump out of her way.

23. There may be no excuse for laziness, but I'm still looking.

24. Women spend more time wondering what men are thinking than men spend thinking.

25. Give me ambiguity or give me something else.

26. He who laughs last thinks slowest.

27. Is it wrong that only one company makes the game Monopoly?

28. Women sometimes make fools of men, but most guys are the do-it-yourself type.

29. I was going to give him a nasty look, but he already had one.

30. Change is inevitable, except from a vending machine.

31. The grass may be greener on the other side but at least you don't have to mow it.

32. I like long walks, especially when they're taken by people who annoy me.

33. I was going to wear my camouflage shirt today, but I couldn't find it.

34. If at first you don't succeed, skydiving is not for you.

35. Sometimes I wake up grumpy; other times I let her sleep.

36. If tomatoes are technically a fruit, is ketchup a smoothie?

37. Money is the root of all wealth.

38. No matter how much you push the envelope, it'll still be stationery.

39. Stealing someone’s coffee is called a mugging.

40. The other day, I held the door open for a clown. It was a nice jester.

41. Pasteurize: Too far to see. (sound it out)

42 Whomever invented knock-knock jokes should get the “no-bell’ prize.

43. The Energized bunny got arrested: It was charged with battery.

44. I put my grandma on speed dial. I call it Instagram.

Mentally Strong Characteristics

noreply@blogger.com (Profit Prophet) — Tue, 15 Nov 2016 16:08:00 +0000

Some time ago I came upon a list of 18 Things Mentally Strong People Do with a wonderful graphic. While it was a great list, it did not give any advice on how to achieve these 18 Things. What I would like to do here is expound upon this list with some insight. While having a list is always good, reasons behind the list are usually better in getting a person to act and grow. As Amelia Earhart’s quote goes, “The most difficult thing is the decision to act. The rest is merely tenacity.” So, let’s all decide to act towards being a stronger, better person!

1. They move on
I would put it more like they do not dwell on things that they cannot control. They fully understand their limits and realize when the return on effort nets zero (or something less than zero). As Helen Keller put it, “When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us.” Those people who are mentally tough see those new open doors.

In addition to moving on, they just keep moving. “Sometimes life seems a dark tunnel with no light at the end, but if you just keep moving forward, you will end up in a better place.” They know life is going to give you a lot of setbacks, but to get past them; you have to get through them.

2. They keep control
Not so much keeping control of everything around them, but of themselves. “You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them,” as Maya Angelou succinctly puts it. Self-control is the key to mastery of a mentally strong character. As Rumi states, “The intelligent want self-control; children want candy.” This quote is more salient that it appears as children tend to throw temper-tantrums when they do not get what they want. Mentally strong people are able to stay in control and look for other ways around the problem and ultimately come up with a plan get past it.

3. They embrace change
Most people hate change. Why? Because it brings uncertainty and risk. Mentally strong people know that the only way to grow is to change and they understand that, “Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything,” as George Bernard Shaw so eloquently put it. Mentally strong people understand that, as Winston Churchill put it, “To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often.” This desire for self improvement is key to why they embrace change.

4. They stay happy
This is a tough one for most people because they are often mistaken in believing that something will make them happy. Groucho Marx sums it best when he says, “I, not events, have the power to make me happy or unhappy today.” This can also be followed up with Martha Washington’s quote on happiness that is, “The greater part of our happiness or misery depends upon our dispositions, and not upon our circumstances.” So you kind of make yourself as happy as you want to be.

So why is being or staying happy so important to mentally strong people? Mostly, because they have a belief that attitude is everything and when you are happy things tend to work themselves out, as Gordon B. Hinckley claims, “Those who move forward with a happy spirit will find that things always work out.” As I like to say, “A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but its effect will make it worth the effort.”

5. They are kind
And by kind, just not generous with their time and money, but genuinely thoughtful of other people, about how they feel, and always willing to lend a helping hand. Intelligently strong people seem to understand that life is much, much more than just being wrapped up in themselves and as Emerson said, “You cannot do a kindness too soon, for you never know how soon it will be too late.” Adding to the sentiment, Theodor Isaac Rubin says, “Kindness is more important than wisdom, and the recognition of this is the beginning of wisdom.” So, to be kind at a minimum is also to be wise.

But mentally strong people know it is not just about being kind to other, but being kind to themselves as well. They not only forgive others for their transgressions against them, but also forgive themselves in forgiving others because as Jonathan Huie says, “Forgive others, not because they deserve forgiveness, but because you deserve peace.”

6. They are willing to take calculated risks
Oh what is life and living without some risk? Still, what separates mentally strong people from everyone else is the number and frequency of the risks they take. Leo Buscaglia says, “Risks must be taken, because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing.” Yes, this is true, but being reckless or foolish in risk taking is not the answer. As old blood and guts himself, George S. Patton, once mentioned, “Take calculated risks. That is quite different from being rash.” It is in calculated risks that mentally strong people excel.

7. They invest their energy in the present
We all want to be happy, but most of us do not invest the time, today, in achieving that goal.. ever. “Happiness is not something you postpone for the future; it is something you design for the present,” as Jim Rohn declares. That means, you need to invest your energy in the present. Seneca says, “True happiness is to enjoy the present, without anxious dependence upon the future,” and for almost 2,000 years he has been correct.

Nobel laureate and philosopher, Albert Camus understood the value of putting your energy in the present when he said, “Real generosity toward the future consists in giving all to what is present.” The future will come what may, and mentally strong people understand it will never come unless it finds you working today.

8. They accept full responsibility for their past behavior
The absolute worst thing you can do is to live the past. As Robin Sharma says, “Stop being a prisoner of your past. Become the architect of your future.” Why is this so important for mentally strong people? Because they know you can never change the past. You can only learn from it, or drag it around with you like a anchor. It is acceptable to have made mistakes, but it is not ok to keep reliving them

As I like to say, “Do not let your past insecurities ruin your future victories.” I have met people who are so obsessed with past mistakes or hurts that they are literally frozen in their thinking and actions. If you want victory, accept what you did, take responsibility, learn from it and jettison that anchor around your neck.

9. They celebrate other people’s success
This is one of those things that you would not think mentally strong people would do, but as Helen Keller quoted, “The unselfish effort to bring cheer to others will be the beginning of a happier life for ourselves.” When you are envious of others’ success, it only makes you small and miserable.

“Those who are not looking for happiness are the most likely to find it, because those who are searching forget that the surest way to be happy is to seek happiness for others,” as Martin Luther King, Jr. so aptly put it. The author of How to Win Friends and Influence People states “You can make more friends in two months by becoming really interested in other people, than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you.” This is one of the keys to being mentally strong. Another is as Tony Curtis says, “Service to others is the rent we pay for time on this earth.”

10. They are willing to fail
Together with accepting failure in the past, truly mentally strong people are willing to take calculated risks and fail, and as RFK adds “Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly.” They understand that failure in itself is not something to avoid, but a learning experience as James Cameron states in, “If you set your goals ridiculously high and it's a failure, you will fail above everyone else's success.”

Adding to this is that mentally strong people not only are willing to fail, but see it as a conduit to their happiness for as Robert Louis Stevenson says, “Our business in life is not to succeed, but to continue to fail in good spirits.” While for most people failure is equated with defeat, Robert Kiyosaki believes that “Failure defeats losers, failure inspires winners.” Essentially, for mentally strong people, having a setback energies them to double down and get on with getting on.

11. They enjoy their time alone
We all need alone time, and for many, being alone is not a pleasant experience. Many have the outward need to always be with someone or doing something. Essentially, they do not like having self reflection during “me-time.” As I say, “You will never be alone if you like the person you are with when you are by yourself.” Mentally strong people know that alone time is growth time; that you can recharge and reflect on strategies, successes, and living with less stress.

In addition, mentally strong people know that sometimes doing it alone is the best way. As Diane Grant wrote, “It's better to walk alone, than with a crowd going in the wrong direction.” They do not waste mental cycles trying to convince a crowd that they are wrong, they just do what they know to be right and are willing to let the chips fall where they may.

12. They are prepared to work and succeed on their own merits
“Plant your own garden and decorate your own soul, instead of waiting for someone to bring you flowers,” would be the quote mentally strong people would adhere to. Veronica Shoffstall is right. You have to grow your own garden because nobody promised you a bed of roses.

Mentally strong people understand that you have to, “Build your own dreams, or someone else will hire you to build theirs,” as Farrah Gray advises. For, “There is only one success - to be able to spend your life in your own way, and not to give others absurd maddening claims upon it.” Mentally strong people understand the wisdom of Christopher Morley and seize on the fact that their success is dependent on themselves, not someone else.

13. They have staying power
Ben Franklin once said, “Energy and persistence conquer all things.” Mentally strong people understand that this staying power allows us as individuals to pursue and conquer our goals. Oprah Winfrey adds to this by saying, “Sometimes faith is knowing that you will make it through. It's believing in abundance and your own worthiness.” That staying power will in the end gives you that abundance you desire.

There is a quote I use often when talking to fellow entrepreneurs, “Nothing in the world can take the place of Persistence. The desire and ability to press on has and always will solve the problems of the human race and divide those who achieve from those who might have been.” Mentally strong people want to solve those problems.

14. They evaluate their core beliefs
“If you have integrity, nothing else matters. If you don't have integrity, nothing else matters.” Alan K. Simpson’s quote goes right to the heart of what mentally strong people believe and adhere to. Without integrity, we are nothing.

While integrity is the linchpin of mentally strong people’s belief system, they also realize a strength in Cecil Beaton’s quote, “Be daring, be different, be impractical, be anything that will assert integrity of purpose and imaginative vision against the play-it-safers, the creatures of the commonplace, the slaves of the ordinary.” This quote goes with mentally strong people ability to take and accept risk.

15. They expend their energy wisely
We have all been exposed to emotional vampires. Those people who just suck the life out of you with their drama and neediness. Mentally strong people understand that time and how they spend it is as Denis Waitley puts it, “How you spend your time is far more important than all the material possessions you may own or positions you may attain.”

Mentally strong individuals expend their time and energies in improving and refining the one thing they have any control over, themselves. “Let the refining and improving of your own life keep you so busy that you have little time to criticize others,” saliently states H. Jackson Brown in this quote. Mentally strong people are always too busy with self improvement to really care about trying to change things they have no power to change.

16. They think productively
Johann von Goethe once said, “To think is easy. To act is hard. But the hardest thing in the world is to act in accordance with your thinking.” Mentally strong people are able to do this and realize as the proverb states, “Every man is the architect of his own fortune.” Thinking productively is not done in a vacuum, but in the furnace of life's experiences.

“Discovery consists of seeing what everybody else has seen and thinking what nobody has thought.” Albert Szent Gyorgyi is actually calling out a mentally strong person’s ability to use productive thinking to see those things that are invisible to others.

17. They tolerate discomfort
No one likes criticism, hardship, or adversity. Then again, no one said life was easy. Mentally strong individuals realize what Ben Jonson states in, “He knows not his own strength that has not met adversity.” It is through hardship, that the mettle of a person is forged.

And, “Hardship often prepares an ordinary person for an extraordinary destiny,” as C.S. Lewis states. This is a core tenet of being mentally strong. These types also understand as Franklin wrote, “Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain, and most fools do.” They avoid the downside of blaming others and get through the discomfort.

18. They reflect on their progress
There is an old saying of what gets measured, gets done. Mentally strong people understand that every day is a chance to get a little bit better. As Denis Waitley says, “The most splendid achievement of all is the constant striving to surpass yourself and to be worthy of your own approval.”

In addition, being mentally strong also involves a bit of humility and the ability to remember where you came from. Bill Gates states, “It's fine to celebrate success, but it is more important to heed the lessons of failure.” Being mentally strong means realizing that success is a process, and with time and effort, all things are possible.

Post Turtles

noreply@blogger.com (Profit Prophet) — Sun, 06 Nov 2016 21:55:00 +0000

Yes my friends, as we get to the final end of the 2016 Presidential Election, I am reminded of an old story dealing with politicians call "Post Turtles." It pretty much describes perfectly what is a politician, no matter how good or bad. Enjoy...

An old farmer was getting his hand stitched up after an accident at his cattle farm.

He and the doctor start into conversation, which leads into politics.

The old farmer explained, "Well, as I see it, most politicians are 'Post Turtles'."

Not being familiar with the term, the doctor asked what a 'post turtle' was. The old farmer explained as best he could, "When you're driving down a country road and you come across a fence post with a turtle on top, that's a 'post turtle.'

The doctor remained puzzled. The farmer continued further.

"You know he didn't get up there by himself, he doesn't belong up there, he doesn't know what to do while up there, he's elevated beyond his ability to function, and you just wonder what kind of dumb arse put him there to begin with."

Same Bird

noreply@blogger.com (Profit Prophet) — Tue, 01 Nov 2016 04:10:00 +0000

What if I told you the left wing and the right wing are of the same bird?

The Shared Economy

noreply@blogger.com (Profit Prophet) — Fri, 28 Oct 2016 00:56:00 +0000

In collaboration with Barry Thornton.

In the Shared Economy two or more parties (or companies), each of which has a significant part of what is needed to cause a transaction to occur, come together and pool their resources and in the processes also take part in the sharing the revenues of the transaction. In the “old sense” it is almost like a barter situation, but in the new sense it is more complicated. It is actually the thought of sharing the risk and sharing the rewards. A good example today would be something like a UBER, AirBnB, and Zipcar.

UBER has become successful not by buying fleets of cars and hiring thousands of drivers, but instead sharing a know resource (car owners with free time), to solve an existing problem (getting someone without a car from point A to point B). UBER makes its money by offering a software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform that allows car owners to charge clients a fare for their rides, much the same as a taxi does. Unlike a taxi service, the deployment of the driver/vehicle and the payment for the reserved ride is handled entirely through UBER rather than with the driver.

In this way, a company I am involved with a startup called ManeGain (which regrows hair naturally) used the same model to propagate its service. The company takes a very expensive device (called a HairGrower^TM), that not only regrows hair in men and women but also strengthens, thickens and volumizes it too. The right customer base for this therapy (service) is found in high-end hair salons. The problem is that the salon cannot afford the machine and the customers want this services. In addition, the hardest place to place anything new is in a high end hair salon.

So the Company had to come up with a better approach that “shared” the risks and rewards of our service equitably. The solution was to do a revenue sharing approach. What that meant is that the Company would place the HairGrower machine in the salon for free, train everyone in the right way to use it, allow in-salon personnel to sell the therapy, control the actual sales transaction with the customer, and ultimately share the revenues with the salon owner and stylists.

Of course the internet makes this “sharing economy” possible. Through the web, we can manage the customer relations, billing, appointments, the HairGrower^TM machine, and the experience. We give the stylists a better ‘canvas’ to conduct their art with, we compliment the salon’s goals, take a load off of the salon staff, and make sure everyone shares the wealth. Essentially, it is a win-win-win-win.

The Company has tested this business model for over a year and it works fabulously. It is a new revenue paradigm for an old brick and mortar industry, and in the course of a year makes much more profit than using the traditional method of selling the units to Doctors. Thanks to some crafty software and an internal computer the machine needs no special operator or technician, the customer just sits down for twenty five minutes and reads a magazine, does email or surfs the web while their hair grows and thickens. Bottom line is that the Shared Economy is hard at work bringing a better life through advanced technology.

Startup Funding and Reg A+

noreply@blogger.com (Profit Prophet) — Wed, 12 Oct 2016 05:04:00 +0000

The new-new in fundraising is crowdsourcing, and what makes crowdsourcing so powerful is a concept known as the long tail. Traditionally, the concept of the “long tail” was used to describe the declining part of the product life cycle (see below). It is usually called “end of life” or declining phase. It might have been used to describe the portion of product distribution that represents a period in time when sales for less common products return a profit due to reduced marketing and distribution costs. That would make a “tail” a period of time when sales are made for goods not commonly sold as standard products. The period could be short or long. This term was hijacked by Chris Anderson in 2004 when he coined the term “long tail” to describe a phenomena where products that are in low demand or have low sales volume can collectively make up a market share that rivals or exceeds the relatively few current bestsellers and blockbusters, but only if the store or distribution channel is large enough. Today, that is what long tail is most often referred to.

The long tail is about the idea that something starts with some volume, may grow, but then fades. In most situations the product and specific market will disappear, on others the demand and fulfillment continue at a highly reduced level but the product doesn't change.

So the long tail comes into play when the cost to distribute 1 unit of a product drops to a point that you can profitably sell one unit for only a fraction more per unit that if you sold 10,000 units. Essentially, the economies of scale no longer come into play. This now applies to film, books, records, etc. Now, you can “ship” one song on the internet and it costs me under $0.01 to do so. Before, I needed someone to “make” my album. This would involve expensive studio time, pressing vinyl, marketing the album, stocking and distributing the “physical” products. The “ENTRY FEE” to do that made it prohibitive for “start ups” (i.e. bands) to make their own albums and as such the ecosystem for any band to generate awareness and become an “overnight success” involved the recording companies and radio.. And speaking of radio, the over the airwaves radio is losing out to on demand and streaming stations (again the long tail). The long tail also allows something called “mass customization” but that is another article.

As an example, incredibly AMAZON does NOT exploit the long tail for retail, but they do exploit the long tail tools of the internet to help with their marketing and distribution. That is why it took them over 10 years to make a profit. Actually ETSY started out using the long tail for its products, and as such, started making profits much quicker that AMAZON.

So, think of the long tail this way: millions of markets selling hundreds of “items” instead of hundreds of markets selling millions of a few items. Take the music industry. It is moving from the short tail: a handful of artists selling millions of records, which are heavily promoted by a handful of record companies that make millions of dollars; to the long tail: tens of thousands of independent artists doing what most successful small business Internet entrepreneurs do now – niche and localize their market. Most artists may not become multi-millionaires, but by marketing locally they will be able to establish a niche following. As search engines and content delivery methods become more and more individually tailored, localized and instantly delivered, services will be offering a massive inventory of unsigned independent artists. Music distribution has the potential to benefit from a long tail effect online. That’s a good thing for artists.

Here is a good example of how most people do NOT know how to exploit the long tail and explains why 97% of Excite’s business was in the long tail and why they did not understand the power of it.

In doing calculus, the area that is yellow is 33 times larger than the area in RED!!! You know the real reason Excite went out of business? They could not figure out how to make money from 97% of their traffic. The just could not understand that the long tail, all those queries that were as asked only once a day, was where ALL the money was hiding.

Overture figured it out, Google perfected it and we all know what happened from there. Those guys figured out something revolutionary -- the long tail of search was an advertising marketplace bonanza. But it was not a traditional advertising marketplace like television, where a handful of large advertisers reached out to a handful of very large markets. It was a special kind of marketplace where small advertisers could reach small markets efficiently. You know, where the cost to reach one person is so low, that economies of scale no longer apply. It was and is a revolution to the traditional economics of advertising (where the cost of producing and distributing advertising requires large markets to justify the expenditure). Online search is a classic “new” long tail business and that is the source of its power and profit.

Now, there is a new-new coming with fundraising that is using the power of the long tail to its advantage, Regulation A+ (Reg A+). Reg A+ allows a company to bypass the traditional investment bank / broker-dealer / VC / Money Manager ecosystem and efficiently and effectively deliver stock to non-accredited investors through the power of crowdsourcing. We have seen the success of crowdsourcing with crowdfunding in Kickstarter and Indiegogo. Now we will see this same principal be applied to deliver registered stock to the new investor class that heretofore has not been able to partake in the startup infrastructure of early stage investing until now.

According to a 2008 BusinessWeek study there are 5 million accredited investors in the US. On average they invest $10,000 to $50,000 in a startup. In the US, about 55% of the people own stock, but there is an estimate is that 70% would invest in a startup if they could. So that is 255 million people in the US who might put $1,000 into a startup if they were given a vehicle to do so cost effectively. The resultant figure is $178 Billion larger than what Venture Capitalists and Angels COMBINED invest ($77B in 2015). Are you getting my drift yet about the power of the long tail? Now, with Reg A+, any company can sell stock all day to the average Joe and Jane and these “new” investors can now reap the rewards of a startup returning 5X, 10x, 50x or 100x on their investment in a relatively short period of time. Something that in the past, only the most well heeled investors were allowed to partake in.

Of course, Reg A+ is not for everyone. It seems to be more geared towards consumer facing products and services (i.e.: think Virtual Reality devices, hoverboards, personal grooming, cosmetics, nutraceuticals, pet products, restaurants, distilled beverages, snacks, home gadgets, and video games, etc.). Still, as technology becomes more pervasive, and consumers become more aware of the power of technology to help their lives in general, you might see Reg A+ be used in startups focused on B2B concepts as well. This will all come about because of the power of Reg A+. It is in its infancy now, but in 10 years, Reg A+ may be the preferred way companies raise money, essentially bypassing the venture capital and angel networks entirely.

Book of Verses

noreply@blogger.com (Profit Prophet) — Wed, 24 Aug 2016 19:43:00 +0000

Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyám (Persian: رباعیات عمر خیام‎‎) is the title that Edward FitzGerald gave to his translation of a selection of poems, originally written in Persian and numbering about a thousand, attributed to Omar Khayyám (1048–1131), a Persian poet, mathematician and astronomer. A ruba'i is a two-line stanza with two parts (or hemistichs) per line, hence the word rubAYOT (derived from the Japanese language leaves for “a million”), meaning "quatrains".

Here is one of my favorite verses of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyám from this translation:
“A Book of Verses underneath the Bough,
A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread—and Thou
Beside me singing in the Wilderness—
Oh, Wilderness were Paradise enow!”

Guns, Violence, and Statistics

noreply@blogger.com (Profit Prophet) — Sat, 30 Jul 2016 21:52:00 +0000

Many people jump up and down whenever the topic of guns, gun violence, or gun control is brought up. Personally, I have to believe that our Founding Father’s believe that a well armed population is the best counter balance to a corrupt government. For as Thomas Jefferson once stated, “When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.” In actuality, when people think of the causes of the American War for Independence, they think of slogans like “no taxation without representation” or a cause célèbre like the Boston Tea Party. In reality, what finally forced the colonials into a shooting war with the British Army in April 1775 was not taxes or even warrant-less searches of homes and their occupation by soldiers, but one of many attempts by the British to disarm Americans as part of an overall gun control program, which included seizure of firearms and powered. So, for this very reason it is understandable why the Founding Fathers made the 2nd Amendment, the second most important in our Constitution. But aside from that, we have to take the emotion out of the discussion of guns and actually look at facts, and being an engineer, I like dissecting numbers and statistics, so this is what this article will do, bit by bit.

OK, here are the fact: There are 30,000 gun related deaths per year by firearms. That is not disputed as a fact of American life, sadly.

What is never shown or talked about though, is a breakdown of those deaths to put them in perspective; as compared to other causes of death.

• 65% of those deaths are by suicide which would never be prevented by gun laws
• 15% are by law enforcement in the line of duty and justified
• 17% are through criminal activity, gang and drug related or mentally ill persons
• 3% are accidental discharge deaths

So technically, "gun violence" is not 30,000 annually but drops to 5,100. Still too many!! So let’s see how are those deaths spanned across the nation?

• 480 homicides (9.4%) were in Chicago
• 344 homicides (6.7%) were in Baltimore
• 333 homicides (6.5%) were in Detroit
• 119 homicides (2.3%) were in Washington DC (a 54% increase over prior years)

So basically, 25% of all gun crime happens in just 4 cities. All 4 of those cities have strict gun laws so it is not the lack of the rule of law that is the root cause. Maybe it is gang violence and the lack of the historic family unit with a father and a mother, or poor schools, or lack of job opportunities? Whatever the root cause, we are left with 3,825 deaths caused by guns in the rest of the Nation, or about 75 deaths per State.

That is an average number because some States have much higher rates than others. For example, California had 1,169. Alabama had 1. Putting this in quantitative amounts, California alone accounts for 25% of the gun deaths alone. So, with the four cities and California you now have 50% of the gun deaths in the US.

Now, which State has the strictest gun laws by far? California of course but understand, it is not the tool (guns) driving this. It is a crime rate spawned by the number of criminal persons residing in those cities and States.

So if all cities and states are not created equal, then there must be something other than the tool causing the gun deaths.

Are 5,100 deaths per year horrific? Absolutely, but how do they compare with other known causes of death?

All death is sad and especially so when it is in the commission of a crime but that is the nature of crime. Robbery, death, rape, assault; all are done by criminals to victims and thinking that criminals will obey laws is ludicrous. We are not here to debate the reason why they are criminals, but just realize without some major intervention that criminals will behave as criminals do, and often violently. That is why they are criminals.

But what of other causes of death? Remember total gun deaths is 30,000/year, and it has been shown that it is really 5,100.

• 40,000+ die from a drug overdose – THERE IS NO EXCUSE FOR THAT!
• 36,000 people die per year from the flu, far exceeding the criminal gun deaths
• 34,000 people die per year in traffic fatalities (exceeding gun deaths even if you include suicide)

Now let us look at the really big numbers of deaths caused by preventable actions:

• 200,000+ people die each year (and growing) from preventable medical malpractice. So in actuality, you are safer statistically in Chicago than with dealing with a doctor!
• 710,000 people die per year from heart disease. Time to stop the cheeseburgers!

So what is the point of stating these statistical facts? It is simple. If the people who focus their attention on banning guns were to instead focus on heart disease, even a 10% decrease would save twice as many lives annually over of all gun related deaths (including suicide, law enforcement, etc.). In addition, a 10% reduction in malpractice from doctors would be 66% (20,000 lives) of the total gun deaths or 4 times the number of criminal homicides. It seems relatively easy to achieve a 10% reduction in these two preventable causes of deaths, so where is the outcry?

So you have to ask yourself, in the grand scheme of things, why is there such a focus on guns? Our Founding Fathers realized that freedom is a messy and risky endeavor. They also understood Government that governs least, governs best. Many aspects of life in a free society can lead to harm or misfortune or death for some people. Driving kills. Smoking kills. Bad diet kills. Drugs Kill. Sports and recreation kill. Travel kills. Living kills. Bottom line, living is a risk filled business.

The core element of any objective to “eliminate” ALL such bad outcomes is to increase control over many, most and eventually all aspects of life. Of course, this does not mean that measures should not be taken, largely in education, to make activities and elements of life pragmatically safe. Look at the wonderful success of the anti-smoking campaign that removed millions of people from even ever starting. But "common sense" approaches cannot be equated to the perspective of those who only seek to eliminate freedoms that are (1) widely accepted by large portions of the or (2) established as points of law.

It is pretty simple. Taking away freedoms under the excuse of taking care of people gives control to governments, which leads directly to tyranny. This is not conspiracy theory; this is a historical fact. Why have we not understood this for so long? Tell me again why is it impossible for any Government not to spill over into dictatorship? The Founders of this great Nation knew that regardless of the form of government, those in power may become corrupt and seek to rule as the British did. As Lord Acton said, “Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

They colonial British tried to disarm the populace of the colonies because it is not difficult to understand; a disarmed populace is a controlled populace. Thus, the Second Amendment was proudly and boldly included in the Constitution, representing and protecting all the other freedoms. It must be preserved at all costs not because it is sacred, but because it is statistically sane. Again, our Forefathers, while not perfect, were incredibly prescient.

Never Give Up

noreply@blogger.com (Profit Prophet) — Thu, 07 Jul 2016 12:00:00 +0000

Chester Carlson? Whenever I think an idea or project will not make it, I think of Chester Carlson. Most people do not know who this person is, but he came up with the second greatest invention of the last 500 years (after the printing press); xerography; and he was not even a engineer. There should be a movie made of this guy: grew up dirt poor, lost his parents at a young age; worked his way through college, earning a degree in physics, and law school; invented xerography.

Anyway, the reason I mention Chester Carlson is that even though he thought up xerography and demonstrated it at the Astoria hotel in 1938, the first copy machine (made by the Haloid Corporation who changed it name to Xerox) was not made until 1958! Twenty years later. During that time, there were many set backs, but Mr. Carlson believed that being able to print without water would be a “disruptive” technology, so he never gave up. There were many nay-sayers.

Mr. Carlson got the kernel of an idea while at work as a patent attorney. He noted that there never seemed to be enough carbon copies of patent specifications, and there seemed to be no quick or practical way of getting more. The choices were limited to sending for expensive photo copies, or having the documents retyped and then reread for errors. A thought occurred to him: Offices might benefit from a device that would accept a document and make copies of it in seconds. For many months Carlson spent his evenings at the New York Public Library reading all he could about imaging processes. During that time, Carlson read an article about the little-known field of photoconductivity, specifically the findings of Hungarian physicist Paul Selenyi, who was experimenting with electrostatic images. He learned that when light strikes a photoconductive material, the electrical conductivity of that material is increased. Frustrated by a lack of time, and suffering from painful attacks of arthritis, Carlson decided to dip into his meager resources to pursue his research on his own, setting up a small lab in nearby Astoria and hiring an unemployed young physicist, a German refugee named Otto Kornei, to help with the lab work. It was here, in a rented second-floor room above a bar, where xerography was invented. Otto took a glass microscope slide and printed on it in India ink the notation '10-22-38 ASTORIA.'

Incredibly, Carlson was quite alone in his work, and in his belief that xerography was of practical value to anyone. Following this first demonstration of xerography, Mr. Carlson searched for years in a fruitless quest for a company that would develop his invention into a useful product, and was turned down by over twenty companies, including IBM, GE, and Honeywell, during that time.

Incredibly, no one could believe that a tiny glass plate and rough image held the key to a tremendous new industry. During these painfully long years, Mr. Carlson became discouraged and several times decided to drop the idea completely. Still, he could not abandon this disruptive technology and he stayed thoroughly convinced that the invention was too promising to be left on the scrap heap of history.

Finally, in 1944, Battelle Memorial Institute, a non-profit research organization signed a royalty-sharing contract with Carlson. In 1947, Battelle teamed with a small photo-paper company called Haloid (later to be known as Xerox) to develop a xerographic machine.

It was not until 1959, twenty-one years after Carlson invented xerography, that the first convenient office copier using xerography was unveiled. The 914 copier could make copies quickly at the touch of a button on plain paper. It was a phenomenal success. Today, xerography is a foundation stone of a gigantic worldwide copying industry, including Xerox and other corporations which make and market copiers and duplicators producing billions and billions of copies a year.

So, bottom line: It may take a long time, but if you KNOW something is worth pursuing, NEVER give up! Chester Carlson never did. As a footnote, Mr. Carlson made 1/1000th a cent per copy as a royalty, and when he died, he was estimated to be worth $266 million.

A Reason, Season or a Lifetime

noreply@blogger.com (Profit Prophet) — Fri, 13 May 2016 03:16:00 +0000

It is funny, but recently I have had some friends lament about people who have come and left their lives and they do not quite understand why. It seemed like everything was going great, they were becoming fast friends, and then poof..they are gone. That made me remember a story about how people can come into your life for a reason, a season, or a lifetime.

When someone is in your life for a reason, it is usually to meet a need you have expressed or just felt. They have come to assist you through a hard time, to provide you with guidance and support, to aid you physically, emotionally or spiritually. Then, suddenly, the person disappears from your life. Your need has been met; their work is done. It is hard to explain, but they now are off somewhere else.

Some people come into your life for a season, because your turn has come to share or grow or give back. They bring you an experience of peace or make you laugh. They give you great joy. Believe it; it is real. But only for a season, and like the seasons, they change and move one.

Lifetime relationships often are harder but teach you lessons that you will use all your life. Things you must build upon to have a solid emotional foundation. Often it is hard to accept the lesson, love the person and put what you have learned to use in all your other relationships. But to have these people in your life, it is something you must strive to do.

Think about the people in your life over the years. Whether they were there for a reason, a season or a lifetime, accept them and treasure them for however long they were meant to be part of your life. And when they are gone, do not be sad for their departure, but be thankful for the gifts you received from them when they were here—for a reason, a season or a lifetime.

Adversity's Test

noreply@blogger.com (Profit Prophet) — Fri, 12 Feb 2016 11:00:00 +0000

During these uncertain times, I like to go back to some of the stories friends, colleagues, and mentors gave me. This particular one deals with how a person reacts when things get tough, or as some like to say, when we are in hot water. I hope you find it as insightful as I did.

Adversity's Test

A daughter complained to her father about her life and how things were so hard for her. She did not know how she was going to make it and wanted to give up. She was tired of fighting and struggling. It seemed as one problem was solved, a new one arose.

Her father, a chef, took her to the kitchen. He filled three pots with water and placed each on a high fire. Soon the pots came to a boil.

In one, he placed carrots; in the second, he placed eggs; and the last, he placed ground coffee beans. He let them sit and boil, without saying a word.

The daughter sucked her teeth and impatiently waited, wondering what he was doing. In about twenty minutes, he turned off the burners. He fished the carrots out and placed them in a bowl. He pulled the eggs out and placed them a bowl. Then he ladled the coffee out and placed it in a bowl.

Turning to her he asked. "Darling, what do you see?"…."Carrots, eggs, and coffee," she replied.

He brought her closer and asked her to feel the carrots. She did and noted that they were soft. He then asked her to take an egg and break it. After pulling off the shell, she observed the hard-boiled egg. Finally, he asked her to sip the coffee. She smiled as she tasted its rich aroma.

She humbly asked. "What does it mean Father?" He explained that each of them had faced the same adversity, boiling water, but each reacted differently. The carrot went in strong, hard, and unrelenting. But after being subjected to the boiling water, it softened and became weak. The egg had been fragile. Its thin outer shell had protected its liquid interior. But after sitting through the boiling water, its inside became hardened. The ground coffee beans were unique, however. After they were in the boiling water, they had changed the water.

"Which are you?" he asked his daughter. "When adversity knocks on your door, how do you respond? Are you a carrot, an egg, or a coffee bean?"

How about you?

Are you the carrot that seems hard, but with pain and adversity do you wilt and become soft and lose your strength?

Or are you the egg, which starts off with a malleable heart? Were you a fluid spirit, but after a death, a breakup, a divorce, or a layoff have you become hardened and stiff?. Your shell looks the same, but are you bitter and tough with a stiff spirit and heart?

Or are you like the coffee bean? The bean changes the hot water, the thing that is bringing the pain, till its peak flavor reaches 212 degrees Fahrenheit. When the water gets the hottest, it just tastes better. If you are like the coffee bean, when things are at their worst, you get better and make things better around you. Essentially, adversity does not change you, you change the adversity to opportunity.

The Man In The Glass

noreply@blogger.com (Profit Prophet) — Mon, 18 Jan 2016 11:00:00 +0000

In these tough times, it is easy to get down on yourself and become demotivated by what others have told you or have intimated about your abilities, ideas or success. Just remember, that those who create (either businesses or ideas or art or designs or music or athletic performance) are closest to being god-like. It is during the creation process that we most mimic the Creator and pay it homage. Also, just because you might have outward success, does not necessarily mean you have concurred that monster from within. I came across the following some time ago, and feel it would be appropriate for all those who are experiencing a little self doubt. It might be called "The Man in the Glass" but is appropriate for both genders..

The Man in the Glass (author unknown - circa 1900)

When you get what you want in your struggle for self
And the world makes you king for a day,
Just go to a mirror and look at yourself,
And see what that man has to say.

For it isn't your father or mother or wife,
Whose judgment upon you must pass;
The fellow whose verdict counts most in your life
Is the one starring back from the glass.

He's the fellow to please, never mind all the rest.
For he's with you clear up to the end,
And you've passed the most dangerous, difficult test
If the man in the glass is your friend.

You may fool the whole world down the pathway of years.
And get pats on the back as you pass,
But your final reward will be the heartaches and tears
If you've cheated the man in the glass.

Why We Hate Change

noreply@blogger.com (Profit Prophet) — Sat, 19 Dec 2015 21:11:00 +0000

Over the 100,000 plus years we and our brains have been evolving. During that time, our minds have grown past our primitive lizard brains and as such have brought us intelligence; which in turn has allowed humans to accomplish some fantastic things. Even with all that time and evolution, we and our brains are still guided by these four most important motivators: avoiding threats, minimizing energy, seeking certainty (reducing risk) and obtaining rewards (increasing pleasure).

It is easy to see why these four conditions motivate us not to change, because change usually involved reducing certainty while simultaneously increasing risk and expending energy, often without any guarantee of obtaining a reward. Essentially, due to in a large part to our primordial past, when we find ourselves confronted with change, either on a personal level or say at your company, all the fears from our lizard brain are triggered.

So, how can we get past those fears and anxieties that our genetic makeup makes it so hard to accept change on a personal and group level? Well, lucky for us, intelligence again offers seven (7) ways to make change more readily acceptable and addressable to our ‘fear factors.’

1.) The first is to normalize resistance to change. We have to explain to ourselves and others in our group, that although our brains are naturally wired to resist change, we can take steps to help our brains make changes more easily. We are NOT slaves to our genetics, instead we, each of us, have the power to fight that resistance if we chose to.

2.) Next, believe it or not our brains are motivated and take action when perceived rewards are greater than perceived threats. Not only do we have to see that the risk-to-reward-ratio is tipped on the reward side, but when we are trying to get others to see so too, we need to Invite everyone affected to explore the benefits of the proposed change, and make sure their perceived fears are mitigated and their possible rewards are maximized.

3.) While change always has a certain amount of uncertainty associated with it, as best is possible, you need to meet yours and others brains’ need for certainly throughout the change process. The best way to do this is to break change down into manageable, small-step milestones, time-lines and action items that can be checked off as they are accomplished. These “small victories” can appreciably reduce the risk associated with any change and add certainty as you measure the progress of change.

4.) Attitude is everything and emotions are contagious. You must first believe in and be enthusiastic about your own change if you ever expect to be able to change the hearts and minds of others. When you lead change, do it with as much passion, excitement and enthusiasm as you can muster.

5.) While some of us are more reward-focused, there are others who actually will only be motivated in knowing that not changing is actually riskier than the change itself. To change these minds, including your own, you will need to clearly explain the risks of NOT changing to those who are more threat-oriented or who appreciate threat avoidance as a priority.

6.) No matter how much we fear a thing, or want to avoid risk and pain, or desire rewards and accolades, our brains are conditioned and wired to celebrate and be rewarded with accomplishment. These rewards have to be both on a psychological and physical level. To institute and secure a long-lasting change, it is imperative to recognize progress and wins as the change is underway and completed, not only on an individual level, but also as a team.

7.) Finally, this might sound a little be pat, but the actual experience of the change is its own reward. These rewards come as we grow through a challenge, bond as a team, discover our unknown strengths and abilities, and begin to see our world in a different light. Yes, change is hard, if it were easy, everyone would do it without trepidation. Sadly, it is those lonely few of us who have the ability to seemingly easily and effortlessly implement change. But even with them, it took practice to make accepting change readily.

So, What About Europe?

noreply@blogger.com (Profit Prophet) — Mon, 07 Dec 2015 03:16:00 +0000

Often we wonder how countries get into bad financial difficulties, and sometimes we need an allegory to explain it. Hopefully the one below can explain how some of the European countries have gotten into their financial mess?

Helga is the proprietor of a bar. She realizes that virtually all of her customers are unemployed alcoholics and, as such, can no longer afford to patronize her bar. To solve this problem she comes up with a new marketing plan that allows her customers to drink now, but pay later.

Helga keeps track of the drinks consumed on a ledger (thereby granting the customers' loans).

Word gets around about Helga's "drink now, pay later" marketing strategy and, as a result, increasing numbers of customers flood into Helga's bar. Soon she has the largest sales volume for any bar in town.

By providing her customers freedom from immediate payment demands Helga gets no resistance when, at regular intervals, she substantially increases her prices for wine and beer - the most consumed beverages.

Consequently, Helga's gross sales volumes and paper profits increase massively. A young and dynamic vice-president at the local bank recognises that these customer debts constitute valuable future assets and increases Helga's borrowing limit. He sees no reason for any undue concern, since he has the debts of the unemployed alcoholics as collateral.

He is rewarded with a six figure bonus.

At the bank's corporate headquarters, expert traders figure a way to make huge commissions, and transform these customer loans into DRINKBONDS. These "securities" are then bundled and traded on international securities markets.

Naive investors don't really understand that the securities being sold to them as "AA Secured Bonds" are really debts of unemployed alcoholics. Nevertheless, the bond prices continuously climb and the securities soon become the hottest-selling items for some of the nation's leading brokerage houses.

The traders all receive a six figure bonus.

One day, even though the bond prices are still climbing, a risk manager at the original local bank decides that the time has come to demand payment on the debts incurred by the drinkers at Helga's bar. He so informs Helga. Helga then demands payment from her alcoholic patrons but, being unemployed alcoholics, they cannot pay back their drinking debts. Since Helga cannot fulfil her loan obligations she is forced into bankruptcy. The bar closes and Helga's 11 employees lose their jobs.

Overnight, DRINKBOND prices drop by 90%. The collapsed bond asset value destroys the bank's liquidity and prevents it from issuing new loans, thus freezing credit and economic activity in the community.

The suppliers of Helga's bar had granted her generous payment extensions and had invested their firms' pension funds in the BOND securities. They find they are now faced with having to write off her bad debt and with losing over 90% of the presumed value of the bonds. Her wine supplier also claims bankruptcy, closing the doors on a family business that had endured for three generations; her beer supplier is taken over by a competitor, who immediately closes the local plant and lays off 150 workers.

Fortunately though, the bank, the brokerage houses and their respective executives are saved and bailed out by a multibillion dollar no-strings attached cash infusion from the government.

They all receive a six figure bonus.

The funds required for this bailout are obtained by new taxes levied on employed, middle-class, non-drinkers who've never been in Helga's bar.

Now do you understand?