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by  Dr. Jeffrey Lant

Author’s program note. In 1921, that sultry chanteuse with a silken voice seasoned with a touch of honky-tonk and life’s deflating experience — Ethel Waters  (1896- 1977) — got up before the microphone one fine day and belted into history a little ditty by Billy Higgins and W. Benton Overstreet. It was a swinging song with attitude… and, it turned out, with “legs”, too; a song so potent in its magic that over 50 major recording artists couldn’t wait to get their vocal chords around it.

It was “There’ll be some changes made”, and it included the resonating line that made us all queasy… “Nobody wants you when you’re old and gray”… the line that justified an ocean or two of wild behavior, the wild oats you’d better indulge in when young and limber… before the Grim Reaper stamped your forehead with the iconic number 65 and measured you for eternity.

Go now to any search engine, review your recorded choices; then “choose your poison” as Grandpa Walt used to say… but, whoever you select, take time to pay homage to Miss Waters, for she was a game old bird and after all was the first to urge us to approach olde age with dignity, composed, resigned, withered hands folded gently in your lap, glass for your false teeth at the ready — not!

Oh, no, Miss Waters celebrated not just the “you” you were… but the “you” you could be with a few deft changes, tweaks and tucks…  all necessary so that your “golden” years are even less demure (by a long shot) than your early days; that you don’t just read your Browning — “the best is yet to be” — but live him, with plenitude and a “hey, look me over” edge, your original and unique cocktail of defiance, insight, and allure.

Step-dad Jack and the chocolate box.

He was shrunken, smaller than he had been in life… in form that is, never in spirit. And he asked me –before “forever” took him — for chocolates. He craved them. I didn’t have to think twice about what to do. I was on the phone at once and ordered him an exuberant chocolate feast of Godiva’s best, the kind of assortment that a boy bent on the delights of love gives to the girl he wants to wash his shirts and cheat on for life. Yes, it was that big. And when I called to make sure he had the package… I was informed this man I hardly knew… had the box open, a few already nibbled, sampled, so he could make the best selection. And he was smiling…

But that’s only a part of this tale…

The instant she heard ol’ Jack talking to me, my mother, that force of nature and approved behavior, grabbed the phone and Let Me Have It. Jack was ill, she said; Jack was dying, she said; Jack could die at any moment, she said, and face his Maker, as quick as you could say “Jack Robinson.”  What did I mean by giving him, and on his death bed, too, the rich seduction that was chocolate, a food that could not be found amidst his recommended dietary choices, unappetizing all. Why, didn’t I know that could kill him….? Moreover, there was no mention in Emily Post sanctioning death-bed chocolates… and thus they could not be approved, unfitting objects as they were for such an event and its high mysteries and profound enigmas.

“But POM (Poor Old Mother)”, I said. His cancer is terminal, he could indeed die at any moment; every doctor said so, and at such a time if there’s a dance in the old galoot yet he ought to dance it… he ought to have what he wanted, the savor of life, not another moment of the semblance of life, measured out by tea spoons of this medicine, tablets of that. In short he wanted, with an insistence that comes when time is almost gone, one of life’s pleasures, not another indication and token of life’s finality.

… Jack died just hours later…

… POM became the Ice Queen to me for too long…

But I was the gainer here… for Jack had reaffirmed a profound truth we cannot hear and contemplate often enough… that life is for the living, that life must be lived, exulted, extolled, celebrated and savored… and that at the end, if you want chocolates, the very best chocolates (or their equivalent) no one — not even the well-meaning wife and scold — should be allowed even a moment of jeremiad, pontification, finger-pointing and condescension…  “Proper behavior” be damned….

Easy to say, difficult to do.

Now, one can damn, and so easily, too, the bug-a-boo of “proper behavior”, but the truth of the matter, an independent course is difficult to pull off. Witness my darlin’ mama’s frosty reaction on the matter of chocolates an instant prior to demise. We geriatric life-savors need to face up to the shibboleths and prejudices of our rigid adversaries… and become as shrewd as we are aged.

Thus, start from the proposition that for the bulk of the world… but never for ones as wicked cool and winsome as we are,  Age 65 is regarded as the gate through which one passes, inexorably, inevitably, slowly on account of rheumatism, arthritis and assembled other maladies attendant upon bigger and bigger birthdays; the gate through which we enter aging… through which we depart dead… truly an inviting scenario… if you’re into the macabre pictures of Hieronymus Bosch (1450-1516) and other mediaeval horrors. . But Hieronymus and his scarry ilk have never been my cup of tea, perhaps because of their unremitting focus on the darker side of life, its miseries, regrets, loneliness and angst about the eternity into which each of us must enter, like it or not. I am a creature of life and light… and aim to live my credo to the very last moment… for all that I may be able to do nothing more at that unique moment of finality than nibble a chocolate. Even that is enough to reaffirm my adamant belief in life, not life’s restrictions.

Yet these restrictions are everywhere, built into the very heart of our youth-centered culture. Folks over 65 are lesser beings, unable to do this, incapable of doing that; past it in ways as diverse as eating corn on the cob or satisfying even the least demanding of lovers. Even more than a baby (which after all does not know better) we are held thrall to the do-nots, the should-nots, the could-nots, instead of enjoying the thrills and growth of the why-nots.

But we are not, we crew of 65 plus, babies to be protected and instructed. We are people who have lived life — and often riotously too — with gusto and a zest that only begins when you realize that the life force within you is not unlimited or inexhaustible. It is its very limitation that makes it precious… and which drives us to use it… all of it … never letting a drop of it… any of it… drip away unused and unregarded.

We know the pleasures of life… and intend to explore each and every one of them until the engine that drives our magnificent being can do absolutely nothing more.

That’s why I tell you this: Miss Waters sings her song not for you and me who seize and savor life.  For we do not need to make changes…

Rather, these changes must be made by the folks — “age-ists” every one of them — who want us to stop living before our time, pushing us out of life, anxious to get what we have had. These folks are in the business of denial, living to block us, restrict us and chide us for ideas, thoughts and actions they deem unsuitable to our age and station… They are the ones who would remove us from life,  not help us engage it.

It is for these folks and their disapproval and disdain that Miss Waters sings her song, for they cannot be reminded often and enough…

“You’re here today and then tomorrow you’re gone” …

Thus I shall live my life while there is a crumb yet to enjoy. And if that bothers you or anyone, get over it… and make the changes which must be made today… for you have far greater need for them than I do…

Envoy

Dr. Lant turns 65 February 16, 2012.

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About the Author

Harvard-educated Dr. Jeffrey Lant is CEO of Worldprofit, Inc., providing a wide range of online services for small and-home based businesses. Services include home business training, affiliate marketing training, earn-at-home programs, traffic tools, advertising, webcasting, hosting, design, WordPress Blogs and more. Find out why Worldprofit is considered the # 1 online Home Business Training program by getting a free Associate Membership today. Republished with author’s permission by Robert or Linda Elze <a href=”http://CyberWealthZone.com”>http://CyberWealthZone.com</a>. Check out Commission AutoPilot ->  http://www.CyberWealthZone.com/?rd=nq84dD7t

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Any feedback would be great. “Most important Article of your Life so make sure you read this and Leave comments and right here is just one of the articles of 300 articles across multiple subjects that are bringing me “Prospects and Leads” and YOU need these too.  If you want to see us live, just click:  http://bigdogmoneymaker.com/3a0   and ask the Sr. Monitor in the Live Business Center how you can get these articles for yourself already written for you.  Just for Leaving a Comment I am going to give you a **FREE** Gift…Leave a Comment “—

by  Dr. Jeffrey Lant

Author’s program note. Winter. What a revoltin’ development this is. I often wonder on days so ridiculously cold like this one is why the Puritans stayed here after arriving and sampling the depths of a Massachusetts winter. I suppose it had something to do with their land grants and, of course, their pertinacious natures and obstinacy. For they were of the variety of folks who say they’ll do a thing and then — do it, never mind that their friends and fellow Pilgrims are dropping like flies all around them.

I often think of such folks on days like this, in winters like this. Excuse me if I get too intimate too fast, but I wonder, yes and for long periods of time, too, for I like to be thorough in my cogitations and day dreams, I wonder… about the socks those Puritans wore, what undergarments and undies they fashioned, how they made vests and sweaters… scarves and hats, each and every item needed… and especially the focus of today’s ruminations, how they kept their godly ears from freezing and falling off, tangible victory tokens for Winter itself, who likes you to remember who is boss around these parts once the December solstice occurs.

Theocracies, autocracies, aristocracies, ideas on this and that, may all come and go but one fact of human history remains constant and insistent: if you live in a frigid climate, your ears will get plenty cold… and must be taken care of right away, whatever your other priorities for the day.

Meet the patron saint of warm ears…. Chester Greenwood.

For just such days, Chester Greenwood and his first epochal invention were born. And today we sing his praises…. while capering amidst snow and ice. Because of Master Greenwood we are safe and warm, ready for anything.

Because Chester Greenwood, whom I guarantee you never heard of until just this moment, is the man who invented earmuffs… and he hailed not so very far from where I’m writing you today, in Farmington in the State of Maine, where laconic residents know the answer to this ancient question, “Cold enough for you?” And then laugh their thin, silent laugh, the one that keeps their human heat within, not cast profligate like into the too brusque air. Mainers are like that, and we like them just that way, especially young Chester and his ear-saving invention.

Just 15.

Like everybody else in Farmington, Chester’s young ears got cold and turned all the colors of distress, first chalky white, then beet red, and finally the deep blue that signifies danger for the continued use, indeed existence of the ears he rightly prized and cherished. And being a practical lad, and caring, too, for the ears of his family and friends, he did what all folks of inventive disposition do… he began to dream up a solution, and fast, for his ears were big and therefore even colder than most.

As every true inventor knows, the solution to a pending problem — that “eureka!” moment — can occur anytime, anywhere. And you must always be ready when it happens. For that industrious young Greenwood boy it occurred one day when he was out having fun — or trying to –at Abbot Pond where he was breaking in a new pair of skates.

This was a very big deal for him, because he came from a poor family (as most Mainers did) with six kids… and new skates were like gold, for all that they had to be shared. Greenwood was anxious to try out those babies… but the wind whipping off the pond was just too much, even for this hardy lad. He raced home to his “Gram”, found in her proper place in the farmhouse kitchen and asked her to see what she could come up with to cover his ears. It was the kind of practical question every real Grammie expects, is glad to get, and can always do something about.

Chester didn’t just stand and watch as his Grammie worked; that was not his way, and so they worked together. Chester supplied the idea and the materials; Gram, proud of her inventive grandson, supplied the artistry and experience of her nimble fingers, and so they got on like a house afire.

Chester wanted beaver fur on the outside, black velvet on the inside to shield his ears. Wool would never do; too itchy.

Once the materials had been selected and approved, it was time to fashion the device that kept them secure and in place. To solve this problem, they chose a soft wire known as farm wire, a precursor of bailing wire. Some later accounts say the resulting device was then attached to a cap.

So readied for the elements, Chester returned to the pond where, with the warmest ears in the county, he astonished his shivering buddies with the joyous dexterity of unremitting youth.

Soon, this 15 year old whiz kid was in the business of crafting earmuffs for old and young alike; for Mainers know a good deal when they see it. And as Chester worked… he, like every inventor before him, made adjustments, improvements, corrections, never satisfied, always in pursuit of the perfect muff, which he called Greenwood’s ear protectors and which, like Henry Ford’s auto, you could have in any color so long as it was black.

In due course, in 1873, and just 18 mind, he was awarded U.S. patent number 188,292 thereby launching a business which kept 20 or so of his neighbors in Farmington gainfully employed for nearly 60 years. At its height in 1936, he produced some 400,000 muffs a year, doing well while doing good… which is or at least should be the objective of every inventor and entrepreneur.

Greenwood, by now a celebrity in the State of Maine and beyond, died in 1937, aged 79. He had lead the most beneficial of lives, finding needs and filling them, the time honored path to usefulness and wealth. Amongst his 130 patents are such devices as improvements on the spark plug; a decoy mouse trap called the Mechanical Cat; his own shock absorber, a hook for pulling doughnuts from boiling oil, the Rubberless Rubber Band, and the Greenwood Tempered Steel Rake.

But of all his many worthy and practical ideas, I still prefer his first achievement, those earmuffs in beaver and black velvet, for you see like Chester, and such great celebrities as Clark Gable, I have big ears, too; so big that in the Alphabet Poll in my high school year book, my ears were photographed after my discerning classmates had voted mine the most notable, and so they were. Delicious/

And thus, with ears like Greenwood’s, I had Greenwood’s problem; that is until I discovered Greenwood’s solution in a pair of Greenwood’s muffs, in black, of course. They were a statement, that I was a practical boy myself, always desirous of keeping these pristine ears in fine working order. Besides, I don’t mind tellling you, I looked killing in mine, arresting, handsome, cute to boot. Not like Christopher Ninnis, that wag, who made derisory comments about sissies in earmuffs, keeping his in a box. But then… look how he turned out.

Note: In 1977, Maine declared December 21st “Chester Greenwood Day” to honor the king of warm ears whilst the City of Farmington, Maine kept employed by Greenwood’s genius, throws him an annual  birthday bash, complete with parade where police cruisers are decorated as giant earmuffs. It’s the first Saturday in December. He deserves it, all of it, don’t you think?

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About the Author

Harvard-educated Dr. Jeffrey Lant is CEO of Worldprofit, Inc., providing a wide range of online services for small and-home based businesses. Services include home business training, affiliate marketing training, earn-at-home programs, traffic tools, advertising, webcasting, hosting, design, WordPress Blogs and more. Find out why Worldprofit is considered the # 1 online Home Business Training program by getting a free Associate Membership today. Republished with author’s permission by Robert or Linda Elze <a href=”http://CyberWealthZone.com”>http://CyberWealthZone.com</a>. Check out Commission AutoPilot ->  http://www.CyberWealthZone.com/?rd=nq84dD7t

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Any feedback would be great. “Most important Article of your Life so make sure you read this and Leave comments and right here is just one of the articles of 300 articles across multiple subjects that are bringing me “Prospects and Leads” and YOU need these too.  If you want to see us live, just click:  http://bigdogmoneymaker.com/3a0   and ask the Sr. Monitor in the Live Business Center how you can get these articles for yourself already written for you.  Just for Leaving a Comment I am going to give you a **FREE** Gift…Leave a Comment “—

by  Dr. Jeffrey Lant

Author’s program note. There can be only one song peppy enough, bouncy enough, irresistible enough, a song that is the very essence of what is best about America… that we get hit and hit again and hit again… yet get up, dust ourselves off and do what’s necessary to win, thank you very much.

That song is “Hey, look me over,” from the 1960 musical “Wildcat” (book by Richard Nash; lyrics by Caroline Leigh; music by Cy Coleman); and it fits the mood today at the headquarters of Newt Gingrich, the man who squeezed the bitter lemon of his contorted and messy relations with women into a lemonade sweet enough even the good Christian folk could drink by the gallon.

Thus, go to any search engine now. Find this tune and play it loud and proud… For, in the final analysis, we love the people Teddy Roosevelt described as “the man in the arena,” the people who have to win because losing is unthinkable. Even if we have to hold our noses when we get too close, we just can’t help admiring them, getting off our posteriors and cheering them to the echo. And the GOP citizens of South Carolina did just that.

They decided to vote for an idea… the idea that it is “we, the people” who make presidents… not pollsters, not handlers, not pundits and prognosticators… and if you don’t like it, that’s your problem. Not theirs. Thus did Romney get his gourmet, tax- deductible lunch handed to him… his contrived designer jeans ripped, torn, muddy, and a black eye to boot. This doesn’t mean he won’t be nominated, but it most assuredly means he will not be, cannot be nominated the way he’s gone about the job so far. South Carolina has dictated that if nothing more.

Prize day.

To sketch this influential event in a way that even third-graders could understand, consider this: Mitt Romney is the school kid we all hated; hated with our heart, soul and brain, for we knew — and could see evidence every single day, every day he raised his hand and knew the answer — that he was the kid the teachers idolized, the one they could with abiding pride point to and say, “That’s our boy.” Whereupon the boy would beam… and our hatred would grow… and we’d dream delicious ways of taking him down a peg or two… the faster, the sooner, the most abashing, the better.

Then one day one of the kids couldn’t take it take it anymore… and he pops, goes nuts. It’s the day school prizes are awarded; Mitt getting the lion’s share. It was the day something must be done… the time for mere rage gone; the need for action this day nigh.

Thus does this kid (call him Newt) see picture-perfect, not-a-hair-out-of-place Mitt coming to school in his chauffeur driven car and goes postal; he decides enough is enough… that Mitt (whose very name he abominates and loathes) must be taken out… but without of course implicating himself. Thus with a “sorry, man” at the ready scruffy, incorrigible Newt maneuvers Mitt into the nearest, stinkiest, festering mud, thereby rendering the apple of every teacher’s eye an unholy mess when he walks into class…

How much sympathy does ol’ Mitt get, for all that he’s the victim? None, absolutely none at all… and they elect Newt Student Body President in a landslide… because, because… Mitt makes them sick, every last one of them.

And, friends, this is what happened yesterday in South Carolina… the state oh-so- clearly indicated that they want candidates who fight for their favors, including the ultimate favor of getting to whack on their behalf, the man each and every one of them despises… Barack Obama, president of the Great Republic… for make no mistake about it, the fractured, snarling, uncooperative members of the Grand Old Party want brother Barack’s head on a platter… this is and has been since Inauguration Day 2009, their first and preeminent desire.

And they aren’t convinced Mitt can bring home the bacon… stinging the incumbent, slashing the incumbent, wounding the incumbent, humiliating the incumbent, for that’s what they insist their candidate deliver… like Salome with the head of John the Baptist, a reference every Evangelical knows and savors.

So, what has the great Palmetto State, home of nullifier John C. Calhoun and war profiteer Rhett Butler, the state that lobbed the first treasonable shot, thereby launching a war anything but civil, what has this state said?

First, that the Romney Coronation is off. That the carefully contrived, minutely controlled candidacy of Massachusetts’ least popular governor has ended. Mitt is going to have to do what Mitt hates: engaging in a bare-knuckles brawl that must show the GOP he is their boy; a man who can deliver the red-meat the much challenged and riven party craves. For these folks, rabid revolutionaries all and Constitution-hugging patriots as they are, are not about to go gentle into this good-night; they insist upon a candidate who can turn their white hot rage about the wrongful direction of the Great Republic into a lifetime lock on 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and the nation’s agenda.

They look at Mitt and want to puke… What kind of American is he, they wonder, who wants the most precious of their gifts, their vote for president; but who, they feel in their gut, not only does not like or understand them, but faces them with incomprehension and even disdain? They know that a dinner-party with Mitt and his dutiful, adoring wife (a role model impossible for today’s woman) would be proper, dull, an unhappy memory for all… for all that Mitt might say just the right things with gestures approved by his stable of handlers.

And so while Republican hosts may yet dine with this stiff, control freak and paragon, they are afraid, and rightly so, that there won’t be any pleasure in it, no fun, no grandiose joys and memories; worst of all, no White House.

And this is why the GOP has gone through the long, exhaustive, often abjectly humiliating process of vetting one potential presidential nominee after another, all ardently desired and even adored at the outset; all found wanting and disquieting in so very many ways.

Will these folks be happy with Newt, his many wives, his inexplicable financial arrangements, his blatant self-service and prevarications? Maybe not. But he is serving their purposes right now — forcing Mitt out of his bubble, demanding he get real on why his association with Bain Capital unnerves so many at a time when he has so egregiously mishandled the matter of his tax returns. We all know, and Romney knows we know, that what we will find when he at last makes them public — no evidence of illegality but a text-book case of how the super-wealthy gain and use loop-holes on which they build their empires.

Newt has all of Romney’s many inadequacies going for him… and he has, mirabile dictu, brigades of Southern women for him, too. They already knew that men are lyin’, cheatin’, low-down scoundrels. But now it’s official. Messin’ around with women is no big deal, no sin at all, whatever the Good Book says… just keep our taxes low, hold our Founding Fathers high, make us as special as we see ourselves, and above all love us… something Mitt Romney just cannot do…

About the Author

Harvard-educated Dr. Jeffrey Lant is CEO of Worldprofit, Inc., providing a wide range of online services for small and-home based businesses. Services include home business training, affiliate marketing training, earn-at-home programs, traffic tools, advertising, webcasting, hosting, design, WordPress Blogs and more. Find out why Worldprofit is considered the # 1 online Home Business Training program by getting a free Associate Membership today. Republished with author’s permission by Robert or Linda Elze <a href=”http://CyberWealthZone.com”>http://CyberWealthZone.com</a>. Check out Commission AutoPilot ->  http://www.CyberWealthZone.com/?rd=nq84dD7t

Great online advertising: http://bigdogmoneymaker.com/ft1

Come see us live:  http://bigdogmoneymaker.com/3a0

Any feedback would be great. “Most important Article of your Life so make sure you read this and Leave comments and right here is just one of the articles of 300 articles across multiple subjects that are bringing me “Prospects and Leads” and YOU need these too.  If you want to see us live, just click:  http://bigdogmoneymaker.com/3a0   and ask the Sr. Monitor in the Live Business Center how you can get these articles for yourself already written for you.  Just for Leaving a Comment I am going to give you a **FREE** Gift…Leave a Comment “—

by Dr. Jeffrey Lant

Author’s program note. One of Broadway’s happiest and most enduring musicals is “How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying.” Written by Frank Loesser; it was released in October, 1961 to immediate acclaim — and a Pulitzer Prize to boot. Most recently it was revived with Daniel Ratcliffe — famous for his eponymous role in the Harry Potter films — starring in the lead role originally done to mischievous perfection by Robert Morse, simultaneously menace and mastermind.

I have selected one of the lesser tunes from the production for the occasional music to this article. It’s called simply “Coffee Break”, and you should go to any search engine now to listen to it. It’s about how the absence of coffee — and therefore the coffee break — raises more anxiety and lamentation than a plague of locusts and completely stops the whole company, convinced that the end of the world as they know it is at hand. Oh, my! So much grief for one missed cuppa. However, the real shock is not that the coffee was late for the company coffee break, no indeed; the real shock is that more time, trouble, energy, irritation, and anger was expended on this event than on anything else that entire day… including the company’s business they were hired to transact…until the outrage about the coffee break was surpassed by certain stale items on the lunch menu… thereby diverting everyone’s outspoken attention to this even greater snafu.

The sad part is that this kind of ludicrous “crisis” and massive waste of time does not occur solely or exclusively on Madison Avenue or in Broadway shows… it is most likely the way you are running your “business” and why it doesn’t prosper.

That’s why today, I am going to put you and your “business” under the most minute scrutiny, the better to help you understand that your business, as you currently organize and run it — cannot make the desirable profits of your imagination… until such time as you rethink everything — absolutely everything — so that the focus of your energy and action every day is NOT the coffee break… but actually doing BUSINESS. And as this analysis develops right before your very eyes, you are most likely to be chagrined, embarrassed, and horrified – and that’s just for openers.

On the acute need to perceive what you are really doing every single day.

You say you are in business, correct? You say you want substantial, increasing profits, correct? You say you are a hard worker; indeed that the sun never sets on all the work you do, the tasks done, the challenges confronted, correct?

In short you are about as swift, intelligent, able and valuable a business person as business has ever seen and that your DNA should be donated to the nation so that generations yet to come may have the benefit of you and your unmatched business expertise and execution.

You, of course, are even now nodding your head in sage agreement with this flawless description of you and your business acumen. Modest though you are, you cannot but admit that you are the very paragon and model sketched above… just like Kansas City, you’ve gone about as far as you can go.

It is this proposition swallowed hook, line and sinker by the overwhelming majority of business owners of every kind that keeps you trapped in a business that doesn’t grow, expand, prosper and that does not make and will never make the profits you consistently and repeatedly say are the reason you are in business to get and enjoy.

YOU and your business under our microscope.

Now, it’s time to knuckle down to the important, sure-to-be-shocking analysis of what you do during your “business hours”… for you cannot improve your business until you know precisely what you do and precisely when you do it.

Business is about two things and two things only…

Quick! Can you guess what they are? The correct answer is 1) the generation of qualified prospects and 2) contacting these prospects, making them the most lavish, persuasive offer ever, then closing the deal forthwith. This is the two- step dance that keeps you in business, expands your business, and leads to money, money, money… yours, all yours.

Now let’s see just what percentage of your average day focuses on these two key points… and what percentage of your business day goes to anything but these two essential tasks.

You’ll need a pad, a watch, and total honesty.

To make this crucial scrutiny work, you will need to be clear about what you do, when you do it, and how long it takes to do it. In other words, you must start by creating a detailed picture of your average business day… and why it either works to produce the prospect leads and orders you need… or why it doesn’t. Give this essential project which can launch the most profitable epoch for your business your fullest attention. Nothing will come of this project unless you are careful, thorough, and complete.

Your first task is to list all the things you do during your average business day. These will include but will certainly not be limited to

* all breaks, kind and duration;

* non-business related telephone and other communications;

* time spent “surfing” the Web, especially at sites unsuitable for visits during business hours;

* gossip with friends and co-workers;

* writing ad copy;

* creating offers that make sales;

* time on the telephone etc where you connect with prospects, and either upgrade them to be qualified prospects, or close them by making sales.

Get the picture? What you’re trying to do is this: show yourself in unanswerable detail what you do on the average day that has absolutely nothing to do with the identification and closing of prospects… and how much time and effort you expend generating prospects and closing them.

Reforms must follow identification of what you are doing wrong, over and over again.

Chances are, you will be shocked and abashed by what you discover, for instance now seeing that you spend far more time surfing the Web and gossiping on the phone than you do on that same phone contacting prospects and closing deals. Such pernicious reality must be dealt with at once, for it is costing you money every single day.

Start today.

Do you care whether your business succeeds or fails? Do you care whether you make more money than less? Do you care whether the limited time you have on this planet is transformed into the maximum amount of coin of the realm, and so serenity, security, satisfaction?

That is why you must do this necessary exercise, and do it today. For you see, succeeding in business without really trying makes a dandy theme for a witty musical… but can in no way be regarded as a truth to build your ever more prosperous business by. That truth will be vividly apparent to you as you implement the recommendations of this important article.

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by  Dr. Jeffrey Lant

Last night, January 19, 2012, The Boston Globe, the biggest and most influential newspaper in New England, pulled out all the stops for two of their best and brightest reporters; Michael Kranish, deputy chief of the Washington bureau of The Boston Globe and Scott Helman, staff writer at The Boston Globe. The occasion was the release of their new biography of former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, the likely Republican presidential nominee.

First, my compliments to The Boston Globe. The special reception before a panel on der Mittster was nicely done and gave us all the opportunity to meet the authors and chat with them. The helpers were all efficient, polite, unobtrusive. Perfect.

It looked like a long evening until….

I sought out Michael Kranish first; he seemed like the senior member of the team and I try to get what I need for my article out of the way as soon as possible, so that I can sit back and enjoy the event. I told Kranish I had three brief questions for him.

First, would Romney ever be president? His unpromising answer: “It’s possible. It could happen.” This was not the incisive, insightful comment I was looking for… and suggested the possibility of a very long evening in the making, one to be ditched as soon as I’d eaten more of their fine brie.

Question 2: will Mormonism be an issue in the campaign? “In some places it could be,” he answered. OMG!  It was indeed going to be a very long evening.

But I said I wanted to ask him three questions… and it wasn’t over until it was over. I ventured my third query. “What was the most unexpected thing about Romney you discovered in your research”? Then the intriguing answer, “What happened at Stanford  University” when he was a student there during the Vietnam War, the war that derailed his father’s presidential campaign. Ok, this was something promising… at last.

Of father brainwashed and campaign imploded.

Mitt Romney (born 1947) had as his dad a human dynamo called George Romney, celebrated as the rescuer of American Motors (which gave me my push button Rambler in high school), governor of Michigan, member of the Nixon cabinet; a man who rightly thought he had a superb shot at being president of the Great Republic… until…

… he went to Vietnam, where he got star treatment and massive misinformation about how the war was going, how we’d win, how the people loved us, and enough manure to fertilize Connecticut. He came back to America feeling like a fool; then shot himself through the head when he claimed the military had “brainwashed” him. His presidential campaign ended the minute the words were out of his mouth. Nobody wanted as president a man who could be controlled by the military or anyone else. And so George Romney’s career ended… providing his son with a lifetime of lessons about what not to do… including the vital necessity to avoid the media whenever possible.

On his way back from Vietnam, Pere Romney stopped to visit Mitt at Stanford… where this devoted son got the opportunity to talk to his father about Life, War, God… of winning, losing, what’s important and what isn’t. It’s the kind of conversation one has with a parent once in a lifetime… and Mitt took it all in and to heart. He would, he vowed, revenge what had happened to his father… being sure to derive all the proper lessons from this seminal event, including the absolute need in his life for God, the God of the Mormons…

God.

To understand Mitt  Romney, you must appreciate the importance and influence of his Mormon faith. It has provided the sinews of his life while isolating him from other people; people who often disdained his religion, calling it a “cult” and worse. Mitt learned to be private, very private, about his religion…letting very few people into that side of himself. Privacy, particularly privacy about his faith, became an obsession… something that may have connected him with God… but most assuredly estranged him from his fellow men, the people he’d need if he was ever to run for president.

Money.

What further separated him from the run of mankind was money… he made awesome amounts of it, largely through what are called leveraged buy-outs. This is a practice whereby investors buy a company, with the intention of doing everything they can to make it as profitable as possible, as quickly as possible; so they can sell the whole or its parts, often for staggering return on investment. This almost always involves the firing of employees in an attempt to decrease expenses and increase efficiency. Here Mitt Romney was king; a paragon who knew the delights that come when making only millions in a day was “bad” compared to the brilliant days, and plenty of them, when you made tens, even hundreds of millions lickety-split. Such days did absolutely nothing to connect him with mere mortals… and presented a problem he has still not been able to solve. Every time he got richer, Mitt got more disconnected… and less electable.

So, here we’ve got a candidate with a perfect marriage, 5 sons made by Disney, nary a scandal to be had… richer that God Himself… super bright… the hardest worker on the planet… but a loser for all that, because he just cannot connect with people and their everyday concerns to save his life.

Thus as I roamed the thin crowd talking with people, who were very keen to be asked their opinion about Mitt and his prospects, the temperature never rose above “tepid.” Yes, right smack dab in the middle of Boston, capital of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts that Mitt had reigned over as governor (2003-2007), he couldn’t have thrown off less heat. And so, the people whom he needed so desperately to make him president evinced absolutely no excitement at all, much less any abiding glow.

And you could see this puzzled authors Kranish and Helman because their unauthorized biography (without a single interview with Mitt), into which they had poured time, life and commitment could only go as far as its subject, and not an inch more. If he sailed into the White House, their book (which I made sure they both autographed) would have the legs most political books never do, but if the world was as lukewarm as the folks in their audience, their $30 book (praised though it was by the usual East Coast media suspects) was DOA…

That’s why they came back to this point several times: awkward and disconnected as Mitt was in public, he was in private something of a cut-up (of the wonk variety), a man who could tell a story, give a hug, engage… even (and this arrested my attention for sure) moon walk while singing tunes from the Grateful Dead, tunes like “There’s Whiskey In The Jug”, an odd favorite for a tea-totalling Mormon:

“Mush-a ring dum-a do dum-a da Whack for my daddy-o. Whack for my daddy-o There’s whiskey in the jar.”

But this, though it made me smile and nod my head in wonderment was not the highlight of the evening. That was the rapt attention and joy in Aime Joseph. You see Mr. Joseph is my driver, a Haitian by birth, obsessed with American politics, always quizzing me about political people and their measures. He dressed up for this event, and imbibed every word with the utmost focus and concentration. “We have nothing like this in Haiti,” he said as I gave him the present of a lifetime, an autographed copy of the book. And when he saw me about to drop it, he grabbed it from my hand, the better to ensure it did not fall; chiding me for lack of care with this valuable artifact.

And I saw so clearly what was the best part of all: the fact that this kind of forum, this kind of book, this kind of open dialogue and honest conversation still was foreign to most of the world… and the thing we should be most proud of, our gift to the world and our collective future.

Now, go to any search engine and find “Whiskey in the jug,” and imagine Mitt moon walking to it…  If there’s enough whiskey in the jug, that should be no problem.

*** What do you think? We invite you to post your comments below.

About the Author

Harvard-educated Dr. Jeffrey Lant is CEO of Worldprofit, Inc., providing a wide range of online services for small and-home based businesses. Services include home business training, affiliate marketing training, earn-at-home programs, traffic tools, advertising, webcasting, hosting, design, WordPress Blogs and more. Find out why Worldprofit is considered the # 1 online Home Business Training program by getting a free Associate Membership today. Republished with author’s permission by Robert or Linda Elze <a href=”http://CyberWealthZone.com”>http://CyberWealthZone.com</a>. Check out Commission AutoPilot ->  http://www.CyberWealthZone.com/?rd=nq84dD7t

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Any feedback would be great. “Most important Article of your Life so make sure you read this and Leave comments and right here is just one of the articles of 300 articles across multiple subjects that are bringing me “Prospects and Leads” and YOU need these too.  If you want to see us live, just click:  http://bigdogmoneymaker.com/3a0   and ask the Sr. Monitor in the Live Business Center how you can get these articles for yourself already written for you.  Just for Leaving a Comment I am going to give you a **FREE** Gift…Leave a Comment “—

by Dr. Jeffrey Lant

Author’s program note. Are you one of the billion or so people worldwide who’s been blaming the recession for all your woes, including that pimple on your back you popped… but should have left alone? Then this article is for YOU… and not a moment too soon either. In it, we’re going to examine just what you did yesterday to make money and whether you were focused on what you should have been focused on… or whether you had succumbed to one of the greatest of business maladies of all time: the pernicious Color Green Syndrome.

To put you in the mood to deal with this problem and to root it out of your business and life, I’m calling up Stevie Wonder, particularly his 1982 song “Do I Do”. (Go find it in any search engine; use the long — 10 1/2 minute — version that features Dizzy Gillespie.) It’s guaranteed to get you up, breathing deep, gliding across your floor with a practised dexterity you didn’t know was in you. Good! For this article and the resurrection of your business you need all the right moves… and Stevie is going to help you get them… as I am.

Are you suffering from The Color Green Syndrome? I bet you are… and it’s killing you.

What is this condition that’s worse than any plague, that’ll knock you for a loop faster than any flu… yea verily, that will cripple your enterprises more assuredly than the IRS or any other government intervention? Listen, my children, and you shall learn it here, find out how to perceive it, deal with it, eradicate it forever and so soar….

The heart and soul of your business is two things, just two things you must know and do EVERY single day without fail, every day that is when you want to use your business for what your business is for: making money, making money, oh yes, making money. Ou la la!

Okay, let’s dig in, in the spirit of medical research and solution. The two things you must do EVERY day in your business are to 1) generate prospects and 2) close those prospects. Nothing — absolutely NOTHING — is as fundamental to your success as this. So, let’s take a sustained gander at what you did yesterday to grow your business and reap rewards from it… and whether The Color Green Syndrome laid you low.

How the Syndrome got its name.

According to my trusty and much used dictionary, syndrome is defined as an aggregate or set of concurrent symptoms together indicating the presence and nature of a disease. One of the most destructive and insidious of these syndromes is the subject of this article. Here’s how it was discovered and named.

A person not unlike you came to visit me one day, asserting with vehemence and vigor that he wanted to make money online. To do so he knew he needed tools, training, traffic and ongoing help, and he paid me to provide them. I got down to business with a will; I am a man who believes in action, action now… and so in due course I presented him with a website that was 100% focused on stopping prospects in their tracks, motivating them to take notice, leave complete follow-up details (the better to have and develop those essential prospect lists) … and move like greased lightning to get the stupendous offer I had persuaded him to make.

But things, begun so auspiciously, slowed to a snail’s pace — or slower — at this moment. Why? “Because the green you selected for the background color isn’t the green I want. Show me some others.”

And so began the descent into madness and the unraveling of a great enterprise with a killer website standing at the ready to make lucre, and a lot of it.

The client didn’t like the green… but wanted to show his partner… who definitely didn’t like the green…

One requested one green; the other requested another. And while they reviewed, considered and discussed the virtues and winning attributes of greens ranging from apple green… chartreuse… hunter green… Islamic green…. fern green… Paris green… Shamrock green and several dozen other greens, far more greens than either you, me, or the customer even knew existed… their business stopped. So important was getting just the precise shade that all other matters, including the prosaic little matter of generating prospects, closing prospects, making money fell by the wayside… prospects ungenerated, offers unmade, sales non existent… until just the right green surfaced, was seen, discussed, selected, and shown off.

“So sad, but what has this to do with me?”, you ask.

You will recall that a syndrome is an aggregate of symptoms… and so it is here. The Color Green Syndrome can easily morph into any of the following conditions:

“I cannot generate prospects, call prospects, close prospects, until…”

* I have 2 cups of coffee, not a drop more or less;

* I have watched my favorite television program, never missing a minute or an episode:

* My dog is walked, my newspaper read, my toast prepared just so (and oh if my favorite jam is gone).

“I cannot generate prospects, call prospects, close prospects until I’ve….”

* called my children;

* fluffed my pillows;

* considered lunch and dinner menus.

And several million other situations, conditions, “really important things” that (by definition and sanctified usage) are important, way more important than doing what’s necessary to generate prospects… contact prospects… close and make deals with prospects.

Don’t say you aren’t subject to this malady. This is Dr. Lant you’re talking to, your friend, ultimate realist…. and we both know better, don’t we? You’ve got a bad case… and blaming it on the recession just passed — or anything else — just isn’t good enough….

So, unless you’re prepared to let The Color Green Syndrome (in any of its many manifestations) continue to undermine your business, you’ve got to change your ways… today… and I’ve asked Stevie Wonder to assist.

START with the two essential money-making activities — generating leads,calling leads — BEFORE you do ANYTHING else. Treat the prospects you’ll generate like this:

“When I see you on the street My whole body gets weak.”

In short treat that all -important prospect like the lover you cannot wait a single minute to contact… and make this kind of offer:

“Yes I got some honey suckle chocolate dripping kisses full of love for you.”

Go on, try it. It’s the only way to eradicate The Color Green Syndrome and focus on the only green that matters in business… the green backs your new moves and attitude are sure to deliver. Now turn up Stevie Wonder… and dance! After all, as soon as you generate and call all those prospects, you’re going to make a whole lot of money today…. and that calls for boogie!

About the Author

Harvard-educated Dr. Jeffrey Lant is CEO of Worldprofit, Inc., providing a wide range of online services for small and-home based businesses. Services include home business training, affiliate marketing training, earn-at-home programs, traffic tools, advertising, webcasting, hosting, design, WordPress Blogs and more. Find out why Worldprofit is considered the # 1 online Home Business Training program by getting a free Associate Membership today. Republished with author’s permission by Robert or Linda Elze <a href=”http://CyberWealthZone.com”>http://CyberWealthZone.com</a>. Check out Commission AutoPilot -> http://www.CyberWealthZone.com/?rd=nq84dD7t

Great online advertising:  http://bigdogmoneymaker.com/ft1

I am republishing this article because this is a Great Man.  Dr Martin Luther King.  This is his day to remember how he gave everything for freedom.

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Any feedback would be great. “Most important Article of your Life so make sure you read this and Leave comments and right here is just one of the articles of 300 articles across multiple subjects that are bringing me “Prospects and Leads” and YOU need these too.  If you want to see us live, just click:  http://bigdogmoneymaker.com/3a0   and ask the Sr. Monitor in the Live Business Center how you can get these articles for yourself already written for you.  Just for Leaving a Comment I am going to give you a **FREE** Gift…Leave a Comment “—

By Dr. Jeffrey Lant

Author’s program note. Only one song would do for this of all articles, the iconic anthem of the American Civil Rights Movement (1955-1968), “We Shall Overcome.”

It was not so much a song as a declaration of purpose and profound resolve, one that did not merely state and celebrate the destination… but constituted a collective pledge, renewed with each singing, that adherents were united in mind, body and purpose; for they would need all that, and more, as they moved towards the inspiring goal of equality, where people who were divided by tradition, at last forged unity from divisiveness.

“We Shall Overcome” is a protest song. The lyrics are derived from the refrain of a gospel song by Charles Albert Tindley. It was first published in 1947 in the People’s Song Bulletin, a publication of People’s Songs, an organization of which Pete Seeger was the director. The song became associated with the Civil Rights Movement from 1959, when Guy Carawan launched it as the most famous,  motivating, and ultimately elegiac song of the movement; their soaring battle hymn. It was what the oppressed people, their adherents and their resolute opponents heard when fire hoses were turned on them, dogs ordered to snarl and bite, and truncheons beat down upon the pilgrims sore beset.

There were many heroes in those days, but not yet a Hero who would rise above the others and become the very heartbeat of the movement, its public face and voice to the world.

That man had not yet emerged, but his first important moment was about to take place… in Birmingham, Alabama, where from a prison cell he was about to instruct his followers, his opponents, and a world oppressed by a panoply of civil rights abuses in what a man who believes in justice must do.

Consider this man now, on the threshold of history. He is mortal, frail, fragile, with profound doubts, hesitations and an acute consciousness of his inadequacies. He, like so many Heroes hoped that he would not have to be what he was in process of becoming; he hoped others would shoulder a substantial part of the burden. But History is infallible. It saw, as the individual did not, that this man could rise above his own demons and  limitations… to become what the movement must have to succeed: a moral compass, a higher purpose, a complete humanity, and the ability to be beaten down, bitten, spat on, bruised, and beaten again — and yet love his tormenters, direct the anger of his people towards benign purpose, and always get up… showing that violence, any violence, could not stop him… and so would not stop the movement either. This was sublime! This was what the man was on this planet to do… though he did not entirely know this yet.

And so in April, 1963 he went to the most bigoted city in America,  likely the most segregated, the least hospitable to its black  inhabitants, the city that taught the nation how to insult, condescend, intimidate, and, all too often, to kill people of color for being born and being in the wrong place at the wrong time. It was the capital of every finely turned, exquisite form of segregation and haters of every kind looked first to Birmingham as the citadel of their embittered beliefs, the fortress for immemorial hate that every black citizen knew only too well.

And so Martin Luther King, Jr. went to Birmingham as he went to so many fateful destinations… because it was necessary, because it was the right thing to do, because the people needed succor and relief and he had that to give and to spare.

The Birmingham event was a planned non-violent protest conducted by the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights and King’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference against racial segregation by Birmingham’s city government and downtown retailers. He was among the first arrested… the first taken harshly, insistently to his “suite” in Birmingham City Jail. It had to be a shock, jolting, demeaning, insulting, humiliating for this man who so loved life and life’s pleasures, more accustomed to the Word of God than the execrations of man.

But he had something to say, something which he had clearly thought about for some time, because he wrote without hesitation its profound message of import to all the world and its downtrodden.

King responds to eight white Alabama clergyman who opposed his visit to Birmingham.

On April 12, 1963 eight local clergymen offered Dr. King the benefit of their erudition and desire to defuse the anxious situation and rescue the imperiled status quo. These leaders of the church did what so many such have done over the ages. Bereft of courage, with cloudy vision, and a desire to safeguard their own positions and pulpits, they wrote Dr. King to leave… to let things take their course… to stop the violence and be patient… it would be, they were quite clear, so much better so. They didn’t have to say it would be better for them…

Dr. King was bruised in body and spirit as he arrived at the city jail. He must have wondered how he came there and whether against so much hatred he could achieve his goal. He must have wondered, too, at how many people already relied upon him… and of the terrible sacrifices he might ask them to make, even unto death itself. At such a time, a man, any man, might so wonder and reflect.

But then he read the sentiments of these local clergymen about his mission to Birmingham, criticizing it as “unwise and untimely”. He read these words, and he knew at once what he must do… and so the words of high portent and unmistakable conviction came swiftly.

He started his response in the way any disagreeing minister might have addressed a colleague, professionally, directly, pointedly.  But  this was not destined to be such a letter between Christian clergy of differing views. He had a higher purpose, and it was soon apparent. He meant to remind (if they knew), to teach (if they didn’t) his fellow clerics a fundamental precept of their ministries. He aimed to show them, once, for all, clearly, that justice was their business, the very heart of their business and he meant his message to be stern, unequivocal, a bell summoning all to recognition of their profound duties.

First he reminded these clergymen of the South, with their regional blindness, that the issue was not Southern, but American — “Anyone  who lives in the United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere within its bounds”.  In short, what was happening in Birmingham and what made the demonstration necessary was not merely a Birmingham problem or a Southern problem… it was an American problem (not to mention by quick extension a universal problem of long suffering humanity.)

And so he built his case for action now point by irrefutable point, making the considered advice of the local clergy seem like what it was, a self-serving argument keeping the blacks in their place, patient in the face of intimidation, outrage, and a white wrath ready to explode into legally sanctioned outrages against black citizens at any time.

Thus did King find the voice of moral certainty, the voice which freed so many and which resulted in time in the sacrifice of his very life, taken by those who came to know him as the dreaded prophet of black deliverance, and so necessary to destroy.

“Injustice,” he trumpeted, “anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” The haters, the entrenched segregationists, the racial purists, the purveyors of inequitable laws and  legal terrorism and abuse, for all that they wrote volumes in support of their unsustainable opinions never uttered a phrase so powerful as this… a phrase that showed just where right and a better future lay. He signed his soon-to-be-world- famous “Letter from Birmingham City Jail”, “Yours for the cause of Peace and  Brotherhood” and had it smuggled out in a toothpaste tube to avoid the jail’s guards.

Now this man has morphed into mythology with a grandiose civic temple for his observances. The architect Chinese artist Lei Yixin has been criticized for his work. No matter. Any architect’s work and vision would have found censure in  the eyes of the jealous others who were not selected. But the truth is, this monument will soon be amongst the most popular, for  all that the great monuments to Jefferson, Lincoln, and Franklin D. Roosevelt are near at hand.

“Now,” borrowing Edward Stanton’s words on Lincoln, King “belongs to the ages.” Here his greatest challenge will be in so inspiring those who follow in his footsteps, that his timeless message remains timely and is not forgotten by all those so beholden to the man who is now enshrined amidst among the worthies of the Great Republic his life’s work so enhanced.

About the Author

Harvard-educated Dr. Jeffrey Lant is CEO of Worldprofit, Inc., providing a wide range of online services for small and-home based businesses. Dr. Jeffrey Lant is a historian and author of 18 best-selling business books. Republished with author’s permission by Robert or Linda Elze <a href=”http://CyberWealthZone.com”>http://CyberWealthZone.com</a>. Check out Commission AutoPilot ->  http://www.CyberWealthZone.com/?rd=nq84dD7t

Great online advertising: http://bigdogmoneymaker.com/ft1

Come see us live: http://bigdogmoneymaker.com/3a0

Any feedback would be great. “Most important Article of your Life so make sure you read this and Leave comments and right here is just one of the articles of 300 articles across multiple subjects that are bringing me “Prospects and Leads” and YOU need these too.  If you want to see us live, just click:  http://bigdogmoneymaker.com/3a0   and ask the Sr. Monitor in the Live Business Center how you can get these articles for yourself already written for you.  Just for Leaving a Comment I am going to give you a **FREE** Gift…Leave a Comment “—

by Dr. Jeffrey Lant

Author’s program note. I was writing an article the other day about the catastrophic year the African elephant had had in 2011, with record numbers of its dwindling population shot to death for its ivory; thereby moving this majestic animal closer and closer to its likely extinction by 2020. I was angry when I wrote this article, enraged, and I wanted to touch the soul of the world with a story that’s certain not to have a happy ending unless we collectively do our bit to turn things around and fast.

I knew I needed a song to help make my point, because music can help drive home a point like nobody’s business… music not only sooths the savage beast, it capture’s people’s attention; makes ‘em sit up, take note, and (if it’s the kind of music I use with my articles) jump up and dance…. looking like a fool, but feeling better than you have in weeks. This is what I needed; this kind of sound right now…. to drive home my crucial message about the elephants and to make people help them.

Then all of a sudden, what I needed was in my brain, then I was whistling it. It was “Some of these days,” a tune I must have heard a half century ago or more and which my particular Muse inserted in my head to give me what my article needed right then, a big, brassy, in your face tune, getting folks to stop what they’re doing and PAY ATTENTION.

And if anyone could do that, Sophie Tucker could… and so the “Last of the Red-Hot Mamas” went to work for the last of the oh-so-vulnerable pachyderms whose days on Spaceship Earth may have been significantly extended because of my admonitory words… and Sophie Tucker’s punch in the solar plexis of humankind… a punch and an unforgettable wake-up call.

So, let’s start this article by getting you to go to any search engine and listen to the tune she made her particular calling card: “Some of these days.” She made the first of her many recorded versions in 1911. Personally, I prefer the 1926 version, because by then she had learned a lot about music presentation and how to move the folks… and so she belted it out with determination, vehemence and total sincerity:

“Some of these days, You’re gonna miss me honey Some of these days, You’re gonna feel so lonely You’ll miss my huggin’. You’ll miss my kissin’; You’ll miss me honey, when you go away.”

This wasn’t just some flimsy tune to divert you for a minute or two; it was a declaration, a proclamation, a cocktail of anger, determination, insistence; a clarion call to women everywhere to get smarter about men than most women were; to watch out for just who they allowed in their lives and never let some two-bit no-good-nik into the house, despite the fact these guys had a winning way with words and bedside manner.

Women, even women with a “good man”, a man who treated them like a princess, knew that Sophie had reason to sing her song… that that good man, seeing something “better” could stray… and that women, all women, needed to be alert, vigilant, strong, tenacious, helped by Sophie Tucker, always on the side of The Woman, ready for a wake-up call about The Man.

Her early days.

To understand Sophie Tucker, you need to understand these facts:

* she was born in Russia in 1884 or 1886 (sources vary).

* she was Jewish and proud of it, never disclaiming her heritage; rather celebrating it… as most memorably in “My Yiddish Momme” (1925). * she was plain, she was fat.

* she liked “bad” men, liked them a lot and to distraction, more than such men liked her.

* And she knew she had talent… though (at the beginning at least) others didn’t necessarily share that view… that is until they heard her… and saw how she could work an audience, a talent that spelled box-office and, fast too, international renown.

She needed to make what she had work… and she had to do it in the early days of the 20th century… when there was adamant opposition to people like her… and where her success was anything but certain.

Still… this woman could sing… delivering a sound that roused the people, moved the people, and with their clever lyrics made the people laugh and want more… feeling better minute by minute, happier than they had been before she opened her mouth…

And when she opened that big mouth, Truth, searing Truth, poured out… as well as the humor and comedy which were absolutely essential in making that Truth, and so much of it, palatable, for without this she would have been run out of town, or worse. But she did have that humor and that hilarity at her command and she turned them into rocket fuel and a solid-gold meal ticket.

The authentic Tucker formula involved a good woman falling for a rotten man… or a strong woman trying like the dickens to put some stuffin’ in a man who’s a doormat. And always, always, no matter what she was singing about she glorified women, as she did in “Aren’t Women Wonderful” (1936)

“Aren’t women wonderful, aren’t women grand, Aren’t they the rulers of this happy land?”

Off stage.

When she wasn’t taking the unlikely elements of her international success and turning them into significant coin of the realm, she married… and married…. and married; her life a revolving door of unsuitable, short-lived men. It probably bothered her (how could it not?) but it never stopped her; besides she knew who really helped and lightened her load…. and it wasn’t men. When she died in 1966, she left the bulk of a considerable estate to her… maid; the maid who kept the “Last of the Red-Hot Mamas” up and working until the very end.

Thus, even as she faded, she worked; bringing joy to people all over this planet; people who sustained her, laughed with her, hummed the melodies and sang the lyrics of one tune after another, the Tucker touch had turned into classics.

She died as she lived, “the last of the red-hot mamas/they’ve all cooled down but me…” And that’s the way she wanted us to see her and the way she went out, a brassy, stentorian dame who liked the wrong men too much, but liked us even more; for she gave all of us enough toe-tappin’, laugh-makin’ tunes for a millennium… “The Last of the Red- Hot Mamas, gettin’ better all the time….”

No foolin’, ain’t this woman wonderful, ain’t this woman grand? We shall never see her overheated like again… and we’re very much the poorer for that.

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About the Author

Harvard-educated Dr. Jeffrey Lant is CEO of Worldprofit, Inc., providing a wide range of online services for small and-home based businesses. Services include home business training, affiliate marketing training, earn-at-home programs, traffic tools, advertising, webcasting, hosting, design, WordPress Blogs and more. Find out why Worldprofit is considered the # 1 online Home Business Training program by getting a free Associate Membership today. Republished with author’s permission by Robert or Linda Elze <a href=”http://CyberWealthZone.com”>http://CyberWealthZone.com</a>.

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