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"You,
you and you... Panic.
The rest of you, come with me."
- U.S. Marine Corps Gunnery Sgt.
Gratitude as a Business Practice  by
Larry Dean
I recently opened a spa in Sonoma, that I named Spa Gratitude, which
is one of the manifestations of an experiment in the power of gratitude
that I began last year. I started a practice of acknowledging all
the things I was grateful for, before going to sleep and before I
arose in the morning. I noticed immediately that my attitude changed
and I felt better throughout the day. Then I noticed many synchronicities
that began to occur and noticed that they flowed out of my daily
gratitude practice.
Friends treated me to dinner at Café Gratitude in San Francisco
on my birthday last November. When we entered the restaurant, there
was something happening that was very appealing and different than
any other place we had ever dined. The wait staff was upbeat and
enthusiastic and greeted us with terms of gratitude. I had never
felt so appreciated in anyone’s business before. It came across
as genuine and heartfelt. The other guests acted as if they were
at home and enjoying the company of good friends. The food was all
prepared raw and was totally delicious. When they found out it was
my birthday, they enrolled everyone in the restaurant to acknowledge
me. I left there totally fulfilled and pleased with my experience.
Just prior to this, I had negotiated with the Sonoma Valley Inn
in Sonoma to partner with them in building a spa on site. I had begun
developing the programs and menus around optimum aging. It felt like
everything was moving through molasses and time was slowed down.
I noticed while the idea appealed to me, optimum aging was not unfolding
graciously. My business partner, Loma Alexander, suggested that I
call it Spa Gratitude after our experience at Café Gratitude,
and I immediately said yes. From that moment on it was as if the
heavens of grace opened up and a new light entered. Friends showed
up to help me, ideas on the décor began to flow and momentum
increased to a point of joyous creativity. Everything fell into place.
I wanted to bring a new attitude into the business, similar to what
I had experienced at Café Gratitude. So I met with Terce and
Mathew Engelhardt, the owners, and asked them what they had done
to create such an enjoyable experience for their guests. Each day
they do a process with their senior managers they call “clearing.” It
is a simple way to get them to let go of anything that is charged
from their life outside the restaurant and to be in a clear frame
of mind going into their day. They then choose a word or idea that
is reflective of gratitude, like appreciation, beauty, or welcome
that will be the theme for the day. The managers then do this with
their teams until everyone is clear and inspired for the shift.
I am incorporating these practices and ideas into Spa Gratitude
and am learning that gratitude is a better way to do business.
To experience Spa Gratitude for yourself, call (707) 944-0553.
"Everything that irritates
us about others can lead us
to an understanding of ourselves."
- Carl Jung
Selling
for a Change  By
Burke Franklin, Author, Business
Black Belt
You can lead a horse to water,
but you can’t make him drink. . .
Try salting the oats.
- Anonymous
Selling is often not just convincing someone to buy your product or service but to change what they already have or what they are doing now.
Some customers are already interested in changing to something new and they know they need to buy your product or service. Others need to be made aware that something new is available and that they should upgrade as soon as possible. Either you sell the customer your product or service or your customer sells you that they don’t need it. Either way, a sale occurs. It’s your job to convince them to purchase your service or product. But after you educate them and they still won’t buy. . . what’s the problem?
As you already know, most people are afraid of change. Where does the fear come from and why? Like many people, I developed a fear of change during childhood. Looking back, I sense that changes were not necessarily improvements in my situation, rather they were dictated and initiated by others for their convenience. Perhaps the changes were not ones that I would have made. As a child, things were not in my control.
You don’t need to be a psychologist to see that my mental association with change was somewhat negative. Perhaps you had a similar experience. Fortunately for me, my reaction later on in life to all of this was ultimately to take control of things and make changes that suited me. I developed the ability to make changes that improved my situation. To this end, I’m relatively easy to sell to because I like to invest in improvements. Some people, on the other hand, still resist change because they’re afraid that the change will actually make things worse. These people are difficult to sell to.
Some customers avoid change because they aren’t sure how they got as far as they have. They think they were lucky and they don’t want to rock the boat. Any change at all could upset everything! Without getting much further involved in the psychological details of the fear of change, consider it as a possibility behind your customer’s resistance to buying.
Finish reading this chapter
http://www.jian.com/support/answers.html?category=Business+Black+Belt+Chapters#faq1148362760
Peer's Law:
The solution to a problem changes
the nature of the problem.
- John Peers president of Logical Machine Corp
Support Spotlight: TrustCommerce
is your Open Source to Commerce
 Biofuel
vs. Photovoltaics
June 21, 2006
By Ed "Redwood" Ring
In an earlier post “Power the World with Photovoltaics,” we
demonstrate that the entire energy requirements of the human
race could be fulfilled by a photovoltaic array 143,872 square
miles in size. Insofar as this is only about one-quarter of
one percent of the earth’s surface, or 668 square feet
per person, there is no shortage of available space for photovoltaics.
With biofuel, however, there is a question as to whether or
not there is enough land available to grow biofuel and also
preserve farms and wilderness. For example, some of the best
biofuel crops - biodiesel from jatropha and bioethanol from
sugar cane - are able to produce about 6,000 barrels of fuel
per square mile per year. This equates to about 55 million
Btu’s of energy per square mile per year.
This means that using the best biofuel crops we’ve got
today, to produce enough fuel to fulfill entire energy requirements
of the human race (400 quadrillion Btu’s per year) we
would need to devote 10.8 million square miles to growing biofuel.
Considering there is only about 5.5 million square miles of
arable farmland on the entire planet, this is not possible.
Biofuel is an important source of fuel, and in some parts
of the world growing biofuel makes compelling economic sense,
but today at least, biofuel doesn’t show nearly the potential
of photovoltaics to efficiently turn sunshine into energy to
power human civilization.
There is an interesting analysis “Widescale Biodiesel
Production from Algae,” authored by Michael Briggs at
the University of New Hampshire. He cites studies that indicate
biofuel may soon be economically derived from algae. But he
makes a huge assumption - stating that algae farms could yield “5,000
gallons per acre-year.” This equates to a yield over
10 times that of the best biofuel crops we’ve got.
Comparing various forms of solar energy boils down to how
efficiently they convert sunlight into usable power. Since
raw sunlight provides 100 watts per square foot, a photovoltaic
array that produces 10 watts per square foot has an efficency
of 10%. Some photovoltaic arrays can do much better than that,
with efficiencies reported as high as 20% on high-quality production
panels.
You can make the same calculaton with today’s best biofuel
crops - diesel fuel extracted from jatropha and ethanol distilled
from sugar cane both produce about 55 million Btu’s per
square mile per year. Since raw sunshine provides about 41
trillion Btu’s per square mile per year, the efficiency
of biofuel today is a paltry .13%.
If the promise of biodiesel extracted from algae is realized,
and that's a big if, you will see a ten-fold improvement in
biofuel efficiency, to 1.3% (based on 5,000 gallons per acre-year).
At that level of efficiency - less than one-tenth that of today’s
photovoltaics, but cheaper to implement - it might be feasible
for biofuel to become a realistic alternative to petroleum.
Ed Ring is the Editor of www.ecoworld.com, an online environmental
magazine. You can find his blog commentary on energy and environmental
issues on www.ecoworld.net.
Do you have an announcement or promotion you'd like to share? Please email
the editor with your news to appear in the Business Black Belt
and also on our website.
"The impossible is often the
untried."
- Jim Goodwin
Keep watch on our planet with
this fun software program
EarthBrowser 10.2
EarthBrowser is an amazing resource for information about our world. Go sightseeing,
get weather reports or watch the latest clouds. There is always something interesting
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I use it for my screen-saver. Click
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Tax Tricks -- New tax bill
extends existing tax breaks  Here’s
a summary of the major provisions in the new law signed by President Bush
on May 17, 2006.
· Alternative minimum tax (AMT). Congress extended and expanded the
temporary AMT relief they provided two years ago. This had expired at the
end of 2005. Originally intended to apply only to the wealthiest taxpayers,
the AMT has been catching more and more middle-income taxpayers in recent
years. The new provisions increase the exemption amount from $58,000 to $62,550
for married filers (from $40,250 to $42,500 for singles) for this year only.
You’ll also be able to apply some specific personal credits against
the AMT. · Investment taxes. The new law extends the maximum 15% tax rate
on most dividends and long-term capital gains through 2010. The favorable
rates on investment earnings were scheduled to expire at the end of 2008. · Business
expensing. Small business also benefits from the new tax
bill. A tax break that allows companies to take an immediate deduction for
up to $108,000 of equipment purchases is extended through 2009.
· Kiddie tax. The tax bill also contains provisions to help offset
the costs of the extended tax breaks. One change makes the kiddie tax apply
to children up to age 18, rather than age 14 as under prior law. Under the
kiddie tax, a child’s investment earnings above a certain limit ($1,700
in 2006) are taxed at the parent’s rate instead of the child’s
usually lower rate. This change will make income-shifting strategies less
attractive.
Other more technical provisions affect various business credits and taxes,
as well as future Roth IRA conversions. There’s also likely to be a
follow-on tax bill extending other popular tax breaks within a few months. - Edward Mitchell,
Manager, Management Resources Consulting
Group Inc.,
www.mr-cg.com
"The
impossible is often the untried."
- Jim Goodwin
Updated — If our World were
100 people...
Perhaps you've seen this before... I always like to read it to
remind myself how good I have it. Here is an update (including
a few added details): If we could shrink the
earth's population to a
village of precisely 100
people, with all the existing human ratios remaining the same,
it would
look something like the following:
There would be:
- 57 Asians
- 21 Europeans
- 14 from the Western Hemisphere, both north and south
- 8 Africans
- 52 would be female
- 48 would be male
- 70 would be non-white
- 30 would be white
- 70 would be non-Christian
- 30 would be Christian
- 89 would be heterosexual
- 11 would be homosexual
6 people would possess 59% of the entire world's wealth
(and all 6 would be from the United States.)
- 80 would live in substandard housing
- 70 would be unable to read
- 50 would suffer from malnutrition
- 1 would be near death
- 1 would be near birth
- (yes, only 1) would have a college education
- 1 would own a computer
When one considers our world from such a compressed perspective, the
need for acceptance, understanding and education becomes glaringly
apparent. The following is also something to ponder... If you woke up this morning with more health than illness...
you are
more blessed than the million who will not survive this week. If you have never experienced the danger of battle,
the loneliness of imprisonment,
the agony of torture,
or the pangs of starvation,
you are ahead of 500 million people in the world. If you can attend a church meeting
without fear of harassment, arrest,
torture, or death...
you are more blessed than
three billion people in the world. If you have food in the refrigerator,
clothes on your back,
a roof overhead,
and a place to sleep...
you are richer than 75% of this world. If you have money in the bank,
in your wallet,
and spare change in a dish someplace...
you are among the top 8% of the world's wealthy. If your parents are still alive and still married...
you are very rare,
even in the United States and Canada. If you can read this message,
you just received a double blessing
in that someone was thinking of you,
and furthermore,
you are more blessed than
over two billion people in the world
that cannot read at all. Someone once said: What goes around comes around. Work like you don't need the money.
Love like you've never been hurt.
Dance like nobody's watching.
Sing like nobody's listening.
Live like it's Heaven on Earth.
"Class never runs scared.
It is sure-"
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