CarusoBlog

Let's All Sing: "Take Me Out to the Jail Cell"

Composed in Milwaukee, Wisconsin--

I'm in the Dairy State to speak for an international manufacturing firm.  The company has brought its major distributors here to show them appreciation, share selling strategies and give them tools for selling more laundry equipment.

It's been a terrific event, highlighted by great people, a beautiful hotel called The Pfister and a special tour of Miller Park, the new stadium where the Milwaukee Brewers do their thing.  The park has two unusual features.

First of all, there was a bad accident during construction.  Several workers died while building the park and their is a somber memorial to them on the site.

Secondly, Miller ball park has three jail cells.   I asked our elderly tour guide why the park had three jail cells.  He thought for a minute and then said, "Well, the old one had two."

It was fun touring the visitor's club house, visiting press box and walking on the field.  All the guys from the conference felt like kids again as we toured the stadium.

The Father of Our Country Had No Children

Composed in Sarasota, Florida--

Not everyone gets to experience the joys of parenthood. 

George and Martha Washington never had kids.  It seems odd that the Father of Our Country had no children of his own, but maybe he was too busy being a surrogate father to Tommy Jefferson and the Adams kid, who were always fighting.

The man who discovered how to mass market chocolate was Milton Hershey.  He had hundreds of young boys visit his home, but was never a father himself.  I've been to Milton's park in Hershey, Pennsylvania.  Milton was a great man whose legacy lives on. 

Finally, John and Mabel Ringling, whose beautiful mansion is located here in Sarasota, had no children.  The man whose circus brought joy to millions of youngsters was not a father.  John got his start as a circus clown so he apparently loved to entertain  children. 

Rumors Can Accelerate A Pending Recession

Composed in Chicago, Illinois--

I'm in the windy city to do some video work for Ragan Communications and to keynote a leadership conference.

Whether the country is officially in recession is determined by the National Bureau of Economic Research, a private nonprofit research organization. The group considers several economic indicators, as well as the severity and duration of a downturn.

The NBER says the most recent recession lasted from March 2001 until November 2001 and that the economy has been in "expansion" since then.  Media personalities like Stephen Colbert, Chris Matthews and Sean Hannity keep using the "R" word.

Yet, the NBER typically doesn't declare a recession for anywhere from 6 to 18 months after its arrival.

On Friday, the NBER's president, Harvard University economist Martin Feldstein, said we are in a recession, though it was not an official NBER declaration.

Until a formal announcement is made, a recession is apparently a state of mind.  How we speak and behave can instigate a recession, however.  If we talk about a recession in the present tense the announcement may come that much sooner.

As Stephen Colbert, author of I Am America and So Can You, might say, "We talk about a recession, therefore we am."

In Just a Decade, My Company Is Ten Years Old

Posted from Akron, Ohio

This year, my company celebrates its 10th Anniversary of business.  I can't believe how fast the time has gone, probably because the ride has been so much fun.  It doesn't hurt that the ten years have been profitable beyond my wildest expectations.

The Edison House has functioned, some might say my company has thrived, through stagflation, terrorist attacks and economic slowdowns.  I built the company to be recession-proof by offering products and services that businesses always need.  In fact, I'm especially in demand during bad times. 

Thanks to some careful planning, I enjoy three revenue streams:  speaking, publishing and consulting. 

The speaking turns out to be about 110 engagements a year.  I can work wherever I want so I'm fortunate to see palm trees during winter and sit on my patio overlooking the golf course during the summer. 

In addition, the speaking business has been my ticket to some of the most interesting places in the world.  The accompanying shot is in front of the Alamo, in San Antonio, Texas.

During my first years in business, I learned that if I take care of customers, they will have me back.  It may not surprise you to know that I have the best customers in the world.  These are folks who want to improve themselves.  As a bonus, because I deal with such high-end people, the Edison House has virtually no bad debt.

The publishing part of my company's revenue has really started to pop thanks to my flagship brands.  The 5 Cool Ideas books and the FastLearnerAudio series have received rave reviews and will be a big part of my pension since I created "evergreen" products that will sell forever.

Fortunately, I am hardly ever sick so I've never canceled any of my 2,000+ speaking engagements.  Northwest Airlines and Mother Nature have forced me to reschedule a few gigs, however. 

When I got started in the training business, I was a speaker who wrote.  Now I am becoming a writer who speaks.   The future is promising and there is much work to be done.  Fortunately for me, that work is going to be a lot of fun.

Special thanks to clients, people who have purchased my information products or attended a live event and anyone who tracks me through this blog or other Internet conduits.  I will never let you down.

The Six, er, Three Degrees of Separation

Composed in Sarasota, Florida--

The term "social networking" is used to describe the online phenomena of sites such as Facebook, MySpace, YouTube.  But the phrase was coined in the 1950s by someone named J. A. Barnes. 

In the 1960s, a psychologist named Stanley Milgram did some research and discovered that any two typical Americans who didn't know each other could connect through no more than six other people.  This theory led to the now famous catch phrase, "the six degrees of separation."

Thanks to the Internet, it's probably more realistic to think of social networking as only three degrees of separation.
Here's another number to throw into the mix.  Former uber car salesman Joe Girard once postulated that the average person let's 250 people know about big events such as a divorce, a baby or a move.  He named this the "Law of 250."

Now let's marry the six degrees of separation and the Law of 250.  Why not use e-mail or a social networking site to sell your house?  I've listed my home with a realtor and may end up selling it to my next door neighbor!

John Ringling Made Others Smile

Composed in Sarasota, Florida--

One of the highlights of my Sarasota vacation has been a tour of John and Mabel Ringling's beautiful estate on Sarasota Bay.

The estate features an art museum, a circus museum and my favorite building, the Ringling home.

You may remember that John and his brothers purchased the Barnum and Bailey Circus to create the "greatest show on earth."

The circus used to be a big deal whenever it came to town.  It was the first Lollapalooza and could easily be characterized as a zoo, a fashion show, a picnic, a concert (they toured with live bands) and athletic event. 

A typical Big Top in 1926 featured 2.5 hours of entertainment with no intermission.  There were as many as 800 artists, 22 displays, 1,000 workers, 10,000 attendees and 150 wagons that rolled off the train and paraded through town. 

The guy who gets most of the credit for making the circus "professional" is John Ringling.  John wasn't at the helm of the organization for very long, but he made the cover of Time magazine in 1925 and was then one of the 20 richest men in the country.

Despite his extraordinary wealth, there are very few photographs of him smiling.  The tour guide explained this by telling me, "Mr. Ringling was a very busy man."  Yeah, smiling is so darn time consuming.

Poor Mabel only lived in the Sarasota mansion for a couple years before she passed away.  John's health failed shortly after that and then the Great Depression forced him to give up nearly everything. 

Oh, well.  All my blog postings can't have a happy ending.

What was your family's favorite outing when you were a kid?  Was it the circus?