Your weekly collection of marketing tips, hints, and advice interspersed with humor, inspiration, and other goodies to spice things up a bit. Guidance, tutoring, advice, mentoring, coaching, inspiration, English lessons, editing, proofreading services for entrepreneurs and online marketers.
Publisher: Mary Wilkey
Volume 2 - Issue 31 - October 29, 2002
Published every Tuesday
Okay, guys and gals. Your last chance. Our first-ever October FEEL-GOOD sale will end on Thursday. That's right
. . . if you've ever been thinking about placing a paid ad in this ezine, now's the time. The October FEEL-GOOD sale gives you a SOLO, a TOP SPONSOR AD, and five (5) PRIORITIZED classifieds (they jump to the top of the heap) for the regular price of a SOLO!
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"A good saying often runs the
risk of being thrown away when
quoted as the speaker's own." —La Bruyere
CONTENTS:
Sponsor Ad
Ad Contest
Subscriber in the Spotlight
Feature Article
Today’s Chuckle
Today's English lesson
Marketing Mania
Internet Tips & Hints
Guest Article
Inspiration
Etcetera
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AD CONTEST
Results of last issue's ad contest: No one got it! The question was: What was the first household detergent? The answer: Dreft
For our subscribers only: Be first to submit the correct answer to the following question and receive the next available top sponsor ad FREE! Here is the question:
The following is a testimonial from an individual stating what results SHE has experienced. No medical claims are implied, and we are not saying that the products discussed will cure the problems you have.
(The foregoing statement is required by the US Government, which should not be a substitute for your ability and right to think for yourself and make your own decisions!)
"A couple of days ago, I got my other products that I recently ordered from the company. About that same day, my time of the month came around—everybody better watch out around here. Anyway, I have been getting really bad cramps for about the first day or two of my monthly cycle for about the past eight years. Wednesday was one of those days.
"Anyway, as I mentioned, I had just gotten my order, which included a jar of Natural Balance Plus. I had read where it was supposed to help relieve aches and pains among other things so I decided to try it right then. I was amazed!!! I just used a little bit, and rubbed it on my abdomen where it was aching. It was soooooo soothing, and it really did help within just minutes. I was starting to get a headache, too, so I rubbed a little on my temples. Those headaches usually last all day, but after applying the Natural Balance Plus, it completely went away."
—Kathy Lobry, Vancouver WA
If you would like to see what has worked miracles in Kathy's life—and also get a free download of Jon Barron's book, "Lessons from the Miracle Doctors," go to:
If you would like to look into becoming a distributor, just go to this website:
Watch the 6-minute video presentation (it may take a few minutes to load). Fill out and submit the questionnaire at the end of the presentation. Very shortly then, you will be contacted one time to determine if you qualify for our program.
Your vision will become clear only when you look into your
heart. Who looks outside, dreams. Who looks inside, awakens.
—Carl Gustav Jung
SUBSCRIBER IN THE SPOTLIGHT
The first subscriber to submit his or her personal profile sharing with the rest of us all about who he/she is, background, family, location, interests, hobbies, goals, dreams, etc., will be spotlighted right here next issue—and yes, an email and/or URL may be included!
My name is Matthew Jamieson, and I live in Moncto, New Brunswick, Canada. I will have been married to my beautiful wife Cindy for 4 years on October 26, 2002. We have a 1 year old daughter named Jamie Lynn.
We enjoy snowmobiling, 4-wheeling, dancing, camping, and too many other things to list.
Over the past 2 years I have become a leader in the Robert Allen team with the #1 Home business, Usana Health Sciences. I enjoy helping people achieve their dreams and goals. We have developed a system where average people can build a home-based business without having to sell products or talk to friends and family.
Ultimate Success,
Matthew, Cindy, and Jamie Jamieson
"Think like a man of action, act like a man of thought." —Henri Bergson
FEATURE ARTICLE
HOW TO GET CONTROL OVER YOUR JOB AND BE YOUR OWN BOSS!
(A Lesson From The Bible) Luke 17:10
Very quickly, as soon as possible, get your job done and over with for the day.
Work as diligently, efficiently, and quickly as you can without compromising the quality of your work. To do this, get there a little early if possible, skip your breaks, and take half the allotted time for lunch.
Say you finish your work an hour or two early then. Now what?
You then are in control! Because you have fulfilled your obligation to the company ahead of time, you now are free to decide if you will become profitable to your company (and yourself). Or will you be content just to lolly-gag and "look" busy until quitting time?
Here is where the line is drawn between go-getters and go-sitters. Are you eager then to go get something else done? Or are you content just to go sit and let this time go to waste?
If you are so contented, you need to repent (change your mind and attitude) and re-think your position. Because for the duration of this extra time, YOU are in control. You can use this time to benefit both you and the company by searching, thinking, inventing, improvising, and improving on your job and those activities related to it.
Now I'm not just talking off the top of my hat here. I have on-the-job experiences to back up what I'm saying. Both times I did this I was elevated to a higher position, the first time directly, the second time a little later.
You just have to open your eyes and ears and tune in to what's going on around you. In my first experience I noted that the company's cost accountant was an 18-year old kid. The company lost money consistently and was carrying a lot of "dead wood."
It occurred to me to check the figures on the cost of products going out the door against the sales income. Yep, you guessed it—no one can make a profit selling for less than cost!
I constructed my own report form, assembled formal figures, and presented my findings to the appropriate executive, who was properly astounded. The company was benefitted . . . one thing led to another . . .
The second occasion was finding that a portion of the work I was doing had been performed for years in an antiquated, unwieldy manner with outdated, awkward equipment and supplies, so I just scrapped the old stuff and created a streamlined system that was a whole lot easier and more accessible to work with for everyone concerned. I instituted the new process gradually, so that I didn't have a huge initial expense. And I didn't take my ideas to my boss or submit them to a committee or call a meeting. I just used common sense and got it done. No fuss, no bother. Had I gone the "formal route," I doubt if I would have gotten the go-ahead.
And since I was doing this on my "own" time (even though it was during normal hours), I was able to work unhindered. Again, I was appropriately rewarded, because the company benefitted.
So start looking around with a different attitude and a different goal when you go in tomorrow. As long as you have to work at a j.o.b., you might as well be in control!
Feel free to reprint the above article with this info intact: Article penned by Mary Wilkey, publisher of 'elf Expressions Ezine: http://elfexpressionsezine.com
A motorist was unknowingly caught in an automated speed trap that measured his speed using radar and photographed his car. He later received in the mail a ticket for $40 and a photo of his car. Instead of payment, he sent the police department a photograph of $40. Several days later, he received a letter from the police that contained another picture, this time of handcuffs. He immediately mailed in his $40.
AND ANOTHER . . .
A pair of Michigan robbers entered a record shop nervously waving
revolvers. The first one shouted, "Nobody move!" When his partner moved, the startled first bandit shot him.
Education is what remains after one has forgotten
everything he learned in school.
—Albert Einstein
TODAY'S ENGLISH LESSON
Seeing the same elementary mistakes over and over again has prompted this publisher to write an English lesson each issue.
Okay, here we go with those pesky and unnecessary apostrophes again. We all need to learn that the following words NEVER contain apostrophes:
yours — ours — its (unless you're using the contraction of "it is") —
PLUS, it boggles my mind why people insist on adding apostrophes to words intended to be plural, such as "end" or
"for interviewee's to sell" or "system of the Navajo's" or "over other's by owning" or "use storie's to." (By the way, I took the foregoing directly from a certain ezine, which shall remain nameless!)
Most plurals are made by simply adding "s"—no apostrophe needed—please!!!
=========================================
Reminder: We offer a reasonably priced editing/proofreading service for articles or even entire ezines. Just email: editingservice@elfexpressionsezine.com
MARKETING MANIA
TWEAKING, CLEANING, AND PROTECTING YOUR COMPUTER
Featuring Donna Sweat, weekly columnist, and publisher of
Dee's Helpful Info. and A Real Home Business Newsletter.
Okay, guys and gals, I'm back at the last minute again—those dreaded errors always happen when you have a dozen things open, and I guess my article just vanished into thin air
after I spent an hour composing it. So I have a better
treat for you, and perhaps it somehow ties in with errors.
Take a look and see if you think so.
I'm just sending along some helpful information that may or
may not benefit your computer systems. I'm really surprised
at how many of you don't have your systems secured with a
firewall yet, especially after so much that goes online.
I wanted to forward along some information I've come across
that should help you better tweak your system's performance
and secure your connections from malicious situations.
(1) Take the time to update your "Windows" operating system
by using the feature called "Windows Update" located either
in your start menu or else in your program menu near the top
of it. This will connect you to the Microsoft website and
enable you to download and install all current security
patches and whatnot for your system. This is very
important, as each week new security breaches are discovered
in windows operations . . . too bad Bill Gates didn't figure
it out BEFORE he sent out the systems, but oh well . . .
(2) Take the time to clean out your system. Make at least a
weekly habit of going into your Start menu, Control Panel,
Internet or Internet Options, clean files, delete files,
clear history files under the General Tab.
(3) Go to your Start, My Computer, C Drive, Properties, and run your Disk Cleanup feature. Also run your Disk Defragmenter
at least once a month for peak performances of your Windows
system.
Now here are some valuable links to information that may or
may not pertain to you:
http://scan.sygate.com has the most comprehensive scanning available on the Internet to test your Windows systems operations. Here you can run a quick scan, stealth scan, trojan scan, TCP and UDP scans to find out exactly what the hackers online can see from your computer and where its
weaknesses are. If you are not running a firewall,
this will show you exactly where the hackers are attaching
to your system when you are online.
At http://www.sygate.com you can obtain a free firewall for your system—the links to download the Personal Firewall are at the site.
Personally, I really like my Norton Internet Security system
for home use, particularily because I'm using a dial-up—if I
had DSL or Cable as many of you do, I wouldn't use it.
I would take the time to invest in a solid system from Black
ICE or a professional system from Sygate. You need something
that can be on at all times, and run without your
assistance if you have "always on" connections. For dial
up, Norton is wonderful and now over at
http://www.symantec.com, you can upgrade any Norton product
to the 2003 versions, which have even more intense features
than the currect ones.
If you are running Windows 2000, Windows XP, home or Pro
editions, this site is great! Created by an Internet computer guru, he explains in great detail how to tweak your system . . . and from experience, I can tell you it changed greatly the way
my system was operating—much faster responses for
everything, including Internet speed and loading abilities.
Make sure you also check out his link to "more items about how to speed up your system"—http://www.blkviper.com/WinXP/servicecfg.htm.
Trust me, it's worth the time to read and follow the
instructions; the difference is noticeable right away.
This site will teach you how to disable programs or put them
into "manual mode" to stop them from eating
up your CPU and move your system faster for you.
On a further note here, some of you talked to me about
spyware/adware programs. Many of the "free" programs you
find online contain these things. Depending on what type of
spyware or adware program it is, it can overtake your
system, control your browser, allow hackers in,
spy on everything you are doing online, and report it to its
controllers for "marketing purposes," as they call it.
Several types of online messengers can do this to you, as
well as several types of music downloaders like
audiogalaxy.com satellites, kazaa, and many others. Before
you EVER download a program off the net, especially a FREE
one, make sure you do your homework and read the reviews of
that program.
Example: for kazaa, type into your search function
"kazaa reviews," look through the sites—cnet.com is a good
one to use—and learn about the program and what it may
contain that you don't know about. The last time I
downloaded a music downloader, the site itself stated that it
didn't contain any spyware.
Well, I had 4 spyware programs
on my system, and my system crashed and had to be entirely
reprogrammed because of it. It overtook my Norton and my
firewall, I couldn't access my favorites list, and it kept
sending me to sites I never typed in. Pop-ups were insane.
If you or your children want to download music, the best one
I have found is WinMX. The reviews rave about the fact that
it does not contain spyware/or adware, but I can't guarantee
anyone that you may or may not get viruses or trojans
from using it, as there is a risk in downloading online, and
you should always "Save to disk" and run anti-virus that is
up to date on anything you download before you open it or
execute it.
And another note—you should always use a
firewall when downloading music, I've had attempted
hacks while downloading from other WinMX users. This is
a normal thing online though. We will never get rid of
those hackers, but we can stop them from destroying our
investments.
On a final note, I came across this site while trying to
determine certain features in my startup menu in my Services
folder:
http://www.lafn.org/webconnect/mentor/startup/penindex.htm. This was a good site to determine what the program was, and
why I needed it running on my system at all. This is a good
reference site while trying to tweak your system.
Remember to remove programs from your Add/Remove Programs
list in your Control Panel that you do not need and never
use—why take up the space if you never run it? And
why allow it to eat up your CPU during start-up or access the
Internet if you're not using it whatsoever.
No matter how good we are, God could love us no more. And no matter how bad we are, he could love us no less. His love is prompted by nothing we do.—Mike Huckabee, Arkansas governor, in his book, Living Beyond Your Lifetime.
INTERNET HINTS & TIPS
DELIVER YOUR INTERNET E-MAIL TO YOUR DESKTOP
With free Internet e-mail, what's better than having
easy access to your e-mail from within your Web
browser? Having full-time access to your e-mail
right on your Windows desktop.
I believe God gives only three answers to prayer: One, yes. Two, not yet. Three, I have something better in mind.—Arthur Caliandro, long-time senior minister, Marble Collegiate Church, NYC
If you consistently do your best, the worst will never happen.
—B. C. Forbes
GUEST ARTICLE
FOR WHAT IS YOUR NAME SHORTHAND? by Stephanie West Allen
"When I was a child, my mother said to me, 'If you become
a soldier, you'll be a general. If you become a monk, you'll end
up as the pope.' Instead I became a painter and wound up
as Picasso."
Pablo Picasso
The names of famous people often stand for the talent
they brought to the world.
A young child is on her stomach on the floor painting. Her
father looks at her art and comments, "She is going to be
another Picasso."
An aspiring writer works at perfecting his craft. He dreams,
"I am going to be a Hemingway."
A student of the trumpet needs encouragement. Her teacher
tells her, "You are sounding like a Basie."
THAT'S ME.
For what does your name stand? If someone said, "She is
going to be another [your name]," or "I am going to be another
[your name]," or "You are sounding like a [your name]," what
would that mean?
What are your strongest talents or traits? Of course, they
may not be in the area of the arts. Perhaps they include
being a friend, peace-making, loving, gardening, supporting
a cause, gossiping, networking, being stubborn, selling,
problem-solving, arguing, pet-raising, parenting, criticizing,
making people smile, building a business, motivating people.
For what does your name stand? You can make a choice as to
how that question is answered. Right now.
AND TODAY . . .
Today write for several minutes about that for which your
name stands. If someone said, "I am a [your name]," what
would that signify?
You may want to ask a few trusted friends this question
about your name. See what the trends are in their responses.
Now apply the Picasso technique. Answer this same question
again but draw your answer. Pictures and words each access
different responses. When you look in both places—the
words and the pictures—you will find a much more complete
answer than if you looked in only one.
After you have discovered the significance of your name,
decide if you like it. If so, celebrate it in joy and
self-respect.
If not, choose a new significance. Write about it. Draw it.
Then go out and live it. You have the right, responsibility,
and power to determine the meaning of your name and
your life. You and your name can stand for whatever
you desire.
Attention, everyone! Meet the newest entry in the
"Who's Who" of the entire galaxy. With a drum roll and a
trumpet blast, I proudly introduce—you!
Stephanie West Allen, JD, brings humor and motivation to
associations and organizations. http://www.allen-nichols.com
Monday through Friday, start your day with a free Upsy Daisy
Push-up to get you going gloriously, gratefully, and gleefully.
Subscribe by sending a blank e-mail to
UpsyDaisyDaily-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
INSPIRATION
LESSONS FROM LIFE
I just purchased a new vehicle. And I was very proud
to show it to my father.
I had hardly arrived, when he began examining the engine
and offering some criticism.
My enthusiasm dampened.
During the short journey to his house, he continued to
criticize. And, he did so, in spite of what I told him,
which justified my enthusiasm.
I was upset with him. I valued his advice and was hurt
by his criticism.
Why was he being so negative, when I was trying to share
my joy with him? Should a father not take great joy in the
joy of his son?
We arrived at his house. As he got out of the car, he saw
his neighbor.
I then witnessed one of the most fascinating scenes I had
come across in all my life.
For more than 20 minutes, my father launched into a
discourse in which he boasted details of all the qualities
of my car, as proudly as the father of a newborn son.
Then, more to my surprise, he asked if I would permit
his neighbor to try it!
Since that day, when someone criticizes me, I think of my
father. And, each time I recall that day, my heart fills with joy.
You see, at the time, I thought that in criticizing my
choice, my father was expressing rejection of me.
But it was I who misunderstood. His criticism was not
a rejection. Rather, what I perceived as my father's
criticism, was merely a matter of his way. It was his
habit, a means for him to demonstrate his interest—perhaps even tinged with a tiny bit envy.
It was a matter of differences in our styles and manners
of expression. Where I saw disapproving scrutiny and
criticism, he was trying, within his own style and in the
only way he knew how, to convey support and interest for
me and in my interests.
When he offered such an extraordinary demonstration of
my car, I could really feel he was proud of me, not just
my taste in cars.
But he felt unable to express that to me directly.
We were from different generations and the cultures of
our generations. He grew up in a time when men did not
express themselves and their feelings as easily and readily
as my generation, lest they be thought weak and womanly.
So he used the only means he knew to tell me of his
approval, pride, and affection.
That incident changed many things between my father
and me.
Perhaps this story will help you better understand
someone dear to you who criticizes you—but who loves you.
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